The Unending Climb for Labor Equality in the United States
Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson (2017). Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 247 pp., glossary, contributors, index, $28.00 (paper).
Analyzing actions taken by United States employers to thwart the advance and influence unions took to enhance the lives and labor conditions of a growing working class of American workers in the late 18th and 19th century, and their relevance to the political economy, Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism is a collection of essays that gives new relevance to the historiography of American labor history. The foundations of Karl Marx’s theory of historical materialism and social history methodologies of E.P. Thompson, clearly shaped and influenced the direction of these essays and interpretations of United States labor history. Erecting a foundation on Karl Marx’s ontological analysis of wage labor and capital in the Critique of Capitalism, the essays in Against Labor are permeated with Marxist theory and solidify their arguments by incorporating modern research, sources and case studies. While the terms we use to define the different economic classes in the discourse of United States labor history have been updated to reflect modern nomenclature (bourgeoisie and proletariat), the essays in Against Labor explore hegemonic Marxist concepts between U.S. employers and unions, or more simply, the capitalist-investor class and the working-class of the past few decades. Furthermore, Marx’s definition of the materialist doctrine, which he simplifies as: “[classes] dividing society into two parts, one of which is superior to society,” is the main theoretical cornerstone of the essays compiled in Against Labor.[1]
Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson’s Introduction to Against Labor incorporates numerous sources from the last decade to demonstrate the history of United States employer’s willingness to curb the influential power of United States unions to act on behalf of the working-class.[2] Additionally, Peter Rachleff’s essay, Capital and Labor in the 21st Century: The End of History?, expertly summarizes the examples of class conflicts discussed in Against Labor to further bolster the use of the materialistic doctrine as a theoretical tool to analyze U.S. labor history in the modern era.[3] Along these lines of the analysis, Rachleff’s interpretation of modern U.S. class conflict introduces two significant historiographical contributions to Marx’s historical materialism by exploring a heightened sense of the United States capitalist-class consciousness and analyzing Marxist deficiencies of race by considering hegemonic racial relationships inherent in the United States working-class.
The historical significance of the relationship between materialism and productive means is argued by Marx: “The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society…which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.”[4] Furthermore, in Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party, he theorizes the economic, legal, and political means used by the capitalist class to maintain its hegemony, however, Rachleff’s chapter affirms that Marx’s allusion to consciousness among the capitalist-class lacks evidence and clarity.[5] Continuing, Marx’s treatment of racial divisions within the working-class has no historical relevance. In passing, Marx alludes that the cost of production is systemically tied to the means of subsistence for the benefit of one’s race.[6] However, Elizabeth Esch and David Roediger’s essay, “Scientific Management, Racist Science, and Race Management” historically describes the intentional use of racial animosities as a program to foster contention amongst the working-class as a benefit to U.S. employers.[7] Esch and Roediger expand upon Marxist theory: “If we take seriously Marx’s observation that capital implied the capitalist himself…serious study of how race thinking informed the capitalist personalities embodied in various level of management must occur.” Esch and Roediger are not disavowing themselves from Marxist theory but are challenging the way that race is not a congruent theme in Marx’s construct of historical materialism.[8]
Fuerer and Pearson’s Introduction in Against Labor establishes the theoretical backbone in defining a class consciousness amongst United States employers in their concerted efforts to destabilize the legitimacy and power of U.S. unions. In recognizing that “antiunionism was a unifying theme for all types of U.S. employers,” Fuerer and Pearson argue that antiunionism was a “central tenant” which became “a project of a self-aware class rather than the instrument of big or small employers.”[9] Additionally, Fuerer and Pearson further support their arguments by analyzing U.S. labor markets dependent on slavery before the Civil War in which they conclude: “[U.S. employers] organized as a class in specific locales to recruit and manage the spectrum of free and unfree labor. Here is where they first acted together to shape labor-market regimes capable of controlling the political economy.”[10]
Howard R. Stranger’s essay “A Moderate Employer’s Association in a “House Divided”: The Case of the Employing Printers of Columbus, Ohio 1887-1987” continues to advance the theme of a capitalist-class consciousness in the United States. Stranger skillfully uses the actions and communications of two employer associations, the United Typothetae of America, and the Printing Arts Association of Columbus, to demonstrate a collaborative effort to advance the hegemonic power structure of its respective members. Akin to EP Thompson’s social history methodologies, Stranger’s meticulous research illustrates a unified employer-class consciousness to deflect the growing influences of the working-class.[11]
Thomas A. Klug’s essay, Employer’s Path to Open Shop in Detroit 1903-07, fortifies the theoretical construct of a United States employer-class consciousness. Klug freely admits that the accidental discovery of the minutes of the “Employers Association of Detroit” presented a stalwart opportunity to refute the narrativization of employer and employee relationships in this job sector of the United States, but his invaluable analysis of these rarely disclosed meetings clearly denotes a deliberate collaboration amongst the U.S. employer-class determined to impart its influence in the political discourse of United States labor policy.[12]
Lastly, as a continuation of Marxist methodological influences, Michael Dennis’ essay, “Litigating for Profit: Business, Law, and Labor in the New Economy South,” exemplifies Marx’s exploration of capitalist competition and how it adversely affected the collective labor power of the working class in the United States. Mirroring Marx’s theoretical analysis, Dennis encapsulates capitalist competition as it inversely affects working-class wages. Dennis’s case study discusses the attempt of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to organize grocery workers in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, and his research unequivocally demonstrates Marx’s theoretical contention that there is a direct relationship between lowering the cost of production and a decrease in wages for the working-class.[13] In fact, Dennis’ decision to include local newspaper reports rebutting Michael Julian, president of Farm Fresh, proclamations for the protectionism of its employees, confirms the rationale of U.S. employers collusion to contain labor costs as a strategic method for achieving competitiveness and improve investor profits.[14]
The compendium of essays in Against Labor demonstrates the influence of Marx’s theory of historical materialism. They collectively incorporate theoretical tools employed by Marx to adapt their scholarly research and contribute to the historiography of modern interpretations of U.S. labor history. The research contributed by Thomas Klug and Howard Stranger certainly challenges labor historians to consider local relevance in determining a respective national history of labor, and hopefully will develop new questions to explore the continuing hegemonic disparity of the United States economy.
Bibliography
Feurer, Rosemary and Chad Pearson, Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2017.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels, Marx-Engels Reader 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker. New York, Norton, 1978.
Thompson, E.P., The Making of the English Working Class. New York, Vintage Books, 1966.
[3] Peter Rachleff, “Capital and Labor in the 21st Century” in Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism, eds. Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 237. ”The case studies in this volume – tightly argued and well documented – have sketched a set of shared themes: (1) capitalists in the United State have never accepted labor’s right to organize; (2) capitalists’ resistance to workers’ organizing efforts has relied upon political power and ideological legerdemain as well as economic muscle; (3) despite capitalists’ allegiance to market economies and scorn for government intervention, in critical situations, they have leveraged the state for their own advantage”.
[4] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. “Marx on the History of his Opinions,” in Marx-Engels Reader 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker. (New York, Norton, 1978), 4.
[5] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in in Marx-Engels Reader 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker. (New York, Norton, 1978), 475-477.
[6] Marx. Manifesto, 479.
[9] Fuerer and Pearson. 5.
[13] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel, Marx states: “Hence, competition crowd upon him on all sides, and besides we remind the reader that the more simple and easily learned labor is, the lower the cost of production is need to master it, the lower the wages sink, for, like the price of every other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Marx, 214.
[14] Michael Dennis, “Litigating for Profit: Business, Law, and Labor in the New Economy South,” in eds. Rosemary Fuerer and Chad Pearson, “Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism,” eds, Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 218. Michael Julian states: “My responsibility as chief executive of this company is to find a way to satisfy the needs of our customers and at the same time satisfy the need of our employees.”, Citing an article be the Newport News Daily Press, Dennis shows that most grocery stores only “committed 15% of company expenditures to employee wages and benefits.”
