Norma Rae and Labor Conflict

Norma Rae and Labor Conflict

Labor conflict is strongly portrayed in Norma Rae, especially since in the second half of the 20th century labor unions were taken for granted as a basic worker's right (even as membership declined). Norma Rae both emphasizes the power unemployment has over the worker and shows the power that unions can have in the capitalist system. Companies want to control every aspect of the labor process because they need to make profits, and the way in which they control the labor process in Norma Rae (in an attempt to manipulate worker behavior) infringes on basic human rights. Norma Rae, however, has never behaved, and it is her strength and gumption that bring humanity (and a labor union) to the O.P. Henley Mill. The tactics which the O.P. Henley Mill employ in order to maintain control over their employees highlight the real threat unions pose to profits.

Workers take much bigger risks than capitalists because workers are personally invested in a job; their livelihood is threatened when the company suffers economic problems, relocates, or consolidates workers and technology. While a company's directors and owners may feel the economic pinch of less consumer spending, it is the worker who "stands to lose all of his or her income" (Bowles 130). Norma Rae dramatizes the fears of its characters when Norma Rae points out that the O.P. Henley Mill is one of the few places to work in Henleyville, especially in unskilled labor. The constant threat of unemployment weakens the workers’ bargaining power with the company, in effect giving the company a large advantage that allows the managers to ignore basic human comforts and safety. Rigid control over the labor process allows for higher profits. Lack of good al...

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... have had to decide which capitalistic hierarchy to work in, and many of these workers spend their entire lives in hierarchically organized jobs (223). Unions give workers some freedom from the hierarchy, but today finding a job is not so much about making labor contracts with your equals as it is about saving yourself from unemployment and competing with equally qualified laborers for the same job, often for a company within which you neither have a vested interest nor a share in its profits. Only approximately 12% of the workers in the United States are unionized, yet a substantial number of unions could revolutionize worker influence in capitalism (215). The stress of labor conflict must have gotten to the point where workers have given up their hope for fair labor practices, or else they have settled for less. There is no place for Norma Rae in these work places.