Although the Brotherhood of Workers has a nominal president, Poul Anderson presents the union as mainly a platform for the ambitions of Councillor Wilson. If I were there, then I would want to help to organize a movement within the Brotherhood for workers' rights and against the ambitions of any single individual.
"That fat demagogue! A lot of say his precious workers would have if he got what he wants!" (p. 105)
The precious workers would have to organize to have their say, preferably within the Brotherhood and not in a breakaway outfit.
Anderson displays a class preference after Evan Friday has left the Brotherhood mass meeting:
"...the merchant class had something to offer that he had never looked to find on the lower levels, and something, besides, which was strange to the topdecks." (p. 115)
The merchants:
Evan Friday sounds like the man to see the best in every class and to bring them together - which will turn out to be why the manipulative psychotechs have had him demoted.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
All unions, IMO, are inevitably going to have people who see them as a means of gaining wealth, status, power. My view of them is that of Gratillonius, in THE KING OF YS, tolerable--up to a point after which they get too big and corrupt.
Ad astra! Sean
All unions should have rank and file members who organize in the interests of all the members.
Kaor, Paul!
And that's not going to happen all the time. Unions, like all other institutions, can and have become corrupt. They are tolerable, up to a point, as long as they are content to be "honest greedy," as Old Nick put it.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course it certainly does not happen all the time. Union membership can be a nightmare. Full timers contempt for members is a palpable force.
Paul.
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