Brotherhood And Merchants

"The Troublemakers." 

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:

are not narrow, as thought by others;

instead, have some quality and culture;

but are also conservative, timid, nostalgic and cliche-ridden.

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.