It’s hard to find many people happy with the choices in
tomorrow’s U.S. presidential election. Setting aside the troubling personal
qualities that have been so apparent, it’s difficult not to be leery (at best)
of Trump’s populism-at-its-worst and Clinton’s elitist-insider-insularity. If
only both sides had paid more attention to industrial relations values and
institutions over the past several decades rather than actively destroying them
(Reagan, Thatcher, Walker, etc.) or just giving them lip service (Clinton,
Obama, etc.), then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Industrial relations values embrace the sanctity of human
dignity for all workers and their communities, and respect the needs of
stakeholders with distinct interests and unequal power. This means that markets—whether
labor, financial, or otherwise—don’t work for everyone, and the sanctity of
free markets should be rejected. Industrial relations institutions therefore seek
to bring a greater balance to the marketplace to help them work better for all
by balancing efficiency, equity, and voice, often in collective rather than
atomistic ways. The classic example is collective bargaining which (ideally) brings
solidarity to the workforce and empowers them with a voice, but requires
bargaining, often at a local level, in which a business’s needs can be addressed
and balanced with workers’ interests.
But for whatever set of complicated reasons, these
industrial relations values and institutions have been weakened over the past
several decades, and the academic field of industrial relations has shrunken as
well. Instead, individualism, personal responsibility, and free market thinking
dominate. Workers were assured that the benefits of free trade, deregulation,
and increased financialization would trickle down and lift all boats, and that
everyone would have the opportunity to work with purpose and meaning if they
adopted the right mindset.
Instead, many have been left behind as illustrated by the
sharp increase in inequality since the 1980s, and we live in polarized and
polarizing times. Economic insecurity seems to frequently bring out the worst in
people. And thus we have a distasteful form of populism that seeks to blame
other workers and shut others out rather than building solidarity, respect, and
inclusion. And we have anti-elitism which becomes anti-intellectualism and contempt
towards science, education, and the arts as well as towards good government. Again, rather than bringing society
together, fault lines emerge.
At a fundamental level, this disaffection is what industrial
relations seeks to avoid. The construction and maintenance of institutions that
provide checks and balances would have provided greater equity so people don’t
feel left out, and greater voice so that people feel more on equal footing with
the elites. But this would have required an embrace of industrial values around
solidarity, inclusion, voice, pluralism, and compromise rather than individualism, self-interest, and free markets driven by
insider elites.
Perhaps the consequences of the marginalization of
industrial relations are now coming home to roost. On the Republican side of
the aisle, the threat to the Republican establishment presented by the popularity
of Trump has arisen out of disaffection with the Republican Party’s inability
or unwillingness to replace the earlier industrial relations system with
something that provides equity and voice instead of just individualism and free
markets. On the Democratic side of the aisle, the skepticism towards another
Washington insider is similarly rooted in policy making that has been top down
rather than inclusive, and seemingly benefiting financial interests more than
worker and community interests. Indeed, were the seeds of each's side demise planted, at least partly, by their own marginalization of industrial relations?
Those who embrace the industrial relations ethos are probably
thinking “I told you so.” But it’s a sad chuckle indeed.
Spot on, John. I'm at an election party tonight near downtown Minneapolis with like-minded men. Most have good jobs and voted for Mrs. Clinton. It's fun, because I get to introduce myself as a Realtor and provide a service that many Americans *work* to achieve (home ownership). I feel good about it. My work adds dignity to my life. At age 26, one might say I am privileged. Fair enough.
ReplyDeleteThe evening continues. I call my 83-year-old grandmother, a lifelong resident of Brown County, MN. She lives for election night, and I'm sure she voted for Mr. Donald J. Trump. I lived with her in Fall 2015. Priceless.
In simple terms, we're all trying to be understood. I think that's what this election is about, perhaps more than the past few. I feel fortunate to be in Mrs. Clinton's camp. At the same time I might understand why so many aren't and somehow wish they were.
Perhaps we need to return to the study of labor to figure this one out. I think we can. Any one for 2020?
- Mark Schroepfer, grad student at the Carlson School of Management, 2016- until I put a dent in America's labor problem.