Jenn Gangne
Economics 100
Norma Rae Essay
Oct. 1, 2000
Exploration of Capitalitsm In Norma Rae
While many of us tend to view capitalism as the ultimate goal when talking of profit capability and worker freedoms, we are shown a much different reality in the film "Norma Rae" in which the economic system comes under direct and harsh scrutiny. While the economic system on display in "Norma Rae" is a vast improvement from the impoverished feudal economic system shown in Matewan, there are still several improvements that can clearly be made to the O.P. Henry Textile Mill's definition of capitalism in this 1978 film based on actual events.
The textile workers at the O.P. Henry Mill are used to struggle and adversity as both characterized thier employment in the factory and the hardships they had to face in their everyday lives. Many of the factory employees had been working in the mill for their entire lives, enduring the worker cruelty that the company dealt out with alarming regularity. However, many of the workers in the factory had little or no choice in seeking other employment, as the Textile Mill was the largest employer in the area, especially for unskilled laborers. While the employees were not forced to work in the factory, they stayed so as not to risk unemployment.
This fear of unemployment was the mechanism that allowed the Textile Mill to push its workers to the limit. In this particular capitalist system on display in Norma Rae, the workers were the ones who had everything to lose. The workers had their livelihoods tied up in their jobs and would have to face the consequences if the company suffered economic difficulty, relocated, or had to downsize and make worker cutbacks. In this way, the workers' bargaining power with the company was weakened and the Textile Mill had the upper hand, allowing the company managers to mistreat their workers, ignoring basic human needs, such as those to a safe working environment. In an environment like this, the workers are unable to complain because they do not want to jeopardize thier employment, their source of survival in a capitalist economy. We are witness to the workers tolerating their deplorable working conditions throughout the film as when Norma Rae's mother loses her hearing due to the overbearing noise that the factory machines make and is told that her condition is "normal" and "temporary," nothing to be too concerned about. Also, wokeres complained that their windows had been bricked closed to make them feel as if they were "shut in" or working in a box with no way out. But, they tolerated these conditions to save their jobs an remain a part of the capitalist system.
Examples like these show that the film Norma Rae depicts the evils that can result from a system of capitalism, such as when in a free-market economy the wealth produced is not allocated fairly, but becomes concentrated in the hands of a select few; in other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This protrayal of capitalism is contrary to the euphamistic way capitalism is usually protrayed as the champion economic system for the working man; a system of rational suppy and demand, hailing the accomplishments of the average worker and rewarding his efforts with a decent wage and the possibility of job advancement. While the textile workers do receive a wage (albeit a meager one) and had the right to choose their employer, the capitalism examined in Norma Rae is far from the "ideal" and is, in fact, a much more pessamistic vew of a system that we as a society have come to think of as a system of the workers' right to choose. The film Norma Rae is clearly against the concentration of power amongst members of management (the "higher ups") and therefore undeniably pro-union.
A union, it seems is the greatest threat to the O.P. Henry Textile Mill, as it would eliminate the unlimited power that the company previously held over its laborers. A union would give its workers a voice, a voice that would presumably ask for higher pay rates and better, safer working conditions. As the company stands wthout the existence of a union to interfere, they can shorten worker breaks, increase production requirements, and push workers to their absolute breaking point (as was the unfortunate case with Norma Rae's father). A union would alter the balance (or imbalance) of power currently in place at the Textile Mill and reduce the amount of control that management had over the production process. The company fails to see the positive attributes that a union could bring to their organization, such as an increased willingness to work (and work hard) on the part of the employees and, therefore, a better and more consistent output of quality product.
The threat of an incoming union is unpleasant for the O.P. Henry Textile Mill in the film and they attempt to abolish worker ideas of a union by distracting them by emphasizing racial tensions within the plant. When the company posts a sign that reads that the black workers want to take over the union, racial tensions within the plant escalate and the cohesive forces that are needed to succcessfully sustain the fight for a union are severely threatened. Once again we see the strategy of "divide and conquer" in effect, as the company knew it could win if it kept its employees at odds with one another. Another effort that the Textile Mill makes to stop the vocal display of worker dissatisfaction is to try and silence Norma Rae. By far the most outspoken employee at the factory, Norma Rae had been pestering the members of management for years to improve worker conditions with things like a Kotex machine in the women' restroom and longer worker breaks. O.P. Henry tries to satisfy and therefore quiet Norma Rae by giving her a promotion; henceforth she would be responsible for speeding up production by doing "spot checks" to see if the workers were indeed working their fastest. The company benefits in two ways from this tactic; first, they silence Norma Rae form expressing her dissatisfaction (at least theoretically), and second, they actually help to increase worker productivity as employees were "encouraged" to work faster due to the unannounced productivity checks.
All the Mills efforts failed in the end, however, as the workers voted in favor of the union by a vote of 427 to 373. The negative capitailism that existed in the story of Norma Rae was modified to a much more worker-friendly type of capitalism in which worker concerns could be voiced and even answered without the fear of job termination while the company was still satisfied because it ws turning a profit. In this way, unions help to neutralize the potential for capital job markets to become dominated by an elite few and ingore the rights of laborers. Union helps secure the worker liberty of being able to compete for a position in a labor market rather than being forced to work in a poor working environment outof simple necessity. Unions provide workers with a valuable bargaining tool so that their rights will be protected in an ever changing and expanding profit-driven system, hopefully bringing the realization of capitalism closer to its intended state.