Christian Mcgirk
Eng 101
Bleck
1/25/10
Workers and their Safe Hood
The barrier between workers and their employers has thought to have been long since disintegrated, still problems continue to persist. In the early 1900’s, the general standing was that the employers were ultimately inimical to the workers well being, sometimes organizing private militias to counter-act worker union fronts. It happened to be a continuous struggle for workers to keep their standing job when thousands of others were waiting to claim their position the instant they could longer work at. Over time it seemed as though the only safeguard for workers was the unions “…Jurgis was earnest too, for he understood that a fight was on, and that it was his fight” (Sinclair 111). Workers faced threats from their employers and the companies they worked for such as the workers in modern day Mexico as depicted in the video “Defending Labour Rights in Mexico”. Workers then and now continue to face opposition from governments and companies, while fighting to secure their own personal safety as well as that of their job.
What we find when workers are forced to take a front in order to defend their rights is only the opposition from the ones who employ them. Mexican labor unions have been greeted by global support in their plight of repelling government forces. It is seen in this small documentary that companies will stop at nothing to pursue the upper hand in any labor struggle. These Mexican workers dealt with harsh conditions and adversity from controlling organizations. This short video quickly goes over the overall situation of these workers in a progressive fashion. Effective use of transitions and a variety of background locations, as well as the people being interviewed create an overall antagonistic attitude towards the Mexican factory companies and the government itself. Occasionally the viewer’s emotional response is manipulated by brief images of a tragic nature, being deaths of workers or mourning loved ones. The use of strategic camera angles only builds an evoked sense of injustice towards the treatment of these Mexican laborers who continue to fight for their well being.
Another strong contribution to the video’s message is the vast amount of material used. While there was a limited amount of “props” involved, the ones included consisted of emotional images and photographs of malicious government acts. These photos displayed the type of tampering typical of vindictive and malevolent employers who were aided by superior factions. Other props which were mainly developed of government documents allude to a sense of superior authority held by the corrupt companies involved. “Defending Labour Rights in Mexico”, sheds light upon the actual working environment in some of the steel mills, which are a relative change from the images of riots and extreme police control measures. An undertone of police aggression and employer violence almost dominates the majority of the video, while we get a sense of the employers motives it is still vastly overcome by a biased workers view. All of the speakers further aid this biased viewpoint. These many materials, while being relatively prejudiced, ultimately assist the workers difficulty of preserving their secure place.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair doesn’t quite go into what exactly the packing companies do to subdue disobedient workers. The factors brought up by the video “Defending Labour Rights in Mexico”, insinuate the unseen struggle in The Jungle. Some comparatively similar strategies are initiated by the Packers, like that of the companies in the video. “The Packers, of course, had spies in all the unions, and in addition they made a practice of buying up a certain amount of union officials, as many as they thought they needed.”(Sinclair 127). While accounts of organized belligerence isn’t found within the text of The Jungle, many other places of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s saw these events occur. Andrew Carnegie’s company during that time had many workers revolt at one time, unions took a stand and armed themselves. Carnegie company officials organized a private armed force to combat these workers, where many lost their lives. Such occurrences as the aggressiveness of employers against workers continues as it did then as it does today.
Structured employer and government movements threaten again and again the vitality and secure position of the worker. Problems of violence and bad work environments weigh down on the workers, it’s no wonder they’ll ban together to defend what they have found. We would like to think that employers don’t continue malpractice, yet evidence of worker employer relations being abrogated even today should cause a second thought. Is there a solution to this pandemic? The video would suggest that it is simply to continue fighting. If the worker doesn’t fight then he’ll simply become subordinate to the standards of authoritative companies. As in The Jungle as is today, the worker lives on, despite the growing opposition of the employer.