Working With the Working WomanParker, Cornelia Stratton
History
Working With the Working Woman
Parker, Cornelia Stratton
United States -- Social conditions; Women -- Employment -- United States; Working class -- United States
Group 3, the industrially nonconscious workers, includes the great
majority of labor in the United States. Under this heading come all
those who for reasons connected with the type of industry engaged in,
or because of individual or sex characteristics, remain apart from any
so-called labor movement. Practically all women fall under this head,
most of the foreign labor population, most of unskilled labor. Many
members of labor organizations technically belonging in Group 1 really
fall under Group 3. The great majority of American labor undoubtedly
are not class or group conscious in the sense that they feel
themselves as workers pitted against a capitalist class.
Temperamentally, intellectually, the doctrines of Karl Marx are not
for them. They never heard of Karl Marx. They get up and go to work in
the morning. During the day they dub away at something or other,
whatever it may be—the chances are it changes rather often—putting
no more effort into the day's work than is necessary to hold down an
uninteresting job. They want their pay at the end of the week. Many
have not the minimum intellectual capacity necessary to do a piece of
work properly. Many more have not the minimum physical capacity
required for even routine tasks. Very many, indeed, are nervous
misfits.
Yet a goodly number in Group 3 represent a high type of worker to whom
the doctrine of class warfare is repugnant, and yet whose industrial
experience has never resulted in making them industrially conscious.
They feel no particular call to show more than average interest in
their job.
Peace, efficiency, production in industry, can come only as Group 2
increases. To recruit from Group 1 will always be difficult. Once
labor feels itself hostile to the employer and his interests, which is
another way of saying, once the employing group by its tactics
succeeds in making labor conclude that “the working class and the
employing class have nothing in common,” the building up of a spirit
of co-operation is difficult indeed. Class consciousness is poor soil
in which to plant any seeds of industrial enthusiasm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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