Songs and dance organize labor, especially repetitive, dull, difficult labor. Mechanization often is said to liberate humans from this type of work, but it also usually frees employers from dealing with people who are literally synchronized into pools of labor, where they can clearly see the value of their work. This also means that mechanization has displaced communal labor and thus communal memory. Not to fall into the pit of nostalgia for "simpler times," these workers instead show us the value of group negotiations; of power through collectivity.

In our mediated, mechanized culture (because it is not like this everywhere), it becomes much more difficult for workers to galvanize their efforts, to work as a union without giving the appearance of being exclusionary and/or parasitic. This is awful. When you watch the Gandy Dancer's video, you will hear towards the end how unions made it possible for these mean to take their very intricate knowledge and advance in the companies that simultaneously valued and disavowed their contribution to the railroad.

The washerwomen in Brasil fought hard to get the right to the equivalent of a social security card so that they could have retirement. In the clips, they all speak about learning these songs as a way to make the work happen, even when it felt impossible. They sung and danced themselves back to their own humanity. That's what unions do; they guard the humanity of workers.

Now, our current problem is that contemporary unions also protect and reward ineffective workers simply because of how much time they have had on the job, not necessarily because of evidence of specialized knowledge. We are at a tipping point where many people who would like to become workers feel they cannot because unions are making sure that their members stay in jobs that are either no longer needed (stalling digitization of records for example), or maintaining practices that no longer serve the needs of society (like last one hired, first one fired). While this may not be true, it is the perception and possibly exists because we do not labor all that much as a nation any more.

In particular, the role of teacher unions in large cities in the US have become fraught with these questions. For example, here in Los Angeles, there are "banked minimum days" that teachers use to meet and learn from each other, but this happens during school hours, thus reducing the amount of classroom time for students and creating a bit of work havoc for parents, especially single working parents. Parent teacher conferences no longer happen at night, but during the day, again cutting into instructional hours and work hours for parents. It is great for teachers who want to get off campus asap, but for those committed to teaching, those precious missing hours are debilitating. For parents who want to be involved with their child's learning but cannot leave work for fear of loosing their at will jobs (an entire other discussion about unions), these "business hours" for teachers are especially punitive. This is an instance where collective bargaining may be hindering the labor needed to complete the job. Very touchy stuff.

So look to Wisconsin right now, where a Tea Party governor is trying to eradicate unions by stripping collective bargaining, and then think about advances in railroad maintenance and clothes washing. Would those advances even have ocurred were people still treated as indentured servants today? Collective bargaining pushes innovation. Song and dance define humanity. Let's not loose sight of that.

Enjoy these videos.

http://www.folkstreams.net/film,101

Gandy Dancers, Film by Barry Dornfeld, Maggie Holtzberg-Call