Affluent Workers in the 20th Century

"Because workers have grown affluent in the late 20th century there is no longer any basis for collectivism at the workplace". State whether you agree with this statement. Provide reasons for your choice.

John Kelly in his book 'Rethinking Industrial Relations' seeks to explain the conditions under which employee collective organization occurs, the form the organization takes place, and the character of relations between collective employee organizations and employers. In summary, he argues that "collective organization and activity ultimately stem from employer actions that generate amongst employees a sense of injustice or illegitimacy. Employees must also acquire a sense of identity which differentiates them from the employer they must attribute the perceived injustice to the employer; and they must be willing to engage in some form of collective organization and activity. The whole process of collectivization is heavily dependent on the actions of small numbers of leaders or activist. This follows a Marxist course.

Kelly's basic theory mobilization theory seeks to explain how individuals are transformed into collective actors willing and able to create and sustain collective organization and to engage in collective action against their employers."

The theory comprises a general framework using five concepts: (a) interests, (b) mobilization, (c) organization, (d) opportunity, and (e) the forms of collective action. With regard to industrial relations interests, the theory highlights the roles of injustice, agency identity and attribution in shaping the ways people define their lives.

In the past, workers of the 19th and early 20th centuries where deemed "poor". They were employed in factories, mills, or mines and they were, property-less, dependent, exploited and in conflict with the propertied class to whom their labour was sold.

However it was noticed that the definition of worker changed after the Second World War period. The new emerging middle class were viewed as affluent, seeking to make lives comfortable for themselves and their families. A new consumerism trend developed and an increase in the education level of the working class now slowly incorporated into the new middle class existed.

The working class as the impoverished middle class no longer exists. In its place, was a plurality of status and skill groups whose interests often diverged. It has been argued, with the emergence of the skilled worker there has been a breakdown of the notion of the capitalist class as a result of the separation between ownership and control and the labour movement was also severely compromised because of this.

Therefore at the last quarter of the 20th century workers were seen to become more affluent and collectivist action against employers or the controllers of production by employees or proletariat has diminished considerably.

This was argued by Phelps Brown who stated that the reduce in trade unionism action was due to a change in popular attitudes and collectivist values that were being identified as being central to the earlier industrial problems.

There has been an obvious decline in Trade Unionism actions. Since the 1960s, dramatic increases in the transaction of goods and services, capital mobility in the financial sector, and labor mobility across borders have had divergent impacts on several domestic institutions in advanced industrial democracies. While the degree and depth of these changes are still under debate, the leverage over public policy such as fiscal/monetary policies, social welfare policies and the wage bargaining institutions between employers and unions have been mostly affected. While there is a great deal of research on the change of welfare states under globalization, few scholars have actually conducted empirical studies of globalization's effect on domestic social forces, and even fewer have researched the effects of globalization on labor unions.

With recent upsurges of scholarly interest in globalization, researchers of unionization trends have begun to cite globalization as the cause for retrenchment of welfare states and the decline of union strength in Western industrial democracies. The second dimension of globalization is foreign direct investment. Given the same level of technology and skills, multinational firms will attempt to find cheaper labor and less strict regulations of labor and environments abroad. This scenario is similar to that of the early 1980s economists argued that "profit squeeze" generated by the oil crisis of the 1970s encouraged firms to escape from their domestic contract between capital and labor in search of cheaper labor. Both scenarios lead to the same phenomenon: the bulk of the unskilled labor force in developed countries will be driven out of the mass production factory to fragmented low-wage service jobs where trade unions are much less organized. In addition, the increasing "multi-nationality" of firms makes it more difficult for labor unions to boost their membership within each company because the firm can open alternative operations in other countries more favorable to employers.

Previous literature on post war unionization trends has focused on the changes of the economic cycle industrial and occupational structures and political mobilization. These studies account for variation in union membership trends across countries and over time. However in comparative political economy and sociology most of the recent significant studies have focused on the relationship between labour market institutions and unionization.

In addition trade