an exploration of the ideolody of Hyman
Introduction
Hyman focuses on three interpretations of the title ‘Imagined Solidarities’. Firstly, he believes that worker or trade union solidarity is an unattainable concept. Secondly, he states that solidarity is nothing more than an unrealisable utopian ideal. Thirdly, he believes the integration of diverse employee interests can only be achieved through post-Fordist creative and innovative means.
Marx (1867) believed that workers were united by a common interest and that unions had a mission to voice this interest. There are three foundations for this assumption. The first foundation was the idea that human emancipation required material force. Piore and Sabel (1984) describe Marx’ view that the Government was an accomplice to the landlords’ oppression of peasantry. For a whole class to have its interests addressed the entire society to which it belonged had to change. Secondly, Marx believed that those workers who did enjoy distinctive interests did so as relics of a pre capitalist society. Advancing capitalism was destroying traditional skills and homogenising the proletariat. Piore and Sabel disagree, arguing that craft production complemented mass production because the specialist machines used in mass production could not themselves be mass-produced. Thirdly, Marx felt that once the proletariat realised that it was in fact a ‘class’, it would unite and form a common identity. Trade unions developed to voice the common interests of this class. However, Hyman argues against Marxist theory. He believes that while solidarity implied the perception of commonalties of interest and purpose, it in no way abolishes awareness of individual circumstance. Instead he states that unions help shape workers own definitions of their individual and collective interest. This is reflected even in early trade unions, which were guilds of individual craftsmen or an individual industry. Paradoxically, Hyman is in fact a Marxist because he pursues the idea that there is a place for union representation. However, the collective interests of one group often conflicts with that of another. Therefore there is both sectionalism and solidarity within the labour movement. Hyman proposes that multi-occupational unionism requires the intervention of a political force or the group of workers has to realise that it is simply too small for its interests to be addressed alone. In an Irish context, James Larkin engineered this “politically driven class project” in the early 1900’s with the establishment of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.
Mechanical Solidarity
According to Touraine (1981), “movements such as unionism have a life history, infancy, youth, maturity, old age and death.” Since the late 1980’s there has been a so-called crisis of trade unionism. But the real question is whether there been a death of trade unions? Hyman believes that it is not per se a crisis of trade unionism that we are facing, but rather a crisis of a particular model of trade unionism. We are now moving from an old model of mechanical solidarity to a new model of organic solidarity. Hyman outlines three main reasons for the death in mechanical solidarity: increased individualism, market coercion and the eclipse of egalitarianism.
(i) Increased Individualism
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