The National Labor Relations Board voted 3-2 last week to dramatically expand the bargaining rights of millions of workers at temp agencies, subcontractors, and franchises. While some of these employees could previously only negotiate with their immediate employer—i.e., the local McDonald’s franchise—more will now be able to negotiate with the parent company—i.e., McDonalds itself. This is but the latest of an increasingly draconian set of efforts to keep the blue model ticking.
In many ways, the 20th-century model of employment was still marked by the feudal and patriarchal past: the employer-employee relationship at big corporations, operating under blue model assumptions, was and is a kind of halfway house between the relationship of the lord of the manor and the peasants in the fields, and a purely market transaction in which one person performs a designated service for another for a mutually agreed upon price.
In the classic jobs-for-life corporate system, employees worked by the clock, not the task, were promoted and assigned on the basis of seniority, not performance, and the employer had a kind of patriarchal responsibility to her employees. Employees often signed morals clauses, regulating their personal behavior. In many cases, especially in isolated locations, but even in some “company towns”, employers operated “company stores” where employees could buy goods on credit (at, of course, interest).
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