However, if workers have powerful organizations able to threaten real losses to capital, they may win real democratic reforms, and may steadily expand these gains by further enlarging their militancy. Likewise, arguing to capitalists that workers have a right to control their own lives in no way helps. Arguments and ethics are of first-rank importance when posed to fellow workers to win their militant allegiance. They are irrelevant when posed to capitalists concerned only with furthering their own advantages. If activists think the answer is that capitalists are being dumb when they permit unemployment, then to gain full employment activists will try to educate capitalists to its merits, and we will get nowhere.
Every worker knows that when unemployment is high, workers are weak.
It is always true that if the boss urges more work, more overtime, greater fealty, you must comply or risk being fired. But with high unemployment you can't afford to be fired, because you are unlikely to get a new job. On the other hand, with low unemployment, workers can take more time to do tasks, refuse extra assignments, demand better pay, and strike to get it. The threat of being fired is not so powerful since new jobs are readily available and now it is the employer who will have trouble getting new workers. In capitalism, there is a constant battle over how much work will be done at what wages.