Using newspapers, TV and other sources, students can identify the matters at stake and the course of the conflict over them. This can serve as an introduction to class with discussion of the different experiences of bosses and workers, at work and at home. Usefulness of recent epidemiological work by Marmot et al. Many students will be able to draw on their own or family experience in discussions about unions and relationships between workers and employers. Theories Anti-union Economic rationalism.
Production is inherently harmonious.
Conflict is in no-one's interest and so has to be explained exogenously in terms of monopoly, outside agitators, poor human relations management, special pleading or pathological behaviour. The elimination of these can restore harmony. Pro-union Weakeness of individual workers in the face of the power of individual employers. The employment contract is different from contracts over the sale of other things, because of the unequalness of the resources of the boss and the worker. Only by organising together can workers even up this imbalance, to some extent.