The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (106 page)

``Demonstrations'' are, after all, just that. They demonstrate to participants

and potential participants, friend and foe alike, not what a group `ìs'' at any

given time, but what it is potentially, with respect to mobilization, commitment, or social disruption. This is often what is at stake in the inescapable disparities and disagreements between activists and authorities over thèàctual numbers''

of participants in demonstrations (see Bourdieu, 1984b, p. 175). Not only are

the numbers objects of contention, but so is the collective bodily pose of the

demonstrators (militant or peaceful, disruptive or orderly, use of symbols and

slogans that are reassuring or provocative), which are partly a product of the

representational struggle itself (the goals, organizing styles, and circumstances of an action) and partly a product of the social backgrounds and positions of the

participants (what and how much they have to gain or lose by the form of their

participation, their relative security and position within a labor market, etc.).

In other words, the symbolic character of a labor movement is reflected (and

formed) in the nature of the vehicles that are advancing it at any given time and place, and so a key part of the work of mythical construction involves the social act of assembly. But there is a second kind of social act at work in the process of mythical construction, a process of invocation by which leaders and spokespersons perform the act of symbolic construction of the group, a process which

has received close attention in the writings of Pierre Bourdieu (1991). It is work that involves petitions, pronouncements, slogans, reports, and press releases,

and that involves the leaders, activists, spokespersons, and journalists for the putative group or collectivity, as well as the institutions (the think tanks, periodicals and journals, academic centers, foundations, both established institutions and institutions seeking an established place) that may lend the spokespersons

the necessary legitimacy, in symbolic weight, to be widely heard; as well as the relationship between leaders and the group-in-formation that they seek to lead

by speaking in their name. In other words, it is a process requiring attention to the social production of the leader or spokesperson, who, once granted the

authority of invocation, is able to invoke and therefore to establish the identity of the collectivity, thus participating in an important part of the process whereby a group is brought into being as an identifiable group. As Bourdieu (1991, pp.

248±9) has written:

The spokesperson . . . as the personification of a fictitious person, of a social fiction, he raises those whom he represents out of their existence as separate individuals, 456

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enabling them to act and speak through him as a single person. In return he receives the right to take himself for the group, to speak and act as if he were the group incarnate in a single person . . . the group is created by the person who speaks in its name, thus appearing as the source of the power that he exerts over those who are its real source. This circular relation is at the root of the charismatic illusion which means that, ultimately, the spokesperson may appear, to others as well as to

himself, as causa sui.

The construction of the solidarity myth is not just a matter of ``public rela-

tions,'' for public relations would simply require that the designation be adjusted to the widest possible market, disconnected from the process of group formation

(mobilization, collective action), which cannot be just summoned in any case

since it is a relational and interactive phenomenon, and that requires a long and arduous task of mobilizing and organizing. The process of naming a group and

getting that name to stick takes place within a conflictual context, so that who and what gets named as a legitimate collectivity ± the labor movement, the

working class ± is the result of a social struggle. It also has important conse-

quences, not only for what a society thinks it is, but for how its citizens act and for what social and political actions appear reasonable or unreasonable within

it. Consider the longstanding academic disagreement (it cannot even be consid-

ered à`debate'' at this point) within the social sciences about the legitimacy of the concept of à`working class'' (and therefore its very existence), with each side marshalling its methodological strategies and its data to advance a case that has enormous political consequences, but that is not even recognized as a debate in

public political discourse. The result is that neither the term nor the social group can exist there, while a variety of euphemisms are employed (``the middle class,''

``the working poor,'' ``hard working families'') when some designation is neces-

sary.

In some respects, the process I am describing approximates the practice of

``framing'', a concept adapted by students of social movements to designate thèìnterpretive schemata that simplifies and condenses thèworld out there' by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of actions within one's present or past environment'' (Snow and

Benford, 1992, pp. 136±7; see also Gamson, 1992a). The myth of solidarity,

enacted and demonstrated in the actions of a labor movement, could be viewed

as thè`master frame'' of a labor movement, and in an illustration of the framing perspective one analyst has drawn attention to the fact that the Polish labor

movement, Solidarnosc, was named for the solidarity that it expressed in action

(Tarrow, 1994, p. 133).

Both in contrast to Bourdieu's framework of the social construction of collect-

ivities and despite some very fruitful applications of the framing perspective, it is an approach that seems to put both too little and too much emphasis on the

purposive role of leaders in attributing, articulating, and punctuating meaning

frames. Too little, to the extent that it tends to take the framers (the leaders, activists, and spokespersons who articulate the frame) at face value, without the necessary systematic attention to the processes and struggles through which

The Myth of the Labor Movement

457

leaders are socially produced, selected, and designated as leaders; while simultaneously, putting too much emphasis on leaders to the extent that it takes the

social groups or social movements at face value, without the necessary system-

atic attention to their relational positions, the processes of institutional conse-cration (the state and the university being two such institutions), and the various symbolic and material processes and struggles (and the stakes involved) that lead to the formation of a social movement or collectivity (which usually entails the denial of group or movement status to others). Whereas frame analysis takes the

existence of groups as a given, showing the ways in which symbolic meaning is

constructed therein, Bourdieu's perspective views group formation itself as a

crucial symbolic process (and sociological problem), and therefore seems to offer a deeper and more comprehensive analytical strategy.

While it is not possible to pursue such a comprehensive analysis in the context

of this short chapter, it might be useful to consider a recent example of another labor movement's rebirth, one that has occurred contemporaneously with the

attempt to rejuvenate American labor movement. In France, where union mem-

bership comprises an even smaller percentage of the labor force than in the USA

(although these are not really comparable, since the strength of French unions is institutionalized at the national level and thus individual union membership is

less important than in the USA), events over the past several years illustrate some of the points that I have been making about the myth of the labor movement.

Drawn from press accounts, informants, and various secondary sources, what

follows is a selective outline of the events in France, with a focus on their mythic qualities.

All the Makings of a Myth

Myth

In the midst of the largest of the demonstrations in mid-December of 1995, Le

Monde announced ``The first great strike against globalization,'' and although

there were some Indonesians and South Koreans who might have wanted to

argue the accuracy of that headline, from most vantage points within the French

hexagon thè`new world order'' seemed to have been suddenly turned upside

down. In the months and years that have followed, a remarkably broad and

cohesivè`social movement'' has mushroomed that was germinated in the strikes

and that has been cultivated by a labor movement that was emboldened by them.

The result has been the creation of Europe's (and perhaps the world's) strongest bulwark against the harsh terms of global capitalism.

While to much of the world the French strikes of November and December

1995 seemed to explode out of nowhere, there were definite signs in the months

leading up to them. Indeed, within only 24 hours after the results of the second and final round of the presidential elections had been announced in June, that

Jacques Chirac had been elected President, union leaders assembled a press

conference to warn of à`third, social round'' that could be expected were the

right to attempt to cut social benefits as the solution to high unemployment.

Skirmishes followed in October and November, with a successful 24-hour

458

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national strike by public employees here, a student demonstration there, while

the Minister of Industry warned a group of assembled bankers that if unemploy-

ment not soon reduced there existed the possibility of a social explosion on the scale of May 1968 (an event whose practical mythical status has now been both

extended and revivified).

Then, in November 1995, Prime Minister Juppe announced the government's

`èmployment plan,'' which was immediately recognized for what it was: an

effort in the drive toward deficit reduction dictated by the European Union's

development of a common currency. The plan would have reduced the deficit by

cutting state-run health insurance and pension systems, raising health premiums

on retirees, taxing the monthly child allowance payment, and assuring that more

reductions would surely follow, by transferring control over most social spend-

ing from committees jointly controlled by employers and employees to the

Parliament, where further cutting would be made easier. The group most directly

hit by the plan would have been public employees (a group constituting a full 40

percent of the French labor force of 22.5 million), whose retirement benefits

would be cut and delayed, and whose workplaces would be trimmed (schools

and post offices to be cut, some 3,750 miles of rail lines to be closed).

It was from such ``mundane details'' that a movement with mythic proportions

was created. It began with a series of marches and demonstrations, by students

on November 21, by civil servants on November 24, then a women's march the

next day, another march by civil servants on November 28, and students again

on November 30. This was prior to the largest of the strikes, which began when

railway workers, thè`shock troops'' of the strikes, shut down the nation's

transport system, and were then followed by other public sector workers (tea-

chers, postal workers, health care workers), as well as students and retirees.

Workers in the private sector did not join the strikes (the possibility of which was a valuable card held by the movement throughout), although many private

businesses were forced to close due to the transportation stoppage.

According to press accounts, a remarkablè`democracy of distress'' prevailed.

With massive traffic jams clogging the arteries around major cities, hundreds of thousands of commuters were forced to walk, bicycle, rollerblade, and hitchhike

to work. Instead of this generating widespread resentment against the strikers,

the press reported an extraordinary carnival-like atmosphere of public spirited-

ness and mutual assistance, with surprisingly strong support for the strikes

throughout (polls showed 55±65 percent support for the strikes). The sense of

public support at the street level was further enhanced when a rare Parisian

snowfall brought large numbers of children ± out of school because of the strike

± into the streets.

The strikes lasted for a month, and a series of demonstrations brought record

numbers of supporters into the streets. `Òfficial'' (Interior Ministry) sources

reported the following figures on the number of demonstrators:

. 490,000 on November 24;

. 160,000 on November 30;

. 520,000 on December 5;

The Myth of the Labor Movement

459

. 700,000 on December 7;

. 985,000 on December 12;

. 600,000 on December 16.

It must be noted, in light of my earlier remarks, that strike leaders argued

vigorously that the Interior Ministry figures should be doubled for a fully

accurate count, particularly on December 12 and 16, they asserted, when scores

of cities reported having the largest demonstrations in their history (the unions and some of the press reported 1.7 million marchers on December 12). Even

according to the Interior Ministry figures, on certain days the number of march-

ers in provincial cities was said to have been unprecedented (100,000 in Mar-

seille; over 75,000 in Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Limoges,

Lyon, Rouen, and Toulouse; and 28 cities altogether had demonstrations of over