MOVIES
“Norma Rae” (1979); and “Matewan” (1987)
When Norma Rae (Sally Field) holds up a sign reading “UNION” on the mill floor in “Norma Rae,” when labor organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper) tries to sign up West Virginia coal miners in 1920 in “Matewan,” the powder kegs are lighted. These dramas aren’t exactly fair representations of the management point of view — but balanced portraits don’t sell tickets.
TELEVISION
“The Office” (2001)
He’s the boss your worst enemy wouldn’t wish on you — so horrendously bad in so many familiar ways, in fact, that many people thought the series was a documentary when it premiered on the BBC. Ricky Gervais, co-creator and writer of the send-up of white-collar workplaces, plays David Brent, the nosy, preening, lazy, small-minded lout. Sounds like he’s destined for great things in management.
“Roseanne” (1988-97)
If you’re not a crime scene investigator, defense attorney or ER doc, you can pretty much forget about seeing your profession dramatized on TV — except for this ornery, groundbreaking series that starred Roseanne and John Goodman as a blue-collar couple with three mouthy kids. Roseanne started out in a plastics factory and finally landed in a diner. Can we warm up that coffee for you, Sonny?
SCULPTURE
“Let Us Beat Swords Into Ploughshares” by Evgeny Buchetich
The bronze work, dedicated in 1959, stands in the North Garden of the United Nations. It was a gift from the former Soviet Union to the UN.
ART
“Threshing” by Thomas Hart Benton
Benton (1889-1975) is best known for images of a vigorous, muscular America, a nation shaking off the heavy coils of the Depression. The man never met a biceps he couldn’t romanticize into a curving hunk of pure American enterprise, never saw a day’s work he couldn’t dramatize into a sprawling canvas filled with smoke and sweat.
COMICS
Dilbert
The popular Scott Adams creation is the quintessential burnt-out, bummed-out, put-upon office guy, a species indigenous to cubicle land. Um, excuse us, but … is that a box of company-issued paper clips we see there in your purse?
THEATER
“The Hairy Ape” by Eugene O’Neill, (1922)
Yank works in the stokehole on an ocean liner, the dirtiest, smelliest, least desirable work in the world — but it’s his home: “I’m de tin in coal dat makes it boin; I’m steam and oil for de engines; I’m de ting in noise dat makes yuh hear it; I’m smoke and express trains and steamers and factory whistles; I’m de ting in gold dat makes it money! And I’m what turns iron into steel! Steel, dat stands for de whole ting! And i’m steel — steel — steel! I’m de muscles in steel, de punch behind it! . . . All the rich guys dat tink they’re somep’n, dey ain’t nothin’! Dey don’t belong. But us guys, we’re in de move, we’re at de bottom, de whole ting is us!”
MUSIC
“Workin’ Man Blues” by Merle Haggard, (1969)
Before the likes of Garth Brooks and Faith Hill got hold of it, country music was the anthem of the working class. It was about swinging a hammer on the railroad or doing the same thing, over and over and over, in a factory line. Nowadays country music has been gussied up to appeal to a wider audience, but there was a time when you could almost hear the pistons driving in every song.
“It’s a big job, getting by with nine kids and a wife/But I’ve been a workin’ man dang near all my life/And I keep on workin’, long as my two hands are fit to use./I drink my beer at a tavern/And sing a little bit of these workin’ man blues.”
POETRY
William Blake, (1757-1827)
The British Romantic poet is known for his ethereal, visionary verses filled with obscure biblical references and swollen invective. But he lived in London at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and he saw what certain kinds of physical labor did to the young and the frail. (The ‘weep!,’ by the way, is Blake’s rendition of a youngster’s pronunciation of ‘Sweep!,” which the workers called out as they walked the streets in search of employment.)
“The Chimney Sweeper” (1789)
When my mother died I was very young/And my father sold me while yet my tongue/Could scarcely cry
weep!’ ‘weep!’ ‘weep!’ /So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.”
