Study and Discussion Guide for “Freedom in the Workplace” Video

Partially funded by the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities, the video is a compilation of interviews with over 30 Rhode Island workers and educators. Copies of the video are available for free to teachers, libraries and community organizations. For more information and readings, see www.rilaborinstitute.org /id60.htm The opinions expressed do not represent the opinions of the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities.

After each section you can turn the video off for discussion, or you can wait until the end and discuss all or some of these questions.

•  What does freedom in the workplace mean to you?

There are many different definitions of freedom in the workplace used in this video. Name as many different definitions that you can (including some you haven't seen in the video). Which one or ones make the most sense to you?

•  Is there freedom in the workplace?

What is your answer to this question? How would you answer people who express a different point of view.

What about the freedoms named in the Bill of Rights, especially the First, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments (see amendments attached). Do they apply to the workplace? If not, why not? Should they apply to the workplace? How can this come about?

•  How can we get freedom in the workplace?

What is your answer to this question? Can you give any examples from your own life and family or from any books you have read or movies that you have seen?

•  Who is responsible for assuring that there is freedom in the workplace?

What is your answer to this question?

Given the discussion above, what are the rights and responsibilities of workers? Are workers rights fairly enforced? If not, why not? Are there changes that need to be made?.

What responsibilities do workers have in the workplace?

Read and discuss the quotes below:

“When you enter the low-wage workplace – and many of the medium-wage workplaces as well – you check your civil liberties at the door, leave America and all it supposedly stands for behind, and learn to zip you lips for the duration of the shift. The consequences of this routine surrender go beyond the issues of wages and poverty. We can hardly pride ourselves on being the world's preeminent democracy, after all, if large numbers of citizens spend half their waking hour in what amounts, in plain terms, to a dictatorship.” Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed , p. 210

“Freedom in the work situation is not freedom from work (in order to have leisure), it is not freedom from exploitation; it is the freedom to spend one's energy in a meaningful, productive way by being an active, responsible, unalienated participant in the total work situation.” Erich Fromm

“In the U.S. Constitution, there are two powerful articles that workers could take up and use to breathe new life into the struggle for worker rights: the First and Thirteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Labor law should be based on the idea that the fundamental rights guaranteed in these amendments — free speech, assembly, and freedom from "involuntary servitude" — are not shed at the office door or the factory gate. Like the civil rights movement of the 1960s, we can build a workers' rights movement by exercising rights guaranteed in the Constitution but denied in practice or explicitly by unjust laws.” Elaine Bernard

“The 13th Amendment says that slavery and involuntary servitude are illegal. We're saying that if you go to work, and you don't have freedom of speech and freedom of association, then you are in a condition of involuntary servitude. And that is a violation of the Constitution, it's a violation of the 13th Amendment. Our theory is that the 13th Amendment makes the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment real. If you go to work and you can't exercise freedom of speech, association and assembly, and you don't have due process and equal protection, then your employer is in violation of the Constitution.” Peter Kellman

Bill of Rights: Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States , or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Amendment XIV