Labour: the fifth estate?

Since Butler time to Roget time, the trade union movement has built and lived in a sand castle in the sky, believing that their rhetoric will one day catapult them into power – they not understanding that this society has come to an agreement that there is a clear cut separation of powers and in that configuration neatly parceled out as land for development are five estates – and not four as we have grown accustomed to thinking, believing.

At one time, it used to be just three estates: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary; but as freedom of expression blossomed especially in the last century and especially because the media itself grew as if it were as a result of a cosmic big bang occurrence, a fourth estate thrust itself into that configuration. The media is universally recognised as that fourth estate among the players involved in keeping the balance of power in a society in perfect equilibrium.

Today, though, it would not be presumptuous to slice up that cake one more time to make room for a fifth estate. Once upon a time, when all mankind belonged to two estates – the rulers and the ruled, the kings and the rest – rights of the individual were what the ruling class said it was. Many rulers of the ancient world attributed their powers to God; that they held their positions by divine rights. When therefore they cast the rest of mankind into the hierarchy of lesser mortals, they were acting from their exalted status as gods on earth.

It took centuries, eons, for all the lesser mortals of the world to realise that there was a spark of divinity in every one and that no self-appointed god is greater than he who is ruled. Out of that thinking, there came the emergence of people’s power, of justice and fairplay, of the rule of law and freedom of expression.

More recently in that evolution of people’s power has been the pursuit of mankind’s right to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. The long held philosophy that workers were slave and subject to the whims and fancies of land and factory owners and entrepreneurs is now an anachronism in economic thinking. Car pioneer Henry Ford decided on his own that his workers should be paid enough to enable them to buy the car they helped assembled.

Unfortunately, the Fords of the world are few and, if not extinct, endangered. Even in our age of so-called economic enlightenment, there are employers who would revert to slavery days with chameleon-like speed. It is to the credit of the trade union movement and their collective bargaining process that such a spoke in the evolutionary process does not take place.

Because a population’s well-being, its creature comforts, its bread-and-butter issues are largely in the hands of the trade unions, it is reasonable to recognise them in a society’s overall equation as the Fifth estate.

What this means though is that by now becoming a main player in the concept of the separation of powers, it has to understand and respect the rules of the game. Thus, it would be unthinkable for the Chief Justice and all members of the judiciary to form a political party called, say, the Justice League Party to fight the next election while they sit in judgment in constitutional matters before them that have been brought to them by some political party against whom they might field a candidate.

While Justice Volney did it as an individual, what would be the repercussion to the society if the whole judiciary were to cross the separation of power Rubicon line to mount platforms and get into gutter to rake and scrape mud to smear their political opponents?

The trade union serves an important role in society as it agitates for a more level economic playing field for one and all. It echoes John Kennedy’s words that if a society cannot defend the many who are poor it cannot protect the few who are rich.

Your role is scripted for you. You hold the reins of power when you help end poverty. Work with that.

lsiddh@yahoo.com