Norma Rae Review

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Norma Rae

The initial challenge of Norma Rae becoming a union leader is that many citizens of Henleyville were against the union. At one point she goes to speak to the church minister of the church she had gone to all her life and asks for permission to hold a union meeting at the church. Despite trying to convince the mister that the union was the right and best thing for the members of the town, the minister disagrees with her and in fact tells that she is not welcome to the church and that the church will not miss her voice in the choir.

The other challenge in organizing the union was a substantial cultural barrier of racism. In one instance after a meeting held in Norma Rae’s house, her husband expressed his concern saying that the union would put the black men in the company in a whole lot of trouble since the managers at O.P Henley Mill used racial tension to divide the workers. The managers went to the extent of threatening to fire black workers if employees kept joining the union. Such kind of threats posed a challenge to Norma Rae as some workers were discouraged to join the union in fear of losing their jobs.

Being a reluctant leader means that the leader is not willing to take risks or is hesitant in taking the leadership roles assigned to him or her. In this case, Norma Rae is not a reluctant leader; she is ready to handle anything that comes her way and fight for the rights of the black workers working in the company. The fact that her father faced hostility under the company is one of her greatest motivators to ensure that the blacks are treated with equality.

Norma Rae was courage and was able to assess risks to ensure that the union thrived easily. With the help of Reuben, she was to come up with ways to promote the union without being fired. In the end, workers embrace the union and 373 to 427 are in favor of the union. I assess the risks by observing how Norma was able to convince the workers that they did not have to be trapped in the insufficient environment and that forming the union would ensure that they exploited the parameters set by Mill Company to meet their requests.