10 Times Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Went Woke
7. He Was A Union Man
Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Quoting Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was no accident. Rom, creating a union of the bar staff in Bar Association, shatters all rules of Ferengi society, while simultaneously allowing the show to depict workplace disputes on television.
Armin Shimmerman and co-writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe both spoke about their passion for collective bargaining, with this episode depicting the fight for better working conditions, while, in the 1990s, that same fight was ongoing. Though Star Trek envisaged a future where humanity moved beyond material gain and wealth, the Ferengi were not so enlightened.
Shimmerman, who sat on the board of the Screen Actors' Guild, was very pleased with the episode. Though Bar Association is presented primarily as a comedy, the worker-management struggle was given serious treatment. Brunt, representing the Ferengi Commerce Authority, is, of course, appalled by Rom's endeavours, though it's Quark who finds himself on the wrong side of the Nausicaan strikebreakers.
While Rom ultimately steps down from the new Union, challenging the ultra-Capitalist system established by the Ferengi was really a statement on the greatest Capitalist system in which Star Trek is created. The Original Series and The Next Generation often discussed the absence of money and exploitative labour in short-hand references, while Deep Space Nine depicted the struggle to achieve both.
When one considers the Writers' Guild Of America strikes in 2023, with the prevalence of Star Trek actors contributing to their efforts, it isn't hard to look to Bar Association as a template on how to fight back.