"The strategy of dialogue is profoundly different from the approach employed by a hired representative. Lawyers, politicians, professional negotiators, paid union representatives seem to exclude the grievant so far as possible from the crucial events that occur in the pursuit of his or her grievance. They have a vested interest in creating and maintaining a mystique that only they as professional representatives are capable of understanding. Then, too, the active displeasure of the grievant generates a problem in management control. Administration and professional representatives have a common interest in settling the grievance in such away that there is no fundamental change in the material relations between administration and the grievant. Whatever is done, is done for the grievant, or to the grievant, but, so far as they can contrive it, never by the grievant. The grievant's job is to work and theirs is to decide."
—ORGANIZING: The Art of Self-Defense In Middle-Class
Occupations
by Burt Alpert
(1974; Vocations For Social Change; Oakland, CA)