Monte Walsh Reviews

These cowboys simply endured terrible working conditions, being outdoors in all weathers, without whining; an episode during the early part of the film shows Walsh (Selleck) driving through a terrible winter storm, all on his own, giving no thought whatever to this hazardous workplace situation.

The movie opens with numerous cowboys unemployed due to modernization and corporate expansion into the cattle industry. They foolishly continued traveling about, in search of work, rather than appealing to the government for welfare assistance -- the implication being they were rather independent sorts given to earning their subsistence rather than begging or demanding it from the state.

These unfortunate men obviously had no labor union representation whatever, and could be fired/hired based on the judgment of employers. This in UnAmerican, as about half of us today (per a survey conducted November 2000) believe that a worker's need for his paycheck has priority over his employer's ability to provide it, since all employers are evil and rich.

These cowboys were subject to egregious workplace harassment, as when they drove a herd to a railhead only to see it spooked by an insensitive, racist engineer who considered it "fun" to blow the whistle and spook the herd. The cowboys, rather than squealing to Human Resources or filing charges with the National Labor Relations Board, then horribly vandalized the train. Because the train was owned by a large greedy corporation, that really wasn't a problem -- but the action constituted reverse harassment against the train personnel who had participated in the hostile whistle prank, as they felt scared and threatened in this hostile working environment.

There was no sort of Federal Lunch Program, and the cowboys were forced to eat food cooked in obviously unregulated circumstances, vulnerable to the cook's sabotage. (The dinner incident constituted additional harassment, but the cowboys again did not file any sort of complaint.)

The big evil greedy cattle companies provided no sort of retirement programs. It was required, after your trade usefulness had expired, for you to ride your horse over a cliff.

Finally, these American cowboys didn't appear to understand the need for lawyers, as they simply took the law into their own hands and did what they thought was correct (but their thinking obviously was flawed -- see the seven paragraphs above). They probably would have just shot a lawyer, had any lawyer on Earth possessed sufficient merit to be in the presence of men like this.

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Monte Walsh