[Excerpt] [Dan Abnett’s Hive] Labor unions exist outside of Genestealer or Chaos control, and they’re basically essential for survival in Sacramentus’s primary Hive
>>!The Guild did what it could to look after its members, and protect the interests of all Neg toilbonds. Respectable members and representatives, like old Bella, were sometimes allowed to attend Low Council meetings or civic assembles, to request more water allowances, or an air flush, or better wages. Such things were tolerated by the Hive councils, regarded as a necessary expression of social complaint, but such requests were seldom honored.!<
>!We get a little more info about the various groups arrayed against these workers’ communes below:!<
>>!The rallies, the rabble-rousing, the toilhalt (strike) actions, and, occasionally, acts of vandalism and sabotage. All were put down hard by the reeves, the ORPO grueks, and the HiveDef militia, but the councils and the Lowhabbers and the Overdwellers and most of all, the Administratum, knew that the Guild seethed below, a mounting pressure that gathered in the vents. Sometimes, it had to be slacked off and eased. Sometimes, it lit, and rushburned.!<
It is worth mentioning that ORPO is the same acronym used by Nazi Germany to refer to their Ordnungspolizei, or their uniformed, domestic police force, so the political subtext is about as heavy as a brick through a cop car‘s window.