Although the reader is not a Great Depression-era worker in search of labor, there's a good chance the reader is similar to Music in another way: William knows nothing about life in the Kentucky coal mines, so the reader gets to learn with him, over his shoulder, so to speak. The mines are an underworld where life can get pretty rough. On good days, they work bent over in narrow chambers filled with black dust that takes their health away, and on bad days, the mine shafts collapse and people die.
In light of these atrocious work environments, some Communist agitators have been advocating a strike with the intent to unionize the laborers in a socialist resistance. Needless to say, the owner doesn't really like that idea, but the owner is the one who makes it necessary, because he overreacts so much to this threat that he makes the union necessary. The reader watches as Music arrives at this conclusion.
Perhaps the most important moment of the novel comes when Hardcastle instructs Regus and Music to take up arms and to threaten the labor party with guns, trying to make them work like slaves, by fear and threat of force. This is where Music parts with the company, realizing that the union is right; this employer is a nightmare and a menace who uses the financial desperation of others to make himself money even when the laborers are struggling to make ends meet. The twist is that no one really wants to unionize, but the boss becomes deranged and makes it necessary.
