Rewatching ST:DS9
As The Defiant returns from an uneventful jaunt in the Gamma Quadrant, Dax teases that Worf is in love… with The Defiant.
Bashir and O’Brien, dressed as medieval Irish warriors, prepare for a holosuite adventure.
Rom, exhausted and overworked, collapses at the bar. Leeta is concerned, but Quark is just annoyed.
Bashir confirms Rom was very ill, but Quark’s employees get no sick leave. Offhandedly, Bashir mentions the workers could use a union.
When Quark announces all employees will have their pay cut, Rom warns him he’ll regret it. Later, Rom manages to talk all the employees into joining a union, but he has little idea what that means.
O’Brien romanticizes an ancestor who led a strike of Pennsylvania coal miners: “They fished his body out of the Allegheny river a week before the strike ended. Thirty-two bullets he had in him…. or was it thirty-four?” Bashir presents himself as the voice of reason.
The workers shock Quark by striking and picketing the main entrance. Odo is annoyed by the fuss, but Sisko has ordered him not to interfere, as long as the protest is peaceful and the upper entrance is not blocked.
The B plot contrasts O’Brien, who we just saw socializing with Bashir and who says life on the Enterprise was boring because he had so little to do, with Worf, who struggles to fit in on DS9. When Worf saunters into Quark’s upper entrance, O’Brien announces his intention to “talk some common sense into him.” We hard-cut and the picket-crosser, the union supporter, and the voice of reason (with a cut on his head) are all parked in the brig, with Sisko scolding them for brawling.
Sisko pressures Quark to hammer out an agreement with Rom, but Quark notes that it’s not that simple — unions violate sacred Ferengi principles. When Sisko threatens to charge back rent, Quark’s next move is to bribe Rom to give up the union. Rom turns down the offer (Leeta beams on him with admiration), and things get more tense for Quark as the humorless Ferengi investigator Brunt shows up with two Naussican thugs (who later casually throw darts at each other in the background).
The B-plot resolves with Worf announcing his plans to move his quarters to the Defiant, where Dax helps him settle in.
Quark tries to speak to Rom again, this time playing the concerned big brother, but it’s Quark himself who gets roughed up by Brunt’s thugs.
On brand with DS9, the resolution is a compromise, with a twist. Quark agrees to treat his employees fairly, and Rom agrees to dissolve the union but also quits his job, saying that he realized “all I have to look forward to is waiting for you to die so I can inherit the bar. Well, I don’t want you to die.” So he joins the station’s tech staff.
To Quark, ordering his brother around had been his brotherly way of making him a better Ferengi, but Rom’s independent action sparks a sincere moment, as Rom and Quark start a new relationship as paying customer and attentive bartender.
