It’s exploitation that causes workers’ problems. On an ultra-simplistic level we could say that capitalism in the persona of capitalists uses capital (in its basic form, money) to make a profit. By utilising capital in the form of property, equipment, machinery, investment or speculation the capitalist needs to employ members of the working class...
Read More »
Labor
Class against class
Capitalism – barrier to useful work
Many are suffering the misery of unemployment while much useful, necessary work remains undone. One of the contradictions of capitalism. We want free time, to reduce the working day so that we can move beyond the tyranny of survival into free and creative mutual activity. Both employment and unemployment are capitalism preventing our human...
Read More »
Class War Declaration
Hans-Jörg Rudloff, the head of the Management Board of investment bank Barclays Capital knows how to solve the debt crisis and bring “competitiveness” back to the European Union. Half of the social benefits have to go. People have to work more, doing longer hours for longer years. He explained that “Europe is carrying a...
Read More »
Labor Power
“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as ‘right to work.’ It provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works.’ Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining.” — Martin Luther King Jr. “What we’re trying to get to is to get...
Read More »
China’s working class drives capitalist development
The heroic and inspiring struggles of China’s working class will only lay the ground for new and improved exploitation methods – unless, that is, the struggle turns political – and socialist. “I do the same thing every day,” said one employee at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where more than ten workers have...
Read More »
Class war in Bangladesh
According to the International Trade Union Confederation, Bangladesh’s 3.5 million garment workers, most of them women, are the ‘world’s most poorly paid workers’. Many work 12 to 14 hour shifts, six days a week, often in hazardous conditions. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations stated ‘Bangladesh’s garment workers are among...
Read More »
Overworked, underpaid and relieved?
The shoddy economy is leaving many workers feeling overworked, underpaid — and yet relieved to be employed at all. “Fewer workers are doing more and more,” said Brett Good, a district president with staffing firm Robert Half, which has surveyed workers on this topic. “You’ve got a lot of people that are working harder,...
Read More »
Life is sweet for the rich
From MarketWatch.com Tiffany & Co says sales at its flagship New York store jumped 26% in the first quarter. International luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy whose brands range from Fendi to Givenchy to Moet & Chandon Champagne, plus, of course, Vuitton bags says U.S. sales boomed 20% in the first quarter, including...
Read More »
The race to the bottom
Sweatshops are workplaces where the working conditions are extremely poor and health and safety laws are not enforced or are non-existent. News reports of fires which have killed dozens of people because fire doors were locked in sweatshop factories are not uncommon. Wages are very low, there may be bullying and intimidation, especially of...
Read More »
Mayday 2010
We’re celebrating the 124th anniversary of a General Strike held to win the 8 hour work day. That General Strike of May 1, 1886 was called by the forerunner of the American Federation of Labor and organized throughout the Canada and the US. On that day 300,000 to half a million workers set down...
Read More »
RSS
