I was reading Karl Marx’s “Capital” today and came across this paragraph: “That same “reformed” Parliament (of 1836), which in its delicate consideration for the manufacturers, condemned children under 13, for years to come, to 72 hours of work per week in the Factory Hell, on the other hand, in the Emancipation Act, …forbade the planters, from the outset, to work any negro slave more than 45 hours a week.“ Curious I googled “average working hours US” and got this answer: “According to a study by the National Sleep Foundation, the average employed American works a 46-hour work week;...
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Wow! A Self-Service aisle in the supermarket where I can code-bar swipe and bag my items on my own! This promises to save workers from performing such mindless drudgery like swiping and bagging my items for me! I check out my items under the watchful eye of the clerk. I ask her what she is doing there if this is a “self-service aisle.” She replies that while she no longer has to perform the code-bar swiping and bagging functions, she must spend her day watching customers self-service to ensure sure no-one steals the goods. So a trivial and boring...
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I work in a water treatment plant that serves 450,000+ people. The job is a bit repetitive; rotating shifts 7 days in a row at a time, occasional 16-hour days, and working most holidays. It is not a hard job, but not at all glamorous. My job is to conduct routine analyses of the water to make sure it is up to our and the EPA’s standards of quality. I do a major set of tests every 2 hours and a smaller set every hour in between. Part of each major set involves a rather long walk to the...
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Recently several blurbs I’ve heard on the news have caught my attention. There seems to be a lot of discussion and movements towards creating a “Livable wage”. While I agree that poverty and homelessness are a problem, what many fail to see is that it isn’t just in far off distant lands. It’s hitting home here in America. Of course not many in this country will admit that. Those who see the pain and suffering believe that government mandates are the solution. As socialist we know that reform will not make things better. If anything the reform they want...
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That is the slogan of my favorite energy drink, Rockstar. I drink one on irregular occasions, usually at work when I am tired and its busy. A lot of people drink energy drinks to stay alert at work. Other people will drink a variety of coffee drinks from some place like Starbucks. The company has a large faithful following of people who will not only wait in line for coffee, but will pay $7.00 for one as well. While it is nice to get a little energy boost when you work long hours at a boring monotonous job, (think...
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The AFL-CIO’s Jobs With Justice organization has announced its annual Grinch of the Year contest. We can admit that these corporations are pretty bad as employers go. However, we feel that it does no service to fail to point out that the problems of bad employers will not go away if you stop the worst ones. Bad employers are created by a economic system which is driven to create profits through cutting back on labor costs. It’s as simple as that. Even if a new round of economic gans could be made- as were in the 1950s, it would...
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Few types of literature put capitalist views on class struggle with such explicit and appalling candor as that dealing with “disciplinary problems” in the workplace. With economic development has come a certain mellowing in the shrill tone of the anti-employee diatribes of the 19th-century class-warhawks; but it has lost none of its virulence or its domineering aspiration, for it self-consciously promotes the atmosphere of coercion that justifies unpaid labor as the source of capitalist profit. The American Management Association (AMA), “the nation’s #1 business trainer!” according to its brochure titled “How to legally fire employees with attitude problems,” is...
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In response to the 1995 Oklahoma bombing and the threat of more terrorist activity, the lawmakers are giving the law-enforcers more power and the courts swifter and more severe punishment for those found guilty. There are those who fear this will infringe on the “rights” of the average citizen; rights guaranteed by the constitution. We have all heard the expression, “fight for your rights.” The question I have is fairly obvious: if we are guaranteed our rights, why must we fight for them? … This deserves a derisive chuckle, don’t you think? How many laws have been enacted in...
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The wage-worker is, indeed, a patient creature. Throughout his life those who own the means by which he lives — the capitalists — heap insult and indignity upon him yet he continues to support the system of society which makes possible such a state of affairs. He is urged, even pressured, to work harder, to produce more, even though the more the intensity of his labor the nearer is the day of his deeper impoverishment. Producing as he must for a market economy, his increased production leads inevitably to glutted markets and greater unemployment. In the meantime, the employer...
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Working people live on wages, which are obtained in their places of employment. Some workers own government bonds or company shares and derive income from these and from other sources. But all sources other than wages form a very small part of the average worker’s income. Mainly the workers live on wages and any changes that occur in the amount of wages have a definite bearing on their conditions of life. The wages which they receive represent a portion of the wealth they produce. This portion takes the form of money and is given to them by the owners...
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