On Sat, 24 Jan 1998 19:59:33 +0000 john gulick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Another question: how do proponents of the 35-hour week in Italy,
>France, and >the Netherlands realistically think it will be possible to
pay workers >who >work only 35 hours for 40 hours' work ? Unless there
is a massive >increase>in productivity (so that the rate of surplus value
extraction remains >more or >less the same) won't there be a capital
strike, or diversion of
>capital into >the financial sector, or somesuch thing ?
>Waiting w/bated breath for answers,
>
>John Gulick
>Ph. D. Candidate
>Sociology Graduate Program
>University of California-Santa Cruz
>(415) 643-8568
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The productivity increase that's been happening for the last few decades
is what makes possible a shorter workweek movement -- that and the
political will to forge such a movement. European workers will fight for
the 35-hour week to the extent that they resent having restored
profitability through heightened productivity without sharing the gains.
U.S. workers have done a similar favor for their bosses by not fighting
lean production, longer hours, contingent work, etc. There is no
comparable movement here, however, for a couple reasons:
1) the lack of a political tendency taking the initiative to forge such a
movement (and the Labor Party's 28th Constitutional Amendment campaign is
a sad diversion);
2) the lower unemployment rates in the U.S. That is, the problem is --
outside of communities of color -- not so much no jobs as really bad
jobs. A jobs movement here would thus have a shorter work week as a
component, but would have to articulate demands around job security
(rights to permanent, fulltime status), benefits, bans on overtime, and
above all higher pay. (It would as well have special demands around
higher unemployment levels in communities of color, and special targets
for jobs creation in areas of lacking social services: child care,
health, education, housing, etc.)
Can we take such an initiative? Can the various rank and file groups,
labor/community coalitions, Labor Party, etc., meet in conference and
work out a set of demands and a plan to take it into our workplaces,
union meetings and community organizations?
Should such a movement in Europe (or the U.S.) be successful, there would
of course be a capital strike. That's why labor will take up and continue
the fight for this demand only on two conditions: a) it recognize that it
is fighting for productivity gains already squeezed out of it; b) to the
extent its demands go beyond recouping that surplus, and jeopardize
future profitability of capital, whether national, regional or
international, it is willing to disregard that concern and in fact to
consider again alternatives to capital's rule.
Andy Pollack
>
>
