Sexism Occupational Segregation (was Re: reparations exploitation)
(1) yes, it's true that women in same occupations, with same experience, education, work commitment etc often get paid less than men. (2) but the reason why women are paid less is explained MORE by occupational segregation and further segregation within occupations. (women tend to be food service managers, h.r. managers, etc) Both (1) that female workers are paid less for the same work than their male counterparts with the same qualifications and (2) that female workers are paid less because employers get away with paying less for occupations job classifications in which we are over-represented have been true. While sexist working-class men are responsible for having tried and/or trying to exclude working-class women from some male-dominated occupations job classifications by formal and/or informal means, (1) (2) cannot be accounted for by looking at working-class men alone. In fact, in the case of (1) in non-unionized workplaces, workers have little to no say in who gets paid how much. Individual workers, male or female, cannot be held responsible for much of the outcome (2); it is _the state capital_ that under-compensate nurses, teachers, etc. Women's over-representation in some occupations cannot be explained by working-class men's behaviors alone either. I majored in English as an undergrad have chosen to go to grad school, studying the same. I could have studied Law, Medicine, Finance, Engineering, etc. just as well at any of the most prestigious Japanese universities (my scores on the exams put me in the top one percent of my cohorts), and in fact my (almost stereotypically) working-class father (then a steelworker) _very strongly_ advised me to go for Law or Medicine, but I chose not to do so against his counsel. (I may still go to law school as Justin eventually did if English doesn't get me any decently-paid job.) It is likely that my love of literature has been in some way shaped by sexism, but how? Certainly _not_ because _working-class men_ made me feel I should study literature as an appropriately feminine thing to do. For women without college education, working-class men's behaviors bear a larger part of responsibility for their occupational choices with lower wages than they do for mine, but still the main responsibility must lie in the hands of the state capital. I believe sexism shapes women's occupational "choices" (both the range of "choices" and individual "choices" made within the range by individual women), but sexism cannot be reduced to working-class men's fear of competition job protectionism which I think have played a _secondary_ part in creating sexist outcomes. Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie can choose to do away with sexism, racism, etc. _regardless_ of how working-class white men feel since they are the class that rule ultimately, but they haven't don't won't. Working-class white men's _main_ problem is that they have _not_ adopted anti-sexism and anti-racism as _their own projects in their own class interest_. Yoshie
Re: Mises University
Chapter XXXVI in the Paleo vs. Neo war. As always, Raimondo is a hoot to read. A writer for NR heaping scorn and ignorance on Hayek and Mises would be like the editors of NLR doing same for M E. (Whatever lnp3 thinks on that score, NLR just lost his $47renewal). And Eugene Genovese in the new Atlantic on "States Rights" in the new Atlantic. On their website, Lingua Franca highlighted it yesterday. BTW, the new book by Rick Perlstein on AuH20 is out. Doug was interviewed for the book, I see. Looks like another book, along with another one from Princeton Univ. Press on 60's Orange County conservatism to give a look see. One anecdote from the Perlstein caught my eye yesterday. A Daily Worker editor says, "We are the Responsible Left." Gesturing down the stret towards the office of the SWP (misidentified as the Trotskyist Progressive Workers Party! Hill Wang editors, jeesh), "They are the Irresponsible Left." Michael Pugliese http://128.121.216.19/justin/justincol.html
William Winpy Winpisinger
The New York Times, December 13, 1997, Saturday, Late Edition - Final William W. Winpisinger, a fiery, left-leaning labor leader who battled management, politicians and sometimes his fellow unionists as president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, died on Thursday at a hospital in Howard County, Md. He turned 73 on Wednesday and lived in Ellicott City, Md. Mr. Winpisinger sometimes called himself "a seat-of-the-pants socialist," and he spoke and acted accordingly. Although his union of skilled workers was sometimes considered relatively conservative within the labor movement, Mr. Winpisinger advocated mass labor organizing. In an era when some top-level labor leaders were hard to distinguish from the management negotiators they faced across the table, Mr. Winpisinger was almost a throwback to the days of labor titans like John L. Lewis and Walter P. Reuther. === Thomas Petzinger, "Hard Landing" (Random House, 1995): Frank Borman had known the international president of the machinists union for years. He was William Winpy Winpisinger, rotund and irascible, full of bombast, with ideological leanings as far to the left as one could reach in mainstream politics. Winpisinger and Borman loved fast cars. The machinists sponsored an Indy-class race team, and the two men frequently sat together at the Indianapolis Speedway, the same racetrack once owned by the erstwhile Eastern chairman, Eddie Rickenbacker. So Borman could confer with the union chief freely and confidentially when Winpisinger was in Miami for an AFL-CIO function on Friday, February 2 1, 1986. Although the pilots and flight attendants were also resisting Borrnans plea for 20 percent pay cuts, it was Charlie Bryan who most worried the Colonel. Was there anything Winpy could do? Winpisinger was in a desperate fix. To the extent that he admired his friend Borman he mistrusted his own local president. Winpisinger thought Bryan had made himself into a king, so much so that people sometimes mistook Bryan for the international president of the machinists union. "Charlie hears voices," Winpisinger told Borrnan. But at the same time, Winpisinger was painfully aware that the rank-and-file resentment against Borman was powerful and still building. Borman had gone to the well once too often. And in any event, Winpisinger was mostly powerless under the unions constitution to control Bryan. Winpisinger gave Borman a pep talk. Just keep bargaining, he said. Everything will work out. But in encouraging him to continue pressing, the international president left Borman with the indelible impression that he, the mighty William Winpisinger, would step in at the last minute and sit on Charlie Bryan if it was necessary for saving Eastern Air Lines. Frank Borman left his meeting with Winpisinger heaving a sigh of relief. Maybe he could, after all, fix Eastern. Maybe, just maybe, he could checkmate Charlie Bryan. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
No subject was specified.
Below is a review I just published in the Jan 2001 BLS' "Monthly Labor Review." Gene Coyle Work-time reduction Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet. By Anders Hayden. New York, St. Martins Press, 2000, 234 pp. $65, cloth; $22.50, paper. Canadian author Anders Hayden adds a powerful new dimension to the array of arguments for reducing hours of work. Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet stands out for that reason from the recent stream of books advocating cutting the hours of work. Hayden shares the concerns of many writersjob creation, improved quality of life for the employed, balancing work and family, and equity between North and Southbut adds a compelling environmental basis for cutting working time. It is among the very best books on the subject of working time. Many recent books have offered work-time reduction as a single solution for multiple problems. Unemployment, declining quality of life, and stress on the family and individuals have each been the focus of books advocating cutting hours of work. Haydens is a more encompassing vision, taking in all these issues and more, and his voice adds a rich new dimension to the symphony. The book focuses on the role of reducing time in achieving ecologically sustainable development, addressing at the same time equity between the North and the South. Hayden demonstrates a wide-ranging command of the multiple issues that reduction of working time can address, and adds a mastery of the literature. Hayden begins by recalling that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people have had two motives for a reduction in working time, getting more hours away from work, and creating more jobs through a better distribution of the available work. These remain every bit as pertinent, he says, but this focus is on the ecological gains to be achieved by work-time reduction. The stress that consumption in the North puts on the earths ecology is the main concern of the book, and Hayden develops a powerful thesis to address it. Acknowledging a rift in the environmental community about how to deal with ecological problems, Hayden draws a distinction between two camps"sufficiency" and "efficiency." The latter group, he argues, believes that environmental impacts can be reduced by better use of inputs, so that material sacrifice is unnecessary, and unlimited economic growth is possible. In contrast, the "sufficiency" camp of the green movement, to which Hayden clearly belongs, believes that reducing inputs per unit of goods and services, while good in itself, must ultimately fail to save the earth. He asserts that "although the ecological crisis does clearly call for a more efficient use of non-human nature, this response has serious limitations. Growth in GNP without input growth is little more than a theoretical possibility at present, and in any case zero input growth is not enough. Significant reductions in input in the North are necessary." The author argues that achieving that end can come through reductions in working time. Make no mistake, this book is about work-time reduction, though sparing the earth is a main goal. The headings of the remaining chapters make the books scope clear: "Working Less, Consuming Less, and Living More"; "Work-time Reduction and an Expansionary Vision"; "Why Its So Hard to Work Less"; "Work-time Policy and Practice, North and South"; "Europes New Movement for Work-time Reduction"; and "With or without Loss of Pay? With or without Revolution?" It is outside the scope of the book to provide a history of the struggle for the shorter work dayfor that, in the United States, see Roediger and Foners Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (pp. 44?49.) But Hayden does trace some important voices who have spoken out for work-time reduction over the past two centuries. This enriches his argument and provides a brief background for the reader new to the issue of work-time reduction. For readers more conversant with the issue, the long chapter on steps taken by European countries for reducing hours of work will be very useful, as it goes into great detail on what is happening now outside the United States. France, where a series of laws over the past 10 years have made real changes in work time, gets 11 pages of reporting. Germany, where changes have come more through collective bargaining, also gets full coverage, as do the Netherlands, Denmark, and other European countries. In short, Sharing the Work is engaging reading for both specialists and neophytes. And as concern with global warming takes its place on the international agenda, Haydens book provides an input to the discussion from a different perspective than the usual tax and carbon-trading schemes being put forward. Not that Hayden ignores
Gene Coyle's review reformatted version
Below is a review I just published in the Jan 2001 BLS' "Monthly Labor Review." Gene Coyle Work-time reduction Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet. By Anders Hayden. New York, St. Martin's Press, 2000, 234 pp. $65, cloth; $22.50, paper. Canadian author Anders Hayden adds a powerful new dimension to the array of arguments for reducing hours of work. Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet stands out for that reason from the recent stream of books advocating cutting the hours of work. Hayden shares the concerns of many writers--job creation, improved quality of life for the employed, balancing work and family, and equity between North and South--but adds a compelling environmental basis for cutting working time. It is among the very best books on the subject of working time. Many recent books have offered work-time reduction as a single solution for multiple problems. Unemployment, declining quality of life, and stress on the family and individuals have each been the focus of books advocating cutting hours of work. Hayden's is a more encompassing vision, taking in all these issues and more, and his voice adds a rich new dimension to the symphony. The book focuses on the role of reducing time in achieving ecologically sustainable development, addressing at the same time equity between the North and the South. Hayden demonstrates a wide-ranging command of the multiple issues that reduction of working time can address, and adds a mastery of the literature. Hayden begins by recalling that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people have had two motives for a reduction in working time, getting more hours away from work, and creating more jobs through a better distribution of the available work. These remain every bit as pertinent, he says, but this focus is on the ecological gains to be achieved by work-time reduction. The stress that consumption in the North puts on the earth's ecology is the main concern of the book, and Hayden develops a powerful thesis to address it. Acknowledging a rift in the environmental community about how to deal with ecological problems, Hayden draws a distinction between two camps--"sufficiency" and "efficiency." The latter group, he argues, believes that environmental impacts can be reduced by better use of inputs, so that material sacrifice is unnecessary, and unlimited economic growth is possible. In contrast, the "sufficiency" camp of the green movement, to which Hayden clearly belongs, believes that reducing inputs per unit of goods and services, while good in itself, must ultimately fail to save the earth. He asserts that "although the ecological crisis does clearly call for a more efficient use of non-human nature, this response has serious limitations. Growth in GNP without input growth is little more than a theoretical possibility at present, and in any case zero input growth is not enough. Significant reductions in input in the North are necessary." The author argues that achieving that end can come through reductions in working time. Make no mistake, this book is about work-time reduction, though sparing the earth is a main goal. The headings of the remaining chapters make the book's scope clear: "Working Less, Consuming Less, and Living More"; "Work-time Reduction and an Expansionary Vision"; "Why It's So Hard to Work Less"; "Work-time Policy and Practice, North and South"; "Europe's New Movement for Work-time Reduction"; and "With or without Loss of Pay? With or without Revolution?" It is outside the scope of the book to provide a history of the struggle for the shorter work day--for that, in the United States, see Roediger and Foner's Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (pp. 44?49.) But Hayden does trace some important voices who have spoken out for work-time reduction over the past two centuries. This enriches his argument and provides a brief background for the reader new to the issue of work-time reduction. For readers more conversant with the issue, the long chapter on steps taken by European countries for reducing hours of work will be very useful, as it goes into great detail on what is happening now outside the United States. France, where a series of laws over the past 10 years have made real changes in work time, gets 11 pages of reporting. Germany, where changes have come more through collective bargaining, also gets full coverage, as do the Netherlands, Denmark, and other European countries. In short, Sharing the Work is engaging reading for both specialists and neophytes. And as concern with global warming takes its place on the international agenda, Hayden's book provides an input to the discussion from a different perspective than the usual tax and carbon-trading schemes being put forward. Not that Hayden ignores environmental taxes as an alternative to his preferred solution, for he covers those as well. The final chapter, "With or without Loss of Pay? With or without the Revolution" is a very thoughtful
Re: No subject was specified.
With your growing CV, you should apply for the City College job! David From: Eugene Coyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Pen-L Pen-l [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:8912] No subject was specified. Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 11:30:08 -0800 Below is a review I just published in the Jan 2001 BLS' "Monthly Labor Review." Gene Coyle Work-time reduction Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet. By Anders Hayden. New York, St. MartinÕs Press, 2000, 234 pp. $65, cloth; $22.50, paper. Canadian author Anders Hayden adds a powerful new dimension to the array of arguments for reducing hours of work. Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet stands out for that reason from the recent stream of books advocating cutting the hours of work. Hayden shares the concerns of many writersÑjob creation, improved quality of life for the employed, balancing work and family, and equity between North and SouthÑbut adds a compelling environmental basis for cutting working time. It is among the very best books on the subject of working time. Many recent books have offered work-time reduction as a single solution for multiple problems. Unemployment, declining quality of life, and stress on the family and individuals have each been the focus of books advocating cutting hours of work. HaydenÕs is a more encompassing vision, taking in all these issues and more, and his voice adds a rich new dimension to the symphony. The book focuses on the role of reducing time in achieving ecologically sustainable development, addressing at the same time equity between the North and the South. Hayden demonstrates a wide-ranging command of the multiple issues that reduction of working time can address, and adds a mastery of the literature. Hayden begins by recalling that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people have had two motives for a reduction in working time, getting more hours away from work, and creating more jobs through a better distribution of the available work. These remain every bit as pertinent, he says, but this focus is on the ecological gains to be achieved by work-time reduction. The stress that consumption in the North puts on the earthÕs ecology is the main concern of the book, and Hayden develops a powerful thesis to address it. Acknowledging a rift in the environmental community about how to deal with ecological problems, Hayden draws a distinction between two campsÑ"sufficiency" and "efficiency." The latter group, he argues, believes that environmental impacts can be reduced by better use of inputs, so that material sacrifice is unnecessary, and unlimited economic growth is possible. In contrast, the "sufficiency" camp of the green movement, to which Hayden clearly belongs, believes that reducing inputs per unit of goods and services, while good in itself, must ultimately fail to save the earth. He asserts that "although the ecological crisis does clearly call for a more efficient use of non-human nature, this response has serious limitations. Growth in GNP without input growth is little more than a theoretical possibility at present, and in any case zero input growth is not enough. Significant reductions in input in the North are necessary." The author argues that achieving that end can come through reductions in working time. Make no mistake, this book is about work-time reduction, though sparing the earth is a main goal. The headings of the remaining chapters make the bookÕs scope clear: "Working Less, Consuming Less, and Living More"; "Work-time Reduction and an Expansionary Vision"; "Why ItÕs So Hard to Work Less"; "Work-time Policy and Practice, North and South"; "EuropeÕs New Movement for Work-time Reduction"; and "With or without Loss of Pay? With or without Revolution?" It is outside the scope of the book to provide a history of the struggle for the shorter work dayÑfor that, in the United States, see Roediger and FonerÕs Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (pp. 44?49.) But Hayden does trace some important voices who have spoken out for work-time reduction over the past two centuries. This enriches his argument and provides a brief background for the reader new to the issue of work-time reduction. For readers more conversant with the issue, the long chapter on steps taken by European countries for reducing hours of work will be very useful, as it goes into great detail on what is happening now outside the United States. France, where a series of laws over the past 10 years have made real changes in work time, gets 11 pages of reporting. Germany, where changes have come more through collective bargaining, also gets full coverage, as do the Netherlands, Denmark, and other European countries. In short, Sharing the Work is engaging reading for both specialists and
Argentina unions challenge austerity plan
[personal translation by Nstor Gorojovsky] March 8, 2001 RESOLUTION BY THE CENTRAL CONFEDERAL BOARD WE WORKERS WILL FACE THE PROFUNDIZATION OF THE NEOLIBERAL ADJUSTMENT WITH A PROFUNDIZATION OF STRUGGLE It is already more than a decade that we are struggling in the streets of our country against the model of neoliberal adjustment imposed by Menem-Cavallo. We have always claimed that this model not only was going to generate a degree of social exclusion unprecedented in the history of the Argentineans, it was also going to produce the almost complete liquidation of the national patrimony, an explosive increase in the foreign debt, and the generalized deindustrialization of the country. We also stated that the currency board system, in combination with a complete aperture of the economy was unescapably taking us to the loss of our foreign markets, to a rise in joblessness, to the reduction of wages, and to the destruction of the domestic market. The current administration promised a change. They lied. They profoundized the model still more: Brutal tax rises (_Impuestazo_), Law imposed wage reductions, reactionary reforms to the labor code, violation of retirement rights, bribery, corruption, flexibilizatin of the workers, a rise in unemployment and underemployment, absence of an effective social protection. They forgot their so proclaimed "ethics", and they rehearsed the worst Menemist tradition. They trampled on the Constitution, and made use and abuse of the authoritarian decrees of need and urgency. We workers stood, arms crossed, we did not give up, and we keep confronting the model as well as the Administration's hypocrisy. We warned, during the mobilization against the reform of the labor code of February 24, 2000, that no spurious agreement would hide the betrayal to the popular mandate and subjection to the IMF. Since March 16th, when the new leadership took office, the CGT =in a continuation of the struggles of the previous decade- made its compromise with the workers and the Argentinean people twice as strong. Thus, we resisted -mobilized always- the labor code reform, we were brutally repressed, we denounced the most shameful mechanism used in the Senate to vote favorably laws that are harmful for millions of Argentineans, we repudiated the IMF imposed policies on May 31st, when 100,000 fellow countrymen answered our call in the largest global mobilization against the institution that is the badge of this perverted model, we mobilized against the wage cut (September 6) and against the economic policy (october 11), we convened and pushed forward the massive strikes of May 5, June 9 and November 23/24, and we accompanied evry protest and demonstration by the unemployed, the retired, and the struggling workers the country over. At the same time, however, we offered the Administration alternative propositions and alternative projects, in the realm of the economic as well as in that of labor relations, in health, in the fields of the institutional and the social, with a clear national and popular contents, without receiving a single answer. We made active part in social concertation with the sectors and organizations of industrial production, of agriculture and trade, with social and labor organizations within the Board of Consensus proposed by the Church, which the Government also dismissed. De la Ra, insensitive to the voice of the people, made the same measures deeper, and as an unescapable consequence of the model brought the country to default. It was at this moment when the creditors invented the famous "shield" as a magical solution, when in fact it was just a mechanism to ha ve the international financial usury cashing the money that the Argentinean people would go on paying. The false expectations that a reactivation of economy and a growth in employment would be obtainde by this method vanished in less than one month. Now, they have pulled the mask off. The Administration expresses the model. And they have installed the crudest version of the orthodoxy: Lpez Murphy and the Talibans of the market, the FIEL fundamentalists. We Argentineans know them very well. They are the same ones who together with Martnez de Hoz and the military dictatorship broke the law in 1976 and began, genocide included, the assault against national and popular interest. These are the same ideologues who, all along these years, managed to impose reductions of wages, massive layoffs, the destruction of social security and of labor organizations, as well as the reduction of the sovereign State, the ellimination of constitutional rights and guarantees, an overall weakening of democracy, and brought on us this actual social genocide that has been imposed on the Argentineans of today. They represent the purest essence of this model of savage capitalism. That is why we can clearly state that clowns are not enough any more. The circus owner has had to hold the helm in person: the IMF, the usury of financial
