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NEWS & LETTERS, April 2002
Column: Workshop Talks by Htun Lin
Why do risky jobs? "The capitalist mode of production produces, thus,
with the extension of the working day, not only the deterioration of human labor
power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development
and function. It produces also the premature exhaustion and death of this
labor-power itself. It extends the laborer's time of production during a given
period by shortening his actual lifetime." -Karl Marx Since Marx wrote those words, we workers have fought and
won the battle for a normal eight-hour working day. Because we have now been
made to compete with offshore production in dictatorial countries, we're
fighting the same old battles and losing those gains, often with the help of
union bureaucrats condoning restructuring schemes. U.S. workers are now experiencing what Third World
workers everywhere have: toiling under the despotism of an exploitative system
based on layers of subcontracting. Muslim women in Malaysia, making Nike shoes
in Korean-subcontracted factories, are no longer the only ones suffering from
such a system. A case in point is a U.S. worker, Mario Echazabal, who
worked at Chevron's California refineries for some 20 years as a subcontractor.
He applied to Chevron for a permanent position with benefits and greater job
security. But Chevron turned him down once they discovered that he had a liver
problem. They said further exposure to chemicals would damage his liver.
Undeterred, he reapplied, but this time, Chevron not only turned him down, they
went ahead and fired him as an independent subcontractor. Chevron had absolutely no problem with this man being
exposed to chemicals on the job for 20 years, until he decided to become a
permanent employee. So he sued, using the Americans with Disabilities Act. The
lower court sided with the worker. Chevron appealed to the Supreme Court. During the Supreme Court hearing, Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor suggested that this was a "very strange case," because
"why would anyone want to do a job that might kill them or at least cause
them serious harm?" This question could only be asked in a world completely
imbued with the separation between mental and manual labor. One may ask why every day workers do expose themselves
to well-known harmful situations in 1001 ways. One may also ask why it is such a
mystery to great "legal minds" such as O'Connor that workers don't
just walk away from it all. Every concrete labor task, every job, exists under
capitalism not for the benefit of the worker but only insofar as abstract-labor
contributes to an ever-growing accumulation of capital. Workers, as a category, can't "just walk
away." For every worker that successfully walks away, two more fill his
shoes, at perhaps half the pay and twice the speed. Even when we
"walk" temporarily, as in a strike, the ultimate goal is to return to
the workplace in much improved conditions. On the other hand, a company like Chevron reserves the
right to walk away from its 20-year relationship with a worker. It is not the
health of Echazabal that Chevron is concerned about. His firing is not
meant to minimize this employee's health risks. When capitalists talk about "minimizing
risks," they mean financial risks. The collateral damage of this process is
the worker and "the premature exhaustion and death of ...
labor-power." After Chevron gets rid of this worker, having enjoyed his
labor for 20 years, with absolutely no obligations for his health or welfare,
the same harsh conditions of labor remain intact on the shop floor. There human beings are treated as so much used up
equipment to be discarded to make room for a whole new generation of "human
capital" to be harnessed to the next generation of super fast machines.
That's why workers can't just walk away. Paid or unpaid, all labor is forced labor-every minute
of it. Under capitalism, workers do not have a choice. The only real choice
workers have as a class is the ongoing struggle to regain control of not only
the fruits of our labor, but also the labor process itself. The case of Mario Echazabal may seem like that of one
lone worker, but it is the plight of workers everywhere. Where capital has the
prerogative to move swiftly anywhere it pleases, workers are increasingly
trapped. Marx foresaw the power of expanding capital to "tear down every
Chinese Wall." Some bureaucrats offer temporary nationalistic and
anti-environment solutions. While they may gain a few jobs here and there, they
end up isolating our struggles. But if we see our various plights concretely, it
means seeing them universally, as one struggle. We have nothing to lose but our
collective misery and a whole new world to gain. |
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