Dear Andy,
I hate to send this over the list but I could not get a messge through to you
at the email address listed. Please resend me the list of sources for my
appendix plus anything else you think would be good. Thanks.
Michael yates
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Andrew C. Pollack wrote:
> 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
>
> >
> >
