Marv Gandall wrote: "The problem with reduced hours, if not accompanied by the historic labour movement demand "at no loss in pay", is that it it represents a pay cut. Furloughing is already widespread. Absent pay protection, reduced hours shifts the responsibility for reducing unemployment to workers who bear no responsibility for it and who can least afford to alleviate it. It detracts from the need for state-sponsored job-creation measures and the (less realizable) requirement that employers reduce the work week at no loss in pay which are each a more appropriate response within this context."
At issue here is only the validity of an analysis, not the political conditions which would implement that analysis as policy. Shorter hours (if implemented) would lead almost immediately to an increase in wages, since the effect would be to create a labor shortage! And a labor surplus is the ill it aims to correct. The political 'problem' is a separate issue. But shorter hours is probably the ONLY demand that can fuel a revolutionary struggle (whether one sees "revolution" as requiring an insurrction or as achievable by "constitutional" means. Politics grounded in "exploitation" can only result in an endless reformist muddle. Politics grounded in the demand for free time is a politics grounded in the demand for human freedom. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
