The Rate of Exploitation of Workers at Air Canada, One of the Largest Private Employers in Canada

The following applies to Air Canada workers before the COVID-19. The situation undoubtedly has changed since then since the airline industry has suffered disproportionately an economic crisis relative to some other industries (such as food production).

In another post, I presented the twenty largest employers in Canada according to level of profit (see A Short List of the Largest Private Employers in Canada, According to Profit). One of those employers is Air Canada, a privatized airline company (that used to be under public ownership).

I have tried to calculate the rate of exploitation of workers of Magna International in an earlier post (see The Rate of Exploitation of Workers at Magna International Inc., One of the Largest Private Employers in Toronto, Part One); Magna International is one of the largest employers in Toronto.

I decided to look at the annual report of some of the largest private companies in Toronto and Canada if they are available in order to calculate the rate of exploitation at a more micro level than aggregate rates of surplus value at the national or international level. Politically, this is necessary since social democrats here in Toronto (and undoubtedly elsewhere) vaguely may refer to exploitation–while simultaneously and contradictorily referring to “decent work” and “fair contracts.” Calculating even approximately the rate of exploitation at a more micro level thus has political relevance.

Conclusions First

I am going to begin with a conclusion, and then explain what it means and how it is calculated so that the reader understands where I am headed in the calculations:

For every hour worked that produces her/his wage, a worker at Air Canada works around an additional 42 minutes for free for Air Canada.

In a 6-hour work day, the worker produces her/his wage in about 3.5 hours and works 2.5 hours for free for Air Canada. Of course, during the time that the worker produces her/his own wage, s/he is subject to the power of management and hence is also unfree (see, for instance, Management Rights, Part Four: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario and Employers as Dictators, Part One).

In an 8-hour work day, the worker produces her/his wage in about 5 hours 36 minutes and works for 2 hours and 24 minutes free for Air Canada.

In a 12-hour day, the worker produces her/his wage in about 8 hours 24 minutes and works for free for 3 hours 36 minutes for Air Canada.

Of course, social democrats refer to this situation, in one way or another, as “fair.” They do so by using such terms as “fair contract,” “free collective bargaining,” “fairness,” “economic justice,” “good contract,” “decent work,” “companies paying their fair share of taxes” and similar rhetoric. Such rhetoric, rather than enlightening workers about their situation, actually hide it. The working class deserves better than this ideology.

The Nature of the Rate of Exploitation

But what is the rate of exploitation? And why not use the usual rate of profit or the rate of return? The rate of profit is calculated as profit divided by investment. Since employers purchase both the means for work–buildings, computers, office supplies, raw material–and hire workers–we can classify investment into two categories: c, meaning constant capital, or the capital invested in commodities other than workers; and v, or variable capital, the capital invested in the hiring of workers for a certain period of time (wages, salaries and benefits).

The purpose of investment in a capitalist economy is to obtain more money (see The Money Circuit of Capital), and the additional money is surplus value when it is related to its source: workers working for more time than what they cost to produce themselves. The relation between surplus value and variable capital (or wages and salaries) is the rate of surplus value or the rate of exploitation, expressed as a ratio: s/v.

When the surplus is related to both c and v and expressed as a ratio, it is the rate of profit: s/(c+v).

In Marxian economics, you cannot simply use the economic classifications provided by employers and governments since such classifications often hide the nature of the social world in which we live. The rate of profit underestimates the rate of exploitation since the surplus value is related to total investment and not just to the workers. Furthermore, it makes the surplus value appear to derive from both constant capital and variable capital.

How I Calculated the Rate of Exploitation of Air Canada Workers

I calculated the conclusion as follows:

The income statement is broken into the following categories for 2019 (in millions of Canadian dollars) :

Total revenue: $19,131
Total operating expenses: $17,481

Wages, salaries and benefits: $3,184
Aircraft fuel: $3,862
Regional airlines expense:

Aircraft fuel: $485
Other: $1,95

Depreciation and amortization: $1,986

Aircraft maintenance: $1,004

Airport and navigation fees: $990

Sales and distribution costs: $874

Ground package costs: $627

Catering and onboard services: $445

Communications and information technology: $397

Other: $1,671

Operating income: $1,650
Non-operating income (expense) [if it is income according to standard accounting practices, it has no parentheses; if it is an expense, it is within parentheses and needs to be subtracted–but see below): $125

Foreign exchange gain (loss): $499
Interest income: $164
Interest expense: ($515)
Interest capitalized: $35
Net financing expense relating to employee benefits: ($39)
Gain (loss) on financial instruments recorded at fair value: $23
Gain on debt settlements and modifications: $6
Gain (loss) on disposal of assets: $13
Other: ($61)

Income before income taxes: $1,775 (adding operating income and non-operating income (expense) together)

Some explanation of “interest capitalized” is in order. I have had difficulty in understanding the nature of “Interest capitalized.” As far as I can tell, interest that is normally paid and is an expense for the particular employer is treated, in Marxian economics, as part of surplus value because, at the macro level, it comes from the surplus value produced by the workers. Interest capitalized seems to be different since the interest charged on money borrowed for the purpose of the construction of fixed assets (with a specific interest rate attached to it) is “capitalized,” or not considered part of interest expenses until the construction is finished and the fixed asset is ready to use. This accounting distinction, however, from the macro point of view, is irrelevant since both interest expenses and interest capitalized are derived from the surplus value produced by workers (or appropriated from them in another industry). Accordingly, both interest expenses and interest capitalized should be added to the amount of “Income before income taxes” category.

The adjusted “Income before income taxes” therefore is: ($1775 +$515)=$2,290 (interest capitalization has already been added to income so there is no need to add it here).

Another necessary adjustment relates to the category and amount “Net financing expense relating to employee benefits: ($39)”. Pension-related expenses should probably form part of wages and hence should be shifted to “operating expenses.” This shift does not change the surplus value produced nor the “Income before income taxes” category; it just changes the distribution of expenses, from “Non-operating income (expense) to “Total operating expenses” by way of increasing the category “Wages, salaries and benefits” by $39; the category “Wages, salaries and benefits” are therefore $3,223.

The final calculations with adjustments before determining the rate of surplus value are:

Total revenue: $19,131
Total operating expenses: $17,520
Operating income: $1611
Non-operating income: $640
Income before income taxes: $2251

To calculate the rate of surplus value, we need to relate “Income before income taxes” to “Wages, salaries and benefits.” So, with the adjustments in place:, s=2251; v=3223. The rate of exploitation or the rate of surplus value=s/v=2251/3223=70%.

That means that for every hour worked that produces her/his wage, a worker at Air Canada works around an additional 42 minutes for free for Air Canada.

In a 6-hour work day, the worker produces her/his wage in about 3.5 hours and works 2.5 hours for free for Air Canada. Of course, during the time that the worker produces her/his own wage, s/he is subject to the power of management and hence is unfree (see, for instance, Management Rights, Part Four: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario and Employers as Dictators, Part One).

In an 8-hour work day, the worker produces her/his wage in about 5 hours 36 minutes and works for 2 hours and 24 minutes free for Air Canada.

In a 12-hour day, the worker produces her/his wage in about 8 hours 24 minutes and works for free for 3 hours 36 minutes for Air Canada.

I have used the lengths of the working day as 6, 8 and 12 because the length of the working day varies. According to one source:

As a customer service agent, you ll work from 3:00 am, 4:00 am and 5:00 am morning shifts, or 11:00 am, 12:00 pm, 2:00 pm. Afternoon shifts. Not sure about night shifts as I never work any of them. Part time is 6 hrs per day and full time can be 8-16 hrs. per day. You can exchange shifts, give away shifts, trade, pick or even parcial shifts. That part helps a lot when you need a day or 2 off.

Social-Democratic Rhetoric Neglects the Wider Context that Reveals the Exploitation of Workers

Of course, social democrats refer to this situation, in one way or another, as “fair.” They do so by using such terms as “fair contract,” “free collective bargaining,” “fairness,” “economic justice,” “good contract,” “decent work,” “companies paying their fair share of taxes” and similar rhetoric. Such rhetoric, rather than enlightening workers about their situation, actually hides it. The working class deserves better than this ideology.

By neglecting the fact of exploitation, other social democrats draw incorrect political conclusions. Thus, there are social democrats who try to claim that we need to reform the police rather than abolish it (see, for example, Reform versus Abolition of Police, Part Two) because workers have property. Some workers in the more developed capitalist countries do indeed have property (and fewer, of course, in the less developed capitalist countries), but they obtain that property by being exploited in the first place. If they understood that, would they support the police, whose main function is to protect the power of the employer to exploit them (and, only secondarily, to protect them and their own property)?

If the above calculations can be improved in any way, please comment on the above. I have been unable to find many guideposts about how to calculate the rate of exploitation or the rate of surplus value at the level of particular companies.

Implied Management Rights in a Collective Agreement in Mexico: Workers’ Obligations and Prohibitions

When looking at collective agreements in Mexico, I was unable to find a readily available management rights clause. Perhaps there are some, and if anyone has information concerning them, please make a comment so that I can incorporate them into this blog.

However, perhaps Mexican management rights are expressed in a different way. The obligations and prohibitions of employees, of course, is the other side of the coin of management rights.

I did find that Mexican collective agreements do contain provisions that specify the obligations and prohibitions of workers. For example, in the collective agreement in force from 2016 until 2018 between El Instituto Nacional Para la Educacion de Adultos (ENPA) (National Institute for Adult Education) and the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educacion para Adultos (SNTEA) (National Union of Adult Education Workers), pages 50-57, indicates various obligations (clause 87) and prohibitions (clause 88).

Below is a rough translation of some provisions from Clause 87, page 50. Since I am not a translator, the translation is approximate:

The following are obligations of the workers, in addition to those imposed by law:

II. Attend conscientiously to the carrying out of their work;
III. Carry out the functions appropriate to their job with intensity and care, abiding by the directives of their bosses, laws and rules;
IV. Obey the orders and instructions that they receive from their superiors in matters relevant to the carrying out of their service;
V. Fulfill orders that are dictated in order to confirm one’s attendance;
VI. Contribute with total efficiency within their powers and functions to the realization of the programs of the Institute and keep in all their acts total dedication and loyalty to the Institute;

Do these provisions express a “fair contract?” Or does it express a situation of hierarchy, where workers, because they lack control over the conditions of their work and employers control those means, are expected to follow the orders of their “superiors” unless they are willing to face punishment in one form or another?

Do these provisions express the freedom of workers? Or do they express their lack of freedom?

From Clause 88, pages 54, 56

It is forbidden for workers:

VIII. To foment by whatever means disobedience to their superiors;
XXXIII. To realize acts that relax the discipline that must rule in the workplace.

The same questions could be asked about these provisions.

The left here in Toronto (and in Canada in general), however, are incapable of answering such questions. They do not ask such questions. There is no discussion of such questions. Such is the lack of democracy in Canada these days.

Should we not be discussing such issues? If so, why are we not? What can be done to stimulate discussion of these and related issues?

What do you think?

Son obligaciones de los trabajadores, ademas de los que imponen las leyes, las siguientes:

II.

Unions and the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Critique of a Social-Democratic View, Part Two

This is a continuation of commentary on an article written by Professor Tufs (geography professor, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) (see https://socialistproject.ca/2020/05/covid19-and-actually-existing-unions/).

In my last post, I pointed out that Professor Tuft’s reference to Sam Gindin’s call for restructured and more radical unions is inadequate. Rather than addressing directly the issue of the inadequacy of modern-day unions in addressing the problems which workers face, Professor Tuft shuffles off the issue to Mr. Gindin. This shift permits Professor Tuft to focus almost exclusively on the creation of stop-gap measures to address the possible crisis in unions as a result of the pandemic.

Let us now turn to his discussion of reformed unions. He points out that many unions are not created by the members themselves in any real sense of the workers organizing themselves into a fighting unit that functions to protect the common interests of its members I take it that that is what he means by the following:

There is also the reality that the current structures of the labour movement are limited. Rank-and-file members are not mobilized to self-organize.

Such a criticism needs elaboration, but Professor Tuft fails to do so. The very nature of modern unions (at least in Canada and the United States) as organizations whose primary function is to negotiate collective agreements, sets limits to the self-organizing capacity of unions–as long as they accept the model of “free collective bargaining” as somehow beyond criticism. Unions could develop the capacity to see collective bargaining and collective agreements as merely contracts forced upon them due to the inevitable power imbalance between the working class and the class of employers rather than somehow being “fair,” and they could also come to see such expressions as “decent work” as ideological in the bad sense of the word–of covering up the reality of the exploitation and oppression of workers.

By being vague, Professor Tuft fails to specify what he means by self-organize, and he thereby permits himself the luxury of not confronting the general limitations of unions, of collective bargaining and collective agreements. To openly call into question the center around which modern unions revolve–collective bargaining and collective agreements–would threaten the interests of many representatives of modern unions and thereby expose Professor Tuft to insults and ridicule by the social-reformist left.

Professor Tuft mentions another limitation of unions–they address mainly only the interests of their immediate employed members and not the unemployed. He mentions the construction trades as an exception:

But there is the larger problem that labour organizations are simply not oriented toward the unemployed. Some unions such as the building trades maintain relationships with unemployed workers through hiring-hall ‘lists’. But this is an exception.

Professor Tuft fails to show how the lack of orientation towards the unemployed by unions is a larger problem. Rather, the lack of orientation towards the unemployed is interrelated with the focus on collective bargaining and the collective agreement. Since unions focus on collective bargaining and collective agreements, and since unemployed workers have limited or no rights under such agreements (such as call-back rights), workers covered by a collective agreement who lose their job generally “vanish” or cease to exist as far as unions are practically concerned. The issue of unions not being oriented towards the unemployed is thus linked to the issue of their focus being collective bargaining and the collective agreement.

To be sure, workers in construction unions do not vanish from the union; they form part of a list to be hired. Professor Tufts does not explore this exception at all to determine whether it overcomes the limitations of traditional unions. (My brother, by the way, worked as a construction labourer in Calgary and a few other places in Alberta, Canada, when he was younger, and he evidently found the work not only difficult but exhausting.)

The construction industry is seasonal , and therefore many workers have only temporary jobs. Once their work for a particular employed has ended, they form part of a list to be hired by a pool of employers in the construction industry. The reason why the relation of the laid off member to the union is maintained, therefore, is because the worker is potentially employable by many different employers.

The hiring-hall list converts unions in the construction industry into, in some ways, a temporary job agency. From Michael Duke, Luke Bergmann, Genevieve Ames (2010), “Competition and the Limits of Solidarity among Unionized Construction Workers,” in Anthropology of Work Review, Volume 31, Number 2, page 85:

…the union serves as a job broker between workers and employers. In this capacity, union representatives from a given Local receive notice of job openings at particular job sites, and are tasked with providing those employers with workers from the union’s membership roster. The duration of these jobs varies widely, from 1 or 2 days to more or less permanent employment, resulting in many workers facing a continual struggle to receive a steady paycheck, and a continuous jockeying among members for jobs.

In addition to the seasonal nature of construction work, there is the additional but related fact that workers in the construction industry often work for a number of employers during a year and not just one employer. Construction workers go from periods of employment with one employer to periods of unemployment and then periods of employment with, possibly, a different employer.

There is, however, a major difference between this function as performed by construction unions and temporary agencies. Construction unions try to smooth out the distribution of work so as to make the system fairer as a whole for the construction workers in the union. Page 89:

There is little doubt that the hiring list benefits job seekers by reducing the influence of
favoritism, connections, and other influences that privilege some workers over others, and by spreading the risk of joblessness more or less equally among those on its roles.

Like most features of worker organizations in a capitalist society, though, the hiring-hall list is a double-edged sword. Being on the list is an expression of being unemployed, and in particular being at the bottom of the list expresses the likelihood of being unemployed for a longer period of time than many workers can afford. Page 89:

At the same time, the list represents a potent symbol of this alienation for these workers, in
that it provides a constant reminder of the temporary nature of their employment, and of the ephemeral quality of relationships on the job site.More centrally, the list represents for members the limits of union solidarity, the loss of a common stake in work and job security, and, ultimately, the alienation of laborers from the work they produce and the relationships that develop through that work.

A hiring-hall list does indeed maintain a relationship between workers and the union even when there is no specific employment relationship–but because the union functions in part as a temporary work agency, it also functions in part as an oppressive mechanism. A union that overcomes one of the limitations of collective bargaining–being connected to the union only by being connected to an employer (or set of employers in the case of more centralized bargaining)–often involves contradictions in other areas (such as the oppressive function of a temporary hiring agent).

Therefore, even when unions expand their functions to those beyond collective bargaining and collective agreements, they become involved in further contradictions that they cannot resolve. They are limited institutions for the self-organization of the working class. These limitations should be admitted and addressed.

Nevertheless, the issue of the unemployed not being organized by unions is certainly important. Employed and unemployed workers form, in general, part of one and the same working class.

Employed workers are united (temporally, during the working day) with the means of their work (buildings, machines, tables, floors, raw material, computers, and so forth). After work, they too , like their unemployed counterparts, become separated not only physically but also socially from those means (they do not own and control them).

The unemployed are separated physically and socially from all means of production for a shorter or longer period of time. Of course, some who work for employers may become unemployed, and some who are unemployed may become employed again. There is a often a change of who is employed and who is unemployed, due in great part to the changing needs of employers and, to some extent, the changing needs of workers (workers are not tied to a specific employer but can quit and try to find another employer to hire them).

Both groups of workers form part of the working class as class. As members of a class, those who work for a particular employer also are working for the class of employers. No particular worker can work at any particular activity for any length of time without other workers producing both the means of production (machines, computers, phones, raw material, pens, pencils, tables and so forth) with which the worker works. In other words, there is a division of labour, where other workers are working for other employers in a system of interdependence. (Such interdependence has recently been experienced by some workers because of the coronavirus epidemic–as some workers stopped working, so too did others since they depended on other workers for the resources or means of production required to produce in their particular sphere). Or, as Thomas Hodgskin (1825), in his Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital, remarked (page 45):

If we push our inquiries still further, all that we can learn is, that there are other men in existence who are preparing those things we need, while we are preparing those which they need.

The source of the active army of labour, at least in Canada, is the continued births of children within Canadian borders, on the one hand, and immigrants on the other.

The workers themselves, or the active army of workers of the class of employers, however, are subject to various levels of precariousness, some more and some less since changes in technology, rates of accumulation, taxes, state expenditures and its composition, intensity of work and so forth can change employment levels. The precise composition of the active army of workers can of course also vary according to kinds and degrees of racism, sexism and so forth prevalent in and outside work.

In the world, there are “around 1.65 billion in the active labor army” (R. Jamil Jonna and John Bellamy Foster (April, 2016), “Marx’s Theory of Working-Class Precariousness – And Its Relevance Today,” in Monthly Review, page 38).

The active army of labour is always subject to more or less unstable working conditions since the workers do not control the machines, buildings, resources, raw materials and so forth that they use, but are rather subject to the immediate control of particular managers and employers and, ultimately, to the control of the pressures of the world market.

The same could be said of the unemployed: they too are subject to varying levels of precariousness and subject to varying connections to particular employers and to the class of employers in general.

There are, in general, four kinds of groups that constitute the unemployed or the reserve army of labour: floating, latent, stagnant and pauperized. From R. Jamil Jonna and John Bellamy Foster, page 26:

… the floating population consisted of workers who had a connection – if a precarious one – to the active labor army, with a recent history of employment; they constituted those who would likely be the first to be re-hired in an expansion.

A section of the unemployed that has more precarious roots in the working class is the latent surplus population. From page 26:

The next layer of the reserve army, in Marx’s description, is the latent surplus population. For the most part this refers to the (self-sustaining) segments of the agricultural (or rural) population. This population served as a vast source of potential labor for capitalist industry (hence, “latent”).

In Canada, one of the sources for this form of unemployment is probably overseas in the form of the The Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). From the Canadian government’s website:

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) allows Canadian employers to hire foreign nationals to fill temporary labour and skill shortages when qualified Canadian citizens or permanent residents are not available.

In other countries, similarly, the temporary immigrant population also form part of the latent reserve army of labour. Many students can now be considered to form part of the latent reserve army of labour.

In earlier times, women also formed part of the latent part of the reserve army of labour; employers eventually hired women, for example, for weapons factories during the Second World War. (My mother worked in a weapons factory in Toronto during part of the War.)

The third form of the unemployed or the reserve army of labour is the stagnant group: it is a very precarious section of the reserve army of labour, characterized by very low wages and superexploitation. Some workers in short-term positions, some workers for temporary agencies, day workers, workers in the informal economy and the like constitute this layer of the reserve army of labour, which is subject to very irregular work. Even some substitute teachers may form part of this group since they are effectively shut out of obtaining a permanent position as teachers and often have no hiring rights at all (as is (or was) the case for substitute teachers as members of the Winnipeg Teachers’ Association, or WTA).

Finally, the pauperized layer of the reserve army of labour constitutes the lowest layer of the reserve army of labour, which includes those incapable of working for an employer, those who live from social assistance (and who, occasionally, can be obliged to work if they are to continue to receive social assistance), those who live from petty thefts and the like. Part of those workers in the informal economy (including children) form part of this layer, including those who try to sell small amounts of commodities at an individual level.

The distribution of the active and reserve army of labour (with their various layers) can be seen from the following (page 38):

In 2013, according to International Labour Organization (ILO, 2015b) figures, the global reserve army consisted of some 2.3 billion people, compared to around 1.65 billion in the active labor army, many of whom are precariously unemployed. The number of officially unemployed at that time (corresponding roughly to Marx’s floating population) was 200 million workers. Some 1.5 billion workers were classified as “vulnerably employed” (related to Marx’s stagnant population), made up of workers working “on their own account” (informal workers and rural subsistence workers) and “contributing family workers” (domestic labor). Another 600 million individuals between the prime working ages of 25-54 were classified as economically inactive. This is a heterogeneous category but undoubtedly consists preponderantly of those of prime working age who are a part of the pauperized population.

Unions, indeed, are limited since their focus is mainly on the organized sections of the active army–although we should not forget that unions have, in various ways, fought, indirectly if not directly, for the interests of various layers of the unemployed at specific periods in their history in the form of a national pension system, part of a pension system based on the duration of residence in Canada (Old Age Security), rather than on length of employment and level of contribution, medicare and so forth.

Professor Tuft’s reference to the need for an organization dedicated to addressing the needs of the unemployed in the face of a possible decrease in the power of organized unions makes some sense–but it made sense even before the pandemic since unions often tooted the mere organization of workers into a union (and the effective enforcement of a collective agreement) as sufficient for ensuring “decent work,” a “fair contract,” “fairness” and the like.

With the emergence of the pandemic and the likely decrease in the working effectiveness of unions to protect the immediate interests of their members, on the one hand, and the increase in the need for stop-gap measures as more workers remain unemployed for a longer period of time, a gap arises that can be filled by former union representatives who also may well lose their jobs. According to Professor Tufts:

Most important, union representatives know the workers that will require a range of labour market adjustment services such as: assessment of the mental and physical health impacts of COVID-19; help with navigating emergency assistance, the CERB, and EI bureaucracies; assistance with resume writing; ensuring licenses and certifications are maintained during unemployment; counsel for workers considering early retirement; and guidance for workers considering re-training options. If the pandemic reoccurs in waves, as some have predicted, workers will shift in and out of employment and require training in COVID-19 health and safety measures. Who is going to do this work?

The federal government has allocated $350-million to help keep afloat the not-for-profit agencies providing needed services. These funds should be expanded and target labour organizations to deliver labour market adjustment services to unemployed workers. Economically, it makes sense as union communications infrastructure and staff can be efficiently deployed to assist workers. The social benefit of providing successful labour market adjustment and support is self-evident as it reduces hardship and the period of unemployment.

This solution seems to be reasonable in the face of the likely increased instability of both the active army of workers and the reserve army of labour in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, on the one hand, and the likely decreased power of unions on the other. This situation will, of course, vary between sectors of the economy and over time; in other words, some groups of the active working class will be more subject to increased precariousness as will some groups of the reserve army when compared to their situation before the pandemic and when compared to other groups of workers in the active army or in the reserve army.

Professor Tuft’s solution is to call for Workers’ Resource Centres to address the problem of the unemployed. Such centres would link active workers with unemployed workers and the community:

Politically and practically, resource centres make sense. ‘Actually existing’ unions have been in decline for decades. Serving all working people and entire communities rather than just employed members is fundamental to making unions relevant during the crisis. It also gives union staff work to do during a slow recovery that might preserve some institutional integrity that will be needed to fight inevitable workplace restructuring and austerity. As sectors recover, unions will be crucial in advocating for sufficient staffing levels and new COVID-19 related health and safety protocols.

This solution is certainly worthy of consideration–but of course it is hardly sufficient. The present-day workers’ action centres are entirely reformist and aim to address the immediate needs of workers without taking into consideration their long-term needs.

Professor Tuft then shifts to wishful thinking: such resource centres might serve as transitional organizations for a “green economy”:

A workers’ resource centre approach is admittedly full of contradictions and compromises. But we need realistic options for presently insufficient unions to survive in the short-term and meet workers material needs. Indeed, such efforts should be seen as part of building capacities for more transformative demands and actions. This may very well include expanding resource centre mandates in the future to administrate ‘just-transition’ supports for workers as economies adapt to green production. COVID-19 is a potentially transformative event for organized labour, but a sober analysis of what is possible to meet the needs of unemployed workers at this moment is required alongside aspirational calls.

He pays lip service to the “contradictions and compromises” that such workers’ resource centres would experience since funding for such centres would likely come from government coffers by way of funding community organizations and other non-governmental organizations:

It would not cost the government a great deal as these services will, in any case, need to be delivered by community organizations.

Professor Tuft implies that such organizations could somehow be self-organizations of the working class. What is more likely is that they will become at best reformist organizations like their trade union counterparts or, worse, even more restricted in their functions because of their dependence on the government for their continued functioning. Such a situation is hardly an expression of self-organization. Professor Tufts, like his social-reformist comrades, fails to address the limitations that workers’ resource centres would likely face that would prevent them from being institutions of self-organization. Professor Tufts, then, like his social-democratic or social reformist comrades, fails to address the limitations of such institutions.

Furthermore, the idea that such centres could be the stepping stone to “green production” is wishful thinking since a really green economy could only arise through the abolition of a society characterized by the class power of employers and the infinite increase of money–at the expense of human beings and this planet (see The British Labour Party’s 2019 Manifesto: More Social Democracy and More Social Reformism, Part One).

Professor Tuft’s proposal for workers’ resource centres, from his point of view, then, undoubtedly express a “realistic option” for the self-organization of workers.

From my point of view, by contrast, his proposal will foster illusions of the self-organization of the working class while, in reality, perpetuating the exploitation and oppression of the working class by employers. His proposal is only realistic for social reformers and not for workers who reject the legitimacy of working for any employer.

It is necessary to link the interests of the unemployed and the employed by creating a common goal of controlling their life process through controlling the conditions of that life process–which is currently owned and controlled by the class of employers and protected by a government responsive to the need to reproduce itself in and through the protection of such forms of property and control. That common goal cannot arise without critiquing workers’ organizations that may have some independence from the class of employers locally or at the micro level but that operate at the macro level to confine the class struggle to limits set by the structural economic, political and social conditions characteristic of a society dominated by a class of employers.

Critical Education Articles Placed in the Teacher Staff Lounge While I Was a Teacher, Part Five: The Division Between the Intellectual and the Manual or Physical

This is a continuation of earlier posts.

When I was a French teacher at Ashern Central School, in Ashern, Manitoba, Canada, I started to place critiques, mainly (although not entirely) of the current school system. At first, I merely printed off the articles, but then I started to provide a summary of the article along with the article. I placed the summaries along with the articles in a binder (and, eventually, binders), and I placed the binder in the staff lounge.

As chair of the Equity and Justice Committee for Lakeshore Teachers’ Association of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS), I also sent the articles and summary to the Ning of the MTS (a ning is “an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks”). The Ning was a social network for chairs of various Equity and Justice Committees of the Manitoba Teachers Society to communicate with each other.

As I pointed out in a previous post, it is necessary for the radical left to use every opportunity to question the legitimacy of existing institutions.

The context of summaries related to the brain was that Neil MacNeil, the principal of Ashern Central School, where I worked, started talking about “brain research’ and how teachers needed to implement such research in their daily teaching practice. He even placed an article on brain research in our school mailboxes. As a consequence, I researched the issue and provided critical summaries that critiqued his reductionist view of human intelligence as “brain work.”

Such critiques are relevant for socialists since the issue of the division of labour between intellectual and manual labour is something that needs to be abolished as socialism proceeds. The reduction of intelligence to “brain work” reflects the one-sided division of labour between intellectual labour and manual labour and needs to be opposed.

Hello everyone,

I sent the attached articles to the ESJ Ning and put them in a binder in the staff lounge. Indirectly, they are a critical response to an article that the principal of Ashern Central School recommended (he sent it to us as an attachment and put it in our mail box).

I prefaced the articles with the following:

The author of the following article, “The Ontogeny of Consciousness: John Dewey and Myrtyle McGraw’s Contribution to a Science of Mind,” (as well the additional article by the same author, “Myrtyle McGraw’s Neurobehavioral Theory of Development”) (Thomas C. Dalton) provides a counterargument to “brain-based research” that is reductionist, that is to say, that reduces explanations of human behaviour primarily in terms of biological changes in the brain due to maturation. The emergence of neural structures in the brain is just as much a function of experience as it is a function of biological maturation.

Before providing a summary of the article, a few words are in order to clarify why the article is important for educators. Evolutionary theory informs us that living bodies evolved before the emergence of the central nervous system and the brain. Should not educators take such evolution into account when performing research into the nature and functions of the brain? Is the control of the body irrelevant for learning—as those who focus on academic subjects imply? Or is the control of the body central to the learning process?

Since evolutionary theory involves an inseparable connection of the body of a living being with an environment —life is a process that involves simultaneously living beings (with a body) and an environment—then evolutionary theory must include relations between the living being’s body and the living being’s environment. Often, though, brain studies simply ignore the environment (and hence the body)—thereby distorting evolutionary theory while claiming to rely on it. Similarly, the denigration of the body in modern schools finds its reflection in disembodied brain studies—as if human beings were pure beings of the brain, disconnected from their environment.

Since control of the body (and the life process) is denigrated in schools (academic subjects are the focus), there is little wonder that some early brain research remains hidden to many educators. Such research contradicts the school system’s emphasis on academic subjects and the assumption that disembodied “brain research” constitutes the ultimate in research.

Dewey’s theory of human development is based on Darwin ’s theory of evolution, but Dewey incorporates systematically Darwin ’s insights into his theory rather than reductionist and superficial views of Darwin ’s theory of natural selection (typical of much “brain-based” research) . So-called brain studies, for instance, that refer to Darwin’s theory of evolution often simply ignore the body and go directly to the brain, drawing false conclusions based on their own unanalyzed assumptions.
Turning now to the article mentioned above, the author provides a description of some of John Dewey’s research concerns and how his protégé, Myrtyl McGraw, developed a research program related to infant development, especially the relation between an infant’s and toddler’s bodily movements up to erect locomotion and the development of the infant’s brain in the context of a doubtful or problematic situation.

The more specific issue was the relationship between consciousness and habit in the context of a problematic situation.

The author outlines some aspects of Dewey’s theory before moving to an analysis of McGraw’s work.

Dewey, in his How We Think, argued that the primary problem for the infant and toddler was control of the body. Increasing control of the body was, for the emerging consciousness of the infant/toddler, the major problem that the infant/toddler needed to solve. Dewey was interested in the relationship between the emergence of consciousness, its function, and the transfer of conscious control from the cortical region of the brain to the subcortical region of the brain in the context of the infant’s/toddler’s need to control the body.

Dewey tried to avoid the dualism of reducing all consciousness to brain states, on the one hand, or in reducing all behaviour to conscious conditions on the other.

Conscious experience in a problematic situation, which demands inquiry, can expand the capacities of the individual through, for example, enabling the infant to gain conscious control over certain movements of the body (rather than have such movements under the control of subcortical control, initially, which tended to be gross movements at best and inefficient—if such movements were forthcoming at all) and, in turn, provide a basis for further use of the body in increasingly complicated processes.

Dewey relied on Herrick’s view that inhibition of movement necessary for reflection involved the functional capacity of the cerebrum to override the cerebellum’s automatic response mechanism. Such an overriding function enabled the time necessary to anticipate events that are in the process of unfolding or may occur in the future and consequently to act accordingly. Consciousness, for Herrick, arose as central and periphereal systems were in the process of being coordinated with each other; control over the body and consciousness were not separate events. Consciousness in a functional sense is thinking, and it arises in a problematic or doubtful situation. It was the interplay of resistance and the need for control that occasioned cognitive growth (if it indeed did occur at all).

Dalton points out that Dewey considered the isolation of cognitive experiences from non-cognitive experiences is pernicious since most of who we are involves non-cognitive experiences as the background against which cognitive experiences arise and have any meaning at all. Cognitive experiences arise in a doubtful or uncertain situation (a problematic situation), that includes the whole body as well as the environment. Cognitive development may occur in such circumstances because inquiry (and judgment) is required, forcing us to expand and deepen our conscious perspective in order to overcome the difficulty.

A problematic situation, which occasions the need for inquiry and forms the basis for all learning, introduces disequilibrium into the situation; to resolve the situation in other than a trial-and-error fashion, it is necessary to separate out possibly divergent modes of action and judge them on the basis of the purpose to be achieved—an occasion for the consciousness as a function to arise.

Dewey distinguished consciousness, however, from mind. Consciousness is focal , ephemeral and explicit whereas mind is diffuse (a background), more constant or structural and implicit. As a problematic situation proceeds, shifts in consciousness from the foreground to the background (making aspects of the background—but never the whole—background the foreground) may occur.

Myrtyle McGraw’s theories and experiments with twins furnished some corroborating evidence for Dewey’s theory that intellectual or cognitive development is a function of conscious control over the body that becomes transferred to neural structures linked to bodily habits.

Consciousness is a function and not a separate entity or thing. Consciousness is a function in the context of a problematic situation, where inquiry is required before acting. Consciousness arises due to the need for judgment in a problematic situation and is not merely an irrelevant phenomenon characteristic of behaviourist theories of learning.

McGraw, through her experiments, tested Dewey’s view that is was a problematic situation that occasioned the possibility for increased (cortical) control rather than just reflex actions controlled through subcortical levels; she also tested his view that conscious control became inscribed in the body and simultaneously transferred to subcortical control.

It was the introduction of a problematic element, which interfered with normal or habitual action of the body governed by subcortical processes, into an infant’s and toddler’s experiential situation that could lead to increased control over the environment through the need for cortical control over balance and the need for judgment. It was not a mere repetition (or iteration) of motor actions; practice was insufficient. Practice must occur in the context of a problematic situation. To address a problematic situation, a delay in motor reaction is necessary so that reflection and judgment become necessary.

In McGraw’s longitudinal study and experiments with a set of twins, she found that one of the twins, when exposed to various experiences that challenged his motor judgment under conditions of uncertainty, became more pensive and better able to size up a situation by making more explicit and taking into account more relevant aspects of the problematic situation before reacting.

At a more general level, McGraw saw control of the body leading to a problematic situation as involving, a shifting center of gravity due to the movement of the body in the face of locomotion and the consequent dynamic shifting centre of gravity. Such acts as sitting up required a coordinated effort of various parts of the body to overcome gravitational forces and to maintain a sitting position in the face of such gravitational forces. McGraw hypothesized that “body sense,” or somatic sense, took precedence over the other senses in terms of the emergence of consciousness.

Alternate movements of the upper and lower body required conscious coordination for prone locomotion to occur (such as crawling), but control was at first centered on the lower part of the body, and then on the upper part of the body (with the lower part of the body being relatively inhibited from movement before the coordination of the two could arise). Each step in the control process was displaced to secondary behaviour (less consciously controlled) as a new focus for attention arose because of new problems; conscious control was gradually relinquished to subcortical control as new problems arose. The behavioural repertoire was becoming structured through the development of neural structures and bodily habits, and this repertoire formed supports for more complex structures and bodily habits to arise (as Dewey argued with his theory of consciousness and habits). As a new, more complex problem arises, however, behaviour may at first seem to regress.

Consciousness of the world arises when the child learns to sit up (it is unclear in the article, though, why this is so). Differentiation of self and objects arises when the infant is capable of reaching and pointing intentionally. Self-consciousness arises after erect locomotion leads to an awareness of a causal relation between self-initiated movement and the manipulation or movement of objects (awareness of self, presumably, is a function of awareness of a relation between intention, awareness of movement of the body and awareness of movement of an object—and the difference between them).

The problem of locomotion, whether prone or erect, requires the infant and toddler to resolve the challenge posed by balance in the face of gravitational forces that shift as the child changes in size, weight and form. Such challenges or problems as the child attempts to achieve crawling or walking constitute the basis for learning at the early stages. Judgment is required when engaged in learning to move through space, and such judgment thus contributes to the expansion of human experience as the child interacts with her environments and incorporates her judgments into her behaviours, at first at a conscious, cortical level but later at a subcortical, habitual level.

Learning, which requires judgment, involves, on the one hand, a combination of structures inscribed in neural structures and bodily habits, with both supporting functions that integrate the child with her environment, and on the other, conscious functions that enable habits to be restructured as problematic or uncertain situations provide challenges.

Learning, contrary to maturationists (those who believe that learning takes place only after physiological development at a certain level is complete—those who believe that “nature” forms the basis of all learning), can occur through the mediation of judgment and the structuring of the environment in the face of a problematic situation.

Often, in educational circles, “brain research” is presented as something new. Dewey’s early interest in brain research in relation to learning in a problematic situation, and McGraw’s research, indicate that research into the relation between the development of the brain and education arose over a century ago. However, that research links brain research to the emergence of new bodily habits as a function of judgment in the face of problems associated, in the first instance, with control of the body.

The modern school system, however, treats the body as something that can be dispensed with when learning. Experimental science in general, and Myrtle McGraw’s experiments in particular, have demonstrated the hollowness of such a view. The modern school system still suffers from a myopic view of what constitutes learning, with its emphasis on academic subjects at the expense of vocational subjects. Such a view should not be surprising—when class prejudice is considered. This class prejudice leads to one-sided individuality and reinforces a class society riveted by oppression. A hierarchy of individuals is created.

Can any teacher, in the classroom, resolve such social problems? Does not equity and social justice demand recognition of the nature and extent of the problem? If we simply ignore or turn a blind eye to such problems, are we not contributing to the problem rather than sharing in resolving it?

Fred

Socialism, Part Nine: Inadequate Conception of the Nature of Freedom and Necessity, or Free Time and Necessary Time, Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post.

In a previous post, I criticized Mr. Gindin’s view that leisure is the pure realm of freedom. (Sam Gindin is (or was) head of the Toronto Labour Committee and former research director for the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) (now Unifor)). In this post, I will criticize his view that work, being a world of necessity, requires external incentives.

Let us look at part of a previous quote from Mr. Gindin’s writing on socialism:

Furthermore, the calculation of scarcity can in particular not ignore leisure, with leisure representing the “realm of freedom.” Even if we produced enough of what we wanted, as long as some of that labor isn’t completely voluntary but instrumental, then effective scarcity of either labor time or the good/service remains. Workers may even like their jobs and see them as a source of creative expression and satisfaction, but as long as they’d periodically prefer to not show up or leave early, some further inducement is needed to offset the sacrifice of providing those labor hours. That inducement is a measure of the persistence of effective scarcity. And once scarcity is acknowledged as an inherent and essentially permanent frame in the restructuring of society, the question of structured incentives becomes paramount. This is not just a matter of motivating adequate hours of work, but of affecting its intensity and quality, and influencing where that work is best applied (i.e., determining society’s overall division of labor).

Mr. Gindin’s superficial imagination leads him to apply the current poverty of work relations, implicitly, as the standard for determining the so-called “realm of necessity.” Like leisure, which is supposed to be the pure realm of freedom, he separates freedom and necessity at work.

Consider my work at the brewery in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. When I worked at the brewery, we were obliged to work to produce not only beer, but beer for the market, and not only for the market but for the ultimate goal of more profit. We were things to be used by the employer (see https://theabolitionary.ca/the-money-circuit-of-capital/).

The riveting of material production to the goal of profit as the ultimate goal prevents workers who produce beer from reorganizing their lives both inside and outside the brewery in such a way that they can integrate their working lives with other aspects of the process of producing beer. For example, at the brewery in Calgary, there was a chemist who probably, among other things, tested the quality and properties of the beer being produced (being “only a bottling worker,” I really did not understand what the chemist did when I worked at the brewery).

Mr. Gindin tips his hand by referring to “scarcity” as somehow requiring incentives. He fails to explore what is meant by “incentives,” but implicitly assumes that all incentives are external and cannot be internal to the process which produces beer–a mechanical materialist point of view.

Under a socialist way of life, initially, workers would produce beer for others via the market. Even at this stage, here is no reason why workers could not begin to integrate a study of chemistry with the production of beer. The same could be said of the mechanics, physics and mathematics of beer production. For example, the filler–a machine for the filling of beer bottles rotated in a circular motion, with spouts attached to the machine. The velocity of rotation, the speed of the incoming bottles and so forth could be calculated and adjusted to attain certain specific rates of output and qualities of beer production (rather than being externally specified by managers as the representatives of employers).

John Dewey, an American philosopher of education, pointed out somewhere that there is no such thing as a purely biological human experience, a purely mathematical human experience, a purely physical human experience and so forth. Human experience is all those aspects and more. The apparently most mundane human act or experience contains a rich variety of potentially worthwhile pursuits that can be analyzed and pursued in ever greater depth and breadth. The production of beer can be integrated into the study of chemistry, physics, mechanics, biology, mathematics, history, geography and other sciences. Despite beer production being instrumental for the production of beer as a consumer good, it could be the point of departure for the infinite expansion of the capacities of workers who produce beer–with the only limit being their own capacities for the pursuit of such sciences and the finite period of time in which they live on this planet before dying. Workers could thus freely expand their intellectual and physical horizons even when they produce beer.

Mr. Gindin’s superficial separation of freedom and necessity at work, like his superficial separation of freedom and necessity during leisure hours (as pointed out in the previous post), leads him to false conclusions concerning the nature of work in a socialist society. This should not surprise anyone.

Mr. Gindin’s false conclusions concerning the nature of the relationship of freedom and necessity under socialism go beyond the issue of leisure and work. He claims the following in relation to education and art, among other areas of human life:

Scarcity — the need to make choices between alternative uses of labor time and resources — is unlikely to end outside of utopian fantasies because popular demands, even when transformed into collective/socialist demands, are remarkably elastic: they can continue to grow. Think especially of better health care, more and richer education, greater care for the aged, the expansion of art and of cultural spaces — all of which require labor time and generally also complementary material goods. That is, they demand choices.

In another post, I will show that Mr. Gindin’s reference to “more and richer education” can integrate–contrary to Mr. Gindin’s mechancial separation of the two–both elements of necessity and freedom. I may also address in a future post his claim that the demand for the expansion of art somehow involves the separation of necessity and freedom.