Introduction
John Clarke, a former major organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), wrote the following on his Facebook page on August 21:
The term ‘temporary foreign worker’ is very much in the eye of the exploiter. It also expresses the essential features of a profoundly unjust and unequal world order.Canadian employers get a supply of vulnerable and highly exploitable ‘foreign’ workers to be used at their convenience and then discarded. In that very limited and ugly sense, these people are ‘temporary.’ For them, their families and their communities, however, things appear very differently.The poverty and warped development of their countries, because of the domination of rich and powerful nations, forces these workers to uproot their lives and work abroad. Without effective rights and entirely expendable, they labour until the arrangement runs out. They then, as far as their exploiters and those who enable them are concerned, simply disappear.The lives that these workers live beyond their time as ‘temporary foreign workers,’ is of no consequence to those with the power over them. How they get on with their lives, what becomes of their families and the places they live in, simply doesn’t matter.This monstrous system needs to be challenged and defeated. This doesn’t mean closing the door to these workers, however. It means opening it for them and welcoming them permanently as people with the same rights as everyone else.
The Need to Link Up the Superexploitation of Workers with the Regular Exploitation of Workers
Socialists undoubtedly should fight to oppose such superexploitation. However, they should on such occasions also emphasize the regular exploitation of workers by “good employers.” To refrain from connecting such regular exploitation to superexploitation leaves a wide-open gap for social democrats or social reformers to idealize working for an employer and merely criticizing aberrations from regular exploitation.
A similar lack of linking up the superexploitation of workers to the regular exploitation of workers is seen in a recent article written by him (see https://www.counterfire.org/article/bidens-border-crackdown/).
I have already criticized Clarke’s failure to link up a criticism of the superexploitation of workers and the regular exploitation of workers (see Pointing Out the Superexploitation of Workers Still Requires Connections to the Regular and Unacknowledged Exploitation of Workers). There seems to be a pattern emerging in Clarke’s treatment of the exploitation of workers.
It is easy to imagine union reps and many workers thinking: ‘Oh, those poor superexploited workers. They should receive the same treatment–as unionized workers (or at least workers covered by employment law and employment standards). They should have decent jobs, fair wages and a fair contract.’ The standard of working for an employer is not criticized–just deviations from the standard. What is necessary, of course, is that the standard of working for any employer as legitimate needs to be criticized–constantly.
Clarke will be giving a course soon on organizing for union and community activists:
Conclusion
Let us hope that he will make it a point to emphasize that there is regular exploitaiton of workers and that regular exploitation must be abolished if we are to actually win–and not just the superexploitation of workers. Discussions around this issue are vital if a working-class movement against the class of power of employers is to get off the ground by aiming for a socialist society without employers.
Ignoring the regular exploitation of workers will lead, ultimately, to reformist politics and failure since it will not challenge the cliches of the union movement, such as “decent work or jobs,” “fair wages,” “good contracts.” Workers need to develop a sense that working for any employer involves exploitation and oppression if they are to aim in creating a socialist society worthy of their working, community and family lives.
The Abolitionary 