Introduction
John Clarke, former major organizer of the defunct Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), recently posted the following:
Solidarity with the Air Canada flight attendants and full support for their just demands.
Radical leftists should certainly support the flight attendants’ struggles, including being paid while working for an employer.
Radical Leftists Need to Link Visible Exploitation to Invisible or Hidden Exploitation
However, this aspect is only the visible (though not recognized economically recognized) aspect of the flight attendants’ situation. Flight attendants, like other Air Canada workers and indeed all private-sector workers (if not also public-sector workers), necessarily work for free for employers–they are necessarily exploited (see for example The Rate of Exploitation of Workers at Air Canada, One of the Largest Private Employers in Canada or The Rate of Exploitation of General Motors Workers.). In addition to the 35 hours of free work provided per month when the airplane is not moving, flight attendants also provide from 31 to 33 hours of labour for free while the airplane is moving (see The President of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) Opposes the Visible Exploitation of Workers but Does Not Oppose the Hidden Exploitation of Workers).
Clarke, despite superficial references to the exploitation of workers in his writings (see for example Review of the Pamphlet “Climate Change is a Class Issue” by Sarah Glynn and John Clarke, Part Three), provides no link to a criticism of the visible exploitation of Air Canada flight attendants and the invisible exploitation of not only Air Canada flight attendants and not even the invisible exploitation of Air Canada workers in general but also the invisible exploitation of all private-sector workers working for an employer since their exploitation is the source of private-sector profits (a surplus of value beyond the costs of production to the employers).
We can see how little Clarke enlightens workers about the nature of the exploitation of workers in general from some of the comments on his post:
Pati Habermann
No worker should be forced to do work for free!!! SOLIDARITY!!!Lynn Peck
I don’t think the majority of people were aware of just how much UNPAID work flight attendants were expected to carry out. It’s criminal.Steve Sepulchre
Greedy airlines treating cabin personnel as cheap labour. Shame on those companies!
Do any of these people believe that working for a private-sector employer is “criminal?” Do they believe that workers who work for private-sector employers are forced to work for free for such employers? Do not all private-sector employers treat personnel as one way or another–as costs and try to minimize what they pay?
Conclusion
Clarke provides zero enlightenment to workers about the general nature of exploitation in a society dominated by the class of employers. His post in fact reinforces such union cliches as “fair wages.” How can there be such a thing as fair wages if workers in the private sector are necessarily exploited–that is to say, work for part of the working day for free (and the rest of the working day under the command of management)?
Workers deserve better than this.
The Abolitionary 