Employers as Dictators, Part Three

The social-democratic left in Toronto, undoubtedly like social-democratic reformists throughout the world, continue to ignore criticisms of their attempt to equate positive reforms with the realization of adequate forms through such rhetoric as “decent work.”

Consider Elizabeth Anderson’s critique of the power of employers, page 130:

Private government at work embeds inequalities in authority,
standing, and esteem in the organizations upon which people
depend for their livelihood. Those consigned to the status of
wage worker for life have no real way out: while they can quit
any given employer, often at great cost and risk, they cannot
opt out of the wage labor system that structurally degrades and
demeans them.

The social-democratic left, however, create all kinds of euphemisms for this fact of economic dictatorship: “decent work,” “fairness,” “fair contracts,” “economic justice,” “fair compensation” and the like. In a recent post on Facebook by Tina Faibish (president of local 552 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, or OPSEU), for example, we read: “Willowdale wants decent work!”: There are people with signs saying “Minimum wage of $15 and decent work for all.” The signs also say “$15 and Fairness.”

We certainly need to fight for a higher minimum wage and improved working conditions, but why is it that the social-democratic left need to embellish such demands with such absurd claims as “decent work” and “fairness”? They apparently cannot even face the reality that employers dictate to workers every day in one way or another and that the daily lives of workers, whether they receive a higher minimum wage and improved working conditions, is decidedly not decent work and not fair.

The social-democratic left, however, would have to make a radical break with their own ideology. They, however, undoubtedly will cling to their ideology all the more in order to fend off having to face up to the reality which most people face on a daily basis. They seem incapable of dealing with that reality. They either react with hostility against those who criticize their reformist ideology (calling their critics “condescending pricks,” for example), or they will remain silent.

Thus, I made the following comment on Facebook about the issue of decent work:

Such low expectations–working for an employer=decent work? Good luck being used as a thing for employers–with or without a collective agreement. Management clauses (implicit or explicit in collective agreements) enable management–a minority–to dictate to the majority. Such is decent work in a society dominated by employers–a lack of economic democracy and the existence of dictatorship.

The response by the social-democratic left? Silence. They refuse to consider that they share the same assumptions as their conservative opponents, namely, that working for an employer can be fair and decent.

Furthermore, there is a contradictory view of whether working for an employer is decent. Thus, on the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council Facebook page, there is reference to the death of an airport worker, 24-year old Kenrick Darrell Hudson, in Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 12, 2019, where a luggage vehicle flipped, pinning the worker and killing him:

Sending love and solidarity from YYZ to the friends, family, and coworkers of the worker that lost his life last night in Charlotte.

Work smart, stay safe, and look out for one another. Airport workers across the globe share the same goal, we all want to go home safely at the end of the day.

It is difficult to see how the goal of going “home safely at the end of the day” can be achieved under conditions dictated by a class of employers and the ultimate goal of profit. After all, human beings are means to the end of profit and not their own ends (see The Money Circuit of Capital). Indeed, in a video presentation of the airport, one construction worker pointed out that “It’s like a racetrack out there” (Airline employee killed after luggage vehicle flips).

Ironically (and sadly), a few days after TAWC sent the above message to workers and family in Charlotte, North Carolina, there was an accident at the Toronto Pearson International Airport:

INCIDENT Baggage handler trapped under a tractor. Extricated by Toronto Pearson Fire. Transported to trauma centre by Peel Paramedics with serious injuries. Scene being held for investigation. Occurred on the ramp between T1 & T3.

How can safety ever be first when profit is the priority? When human beings are “costs” like other things? Was the work of that dead employee decent work before the accident but not decent afterwards? How can work be decent if it involves the possible injury of workers due to social conditions over which they lack control?

Social democrats should answer these questions, should they not?

Employers as Dictators, Part Two

Union reps typically refer to fair compensation in order to justify their short-term actions. Of course, there is nothing wrong with short-term goals as such, but when they are presented as the same as what should be a long-term goal (fairness and freedom), then such goals become an ideology that justifies the power of employers as a class.

Contrast, for example, the following quote from Ms. Anderson’s book and a discussion I had with a union rep.

From Elizabeth Anderson, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (And Why We Don’t Talk about it), page 40:

I expect that this description of communist dictatorships in our midst, pervasively governing our lives, open to a far greater degree of control than the state, would be deeply surprising to most people. Certainly many U.S. CEOs, who think of themselves as libertarian individualists, would be surprised to see themselves depicted as dictators of little communist governments. Why do we not recognize such a pervasive part of our social landscape for what it is? Should we not subject these forms of government to at least as much critical scrutiny as we pay to the democratic state?

The social-democratic left do not engage in “critical scrutiny” of the “forms of government” of employers. Rather, they use as their standard improved working conditions relative to immediate working conditions–but they leave out any reference to the need to critique the dictatorship of employers.

Thus, I had a conversation with a union rep on Facebook–Dave Janssen–on the issue of fair compensation. Mr. Janssen, according to the Facebook page, “is an integral leader with the TAWC [Toronto Airport Workers’ Council] and the IAMAW [International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers] . He continuously strives to improve safety standards and the overall working conditions for the 49,000+ workers at Toronto Pearson [International Airport].”

Here is the following conservation:

Dan Janssen is at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
June 23 at 1:59 PM · Mississauga ·
Today was the Safety Expo event at Terminal 3 for the Canadian Airports Safety Week. It was a great opportunity to speak to my coworkers at YYZ [Toronto Pearson International Airport] about the importance of coming together to improve working conditions. Amazing to see so much support for flight attendants, as they need a change to federal labour laws that will ensure they are fairly compensated for their work. TAWC: Toronto Airport Workers’ Council [Facebook page]
9 Comments
Fred Harris What determines being “fairly compensated?” Can labour laws really ever “ensure they are fairly compensated?” Or is this an illusion? A cliche? Can any amount of money be considered “fairly compensated” when the people receiving the money are used as things for other persons’ purposes?
Please explain what “fairly compensated” means. Otherwise, the reference to “fairly compensated” is a cliche and does workers a disservice.
Dan Janssen For flight attendants, being fairly compensated means actually being paid for hours worked. The current model used around the world allows FAs to be paid only when the door of the aircraft is closed prior to pushback, not for any time spent prior to the flight departing.
Fred Harris It is more fairly compensated if they are paid for hours worked. How is it fairly compensated if they receive such pay?
When I worked in a brewery, we were paid for hours worked according to that definition (of course, not for travel to and from work). If we were paid for travel time and for hours worked, would we then have been fairly compensated?
I fail to see how that can be so. Firstly, we were things to be used by employers for the end of profit–no matter what our current pay. Secondly, of course the question arises: where does the profit come from except from the workers’ labour in the first place.
Thirdly, even if there were no profit, flight attendants would still be things to be used for purposes external to their own lives; it is not they who democratically control their own working lives.
Fourthly, flight attendants operate within a social division of labour that is determined by the general structure of the economy. They are not free to choose different kinds of activities, within the limits of their time and abilities and those of other workers because they are economically dependent on an employer.
They are unfree in various ways.
Fighting for higher earnings is always necessary–to refer to “fairly compensated”–that does workers a disservice. How can any compensation be adequate to such a lack of freedom when working for an employer?
Dan Janssen I see where you are coming from. This campaign for fair compensation has been resonating with all of our coworkers in support of flight attendants since it was launched. We are open to suggestions if you would like to put forward any ideas.
Fred Harris My suggestion is: cease referring to it as fair compensation. Use the relative term “fairer” and explain why there can be no such fair compensation. Explain that workers deserve much more than that–to control their own working lives and that a fight for increasing compensation for flight attendants is one step in a link of steps to eliminate the power of employers over workers and over our lives in general.
In other words, what is needed is an approach that links up, explicitly, one particular fight against employers with a general fight against employers.
Another aspect would be to start a discussion–or campaign–to question both explicit and implicit management clauses in collective agreements. Why do they exist? Why do employers have such power? What are the implications of managerial power for the limitations of legal union power?
What of collecting several management rights clauses in various collective agreements at the airport and having discussions over such clauses via emails, to the general membership, asking them what they think about this power? What of steward training that shows the limitations of collective agreements in relation to the power of unions?
Why not expand such discussions by linking them to other aspects of power by employers (their legal power, their political power, their social power and so forth)?
Fred Harris Any responses to the suggestions?
Dan Janssen Yes Fred, please come out to one of our TAWC open meetings and put your ideas forward to the council to be actioned. Our meetings are open to all airport workers, unionized or not and anyone can bring forward ideas, events, actions, etc. Decisions are made as a group. Message the page with your email and we will add you to our email list.
Fred Harris Another suggestion: Have a discussion (both among union reps and among the general membership of various unions) concerning the lack of discussion about the origin and nature of employers in the Ontario history curriculum (and the origin and nature of employees, of course, since employers without employees is impossible).
In other words, have a discussion about this issue in order to counter the silent indoctrination of hundreds of thousands of students concerning their probable future lives as subordinates to the power of the class of employers–unless they organize not only to oppose that power but to overcome it.
Fred Harris Not really feasible. I already attempted to question the idea of $15 and Fairness” at a public forum, and despite raising my hand a number of times to ask a question, I was not recognized by the chair–Sean Smith.
Secondly, I have experienced hostility by union members (rather, union reps) before concerning such ideas. I doubt that my ideas would be taken seriously if I broached the issue.

To be fair to Mr. Janssen, he did invite me to attend the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC), but as I indicated above, in a public forum, I was not recognized by Sean Smith (a member of another union, Unifor), and Mr. Smith is a member of TAWC. Indeed, on the TAWC Facebook page, along with Mr. Janssen and others, there is a short passage about Dan Janssen and Sean Smith : ” Sean Smith (UNIFOR) and Dan Janssen (IAMAW) spent some time going over the history, past actions and structure of the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council to a captive audience of MAN [Manchester International Airport) workers from various companies and job functions.”

Although it is possible that Mr. Smith inadvertently did not recognize me when I raised my hand several times to ask the question about why the campaign for $15 and “Fairness” had the campaign linked to the concept of fairness, I am skeptical about such a view. I was sitting on an end chair in a direct line of sight with Mr. Smith. Furthermore, when one of the members of the audience who was instrumental in campaigning for the $15 and “fairness” raised her hand (Pam Frache), she was not only recognized by the chair but spoke for much longer than normal.

Given my skepticism about Mr. Smith’s attitude towards my views, and given the close relation between Mr. Smith and TAWC, it is unlikely that my views would be taken seriously at such meetings. Mr. Janssen’s invitation, then, though it may look democratic, may be less so.

Or perhaps I am wrong. Should I attend such meetings despite the probable ridicule of my views? What do you think? Any suggestions about what should be done?

Employers as Dictators, Part One

I find it fascinating how the social-democratic or reformist left fall all over themselves, insisting that they are fighting for fairness and justice–and yet neglect the persistent injustice of having to work for an employer. (The same could be said of many who consider themselves radicals these days).

Elizabeth Anderson, in her book Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It) questions the assumption of the social-democratic or reformist left by pointing out how the power of employers resembles the power of communist dictators (pages 37-39):

Communist Dictatorships in Our Midst

Imagine a government that assigns almost everyone a superior whom they must obey. Although superiors give most inferiors a routine to follow, there is no rule of law. Orders may be arbitrary and can change at any time, without prior notice or opportunity to appeal. Superiors are unaccountable to those they order
around. They are neither elected nor removable by their inferiors. Inferiors have no right to complain in court about how they are being treated, except in a few narrowly defined cases. They also have no right to be consulted about the orders they are given.
There are multiple ranks in the society ruled by this government. The content of the orders people receive varies, depending on their rank. Higher- ranked individuals may be granted considerable freedom in deciding how to carry out their orders, and may issue some orders to some inferiors. The most highly ranked individual takes no orders but issues many. The lowest-ranked may have their bodily movements and speech minutely regulated for most of the day.
This government does not recognize a personal or private sphere of autonomy free from sanction. It may prescribe a dress code and forbid certain hairstyles. Everyone lives under surveillance, to ensure that they are complying with orders. Superiors may snoop into inferiors’ e- mail and record their phone conversations.
Suspicionless searches of their bodies and personal effects may be routine. They can be ordered to submit to medical testing. The government may dictate the language spoken and forbid communication in any other language. It may forbid certain topics of discussion. People can be sanctioned for their consensual sexual activity or for their choice of spouse or life partner. They can be sanctioned for their political activity and required to engage in political activity they do not agree with.
The economic system of the society run by this government is communist. The government owns all the nonlabor means of production in the society it governs. It organizes production by means of central planning. The form of the government is a dictatorship. In some cases, the dictator is appointed by an oligarchy. In other cases, the dictator is self- appointed.
Although the control that this government exercises over its members is pervasive, its sanctioning powers are limited. It cannot execute or imprison anyone for violating orders. It can demote people to lower ranks. The most common sanction is exile. Individuals are also free to emigrate, although if they do, there is usually no going back. Exile or emigration can have severe collateral consequences. The vast majority have no realistic option but to try to immigrate to another communist dictatorship, although there are many to choose from. A few manage to escape into anarchic hinterlands, or set up their own dictatorships.
This government mostly secures compliance with carrots. Because it controls all the income in the society, it pays more to people who follow orders particularly well and promotes them to higher rank. Because it controls communication, it also has a propaganda apparatus that often persuades many to support
the regime. This need not amount to brainwashing. In many cases, people willingly support the regime and comply with its orders because they identify with and profit from it. Others support the regime because, although they are subordinate to some superior, they get to exercise dominion over inferiors. It
should not be surprising that support for the regime for these reasons tends to increase, the more highly ranked a person is.
Would people subject to such a government be free? I expect that most people in the United States would think not. Yet most work under just such a government: it is the modern workplace, as it exists for most establishments in the United States. The dictator is the chief executive officer (CEO), superiors are managers, subordinates are workers. The oligarchy that appoints the CEO exists for publicly owned corporations: it is the board of directors. The punishment of exile is being fired. The economic system of the modern workplace is communist, because the government— that is, the establishment— owns all the assets,1 and the top of the establishment hierarchy designs the production plan, which subordinates execute. There are no
internal markets in the modern workplace. Indeed, the boundary of the firm is defined as the point at which markets end and authoritarian centralized planning and direction begin.
Most workers in the United States are governed by communist dictatorships in their work lives.

This parallel of the power of communist (or fascist) dictators and the power of employers to dictate to workers is simply neglected by social-democratic reformers. They ignore the issue altogether, minimize it or, when some try to bring up the issue, engage in insults. Their own conception of what is fair is so limited that they have little to say about the daily experiences of billions of workers worldwide.

They remind me of something which Karl Marx wrote long ago. From Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 1: The Process of Production of Capital (page 91):

Perseus wore a magic cap so that the monsters he hunted down might not see him. We draw the magic cap down over our own eyes and ears so as to deny that there are any monsters.

The social-democratic left seek to hide the reality of our own lives from us–lives characterized by dictatorship in various ways (with some freedoms, to be sure, such as limited freedom of speech–depending on where you are located on this planet and your status within that locality).

Let us listen to the social-democratic left for a moment as they characterize modern social relations and “draw the magic cap down over our eyes so as to deny that there are any monsters”. As I wrote in another post:

As already mentioned, the left does not generally criticize management rights as such. Quite to the contrary. It uses rhetoric and euphemisms, such as “decent work,” “fair wages,” (Tracy McMaster), “a fair contract” (Wayne Dealy). It fails to criticize the pairing of the Fight for $15 with the concept of “fairness,” implying that fairness can be achieved within the employer-employee relation. It fails to criticize the rhetoric of “Fair Labour Laws Save Lives.” It fails to criticize the rhetoric of “economic justice” (John Cartwright).

At the Toronto Pearson airport (the largest in Canada, with between 40,000 and 50,000 employees), at the May Day rally, there was a banner being carried by some with the message: ‘Airport Workers Fighting for Decent Work.’ The banner also had the following: ‘$15/Fairness YYZ’ (YYZ is the airport code for Toronto Pearson International airport). If working for an employer is essentially working for a dictator, then the demand for decent work and fairness under such conditions is illogical. It is certainly necessary to fight for better working conditions and increases in wages and salaries, but better working conditions and an increased salary do not change the fundamentally dictatorial nature of employer power. To think otherwise–and the slogans express such thought–is to engage in delusions–which is hardly what the labour movement requires.

Organizations need to arise that express openly the reality of our lives so that we can begin to address the problems associated with that reality.

The Meaning of Being Hired, Fired and Laid Off

The following is a debate on Facebook I had with a pro-employer right-winger. The context was the closing down of the Oshawa GM auto factory (among others) in Ontario, Canada, the loss of around 3,000 direct jobs there and the possible loss of around 15,000 additional workers due to the spin-off losses of the suppliers of the factory.

I initially indicated that the 15,000 workers would be fired, not laid off. A right-winger named Jim Edgeworth argued that they were laid off rather than fired and referred to Brampton (Ontario, Canada) workers at Chrysler allegedly eight years ago as proof that the 15,000 workers would be laid off, not fired.

The issue is interesting in terms of what hiring, firing and laying off mean—something lost in most discussions about “jobs.”

I do not report the verbatim arguments of Jim Edgeworth; he deleted his arguments from Facebook.

Let us assume for the moment that that is true. Then all the more reason to eliminate a class of employers that must fire “over 15,000” since they cannot exploit them adequately (to say “laid off” assumes that that is temporary).

Of course, this person is not really concerned about the 15,000 fired. Rather, he is concerned about defending the interests of employers at any cost.

I then respond to Edgeworth’s reference to the Brampton workers at Chrysler:

Who defines what constitutes “laid off.” Are the Brampton workers still waiting around, expecting to be rehired? Or have they moved on to other employers? The person needs to provide facts to substantiate the view that workers have somehow being “laid off”–despite not working for the same worker for “eight years ago.”

I ignored Edgeworth’s attempt to insult me, and wrote:

This right-winger, evidently, is more concerned with his own egotistical nature than with addressing the problems and sufferings of real human beings–a characteristic of employers, who use human beings as means for their own end of obtaining more and more money.

Rather than indulging in the same kind of trite behavior, let us look at this so-called fact of being laid off or being fired. To be laid off or fired, it is first necessary to be hired. What does it mean to be hired by Chrysler at Brampton?

To be hired requires that the workers themselves lack economic independence–the means by which they can realize their act of working belong to others–to a minority called employers. At a brewery, for example, the soaker, filler and labeler are owned by the brewery employer and not by the workers who use the soaker, filler or labeler (and not by those workers who produced the soaker, filler and labeler).

If workers were economically independent, they would be able to sell the commodities that they produced than their own capacity or ability to work.

Workers in a society characterized by production mainly for exchange need money in order to obtain the means necessary for them to live (means of consumption). They then sell their capacity to work as a commodity (a thing to be exchanged and used by another) for money, and then they buy other commodities necessary to live.

To obtain the money necessary to live, they must sell their capacity to labour to the owners of the means of production (call such means MP). We can then show the process of hiring, from the point of view of the employer, as M-C (=L), where M represents the money of the employer, – or a dash represents an exchange, C represents a commodity and L represents the specific commodity sold by the worker, labour power or the capacity to work or use the means of production (MP).

Of course, L (labour power or the capacity to work by using the means of production) is bought only in order to oblige the workers to use the means of production (MP) owned by employers, and the means of production (MP) is generally must be purchased before labour power (L) since the employer only has temporary power to use of labour power (L) and cannot own L outright (unlike the means of production, MP).

The initial exchange of the employer is then divided into two parts: M-C(L) and M-C (MP), or M-C(=L+MP).

We now have sufficient information to understand what being fired and what being laid off mean. One of the major functions of money in a capitalist society is to unite workers (L) and means of production (MP)–because capitalist property relations ensure that workers and the conditions of their living are separated into two opposed classes.

When workers are laid off, they are temporarily separated from the means of production (MP), with the real possibility of being united with them again with the same employer (of course, the nature of the means of production may change due to technological change). Being laid off is a temporary severance of the relationship between the workers and the means of production, on the one hand, and the particular employer on the other.

It should be noted that it is the employer who makes a decision to lay off and not the workers.

Workers who are fired have the relationship between them and the means of production, on the one hand, and a particular employer on the other, permanently broken or severed.

In a capitalist society, workers do not have to legally work for a particular employer; they are not full-time slaves. As a class, of course, they do have to work for the class of employers as long a capitalism persists–otherwise, capitalism could not continue to exist.

Now, this right-winger claims that workers who have not worked for eight years for Chrysler in Brampton are laid off because they have the right of recall (according to a collective agreement, undoubtedly, since workers do not have the right to recall otherwise).

Practically, these workers have had to look for other employment (or received income from government assistance–or starved). How else would they continue to live? The right of recall hardly takes precedence over the need to live. The right of recall after eight years of time, practically, results in being fired (severed permanently from using the means of production and having a real relation to the employer by being exploited by the employer).

But since the right-winger does not specify where he obtains his information concerning the right of recall, let us take a look at the collective agreement between Oakley subassembly Windsor ULC Brampton plant and Unifor Local 1825 (October 4, 2013-October 3, 2016). On page 16, clause 12.03, it says the following:

“Seniority will be lost and an employee will be terminated if an employee: …
“(c) is laid off and not recalled for a period of eighteen (18) months or for a period of time equal to the employee’s accumulated seniority at date of layoff, whichever is greater, with a maximum of thirty six (36) months”

The right-winger, of course, does not really care whether the workers eight years ago were fired or laid off–nor with understanding the difference between them nor with understanding the kind of society in which we live. He is a superficial mouthpiece of employers and, like employers, he has used the workers at Brampton to serve his own egotistical ends.

By the way, the left share similar beliefs to this right-winger–despite their opposition toward each other. Both he and the left believe in the necessity of employers. He considers anything employers as a class do as good whereas the left believe in the humanization of the employer-employee relation. Why else would the left talk about “decent work,” “fair wages,” (expressed by, for example, Tracy McMaster, president of Greater Toronto Area Council, to which are affiliated 35 local unions of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)), “economic justice,” (expressed by John Cartwright, president, Toronto & York Region Labour Council), “fairness” (as in the expression “Fight for $15 and Fairness,” a grassroots and union movement in Ontario), and Fair Labour Laws (as posted on the JFAAP website but copied from a union (Jane and Finch Action Against Poverty, a grassroots organization in one of poorer and racialized areas of Toronto)? All in the context of a society characterized by the use of human beings as means for the private sector employers to obtain more and more money (and public sector employers to use workers as means for purposes not defined by them but by senior management).

Such is the nature of the right and the social-reformist left.

Should we workers not understand better what it means to be hired, fired and laid off in order to grasp better the nature of our lives? Does the social-reformist left provide us with the tools necessary to understand our own experiences? Do they themselves bother in providing us with an understanding of our own experiences in this world? If not, why not? And if not, does that not demonstrate both a lack of democracy among the social-reformist left?

Does not the social-reformist left not have contempt for the regular worker when they remain silent about the meaning of the social structures which workers experience on a regular basis as a class?