Class Harmony and Social Reformism: The United Way as a Reformist Organization, Part Two

This is the continuation of a previous post. In the first post, I looked critically at the web site of the United Way Centraide Canada. The following post looks critically at one of its branch publications, Rebalancing the Opportunity Equation (May, 2019), by United Way Greater Toronto.

The publication contains many implicit statements that illustrate its own view that employees and employers can, somehow, live in harmony. Such a view of class harmony, of course, has been persistently criticized on this blog from the start, when I created the page The Money Circuit of Capital.

The limitations of the publication–and hence the United Way–can be seen implicitly even in the Foreword. It says (page 5):

With the data available to us, this report begins with a look at how inequality is impacting certain groups.

The publication–typical of social-reformist or social-democratic publications–measures inequality and poverty in terms of level of income. Since I have already criticized this way of analyzing poverty, inequality and class (see School Rhetoric: Ideological Use of the Concept of Social Justice, Part One), I refer the reader to that post; its analysis applies equally to the limited implicit definition of poverty by the United Way.

The rhetoric of class harmony can be seen in the following (page 6):

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is a great place to live. It is one of the most diverse regions in the world, where we are held together by a collective identity that is fueled by a shared commitment and interest in one another despite our differences. This shared commitment is built on the trust and reciprocity that exists between community members and is an important reason the GTA is such a desirable place for people to live, raise their families, and grow their businesses.

But there are growing forces undermining that shared commitment to each other: the GTA labour market is increasingly characterized by precarious work; there is a lack of affordable places for people to live; and people continue to face systemic discrimination in the economy and everyday life.

The first paragraph merely asserts–without any proof or evidence–that there is such a thing as a “collective identity”–as if living in an area called Greater Toronto Area automatically creates a collective identity. This is pure rhetoric that hides the reality of class exploitation by some of the very donors to the United Way (see my previous post as well as the post A Short List of the Largest Employers in Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

What is the “shared commitment and interest” of employees of the Royal Bank of Canada and their employer? A real sharing involves relatively equal participation in both the decisions of an organization and the consequences of that organization (and organizations connected to it). Do the employees who work for the Royal Bank of Canada (or any of the largest corporations in Toronto) share relatively equally in participatory power with upper management and the Board of Directors of the Royal Bank of Canada? Of course not.

This “shared commitment and interest to each other,” although containing some truth (employees in the Royal Bank of Canada obviously need their job if they are to live, to enjoy and to fulfill some aspects of their lives–as long as employers exist), is riveted with its opposite–a shared antagonism of commitments and interests since it is also not in the interests of such employees to be used as things or means for the benefit of the Royal Bank of Canada and other corporations obtaining as much money as possible.

On page 7, we read:

Fairness and opportunity are core values that bind us together; they are at the heart of the community we all love and feel proud of. The promise of the opportunity equation must be available to everyone for this to remain true. Otherwise, divisions will grow and the GTA of the future will be a less desirable place to live, raise a family, or grow a business. This report helps us to better understand where to focus our resources to make the promise of the opportunity equation a reality for everyone.

Since working for an employer is necessarily unfair (see The Money Circuit of Capital), the United Way would have had to propose that we move forward by developing a movement that is dedicated to the elimination of the power of the class of employers and the economic, political and social structures that support that power. Of course, it would be very difficult to do so since part of the funding for the United Way comes from the very corporations whose interests are opposed to the creation of social relations that can be characterized by fairness.

The 152 page publication then goes on to show how inequality in income has increased–in many cases substantially–based on age, immigration status (born in Canada or not born here), race and gender.

The increase in income gaps along these diverse lines should not be ignored, of course. However, the publication completely ignores the impact of the economic structure on whether various categories can actually gain control over their lives–the real test of fairness. Consider the category of race. The data provided in the publication shows that (page 63):

Racialized groups experienced income gains from 2005 to 2015, after ten years of little movement. However, within each employment type, the income gap between racialized and white groups grew in Canada, Peel, Toronto, and York. This divide was more pronounced for those engaged in permanent, full-time employment, where the average incomes of white groups in permanent, full-time jobs increased at a faster rate than the incomes of racialized groups. By 2015, the average income of white groups in permanent, full-time employment was 1.3 times greater than that of racialized groups in the same form of employment in Peel and York and 1.7 times greater in Toronto.

Employment relations may well be racialized (I have not researched the issue). Reducing income gaps between permanent (or even part-time) white employees and permanent racialized groups is certainly necessary (not by reducing the incomes of white employees but by raising the incomes of racialized employees), but such struggle, if successful, will eat into the profits of some of the funders of United Way. The United Way makes no mention of this–due to its class-harmony approach of referring to “collective identity” and “shared commitment and interest.”

Indeed, none of the solutions proposed by the United Way to the problems of growing income gaps based on various differences refer to the problem of the power of employers as a class. They offer three general recommendations (page 77):

ensuring everyone can participate in society
enabling people to get ahead
making life more affordable.

1. Ensuring Everyone Can Participate in Society

The first recommendation excludes democratic participation in companies, such as the Royal Bank of Canada, Air Canada, Canadian Natural Resources and so forth. What it does include is three sub-recommendations (page 77):

1. Undertake a national dialogue on social cohesion.
2. Develop and coordinate data-informed social cohesion strategies.
3. Support funding and innovation in the community services sector.

On page 78, the United Way then states:

When people are not connected to each other, everyone suffers the consequences. It wears on the foundations of our communities.

This is surely false. The foundations of an economy based on the power of the class of employers is precisely the initial lack of connection of people to each other. Brewery workers are not connected to other workers as workers directly but via the production of the things which they produce as social things with powers that are expressed in money. The initial disconnection of workers from each other, furthermore, then needs an external connection, represented by employers, who own what they produce disconnectedly (Thomas Hodgskin, Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital, pages 71-72):

Betwixt him who produces food and him who produces clothing, betwixt him who makes instruments and him who uses them, in steps the capitalist, who neither makes nor uses them, and appropriates to himself the produce of both. With as niggard a hand as possible he transfers to each a part of the produce of the other, keeping to himself the large share. Gradually and successively has he insinuated himself betwixt them, expanding in bulk as he has been nourished by their increasingly productive labours, and separating them so widely from each other that neither can see whence that supply is drawn which each receives through the capitalist. While he despoils both, so completely does he exclude one from the view of the other that both believe they are indebted him for subsistence. He is the middleman of all labourers.

Connection must then occur, not through the voluntary will of workers, but through the force of the class of employers and through the force of the market. In other words, disconnection and connection are necessarily linked to each other. The United Way papers over the essential nature of the kind of society in which we live, which is characterized by the power of a class of employers. It offers platitudes about “connections between people” without ever asking what kinds of disconnections are indeed beneficial for employers and what kinds of connections are harmful to them (workers organizing themselves for the purpose of abolishing the power of employers). The world of the United Way cannot even deal with the basic fact of capitalist society–that disconnection and separation are necessary characteristics of this kind of society. It then claims that such disconnection is not beneficial to anyone–which is patently false.

Furthermore, how could competition between employers ever arise if there were no such thing as disconnection? Competition assumes both connection and disconnection. Different employers in the same industry are disconnected from each other and from consumers; however, the different employers compete on the market (and are thus connected).

The rhetoric of class harmony can be found repeatedly (page 79):

Ultimately, unless we address the discriminatory attitudes, like racism and xenophobia, that underlie the opportunity equation, the income and social inequality trends identified in this report will not improve. If anything, they will continue on their trajectory and get worse. We need to revisit our social foundations and lay out a new plan for who we want to be in the future. Building connected communities means emphasizing our civic likeness and the things that hold us together—common understanding, acceptance, inclusion, and active reliance on each other. Together, we can (re)define what it means to be Canadian in this increasingly polarized world.

It goes without saying that any “common understanding” must arise under the watchful eyes of the class of employers and their representatives. It is an illusion to refer to a community interest within the context of the power of a class of employers.

2. Enabling People to Get Ahead

The second general recommendation has much to do with making the “labour market” function more smoothly, enabling young people, immigrants, non-whites and women to be employed in better-paying and more secure jobs. Of course, better paying and more secure jobs is undoubtedly better than jobs that pay less and that are more insecure. However, that is the limit of this recommendation (page 83):

Even with the right mix of education and training, there is no guarantee of a good job as too few training programs are linked from the outset to employers’ needs.

I have on many occasions criticized the rhetoric of “good jobs” or “decent work.” The United Way does not question the existence of a market for workers in the first place; it proposes, rather, a better matching skills, education and credentials to jobs. By not questioning the market for workers in the first place, the United Way implicitly agrees with the existence of the power of employers over the class of employees.

The United Way also feeds into the ideology of the middle-class, about which I wrote in another post (see School Rhetoric: Ideological Use of the Concept of Social Justice, Part One) (page 86):

Stable, secure jobs were more common in the past than they are in today’s labour market. In the past, these kinds of jobs allowed many people to achieve a stable and secure lifestyle and to join the middle class. Today, these jobs make up a smaller proportion of the overall labour market, as precarious employment has become entrenched in the Toronto region.

The United Way, at best, opposes neoliberalism but not capitalism–like social reformists and social democrats of various stripes.

Furthermore, I have already criticized one of the proposals in this general recommendation before (see What’s Left, Toronto? Part Five), namely Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs). The United Way has this to say about CBAs (page 84):

CBAs in the GTA, such as those used in the Eglinton Crosstown LRT construction and
the Hurontario Light Rail Transit project, have leveraged public infrastructure projects to offer training and employment opportunities to local people who are experiencing multiple barriers to the labour market, like youth and newcomers. Through these CBAs, workers from local communities have developed relevant and marketable skills and have gained access to jobs that pay decent wages and provide career pathways to other opportunities.

CBAs may help a minority obtain better paying and more secure jobs, but it is a minor tool that has little power to change the systemic biases of the labour market.

3. Making Life More Affordable

This general recommendation considers such problems as the affordability of housing, transport and child care. In all three cases, there is a mismatch of supply and demand, with demand outstripping supply or supply being inadequate to demand. The need is then to balance supply and demand (pages 90-91):

we focus on three social anchors—affordable housing, public transportation, and child care—because these areas are reaching a crisis point and require urgent attention in the GTA. Improvements to the accessibility of these social anchors will benefit the entire region but will disproportionately impact those groups whose incomes have stagnated—young adults, immigrants, racialized groups, and women—and create the conditions for these groups to take advantage of the opportunities presented in the preceding recommendations.

The balancing of supply and demand in these areas would probably increase the standard of living of the four targeted groups and is certainly, like other recommendations, not to be opposed just because they are reformist. Reformism, however, that limits itself to reformist measures only and assumes that this is the only game in town–as does the United Way–needs to be thoroughly criticized.

There are also a problem with this approach in relation to housing that United Way does not mention. As I argued in another post (What’s Left, Toronto? Part Three), some workers who own condominiums, duplexes, townhouses or detached houses may benefit from the mismatch between the supply and demand of housing as the price of their major asset increases. The United Way does not mention this problem at all.

Conclusion

The United Way limits its recommendations to proposals that would humanize capitalism–to make capitalism more tolerable. This is its real goal. Its whole approach assumes the legitimacy of capitalism as such.

In Toronto, I have not seen any criticisms of the United Way. Is this not a reflection of the impotence of the left? Should we not question its social-reformist or social-democratic assumptions?

Or should we accept (tolerate) such social reformism in the name of the need for compromise?

Critique of a Social-Reformist Left’s Position in RankandFile.Ca on GM’s Decision to Close the Oshawa auto plant

An article (Buckle Up: GM Declares War on Oshawa) by Gerard Di Trollo, Dave (or David) Bush and Doug Nesbitt, written for the social-reformist unionist website Rankandfile.ca purports to look critically at GM’s decision to close the Oshawa plant. It is far from critical in this regard.

The title of their article is GM’s supposed declaration of war against Oshawa. One of the authors, Gerard di Trollo, has another article with a similar title: “Ford’s teacher snitch line is a declaration of war.” Apparently, we are in a war now overtly. Let us see whether the proposed solutions to this alleged war situation correspond to the rhetoric of war.

Some of the criticisms that I made in an earlier post concerning the GM situation in Oshawa relating to the statement made by the Socialist Project Steering Committee applies to the post by these three social-reformist leftist activists. Indeed, since the article by Di Trollo, Bush and Nesbitt was published earlier than the statement, it is likely that some of the ideas of the statement are derived in part from this article (such as Unifor’s inadequate response, or the need to shift production into green production). Indeed, there is some similarity of wording: The Di Trollo, Bush and Nesbitt article: “…we need to retool the plants to build mass transportation, electric vehicles, and other green transition infrastructure and equipment.” The Steering Committee statement: “GM could easily retool these plants, and produce both new electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as the SUVs that are dominating current markets.”

There are differences, though. The statement goes into less detail about the inadequacy of Unifor’s bargaining tactics whereas the Di Trollo, Bush and Nesbitt article criticizes–rightly–Unifor’s acceptance of a two-tiered pension system. They also criticize Unifor’s pandering after attracting jobs at all costs–and at the expense of the jobs in other countries.

This, however, is where their proposed solution runs into problems. They claim the following:

The labour movement has little room to protect jobs for workers unless they redouble their efforts to promote a real green transition strategy founded on international workers’ solidarity. It’s the only way to create jobs without succumbing to the elite’s real strategy of race-to-the-bottom.

Part of the solution is similar to the Steering Committee’s statement (“a real green transition strategy”). It is different in proposing that international solidarity as the only possible solution to prevent a “race-to-the-bottom.”

There are two problems with this strategy. Firstly, although international solidarity among workers is certainly to be lauded as a goal, there is no indication of how such solidarity is to be achieved and on what basis. It is, like much of social-reformist leftist rhetoric, vague. How is this to be achieved in the concrete between, say, workers in Canada and workers in Mexico? Forming links without thinking about the kinds of links that promote international solidarity is likely to break down quickly or to end up merely with a general call for solidarity among union leaders without the rank-and-file really forming solid links with other workers across countries.

This leads to a second problem: there are implied terms to the kinds of such linkage required when they write the following: “Our society needs the productive capacity in places like Oshawa, and the skills and job knowledge of the autoworkers. We not only need these good jobs….” They do not go into detail what constitutes “good jobs,” but there is a fact that constitutes evidence of what they mean by good jobs.

I had a debate with Dave Bush on Facebook about the appropriateness of pairing the Fight for $15 in Ontario with the idea of “fairness.” Mr. Bush nowhere explained why it was fair; he simply declared it. The employment laws that expressed that “fairness” were certainly better than before, but their provisions are generally less adequate that many collective agreements. Since I have implied that collective agreements are unfair since they merely limit the capacity of management to dictate to workers what to do, where and when to do their work and how to do it (Management Rights, Part Two: Public Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario), thereby still permitting employers to treat workers as things or objects for the benefit of the employer, employment laws and their provisions by implication are even less fair than the provisions of collective agreements.

Solidarity across borders as a class of workers against the class of employers cannot be expressed in terms of “good jobs” since there is no such thing in the given social relations characterized by a class of employers (see The Money Circuit of Capital). Workers in the Oshawa plant did not have good jobs; they had better jobs than many other workers in terms of pay and benefits and, perhaps, some working conditions, but they did not have good jobs. This is an ideology of employers, repeated ad nauseum by the social-reformist left and union leaders. The standard of what constitutes a “good job” for such people is–the existence of a class of employers with a “humanized face.” This is really liberal rhetoric disguising itself as radical.

In any case, the call for international solidarity at this stage will unlikely have any meaningful impact in terms of whether the Oshawa plant will be shut down. What is required is not just occupation of the plant but an explicit rejection of the claim that such jobs can ever be characterized as good in a context characterized by the dictatorship of an economy by a class of employers.

It would be in the interest of the working class to not only seize the plant and not only shift production to more earth-friendly forms of transportation (certainly not though, SUVs, contrary to the article), but to establish solidarity on a ground characteristic of a lack of bullshit concerning “good jobs” and the like as long as employment is controlled by a class of employers. Solidarity needs to be grounded in rejection of the shared assumption of the right and left concerning the continued need for a class of employers–as expressed in the rhetoric of “good jobs.”

Unfortunately, the bullshit rhetoric of the social-reformist left concerning “good jobs” (and other such rhetoric) prevails among many trade unionists, with the consequence that no such solidarity will likely arise without prolonged struggle against such bullshit. In the meantime, it is likely that the Oshawa GM workers will be thrown out of work and no real solidarity will arise internationally for some time to come.

Or is this an inaccurate analysis of the situation? What do you think?

Management Rights and the Crisis in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada: Limitations of the Reformist Left, Part Two

In an earlier post, I questioned the Socialist Project’s characterization of the problem that workers in Oshawa face (Management Rights and the Crisis in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada: Limitations of the Reformist Left, Part One). I also, implicitly, questioned their proposed solutions. In this post, I will question their proposed solutions explicitly.

The Committee then proposes some things to be done to resolve the problem:

What’s needed are efforts to provide challenging education programs about the potential for workers to demand that the facilities in which they work produce environmentally responsible products, publicly owned, and not dependent on the whims of the fickle and brutally competitive consumer private vehicle market. Without a leadership that points the way forward and questions the hyper-competitive private marketplace workers remain dependent on corporate employers and look to them to provide for their future.

The demand for educational programs ought to shift workers’ consciousness to production that: 1. changes what is produced (environmentally unfriendly private vehicles vs. environmentally friendly vehicles); 2. and for what purpose (competitive and, implicitly, for profit rather than for need).

This demand is unlikely to have much immediate impact at Oshawa. To have an impact it would have been necessary to develop educational programs that call into question various aspects of the capitalist economy, both at the micro level of the plant and at the macro level of the structure of production and exchange. Has such an educational program been developed? Judging from my own experience in an educational program developed by Herman Rosenfeld, Jordan House and me and presented mainly to airport workers at Toronto Pearson airport, such an educational program has had severe limitations placed on it.

Firstly, we did not have many opportunities to provide educational course for such workers. In fact, after we presented three times, we did not present again for around two years.

Secondly, of those three times, only once did we present a critical macro approach, with three sections on the capitalist class, the working class and the capitalist state. The other two times, these sections were eliminated. Herman and Jordan did present to the airport afterwards–probably without the critical macro aspect.

Thus, to have an impact, there would have had to exist many educational opportunities for the workers, and the content of the courses would have had to include a critical approach at both the micro and macro level. Since there has not been such opportunities, a call for such a modified educational program at this stage is wishful thinking. It is highly unlikely to occur.

This leads into the last part of the article. The Committee demands the following:

Political Struggle, Community Control

The Socialist Project supports serious efforts by the union and the membership to organize collective actions that challenge GM’s decision and calls for new products to be allocated to Oshawa.

We also call for the union to build a movement inside Local 222, the surrounding community and across the union movement and the Canadian working class, to:

Pressure governments to ensure the survival of the productive facilities in Oshawa by taking ownership, after a community seizure of the plant. Productive facilities, like what remains of GM Oshawa were paid for by the community need to be owned and further developed by the community. The federal government didn’t hesitate to take ownership of the Trans Mountain pipeline project, and there is an historical precedent for the conversion of auto production during World War II to needed war materials.
Along with the workers and their surrounding communities, come up with a plan to produce needed mass transit equipment and other environmentally and socially necessary products. It would require and could lead to new capacities for research, development, production and distribution, that could create jobs, help stem the tide of climate change and foster the growth of a challenge to neoliberal capitalism.
Investment can be provided by a publicly owned municipal, provincial or federal development bank. More could be provided by taxing the assets of banks or other private investment institutions. •

It is of course necessary to try to address the immediate decision of GM to close the plant. A call for community seizure of the plant may be immediately needed to prevent GM from carrying out its plans. However, this is mixed up with the call for the federal government to take over ownership. Why would there not be a call for ownership to be located at the community level after the seizure? Why this shift to ownership by the federal government? Would it not be more democratic if the community owned the plant and workers made decisions within a framework provided by the community? Would not a community board of directors, with representatives from various community organizations being the ultimate owner, be more democratic than ownership by the federal government? (Tony Smith, in his book Globalisation: A Systematic Marxian Account) argues for such community ownership and organization, with workers having the right of use of the facilities owned by the community.)

The federal government may be needed to prevent GM from taking away the physical assets and accounts of the plant; it may also be needed in various ways to support the community. However, since the federal government is unlikely to be democratic in structure if it owned the plant. Workers would still be treated as things since the federal government would be the employer. Undoubtedly, given the macro environment of a capitalist economy dominated by employers, community organization would also tend in that direction. However, there would be less of tendency in that direction than would be the case if the federal government owned the plant.

In relation to the second point–a plan for democratically producing environmentally-friendly output, the emphasis seems to be more on the kind of output rather than the kinds of relations between human beings at work. Admittedly, creating environmentally-friendly vehicles does express a positive relation between individuals, but this relation would be between the set of workers producing the environmentally-friendly objects and other workers and institutions who buy the vehicles.

What should have been included is a characterization of the preferred internal relations between workers–democratic–and how such a form could at least have been begun (although hardly achieved since the Oshawa plant would exist in a sea of capitalist relations of production and exchange).

The two bulleted points, with the suggested modifications, will however very unlikely be realized; GM will in all likelihood be closed down, with the Oshawa workers and community experiencing the immediate brunt of the shut down. What would have been required was persistent preparation of both the community and the workers (of course, not exclusionary since Oshawa workers can also be inhabitants of Oshawa) for a democratic takeover of the plant through a criticism of the employer-employee relation as such. Given the lack of such criticism, workers are likely unprepared ideologically and psychologically (in terms of their attitude towards what needs to be done and what goals to pursue) for a democratic break with the structure of capitalist production and exchange.

An example of the inadequate preparation of workers: I heard Chris Buckley, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, give a speech at a rally in support of striking airport workers in 2017. He used several times the term “decent job” and “decent work”–by which he meant a job subject to a collective agreement. The social-reformist and radical left did not question him anymore than they questioned Tracy McMaster, president of Greater Toronto Area Council, to which are affiliated 35 local unions of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)), who also referred to “decent work” and “fair wages.” They are afraid to alienate union reps and heads, but it is difficult to see how such alienation can be prevented given the acceptance of the power of employers as a class by such reps and heads of unions

Coming to the final point of the article is also wishful thinking. To create a developmental bank would require a fighting organization–a set of unions that are designed to engage in systematic attacks at the municipal, provincial and federal levels against the power of employers as a class and not the rhetorical flashes of engaging in struggles (see Chris Buckley’s letter to Premier Doug Ford, Letter From OFL President Chris Buckley to Premier Doug Ford Regarding GM Oshawa). The recent indication by Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, and Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), that they are going to fight Ford’s agenda, will unlikely be sufficient to change the situation in Oshawa (OPSEU and Unifor Join Forces Against Doug Ford); both accept the premise that collective agreements express a relation of fairness or justice. Expanding alliances across the public and private sector may or may not constitute structural change within unions. If such alliances are merely extensions of the existing union structures, it is unlikely to be an effective fighting force since such structures are not designed to question the legitimacy of the power of employers as a class; they assume the legitimacy of the power of employers as a class and seek only to limit such power–a necessary part of working-class struggle, but hardly sufficient. To become fighting organizations (with purposes that go beyond the limits of the power of employers as a class) and not merely defensive organizations, they need to question the legitimacy of collective agreements while still engaging in collective bargaining as a necessary evil.

We can see this on the OPSEU website for example. The title of one article is Ford in bed with business, won’t save good GM jobs ; as noted in the first part of the post (see the link to that post above), the logic of this is that before GM announced its decision to close the plant, GM jobs were “good jobs,” but after the announcement, what were they? Bad jobs? The right of employers to close down may be fought on a particular basis, but generally employers as a class have the right to close businesses based on business criteria (generally, profitability in the private sector and public efficiency and political expediency in the public sector). This applies to jobs such as the jobs at GM. To call any job controlled by employers as good, therefore, is contradictory; jobs apparently are both good (when they are not eliminated) and bad (if they can be eliminated).

The article on the OPSEU website has Warren (“Smokey”) Thomas specifically claiming the following: ““At least Ontario has strong unions who stand united to fight for good jobs, even if the premier won’t.” In addition to calling such jobs good (and, by implication bad when they can be eliminated)–in addition to this contradiction–Smokey’s argument ignores how workers at Oshawa are used as means for the benefit of obtaining more and more money by GM (see the The Money Circuit of Capital, which calls into question any characterization of working for employers as good or decent since workers are necessarily things or means for ends not defined by them but by a class of employers).

We can get an idea of Jerry Dias’ views on “good jobs” from the following article on the Unifor website, entitled Unifor to hold national ‘Good Jobs Summit’. Mr. Dias states the following:

“We need elected officials to help chart a path towards a good jobs future,” Dias wrote. “We need to start raising expectations that we can win jobs that pay fair wages, are safe and stable. And we want all workers in Canada to join in.”

Working for an employer, who generally has the legal right to close a factory, a department and so forth without democratic control by those effected by the decision, is somehow still a “good job.” It somehow results in fair wages (whereas wages, in the private sector, result from previous surpluses produced by workers and therefore are used to further exploit workers. See my post Basic Income: A Critique of the Social-Reformist Left’s Assumptions and Analysis: Part Two , criticizing David Bush’s one-sided analysis of capitalist relations of production and exchange).

The idea that jobs within a capitalist society are somehow safe also is questionable, as a number of posts have tried to make clear (Confessions of a Union Representative Concerning the Real Power of Employers, Unions and Safety on Jobs Controlled by Employers, Getting Away with Murder and Bodily Assault: Employers and the Law).

As for stable jobs: Where does Mr. Dias question management rights clauses in collective agreements, which implicitly or explicitly express the right of employers to reduce the number of positions or close factories or departments? That unions can and have limited such a right is certainly preferable to letting management have carte blanche, but limitations on that right hardly involve stability–as the Oshawa workers have experienced first hand. In any case, in a system characterized by capitalist accumulation, where a minority make decisions about what to invest, where to invest, when to invest and so forth, stability is possible for awhile but subject to constant disruption as investors seek new profits and new means to accumulation across the globe. Stability was possible after the Second World War, for instance, for some time because of the substantial destruction of means of production during the Second World War, the opening up of new areas for investment, the expansion of demand for workers and relative increases in wages. Given that a global war is hardly in the workers’ best interests, it is likely that more and more workers will be subject to increasingly precarious jobs until a global slump much wider and deeper than the one in 2007-2008 reduces the value of many means of production, leading to a vast upsurge in unemployment–in either case hardly a stable future.

So, the alliance of a public-sector union and a private-sector union is unlikely to provide the basis for the realization of the third point in the Socialist Project’s Steering Committee: neither the emergence of a development bank at the municipal, provincial or federal level, nor taxing the banks and other investment institutions is likely to be realized in the near future. (It is to be wondered why taxing is limited only to investment institutions and excludes taxing corporations involved in production. But that only in passing.)

The article fails to address the issue of preparing workers to develop a working-class attitude that would be conducive to engage in action that reflects an understanding of their class interests. It may or may not be too late to engage the workers at the Oshawa plant with such an approach, but such an approach should have been started long ago in order to address democratically the power of this particular employer to exert its class right to determine what to do with the means of production.

As it stands, there will probably be knee-jerk reactions to an immediate crisis–which is a typical response of an approach that fails to take into account the class nature of working for an employer but rather assumes that there are such things, within the confines of the employer-employee relation, as “good or decent jobs,” “fair wages,” “a fair contract,” “economic justice” (given collective agreements), “fairness,” “Fair Labour Laws Make Work Safe” and other such half-truths and platitudes. Perhaps the workers in Oshawa will learn the hard way this lesson, but it is more likely to do so if a critical working-class organization exists which questions such half-truths and platitudes and enables workers to understand their own experiences in a wider social context.

Management Rights and the Crisis in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada: Limitations of the Reformist Left, Part One

The Socialist Project Steering Committee wrote the following on its website (Taking on the GM Shutdown: Unifor, Oshawa and Community Control) :

General Motor’s plan to end production at its Oshawa plant at the end of 2019 is a callous, cynical act by the U.S.-based multinational auto giant that needs to be challenged. After accepting $13.7-billion bailout offered by the Canadian public to the big automakers back in 2008 to keep GM and Chrysler alive (one third of which will never be recovered), the company plans will leave 2500 workers at the plant out of work, with perhaps further spinoff losses of jobs and taxes. This is a brutal blow for the home of industrial unionism in Canada and one of the long-time centres of Canadian auto production.

This view implies that GM’s decision to close the plant is somehow unfair. Why else would such a decision be called callous and cynical?

Why is it unfair? There seem to be several reasons for providing such a judgement. Firstly, GM, like many other capitalist employers, were bailed out by the so-called Canadian public (actually, the Canadian government–hardly the same thing). Secondly, “one third” of the bailout “will never be recovered.” So, you lend someone a hand–and they not only fail to appreciate your aid but bite the hand that helps him. These are two the moral objections to the closing of the Oshawa plant provided by the Socialist Project Steering Committee.

The negative consequences of the closure seem to be a further objection, but that would only be so if there was an argument against closing plants by employers in general. If the Canadian government had not bailed out GM and no funds had been lost, then GM could legitimately “leave 2500 workers at the plant out of work, with perhaps further spinoff losses of jobs and taxes.” (Just as an aside–there is little doubt that there would be substantial spinoff losses of jobs and taxes. Why the Socialist Project Steering Committee decided to add the qualifier “perhaps” is a mystery. For one description of what happens, at an experiential level, to workers’ lives when coal mines and steel plants close down, see Simon J. Charlesworth, A Phenomenology of Working-class Experience).

The article, however, does not limit itself to only two reasons for considering the decision to be unfair:

From the point of view of the workers and communities surrounding Oshawa and, indeed, the needs and concerns of the working class across the country, there is no understanding why a place so productive can be shut down. Besides directly attacking the livelihoods and economic futures of workers, the shutdown would eliminate a key component of productive capacities in Canada.

Two further reasons are thus provided: the Oshawa plant is productive, and its closing would result in a reduction in the productive capacities in Canada.

Presumably what the Committee means by productive is in terms of material production. It may also mean value added as a whole. However, as the Committee undoubtedly understands, what is productive in those terms need not transfer to productivity for capital since the issue for capital is aggregate profit, and that usually in relation to total investment (rate of profit). What is productive materially and value added need not necessarily translate into higher profits and a higher rate of profit. For example, the same value added can be distributed differently between profits and wages. And the same level of profits, if related to different aggregate costs, will result in a different rate of profit.

It seems that the Committee is using a different definition of what constitute productivity from what GM considers productivity; why else would GM decide to close the Oshawa plant? It has decided, according to its own definition of productivity, what is productive–profitability and the rate of profit.

That the Committee and GM are using different definitions of productivity becomes clearer in what follows:

There is no reason to close down the facility in Oshawa which has consistently ranked as one of the top plants in the world (and similar doubts could be raised for the four U.S. plants also slated for closure). GM could easily retool these plants, and produce both new electric and hybrid vehicles, as well as the SUVs that are dominating current markets. These plants have rested on the community and labour resources of their communities; if GM doesn’t use this productive capacity, it should be seized as community property and put to other uses.

Brutal Corporate Strategy

From the point of view of GM, and the financial markets that back GM up, the closures are part of a brutal corporate strategy to: cut overall costs; to concentrate production in hot selling profit-making trucks and SUVs; and to finance later moves to offshore production of electric vehicles (quite possibly in China as the key growth market for e-vehicles).

In what way has Oshawa consistently “ranked as one of the top plants in the world?” Perhaps it has done so in terms of level of material productivity, value added, profitability and rate of profit–or perhaps it has not. Without a further explanation of what the standards are that are being used to make such a judgement, it is impossible to say what is being claimed here. However, in the above quotation, the Committee itself recognizes that its standards and those of GM are not the same. GM has decided to close certain plants “to cut overall costs.” If overall costs are cut, with profit remaining the same, then the rate of profit increases. “From the point of view of GM,” the productivity of capital will have increased. Furthermore, a shift from production in Oshawa and other plants to “hot-selling profit-making trucks and SUVs.” Not only did GM makes its decision based on the input sides (costs), but it also made its decision on the output side (level of demand). Furthermore, there is implied an already proven profit-making market, with relatively secure profits since demand is apparently quite high for output.
Is this not what capitalist employers do? How is GM any different from other employers in this regard?

The unfairness arises from an implied critique of capitalism as such as unfair without explicitly making it so; it is couched in terms of a bailout and non-recoverable funds. However, the article confuses the two issues and does not argue against GM as such as unfair.

If the only actions that are unfair is the bailout and nonrecoverable funds, then the solution would be to seize the Oshawa plant and have GM pay back the lost funds, after which GM would be free to close down the plant.

If, on the other hand, an economy dominated by a class of employers is unfair as such, then GM’s actions are unfair and seizing the plant without compensation would be only a prelude to seizing other plants since the ownership of such plants by employers would be illegitimate.

Since the Steering Committee fails to criticize explicitly the power of employers as a class to decide what to produce where and when it wants, its criticism of GM’s “brutal corporate strategy” rings hollow.

Why, for example, did it not criticize the following?:

MASTER AGREEMENT
BETWEEN
GENERAL MOTORS OF CANADA COMPANY
AND
UNIFOR
Local No. 199 St. Catharines Local No. 222 Oshawa Local No. 636 Woodstock
Dated
September 20, 2016
(Effective: September 26, 2016)
Page 5:
SECTION IV
MANAGEMENT
(4) The Union recognizes the right of the Company to hire, promote, transfer, demote and lay off employees and to suspend, discharge or otherwise discipline employees for just cause subject to the right of any employee to lodge a grievance in the manner and to the extent as herein provided.

The Union further recognizes the right of the Company to operate and manage its business in all respects, to maintain order and efficiency in its plants, and to determine the location of its plants, the products to be manufactured, the scheduling of its production and its methods, processes, and means of manufacturing. The
Union further acknowledges that the Company has the right to make and alter, from time to time, rules and regulations to be observed by employees, which rules and regulations shall not be inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement.

(This blog has criticized management rights on principle on a number of occasions. See (Management Rights, Part One: Private Sector Collective Agreement, British Columbia, Management Rights, Part Two: Public Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario, Management (Employer) Rights, Part Three: Public Sector Collective Agreement, Manitoba, Management Rights, Part Four: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario).

The limitation of the social-reformist left are further exposed in the following:

Workers in Canada, the USA or Mexico for that matter, have no democratic control over what is being produced in our countries, or the fate of the productive facilities that produce them. Current governments of all stripes accept the free movement of capital and the domination of large investors in making key economic decisions. Trudeau, Ford and NDP governments are so committed to free trade and the wisdom of the private marketplace, that it is breathtaking to see how they fall over themselves to accept the right of GM to close down Oshawa, and limit themselves to providing Employment Insurance (EI), retraining and such.

This call for democratic control comes from out of the blue. Such a call is pure rhetoric and is not at all linked with the critique of concrete social structures that workers and community members experience on a daily basis. It is “breathtaking to see how they fall over themselves” in failing to criticize the various social structures that support the power of employers in general. Seizing the plant and managing it on democratic principles hardly need to coincide. Seizing the plant may be just an immediate reaction to the perceived threat to jobs–jobs that are hardly decent since they involve treating human beings as things (see The Money Circuit of Capital) but, nonetheless, are needed by workers if they are going to live in a society dominated by a class of employers.

A call for democratic control requires preparation. Why is there no definite critique of management rights? Why is there no definite critique of the right of employers to use workers as things legally? Why is there no definite critique of the economic dependence which characterizes so much of the lives of the working class? A critique of these structures is a necessary prelude to real democratic control by workers over the economic conditions of their own lives.

Actually, what they probably mean by “democratic control” is the regulations of employers and not the actual democratic control by workers over their own lives. Why else do they use the term “no democratic control.” They seem to object, not to the power of employers to dictate to workers in general, but to a particular form of that dictatorship–neoliberalism, where the welfare state is reduced in scope for the benefit of the class of employers.

The Committee then proceeds to criticize the weakness of Unifor’s response in the face of the announced closure of the Oshawa plant. The criticism is accurate as far as it goes, but the Committee does not bother to look at the weakness of the left and its role in feeding into that response. 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).

Were the jobs at the Oshawa plant before the announcement “decent jobs?” Was the collective agreement a “fair contract” and the wages a “fair wage?” But then magically, after the announcement, they are no longer “decent jobs?” There is no longer a “fair contract?” There is no longer a “fair wage?”

Were the labour laws fair before the announcement of the closure of the Oshawa plant fair? If so, how did they remain fair afterwards? Or did they magically become unfair?

So many questions, but the article by the Steering Committee fails to provide any answers.

A later post will look in more detail at the proposed solutions by the Steering Committee.