Header image 

International Communist Workers Party

line decor
   ICWP@Anonymousspeech.com      RSS image    
line decor

Español

About ICWP

Red Flag newspaper

Article Series from Red Flag

Communist Dialectics

Home

Boeing Workers Punished in the Name of Productivity:

Communism Will End Both Punishment and Productivity Obsessions

Text Size:  ABC  ABC

SEATTLE, USA, Nov. 12 —“So the company is going to cut the number of involuntary layoffs by firing thousands,” interrupted a machinist as the boss was explaining the new attendance policy to the crew meeting.
“Yeah,” admitted the manager. “This happens every time they layoff.” That’s capitalism for you!
This attack started a month ago when the head of Human Relations (HR) sent out a companywide email telling us to stop taking Mondays and Fridays off. We were hurting our team, he complained.
When that piece of arrogance didn’t work, out came the whip. Managers that let employees leave early on Friday (even if they had coverage according to the contract) got nasty emails from HR. The big bosses are demanding that we get permission way in advance.
Then they set up a central phone number for tens of thousands of employees that records the time you call in sick. “We need our team—our whole team—working together [to maintain productivity] in this extremely competitive marketplace,” said the company.
As you could imagine this didn’t go over too well. Everyone knew the company would try to catch some people slipping up to scare the rest of us.
In communism, we’ll have plenty of backup if someone gets sick or has a family emergency— or even if they just need a break. For starters, all those now in management, finance, public relations, HR will be available for real work.
How would we deal with attendance? The same way we get people to meetings and demonstrations, by convincing them politically. The opposite of bosses’ workplace punishment!
Soon the debates turned to the question, “Do we really need productivity?” (the bosses’ excuse for labor punishment) The bosses say everything depends on productivity. The Wall Street Journal says productivity is stalled so the U.S. economy will never roar again.
Each company strives to get more production out of each worker. Productivity is a code word for the increased degree of exploitation: producing more with fewer workers. Pretty soon they produce more than they can sell for a profit. A crisis of overproduction ensues. We get laid off.
“The only way capitalism can grow,” concluded one machinist, “is for the system to crash first.” Who needs that!
The Seattle Times predicts overproduction in aerospace could reach levels comparable to the dot-com crash or the mortgage crisis of 2008. Everyone is waiting for more massive layoffs to start. There is every reason to believe the crisis will widen and last longer when China starts producing jets in significant numbers over the next decade.
And here’s the absurdity of capitalism: too many airplanes are being produced, so they cut production and lay off thousands. But then they turn to the workers that are left, and tell them they have to be more productive! On the one hand thousands are idle, on the other, thousands are working like mad. More productivity but less production!
The bosses need productivity; we need communism. Communism will separate productivity from necessary increases in production and the quality of life. Unless there is an emergency, we will increase production by bringing in more workers without asking people to work faster, to work unsafely, or to cut corners on quality.
Communists are not afraid of hard work. Capitalist ideology equates quality of life with freedom from work. Communism encourages useful work dedicated to the masses. Exploitation, profits and wage slavery will be abolished.
Primarily we will rely on vast increases in the number of people who will perform useful work. Estimates run as high as 50% of those employed now administer capitalism. Furthermore, even those with useful jobs spend huge amounts of time handling money, doing paper work, travelling to and from work, maintaining personal automobiles, etc. All this wasted labor time will be freed to help us collectively provide for the needs of our class. Capitalism and its insane obsession with productivity will be no more.

Next Article