Thoughts on justice and strikes
Last school year, my union chose to conduct an “unfair labor practice job action,” aka a three-day strike. We did it in conjunction with the other major labor union that represents service employees at my district. In all, over 60,000 people withheld their labour for three days. Schools shut down.
Parents were actually in support of our “job action.” Many local parents work at their neighbourhood schools for what were poverty wages. They knew that what makes a school a Title 1 school is a neighbourhood where folks are struggling. They were struggling. We all were. In my case, my wage went from very-low poverty level to low-poverty level. But, an improvement is an improvement.
Since then, there have been many labour strikes. UPS won record concessions and an equitable pay scale. The railroad workers’ attempt at a job action over their unsafe and unfair conditions was thwarted by President Biden and a bi-partisan coalition that saw the protection of capital and profits as more important than the railway workers.
Now, we have the auto workers on strike. Yes, over 13,000 members of the United Autoworkers have gone on strike at three major auto plants. The plants are owned by GM, Ford, and Stellantis, the "Big 3" multinational automakers. This is the first time the union has struck all the major companies at once. The strike started because the Big 3 missed the deadline to agree to a fair contract with the union.
This fight has been years in the making. During the Great Recession, the Big 3 almost went bankrupt. They were bailed out with taxpayer money. But autoworkers were forced to accept cuts in pay, benefits, and work rules. This included a “two-tier” pay scale where new workers make much less than old workers doing the same job. Ending two-tier pay is a main demand (UPS fixed this problem in their latest contract born out of their strike). The workers also want a pay raise to match inflation. And they want protection from layoffs when plants close. There is room, after all, for employees of multinational corporations to be relocated to other areas or trained to fulfill other duties.
The Big 3 falsely say the workers are greedy. But the companies make huge profits - $21 billion just in the first half of this year. Their executives are paid millions. Ford's CEO made $21 million last year. GM's CEO made $29 million.
A big issue, however, is the switch to electric cars. EVs need fewer workers to build. But instead of firing people, hours could be cut at the same pay. New technology should help workers, not destroy their jobs. The union wants a 4-day work week to share the work and keep folks employed. The Big 3 want to sack workers and maintain their record profits.
The strike hits a small number of parts plants. This targets the Big 3 without costing the strike fund too much. It allows the union to have a big impact over time.
Why strike?
As I talk to people in my community, I see that most have either been mis-educated or mal-educated about economics. They see this issue as one of “free markets” and that companies should be able to do what they want and workers should find another job if they don’t like things where they are. Remembering that autistic unemployment is over 60%, there’s such privilege in their view.
They also believe that everything that isn’t the “free market” is communism. But, they have no idea what communism or socialism is outside of the talking points they’ve learned from the many corporate media shills.
When I’m feeling especially vocal, I might ask them what part of Kapital they disagreed with. But, I know they’ve never read a book on economics, let alone Das Kapital.
Why is this an important question to ask westerners?
The complete title of Karl Marx's seminal work is “Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Ökonomie” which translates from German to English as “Capital: Critique of Political Economy.”
The full title provides important context on the nature and purpose of Marx’s analysis in Das Kapital. The “Critique of Political Economy” portion indicates Marx was providing a critique or critical examination of the prevailing economic theories and systems of his time, particularly the capitalist system and classical economics.
The first volume of Das Kapital was published in 1867 in German, with two additional volumes edited and published after Marx's death by Friedrich Engels. The English translation is typically just titled “Capital” or “Capital, Volume I” but the full original German title more clearly conveys Marx’s aim to critically analyze capitalist political economy and the theories that supported it. The lengthy full title summarizes the core theme of Marx’s masterwork.
Marx and Strikes
According to Marx, society is divided into two main classes - the bourgeoisie or capitalist class who own the means of production, and the proletariat or working class who sell their labour. Marx saw inherent conflict between these classes as the engine of history. Within this framework, Marx viewed labour strikes as an important tool for the working class to fight against exploitation by the ruling class. Strikes disrupt capitalist production and profits, increasing pressure on the capitalists. This aligns with Marx’s belief that class struggle should ultimately lead to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.
Marx believed strikes could raise class consciousness among workers by fostering solidarity and a sense of collective identity and power. This can lead workers to recognize their common interests against the ruling oligarchs. However, Marx saw limits to what strikes alone could achieve - the capitalist system itself needs to be transformed, so whilst strikes may improve conditions temporarily, the fundamental conflict remains. Unions and strikes are useful but political organization and revolution are required in Marx’s view. Even failed strikes serve an educational purpose, teaching lessons about organizing and challenging capitalist power that can be applied in the future.
Justice?
Consider the case of GM. It reported a net profit of $2.0 billion. That profit gets sent to shareholders, the “owners” of GM. They did nothing to generate that profit. They don’t build cars. They just own stock in a capitalist company.
GM has roughly 167,000 employees world wide. If GM was a “worker co-op,” that net profit could be divided amongst the employees in a profit sharing payment.
Total to split = $2,000,000,000 Number of employees = 167,000
$2,000,000,000 / 167,000 = $11,976.65
This is in addition to the operating expense of the cost of labour. This is a bonus given to the people that create the value that generated the profit.
In Das Kapital, Karl Marx developed the idea of surplus value of labour as part of his critique of capitalism. According to Marx, the workday can be divided into two segments - necessary labour and surplus labour. Necessary labour refers to the time spent by the worker producing value equal to their wages, representing the labour required to produce enough to provide for the worker at a basic subsistence level. Surplus labour is the additional time worked beyond the necessary labour time, which produces surplus value that is kept by the capitalist. The workers trade their labour power in exchange for wages to live, but the capitalist extracts surplus value by paying the workers less than the full value their labour has actually produced. This surplus value, representing the unpaid surplus labour the workers are compelled to perform beyond earning their subsistence wages, is the source of the capitalist's profit and further accumulation of wealth. Marx saw the extraction of surplus value as inherently exploitative and unjust because workers are denied the full fruits of their labour whilst the capitalist class appropriates the surplus value generated by their unpaid surplus labour. Thus Marx's theory of surplus value of labour exposes how the capitalist system rests on workers producing more value through their labour than they receive back in wages.
That’s why strikes are powerful. They’re the only means workers have to hit back, withholding their labour.
We are already starting to see the corporate media blame the workers for being selfish for voting to go on strike. We’re seeing stories about the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike “costing” the local economy billions in lost profits. But, we never saw the corporate media side with the writers against the studios. Most writers make very little. Most actors make very little. A relative few get the big contracts. Yet, the studios and the bosses make a fortune off of their work.
Is this just?
There are alternative views about the way things could work in the US. But Americans have been so propagandized over the century since Das Kapital was written that they have no perspective on the issue. You don’t have to be a Marxist to engage in a conversation about the propriety of giant multinational corporations being bailed out with taxpayer money but shafting workers. In this country, in my lifetime, we’ve privatised profits and socialised losses. We saw it with the Big 3 auto companies. We are seeing it with the failed banks. JP Morgan Chase gets to keep the profits if everything works out in absorbing the failed banks, but taxpayers will cover their losses if they don’t. Nevermind that SVB was a venture capital slush fund and deserved to fail. Let it fail. Let the venture funds absorb the losses. Why should workers subsidize their folly? Is this just?
Wrapping it up
Obviously, I’ve presented a point of view that is outside of the dominant narrative. I might lose a few of you because of it. If you want to add comments as to where I’m wrong, feel free. Nobody’s perfect. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted Das Kapital? Let me know in the comments below.