an “I owe you” left off the table

this is something I am trying to beef up, any suggestions?
I want it to be as little theory as possible, keep basic.

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an “I owe you” left off the table

Money

There are very few people really asking for what they deserve in this land. You have many cases of people demanding way more than they deserve, usually this is your boss, your manager or your foreman; generally it is the people who tell you what to do without asking you what you think. These are the people that already have more than you; they think they are entitled to even more. It is the way professional hockey players and owners act as if one million isn't enough.

These same people, those who own and manage, will look at you with contempt and astonishment when you ask for just a little bit more; they will tell you wild stories and basically feed you bullshit. Ever wondered why it is so much harder for you to get a fraction of what they get, I know I have many times. Have you ever tried to unionize to ask for what you deserve? Do you remember the threats, do you remember how uncomfortable and how undeserving your bosses and managers made you feel? Ever heard of people getting fired for starting a union or trying to get a raise?
This is because the entitlement these people claim is based off stealing from you; every time you actually get what you rightly deserve; they are forced to settle for a little less more than you. By that I mean how much more money they have than you is cut off a bit. This is what you are taking from them, their extra wealth; what is in their pockets directly correlates with how much they convince you to allow them to steal from you. Your services are what the owners and employers profits off of; managers are given a smaller part of the profits to help keep you in line, they are sell outs, not in touch with the big picture. This is why when your boss or manager tries to guilt trip you it is absurd, they are already stealing from your families pockets; maybe you should consider demanding for more.

Hours

How many hours do you spend traveling to get to work? How many hours do you spend eating for work, getting up early for work? How much of your day is controlled by the work process? How many times have you had to leave your friends because you work in the morning? This is the second way that the employer takes from you, they takes more time than what they pays for. Your employer and the laws in this country allow you to be controlled and uncompensated beyond your work place. If we were really getting what is due to us we would be demanding more money for preparation and relaxation for work. We need to rest to recover from the work day just as much as you need to prepare for work before your shift. In other words, your work life doesn't magically end when you leave your workplace; there are actions central to working which happen in the communities that are important for the work process.

Your employer should be paying for your lunches; they should be paying for your transportation to and from work. Your employer should pay for the time it takes you to go grocery shopping to get food for lunches. Your employer should be paying for you uniform or work clothes. Most importantly the employer owes you for all the sleep you need to have to be able to go to work again the next day.
Really think about how much of your actions can be linked to your work life; that is what your employer owes you. Ever heard a friend say they feel like a slave, well in many ways our lives are enslaved to working.

Demands

It is very much important that we help each other get more; however, we must realize that the wage/salary way of working is based on this constant underpayment of workers/ employees/ Customer service reps... or whatever polite title has been given to you as a PC label for modern day slave. Our demands should go beyond simple collective bargaining; this type of demand requires hard work and struggle and caring about each other and not selling out. Only when we take control of our workplaces will we be able to be fairly compensated for the work we do; only you and your friends at work can get this done. By taking control I mean actually doing what it takes to create a democratic workplace; one without an owner, instead a collective of workers running the work together equally. This is being done in places like Argentina where the factory Zanon is but one example of a worker run workplace, it can happen here and we can help.

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I guess my first reaction is

I guess my first reaction is that a little bit of theory isn't necessarily a bad thing. Marx conducted many similar analyses of how we sell our wage labour and, sure, it's quite verbose and somewhat specific to industrial labour of the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, that doesn't mean it can't offer us with important theoretical insights into the underlying structures of work within the context of modern neoliberal capitalism. I know Marx can be anathema to many anarchists, but his contributions to a theory of capitalist wage labour are really crucial to any comprehensive critique of capitalism, even today.

I guess what I'm wondering is, is there any particular reason that you're trying to keep it at a colloquial or basic level?

Also, you point out that the entire structure of the system is designed to keep us without adequate remuneration for our labour, rendering us effectively slaves of our workplaces. Thus, fighting to get "more" may ultimately change nothing since the underlying framework of the exploitative system is still intact. I think this latter point needs to be stated more clearly and linked boldly to your last point - "Only when we take control of our workplaces will we be able to be fairly compensated for the work we do."

The idea of taking control over your workplace and organizing work along collectivist rather than hierarchical lines is a promising strand of thought in my opinion. I think as anarchists/anarcho-syndicalists, etc., this is really the clearest message we should send to those who are being disempowered by their work and we should utilize real-life examples such as the collectivization of factories in Venezuela, Argentina, and the water supplies of Cochabamba, Bolivia, etc., to bolster our arguments.

You've made some great points, best of luck with it!

kos | Wed, 10/17/2007 - 18:53

For paper

Just a quick comment Rev, I think the best way to approach an article like this for the paper is to view it as one of those sort of work/life balance articles that get published in the Life/Business section of your main stream papers but inject it with the most swift kick in the balls revolutionary critique rather than the usual ho-hokum "ain't it bad" sort of thing that passes for discussion about work and its strains seeping beyond the work place - so thats basically mentioning alienation and power structures in work, flexibility as a capital changing to sucker more work out, technology like Blackberries/IT letting work shift into home - you've sort of done that but they are all standard issues looked at in the mms press around work but rarely do such articles mention the real power dynamics at work and maybe hook the whole thing on some recent research report or something about work hours being performed in Ontario - the sort of "9/10 workers clain to be stressed..." thing that can start it. I'd also be cautious about the use of "you" in the article, rather than imploring someone to action it sounds like an order or a lecture, so maybe the use of "we" or some sort of "imagine if workers" could side line that sort of tone.

All in all deadly stuff.

timmybauld | Fri, 11/02/2007 - 00:07

more concrete suggestions

I'm not really familiar with that type of article and I can't access the page, it asks me purchase it to read further.

If you want to do some changes to it, we can co-author it up. But I'm not completely sure what you are getting at.

Tricksters are in a class of their own.

Rev (not verified) | Sun, 11/11/2007 - 18:45