Unpaid work - capitalism's sleight of hand!

Vanguard June 2013 p. 12
Max O.

 

Capitalism continually endeavours to influence workers that it operates on the mantra - 'Fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay'. This disguises the fact that workers labour power creates not only value to reproduce themselves (wages to provide food, clothing, housing etc) but surplus value (profit) that the capitalists keep for themselves.

In addition to this is the obsession capitalism places on productivity. Workers are led to believe if they work harder, smarter and give away their 'obsolete' practices and entitlements everyone would be better off - business, workers and consumers.

Disciplining workers' labour-time

What capitalists are really on about is disciplining workers' labour-time. This is achieved by speed-ups, casualisation, time-and-motion tactics, piece-rates, undermining health and safety standards and unpaid overtime.

 

According to the Australia Institute, which recently commissioned a survey on work, full-time employees work 70 minutes of unpaid overtime during a typical day. Over a year that's 33 eight-hour days.  Another way to look at it is that it is more than the average employee's annual leave entitlement. The Australia Institute pointed out that this free labour is worth $72 billion a year to business.

These figures are backed up by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), who point out that more than a quarter (26%) of the nation's workers who work overtime are not being paid for extra hours. That is about 800,000 workers. The ABS published study also showed that one-in-three employees spend extra time at work.

The Australian Institute  survey shows that only one in five Australians are working the hours they want to work and that four out of five would like to reduce their working hours. In other words full-time workers want to work a lot less and part-time and casual workers want to work a lot more.

They claim that cutting back on overtime could create about 400,000 extra jobs and improve the health of workers. However we won't see the Business Council of Australia and their multinational backers consider these figures when arguing for another round of productivity improvements from the working class. They'll never acknowledge what they're got out of labour through the backdoor or by intimidation.

Productivity in the interest of Capital

Rises in productivity under capitalism, like profits, benefits capital not labour. When labour does get some crumbs, capital screams it is anti-productivity and will cause job losses.

For capitalists productivity and competition mean: When there is a high Australian dollar, manufacturers such as GMH lay off employees; airlines like Qantas seek mergers and carry out structural change, sacking huge numbers and leaving fewer to do the same amount of work; newspapers switch over to websites so journalists and printers are shown the door and conditions are lost; retailers panic over sales being taken away by Internet outlets, jobs are shed.

 

The only alternative is for the working class is to collectively unite and wield their labour power to their advantage. Ultimately it means transforming our country into an independent and socialist Australia!