Work is a nature—imposed necessity. If society wishes to sustain itself then it has got to wrestle with nature and produce and distribute food, clothing and shelter in order for its survival. That is general, but now the particular.
Because the machinery of wealth production is in the hands of an owning class, most of us who don’t own this capital are compelled to seek employment from the owners. They are the employers, we are the employees. The employers’ privileges and riches are based on the exploitation of the employees, namely the amount of surplus-value which they (the capitalists) can extract from workers during production. It is in fact on this condition that jobs are provided. So for the workers to insist on their exploitation being made a “right” is blandly perpetuating the system of master and slave.
“Fight for the right to work” is the current bandwagon for the Communist Party and the International Socialists. They have been busy holding demonstrations urging workers to claim their entitlement to a lifelong toil. Their leaders have been anxious to explain how this can be done. Warning the Labour government “no cuts in public expenditure”. That British capitalists should be made to invest their capital in dear ol' Britain, and not export it abroad in search of bigger profits. And that import controls should be imposed in order to save the capitalists who own the home industries from going bankrupt. Most important of all, more state ownership. All done, according to the CP and IS, with the workers’ jobs at heart.
If that isn’t confusing enough, what about this? In America the “right to work” campaign is a completely different kettle of fish. Its main bind is against the power of the trade unions. The National Right to Work Committee which is led by a former electrical engineer, Reed Lawson from Kansas, has upped its membership in the last two years from 30,000 to 330,000. It’s against the trade unions’ closed shop policies; harassment of non-trade-unionists; strikes and picketing which affect the jobs of many people unconnected with the particular dispute. It’s against the compulsory unionization of the teachers and public employees. Last year the NRWC launched a campaign against the Common Sites Picketing Bill. After an inflow of 700,000 letters demanding its removal President Ford finally vetoed the bill. The British and American crusades for the “right to work” are almost opposites and as far as the workers are concerned neither provides much sense.
Society has a need to work. But today society is divided into Capital and Labour, each with its own different interests: Capital with its need to make as much profit as possible at the expense of wages, Labour its need to get as much in wages and as good conditions as possible. There is no place for “rights”. There is a need for Labour to seek independence from Capital and that comes about not by seeking phoney “rights” but only through the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class. The emancipation of the working class means the emancipation of all mankind.
Society’s need to produce everything for a full life requires converting the means of production from private or state-ownership into common ownership. By doing this we will have production for use with free access.
“Fight for the right to work” is pathetic and has no place beside the Socialist principle “From each according to his ability to each according to his need.”
Joe McGuinness
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