The true meaning of Welfare Supervision. (1916)

From the September 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Signs are not wanting that at the cessation of hostilities on the Continent and the other fronts a return of the old industrial struggles will once again be the order of the day. Even now politicians and the Press vie with each other in an endeavour to gloss over the struggle of the classes, and here and there ladle out to both employers and employees the need for a “give-and-take” policy.

The old wheezes of “co-partnery” and “profit-sharing,” which have been tried in certain businesses, have not worked out as satisfactorily as was anticipated, owing to the flood of light shed thereon by Socialist thought and criticism. And so to-day we find an agitation springing up on every hand for “Welfare Supervisors.” It is somewhat significant how fresh devices are introduced one after another in order to give a new lease of life to capitalist production and to further rivet the chains of wage-slavery around the workers.

With the institution of the ministry of munitions further official notice was given to this question of “Welfare Supervisors,” and at the same period “The Times” newspaper pointed out how, in the German workshops, this ministering to the inner man and attendance to the congenial conditions of workshop life greatly facilitated the method of production. The Health of Munition Workers Committee which was appointed issued a report in which they stated : “The provision of facilities for obtaining a hot meal at the factory are often inadequate, especially for night workers. Frequently the arrangements made for heating carried food are also wholly insufficient. Yet the munition worker, like the soldier, requires good rations to enable him to do good work.” The last clause of the report goes on to say : “The rapid growth of commercial undertakings, and in particular of munition works, makes it difficult or impracticable for the management to deal, unless by special arrangement, with the numerous problems of labour efficiency, and the personal welfare of the employee. Yet without some such special arrangement there cannot fail to be “diminished output, discontent, and unsmooth working.” Thus we see that ” Welfare Supervisors” are necessary in order to ensure that the workers shall at certain intervals, take in just sufficient fuel and oil to keep the machine running smoothly !

In this connection also “The Stratford Express” for August 12th and 19th published two articles entitled “The Human Element in Factories” by B. Seebohm Rowntree. To reverse the order of things, I venture to quote the concluding paragraph first. It says : “After more than 20 years experience of welfare supervision in my own factory, I am thoroughly convinced of the wisdom of appointing welfare supervisors where large numbers of girls are employed. They not only promote the well-being, the health and efficiency of the girls, but they save the management an enormous amount of trouble. And it must be remembered that an increase of efficiency is important, not only to employers, but also to the workers, for there cannot be progressive improvement in wages unless there is progressive improvement in methods of production.” Here we have the frank confession of a member of the employing class who freely admits that it pays to look after and improve the general conditions of factory life. The phase “it must be remembered that an increase of efficiency is important, not only to employers, but also to the workers, for there cannot be progressive, improvement in wages unless there is progressive improvement in methods of production,” merely demonstrates the fact that the more efficient the workers become, combined with the elimination of wasted energy and better conditions of labour, the greater is the surplus-value produced for the employer with a lesser number of wage-slaves required to produce a given quantity of commodities. The sop offered as an inducement to greater effort on the part of the workers—that they will get a “progressive improvement in wages”—further emphasises the measure of their exploitation.

Our author in his opening remarks tells his readers that “Welfare supervision is simply the creation in a factory of those conditions which enable each individual worker to be and to do his best.” He then goes on to say that so long as factories were small there was no need of any special organisation to secure this end, for with the close relationship of master and employee every worker could be put to the work best fitted for him ; but as factories grew larger and larger this personal relation was crowded out. “The employer no longer knew his workers even by name. They came to be impersonal ‘factory hands’ to him, who were treated in the mass, without individual consideration.” To most of our readers this will be commonplace.

Moreover, Mr. Rowntree says “some employers may think that welfare supervision is merely a fad. This is quite a mistaken view. It is not only good . . . but it is thoroughly sound business from the standpoint of the employer ;” and “it is stupid to treat workers in the mass.” Then, he goes on to ask : “What should we think of an employer who treated his machinery in the mass ? As a matter of fact he watches his mechanical equipment with extraordinary care. It is continually tested to find out if there is any overstrain. A man goes round with an oil can all day long to see that there is no unnecessary friction anywhere.” After pointing out the care and attention which is paid to the machinery the writer suggests that a similar method should be applied to the human beings who are infinitely more complex and delicate, and adds : “If only employers would treat their employees with as much consideration as they do their machines, they would have less difficulty in getting satisfactory output.” With regard to the hours of labour for girls and women a suggestion of a 48 hour week is put forward, and we are informed that the employer “is wise who adopts this course.” A little later one observes the following remark : “I question whether it ever pays to keep on working girls for more than 54 hours a week.” With regard to the question of workers partaking of lunch it is put forward with all seriousness that “a short break of, say, ten minutes in the middle of the morning is a distinct advantage.” On the subject of canteens the writer is equally emphatic, and he goes on to say that the Americans recognise “much more fuJly than we do the advantages of good canteen arrangements in the works, adding that unless girls (and the same is equally true regarding men) in a factory can get a comfortable midday meal and a restful dinner hour, they cannot be expected to do a good afternoon’s work. He also mentions that some employers look upon comfortable mess rooms and canteens as luxuries and an expense which brings in no return. “Nothing is further from the truth,” is his rejoinder to these people. Even such things as lighting, heating, and ventilation are touched upon, with the further remark that we (the bosses) are quite alive to the importance of these things in our own offices.

The method of engaging the newcomer to the factory is next dealt with at great length, it being suggested that the applicant should be engaged by the “welfare supervisor” instead of by the foreman. The supervisor would then have a talk with the applicant and ascertain her qualifications, and having decided to recommend her for employment would “try to interest her in it, making her feel both that the firm intends to do the ‘square thing’ by her, and that she must do the ‘square thing’ by the firm.” This reminds one of the old idea depicted on Trade Union banners showing the two hands clasped representing Capital and Labour ; and strange to say, these relics of the earlier days of trade union activity are still to be seen dragged through the streets on occasions when there is no possibility whatever of obscuring the class struggle ! The identity of interests, forsooth ! The robbed and the robbers doing “the square thing” ! What balderdash !

One could go on and quote more extensively from these articles, but I think sufficient has been culled to show that the whole purpose underlying them is simply an object lesson to the employing class on how, under the pretence of an interest in the welfare of their slaves, they can better exploit them. Fellow-workers, let it be an object lesson to you also.

T.

Voice From The Back: Lady Bountiful’s cast-offs (2001)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lady Bountiful’s cast-offs

The working class are used to being insulted and patronised but the Labour government’s latest scheme to deal with the plight of the unemployed smacks of a “noblesse oblige” arrogance unsurpassed since Victorian times. “Female celebrities are queueing up to give their cast-off designer clothes to unemployed women to wear at job interviews. Potential employers are not too sure about the scheme in which they will be facing job applicants from Liverpool, Doncaster and London wearing Cherie Blair’s Paco Rabane trouser suit, Elizabeth Hurley’s scarlet Versace heels or a grey suit formerly worn by the Duchess of York . . . Tessa Jowell, the Employment Minister is backing the idea and has donated a jacket. Mo Mowlam will follow suit.” Times, 10 November.

Art s(m)ells

“Art today serves no socially worthwhile purpose. It’s an extravagant waste of money. Yes, people die from hunger and poverty every minute, and no work of art has ever done anything to save the world. Cloaca [his machine on exhibition in Antwerp’s Muhka Museum] if fed only our finest cuisine by people who can probably only afford a sandwich for lunch. The end product is both art and yet something we all produce ourselves every day. In a sense we’re all artists” visitors have to hold their noses and staff have gone on strike because of the foul smell, yet, according to the report in Scotland on Sunday, 29 October, . . . “the machine’s daily discharge of 200 grams is bottled, signed and sold for no less than £1000 a time.”

Capitalism is lethal

In this country, one in five girls aged between 13 and 25 has made a suicide attempt (a figure which echoes the findings of American research). More young British men—some 2,000 a year—now die by their own hand than by any other single cause except for car accidents. You magazine, 19 November.

You have been warned

Greg Dyke, boss of the BBC, has recently appointed Jeff Randall to be the BBC’s first business editor. According to Randall, he intends to be consulted on every programme dealing with business. So how did this self-confessed admirer of Rupert Murdoch and former City editor and associate editor of the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times land this influential post? “In May he wrote an article about the BBC’s business coverage that attracted the attention of Greg Dyke. It included the assertion: ‘Running through the Corporation, from top to bottom, like the word Blackpool through a stick of rock, is a liberal agenda set by patronising, middle class, guilt-ridden do-gooders who dominate its corridors.” The article’s pay-off was just as likely to endear him to his new colleagues: ‘It’s about time he looked at the Corporation’s institutionalised bias against free enterprise wealth-creators and did something about it.” Times, 10 November.

Dam worrying

A report this week by the Chartered Insurance Institute on the impact of climate change in Britain is sure to cause alarm. Professor David Crichton of Middlesex University, who helped write the report, said yesterday: “Climate change will lead to an increased risk of dam failure. About half the 2,500 large dams have earth embankments, most of them constructed before heavy soil compaction equipment was available.” He also said that he was concerned at the secrecy surrounding the way that they were maintained. The report will say: “The thoroughness of inspection depends almost entirely on how much the dam owner is prepared to pay and the results are never published, not even to local authority emergency planning offices or the emergency services.”

Bullying, USA

One in six people has experienced some form of workplace bullying by a co-worker or superior, according to the Campaign Against Workplace Bullying, which started a two-day conference yesterday at Suffolk University Law School to bring to light the problem and look for a way to help . . . [R]eports of bullying are on the rise, in part due to the rising awareness of the problem and the profit demands of the new economy. “More of us work in investment-driven workplaces, and many see that as a license to be cruel to employees and do so with impunity,” Gary Namie explained. “What’s more, usually they’re promoted for it.” Berkshire Eagle, 28 October.

Hopping mad

A hopping landmine that can leap up to 10m into the air and fill gaps left by minefield clearance operations is being developed by the American military. With a powerful piston-driven foot, ultrasonic sensors and radios, the self-righting mines will be able to detect the distance to neighbouring mines and sense when some are missing. The remaining mines will then be able to hop around to once more form a regular pattern covering the original minefield area. military chiefs have asked that this be accomplished within ten seconds. Western Australian, 30 September.

The Myth of Management (1974)

From the February 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

'We are a happy team here, I treat my workers as human beings and they appreciate that’

Many managers in industry and commerce today, when pushed to explain their rôle, will define management very simply and starkly as: “Getting other people to do what we want them to.” Implicit in this is the idea that most people would not be doing the things managers want them to if they had a free choice. It is not difficult to understand why.

If you have ever had to get up at some unearthly hour of the morning, and journey to work simply to face the prospect of eight hours or more as the victim of an “efficient” system, you will know why. You have little control over what goes on, your time perspective is short, you are a passive instrument of production, you are dependent on those who have authority over you, and so on. Basically you are an adult being forced to behave as a child.

You might think that under these circumstances capitalist bosses and owners would have a difficult time persuading people to work for them, specially as the workers are not producing to fulfil sensible needs but just to supply markets. In one way you would be right; but capitalism has forceful ways of getting people to act against their best interests and produce wealth that will be accumulated to further ensnare workers in wage-slavery. For a start, working people under capitalism need wages to buy the necessities of life. In addition, advertizing implores and persuades everyone to buy more of this and that; with the result that every worker hopes to find a job that pays as much as possible and offers “advancement”, i.'e. the prospect of competing against other workers to somehow get more than they.

Research

Once a worker is engaged, how does capitalism ensure that it gets the maximum possible out of him? This is where management comes in. Capitalism, in order to produce and grow, has no alternative but to devote much attention to management to control workforces and persuade workers to take part in the corporate madness. On the surface it may look as if it has been successful: the majority of workers are persuaded most of the time to behave in a way that is profitable for the enterprise and to accept that managers have “the right” — as trained specialists — to control the machinery and the lives of those who work at it.

In developing the “craft” of management a great amount of effort has been expended, particularly in the universities; today no self-respecting university is without its Management Studies department. Here, students are trained and research is carried out to discover newer and more promising ways to achieve management’s end. It is enlightening to know that the Russians have been among other capitalist countries who have fallen over themselves to gain the latest information on management methods from the gurus at the universities in Britain and America.

Historically, the “Scientific Management” principles of F. W. Taylor in the early 1900s can be seen as among the first efforts by industrial capitalists to control workers otherwise than by force and the fear of dismissal. Essentially, these principles maintained that if firms selected their workers, trained them in the most efficient ways, and appeared to be rewarding them accordingly, the workers would behave in a way that was satisfactory to the management. (The wage-worker’s satisfaction would come from the supposition that he received high earnings.) This view of industrial man has become known as the “Rational-Economic” view and has given rise to work-study, personnel selection and systematic training techniques in industry.

What is a Human Being ?

It rapidly became apparent that this view was inadequate, and soon another factor in the industrial situation was named by researchers in the United States of America. It was discovered from the deservedly famous Hawthorne researches of Elton Mayo and others that there was a social factor to take into account in the workplace. Workers left to congregate did so in what were termed “informal groups”; in these they operated norms of behaviour and restricted production — not always in the best interests of the management and owners but in their own interests as workers. The management teaching which emanated from these researches became known as the “Human Relations” school, and was concerned to show that leadership at work was very important in order to get workers’ behaviour to coincide with the wishes of management.

This doctrine was very acceptable to capitalists, not only because of its timely appearance but because it seemed to fit in with Christian ethics and thereby reinforced management’s responsibility to control the enterprise. It has given rise to innumerable supervisory management courses, and the theatricals of treating workers as “real people” to give them motivation to produce for the benefit of the owners. In the immortal words of an unnamed industrial supervisor: “We are a happy team here, I treat my workers as human beings and they appreciate that.”

After the Second World War, in the developed capitalist countries there was a tremendous upsurge of study in the “social sciences” of psychology, sociology, social anthropology, political science, etc. To gain money for research in the USA, researchers removed the tainted word “social” and substituted “behavioral”. This name-change had the tempting implication of learning how to predict, control and manipulate the behaviour of human beings. Needless to say, plenty of money was then forthcoming to pursue these “sciences” and to feed resulting information to management so that it would be utilized to increase industrial stability and efficiency.

Inventing a Meaning

Management studies “discovered” what Marx had known long before: that man looked for meaning in his work, and the chance to develop and mature. Bureaucracies and other traditional forms of organization took away the likelihood of finding meaning except in the top echelons of the hierarchy. It was said also that bureaucracies produced immature behaviour and conflict among themselves because of the workings of internal politics and career structure. Therefore people were looking for their satisfaction outside the workplace and becoming apathetic and non-involved towards work. Management badly needed an ideology to cope with these problems. Lo and behold, it was produced in the guise of “Organization Development”.

“Organization Development” is the requirement for a firm to keep pace with technical and social changes inside and outside itself. It makes use of such trendy techniques as “participative management”, “job enrichment”, etc. What it means for management is seeking the commitment of the work-force by devising and designing jobs which offer people a challenge, and offer the worker more positive opportunities to “fulfil himself as an individual” at work. The supporting logic is that given these opportunities the individual will gain more satisfaction at work; his defences, brought into action to combat the immature manner in which he had to behave at work formerly, would be eroded — and consequently organizational effectiveness would be increased.

It is precisely this logic and ideology that is behind the much-publicized reorganization of production at Volvo in Sweden into teams of workers producing whole cars themselves, not on assembly lines but in what are termed “villages”. Volvo’s boss has been quoted as saying that if the experiment fails and output falls, the whole system can soon be re-transformed to the assembly line. So much for concern with “human satisfaction” !

Scientific Management was rape but Organization Development, with its techniques of “participation” and “enrichment”, is seduction. The end result is the same, a violated human being and society.

Why it will not Work

The Behavioural Science techniques have been and are being used by management to meet the continual difficulty of getting people to accept wage-slavery. It is the latest fad in a long line of panaceas for the problems of the capitalist system. We may take for granted that it will be as unsuccessful as all the other rearguard actions of capitalism and will not for long dupe workers into believing it is in their interests to acquiesce. The dilemma for management is that responsibility given to a person or group means a loss of managerial control. Therefore, management could not go far in creating true enrichment and participation without undermining its own control of the means of production. They will not do that.

All these attempts then have failed and will fail to deliver the goods. From the capitalists’ point of view, people remain “unmanageable” — but the capitalist class must go on seeking ways to manage, training people for leadership (and presumably followership).

It may appear that managers themselves have a vested interest in the continuance of capitalism because it gives apparent power and status. It should be remembered that they too are workers, anxious to be hired and liable to be fired. While perhaps lording-it over their “workforces”, they are themselves just as much aware of their own insecurity: they share the same problems. From that point of view the so-called leader is likely to be conscious that leadership is a myth.

Socialists do everything possible to destroy that myth and the necessity for people to be “managed”. The idea of management and leadership is an industrial as well as a political fallacy. In a Socialist society people will be able to decide democratically how labour is to be applied for the common good. The need for management is obsolete in such a society. No wages or status, but democratic decision-making and free access to goods and services. Who needs managers ?

D. G. Bishop

House Journals (1960)

From the July 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Newspapers and magazines, like every other commodity under capitalism, are produced primarily for profit. But there is one type of publication which capitalists are quite content to run at a loss. That is the house journal—a company’s own organ, specially designed for its workers and sometimes also for its trade customers. According to the current issue of the Newspaper Press Directory, there are today in Britain no fewer than 642, of which more than 250 were launched last year. And by the end of 1960, despite mounting production costs, the number is expected to top 800.

House journals demand heavy, continuous subsidies. That is why only the bigger capitalist organisations are prepared to publish them. For unlike the national and provincial press, they reap no large advertising revenues. Even those which. carry advertisements, at purely nominal rates, far from cover themselves. Unlike their big brothers in Fleet Street, their circulations can be counted in thousands. A few publish weekly, but the vast majority appear monthly or quarterly. Given away or sold for a penny or two, they are either distributed in the factory or mailed direct to the worker’s home so that Mum and the kids can read them as well.

Until recent years, most house journals were the work of enthusiastic amateurs—personnel officers, social and sports club secretaries, or sales promotion managers with a bent for journalism. Their pages were packed with a stream of sentimental slush about the boss and “puffs” about his products. Issue after issue, with nauseating regularity, carried pictures of a beaming chairman addressing the annual staff dinner (“We must all pull together, chaps”), or of a director’s wife, distributing Sports Day trophies to the “lower orders” or of Bill Bloggs receiving his reward for half a century of “loyal and faithful” service to capitalism—an oak-cased clock.

Now many firms have begun to realise that the house journal can be forged into a more effective propaganda weapon. To a nation fed on the slick, streamlined mass-circulation daily newspapers and television, the old, sycophantic “God Bless the Boss” approach is as out-dated as a belief in the divine right of kings. So the professional publicist, the Public Relations officer, with an “understanding” of the masses, is being brought in to give the house journal a new, dynamic personality. Imitating the giant national daily newspapers, he dispenses the propaganda in potent, but subtle, doses—through brightly-written news stories, eye-catching pictures, arresting headlines and attractive make-up.

Why does Big Business, notorious for its opposition to wage increases, lavish so much money on its own publications, sometimes to the tune of £20,000 a year or more? Socialists know full well that capitalists do not play Santa Claus; that there is a sound commercial reason for any philanthropic front. House journals are no exception.

Their rapid rise is due to two major factors:

First, a growing acceptance by business chiefs of the theory that a happy worker makes a more productive worker.

Second, a growing interest by workers in the activities of the organisation which employs them.

For years, industrial psychologists have, in the name of greater efficiency, called for better staff relations. “Give the workers a sense of belonging,” “Make the men feel the boss really cares” and other similar pleas have been dinned into the ears of top management. The house journal can help to create “a happy family atmosphere” in the factory, with its prospects of greater surplus value. This is particularly important where frequent labour disputes cause havoc with production, and where employers find it difficult to attract or retain workers.

Similarly, more and more firms are concerned to “sell” themselves to their workers and customers. Company affairs are coming under a stronger spotlight from the mass-communication media. The beam rarely reveals the nature of 'capitalist exploitation, but it is bright enough to illuminate many interesting aspects of management. As a result of this development, capitalists are being forced to pay increasing attention to public criticism. The house journal makes a useful platform for justifying attitudes and actions. For example, many of these journals carry from time to time charts and diagrams, seeking to prove that the shareholders, not the workers who produce all wealth, are the poor relations of industry. To study some of them, one would think that if dividends dropped any lower, the capitalists would be signing on at the Labour Exchanges.

But large or small, well or badly produced, free or sold cheaply, all house journals are alike in one essential respect—they are the voice of the boss. As one of Britain’s leading P.R.O.’s reminded the 1958 Conference of House Journal Editors: “Few house journals are ‘steeped in liberty.’ Yours, let us face it, is not a free press, but a controlled one, subject to the dictates of top management.” Workers should never forget that the basic purpose of the house journal is to strengthen support for an individual capitalist concern. And as such, it helps to project the capitalist rat-race as the best possible, indeed the only workable, social system.

P. R. O.

A Novel Workplace (2021)

Book Review from the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Employees: a Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century. By Olga Ravn. Lolli £12.99. (Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken)

The workplace in question is a spaceship, with a crew of humans and humanoids, which has travelled far from Earth and is orbiting the planet New Discovery. Some peculiar objects from the planet have been taken onboard, objects with strange fragrances and which are given unofficial names, such as ‘the Gift’ and ‘the Half-Naked Bean’.

The novel begins with a statement by a committee that interviewed the employees, which is full of management-speak, such as how the impact of the mysterious objects ‘might be said to precipitate reduction or enhancement of performance’, so ‘illuminating their specific consequences for production’.

Gradually the reader discovers why the committee exists and what the reactions of the workers have been. This applies to both humans and humanoids, and it is not always obvious to which category an individual belongs (‘Does it say in your files what I am?’, asks one interviewee). One humanoid says they were ‘made for work’, and cannot understand how a human could be more than their work, yet a human says their job means everything to them. One human misses shopping back on Earth, while another wants to hold a child in their arms again, and a third is grateful for being able to spend time with a hologram of their son. One humanoid feels sad, and one human prefers to spend time with the humanoids. Another interviewee (human? humanoid?) begins to feel disloyal towards the organisation behind the voyage: ‘it pains me because there’s no place for me other than inside the organisation’.

A central theme of the book, then, is the role and importance of work in a person’s life, in a setting where it seems there is little else to do other than work. Humans and humanoids become harder to distinguish, even though they stop talking to each other. One worker notes that it takes twenty years to produce a capable human employee, and a lot can ‘go wrong’ in that time, whereas it takes just two years to produce a humanoid worker. Humanoid bodies are more valuable than human ones, being more durable and open to software updates.

The organisation’s board of directors is primarily concerned to preserve the ship and its cargo, especially the weird objects, and it turns out that the directors are themselves humanoid, though this was not conveyed to the human crew, as they would be likely to react more positively to fellow humans.

All in all, an interesting if difficult reflection on such topics as the role of work, what makes someone human, what activities other than work are needed. Not a socialist science fiction novel, but one with noteworthy comments on some aspects of capitalism (even though that word is not used).

Paul Bennett

Running Commentary: Sports Aid (1986)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sports Aid

From "Sports Aid" to "Neil Aid", and the continuing story of the Labour Party’s attempts to win support on any basis apart from their policies. They have however, moved on from pop stars in an attempt to appear more sensible, as illustrated by their Partly Political Broadcast for the Regional Council elections in May. Elsewhere in Britain viewers were treated to Glenda Jackson among others, but in Scotland it was a much more serious affair with the appearance of the Labour Party’s new signing, that expert on housing and local government, John Colquhoun. Now for those of you who do not know already, John Colquhoun plays for Hearts FC and knows a thing or two about selling dummies, so naturally he is now trying to sell us the shadow cabinet in return for our vote.

Don't mention Albert Kidd . . .

And what did John Colquhoun. the only left-winger that Neil Kinnock doesn’t consider an electoral liability, actually say — “I’ll be voting Labour. I hope you do too", or some such pearl of wisdom. He could even have said he would be over the moon if you would vote Labour, but this viewer couldn’t say for sure — it's difficult taking notes when you are lying in hysterics on the carpet in front of the TV.

More important, though, is what is being suggested here by the Labour Party — forget about your problems of poverty, unemployment or housing, and don't bother trying to relate them to the promises of the Labour Party. Instead just vote according to how some guy who earns his living by kicking a lump of leather around a field, says. Well, they do say that footballers have their brains in their feet.

So what can we expect next? Ian Botham on the government's anti-drugs campaign? Frank Bruno on law and order. . .?

Victorian values

Sweat-shops have never really disappeared from Britain or other parts of the world. Now, however, they look set to be brought back from the fringes of legality into the fold of respectability. Just as Victorian values are once again in vogue, so it seems are Victorian working conditions. The government has just produced a White Paper aimed at the ’de-regulation'’ of small business. The aim is to make it easier for owners of businesses to make profit from the labour of their workers without having to be bothered with the inconvenience of the health and safety of employees or workers' legal rights to employment protection.

If the proposals become law then the following will be some of the effects:

• Workers will be deterred from going to an industrial tribunal after being dismissed "unfairly". by a requirement that they should pay a £25 fee before charging the employer with ’unfair" dismissal.
• Workers will have to have worked for two years with a company, rather than six months as at present, before the employer is obliged to give detailed reasons for dismissal.
• Firms with fewer than ten employees will no longer be obliged to allow a woman to return to work within 29 weeks of giving birth to a child.
• Restrictions will be introduced on the functions union officials are to be allowed to perform or to attend during working hours to only those trade union duties formally recognised by the employer.
• Part-time workers will have to work 50 per cent more hours a week before they are entitled to the main employment protection rights. Those working between 12 and 20 hours a week will only qualify for employment rights after five years working for the same employer.

These legal rights were not granted by the capitalist class without a struggle. That they can so easily be removed now, at a time of economic recession when trade unions are weak, shows the fragile nature of workers’ ’’rights" in capitalism.

Your life in their hands

Recently, as a result of a government report on efficiency in the Health Service, general managers have been appointed to run the NHS. The idea behind the move is that productivity can be improved by using measures not dissimilar to those that might be used in running, say, United Biscuits. The problem is that while cost-benefit analysis might work in assessing efficiency in a biscuit factory, it has somewhat bizarre, or even tragic, consequences when you try to apply it to human health. For example, given the limited resources available for health care under capitalism, how do you decide in strict cost-benefit terms how to allocate those resources? How is productivity to be measured? By the turn-over of patients each year? By the number of operations performed? Should you go for "quantity” — keeping as many people alive for as long as possible no matter what their state of health — or "quality" — maintaining people in good health in the short-term? Do you opt for expensive operations like heart transplants on young people who have still got a number of years left as potentially exploitable workers? If so, what about the huge numbers of elderly workers whose quality of life could be drastically improved by relatively simple and cheap operations like hip-replacement surgery even though they are no longer of use to the labour force?

These are the kinds of decisions that health workers and administrators are faced with, given the lack of priority accorded to people's health and well-being under capitalism. The appointment of general managers will do nothing to change this. Clearly the attempt to run the NHS along the lines of an efficient capitalist enterprise is proving too much for even successful entrepreneurs like Victor Paige, who recently resigned as "Chairman of the Board" of the NHS. But "middle management" is also showing signs of strain. Freddie Lucas has also resigned as general manager of Central Birmingham Health Authority. (A former army brigadier, one would have thought that he was better qualified to make decisions about killing people rather than keeping them alive but then again we don't know what his terms of reference were). He complained that members of the Health Authority didn't "have the good sense to stand back and let management manage" (Guardian, 7 June 1986). Health authorities contain too many vested interests to inspire much confidence and given the choice between the BMA and the army to decide health service priorities, we would obviously do best to opt for a social system based on human interests.

Running Commentary: Tenants’ choice (1988)

The Running Commentary Column from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tenants’ choice

The government’s housing bill is currently undergoing its report stage in the House of Commons. This piece of legislation represents yet another example of the way in which government twists the meaning of language, purporting to give tenants more "freedom" and "choice" by granting them the "right" to opt out of local authority control. Just how far language is distorted is evident in the supposedly democratic procedures laid down in the bill for voting on whether ownership of an estate or block of flats should be passed from the council to a new landlord.

Only local authority tenants resident at the time the prospective landlord made his or her application to the local authority to take over specific properties can vote. This initial application may have been made as much as six or nine months before the ballot is actually held. As a result the “electoral register" will inevitably be out of date. In fact, any tenants who have left the relevant property in the intervening period will still have the right to vote — as will tenants who have died — even though they will in no way be affected by the decision made. On the other hand, tenants who have moved into the estate or block in the months before the ballot will not have the right to vote.

The second perverse feature of the voting procedure is that anyone who does not vote who is eligible to do so will be assumed to be in favour of the property being transferred to the new landlord, and that includes any dead eligible tenants.

Finally the transfer of the property will go ahead unless more than 50 per cent of those eligible to vote, vote against. What this means in practice is that the privatisation of an estate or block of flats can go ahead even if no one actually votes in favour of it. And they dignify this farce with the name of "tenants' choice ”.

Life and death

Many workers find aspects of capitalism morally repugnant: the degradation, misery and exploitation that continually flow from a class society throw-up impassioned voices of criticism and protest. Take the following examples of the way in which workers are brutalised for the sake of profit.

A Japanese electrical company was reported in the Daily Telegraph of 11 April to have been worried that its workers were not competitive enough. To overcome this problem fifteen trainees were deposited on an uninhabited island three miles from the mainland for a three-day survival course. Reporters were told by an enthusiastic employer that "The trainees will have to exercise their imagination and will-power to survive . . . We need flexible people." The article went on to discuss the way in which school-children, on joining Japanese companies, are often sent to military bases for a crash-course in discipline, conformity, teamwork, competitiveness and patriotism. The writer concluded: "Parade ground drill, three-mile runs and saluting the National Flag attune young people to the sacrifice demanded on their life-time marriage to the company".

The same paper on 5 March revealed that the Lord Mayor of London recently sought to persuade City firms to send their young employees into the Territorial Army. As in Japan, firms have been told that training professional killers will instil into employees the competitive will to succeed. Ironically it was advertised as less expensive than sending City workers to Japanese-style weekend training courses. It also falls conveniently in line with ideas put forward by the National Employer Liaison Committee, set up by Thatcher herself, which wants to increase employers' support for the state's reserve armed forces.

In the last week of May the Daily Telegraph reported the death of a Sales Manager. He had worked more than 12 hours a day to meet the demands of his employers, who still were not satisfied with his performance. Before he killed himself they wrote to him stating that "Quality and customer satisfaction must become an obsession". For good measure they advised him that he would have to work harder for less money. The coroner concluded that "There is so much more to life than business schemes and profit". but did not suggest so informing the CBI.

Rigid discipline and the nurturing of aggressive behaviour are vital to capitalism. It requires such qualities no matter what the cost nor how unpalatable they are to workers involved. No moralising will make them disappear because the pursuit of profit must inevitably trample on human needs and brutalise individuals in the process. This is nothing more than a fact of life under capitalism.

Workers have two choices. They can go beyond the promises of politicians and the hollowness of reformism and organise politically to abolish capitalism. Or they can resign themselves to a lifetime of wasted effort working in charities, signing petitions, attending marches or writing harrowing books exposing this or that acute social problem. To do so will condemn us to stumble from one crisis to another and brutalise, degrade and maybe even kill us in the process.

Richard Lloyd

Coronavirus: The Italian experience (2020)

From the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Italy infected

Covid-19 is a new virus and is threatening to swamp regional health facilities.

There has been much confusion about whether or not to ‘lock down’ society or let the virus take its course. If the virus is allowed to spread uncontrolled, intensive care units will be overwhelmed, even if it is only the elderly and people with underlying health problems rather than the large majority of the younger population who require treatment. The trouble with total lockdown, however, is that the problem will present itself again once lockdown restrictions are relaxed.

Countries like China, South Korea, Italy and Spain went into total lockdown because their national governments saw no other alternative. The virus in Italy had already been present since January, probably even earlier. Once the Italian National Institute of Health started to register the first cases back in mid-February, it was probably too late to do anything else, because the number of cases of unknown origin was too large already. If the number of cases of known origin is low, so-called social distancing or self-isolation or quarantine can be the sensible thing to do – always providing it is clear to people what these things constitute and what their purpose is (i.e. to slow the spread of the disease so that healthcare systems can try to cope with the peak of critical cases).

In Italy, lockdown was applied almost from the start but only to small villages in northern Italy where it was believed that the spread had started. This seemed to work in these villages, but the spread was not in fact limited to those locations. Soon the big cities of Lodi, Bergamo, Brescia, and even Milan, became heavily affected causing lockdown to be extended to the whole Lombardy region and after a week or so to the whole country.

As we go to press (late March) the peak of new cases seems to be being reached and there is hope that the virus will not affect central and southern Italy as it has the north. Aggravating factors in the north have been that many people continued their lives more or less as usual even after the restrictions came into force (even going skiing or to seaside resorts) and, especially, that many small and medium-size businesses did not close down. This meant that many workers felt forced to go to work in ‘non-vital’ sectors and with very few safety measures in place. On 12 March the metalworking unions (FIM, FIOM and UILM) threatened strike action if workplaces were not made safer and some took strike action. The government encouragement of ‘forced’ holidays did not appeal to many workers who were effectively being asked to choose either to remain in lockdown at home and risk not being paid or to go to work in a potentially unsafe place. Not all categories of workers are effectively unionised in Italy and for the large majority of small and medium-size enterprises it was business as usual.

This can be seen as a greater risk factor than individuals going out for a walk or a run or walking their dog while keeping a distance from others. Yet subsequently these activities too have been virtually forbidden. Even the measures announced on 17 March, but which will only become law in May, do not convincingly help those workers either. According to the so-called ‘Healing Italy’ decree, vouchers of up to €600 will be paid by the State for babysitters. But this involves finding a trusted person who, regardless of the lockdown, can come to babysit your children. In addition a 15-day parental leave allowance has been granted at 50 percent of full salary for the period 5 March to 3 April. And then schools remain closed, if the situation does not worsen, until 2 May. The parental leave allowance means that workers have to decide whether to take forced unpaid holidays, or getting parental leave and losing 50 percent of their salaries (which are known to be among the lowest in Europe), or going to work and leaving their children with a babysitter (if available) or grandparents (if any). The latter has tended to be the option of choice, exposing as it does elderly people to increased danger of contracting the virus.

Italian politicians and mainstream media are talking about health coming first, but that is easy rhetoric. What this may be however is a chance for people collectively to learn to be socially united and responsible. Once again tragic events will be used to try to convince people that class differences are now irrelevant, that ‘we are all in it together’. But the truth is exactly the opposite: only socialism, a society in which we truly will be ‘all in it together’, can properly put human health first – before profits, before the need to limit healthcare facilities, before stinting on the resources needed to fight emergencies, such as covid-19, that may arise. And only a socially conscious world majority can bring about and speed up the process of ending capitalism and bringing about socialism.

The Italian comrades

Physical Deterioration (1904)

From the September 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

 It is a necessary deduction from the principles held by Socialists of the Marxist school of thought that the physique and the mental capacity of the working-class in every capitalist country are deteriorating. If the Socialist view of social development is, as we believe, a correct one, this deterioration is due to temporary economic causes which are remediable by combined human effort.

To the Socialist the question is fundamentally economic, and is to be answered only by an elimination into our modes of satisfying material human needs. One of the first things discovered on making such an examination is that the methods of producing and distributing the various means of living are different to-day from what they were yesterday, and that there is reason to assume that they will be yet again different to-morrow. The capitalist method of production by the wage-labourer under the control of the machine for the purpose of furnishing profit for the employer came into existence only in the last third of the eighteenth century.

The immediate result of the introduction of machine industry was the displacement of labourers. The old handicraftsmen were unable to compete with the new machine industry, and were consequently forced out of employment. At first the machine by cheapening commodities and extending the demand for them was able to absorb nearly as many men as it displaced. That day has, however, gone by. Machines are themselves produced by machinery and the markets for manufactured products are practically conterminous with the world’s surface. Hence, each improved machine introduced, every conquest over Nature made by the inventive genius of man, throws more of the workers out of employment, and renders more irregular the employment of those in employment.

Again, the machine necessitates the co-operation of many men in the carrying on of any manufacture. This combination of effort allows the specialisation of the various detail operations intervening between the raw material and the finished product, and distributes these operations in such a manner that each worker employed in the industry is bound throughout the whole of his life to the monotony of a single routine occupation. The harder work is also differentiated from the easier, and women and children become a feature in the industrial life of the capitalist era.

Another cause for the displacement of men’s labour besides the introduction of improved machinery and of women and child labour, is the speeding up of the machine whereby each individual worker is required to tend a larger number of spindles or looms or to work the same machine at an increased speed. Thus labour is generally intensified and tends to rack the nervous system of the worker.

In return for this expenditure of his activity the worker is paid a wage which is fixed on the labour market and is determined by the cost of his subsistence as measured by the standard of comfort of the workers in his trade. This standard of comfort is kept down to the limits of bare physical efficiency by the existence of the unemployed industrial reserve population created, as we have seen, by the extension of the sphere of the machine in industry. The men out of work are prepared to accept a lower wage than that given to those in employment and thus palliate their own miserable condition. This competition for employment presents itself as an unceasing tendency towards lower wages. The final result of this competition between the workers is, that the wage of their labour power fluctuates on either side of the line of “bare physical efficiency.”

Looking at industry again, but this time from another point of view, we find that in the distribution of the commodities produced there is free competition between the various manufacturers in the markets of the world. Each manufacturer seeks to secure for himself as large a share of those markets as possible. Hence in periods of commercial prosperity he produces as rapidly as he can, and places his goods for sale, his rivals in trade do likewise. A glut of the markets follows upon this anarchic method of distribution. The manufacturer, finding the market suffering from glut and finding it necessary to transform his commodities into money, to be able to discharge his liabilities, endeavours to find a customer at reduced prices. His goods are usually purchased by one of his trade rivals who is possessed of more capital and longer staying power, and who thus augments his business. Thus we see as a result of free competition that large capitalists are crushing out small capitalists, and as this progresses monopoly ultimately results.

In America we see monopoly reaching its final and most logical form in the trust. When the trust is formed, it immediately discharges its commercial travellers, because, having a monopoly of the industry, the trust is the only available source of supply to the retail trader ; the small factories and the factories equipped with inefficient machinery are closed and the workers in them discharged ; the price of the products as well as the wages of those employed, are within the entire control of the all-conquering trust.

We have not as yet, however, reached the stage of the trust in every industry, and have, therefore, to consider the effect of the individual-capitalistic and the joint stock company industrial conditions upon the health of those employed.

We have seen the worker divorced from his tools by the introduction of machinery ; the introduction of women labour and child labour; the building up of the machine industry manifested to us in the modern factory ; the throwing men out of employment: let us see what is the effect upon the condition of the working-class of the present industrial system.

We see that in England the development of modern industry was at first in advance of its development on the Continent. From a number of well understood causes into which we need not now enquire, England obtained for a period the monopoly of the markets of the world. The produce of her manufactures were sent to every country, and had to be exchanged against the raw produce of those countries. At the same time, the agricultural workers of this country thought that it would be to their advantage to engage in the new industries that were everywhere springing up. They, therefore, began to flock into the towns, and thus commenced that rural immigration towards the great cities which has not yet ceased.

As detail operations in trades were specialised within the factories, so were the various industries of the country specialised and localised within the nation — Lancashire becoming the principal seat of the cotton, Yorkshire of the woollen industry. Round these specialised industries great cities sprung. Built upon no settled plan, the individual greed of the possessor of building land rather than the health and needs of the community being the determining factor, problems were created which remain still without solution.

Crowded together in insanitary areas, the air befouled by the smoke from the many factory chimneys, disease and vice and crime were germinated to an unprecedented extent. We find that the general condition cf the life of the wage-worker is one of extreme poverty and misery. Receiving a low wage, he can maintain only a low standard of comfort — maintaining a low standard of comfort, his competition with his fellows provides him with a low wage. Thus runs the vicious circle.

His food is of the cheapest description, usually adulterated ; his clothing is shoddy ; he lives in overcrowded and insanitary areas ; the air of the factory in which he works is befouled ; the atmosphere of the rooms in which he lives is vitiated ; his wife in many trades has to find employment and the family wage is little higher than when he was the sole breadwinner ; his children are neglected and go breakfastless to school ; the mother of the family is often employed to the time of child-birth ; alcoholism is engendered by unhealthy surroundings : these are but a few of the conditions of working-class life directly due to the class ownership of his means of livelihood. These being the facts is it to be wondered at if we assume that their result must be a lowering of the stamina and the physique of the working-class section of the community?

I do not think that any will gainsay that nutrition is the first essential to the building up of a healthy physique. Without the provision of a sufficient supply of good, wholesome food any attempt at arresting deterioration will be futile. We are told that over 100,000 school children in London alone go breakfastless to school. For them there is little hope for a sturdy manhood. Arrest the progress of physical deterioration amongst the children through the provision of meals by the State to all school children and you will do much to strengthen the physique and stamina of the race.

I have before me the Report issued by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, and I have looked through its pages to see whether my a priori views on physical deterioration are borne out by the investigations of the Committee.

It is to be observed that it was not from any desire on the part of the governing class to improve the lot of the working-class because they were physically deteriorating that this Committee was appointed, but because of the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient supply of recruits for the army. The government of every country is founded upon force and depends upon the organised force of the army for the maintenance of its stability, and any falling off in the efficiency of the worker viewed as raw material for the army is, therefore, a matter which they deplore. When, therefore, they find that in spite of repeated reductions in the physical standard for recruits there is maintained a percentage of rejections ranging from 40 to 60 ; when the worker presenting himself for enlistment is designated as “rubbish” by General Borrett, the late Inspector-General of Recruiting; when of those accepted nearly two-thirds have to be subsequently weeded out: then the governing class considers it high time to make enquiries into the physical condition of the people.

I do not propose to quarrel with the Committee because of this, neither am I in any way sanguine that the recommendations of the Committee so far as they would tend to benefit the workers, will be carried into practical effect. Even it Parliament carries through legislative reform, there is no reason to believe that the class that has control of the administrative machinery will let it be other than a dead letter. Indeed, in this very Report instance after instance is given where the very people against whom the Acts are ostensibly directed are to be found administering them on the judicial bench. Let one instance suffice. The evidence given before the Committee by a Miss Garnett is to the effect that—

“The local authority in the Potteries was as inefficient as you could find anywhere. Most of the bad houses are owned by members of the local bodies and the sanitary inspectors are too much in awe of their employers to carry out their duty.”

The general finding of the Committee is that there is not sufficient data from which to determine whether there is going on continuous physical deterioration among any section of the community. It may be mentioned in this connection that in the discussion on the subject by the Anthropological Section of the British Association, the existence of such deterioration was taken for granted by many of those who discussed the subject. It was not, of course, to be expected that the Committee would search too deeply into the economic conditions of production to find whether there they might discover a sufficient cause in the very basis of present day capitalist production itself tor the deterioration. Their enquiry only scratched the surface of the subject.

I may have occasion, in a future number of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, to return to this matter. By then Vol. II of the Committee’s proceedings, containing the detailed evidence, and Vol. Ill, containing several important appendices, will probably be available. Meanwhile I content myself with selecting a few pertinent passages and trust that all Socialists will read through the Report, which contains, in spite of all its limitations, much valuable propagandist material. Dr. Neston, ot Newcastle, says:

  “There is undoubtedly great deterioration in the physique of our City population, and that is attributable to two chief causes; first, a decadence in home life, which entails improper food and clothing, irregular habits (drinking and gambling), absence of order and thrift; second, the miserable housiug and high rents which prevail; overcrowding with its consequences, is, an important factor in physical and mental deterioration.”

Dr. Eichholz, who draws a distinction between physical degeneracy on the one hand and inherited retrogressive deterioration on the other, says:

  “There is every reason to anticipate rapid amelioration of physique so soon an improvement occurs in external conditions. particularly as regards food, clothing, overcrowding, cleanliness, drunkenness, and the spread of common, practical knowledge of home management. In fact, all evidence points to active, rapid improvement, bodily and mental, in the worst districts, so soon as they are exposed to better circumstances, even the weaker children recovering at a later age from the evil effects of infant life.”

The Committee says:

 “There is reason to fear that the urbanization of the population cannot have been unattended by consequences prejudicial to the health of the people, and these have been considered under the three heads of (I) Overcrowding, (II) Pollution of the Atmosphere, and (III) The conditions of employment.
 “The general death-rate in these tenements (one room) in Glasgow is nearly twice that of the whole city, and the death-rate from pulmonary tuberculosis is 2.4 per thousand in one-roomed tenements, 1.8 in two-roomed tenements, and .7 in all the other houses.

In Finsbury, again, where the population of one-roomed tenements is 14,516, the death-rate per thousand in 1903 was 38.9, yet the rate among occupants of four or more rooms was only 5.6, and for the whole borough 19.6.”

”I should trace much of the anaemia (in Manchester) to the deprivation of sunlight and to the lessening of the vivifying properties of the air.”
“Factory labour is mentioned as a predisposing cause ” (to alcoholism among women of the working-class).”

Describing the life of a boy of fourteen in a textile district, who has probably been bred in unwholesome environment and nourished on unnatural food, Mr. Wilson, H.M. Inspector of Factories, said :—

  “The hours will be long, fifty-five per week, and the atmosphere he breathes very confined, perchance also dusty. Employment of this character, especially if carried on in high temperatures, rarely fosters growth or development; the stunted child elongates slightly in time, but remains very thin, loses colour, the muscles remain small, especially those of the upper limbs, the legs are inclined to become bowed, more particularly if heavy weights have to be habitually carried, the arch of the foot flattens, and the teeth decay rapidly.” 

He continues :

  “The girls exhibit the same shortness of stature, the same miserable development, and they possess the same sallow cheeks and carious teeth. I have also observed that at an age when girls brought up under wholesome conditions usually possess a luxuriant growth of hair, these factory girls have a scanty crop which, when tied back, is simply a wisp or rat’s tail.”

I think, then, that the Socialist is justified in his belief that there exists sufficient evidence to verify his conclusion obtained by deduction from Socialist principles. Man is a creature of his environment, susceptible to its every change. In present day society the multiplicity of wealth which he creates keeps him in poverty, and the conditions of poverty are conditions of an inferior standard of comfort. An inferior standard of comfort engenders an inferior physique. Improve the standard of life of the people and you remove every tendency to deterioration. Such an improved standard of living is prevented only by the maintenance of a class-owned method of wealth production and can be secured by the working-class using its voting power to the end that all the things necessary to the welfare of the people shall be owned and democratically controlled by the people in their own interests.

Under a society in which individual private property is replaced by social property, when each unit of society shall aid in the production of social necessaries, there will be laid the physical conditions which shall ensure a healthy subsistencr under healthy conditions for each man, woman, and child in the community, and by guaranteeing to each a healthy physical organism will present those conditions most necessary for the mental and moral development of the race.

Robert Elrick

* * *

“As a preliminary to any further legislation on the subject of hours of employment, particularly employment of women and children, it is, in the view of the Committee, (on Physical Deterioration), highly desirable that there should be a strictly scientific enquiry into the physiological causation and effects of over-fatigue.” Meanwhile, the women and children are crushed down by over-work!

* * *

“Poor in physique as they all are, and poor in mental capacity and power of application as many of them must be, what becomes of them? Many of them probably marry girls as weak as themselves, and have children, some of whom go to swell the lists of infant mortality, some to join the criminal classes, while others grow up more weak and incompetent than their parents.” —Sir Lauder Brunton, on certain setions of the working-class.

Apple, Foxconn and The iConomy (2012)

From the March 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Apple, the creators of the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone and iPad as well as other must-have devices, are now industry leaders in providing personal computing and related technologies. But amongst the latest gadgets and a total income of over $108bn (2011), what of the company’s workers and workforce? How do they fare under the influence of a company with more money than the US Government? (In July 2011 because of the debt-ceiling crises, Apple at one point had bigger cash reserves than the US State). Not so good would be the short answer.

Apple itself employs around 60,000 people worldwide and by some accounts can be a strange place to work. Despite the famous informality of jeans in the office, reports in a recent book (Inside Apple by journalist Adam Lashinsky) claim working for Apple is like being ‘in a cult’. With overbearing management, extreme secrecy and even ‘lock-down rooms’ constructed inside other rooms to prevent information being leaked outside the company, ‘paranoid’ may not be too strong a word. Many employees have been fired for discussing their jobs outside work and it is rumoured that company spies operate in bars and venues used by employees. Lashinsky states: ‘So there’s no confusion, the penalty for revealing Apple secrets, intentionally or unintentionally, is clear: swift termination.’ An ex-Apple employee goes further saying that Steve Jobs (now deceased) would make it clear before any media ‘company broadcast’ about new developments or products, that ‘Anything disclosed from this meeting will result not just in termination but in prosecution to the fullest extent our lawyers can.’

Lashinsky also describes Apple as ‘cultish’, and states that ‘neophytes are entrusted with only so much information’. He goes on: ‘As with any secret society, trustworthiness is not assumed. New additions to a group are kept out of the loop for a period of time, at least until they have earned their manager’s trust.’

A senior Apple engineer said: ‘People are so committed that they go home at night and don’t leave Apple behind them. What they do at Apple is their true religion.’ It is alleged that Apple operates around the concept of disclosure – Jon Rubinstein, a former senior hardware executive at Apple, says, ‘We have cells, like a terrorist organisation. Everything is on a need-to-know basis.’ So much for the ‘be inspired every day’ tag line on Apple’s recruitment page, then.

Outside America and Europe things are worse though. Despite early Apple claims to be ‘made in America’ the company have for years been outsourcing work to China and other far eastern countries. One of the main contractors for Apple abroad is a Taiwanese concern called Foxconn, part of the Hon Hai Precision Industries Company. With factories in China and Taiwan, Foxconn is staggeringly huge and is now estimated to employ well over a million people – 500,000 work at its huge Shenzhen facility in China alone. These mega factories are small cities in themselves with shops, barbers, banks and other facilities within the factory complex. Workers are housed in huge dormitories and never leave the site. Overcrowding is rife.  One online estimate states that it is ‘five times the density of population as Mumbai’. Working hours are long and pay is very low by western standards. In 2011 no fewer than ten workers killed themselves in the Shenzhen plant alone and another three attempted the same act. Many jumped from buildings, including one who had lost a prototype iPhone, prompting a media outcry.

The company responded in typically business-like fashion by introducing a new anti-suicide clause in its workers contracts – apparently those desperate enough to want to take their own lives will think again if it means a breach of contract. They also cynically raised wages twice in one week in 2011 which brought the average basic pay of an employee from 1200 to 2000 yen a month, or roughly from £130 to £200.

Death may not come by one’s own hand here though. In May of 2011, Foxconn again hit the headlines when a massive explosion ripped through the plant where the shiny aluminium backs for Apple’s iPad2 are polished, killing three workers and injuring many more.  From reading online news reports, however, the biggest worry seems not to be about the dead and their families but about whether the gadget-hungry fools in the West would get their iPad2 on time.

Workers in China travel far to get jobs in this plant. An in-depth article in the New York Times (25 January) reported on one such individual. It stated: ‘When Mr. Lai finally landed a job repairing machines at the plant, one of the first things he noticed was the almost blinding lights. Shifts ran 24 hours a day, and the factory was always bright. At any moment, there were thousands of workers standing on assembly lines or sitting in backless chairs, crouching next to large machinery, or jogging between loading bays. Some workers’ legs swelled so much they waddled. ‘It’s hard to stand all day,’ said Zhao Sheng, a plant worker.’

The article goes on to say ‘Banners on the walls warned the 120,000 employees: ‘Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow.’ Apple’s supplier code of conduct dictates that, except in unusual circumstances, employees are not supposed to work more than 60 hours a week. But at Foxconn, some worked more, according to interviews, workers’ pay stubs and surveys by outside groups. Mr. Lai was soon spending 12 hours a day, six days a week inside the factory, according to his paychecks.’

The long hours and low pay are not the only issue. The NYT article notes that: ‘Mr. Lai’s college degree enabled him to earn a salary of around $22 a day, including overtime — more than many others. When his days ended, he would retreat to a small bedroom just big enough for a mattress, wardrobe and a desk.’

‘Those accommodations were better than many of the company’s dorms, where 70,000 Foxconn workers lived, at times stuffed 20 people to a three-room apartment, employees said. Last year, a dispute over paychecks set off a riot in one of the dormitories, and workers started throwing bottles, trash cans and flaming paper from their windows, according to witnesses. Two hundred police officers wrestled with workers, arresting eight. Afterward, trash cans were removed, and piles of rubbish — and rodents — became a problem.’

Sadly, Mr Lai was one of the workers killed in the explosion at the iPad plant. He suffered 90% burns and died in hospital two days later, his girlfriend only recognising him from his legs. The explosion was later found to have been caused by aluminium dust igniting as three polishing lines worked continuously to keep up with demand a few weeks after the iPad2 was launched. In the drive for profits at any price, though, neither Apple nor Foxconn paid much heed it seems. Just seven months later in December 2011 an iPad factory in Shanghai exploded from……..igniting aluminium dust, resulting in 59 injured, 23 of them hospitalised.

Foxconn, however bad, are not the only villains in the piece and Apple has to take a lot of the blame. When the world’s media started publishing stories about these conditions, notably an undercover report from the Daily Mail, Apple were shocked into action. A massive auditing operation of their suppliers was carried out and the results published. Some of these results showed allegations of under-age workers (under 16 in China) being hired – one audit in 2010 acknowledged 91 employees found to be under this age or were when they were hired at Foxconn alone. Although seemingly going in the right direction, there is a large element of smoke and mirrors being deployed. As a former Apple executive with firsthand experience commented in the NYT report ‘Noncompliance is tolerated, as long as the supplier promises to try harder next time…’

But others disagree. Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) has twice been used by Apple to advise on such issues: ‘We’ve spent years telling Apple there are serious problems and recommending changes,’ said a consultant ‘They don’t want to pre-empt problems, they just want to avoid embarrassments.’

While Apple may indeed have spent 2010 getting more adept at identifying problems and forming action plans to put things right, the company’s own report admits that if situations have not been resolved within 90 days of an audit, it will only ‘continue to collaborate with the supplier towards further improvement.’ It is obvious that the die has been cast – Apple really has nowhere else to go to get its products made: it needs its suppliers as much as they need Apple. Both are caught in the relentless quest for profit at any cost. This is borne out by Apple being approached by companies desperate to become a new supplier. When Apple decides to see if they can supply a particular product or part, they contact the company. The NYT reports says: ‘When the news arrives that Apple is interested…small celebrations erupt. Then, Apple’s requests start.’

Apple typically asks suppliers to specify how much every part costs, how many workers are needed and the size of their salaries. Executives want to know every financial detail. Afterward, Apple calculates how much it will pay for a part. Most suppliers are allowed only the slimmest of profits. So suppliers often try to cut corners, replace expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives or push their employees to work faster and longer, according to people at those companies.

‘The only way you make money working for Apple is figuring out how to do things more efficiently or cheaper,’ said an executive at one company that helped bring the iPad to market. ‘And then they’ll come back the next year, and force a 10 percent price cut.’

The financial evidence for the above is also available. A recent Bloomberg chart shows that from 2007 and the introduction of the iPhone, Apple’s profit margins have increased to over 30%. Over the same period, Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn’s parent) has stayed steady at just 1.5%.  

‘Hon Hai is willing to sacrifice margins so it can get volume and scale,’ said Vincent Chen, in the same candid report.  Chen is an analyst at Yuanta Financial Holding Co in Taipei who has a ‘buy’ rating on the stock. ‘Apple is also getting so large that it needs a supplier that can provide such scale.’

The iPad is ‘very difficult to make,’ Hon Hai founder and Chairman Terry Gou told shareholders in June. Gou’s strategy has earned him the nickname ‘Low-Cost Terry,’ according to Chen.’

Low cost indeed, but high profit for Apple. The real cost as always, is being incurred by millions of Chinese and Far Eastern workers, living in huge de-humanising factory complexes and  working long hours for little pay in often dangerous conditions. And not just at Foxconn. At another Chinese plant, this time owned by Wintek, the workers actually went on strike. They had been asked to use a noxious chemical called n-hexane which is known to cause nerve damage and paralysis. The substance replaced rubbing alcohol to clean iPhone screens, as it evaporates to the air three-times faster and speeds up production. Over a hundred employees suffered injuries as a result of its introduction, prompting the industrial action. The NYT noted:

‘In its supplier responsibility report, Apple said it had ‘required Wintek to stop using n-hexane’ and that ‘Apple has verified that all affected workers have been treated successfully, and we continue to monitor their medical reports until full recuperation.’ Apple also said it required Wintek to fix the ventilation system.

That same month, a reporter interviewed a dozen injured Wintek workers who said they had never been contacted by Apple or its intermediaries, and that Wintek had pressured them to resign and take cash settlements that would absolve the company of liability. After those interviews, Wintek pledged to provide more compensation to the injured workers and Apple sent a representative to speak with some of them.’

Half a year on, trade and business reports highlight the cut in prices being paid by Apple to Wintek for their services. Business has spoken, unlike Wintek which declines to comment on the issue.

So are Apple alone? Not really. They are merely following, very successfully in monetary terms, the rules of capitalism – namely rule Number One – Profit at All Costs. Moving production from a heavily regulated and therefore expensive country like the USA to a relatively unregulated and therefore much cheaper country like China makes perfect economic sense from a capitalist’s point of view. The market dictates all. An Apple executive sums up this attitude with a salient point: ‘You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards, and right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.’

The reality of modern capitalism is that it transcends national borders. Barack Obama once asked Apple CEO Steve Jobs, ‘when are those manufacturing jobs coming back to the USA?’ Jobs famously replied, ‘Those jobs are never coming home.’ This exchange highlights the way that capital does not heed the often spouted patriotism and rhetoric of politicians but deals in cold hard financial facts. Workers would do well to note this and adjust their own attitudes accordingly. Perhaps if we cared less about new gadgets at any cost, humane and environmental, and instead forged stronger links with workers around the globe, we too could adopt a truly global resistance to the onslaught of capital and start paving the way towards socialism and the end of sweatshops and the consumer culture altogether.

David Humphries