[lbo-talk] UC London study: Job-related stress literally can kill you

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Thu Jan 24 21:50:39 PST 2008


Cass wrote:

Since I myself used to work for years in the service industry I know how hard it is to assume a different persona during those horrid working hours. You need to strip yourself of all personality and become the service that you are to incorporate. Your sense of self needs to be completely abandoned and replaced by a smiling, willing doll, not having a life of her own, not having experiences, feelings, likes and dislikes.

Sometimes this transition does not go smoothly or is complete and you will not do your job well or carry load to the place you would call home. You start drinking, taking drugs to simply keep the pain away of denying your own identity for the sake of having a roof over your head and some food in the fridge.

As bad as it gets.But worst of all is the part when you start lying to yourself about all of this and you simply go with the flow and loose your identity in the process of making a living, simply giving up on the idea that it is ever going to change, that there is more to life than waking up, going to work, working a job you despise (without admitting it to yourself even), coming home, zoning out, going back to sleep - just to start the circle over the next morning. No way to hope for better conditions, because your mind is too tired to do anything else. Even a children's book is too hard to handle, too hard to read. *********************************************** AND THEY OBEY by Carl Sandburg

SMASH down the cities. Knock the walls to pieces. Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood: You are the soldiers and we command you.

Build up the cities. Set up the walls again. Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes Into buildings for life and labor: You are workmen and citizens all: We command you. ******************************

One of the main arguments for changing from the system we live within to a system where workers/producers own and control their creation of wealth, is that instead of competing with one another to make wages for a living, we could be co:operating to reduce the amount of time and effort we put in to create the social product of our labour. Like Wobblies have been arguing for years, workers should take on the project of shorter work time--say the four hour day with no cut in pay. The reduction of work time would obviously affect the the quality of the lives we lead in oh so many ways, leaving room for more free-time with our friends, family and for play. Of course, reducing our work time would be hard on our employers, reducing their rate of profit. But really, who are we living for anyway? Being with our bosses or being with the people we love?

Mike B)

http://www.iww.org.au/node/10 "Would you have freedom from wage-slavery.." Joe Hill http://www.iww.org/en/join

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