On 2010-03-19, at 2:36 AM, Chuck Grimes wrote:
> I mean REALLY ticked off...
>
> But humani-care workers who work their butts off are more important to
> the
> survival of capitalism and the slaugher of millions than the fucking
> U.S. Army and the totality of the world's chief executvies.
>
> They disgust me.
>
> Carrol
>
> -----------------
>
> Consider I am an EMT and we arrive at your place because you called,
> your wife would not wake up from an afternoon nap. I see she is in
> respiratory arrest from some unknown cause. The standard response is O2
> pushed via a face mask, on a hard stretcher with CPR. Instead of going
> out to the van for the O2 kit and plastic board, I shrug my shoulders
> and go outside for a cigarette because its break time.
>
> You are okay with that?
>
> While I agree with you, us disgusting humani-care workers enable a
> capitalist exploitation beyond bound, we also actually provide you with
> life, the only value there is. You want to toss us? Be my guest.
=========================
Carrol's "disgust" is based on the mistaken assumption that there are many workers who voluntarily speedup and thereby invite management pressure on others to follow suit. In fact, I think we all understand that the pace of work is typically forced by management through exhortation and the continual reorganization of the work process to achieve "efficiencies", most notably through layoffs which distribute the workload among fewer employees. There is the added complexity that working class culture tends to favour those who take pride in their work and do it well and frowns on those perceived as "goldbricks" or "shirkers". In my experience, this was frequently a consideration taken into account by union members in electing their stewards and local officers to provide leadership in their workplace. Reading his posts over the years, Chuck strikes me as exactly the kind of person who would be perceived this way by his peers, as his remarks above illustrate.
There are clearly occasions when it is appropriate for workers to "slowdown" in order to force improvements in their conditions and other employer concessions. But these are conscious, collective, organized class decisions. Carrol treats this issue as a moral one, and his advice to individual workers to lower their production would be irresponsibly anarchistic in a real life situation where it would leave such workers, in the absence of any concerted and purposeful and usually legally-protected action, at the mercy of their bosses. It would be little solace to the individual that s/he had deprived the employer of some small measure of "surplus value".