Productivity soars, incomes drop

On Sept. 5, 1882, the American Federation of Labor celebrated the first Labor Day. Twenty thousand strong, they converged on Union Square in New York City to demand the eight-hour day. Two hundred fifty thousand cheered marchers carrying banners reading “Labor Creates All Wealth.”

For over a century, the ruling class has tried to obliterate that fundamental truth. They have tried to subvert May Day, the internationally celebrated communist-oriented holiday, by renaming it “Law Day” and “Loyalty Day.” Labor Day remains to celebrate the U. S. working class’s resistance to the bosses’ attack on its standard of living, which has declined calamitously.

Under the headline “Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity,” the Aug. 28 New York Times described this trend: “The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity—the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards—has risen steadily over the same period. ... UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as ‘the golden era of profitability.’”

According to the Scripps Howard News Service, “Wages make up the lowest percent of the national domestic product since such statistics first were collected in 1947.” (Sept. 3)

The reasons are crystal clear. The relentless anti-labor offensive of “corporate America” rises from deep within U.S. imperialism and its endless wars and cycles of boom and bust. The scientific-technological revolution has fundamentally restructured the labor process.

Under the control of banks, merged with industrial monopolies and other financial networks, the social changes—changes in the constellation of class forces—have dramatically favored the class that wields imperialist state power. Here are the reincarnations of the Rockefellers, Morgans and du Ponts of yesteryear who have intensified the exploitation of workers and oppressed nationalities.

The quantum leap in the high-tech revolution—output per worker skyrocketed by 15 percent over four years through 2004 —has resulted in overproduction, speedups, mass layoffs, plant closings, downsizing of wages, pensions and health care, and the reduction of workers’ skills whereby workers become ever more an appendage of the machine. The computerization of the means of production has displaced millions of workers into the lower paid, service-oriented industries.

Rich get richer, poor get poorer

The increasing accumulation of capital by the barons of banking and industry relates to the steady rise in the rate of exploitation. This is the law of capitalist accumulation: wealth is stolen from the laboring masses who create it.

Merrill Lynch, one of the most powerful Wall Street investment banks, and global consulting company Capgemini publish an annual report directed to the richest players in the wealth management market that confirms this law. The two companies released their 10th anniversary World Wealth Report on June 26. According to this report, individuals owning at least $1 million in cash and investments had a total of $33.3 trillion in wealth, nearly double the $16 trillion 1996 amount. This wealth is consolidated among the top rung of the rich—those worth a minimum of $30 million.

The super-rich represent one-hundredth of 1 percent of the world’s adult population and have 24 percent of the world’s wealth.

In the United States resides the single greatest portion of the global rich. Of the world’s 8.7 million millionaires, 2.67 million are right here. The World Wealth Report statistics are based on 69 countries that collect over 98 percent of “global gross national income” and 99 percent of the value of the world stock market. The world’s rich are increasingly bursting national and regional boundaries, becoming an interconnected global class. (World Wealth Report, June 26)

In stark contrast are the lives and fortunes of immigrants who face armed militias and life-threatening conditions to cross borders in hope of a better life—dreams soon to be dashed. They and the entire working class are victims of ever-increasing exploitation by the bosses. While the workers and the oppressed are poorer and deeper in debt, the minimum hourly wage has remained at $5.15 for the last nine years, the longest stretch without a raise since 1938. Over 46.6 million workers have no health insurance. The poverty rate has risen to nearly 13 percent. The statistics would be much higher if they were focused on Black and Latin@ workers and other oppressed nationalities.

Median paychecks have gone down by nearly 6 percent and the bottom fifth has seen its income fall by a whopping 20 percent during the Bush administration.

The Aug. 31 New York Times confirms the crisis for the working class. In an article headlined “Spending What We Don’t Have,” Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent writes: “July personal income numbers ... indicate that once again Americans had personal consumption expenditures that were greater than their disposable income. ... The negative savings rates [increased] for the 16th consecutive month.”

Capitalist elections versus class struggle

Organized and unorganized workers and the oppressed nationalities face a deluge of capitalist propaganda, deception and demagoguery from Republicans and Democrats, who will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to win the mid-term elections. The AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Federation are caught in this trap of deceit and duplicity.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Change to Win Chairperson Anna Burger released a joint statement saying, “The entire labor movement is united by the desire to make working people’s issues the country’s priorities this election year.” They are working on state and local levels.

The agreement comes as unions are mobilizing for November elections to support “worker-friendly” candidates. The AFL-CIO will spend $40 million on voter outreach, up from $35 million in 2002 and the most it has ever spent on a midterm election. They plan to reach 12.4 million union-affiliated voters in key races in 21 states.

“Worker-friendly” candidates could be influenced by spending $40 million—not on lobbying politicians but on elevating the class struggle through street demonstrations, picket lines, rallies and speak-outs focused on critical issues facing the labor movement. The masses in action, the people showing their power, have many times shown the capacity to influence events.

There are many forms of class struggle—economic and political—that can challenge the master class. One is the battle for a shorter work week, incorporating into that demand the highest wages paid during the boom capitalist cycle—30 hours’ work for 40 hours’ pay. The money is there—in outrageous bonuses and golden parachutes, in stock dividends for the preferred, in profits, and hidden in the books. It would be timely to review this historic struggle.

The scientific-technological revolution and the astronomic increase in productivity have objectively entitled the multinational work force, both industrial and service-oriented, to reap the fruits of their labor. According to a 2004 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, an average worker needs to put in a mere 11 hours per week to produce as much as someone working 40 hours in 1950. In August, the average work week dropped 0.1 hours to 33.8. Embedded in this drop is speedup in productivity and a declining standard of living for the laboring masses.

It’s time to turn things around

A campaign to win “30 for 40”—30 hours’ work for 40 hours’ pay—could be one of the threads to be woven into a long-overdue offensive. Commit tees advocating 30 for 40 could be organized in unions, workers’ centers, community and progressive groups, and single-issue organizations. A brilliantly planned campaign is required to forge a class-wide, independent strategy. It’s something to think about.