Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) Bloch's contempt for working classes

Bloch's contempt for working classes
by Marshal Padenga
06/06/2011 00:00:00

ERIC Bloch’s article ‘Labour’s pay demands unsustainable’ reads like justification for a whole nation, save for a few, to work for a pittance in the name of keeping the capitalist afloat.

His defence of low pay for workers got me wondering if the managing directors of the companies he was defending are also earning a pittance too. Do they also have to wake up early in the morning to catch a lift to work as well?

The imperialists have succeeded in driving the Marxian analysis to the dustbowls of political economy, and they seem happy with the result. Karl Marx aside, neo-classical theory suggests that if a business cannot cover its variable costs it must shut its doors tightly because it is just not efficient enough.

This message must be clear to all the firms out there that they cannot treat the Zimbabwean proletariat as providers of charity work. The proletariat in Zimbabwe suffered enough -- and the world is their witness -- during the meltdown and they must have a fare share of this cake now.

If Bloch conducted a survey on the earnings and benefits of those managing these companies, the very same companies that are threatening closure if they give their workers more money, the findings would be obscene to a point of embarrassment. The point is, there is a problem of corporate governance in Zimbabwe’s businesses, and there is a deficiency of openness and transparency, hence the reason why workers are so agitated. The top brass lavish themselves with all the best in benefits that ever existed whilst the entire workforce languishes on a meagre payroll budget.

There are greedy elements out there and Bloch should be advocating a redress, in terms of how the diminutive cake is shared, rather than advocate for maintenance of the status quo, a mantra he has been repeating for a very long time.

Reason, fairness and justice must prevail and financial rewards must take the backburner for once in Zimbabwe and support the mainstay of the economy -- the people who made things happen during the meltdown, the working class.

I want to come back to Marx for a while. He was revered for his surplus value theory and how it drives and stirs capitalism to its peak of imperialism – and God forbid, I hope Zimbabwe is not going there with voices such as Bloch’s.

In his analysis, Marx, the economist extraordinaire, averred that profits are a consequence of withheld surplus value created by the proletariat. There is nothing and no-one that can erase this truth. This is the pedestal upon which capitalism rests. If capital fails to realise this, this will see its own demise, as the voices for expropriation of the expropriator grow loud.

In South Africa, these voices are mounting and in Zimbabwe, the second wave will not be so merciful. One would want to think that the owners of capital would have learnt from by now the consequences of none cooperation with the proletariat. Capital must realise that by making the poor poorer and refusing to share that visibly delicious cake with them, one day they will be tempted to grab it.

The proletariat of Zimbabwe must also feel let down by the government, when the government makes promises of wanting to improve working conditions only to backtrack. Does this not give capital the reason to celebrate and continue with their mantra of, ‘the firms are not making enough and they run the risk of closure if they give in to higher wage demands?’

In view of this, it is the pervasive greed by the middle and top management in these organisations that is crippling the growth of industry and consequently, the entire economy. There is a nauseating generalisation that we hear many a time, that the wage bill is taking seventy-five percent of business revenues. Yes, that’s an archaic and tired argument, but no-one bothers to tell the populace how much of that seventy-five percent is going to the general work force and how much is going to middle and top level management. Again, the obscenity of the entire affair can be exposed for all to see.

The government must be a torch bearer on matters of taking care of the proletariat. The business of a two-tier class system in public service must come to an end. The situation where some civil servants have three to four cars and bottomless fuel tanks is not consistent with a struggling economy, especially when we have working class families living on less than US$50 a month. This gives false credence to the private sector’s argument of being in ‘survival mode’ and takes advantage of the vulnerable workforce.

It is time for the government to get its act together and show its mantle and act as the vanguard of the proletariat and strive to preserve and protect their own.

Having said all the above, it is important to point out the role of the Ministry of Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare in the entire farcical situation. The Ministry, if it has substance, must institute an enquiry into executive compensation in the public and private sector to establish what proportion of that cake the executives are apportioning themselves. This enquiry must go further and assess corporate governance in the running of business enterprises in Zimbabwe. The results may be interesting reading for all.

It may be true that the cake is small, but that as it may be, there are greedy elements who are still taking a bigger chunk of that ‘small cake’ anyway, leaving next to nothing for the workers. Until this is done, any utterances about labour being unreasonable, as Bloch suggests, are unfair and contemptuous.
To the workers of Zimbabwe, one can only exhort them to be steadfast and fight for their fair share of that ‘small cake’.

Labels: NEOLIBERALISM

posted by MrK @ 4:16 PM