Shorter hours key to creating jobs

by Pat Barile

This article was reprinted from the March 23, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

The U.S. working class is gearing up for a gigantic struggle for the six-hour workday. The elements of that struggle are in the making. That process has been in development for some time.

A major step in that developing movement is the process which led up to the changes in leadership and direction of the AFL-CIO. The strikes in basic industry - not-ably strikes against forced overtime and to compel new hiring instead - are big steps toward that six-hour day struggle. Another major development is the growth of left-center coalitions in the shops and unions.

The struggle can become the opening shot to the 21st century as the century of world socialism. The struggle for the six- hour day with no cut in pay will require an all-out fight by the working class as did the struggle for the 12-hour day, the 10-hour day and the eight-hour day. The six-hour day is the best antidote for the unemployment crisis. For every three workers whose work hours are cut by 10 hours, a new job is created.

The monopoly corporations will fight to the bitter end to stop the six-hour day with no cut in pay - and with good reason. They know that it takes a worker less than two hours to produce enough value to earn the day's wages, including benefits, holidays, etc. so every hour the worker works after that is clear unpaid labor the boss is getting out of the worker.

If the workweek is 30 hours instead of 40, the boss would have to hire more workers. These new workers would also have to be paid enough to live on. That is, wages, benefits and insurances, holidays, etc. That costs money.

The boss has paid for that for the 40 hour workers. He doesn't want to pay for additional workers. He doesn't want to cut his profits. The more hours a worker works the more unpaid labor (profits) the boss is getting. The boss will fight the six-hour day like did the eight-hour day.

The struggle for the shorter workday is a centuries-old struggle. In the 110 years since the Haymarket Massacre and frameup when the working class battled the growing monopoly corporations for the eight-hour day, technology has leaped ever forward, with corresponding geometric increases in productivity (up 24 percent since 1979) and production. Little of this has returned to those who produce these new mountains of wealth - only the rich have been enriched further through the use of new technology.

The need for the six-hour day in this specific period of capitalism began with the closing down of steel, auto and other heavy industries and the onset of the rust bowl. It ushered in the process of denuding the working class of its hard- earned skills and prowess. These developments were characterized by the mini-steel mills, the "world car" concept and actual shipping of whole factories to low wage, ultra-exploited countries.

Long time skilled workers in steel, auto, rubber, heavy machinery, denied the use of their skills to earn a living, began to take minimum wage jobs in fast food, gas stations, etc. Hundreds of thousands of white collar workers - 500,000 in the banking industry alone - are being replaced by computers and forced into a unemployed lines.

The All-Unions Committee to Shorten the Work Week was established in Detroit in 1977. It was composed of leaders from Auto, Coal, Steel, Packinghouse and a host of other unions. They held a conference in Detroit in 1978. In calling for attendance, they said: "New technology has changed the shorter work week into an idea whose time has come, as across the country, in shop after shop and in union after union, a mighty demand for shorter hours is developing."

The political basis for the six-hour day was set in motion when NAFTA became law. Effectively it put the government seal of approval on industry's process of "rust bowl economics," of dumping workers and robbing them of their skills and their jobs. The class fought valiantly against NAFTA's passage - betrayed on all sides in government and by union leaders unwilling to stop the wheels of industry to show labor's might. The trade union movement knows it has to wage a political struggle to repeal NAFTA and to move toward the six-hour day.

Capitalism has written off millions of workers, just as it has written off those millions who have never been allowed to enter the jobs market. It attacks these people for being on welfare and puts its racist stamp on the attack. Millions of African American and Latino workers, denied education and preparation for the job market, are then blamed for their plight. They are told simply, but cruelly, "workfare." The new armies of unemployed who arrive there either via the capitalist crisis or by the scalpel of the downsizing process will face the same command: workfare.

There is new thinking in the working class and new realizations that layoffs are now permanent, that cyclical ups and downs in the economy won't necessarily result in recalls. This is producing a new kind of anger in the working class. They see technology, export of capital and forced overtime, super exploitation and speedup at the point of production destroying their jobs, their families and their way of life - and sometimes, life itself.

It is in this setting that we look at the class struggle. The six-hour day can only be won through mighty efforts by the working class and its allies. It will take the mobilization and leadership of left and progressive forces, including the Communist Party and Communist trade unionists, to reignite, sustain and make a winning campaign around this fight.

At the same time, the six-hour day cannot be won without breaking the military industrial complex stranglehold on the economy, politics and government apparatus. It implies mighty battles and victories for the working class.

-Pat Barile is the secretary of the Communist Party's Labor Department.

As Pat Barile says in his article, there is growing anger in the ranks of the working class and labor movement over job insecurity and growing unemployment. And, as he says, the labor movement has always looked to reducing the hours of labor as a key element in providing and protecting jobs.

For our part, publication of Barile's article is the opening of a discussion of how best to reignite the campaign for a six-hour day, 30-hour workweek with no reduction in income. We plan to establish a regular feature where our readers share their ideas and experiences on how best to begin that fight.