RIGHT-TO-WORK LAW IN MICHIGAN DEFEATED ! – Part 2
04/14/2023
RIGHT-TO-WORK LAW IN MICHIGAN DEFEATED
Part 2
This fight for unionization is happening in the face of a so-called tight labor market, where official unemployment is 3.6% as of Mar/2023 and where “gig” work (temporary, single assignment work) also known as “independent contractors” is being labeled by the capitalists as entrepreneurs. The Supreme Court has ruled that UBER and LYFT workers are to be considered as individual contractors and not union material so no benefits and no protections offered. The Court has already ruled in the “Janus v. AFSCME” 2018 decision, that “non-union” government workers cannot be required to pay union dues. The plaintiff in the case was also represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Come January, the Court will consider taking up another dues/union busting decision in order to re-enforce the Janus decision.
The economy under industrialization, shifted away from labor saving, large-scale machine production, to the economy of today, with its labor replacing advanced technology. Artificial Intelligence has arrived. Advanced automation & robotics has arrived. Machines fueled by advanced technology can now do the work once performed by human beings which means the role of (trade) unions must also shift. Instead of fighting to simply improve the price of labor power in the form of wages, the struggle on the part of workers must be elevated to a higher purpose. This is a constant battle given that as labor-less production advances, wages along with exchange value is eroded. The ‘theory’ of what does the word ‘value’ mean has to be studied to be understood. What a thing is worth used to be determined by the labor power that went into its production. A car is more expensive than a bicycle because it takes much more labor power to produce a car. With more and more ‘robots’ producing automobiles with fewer and fewer hands, the value of a car should be declining.
This is the modern-day conflict workers need to study to better understand the economics of today’s capitalist system. The modern-day struggle on behalf of workers – that higher purpose – is the elimination of wage slavery and the wages system, a process that is already well underway in the economy, due to the underlining developments in the social productive forces of society. The future is more and more becoming a reality of advanced automation, robotics, and laborless production. That in turn means that the abundance created by this advanced technology which is glutting the markets has to be distributed & shared on the basis of need and not on the ability to pay. Unions are critical tools that will help take this struggle to the next level as they learn how to conform to whatever level of support they can give in the fight to achieve those goals. This is the next victory that can be won. Listen to the League…
(Submitted by: John Wright, retired UAW member &
Maureen Taylor, MI/Welfare Rights Org.)
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