Work

C. The Workplace Exploitation of Men as Workers

Work is inherently a very positive thing for all humans, including men. Basically, it consists of improving the environment that we function in so that it is supportive to our well-being and to our enjoyment, and to the onward-upward trend17 of the humans who do the work.

Unlittered woods, an unpolluted stream,
A fresh-swept hearth, one's body showered clean,
Soil tilled with care, tools in their proper place
Tell the real nature of our human race.
from "The Uses of Beauty and Order"

Oppression entered the field of work with the beginning of class societies (the slave owner-slave societies to begin with, the noble-serf [feudal] societies later, and the owning class-middle class-wage worker society in the present epoch). These class societies introduced exploitation and misery and degradation into the operation of work, because the motivation of oppression is not for the general good except incidentally, but for the profit of a small section of the population. Oppression spoils and distorts the constructive nature of work. Work's inherent constructive nature can only be restored with the changing of society to end the oppression, which has, in a class society, been allowed to dominate and damage the rational function of work.

The principal channel for the financial exploitation of the working-class-majority-component of any society is exactly the overwork of its members. The overwhelming share of the surplus value extracted by the society for transfer to the owning class comes from the intense overwork of the working class, and the greatest intensity of this, at least as applied to "wage work," falls upon the male workers.

The dirtiest, most damaging, most dangerous, and most exhausting "paid" jobs and the unhealthiest working conditions have always tended to be loaded on men.
Working with explosives, toxic chemicals, unsafe machinery, in bad weather, and when injured-all of these are standard situations for many, many men world-wide. (Ninety-seven percent of all fatal industrial accidents in the United Kingdom happen to men.) Many other men labor under the burden of dull, meaningless work. Nearly all men have to take what work they can get, often for long hours for very low pay.

Men work too hard and too long. Men in all workplaces are expected to
perform unreasonable jobs within unreasonable limits, with few if any resources, human or otherwise. Even middle-class men, supposedly with easier jobs, are routinely expected to work brutally long hours, "exempt" from any overtime pay at all, because they are considered "professionals." Often the actual conditions for these middle-class "professionals" amount to working for very long hours and for very low pay.

Men work in competition with other men, alone, and often in isolation, so that there is no cooperation or room to call for help when things get hard. Men are often set up to compete for a central role or position in whatever space they're in. This competition gets heightened when resources seem particularly scarce, for example, when layoffs are threatened, or when disadvantaged groups compete with themselves or each other for room within the system.

The exploiters of men as workers tend primarily to be men. Men are often bribed with higher pay and prestige to take on the job of being exploiters. Men are treated as expendable: "If you can't handle the job, there's lots of unemployed." Unemployment is systematically manipulated to create a surplus labor pool, reduce wages, discourage worker organizing, and encourage competition for jobs.

Men are seen as having no value except to work or to make a profit for someone else. They are encouraged to have as their goal making more money and buying "more" or "better" things. They are denigrated if they are not part of this competitive purchasing system, even if the system does not allow them to be a part of it because of their race, age, class position, or disability.
Overwork and insecurity are used to prevent access to emotional discharge, closeness, active involvement in parenting, and organizing to change things.

Dependence of families' well-being on men's income coerces men into accepting bad conditions and overwork. Men's love of their families is thus turned against them.

Some effects on men's lives of the institutions of the workplace are:

* Men become tired, stupefied, bitter, cynical, unable to work supportively
with other people;

* Men become exhausted, physically damaged, and their health suffers;

* Men are left without strength, leisure, or time for family, closeness,
creativity, and play;

* Men often feel on edge, without security, as if they have no value other
than what they can produce;

* Men are led to take pride in and defend their patterns of enduring
mistreatment and overwork;

* Men are corrupted by the system into working its will (rather than their own).
The workplace as an institution also has great impact on the lives of those excluded from it, those who are unemployed. For some men, particularly men of color, this can mean whole communities. Large numbers of black men are chronically unemployed in the United States. Under the current economic system, many have little chance for more than occasional employment throughout their lives. In the United Kingdom there is an underclass of young men who have left school and never expect to be able to work. Many other oppressed groups are also vulnerable to being excluded from the world of paid work, such as people with disabilities and older men. Some of the
effects of unemployment on men are:

* Unemployed men often experience a feeling of worthlessness that can lead
to suicide, addictions, etc.;

* Unemployed men are denied the opportunity and rewards of a productive life; * Unemployed men tend to identify themselves with the labels that society assigns them ("lazy good-for-nothings") and the patterns that they bear as
the result of their mistreatment;

* Unemployed men's family connections are often strained and broken as a result of the unmet social expectation that they will financially support their families.

GOALS

Make safe, meaningful work available to all men. To do this completely will require eliminating the class society based on exploitation and profit-making, and replacing it with an economic system based on intelligence, closeness, caring, and the natural joy of work.

STRATEGIES

a) Challenge the authority and policies of the class society's oppressive organizations (corporations, political action groups, and government agencies) that carry out their oppression in a visible, public way. This activity will be a necessary step toward establishing an economic system capable of sustaining meaningful and human work for all.

b) Build strong labor union movements everywhere, building them from the bottom up, guaranteeing control of them by their members (not by employer agencies or criminal gangs that are really serving the interests of the owning class), with maximum involvement of ordinary workers. Labor unions must advance new policies which require compensation for all labor based on its true value to society, and not just on profit-making.

c) Tackle overall the elimination of the conditioned greed for money, not only in the owning classes of the society, but where it has systematically been conditioned onto all the other classes. Speak out for the reduction of time spent at work, for "part-time work," for more holidays, job security, and income security for both the employed and the unemployed, for structures that allow employees to communicate with each other, and so on. In all places, workplaces or elsewhere, men should spearhead the call to work cooperatively, for the good of all, instead of competitively for
individual "gain."

Eliminate any current attitudes that men are required to overwork in order to secure basic food, water, and shelter. Eliminate any oppressive programs that give the appearance that men are required to destroy the environment in order to survive. ("If we don't kill off all the whales, if we don't cut
down all the trees, then we won't have any jobs.")

(c) copyright 1999
Rational Island Publishers
Reprinted on this site with permission of the copyright owner.

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