A CAPITALIST REVEALS THE TRUE COLOURS OF HIS CLASS
A letter written by the U.S. capitalist Maurice Taylor jr., CEO of a tyre and wheel manufacturing conglomerate, Titan International, to the Industries Minister of France has created much furore. The issue is takeover of a so-called economically unviable tyre factory in Northern France. Maurice Taylor, is also very much one from the capitalist class directly engaged in the capitalist politics of the U.S. state, once even being one of the contestants for the post of the U.S. Presidency during the 1996 elections. Hence his expression ought to reflect the dominant capitalist view presently prevailing. Whether it did or not that the contents of this letter will tell.
He wrote in the letter "Goodyear tried for over four years to save part of the Amiens [a tyre factory in Amiens, Northern France---FAPP] jobs that are some of the highest paid, but the French unions and French government did nothing but talk.
I have visited the factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three, and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me that's the French way!" [FTAlphaville's tumblr] Continuing further in the same breath he wrote "Sir, your letter states you want Titan to start a discussion. How stupid do you think we are? Titan is the one with money and talent to produce tyres. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government. The French farmer wants cheap tyre. He does not care if the tyres are from China or India and governments are subsidizing them." Undoubtedly the American capitalist, the Titan company CEO, has reacted with much anger at the union leaders curt reply. In excitement he has gone to the extent of comparing the power of his money and talent i.e. the power of capital with that of the union pronouncing his judgement in a challenging tone that the union is powerless remaining in existence only on the support of the French government.
Further in overexcitement he has revealed his true colours by stating in the letter "Titan is going to buy a Chinese tyre company or an Indian one, pay less than one Euro per hour and ship all the tyres France needs. You can keep the so-called workers. Titan has no interest in the Amien North factory".
He accused the French workers of being idlers, time wasting workers, posed the power of his capital ['money and talent'] vis-?-vis the union and even threatened not only not to accept responsibility for operation of the factory and the workers but on the contrary flood the French market with tyres produced and exported by him from other countries! Thus he has been threatening the French minister and its workers, a country counted as one of the foremost among the so-called developed world, which is impossible without the predominance of modern mode of industrial production..
Interestingly Mr. Taylor while pompously lecturing about the powerlessness of the French tyre factory workers and the power of his 'money and talent' made mostly from his home country, the U.S., did not talk of his own country's workers. Instead he threatened of buying a "Chinese tyre company or an Indian one, pay less than one Euro per hour and ship all the tyres France needs". He has his company's factories running in the U.S. but he talks of Indian and Chinese workers. Why? Does it then mean that the American workers are also lazybones, taking it easy even in the factories in the U.S.? They are also idlers taking high pay-packets? The bragging CEO of Titan is mum about that. He only castigates his country's government also, the U.S. government, and how he fought to protect the capitalists there from dumping of low-value Chinese tyres---"The US government is not much better than the French. Titan had to pay millions to Washington lawyers to sue the Chinese tyre companies because of their subsidizing. Titan won." But by expressing his interest in buying over a Chinese or Indian tyre company and "pay less than one Euro per hour and ship all the tyres France needs" doesn't he also wish to follow the same route of the Chinese companies that dump low-priced goods and irk him? What does the capitalist mean by this? His meaning is amply clear in today's world. It means he is also in search for companies in these countries where he and his company can pay minimum possible wages and extract so much production from the workers that it can not only substitute the production of the French Michelin's Amiens factory production but meet the total demand of tyres in France! He doesn't have any problem with such dumping as long as capitalists like him are owners of such companies from the imperialist countries and can utilise it for their own good. He is in fact in search of such companies in India and China, to exploit more intensely the workers of these poverty-ridden, backward countries and export the cheaper products to the developed countries for mopping up hefty profits. Capitalists have followed this method of capitalist exploitation and trade worldwide since a long time but particularly now they are more desperate than ever before frantically trying to search newer countries in each and every corner of the world as renewed source of profits. With audacious arrogance he has expressed this present mindset of the capitalists.
In the developed countries such as in France and America they are hesitant in directly applying the same force and speed for the same change as years of capitalist development and the history of workers struggle have compelled the capitalist states to at least concede higher standards of living and benefits. They know that too much of pushing may arouse the workers to stiffer opposition through struggles as they are once again seen to be erupting on the roads of France, Spain, Greece and even in America where the capitalists have started facing in recent times. European countries like France have hundred years of their Code du Travail [the labour code] that even after recent years of amendments to suit the capitalists contain a number of remnants of the so-called welfare state. According to the French labor code once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, the management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.[Bloomberg Businessweek Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies By Gregory Viscusi and Mark Deen on May 03, 2012]. The capitalists such as the Titan International CEO are angry for that very reason but only pressurizing and accusing the French government for still retaining these protections to the unions and the workers. That's the reason why Titan's CEO angrily comments?"What does the crazy union have? It has the French government". The capitalists are accusing the workers about high pay and only three out of seven hours of daily work to project it to be the cause of all problems. They are constantly pressurizing the French government to move out of their way and help them to advance with their aggression on the workers, another way of coaxing to dismantle even those remaining protective laws for workers. Gradually the capitalists are forcing through their agenda--- "The 35-hour work week? Untouchable. The social safety net? Untrimmable....So how on earth can France's Socialist government keep its promise to make this country, and Europe, more competitive in the global marketplace? Slowly and carefully, President Francois Hollande says. After meetings with world finance chiefs on Monday, he acknowledged "there are measures to take" on reducing the cost of labor in France, among the world's highest ? but said they "should be spread out over time."....Many economists say France could be running out of time, however, and that could have repercussions beyond its borders." [France's Sacred Labor Code-- Peter Tenebrarum] They are also adopting means to bypass these laws---"The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. The code sets hurdles for any company that seeks to shed jobs when it's turning a profit. It also grants judges the authority to reverse staff cuts years after they're initiated if companies don't follow the rules. The courts even deem some violations of the code a criminal offense that could send executives to jail." [French Labour and Capital--The Code Du Travail, May 9, 2012 by mike www.blogger.com]
So on one hand the capitalists like the Titan CEO fight legal cases for protection of the capitalists in the U.S. on the other they are adopting aggressive postures and issuing threats for withdrawal of whatever semblance of protection labour laws give to the workers. They are intensely pushing through this until the unions and the governments of these developed countries also succumb and surrender fully before them. Otherwise they threaten to exploit the impoverished workers of already surrendered backward countries like India and China and reap big profits by exporting to these developed countries. What an idea of efficient economy and industry they are forcibly intent on making the workers swallow----it is head I win tail you lose for them. Either you surrender for our profits or we will swamp your markets with low-priced goods and profit by exploiting backward country workers.
What is the reason behind so much arrogant anger and desperation? That of course the Titan CEO in spite of his audacious writing could not garner the guts to tell. How craftily has he tried to conceal beneath it the anxiety and desperation generated by the spreading turbulence of economic crisis!That, the capitalists are desperate to search and rework new sources and means of revival of their already sinking economies and profits which have resulted because of their self-created economic crisis worldwide. In spite of so much arrogance they are unable to confess the truth that it is not simply because of the French workers working only three hours out of seven daily and chatting through the remaining but it is their blind rush for piling up of profits and resulting anarchy in economy on one hand, and deprivation of the masses on the other that has landed them here. That they have bundled of their production units not only from France but even more so out of the U.S. to backward countries like India and China in a desperate bid to utilise the depressed wages and impose inhuman production loads there for profits which is not coming through in their developed countries. Only now with repeated attacks of pay-cuts and cuts in health-care and pensions and other rights, in the name of austerity they have also started targeting the workers and masses of their developed countries.
On the other hand against this worldwide tide of the capitalists' onslaught the French workers, who curtly retorted to the Titan CEO's mocking words, still want to believe that they can remain in the warmth of the outworn "social welfare" measures that are on the verge of collapsing. On that belief they said " that's the French way!" But successive French governments have gone on targeting and changing the French labour laws. Even the central trade union leadership and the recently formed 'socialist' Hollande government in France are willing to accept the same capitalist policies, the only difference they talk about is, they want it slowly and carefully, like the Left parties CPI, CPIM etc in India talked of during the initial years of adoption of globalization programmes in this country until they surrendered and knelt down before it. France is also presently in the grips of economic turmoil and slowdown which has spread throughout Europe There are now 2.9 million people out of work in France, almost 10 percent of the workforce and the most in 12 years. [Bloomberg Businessweek Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies By Gregory Viscusi and Mark Deen on May 03, 2012].In 2003, the labour minister of France appointed a legal commission to prepare a report on the "modernisation" of the labour law in cooperation with capitalists' associations and the trade unions. It was assumed that the new code would come into force in June 2006, but its introduction was foiled by the mass protest movement against the First Job Contract (CPE). [Behind The Backs of The Public] The most controversial part of this CPE law lay in the way it brought flexibility to employers allowing the French employers to fire workers under the age of 26 without any necessary legal safeguards for the new workers during the first two years of the contract, among other things. Facing sudden vigorous agitation from the young students and workers united at the grass-roots, in spite of the central unions dilly-dallying and almost inactive position, the French government had to beat a hasty retreat and withdraw the proposed amendment. However in 2008 the right-wing Sarkozy government brought into effect another modification in the labour code. In recent times further pressures are being built up by the capitalists. Thus the Titan CEO or the whole capitalist classes' tirade and aggression is continuing and getting more and more harsh. The real reply to the Titan CEO's aggressive and insulting letter cannot be sought in protection within the decades old 'welfare state' laws and their governments. Rather like the anti-CPE struggle of 2006 that forced the government to back off, far bigger and long-drawn struggles involving the workers and masses are real necessities of the moment. The capitalists need to be taught through the building up of united struggles of the working class that accusing the workers of only "three hours of work", "only 35-hour week" they may force upon the workers 12-hours of back-breaking toil and unbridled hire-and-fire but the workers have also in the past starting from the same country of Titan's CEO, the U.S., won the rights of 8-hour working day through powerful working-class struggles in different parts of the world. The capitalists want to snatch those away once again. To the capitalists capital and technology developed in society means more power to exploit and extract more and more profit from the increased toil of the workers but to the working class it means the possibility of establishing a completely different social system where lesser working hours, more time for recreation and innovation of a working class society based on common ownership and cooperation ----a socialist society where the capitalist employers no more remain to drain out the workers as wage-slaves. The French working class and the working class of the world can once again raise and revive that banner of revolt for socialism to give a befitting reply to the arrogance and hatred of Titan -like CEOs.
Comments:
| Name- | ranajit chakrabarty |
|---|---|
| Comment- | WELL WRITTEN |