the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 21, 2005
Every time a company lays off workers or demands concessions, someone blames it on jobs being lost to other countries.
That’s one of the biggest falsehoods around. The Department of Labor just published a very revealing study in the August issue of Monthly Labor Review. Of the big layoffs in 2004, only 2.5% of the jobs were lost because of the movement of work to other countries!
That leaves 97.5% of jobs lost to account for. And behind most of them was the fact that the same output, or even more, was produced by a smaller number of workers.
There is a reason we hear so much about lost jobs going to Mexico, China and other countries. It hides who is responsible for layoffs–companies right here at home, in fact, within easy reach of us. And it diverts us from fighting against something we can stop, that is, speed-up.
Don’t let them trick us!