Work till you drop

Today people are having to work longer and longer hours and harder still. Those who are lucky enough to be in work anyway are facing incredible hardship which I’m sure some will say oh well at least they have a job well yes but not many stop and think how tough that job is and how tat job may have changed with a employer looking to get more flesh for their pound so to speak. As many companies struggle on and instead of employing new staff and the costs of training new staff up the existing workforce are forced into longer days and asked to do a lot more for less. You see this now in London where the rush hour which used to tail off around 7 pm is now going way on to 8 and beyond in some case’s. People have to work longer and harder than ever before just to make ends meet it would seem. The untold stress and knock on affects of this on workers in Britain and beyond is very sharp with family life becoming difficult and also time for yourself to relax and enjoy your life becomes less and less. This post may seem like a stating the obvious but quite often we are talking about unemployment and all the rest of it but those who are still in work are often over looked. We must not forget them. Due to capitalism’s inability to solve the low rate of profit it is trying all sorts of counter tendencies including lengthening the working day and cutting wages where it can all in a bid to restore the rate of profit for various companies sectors and ultimately economies. Clearly workers are at the sharp end of capitalisms problems and are feeling its affects the worst as they are bearing the brunt of the crisis without a doubt. The idea of working hard which was pushed a lot at last weeks Tory party conference is the key to a happy life is clearly not quite the reality it is made outdo be on the ground. Many struggles to put food on their tables s it is with loan take outs and pay day loans shooting up in the last year or so as wages are squeezed again and again. Clearly there is a cost of living crisis which capitalism cannot solve as its main motivation is making profit workers feelings and lives are not important ultimately as long as they are making surplus value and profit as a result for the capitalist there is no concern. We have to be honest working dam hard and getting ill and stressed out due to work is no way to live and we should be making the case against work and for a change of society which doesn’t base life on work and the ability to work being the be all and end all. Pushing communist and socialist ideas can make sense to many right now all is it many are so tired and stressed to think anything than where we are is possible at all now. It must feel like you’re on a giant hamster wheel where you cannot get off being a cog in a giant system of money making which you barely benefit from if at all. Take tonight on the radio I heard a plumber ring in to a phone in show claiming he works till 11 or 12 at night only to have to be back in work the next day at 7.30 am now that is no life for anyone surely. Its also no point blaming migrant workers as I am sure some out there will as ok they may work harder but they are not getting any more for it in fact their lives are no better than British workers for doing the same. Migrant or British worker our problems and issues at work are the same. This is a class problem not an us or them one. The only we and they there is is us the workers and the capitalists. It wouldn’t surprise me if in a few years time we don’t see people dieing through stress and over working as this capitalist system grinds workers into the groundin pursuit of its own goals which is greater and greater profit. Quite frankly this system does not benefit the majority of people and it simply has got to go. Whilst I say that we are still a long long ay of major system change as it stands today but things can and do change as we have seen in the past. Providing works with confidence to organise in their workplaces must be a revolutionaries mission in life here and now to provide the means and the ideas to fight back against their employer to win small battles at first but to know that fighting back can get you wins. Much like the Hovis workers who defeated 0 hours contracts the other week which got no real media coverage but can be a beacon to workers up and down the land facing stress and the daily grind of this exploitative system.