A couple of months ago I saw the film Watchmen and there is a scene that made me laugh out loud.
One of a group of concerned fat cat business leaders equates something being free with "socialism". Not any real variation of genuine socialism of course but the bogeyman pejorative "socialism" that the Right wing jabbers on about (and recently in the US loopy Right, wrongly, hypocritically and obscenely equates with fascism).
Now the shoe is on the other foot...
The situation at British Airways (BA):
Willie Walsh, stunned his workforce yesterday by offering to forego a month of his own salary of 61,000 pounds ($124,961) and asking that his staff do the same as a strategy for "survival". BA workers have now been given until June 24 to volunteer to work for free for a month, with the salary deductions expected to be spread over a period of several months if possible.
Now to keep it real I should point out that BA pilots and cabin crews are paid double what their equivalent in some other airlines are paid, and piloting is not a low pay job anyhow. Walsh is, in his own level of proportion, putting his money where is mouth is, and presumably won't be able to get to his pad on the Côte d'Azur or buy a new Rolls this month. The alternative is obviously that the company succumbs to these free market forces - that some people treat like the benign will of a capitalist God.
but...
When an employee is asked to give over his or her life for a working month, FOR FREE... can they accuse management of being "socialist" in the same pejorative sense?
If anyone on the Right read my blog they might give me a lecture on the distinction. But they'd be missing the points I'm making:
What is evil about "free"?
Is this not a "socialist" answer to a capitalist failure?
What is so great about the free market if it means a once great brand dies and 40,000 real people become unemployed? Which people - by the way - will then not be able to buy YOUR products, further dragging down the economy. Free market forces will NOT get us out of the global economic downturn.
Yeah if you love your business (which you don't own) by all means work for free. Be "socialist" for your company. Good on you. I admire your generosity. And I hope the business survives and rewards you... but what guarantees do you have? These people at BA are probably thinking "if I do this... I'm not looking for a job for a month and if BA goes under anyway, the guy next to me who didn't work will have snapped up the vacancy...". It's a hell of a risk.
Just a few thoughts on a winter's evening... from someone who would like to hear a little less of this fear-mongering bogeyman misuse "collectivist" and "socialism", especially in defence of an discredited economic ideology that seems set on self-immolation while taking the material well-being of the rest of us with it.
One of a group of concerned fat cat business leaders equates something being free with "socialism". Not any real variation of genuine socialism of course but the bogeyman pejorative "socialism" that the Right wing jabbers on about (and recently in the US loopy Right, wrongly, hypocritically and obscenely equates with fascism).
Now the shoe is on the other foot...
The situation at British Airways (BA):
Willie Walsh, stunned his workforce yesterday by offering to forego a month of his own salary of 61,000 pounds ($124,961) and asking that his staff do the same as a strategy for "survival". BA workers have now been given until June 24 to volunteer to work for free for a month, with the salary deductions expected to be spread over a period of several months if possible.
Now to keep it real I should point out that BA pilots and cabin crews are paid double what their equivalent in some other airlines are paid, and piloting is not a low pay job anyhow. Walsh is, in his own level of proportion, putting his money where is mouth is, and presumably won't be able to get to his pad on the Côte d'Azur or buy a new Rolls this month. The alternative is obviously that the company succumbs to these free market forces - that some people treat like the benign will of a capitalist God.
but...
When an employee is asked to give over his or her life for a working month, FOR FREE... can they accuse management of being "socialist" in the same pejorative sense?
If anyone on the Right read my blog they might give me a lecture on the distinction. But they'd be missing the points I'm making:
What is evil about "free"?
Is this not a "socialist" answer to a capitalist failure?
What is so great about the free market if it means a once great brand dies and 40,000 real people become unemployed? Which people - by the way - will then not be able to buy YOUR products, further dragging down the economy. Free market forces will NOT get us out of the global economic downturn.
Yeah if you love your business (which you don't own) by all means work for free. Be "socialist" for your company. Good on you. I admire your generosity. And I hope the business survives and rewards you... but what guarantees do you have? These people at BA are probably thinking "if I do this... I'm not looking for a job for a month and if BA goes under anyway, the guy next to me who didn't work will have snapped up the vacancy...". It's a hell of a risk.
Just a few thoughts on a winter's evening... from someone who would like to hear a little less of this fear-mongering bogeyman misuse "collectivist" and "socialism", especially in defence of an discredited economic ideology that seems set on self-immolation while taking the material well-being of the rest of us with it.
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