an inverse realtionship between the labor and other markets?

[noble brown]

I got this job doing factory type work at a place called XXXX Cleaners. You basically stand at the same place doing the same shit over and over again. Your typical division of labor type shit. They are very anti-union. Not the workers of course but the management. They have a production quota per hour per station. You can get wrote up if you drop below 85%. you get a “good job” if its 100%. now they have an incentive program. Of course they would like you to pump out more then a 100%. so here's the incentive. If you hit 110% you get .35$, if you hit 120% you get .75$ to every hour. Sounds reasonable on the surface right? Here's the first catch. It's an average for the whole month! Not the day or even the week but for the whole month. You can hit a 110 all month but if on the last day you hit 95% your fucked. Now there's a lot of variables that are completely out of the workers control. All of them still factor into your average. So there's a hourly quota but a monthly average “incentive”. Also, I get paid 8.65 so you'd think that if I put out 10 or 20% more I should at least get 110 or 120%, respectively, of my current wage. .75$ is only like 11% of my wage and I'm at the bottom of the pay scale. So at best you're only getting ½ of your wages per extra hour as an incentive. WHAT!!! wait it gets better. The plant is on average 110% more productive with lots of people getting fooled into the “incentive” program. So what do they do when we pump out more product? Cut hours! So for our extra work per hour we get paid less then half the worth (so called worth) of our work and then on top of that we get cut earlier. The company makes out cause now they get extra work out of us for less then half the cost and even better they don't have to pay out as many hours! What a scam! And NO ONE fucking sees it and if someone does they ain't saying shit!


So this brings me to another observation. The workers, being another market commodity like textiles or soap or gas whatever, are all the constituent commodity in the labor market. But the relationship between the labor market and that of all other markets seems to be an inverse one. For instance, if I am selling XXXXX Cleaners soap, the more they buy the cheaper it is. 1000 units is cheaper than 100 (per unit). but the more labor they purchase the more expensive it gets (overtime or time and a half). Why? I know I'm tempted to say it's simply cause we are the only commodity to be able to fight back. The more we are exhausted the more we should be worth, but I feel like I'm missing something major here. Something important. Anyone?

Also does anyone one have any constructive thoughts on actions to take here. i haven't said anythng yet due to the fact that i'm not yet past the probation period. I've thought of distributing a letter similiar to this explaining the obvious. but since i'm one of only two new people then it seems like needless risk. fuck the job for real, but i cant really help the situation if i expose my intentions before even getting to know more then a person or two.

[¿Que?]

Sorry, I can't answer the specific question. I am not good at these sorts of analytical problems. Marxian economics is extremely challenging for me.

As to your second question, wait at least a month until you get a sense of who your potential allies could be. Watch out for phony people that humor you but have no intention of understanding your position, or worse, are intent to use it against you. Try to be a model worker. This is rule #1 for workplace organizing, and something else I've never been very good at. If you pass out info, it's possible you could get fired over it. So maybe try to leave some info in the break room, incognito. Don't go out of your way to hide the fact that you left those there if someone confronts you on it. Especially if it's another worker, eventually they'll have to know, so that could actually turn into a positive thing. But if management tries to fire you over it, you may want to consider hiring a lawyer, although I'm pretty sure free speech laws are limited when you're on someone's private property.

I used to work the counter at a dry cleaners, but occasionally they made me work at the plant. I felt so privileged working in the air conditioned shop, although they worked us pretty hard too. But compared to the plant, well, there was just no comparison. Luckily for me, I immediately gained some credibility with the workers, since I spoke Spanish, and I suspect many were undocumented.

Buena Suerte!

[noble brown]

thanx. i've been doing the model worker thing. no problem. it just made sense to me. been reading from the IWW site and learning alot. i will sit back and work on improving my strategic position.. i'm already getting a sense of the interpersonal relationships but an accurate assesment will likely take time. the conditions are not really horrible. the company is a very large independent one in its industry and has improved its conditions dramatically over recent years. recently enough that the older workers remember how bad it used to be. they all still ***** but it seems to be superficial stuff. i still havent been fully confided in but workin on it. asking random innocent questions to get the temperature. looking for the natural leaders and such. just gotta b patient i guess.

[Klaatu]

Hate to tell you this, comrade: but union shops require you to "make production standards" also.
I ought to know - I worked in a union shop for almost twenty years.

And, some advice: beware of these 110% incentives; if a lot of workers achieve this amount,
the company will re-time-study the job and possibly raise the production standards higher!
This "incentive" thing is their sneaky way of doing this...