In Zimbabwe, the Reserve Bank has been laying off people as part of desperate cost-cutting measure. The employees that had been retrenched have not received their full retrenchment packages that they are supposed to get. In the meantime, people are unemployed and are finding it hard to find a new job, with many resorting to work in the informal section. In Third World countries like Zimbabwe, entire families are often dependent on a single person’s income. This leaves many families suddenly without the necessary funds to pay for their medical aid, while kids are not going to school anymore since they can no longer afford to pay the school fees.
Some have gone as far as killing themselves as they succumbed to the stress of unemployment and no retrenchment package in sight.
In the light of all of this, one economist had the following perspective:
“The idea that people are deserving of compensation if their employers can no longer retain them has never been properly justified. The employees’ compensation for their labour was given to them as their wage every month while they were working. Why should compensation continue when their work is no longer needed?” Robertson told IPS.”
This is your typical ‘Free Martketeer’ opinion – where people are no longer considered as being living beings, but are reduced to mere commodities, which one should be able to hire and fire as one pleases. They also have a fancy word for it: “Labour Flexibility”.
Obviously a statement like this will only come from someone whose job is secure and will not find themselves being thrown around by the merciless tides of the labour market any time soon. The Corporation as an entity on its own has gained a superior status than living, breathing, human beings. The corporation is a dead thing – it’s merely an assembled structure. Yet, it’s the corporations who are in the position of ensuring life security to people, and when this is threatened there are consequences:
““The suffering of the retrenched workers is transferred to their families, children and spouses. Tension and stress grows, leading to unwarranted domestic disputes and eventual violence and abuse of children,” Bohwasi told IPS.”
Within Equal Money Capitalism, we get this.
That is why Labour Flexibility within Equal Money Capitalism will take on a whole new dimension. Instead of Labour Flexibility entailing the freedom of the corporation to hire and fire with no restrictions in place – Labour Flexibility will be a principle of understanding that one require to be Flexible with Labour, as it is clear that one will not always be able to occupy the same job position. This may be due to fluctuations in the needs and requirements of the population, the environment or technological innovation. Thus, within this flexibility, the corporation ensures that one can continue employment elsewhere (such as the compassion department), as the corporation understands and realizes that the only capital which matters is the Capital as Life as the employees who bring life into the corpus of the Corporation– and will thus tend to its Capital with the utmost care and respect.
To Read the full article on the Zimbabwe retrenchment disaster, go to: http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/zimbabwe-struggling-to-pay-laid-off-workers/
Cool Leila, thanks for the common sense perspectives. This "flex labour in the interest of the corporations" trend cost me a job also, though of course not with such horrendous consequences as with people with families and no well fare system. I am ONE vote for the new equal money flexible labour system where we can be assured of a job in another place to apply ourselves. I'll share this in the low lands here.
ReplyDelete