Sue-Ann Levy, the perpetually grotesque enemy of working people that the Toronto Sun pays good money to run down those who actually work for a living, penned an opinion piece recently spouting the Canadian Taxpayers Federation line that Ontario government employees are somehow abusing the system by calling in sick more than do their private sector counterparts.
She spouts a bunch of statistics that, hopefully correctly, show that workers who are able to, do in fact call in sick, though she frames this, of course, as workers somehow "shirking" work because the government or unions "let them".
It is part of a wide ranging, right-wing attack on the very idea that workers have a right to anything at all and is part of an ongoing attempt to facilitate a culture that regards labour standards and laws requiring employers to act with basic decency as somehow undermining capitalism and freedom.
This is regularly done by attempting to pit workers subject to direct abuse by their bosses against those who have at least some protection as a result of unions or regulations passed by governments.
It is time, quickly and unapologetically, to put this right-wing and terribly destructive, damaging and dangerous threat to public health to rest once and for all.
The problem is not that public sector workers are taking off too many sick days. The problem is that private sector workers are being forced to work when they are sick.
As with so many things in this era of reaction, a propaganda campaign is being waged to make it out that somehow "calling in sick" more is a sign of privilege and entitlement as opposed to pointing out the fact that some people are forced to work despite actually being sick.
If you are not protected by a union contract or if you do not work for the government the odds are you will be forced to work when sick, to work with people who are sick and to face firing or no pay when you are so sick that you stand up and are unwilling to cave into the pressure that your private sector employer will place on you to work when you are sick.
You are, all too often, not only working while sick, you are making your fellow workers sick and, if you are in a service job, making the public sick, even entitled columnists like Sue Ann Levy.
Anyone who has actually worked in a non-union, lower paying, private sector environment knows that sick pay almost always is not a reality, that employers regularly pressure workers to work when they are too ill to, that workers will work when they should not as they have no financial choice, that parents of sick children will be forced to take their children to work, exposing their co-workers to whatever the child is ill with, because they cannot afford to and do not have the right to take a sick day at home with an ill child.
I worked for a private transportation company through most of the '90s. I had a boss whose understanding of labour relations was that because he allegedly came in when he was sick, so should all his workers, despite the fact that they made a fraction of what he did and despite the fact they had no ownership in the company at all.
Sick pay simply did not exist. If you called in sick, you lost a day's pay.
Given that few were making anything approaching a solid wage, a day's pay was a lot.
That is the reality of why private sector workers call in sick less. It is not because they get sick less. It is not because union or public sector workers are more "entitled". It is because private sector workers with no protection are terrified of losing their jobs or not getting paid and know full well that they will lose them if they call in sick too often.
The Sue-Ann Levys and Toronto Suns enable the worst sadism of capitalism. They seem to think the problem is not that most workers have no serious right to refuse to work when ill, but rather that some do.
It's enough to make you sick.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Dexter, democracy and disappointment: Why leftist principles matter
Despite the hand-wringing of some commentators and the bewilderment of NDP types that one would expect to be bewildered, there is really no mystery to the fact that the Dexter government not only failed to get reelected, but in fact got crushed.
It disappointed the people.
Aside from all of its attempts, from almost the first day it took power, to dampen expectations and to tell citizens that they should only anticipate "good government," they still disappointed the people because, after in some cases decades of dreaming and of fighting against all the odds for a party that said it would do politics differently and that said it was fundamentally of a different type than the Liberals and Conservatives, in reality the Dexter government proved to be essentially more of the same. It often placed corporate interest ahead of public good, and after a four-year term did not deliver a single reform or change of any substantive or lasting meaning that would inspire anyone at all.
Nothing. And it proudly intended to do this. It joins a long line of "social democratic" governments both in Canada and elsewhere that have sought to set the bar low, and have gone even lower. Governments whose minuscule "accomplishments," in so far as they even exist, are purely ephemeral, in that they will be simply swept away by whoever replaces them in government if they are so inclined.
Since these governments do not even attempt serious change, they do not accomplish it.
There is more that is at work than simply trying to "govern for everyone," be good "managers" or the nausea-inducing mantra of "practical" change, a type of slogan that means citizens can expect no real changes at all. One is forced, over time, to suspect that the reality is that social democratic politicians become the same prisoners of the desire to be in power, to lead and to hold and maintain positions that pay exceptionally well as do all other politicians.
There is an unfortunate transformation that people often undergo when they rise to positions of influence, power or, frankly, higher salaries, within what are supposed to be leftist or "progressive" unions, parties or organizations. This is especially true if they are elected to positions as MPs or MPPs, with the staff and financial reward that accompany that. Old ideals are easy to sacrifice on the alter of a salary of $160,000 a year and with the added claim that one is, after all, "getting things done."
Without being entirely cognizant of the process, "progressives" and leftists, once ensconced in positions of power, begin to adopt an attitude and a style of doing things that they would have laughed at and fought against had they seen it in others. Indeed, in the case of the NDP sycophants, you often see behaviour excused that they would have condemned in those who acted similarly or identically within the Liberal or Conservative Parties.
Among many appalling recent examples, the case of the nomination of Adam Giambrone for a by-election by the Ontario NDP stands as a particularly egregious one, embodying the worst excesses of a seemingly rigged process, as well as blatant disregard for the left's supposed goals of trying to redress systemic racism and sexism.
Those going along with such practices cannot then claim any difference from others in terms of these principles. If principles like fighting systemic injustice are non-negotiable socially, then they have to be internally within our own organizations as well. Otherwise, there is no commitment to them that will not be sacrificed for political or personal gain.
Leader-focused, now more than ever, and hierarchically based, the left has parties and organizations with power structures and managerial "result" driven goals that are not only entirely analogous to those of the capitalists and bourgeois society as a whole, but that also subvert democracy internally by by their very nature facilitating the creation of a "social democratic" political class.
Due to the growth of bureaucratic elites and the subsequent institutionalization of these elites, organizations of the left often have their ideals subverted from within. This results in the all-too-familiar reality of leftist parties, unions or organizations developing de facto leadership cults, discarding meaningful internal democracy (and any organization in which the rank-and-file members are not a constant threat to those in power, and are not able to easily replace them, is neither democratic nor truly committed to ideals of equality or leftism), and failing to live up to the ideals that they foresee socially in theory but seem to be afraid of or eschew when applied within.
We begin, as the left, to fail by becoming what we purport to oppose, regardless of our continued radical rhetoric, or lack thereof. Instead of trying to build new collective governance structures that are democratically inclusive and that seek to actively combat parliamentary ossification, centralization and bureaucratization, we simply mimic the power pyramids of the past and call it by new names.
It is the left's perpetual dilemma and its persistent albatross. We talk a good game in theory and yet play the same one in practice that is played by all the other hierarchically driven embodiments of bourgeois power.
In fact, by demanding a form of loyalty that is based on an alleged need to stand united against the right, corporations and the forces of reaction, a need that is true for social classes and groups under assault by the corporate agenda but that is falsely used to demand "solidarity" with a leadership and internal power grouping, left parties and organizations are often far less tolerant of dissent and apply far fewer brakes on the power of the leader and their immediate handlers than one would anticipate from people who claim to be fighting for equality.
When the goal is to achieve and maintain power at any cost, the cost will be principle. This is not an abstraction, though it is often presented as such. It is often framed as if "intellectuals" or "malcontents" are somehow simply sitting around whining. But that is nonsense, because in this case "principle" means the fight to end tremendous social injustices like sexism, racism, colonialism, inequality and poverty. These injustices destroy and impact the lives of millions of citizens every single day.
There is nothing abstract about it. When "left" governments fail to act on these issues in any meaningful sense, they facilitate this suffering. It is that simple. One can make excuses all one wants. But excuses are no different when painted in orange.
Even worse, when left governments (or parties, unions or organizations) fail to act according to their ideals they do something more insidious; they feed into the present right wing culture and climate of disillusion and indifference towards activism, politics and government. They play into the reactionary rhetoric of all those who say, "It makes no difference, they are all the same anyway," and into the notion that government is irrelevant to the lives of the people. They play into the notion that everyone is equally morally corrupted at the end of the day.
There are few greater enemies to the struggle to achieve a new society than disillusionment among those who need it. Unlike the other obstacles we on the left face, however, this disillusionment is almost entirely of our own making.
It disappointed the people.
Aside from all of its attempts, from almost the first day it took power, to dampen expectations and to tell citizens that they should only anticipate "good government," they still disappointed the people because, after in some cases decades of dreaming and of fighting against all the odds for a party that said it would do politics differently and that said it was fundamentally of a different type than the Liberals and Conservatives, in reality the Dexter government proved to be essentially more of the same. It often placed corporate interest ahead of public good, and after a four-year term did not deliver a single reform or change of any substantive or lasting meaning that would inspire anyone at all.
Nothing. And it proudly intended to do this. It joins a long line of "social democratic" governments both in Canada and elsewhere that have sought to set the bar low, and have gone even lower. Governments whose minuscule "accomplishments," in so far as they even exist, are purely ephemeral, in that they will be simply swept away by whoever replaces them in government if they are so inclined.
Since these governments do not even attempt serious change, they do not accomplish it.
There is more that is at work than simply trying to "govern for everyone," be good "managers" or the nausea-inducing mantra of "practical" change, a type of slogan that means citizens can expect no real changes at all. One is forced, over time, to suspect that the reality is that social democratic politicians become the same prisoners of the desire to be in power, to lead and to hold and maintain positions that pay exceptionally well as do all other politicians.
There is an unfortunate transformation that people often undergo when they rise to positions of influence, power or, frankly, higher salaries, within what are supposed to be leftist or "progressive" unions, parties or organizations. This is especially true if they are elected to positions as MPs or MPPs, with the staff and financial reward that accompany that. Old ideals are easy to sacrifice on the alter of a salary of $160,000 a year and with the added claim that one is, after all, "getting things done."
Among many appalling recent examples, the case of the nomination of Adam Giambrone for a by-election by the Ontario NDP stands as a particularly egregious one, embodying the worst excesses of a seemingly rigged process, as well as blatant disregard for the left's supposed goals of trying to redress systemic racism and sexism.
Those going along with such practices cannot then claim any difference from others in terms of these principles. If principles like fighting systemic injustice are non-negotiable socially, then they have to be internally within our own organizations as well. Otherwise, there is no commitment to them that will not be sacrificed for political or personal gain.
Leader-focused, now more than ever, and hierarchically based, the left has parties and organizations with power structures and managerial "result" driven goals that are not only entirely analogous to those of the capitalists and bourgeois society as a whole, but that also subvert democracy internally by by their very nature facilitating the creation of a "social democratic" political class.
Due to the growth of bureaucratic elites and the subsequent institutionalization of these elites, organizations of the left often have their ideals subverted from within. This results in the all-too-familiar reality of leftist parties, unions or organizations developing de facto leadership cults, discarding meaningful internal democracy (and any organization in which the rank-and-file members are not a constant threat to those in power, and are not able to easily replace them, is neither democratic nor truly committed to ideals of equality or leftism), and failing to live up to the ideals that they foresee socially in theory but seem to be afraid of or eschew when applied within.
We begin, as the left, to fail by becoming what we purport to oppose, regardless of our continued radical rhetoric, or lack thereof. Instead of trying to build new collective governance structures that are democratically inclusive and that seek to actively combat parliamentary ossification, centralization and bureaucratization, we simply mimic the power pyramids of the past and call it by new names.
It is the left's perpetual dilemma and its persistent albatross. We talk a good game in theory and yet play the same one in practice that is played by all the other hierarchically driven embodiments of bourgeois power.
In fact, by demanding a form of loyalty that is based on an alleged need to stand united against the right, corporations and the forces of reaction, a need that is true for social classes and groups under assault by the corporate agenda but that is falsely used to demand "solidarity" with a leadership and internal power grouping, left parties and organizations are often far less tolerant of dissent and apply far fewer brakes on the power of the leader and their immediate handlers than one would anticipate from people who claim to be fighting for equality.
When the goal is to achieve and maintain power at any cost, the cost will be principle. This is not an abstraction, though it is often presented as such. It is often framed as if "intellectuals" or "malcontents" are somehow simply sitting around whining. But that is nonsense, because in this case "principle" means the fight to end tremendous social injustices like sexism, racism, colonialism, inequality and poverty. These injustices destroy and impact the lives of millions of citizens every single day.
There is nothing abstract about it. When "left" governments fail to act on these issues in any meaningful sense, they facilitate this suffering. It is that simple. One can make excuses all one wants. But excuses are no different when painted in orange.
Even worse, when left governments (or parties, unions or organizations) fail to act according to their ideals they do something more insidious; they feed into the present right wing culture and climate of disillusion and indifference towards activism, politics and government. They play into the reactionary rhetoric of all those who say, "It makes no difference, they are all the same anyway," and into the notion that government is irrelevant to the lives of the people. They play into the notion that everyone is equally morally corrupted at the end of the day.
There are few greater enemies to the struggle to achieve a new society than disillusionment among those who need it. Unlike the other obstacles we on the left face, however, this disillusionment is almost entirely of our own making.
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