["Capital is dead labour that, vampire-like, only lives…]

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"Capital is dead labour that, vampire-like, only lives lives the more, the more labour it sucks...

"If machinery be the most poweful means for increasing the productiveness of labour ... it becomes in the hands of capital the most powerful means... for lengthening the working day . . (And if the hours of labour are shortened), machinery becomes in the hands of capital the objective means, systematically employed for squeezing out more labour in a given time.

"At the same time that factory work exhausts the nervous system to the uttermost, it does away with the many-sided play of the muscles, and confiscates every atom of freedom, both in bodily and intellectual activity. The lightening of the: labour, even, becomes a sort of torture, since the machine does not free thei labourer from work, but deprives the work of all interest.

"Every kind of capitalist production, in so far as it is not only a labour-process but also a process of creating surplus value, has this in common, that it is not thei workman that employs the instruments of labour, but the instruments of labour that employ the workman. But it is only in the factory system that the inversion for the first time acquires technical and palpable reality.

"By means of its conversion into an automaton, the instrument of labour confronts the labourer, during the labour process, in the shape of capital, of dead labour, that dominates, and pumps dry, living labour power."

Karl Marx, Capital, p.233, 403, 413, as before. Thus the capitalist Bl. production line, 1980s: machines rep irkers artinns withnut relief breaks 40 hours w undercut competitors. However, it is not unprecedented. For the same type of moves which BL management are making at PSF now. were being carried out b! capitalists a century ago.

Karl Mart analysed this in Capital Vol. I published in 1867. Capitalists then tried to increase productivity by speed ups. longer working hours. more intensive labour. new technolog!.

EACH PAR' I MAKE SELLS FOR $594 HE BCSS "ATI TIER HIS HEN - MIS NE and disciplinary measures.

While BL is not a private enterprise concern but a nationalised industry it is run on capitalist lines - for profit.

Marx argues in Capital that the only source of value and hence ultimately of profit, is labour. The value of a commodity is related to the amount of socially necessary work-time it takes to produce it. But labour power is a unique commodity because its consumption creates new value.

Thus, when a worker is engaged in productive labour a certain proportion of his/her working time is taken up with producing sufficient commodities and hence sufficient value to meet the costs of their wages, that is to reproduce themselves as labour power so that they can eat, pay the rent and 'live to work another day' • However worker: actually produce more value in a day than the equivalent of their wages.

Extra

They create extra, surplus value over and above, which the capitalist keeps -and from which capitalist profit derives.

Now, Marx says, the capitalist has an obvious interest in making this 'surplus value' as big as possible. He can do this in two ways.

Either he can make his workers work longer hours: that is, if the worker has to work six hours to produce enough value necessary to cover his/her wages, and works an eight hour day, then the capitalist gets two hours work free and for nothing. But if the capitalist can force or persuade his workforce to work a nine hour day, he is getting more surplus value.

Or, more likely, the capitalist can increase 39 hours.

423.

productivity, so that the workers produce as many commodities in eight hours as they used to in nine or ten hours. This is the characteristic method of advanced capitalism.

It can be done in several ways - speed-up, new, more efficient machinery which needs fewer workers to produce the same amount of commodities and so on.

Productivity

Now this increase in productivity benefits the capitalist in two ditterent ways. Firstly, if the capitalist is first in the field with this new level of productivity, he will produce more commodities at below average cost, but, because the other capitalists need more labour time to produce each commodity, the average value will hardly change.

The innovating capitalist will be able to sell his commodities at more than their value. Later, all the capitalists will make similar innovations and increase their productivity so the average value of commodiites will decrease and the first innovating capitalist will not be able to make such high profits.

But secondly if capitalists in general increase productivity so that it takes less labour to produce all commodities, then the value of labour power itself will fall, because the commodities workers need to live on will contain less labour and less value. Therefore capitalists can pay workers lower wages and it will ensure they have enough to live on and be able t continue working.

This increase in productivity does create proble s for capitalists. If a certain group of workers used to produce 100 commodities in eight hours, but with increased productivity they now produce 200 in the same time, each commodity only contains halt the value has to sell more commodities to realise the same aniount of surplus value and hence profit.

New markets must be found for the increased volume of goods.

This is what is happening today. Managements are competing with each other to increase productivity, undercut their competitors and corner a larger share of the limited market. With the recession - a crisis of capitalism - the need for companies to undercut and increase productivity is even greater than usual. This is why BL is increasingly exploiting its workers.

The only way workers can stop this increased exploitation is by uniting and fighting back. Increased productivity doesn't mean higher wages or more jobs -it means quite the reverse. But because so much is at stake, because BL management can only remain competitive by exploiting the workforce more and more, they will not give in easily • as BL workers have already experienced.

It is a question of the relationship of forces between the company and the workers.

Management have taken advantage of the wages sellout last year, seeing in the treachery of • the union leaders an opportunity to get them to put the screws on the workers over productivity as well as pay. If BL workers had won in the wage review, they would be better able to fight this increasing exploitation on the shop floor.

But despite last year's sell-out, the unions still have the power to fight management if the determination is there. The alternative is to accept even lower pay and ever increasing productivity and exploitation. UO arry

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