Every day keeping eyes and ears open on the street and at work to hear what workers are saying about this huge finacial crisis. No problem hearing stuff as everyone is talking about it. Workers and activists that i come into contact with see the "bailout" in a negative way. I have not heard one person rationalize it, support it or say it is necessary.
last weekend I posted to the blog but it appears I sent it to my individual site and despite efforts to cut and paste it to this site I was unable to do so.
I will try in the half hour before I go to work to summarize my previous posting because /
Last weekend I spent a quiet evening shift at work. because it was so quiet there was lots of opportunity to discuss and chat and as it turned out 5 nurses became involved in what amounted to hours of discusssion .
The economy was foremost in workers minds.
It started with 2 nurses asking expressing fears re their pension plans. These workers ranged in age from 40 to 60.
All recognized their losses in individual plans what in the US you call 401K believe.
There was real worry re our hospital pension plan. Despite initial reassurance that losses must be made up by the employer, I pointed out that these losses would be taken away very soon in the form of layoffs, service cuts or even the possibility of our collective agreements being opened up betwen contacts and workers contributions increased and employers decreased. This led to furter discussion that the bail out would be payed for by the workers and the poor.
All recognized that any rescue loans to financial institutions and commercial banks will be paid back by the taxpayer-by the working class. This led to further discussion re credit and finance capital and the real economy. I struugled through explaining debt and the credit crunch . All were aware at some level of the sub-prime crisis and how mortgage debt was bundled up with other debt and sold on the market. The notion of blaming workers for mortgages they could not afford was seen by all as a way of blaming ordinary workers for the problem. One nurse expressed outrage that "5 percent of the worlds population -the rich" should be bailed out by "us"
The conversation proceeded in many directions then - mainly about globalization and neo-liberal economics and how the thrust was for cheap labour and more markets. I spoke about overproduction and the crisis this creates for capitalism. One nurse was interested in how this all began and this led to a discussion of the the great depression, keynsianism and the New Deal-to the post war boom and Thatcher and Reagan and even the Chicago School of Economics.
The plight of workers in countries like Mexico and Asia was discussed. The IMF and the World bank came up _ I simply could not believe what I was hearing.
One nurse stated that no matter what one thought, this was an historic event and she thought that many workers including her would never have the same trust in the market again. She stated that her father and mother used to say that they would never forget the Great depression.
there were many questions then that arose around recession and the Great Depression.
This is what led to discussion re the New Deal. They could see that in order to suppress the social unrest and the influence of socialists and REDS and the organized working class ,a fear of revolution or an uprising ,that something needed to be done by the capitalists. One worker asked what would have happened if there was a revolution then and even now. Before I could respond another stated that the left and the trade unions did not seem strong enough right now to be a threat.
I agreed and stated that if there had been a revolution in the 30s that would amount to jobs for all , health care free education etc etc.. a planned economy.
This led us into a brief discusssion of the former Soviet Union. I made the distinction between Stalinism and a genuine workers state and pointed out the gains made for workers in the Former SU despite Stalinism .
I have never experienced a situation at work where workers, not even politicized or that involved in our respective unions, were so eager to discuss and to ask so many questions and make so many connections. This just goes to show that some workers are very aware at many levels of what is going on, are not so easily duped and most of all they are anxious and worried.
There was a tangible anxiety and fear expressed. Fear of having to work beyond retirement age , fear of having wages reduced fear of layoffs, the rising cost of food. There was a real sense of indignation that we had worked so long with the belief that our pensions would be there and that there was no certainty at all for working people.
I also became aware of how much this economic crisis had accelerated learning.
They obviously had been reading the paper and having many discussions.
So for sure consciousness has shifted a bit at least among this small group of workers.
We discussed also the need for collective activity- someone mentioned the desire to move to the country and grow their own vegetable and food . Someone else mentioned that at least we would al be in the same boat and maybe isolation was not the answer..
I spoke to them about the need for collective activity- they were inetersted in hearing about the poll tax campaign and the water tax struggle in ireland.
So all in all that was brief moment seldom experienced in the workplace expecially among nurses in this period.
It was a revealing moment though and strengthened my faith in the potential of workers when faced with serious loss and uncertainty to recognize a serious situation for them as workers and to knw when they are at risk.
Not one of them saw the rescue efforts of the politicians as an answer. Not one of them saw an ineviteability in this and all saw that it would cost them if not immediately then soon down the line.
As as aside not one of the labour leaders or organizations has capitalized on this , attempted to agitate or mobilize against this- make connections etc. No surprise.
Some activists , such as in OCAP have real consciousness of what is going on, and are discussing attempts to be prepared for the fall out and a willingness to mobilize.
This is a brief summary of my previous post that did not get on the main blog.
Am late for work!!
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