Who will rescue workers, largely made up of rank and file of society? Free trade policies, greed, corruption, very high salaries for private sector managers and senior civil servants conspire to take the stink out of the unions and leave them powerless and disoriented.
Christopher J.
H Wright, in his book, The Message of Ezekiel, wrote that economic dominance is moving beyond countries and being achieved by companies, some of them controlled by incredibly wealthy individuals ...
and that real power has shifted from national political communities to transnational economic giants, frighteningly free from seriouspolitical, democratic or moral constrains.
The transnational and multinational economic giants are setting the agenda, but the worker and the unions are being relegated to the backyard of events and times.
Perhaps the unions should evaluate their relevance and their strategies, and move fast to be relevant in a world where layoffs is the reality of the market, where the lean company is the ideal, and mechanization the in-think.
And even where an industry is labour intensive without option, it still has desperate poor people knocking at their doors.
To transnationals and multinationals, the unions and the workers seem to speak unintelligent language.
To them, workers' demands and threats are better ignored.
When multinational tea companies in Kenya introduced tea-plucking machines in recent times, workers protested but lost.
It is a scenario governed by free trade values, and structural adjustment policies embraced by many third world countries on recommendation by bretton wood institutions.
The worker is pressed from all sides.
The companies use manipulations, while governments use performance contracts and rapid results initiatives.
Both the companies and the governments would find some rationale to dismiss a worker.
Companies would claim that they are making loses, send many workers packing, and overburden the few with a lot of work.
The remaining has no choice but to remain mum and work! And just a few years into twenty first century, an irrationallybig difference in the amount of salaries paid ranks exist.
But governments have embraced the private culture values and no longer talk on behalf of the workers.
And since many officers working with the regulating agencies are corrupt and greedy, they are bought to keep quite and support the companies when workers demand more pay and better treatment.
A certain company in Kenya pay and treat its workers poorly.
The company employ a lot of workers, mostly women, whom they house in single tiny rooms complete with a chimney.
Because of the chimney, visitors to the estate would think that the labourers are provided with firewood.
NO! They are not supposed to touch any twig, branch and wood from the eucalyptus plantation and the wood that have been cut and piled in stacks.
And neither are they given electricity, yet electricity can be a bit cheaper for them.
Cut logs, apart from being used for heating in factories, are also used by managers to warm their homes, in addition to breath-taking privileges that they receive from the company.
Many managers would become brainwashed and become unsympathetic to the workers.
Apart from giving workers little salary, a certain company in Kenya, denies them tokens given to them by well-wishers.
Workers say that a company that buys the company's flowers (happy with the quality of flowers), have occasionally given some money to be given to the workers as bonuses, but the managementhave devised other ways to earmark the funds.
Workers say that the company use manipulative maneuvers.
They have come up with a committee made up of workers' delegates whom they use to make their use of the bonus money seem legal and just.
Since the delegates would go to the meeting with a careful posture less they are sacked, the management, with ease, would divert the funds that were supposed to be given to the workers as bonuses to projects that would benefit the members of management and the company, leaving out the labourers.
For an outsider, projects like a school and a baby centre that the company has put up, on superficial look, would benefit the workers.
They do not.
There is no job security to se the workers benefit from the projects.
And still, occupational hazards stare menacingly at the workers.
They are exposed to dangerous chemicals, and many live with apathy and frustrations.
Due to frustrations, the women working in the flower farms cannot stand firm against sexual advances from men, who also, having been beaten by the management, redirect their exploits to women labourers, whom they in return, would get some favours.
Cohabitation and loose sexual life has become an accepted sexual vice to the workers.
The workers claim that there are other more absurd ways in which the company have used the money supposed to have been paid as bonuses to the workers.
They have used the funds to put up tiny single one room houses for the workers, and earmarked other funds to philanthropic activities just to build the organization's corporate image.
The workers would not take the tiny miserable single rooms to their homes when they are sacked or when they retire.
Workers are wondering why the company is using bonuses on philanthropic activities outside the company yet they are also poor? The workers suspects that a certain amount of the bonus money line the pockets of managers since they can conspire with the managers of supposed beneficiary organizations to hike the cost of their projects so that they both can share what is on top.
It is evident that greed and corruption as reached its alarming height at the expense of the workers! Perhaps Karl Marx was not a person of only strange and dangerous ideas as many would want people to believe.
It is true that the wealth and the good life of the bourgeoisies are realized at the expense ofthe poor workers welfare, and that the bourgeoisies uses state power to maintain status quo.
But they live in self-denial that conflicts and blood sheds that have accompanied class conflicts in the past may occur any time in the future but with apocalyptic proportions.
If it occur, it will be a war which no one will win.
Better come to the negotiating table with a give and take attitude.
Christopher J.
H Wright, in his book, The Message of Ezekiel, wrote that economic dominance is moving beyond countries and being achieved by companies, some of them controlled by incredibly wealthy individuals ...
and that real power has shifted from national political communities to transnational economic giants, frighteningly free from seriouspolitical, democratic or moral constrains.
The transnational and multinational economic giants are setting the agenda, but the worker and the unions are being relegated to the backyard of events and times.
Perhaps the unions should evaluate their relevance and their strategies, and move fast to be relevant in a world where layoffs is the reality of the market, where the lean company is the ideal, and mechanization the in-think.
And even where an industry is labour intensive without option, it still has desperate poor people knocking at their doors.
To transnationals and multinationals, the unions and the workers seem to speak unintelligent language.
To them, workers' demands and threats are better ignored.
When multinational tea companies in Kenya introduced tea-plucking machines in recent times, workers protested but lost.
It is a scenario governed by free trade values, and structural adjustment policies embraced by many third world countries on recommendation by bretton wood institutions.
The worker is pressed from all sides.
The companies use manipulations, while governments use performance contracts and rapid results initiatives.
Both the companies and the governments would find some rationale to dismiss a worker.
Companies would claim that they are making loses, send many workers packing, and overburden the few with a lot of work.
The remaining has no choice but to remain mum and work! And just a few years into twenty first century, an irrationallybig difference in the amount of salaries paid ranks exist.
But governments have embraced the private culture values and no longer talk on behalf of the workers.
And since many officers working with the regulating agencies are corrupt and greedy, they are bought to keep quite and support the companies when workers demand more pay and better treatment.
A certain company in Kenya pay and treat its workers poorly.
The company employ a lot of workers, mostly women, whom they house in single tiny rooms complete with a chimney.
Because of the chimney, visitors to the estate would think that the labourers are provided with firewood.
NO! They are not supposed to touch any twig, branch and wood from the eucalyptus plantation and the wood that have been cut and piled in stacks.
And neither are they given electricity, yet electricity can be a bit cheaper for them.
Cut logs, apart from being used for heating in factories, are also used by managers to warm their homes, in addition to breath-taking privileges that they receive from the company.
Many managers would become brainwashed and become unsympathetic to the workers.
Apart from giving workers little salary, a certain company in Kenya, denies them tokens given to them by well-wishers.
Workers say that a company that buys the company's flowers (happy with the quality of flowers), have occasionally given some money to be given to the workers as bonuses, but the managementhave devised other ways to earmark the funds.
Workers say that the company use manipulative maneuvers.
They have come up with a committee made up of workers' delegates whom they use to make their use of the bonus money seem legal and just.
Since the delegates would go to the meeting with a careful posture less they are sacked, the management, with ease, would divert the funds that were supposed to be given to the workers as bonuses to projects that would benefit the members of management and the company, leaving out the labourers.
For an outsider, projects like a school and a baby centre that the company has put up, on superficial look, would benefit the workers.
They do not.
There is no job security to se the workers benefit from the projects.
And still, occupational hazards stare menacingly at the workers.
They are exposed to dangerous chemicals, and many live with apathy and frustrations.
Due to frustrations, the women working in the flower farms cannot stand firm against sexual advances from men, who also, having been beaten by the management, redirect their exploits to women labourers, whom they in return, would get some favours.
Cohabitation and loose sexual life has become an accepted sexual vice to the workers.
The workers claim that there are other more absurd ways in which the company have used the money supposed to have been paid as bonuses to the workers.
They have used the funds to put up tiny single one room houses for the workers, and earmarked other funds to philanthropic activities just to build the organization's corporate image.
The workers would not take the tiny miserable single rooms to their homes when they are sacked or when they retire.
Workers are wondering why the company is using bonuses on philanthropic activities outside the company yet they are also poor? The workers suspects that a certain amount of the bonus money line the pockets of managers since they can conspire with the managers of supposed beneficiary organizations to hike the cost of their projects so that they both can share what is on top.
It is evident that greed and corruption as reached its alarming height at the expense of the workers! Perhaps Karl Marx was not a person of only strange and dangerous ideas as many would want people to believe.
It is true that the wealth and the good life of the bourgeoisies are realized at the expense ofthe poor workers welfare, and that the bourgeoisies uses state power to maintain status quo.
But they live in self-denial that conflicts and blood sheds that have accompanied class conflicts in the past may occur any time in the future but with apocalyptic proportions.
If it occur, it will be a war which no one will win.
Better come to the negotiating table with a give and take attitude.
Source...