Thanks Alex Pademelon Johnson) The I.W.W. wrote in 1933: The Revolutionary Four-Hour Day On the subject of what is to be done to end the depression there is a remarkable agreement between class-conscious workers and the real (not pseudo) scientists. In the fall of 1932 the Technocratic group in New York City, representing perhaps the most outstanding engineering genius of North America, came out with a proposal to end the depression which was as startling as it was simple - THE FOUR-HOUR DAY, FOUR-DAY WEEK! So alarmed was the American ruling class at this obvious and self-evident remedy for unemployment that they immediately caused the expulsion of the Technocrats from Columbia University. Also they turned loose upon this fine body of scientists a broadside of adverse publicity and ridicule from the Kept Press that was eagerly joined by the self-styled economists and philosophers of Socialist and Communist parties. (Editors note: aka The Slowcialist and Comical Parties) This united attack on the Four-Hour Day by the employing class and their dogma-drugged allies among the radical politicians revealed clearly the cupidity and treachery of labours enemies in both camps. It showed the exploiters and betrayers of the working class in their true colours and in a manner that will not soon be forgotten or forgiven. With the I.W.W, however the story was different. Two weeks before the Technocrats released their now famous declaration in favour of the four-hour day the I.W.W. in convention assembled had officially altered its Six-Hour Day program in favour of one advocating the FOUR-HOUR DAY, FOUR-DAY WEEK WITH NO WAGE CUTS as a means of putting the vast army of unemployed to work. This was a mere coincidence but it proves the scientific soundness of the I.W.W. position as compared with that of the so-called revolutionary politicians, whose high-sounding election campaign slogans made no mention at all of this practical and commonsense method of ending the depression. Unemployment, as it confronts the worker today, does not spring from local, seasonal or accidental causes; it is technological. This means that industrial evolution has reached a stage where machinery has been and is being installed to make human labour increasingly unnecessary. If one machine and one worker, for instance, can do the work of ten workers it stands to reason that nine workers have been permanently displaced from industry. It stands to reason also that the logical solution of the problem is to SHORTEN THE HOURS OF LABOUR to whatever extent is necessary to PUT ALL THE DISPLACED WORKERS BACK ON THE JOB - and to put them back with NO DECREASE IN EARNING POWER. The I.W.W. claims that the FOUR-HOUR DAY, FOUR-DAY WEEK, WITH NO PAY CUTS is the ONLY procedure that can ever be expected to do away with the curse of MACHINE MADE unemployment. Furthermore the I.W.W. claims that this four-hour day program will not only abolish unemployment but that it will also abolish the CAUSE of unemployment which is the capitalist system itself.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 05:29:04 +0000
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