Reuben Roth

1. Reuben Roth • Project coordinator, Centre for Research on Work and Society, York University • Senior Research Officer OISE/UT (95-03) • Professor (adjunct) Trent University • rroth@yorku.ca • www.oise.utoronto.ca/~rroth

2. Reuben Roth • Past Member/Officer: CNTU/CSN, BRAC, UAW, CAW, Durham District Labour Council, CAW-GM Health and Safety trainer, OPSEU, CUPE, Canadian Labour Congress Training and Technology committee, OFL Education committee, CLC Literacy Working-Group. • Communications Officer, Queen’s Park (94-5) • General Motors (1984-1992)

3. THE INDUSTRIAL WORKING CLASS IN THE NEW MILLENIUM: SOCIAL CLASS AT GENERAL MOTORS, OSHAWA

4. Or…“Joe Average Lands on Easy Street”

5. Social Class: Popular (Weberian) View To define class in structural terms is to assume the social structure has positions. We generally tend to view class as a series of ‘empty places’ occupied by individuals. Then based on how their job, appearance, dress, speech, etc. we categorize these individuals by class.

6. Social Class: Popular (Weberian) View • “Logical” order of structural analysis of class is essentially wrong: • Analysis of class positions. • Categorization of positions. • Categorization of people into these positions. • Analysis of individuals who occupy these positions.

7. Social Class: Popular (Weberian) View The key that unites these class analysts is what Anthony Giddens calls structuration: “..the modes in which ‘economic relationships’ become translated into ‘non-economic’ social structures” (1973: 105).

8. BUT Karl Marx viewed class relations as THE engine of social change: • “At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production … [t]hen begins an epoch of social revolution.” • From Karl Marx’s 1859 Preface to “A Contribution to The Critique of Political Economy.”

10. Social Class: Marxist View Marxists are critical of this view -- it excludes an important political dimension. Marxists view class as a relation -- can’t be objectified without reference to lived experience. Classes must be understood in relation to one another.

11. Social Class: Marxist View In the organization of production, people enter into relations under conditions that they do not choose. not ‘free agents’ but supporters of an underlying class structure.

12. Social Class: Marxist View Little disagreement on the basis of these social relations. These are rooted in economic relationships. Bourgeoisie (capitalist) - owns land and capital Proletariat - only has own labour-power to sell

13. Social Class: Marxist View Class also a political struggle over resources. Labour viewed as a ‘tradeable commodity’. Wages represent the exchange value of the labour. labourers produce more value than is represented by the wage

14. Social Class: Marxist View This difference is profit to the capitalist, but also ‘surplus value’ the worker gives away. Extraction of surplus value = root of exploitation. Worker produces $50 worth of goods in 1 hour, but is paid $10/hr. is exploited.

15. Social Class: Marxist View Exploitation = difference between amount of wealth (surplus value) provided by worker and the amount of wealth returned to them in wages.

16. Eric Olin Wright (1985) argues class is still alive -- especially when you use these 3 elements as a basis for a definition: • property • skill • organizational position • Wright says that together these are systemic sources of exploitation.

17. Basic Economic Criteria for Class Position (Wright)

18. Social Class: Marxist View Marxian Theories Classic Marxism regards stratification as arising from the continuous struggle between individuals and groups for access to scarce resources (The most important resource = economic property).

19. Social Class: Marxist View Marxian Theories P Groups that gain ctrl of of property are able to use this ctrl to exploit others and reap rewards for themselves. P Their superior position (w/regard to property) gives them power over others --this power is translated into superior prestige

20. Social Class: Marxist View Marxian Theories P Dominant groups develop sets of ideas and beliefs CideologiesC expressly designed to justify their superior power and privilege, to make them seem right and honorable. P Modern capitalists justify their superior wealth by asserting that it is their JUST reward for risk-taking in investment.

21. Social Class: Marxist View Marxian Theories P Claim that entrepreneurial activities lead to general improvement in total social wealth and benefit all. P These are self-serving ideologies. P Evidence proves “What is good for General Motors” is not necessarily “good for the country,” as Alfred P. Sloan said.

22. Social Class: Weber Weberian views P Weberian critics define social class in terms of lifestyle, possessions, spending patterns, taste, job, neighbourhood, etc. P These critics are proponents of the embourgeoisement thesis.

23. Social Class: Weber Weberian views Central: striving for power/domination over others, NOT exploitation. Regarded economic classes as common situations within market-exchange relations, rather than in relations of production.

24. Social Class: Weber Weberian views But Weber agrees with Marx: basic categories of all class situations = ‘property’ and ‘lack of property’. Under capitalism, a multitude of possible market positions but four main social groupings:

25. Social Class: Weber Weberian views CAPITALISTS- large property owners; own sufficient property to have disposition over the products of other people’s labour. PETTY BOURGEOISIE-small property owners; only own enough property to dispose of the products of their own labour.

26. Social Class: Weber Weberian views WHITE-COLLAR WORKERS- propertyless workers who have specialized marketable skills. MANUAL WORKING CLASS- tend to have only their general labouring capacity to sell.

27. Social Class: Weber Weberian views Weber observed that in stable economic times, stratification by status is favoured over “naked class situation.” His basic class distinction between property owners and the propertyless was ignored in an array of status-based occupational scales, occupational prestige ratings, or levels of education and income.

28. WEBERIAN VIEW THEN & NOW • According to many researchers over the past half-century, industrial workers have been dubbed ‘honorary’ members of the middle-class since about the postwar period.

29. These ‘up-and-coming’ members of the proletariat were dubbed the ‘newmiddle-class’ during the 1960s. • A ‘death of class’ proclamation was advocated by Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell’s ‘End of Ideology’ thesis in 1960.

30. Post-industrial stratification theorists like Bell claimed that the classic ‘pyramidal’ structure of society was shaken by the advent of the industrial revolution.

31. This new hierarchical roadmap alleges that classes are disappearing --or at least ‘converging’ into one big class. • Nisbet wrote: “… class is nearly valueless for the clarification of the data of wealth, power and social status in the contemporary United States.” -- Nisbet, 1959. as quoted in Hout et al., 1993: 259.

33. In The Death of Class, Pakulski and Waters (1996) claimed: • “..classes are dissolving and … the most advanced societies are no longer class societies. … the communal aspects of class, class subcultures and milieux, have long … disappeared” (1996: 4).

35. In The Breakdown of Class Politics (2001) Clark and Lipset maintain: “..class is an increasingly outmoded concept, although it is sometimes appropriate to earlier [early industrial] historical periods” (2001: 40).

37. In The Classless Society Paul Kingston theorizes that: • “..groups of people having a common economic position -- what are commonly designated as “classes” -- do not significantly share distinct, life-defining experiences” (2000:1).

38. During postwar period Marx’s predictions of revolution labelled wrong or optimistic (Nesbit, 1959). • Question has plagued many for over a century: • “[w]hy, in advanced capitalist societies, have working classes not become revolutionary classes?” (Marshall, 1983: 263)

39. EMBOURGEOISEMENT • The ‘upward’ shift in class consciousness from proletariat toward the middle class, is called embourgeoisement.

40. EMBOURGEOISEMENT • The formula: • income + possessions = a changed worldview, no longer revolutionary.

43. AVERAGE CANADIAN EARNINGS BY SEX, 2000: • Women: $23,796 • Men: $37,210 • (Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM II, table 202-0102) • AVG. CANADIAN EARNINGS BY PROVINCE (DEC. 2002): • Canada: $35,620 • Ontario: $38,012 • (Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily, February 26, 2003)

44. CANADIAN WAGES BY SECTOR Per Annum (December, 2002) : • Manufacturing: $43,680 • Health care/social assistance: $31,720 • Retail Trade: $22,672 • Accommodation/food services $14,872 • (Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily, February 26, 2003)

45. GM WAGES (January 2003*): • Assembler: $71,735 year • ($28.34/hr x 48 hr/week x 52 weeks) • Skilled Trades: $85,962 year • ($34.44/hr x 48 hr/week x 52 weeks) • *Source: CAW Contact, January 2003

46. EMBOURGEOISEMENT • Embourgeoisement proponents contend the working class is no longer interested in revolutionary, class-based, political action.

47. EMBOURGEOISEMENT • Because of their high wages, industrial workers are said to have a “false consciousness” rather than a revolutionary one.

48. Oshawa Autoworker Survey • May 2000 - January 2001 • I surveyed over 100 GM Oshawa autoworkers to determine whether they have a working-class consciousness, and if so, what it looks like.

49. Basic Demographic Data • Median seniority year: 1980 • Average age: 45 • % Male93% • % Female 7%

50. Current Job: Assembler or Skilled Trades • (note: 14 of 97 cases missing)