Mobilizing the Unemployed
Why are the unemployed in Canada so politically passive and disorganized? Why are they not insisting upon employment? Why do they, and the unemployed in the United States and other countries where the unemployment rate is higher, not riot or demonstrate in the streets?1 This article examines these questions and proposes that the best method to mobilize the unemployed is to demand that the employed be required to share work, as well as income, with the unemployed.
Obstacles to Mobilizing the Unemployed
Before considering the barriers to the mobilization of the unemployed, it is important to realize that their docility may prove deceptive. The response of the unemployed to their situation during the last two centuries has oscillated from apathy to revolt. The common view that the unemployed are unable to organize and rebel is inaccurate, as there have been many instances where the unemployed in Canada and in numerous other countries have engaged in collective actions in order to protest their condition and demand remedial action.2 Nevertheless, there are daunting obstacles that render the sustained mobilization of the unemployed exceedingly difficult.
There is a great quantity of writing on the political responses of the unemployed to their lack of work and on the efforts that have been made to organize the unemployed.3 The presence of indignation among the unemployed does not necessarily imply that they will protest, and many unemployed persons are likely to be more ashamed and despondent than angry. A person’s identity as being unemployed is one from which most people without work desperately try to escape, and a negative identity can preclude participation in rallies and marches, since these events require a public expression of one’s identity as unemployed.4 There is a tendency for the unemployed to blame themselves for their lack of employment. Many involuntarily unemployed persons, especially those who have been without work for a lengthy period, are demoralized and so preoccupied with their own joblessness that they are unable to perceive that unemployment is due primarily to political factors, and this awareness is normally a precondition for collective action by the unemployed.5 The harmful effects of prolonged involuntary unemployment – frequently including poverty, social isolation and exclusion, political alienation, deterioration of physical health and emotional wellbeing – contribute to impede the organization of the unemployed. There is no national organization of unemployed persons in Canada that the unemployed could join or support. Unemployment in Canada is cushioned by state-administered measures, notably social assistance and employment insurance, which enable many unemployed persons to endure, at least temporarily, their lack of work; these benefits reduce the impetus among the unemployed to organize.
The obstacles to the mobilization of the unemployed are compounded by society’s tolerance for, and even approval of, a considerable degree of unemployment. The Canadian unemployment rate, slightly over 7%, could not be maintained without extensive public support. Unemployment has functional purposes, and the government and many Canadians consider that the benefits of unemployment are acceptable tradeoffs for the damages that unemployment inflicts upon the unemployed and society.6 The societal acceptance of unemployment is similar to, and overlaps with, the societal acquiescence to poverty; poverty exists because most non-poor persons judge that the advantages of the presence of poverty outweigh the disadvantages.7 The majority maintains a pool of unemployed and poor persons because it profits from the continued presence of those two groups.8 Richard Arneson noted that “Probably the reason modern democracies do not guarantee work to all who are willing to take it is simply that a genuine full-employment policy would favor the interests of the perennially unemployed but run counter to at least the perceived interests of nearly everybody else.”9 The widespread backing for the maintenance of a fair degree of poverty implies that many people will refuse to help the unemployed to organize.
Canada and numerous other countries did subscribe to the goal of full employment in the aftermath of World War II but gradually retreated from their initial commitment and now regard full employment as unrealizable and even undesirable.10 The contention that full employment is a moral imperative has disappeared from Canadian public discourse. The main Canadian political parties have no economic or political policies that would lead to full employment and these organizations are preoccupied with assisting the employed. There is a pervasive view in Canada that the unemployed are too disorganized and numerically insignificant to pose any serious threat to the social order, and this belief weakens the motivation for the government to eliminate or even reduce the unemployment rate.There is a legal right to employment but this right, instead of serving as a galvanizing instrument for the mobilization of the unemployed, is poorly known or understood among the employed and even the unemployed. The widespread absence of the awareness of the right to work (not to be confused with the anti-collectivist right to work movement in the United States which is hostile to unions) contributes to the depoliticization of unemployment. Work is a fundamental human right and belongs to the category of human rights termed economic and social rights; this group includes, among other rights, the rights to housing and to an adequate level of income. Economic and social rights are legally enshrined within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted by the United Nations in 1948, and within the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which Canada ratified in 1976.11 Civil and political rights, including the rights to freedom of speech and assembly, are listed within the UDHR and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Canada and other Western nations have never regarded the two types of rights as meriting equal consideration and have always placed civil and political rights at the apex of the human rights hierarchy.12 Those who do acknowledge the legal existence of social and economic rights often display an unfounded uncertainty over whether these rights are justiciable rights, i.e., rights that the courts can interpret and which can be the subject of litigation,13 and consequently these persons often do not consider social and economic rights as ones whose realization implies, if necessary, state intervention. There are still other reasons that explain why the right to employment enjoys only a limited recognition.14
The mobilization of the unemployed, challenged by divergences in the social class, age, political orientation and ethnicity of the unemployed, is further encumbered by the problem that the unemployed disagree on the solution to their unemployment. The unemployed have generally refrained from regarding the sharing of work as the answer to unemployment, and one reason is that many unemployed persons are simply unaware of the possibility of work sharing. However, the idea that work should be shared to minimize or even eradicate unemployment has a lengthy history and it usually has attracted increased interest during periods of high unemployment.15 There are two main forms of work sharing. The first one involves workers undergoing a reduction in work time and income, usually only for a temporary duration, in order to salvage their employment. The federal government of Canada, for example, provides employees in the private sector, who have entered into agreements with management to work a reduced work week, with employment insurance payments for the period during the week in which they are absent from the workplace.16 The USA has a similar program, and work sharing arrangements are present in 21 states.17 The most frequently cited and praised version of this form of work sharing is the German model.18 However, the first method of work sharing does little, if anything, to create new employment positions and thus is of minimal or no value to the unemployed. It is the second form of work sharing, whereby workers reduce their work-time and income in order to enable the hiring of unemployed persons, that should be the demand of the unemployed.
The plethora of barriers to the mobilization of the unemployed impacts the answer to the question of who should organize the unemployed. The very question may appear condescending because it assumes that the unemployed are incapable of organizing themselves. Although the unemployed have occasionally engaged in self-mobilization, they have usually acted in conjunction with external forces in order to benefit from the latters’ funds, organizational resources, experience and leadership. The two bodies that have predominately assisted the unemployed to mobilize have been the labour movement and the political left.19 However, the involvement of these two entities is replete with problems, and both are largely hostile to work and income sharing.
The Unemployed and the Labour Movement
The relationship between the labour movement and the unemployed is ambivalent,20 and has ranged from fruitful partnerships to mutual loathing and distrust. The instances in which the labour movement has been supportive of the unemployed or has tried to mobilize them have been surpassed by cases where the labour movement has manifested indifference or hostility towards the unemployed or has made no endeavor to help them organize. The labour movement’s apprehension of the unemployed as competitors for work has a long history, and John Garraty noted that the medieval guilds “sought to guarantee their members adequate work by limiting entry into the craft, a policy characteristic of organized labor in nearly every era.”21 Additional explanations accounting for the labour movement’s reluctance or refusal to assist the unemployed include the unions’ beliefs that desperate unemployed persons could be used as strike breakers, that the unemployed are a threat to the leadership and organizational stability of unions and that the potentially radical unemployed could exert a subversive effect on the union membership; in addition, the unions, which represent primarily skilled or professional workers, often do not care about the situation of lower class persons.22 However, the presence of a high level of unemployment weakens the unions’ bargaining power with management and provides an incentive for the unions to aid the unemployed.
There are those within the labour movement who are genuinely concerned about the unemployed and who regard them more as an ally than as a threat; these unionists habitually imply there is a brotherhood of employees and unemployed by referring to the latter as unemployed workers. Nevertheless, despite declarations of fraternity and solidarity by the employed, the relationship between those who have work and those who do not is primarily adversarial. The tensions between the employed and the unemployed are always present, even during the occasions in which they collaborate.23
The Canadian labour movement sporadically calls for the mobilization of the unemployed but these exhortations are mainly intended for public consumption. The labour movement, particularly the public sector component, is keenly conscious that there is widespread discontent among the unemployed over the movement’s employment and income.24 The labour movement’s intermittently declared support for the unemployed is usually ignored or interpreted by them as transparent and self-serving attempts to demonstrate to the public that workers are not obsessed with their own issues but are solicitous about the suffering of the less fortunate.
The unions invariably place the interests of their members above those of the unemployed and thus the resolution of the unemployment problem is never the priority for unions. Furthermore, the Canadian labour movement lacks the influence that it formerly possessed. The national rate of unionization is 31 percent and in the private sector, depleted by a decline in manufacturing and an increase in the outsourcing of work, it is only 17 percent, although in the public sector it is 70 percent. The public sector unions regard themselves as besieged by federal, provincial and municipal governments intent upon imposing austerity, undermining collective bargaining and extracting concessions. The Canadian labour movement is in a defensive mode and is preoccupied with preserving its earlier gains, and consequently has a negligible desire to consecrate resources for the organization of the unemployed.
The labour movement has usually been unsupportive of sharing work and income to prevent layoffs. John Garraty noted, “Given the choice between having fellow workers discharged or sharing limited opportunities with them and thus accepting a reduction in income, relatively few individuals and still fewer labor organizations have willingly accepted the second alternative.”25 The Canadian labour movement has rarely shared work and wages among its members in order to prevent job losses, and the instances of munificence have been confined to the private sector. The federal government’s slashing of the public service workforce in 2012 did not elicit proposals by the public sector unions to share work and income among its members in order to save jobs, although the rigid public sector collective agreements render any reduction of income improbable.
The labour movement has manifested even greater resistance to the sharing of work and wages in order to enable unemployed people to obtain employment.26 The movement’s frequently stated reason for this unwillingness is its rejection of the notion that employed people bear responsibility, even partial, for unemployment. The standard union response to the allegation that there are workers who are monopolizing work and contributing to the perpetuation of unemployment is the rejoinder that union members are entitled to their level of earnings and quantity of work because they have been obtained through arduous struggles. However, the unions customarily avoid adding that the salaries of workers have often been established not with the purpose of satisfying basic needs but with the goal of gratifying various wants. The unions have obtained in their collective agreements whatever wages their bargaining power permitted them to procure, not merely those that were essential to satisfy fundamental needs. Many employed persons, unionized or non-unionized, possess gratuitous income derived from excessive work. Behind the labour movement’s declaration that it should be exempt from the redistribution of work and income lies an attachment to a lifestyle and standard of living that the movement often refuses to call into question.
The unemployed have good reasons to be suspicious of the labour movement’s infrequent calls to mobilize the unemployed.
The Unemployed and the Left
The attitude of the left towards the unemployed has been less ambivalent than that of the labour movement, as the left has usually depicted unemployment as a blight under capitalism and stated that socialism would ensure full employment. The mobilization of the unemployed in Great Britain, France and the United States during the Great Depression was largely attributable to the actions of communist parties. It is a tenet of leftwing thought that capitalism purposely maintains a reservoir of unemployed persons to lessen labour militancy in the workplace, to keep wages as low as possible and to serve as available manpower during times of economic expansion;27 leftists often proclaim that full employment and the satisfactory realization of economic and social rights are impossible within a capitalist framework.28 However, the commitment to full employment has declined on the left, and many who define themselves as leftists or progressives accept an appreciable level of unemployment as inevitable.
Unfortunately, the approach of the left towards the sharing of work and income as a means to eliminate unemployment distressingly resembles that of the labour movement. One of the left’s objections to work and income sharing is that it would disproportionately affect lower paid workers while the more affluent ones would remain basically unscathed.29 The left also routinely asserts that the premise that available work is scarce and therefore must be shared is untenable because bountiful income held by corporations could be appropriated for the funding and creating of myriad new positions.
However, the left has other reasons, which it states less regularly, that account for its antipathy towards work and income sharing. The left has always dwelled on the clashes between labour and capital and has devoted far less attention to the intra-class conflicts among the employed and to those struggles between the employed and the unemployed. The left often decries any expressed concern about class conflicts other than those between labour and capital as a diversionary tactic whose purpose is to weaken worker unity. The left typically rejects the assertion that the relationship between the employed and the unemployed is largely conflictual, and the left ordinarily dismisses the idea that employees, by refusing to share their income and work with the unemployed, bear some responsibility for unemployment. The blaming of the employed for unemployment is heretical for the leftists who consider that abstract entities - the market, capitalism or the profit motive - or the wealthy, a category from which many on the left almost invariably exclude the vast majority of employees, are wholly responsible for unemployment.
The left generally opposes a reduction in the income of employees because it believes that only a small minority in society has excessive income and that the majority either needs the income it possesses or even requires more. The belief that many, if not most, Canadian workers have unwarranted income from which they should be separated, either by higher taxes or the redistribution of work and income, is also considered by many on the left as a heresy. The Canadian left’s disinclination to castigate the superfluous income of employees is evidenced by the left’s widespread agreement with the Occupy Wall Street movement’s ingenious but disingenuous claim that the rich are only the top 1 percent of income earners. If the rich were more accurately defined as all those who have more income or wealth than they require, then a far greater percentage of the population, perhaps even a majority, would be deemed rich. Canadian leftists spurn this more inclusive definition because it implies that the middle class, or at least a major portion of it, is wealthy, and the Canadian left constantly proclaims the middle class to be a victimized, disadvantaged or even oppressed class. The Canadian left often fancies that the economic injustices and inequalities of society could be obliterated by a redistribution of the wealth and income of merely a tiny economic elite. The Canadian left seems unaware that the greed and selfishness of many employees, even if surpassed by that of the ultra-rich, also contribute to economic inequality and also deserve condemnation.
The left’s dislike of work and income sharing, although normally expressed as a political principle, is also due to the reason that many on the left have succumbed to the allurements of the consumer society. Many people, including many leftists, are unwilling to share their work and income with the unemployed because these employed persons dread a decrease in their ability to acquire the consumer goods that indicate their status in society. It is the acquisition and display of possessions that many people rely on to show that they are a success in life and to hopefully ensure that others will regard them with respect and admiration. A portion of these items are more properly labeled luxuries than necessities, and the desire to possess them has largely been manufactured, but the owners of these goods are afraid that any renunciation of their material belongings would diminish them in the eyes of their friends, neighbors and associates. Further, many people rarely question whether they have a right to the standard of living and lifestyle that their work and income allow them to enjoy. The position of the left, with respect to the question of distributive justice, was formerly often represented by the expression “to each according to his need,” but the modernized version is regularly “to each according to his or her sense of entitlement.”
Most people on the Canadian left are employed and belong to the middle class, and they almost always place their class interests above those of the poor and the unemployed. The Canadian left expends much effort to defend the rights and privileges of middle class workers but engages in only paltry and largely symbolic actions to ensure the realization of the right to employment. This unconscionable proclivity on the left is notable within Canada’s social democratic party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), and also within the numerous small groups on the socialist, communist and revolutionary left.30
Those people on the left who desire drastic economic and political changes in society, either through evolutionary or revolutionary means, may be ambivalent towards the end of unemployment under capitalism because the existence of people in economic distress provides these leftists with evidence for the indictment of capitalist society.31 The unemployed are sometimes fearful that the left’s stated concern for them is less due to an aspiration to end unemployment under capitalism, and more to a wish to use the unemployed as shock troops in the struggle against capitalism.32
The reduction of work hours but not of income, a common plea of the left and the labour movement, would only marginally reduce the unemployment rate and is largely self-serving because the shorter work week would benefit the employed much more than the unemployed.33 Those without work have good reasons to also be wary of the left’s professed desire to organize the unemployed.
Mobilize the Unemployed by Demanding the Sharing of Work and Income
In consideration of the overall negative stance that the labour movement and the left display towards work and income sharing, it might appear injudicious for the unemployed to cooperate with these two groups. However, there are individuals within both entities who acknowledge the necessity of work and income sharing, and it is with these persons that the unemployed could unite. Those employed persons in the labour movement and on the left who call for a sharing of work and income, and who declare themselves willing to accept a reduction in both, would be regarded by the unemployed as genuine and credible allies who have demonstrated their solidarity with the unemployed. This gesture by employed persons would decrease the worry of the unemployed that the labour movement and the left have ulterior motives that lurk behind their pronouncements to mobilize the unemployed.
The increased cognizance among the employed and the unemployed that unemployment is a human rights transgression,34 accompanied by persistent demands that work and income sharing be implemented to dramatically reduce unemployment, would facilitate the mobilization of the unemployed because they would interpret their lack of work not as a result of personal failure but as a political injustice, and they would regard income and work sharing as the remedy.35 Those deprived of the right to vote do not remain unconcerned or quiescent and neither would the unemployed if they were to ascertain that their lack of employment is a human rights violation for which there is redress.
Employment is legally enshrined as a human right because it is an essential activity for most people that permits survival, reduces social isolation, enhances mental and physical well-being, provides meaning, reduces alienation and allows for the attainment of other rights; the guarantee of a basic income to all persons irrespective of whether they are working, and which is often touted as an alternative to the right to employment, would not fulfill all of these functions. Moreover, the provision of a guaranteed income would weaken any commitment to full employment.36 The indispensability of remunerated work for most persons leads to a moral argument for the requisite distribution of work to ensure that everyone willing and capable of working would be provided with paid employment.37 The state must not permit employed persons to hoard work because the possessiveness of workers who have more work than they need interferes with the rights of others to work. The right to a decent minimal standard of living does not imply the right to an indecent standard of living; similarly, the right to a sufficient amount of work does not infer a right to excessive work. The redistribution of work would require a strict limitation of the number of weekly hours that people would be permitted to work, and, if necessary, the rationing of work.38 The London-based New Economics Foundation proposes, as an example, the gradual establishment of a 21-hour work week accompanied by wage reductions in order to redistribute work and attain full employment.39 State intervention to ensure the redistribution of work would be essential because many employees are too attached to their social status and affluence to voluntarily decrease their income and worktime.40 Those people, primarily in the middle and upper classes, who deliberately work fewer hours or even abandon their employment, actions sometimes labeled downshifting or voluntary simplicity, remain a relatively small minority, and most workers, even if they complain of overwork, have not expressed a demand for an obligatory shorter work week and a corresponding reduction in salary.41
A substantial portion of the employed would have to be convinced that the advantages of a curtailment of their work and income would outweigh the disadvantages. The gains to be derived from work and income sharing would be numerous: the employed would have more time to devote to family, education, leisure and volunteer work;42 the employed would have the satisfaction of knowing that they are assisting the unemployed by deeds and not merely by word; work sharing and a commitment to full employment would lessen the likelihood of the employed becoming unemployed. The redistribution of work and income would lower the potentially explosive envy, resentment and hatred that unemployed persons commonly harbour towards the employed. The increase in employment and the lessening of class differences achieved by a redistribution of work and income would result in a stronger and more unified labour movement.43 The employed have vested interests in the minimization of the class differences between them and the unemployed.
One of the left’s objections to work and income sharing, that it involves sacrifices and concessions mainly, if not exclusively, by the lower classes, could be overcome by a demand that work and income sharing apply to all the social classes. In Canada, members of the middle and upper classes should be especially targeted for the redistribution of work and income because they could readily support a diminution in income. The justification for a rollback of the income and work of lower class workers would certainly be weaker; nevertheless, it would still be more just for 6 employees to be working at $10 per hour than for 5 employees to be working at $12 per hour and for one person to be without work. Work and income sharing would need to be compulsory in both the public and private sectors, and in all occupational groups, save the self-employed.
The Canadian left needs to make full employment a priority that would be achieved primarily by work and income sharing. It would be vastly more virtuous for the left to focus on ensuring that the right to employment, and other economic and social rights, is realized than for the left to fixate over the concerns of the middle class. The redistribution of work and income will appear to some leftists as only a modest reform that would fail to put a human face on an irredeemably wicked economic system. However, the unemployed and the poor cannot wait for the end of capitalism to attain economic salvation, and no transformation to a post-capitalist society appears imminent. Furthermore, as socialist societies have also suffered from the scourge of unemployment, it is simplistic and naïve to think that the arrival of socialism would magically result in the disappearance of unemployment.44 An alliance of the unemployed and their employed collaborators could utilize a variety of means to try to induce the state to cede to demands to share work and wages. If the capitalist societies were to embrace work and income sharing then the suffering of the unemployed would be alleviated; if those societies were to reveal themselves unwilling or unable to redistribute work and income then capitalism would be further discredited and the socialist alternative would garner greater support.
The sharing of work and income is an egalitarian measure but it would not end the problem of gratuitous income in the workplace, and it would have no effect on the income of the self-employed or on the wealth of those who derive income from other means than paid employment. The attainment of an egalitarian society, or an approximation thereof, would necessitate the imposition of stringent legal limits to everyone’s income and wealth to ensure that economic differences in society are minimal.
Notes
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]-->Frances Fox Piven, among others, asks this question about the unemployed in the USA. Frances Fox Piven, “Mobilizing the Jobless.” The Nation. 10-17 January 2011. <http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless#axzz2WU0aul59> [Accessed 23 March 2013]
2. <!--[endif]-->For Instances of collective action by the unemployed, see Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Poor People’s Movements, Why They Succeed, How they Fail (New York: Vintage Books, 1979); Didier Chabanet and Jean Faniel, The Mobilization of the Unemployed in Europe: From Acquiescence to Protest? eds. Didier Chabanet and Jean Faniel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Andrew Richards, Mobilizing the Powerless: Collective Protest Action of the Unemployed in the Interwar Period. Working Paper 2002/175. (Madrid: Juan March Institute, 2002). <http://www.march.es/ceacs/publicaciones/working/archivos/2002_175.pdf> [Accessed 13 April 2013]; Matthias Reiss and Matt Perry, Unemployment and Protest: New Perspectives on Two Centuries of Contention, eds. Matthias Reiss and Matt Perry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). The unemployed also engage in less dramatic and visible actions than demonstrations in order to protest their lack of employment. For examples, see Christian Lahusen, “The Protests of the Unemployed in France, Germany and Sweden (1994-2004): Protest Dynamics and Political Contexts,” Social Movement Studies, 12:1 (2013) : 6, 7.
3. <!--[endif]-->For examples, see the above-listed sources. However, the scholars who study the protests of the unemployed seem to have largely ignored the question of what proposed solution to unemployment would facilitate mobilization.
4. <!--[endif]-->For reasons that account for the frequent political inactivity of the unemployed, see Marco Giugni, “State and Civil Society Responses to Unemployment: Welfare, Conditionality and Collective Action,” in The Politics of Unemployment in Europe: Policy Responses and Collective Action, ed. M. Giugni (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009), pp. 14-15. Bert Klandermans states the problem of the identity of the unemployed: “…how to make people identify with a group they do not want to be part of and how, under such circumstances, to develop the collective identity needed for collective action to materialize?” Bert Klandermans, “Mobilizing the Unemployed: The Social Psychology of Movement Participation,” in Reiss and Perry, p. 39.
5. <!--[endif]-->Didier Chabanet and Jean Faniel consider that a movement of the unemployed cannot develop unless the unemployment is involuntary and recognized as caused by structural problems. Chabanet and Faniel, p. 19.
6. <!--[endif]-->The benefits of unemployment include the maintenance of inflation at a relatively low level and the moderation of worker militancy. Jon D. Wisman, “The Moral Imperative and Social Rationality of Government-Guaranteed Employment and Reskilling,” Review of Social Economy, LXV111:1 (March 2010) : 36-40. For the deleterious effects of unemployment on the unemployed and society, see pp. 41-49. The presence of the unemployed also maintains the wages of the employed at artificially elevated levels. Society’s toleration for mass unemployment frequently dissipates if the unemployment rate exceeds a certain threshold.
7. <!--[endif]-->See Herbert J. Gans, “The Positive Functions of Poverty,” American Journal of Sociology 78 : 2 (September 1972) : 275-289.
8. <!--[endif]-->Ibid. Wisman mentions the “tyranny of the overwhelming majority” to describe the majority’s unwillingness to end unemployment. Wisman, pp. 39, 40.
9. <!--[endif]-->Richard J. Arneson, “Is Work Special? Justice and the Distribution of Employment,” American Political Science Review 84:4 (December 1990) : 1136. The author argues for state-guaranteed employment based on the essential nature of work.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->10. <!--[endif]-->For the reasons behind the retreat from the goal of full employment, see Tom de Castella and Caroline McClatchey, “Whatever Happened to Full Employment?” BBC News Magazine. 13 October 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15276765> [Accessed 21 March 2013] The authors note that various individuals have defined full employment not necessarily as zero unemployment but as the unemployment rate remaining below a designated target. A book that was highly influential in the formation of the attitude of Western governments to unemployment was William Henry Beveridge’s Full Employment in a Free Society: a Report (London: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1944). The authors state that Beveridge regarded full employment as the unemployment rate below 3%. For efforts in the USA following World War II to enact legislation that would guarantee full employment, see Helen Lachs Ginsburg, “Historical Amnesia: The Humphrey-Hawkins Act, Full Employment and Employment as a Right,” Review of Black Political Economy 39 (May 2012) : 121-136. For an explanation accounting for the renunciation in Western countries of the goal of full employment, see W. Mitchell, Full Employment Abandoned: the Triumph of Ideology over Evidence. Working Paper No. 02-13. Centre of Full Employment and Equity, Newcastle, Australia. April 2013. http://e1.edu/au/coffee/pubs/up(check)/2013/13-02.pdf
<!--[if !supportLists]-->11. <!--[endif]-->For a copy of the ICESCR, see “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” United Nations. <http://www.undocuments.net/icescr.htm> The belief in the right to employment had a lengthy history before it was codified in international legislation. For the evolution of the idea of the right to employment, see Joseph J. Spengler, “Right to Work: A Backward Glance,” Journal of Economic History 28:2 (June 1968) : 171-96. The development of the right to employment is discussed in Jeremy Sarkin and Mark Koenig, “Developing the Right to Work: Intersecting and Dialoguing Human Rights and Economic Policy,” Human Rights Quarterly 33:1 (February 2011) : 1-42. For an introduction to economic rights, see Shareen Hertel and Lanse Minkler, “Economic Rights: The Terrain” in Economic Rights, Conceptual, Measurement, and Policy Issues, eds. Shareen Hertel and Lanse Minkler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 1-35.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->12. <!--[endif]-->The view that Western capitalist countries have always accorded less importance to economic and social rights than the former Eastern Bloc countries is disputed by Daniel J. Whelan and Jack Donnelly in “The West, Economic and Social Rights, and the Global Human Rights Regime: Setting the Record Straight,” Human Rights Quarterly 29:4 (2007) : 908-949. For a rejoinder, see Susan L. Kang, “The Unsettled Relationship of Economic and Social Rights and the West: A Response to Whelan and Donnelly,” Human Rights Quarterly 31:4 (November 2009) : 1006-1029. It is not only Western governments, but also the Western human rights movement, that regard civil and political rights as taking precedence.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->13. <!--[endif]-->For the responses of the Canadian courts to attempts to realize social and economic rights, see Paul O’Connell, “The Canadian Charter, Substantive Equality and Social Rights,” in Paul O’Connell, Vindicating Socio-Economic Rights: International Standards and Comparative Experiences (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 108-137.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->14. <!--[endif]-->For the reasons that have accounted for Western governments assigning lesser importance to the right to work than to civil and political rights, and for the difficulties that impede the recognition and implementation of the right to work, see Sarkin and Koenig, pp. 1-42. They contend (pp. 8,9) that advocates for the right to work have not focused on the right to paid employment but on sub-rights, such as the right to equal access to work and the right to dignified labour, and this misplaced emphasis has diluted concern for the more important overall right to work. A similar analysis is provided by Philip Harvey in “Benchmarking the Right to Work,” in Economic Rights. He notes (p. 120) that many progressives have dwelled on “equal employment opportunity and the achievement of decent wages, benefits and working conditions for all workers” and have deemphasized “ensuring the availability of enough jobs to provide paid employment for everyone who wants it.”
Another reason that explains the inadequate recognition of the right to employment is the ambiguous nature of work. The state of being unemployed signifies dependency and deprivation but also a certain degree of freedom, and the attitude of the employed towards the unemployed has consequently often been one of pity tinged with envy. There is a questioning of what is derisively termed “the cult of work,” “the fetish of work,” or “the overwork ethic,” and the critics stress the alienating and destructive nature of work. The view that work is a problem or something from which people must be liberated, although still a minority position, results in a calling into question of the claim that work is a human right. See Perry and Reiss, pp. 16-18. For a list of numerous books that have contributed to the questioning of the work ethic, see “Re-thinking the work ethic.” Undated. <http://www.whywork.org/about/features/books/books.html> For the development of the Western work ethic and for the rethinking of the ethic, see the first two chapters in Robert LaJeunesse, Work Time Regulation as a Sustainable Full Employment Strategy: the Social Effort Bargain (London: Routledge, 2009).
15. <!--[endif]-->See Fred Best, “The History and Current Relevance of Work Sharing,” In Work Sharing: Issues, Policy Options and Prospects (Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1981), pp. 1-17. <http://research.upjohn.org/up_bookchapters/148>; Michael Huberman, “An Economic and Business History of Worksharing: The Bell Canada and Volkswagen Experiences,” Business and Economic History 26:2 (Winter 1997) : 404-415. <http:www.thebhc.org/publications/BEUprint/v02602/p0H04-po415.pdf>
16. <!--[endif]-->Government of Canada. “Work-Sharing.” Undated. <http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/work_sharing/faq.shtml> [Accessed 28 March 2013]
17. <!--[endif]-->Dean Baker, “Work Sharing: The Quick Route Back to Full Employment,” p. 1. Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). 1 June 2011. <www.cepr.net/documents/publications/work-sharing-2011-06.pdf> [Accessed 14 April 2013]
Another reason that explains the inadequate recognition of the right to employment is the ambiguous nature of work. The state of being unemployed signifies dependency and deprivation but also a certain degree of freedom, and the attitude of the employed towards the unemployed has consequently often been one of pity tinged with envy. There is a questioning of what is derisively termed “the cult of work,” “the fetish of work,” or “the overwork ethic,” and the critics stress the alienating and destructive nature of work. The view that work is a problem or something from which people must be liberated, although still a minority position, results in a calling into question of the claim that work is a human right. See Perry and Reiss, pp. 16-18. For a list of numerous books that have contributed to the questioning of the work ethic, see “Re-thinking the work ethic.” Undated. <http://www.whywork.org/about/features/books/books.html> For the development of the Western work ethic and for the rethinking of the ethic, see the first two chapters in Robert LaJeunesse, Work Time Regulation as a Sustainable Full Employment Strategy: the Social Effort Bargain (London: Routledge, 2009).
15. <!--[endif]-->See Fred Best, “The History and Current Relevance of Work Sharing,” In Work Sharing: Issues, Policy Options and Prospects (Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1981), pp. 1-17. <http://research.upjohn.org/up_bookchapters/148>; Michael Huberman, “An Economic and Business History of Worksharing: The Bell Canada and Volkswagen Experiences,” Business and Economic History 26:2 (Winter 1997) : 404-415. <http:www.thebhc.org/publications/BEUprint/v02602/p0H04-po415.pdf>
16. <!--[endif]-->Government of Canada. “Work-Sharing.” Undated. <http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/work_sharing/faq.shtml> [Accessed 28 March 2013]
17. <!--[endif]-->Dean Baker, “Work Sharing: The Quick Route Back to Full Employment,” p. 1. Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). 1 June 2011. <www.cepr.net/documents/publications/work-sharing-2011-06.pdf> [Accessed 14 April 2013]
<!--[if !supportLists]-->18. <!--[endif]-->For information on the work sharing program in Germany, see International Labour Organization, The German Work-Sharing Scheme: An Instrument for the Crisis, Conditions of Work and Employment. Series No. 25. 1 May 2010. <http://www.ilo.org/travail/whatwedo/publications/WCMS_145335/lang--en/index.htm>
19. <!--[endif]-->Lahusen, p. 11. 20. <!--[endif]-->Giugni, p. 11. Richard states (p. 39) that the British Trade Union Congress was largely indifferent or hostile to the unemployed during the inter-war period. For the view of the trade unions towards the unemployed in New York City in the 1990s, see Immanuel Ness, Trade Unions and the Betrayal of the Unemployed: Labour Conflicts During the 1990s (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). For a discussion of the ambivalent relationship between the unions and the unemployed, see Jean Faniel, “Trade Unions and the Unemployed: Towards a Dialectical Approach,” Interface, 4:2 (November 2012) : 130-157; Annulla Linders and Marina Kalander, “A Precarious Balance of Interests: Unions and the Unemployed in Europe,” in The Contentious Politics of Unemployment in Europe: Welfare States and Political Opportunities, ed. Mario Giugni (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 97-126.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->21. <!--[endif]-->John A. Garraty, Unemployment in History: Economic Thought and Public Policy (New York: Harper & Row, 1978) p. 16.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->22. <!--[endif]-->For a discussion of these factors, see Ness, pp. 6-14.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->23. <!--[endif]-->Chabanet and Faniel, p. 18. The unemployed are torn between a desire for autonomy vs. their need to cooperate with an organization that has its own interests. The balance of power during episodes of cooperation invariably favours organized labour, and thus the unemployed have a lesser influence on the determination of the agenda.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->24. <!--[endif]-->See Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly, “Under Attack: In Defence of the Public Sector.” September 2011. <www.workersassembly.ca.> [Accessed 5 May 2013]. The publication is a defense of the public sector against criticisms of its privileges and wealth. However, there is no mention of the unemployed and no suggestion that that a portion of the public service has excessive work and income that should be shared with the unemployed. For an example of the rejection of the claim that there are selfish and greedy public servants in the USA, see “Myth of the Greedy Public-Sector Workers.” Editorial. Socialist Worker. 18 August 2010. <http://socialistworker.org/2010/08/18/greedy-government-workers-myth>
<!--[if !supportLists]-->25. <!--[endif]-->Garraty, p. 9.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->26. <!--[endif]-->For example, Stephen Jones notes that in the United Kingdom during the Great Depression, “Trade unions considered the maintenance of wages to be more important than the question of unemployment: there was little sympathy with the idea that wages should be reduced as a kind of trade off for increased employment.” Stephen Jones, “The Trade Union Movement and Work-Sharing Policies in Interwar Britain,” Journal of Industrial Relations 16:1 (March 1985) : 63. The willingness of the labour movement to consider stimulating employment by a voluntarily reduction of worktime and salary is not entirely absent. For earlier examples, see Anders Hayden, Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1999), p. 177.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->27. <!--[endif]-->The leftists who adopt this position would be more precise and honest if they were to state that the majority in society, not merely capitalists, benefits from unemployment. See notes 6 and 7.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->28. <!--[endif]-->For a view that social rights cannot be thoroughly realized under capitalism, see Larry Patriquin, “The Class Ceiling of Social Rights,” Journal of Progressive Human Services, 24:1 (2013) : 66-80.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->29. <!--[endif]-->Gregory Albo expresses the concern over austerity or socialism in one class. Gregory Albo, “Canadian Unemployment and Socialist Employment Policy,” p. 1. <http://www.yorku.ca/albo/docs/1996/Canadian%20Unemployment%20(1996).PDF> [Accessed 29 March 2013] His socialist employment prescription does include a call for the redistribution of work.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->30. <!--[endif]-->Many self-declared leftwing or progressive individuals and nongovernmental organizations in Canada - including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Broadbent Institute and Canadians for Tax Fairness - express concern over economic inequality but they do not advocate the necessary redistribution of income, wealth and work required to attain economic equality or to even significantly reduce economic inequality, and their primary motivation is to maintain the income, wealth and privileges of the middle class.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->31. <!--[endif]-->Gans notes that sections of the revolutionary left require the presence of poor people to serve as a potential revolutionary force. Gans, p. 282.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->32. <!--[endif]-->This fear is not unfounded, as during the Great Depression there were episodes of the left instrumentalizing the unemployed. See Garraty, pp. 194-95.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->33. <!--[endif]-->For an example of the left calling for a reduced work week but no corresponding wage decrease, see “Socialists Back 30-Hour Workweek Initiative,” The Local [Berlin]. 11 February 2013. <http://www.thelocal.de/money/20130211-47893.html> [Accessed 13 April 2013]
<!--[if !supportLists]-->34. <!--[endif]-->The sources mentioned in notes 11-14 provide a good background reading on the right to employment.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->35. <!--[endif]-->The willingness to engage in collective protest dramatically increases if the aggrieved perceive that there is not only an injustice, but also a solution. “For a protest movement to arise out of these traumas of daily life, people have to perceive the deprivation and disorganization they experience as both wrong, and subject to redress.” Piven and Cloward, p. 12. The practical aspects of the implementation of work sharing are beyond the scope of this article. However, many people are against work and income sharing not because they view the sharing as impossible to achieve but because they are ideologically opposed to redistribution.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->36. <!--[endif]-->For further information about the Basic Income, see Mona Chollet, “Imaginer un revenue garanti pour tous,” Le Monde Diplomatique, pp. 1, 20-21. May 2013. For detailed information on the Basic Income, see the website of the Basic Income Earth Network: <http://www.basicincome.org/bien>
<!--[if !supportLists]-->37. <!--[endif]-->For the moral argument, see Arneson.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->38. <!--[endif]-->Jorgen Randers, for instance, has advocated not merely the sharing, but the rationing, of work. See Jorgen Randers, “Should Paid Work Be Rationed?” The Guardian. 19 February 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/jorgen-randers-should-paid-work-be-rationed> [Accessed 25 March 2013]
<!--[if !supportLists]-->39. <!--[endif]-->See “21 Hours: Why a Shorter Working Week Can Help Us All to Flourish in the 2st Century.” New Economics Foundation. February 2010. <http://dnwssx4l7gl7s.cloudfront.net/nefoundation/default/page/-/files/21_Hours.pdf> [Accessed 6 April 2013]
<!--[if !supportLists]-->40. <!--[endif]-->For the necessity of both voluntary and involuntary work sharing, see Hayden, pp. 109-114.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->41. <!--[endif]-->Juliet Schor states “Surveys done before the crash indicate that between 30 and 50 percent of Americans say they would prefer to work fewer hours, even for less pay.” Juliet Schor, “The Work-Sharing Boom: Exit Ramp to a New Economy?” Yes! 9 August 2010. <http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-work-sharing-boom-exit-ramp-to-a-new-economy > [Accessed 11 April 2013] However, this willingness has rarely been translated into a demand for shorter hours and lesser pay. George Rolland observed that “It seems to have become the nature of the Canadian people to monopolize all the work that they possibly can in order to collect the biggest payroll.” George Rolland, Share the Work Plan as the Ultimate Solution to Unemployment in Canada. (Toronto: George Rolland Publications, 1940), p. 10. His categorical comment no longer reflects the situation today, but there still remain many Canadian workers who are monopolizing work.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->42. <!--[endif]-->The advantages to employees of working fewer hours and earning less income are detailed in the New Economics Foundation article in note no. 39. There would be ecological benefits for society provided the redistribution of work resulted in a stationary economy or in economic degrowth. For a discussion on the right to work and work sharing under degrowth, see Giorgos Kallis, Christian Kerschner, Joan Martinez-Alier, “The Economics of Degrowth,” Ecological Economics 84 (2012) 172-180. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.08.017>; Blake Allcott, “Should Degrowth Embrace the Job Guarantee,” Journal of Cleaner Production 38 (2013) : 56-60. <http://degrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Alcott-2013.pdf> For a discussion of the political left’s reluctance or refusal to embrace degrowth, see Serge Latouche, “Can the Left Escape Economism?” Capitalism Nature Socialism 23:1 (2012) : 74-78. <http://degrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Latouche-can-the-left-escape-economism.pdf>
<!--[if !supportLists]-->43. <!--[endif]-->It is not only the unemployed, but also those who engage in temporary or contract work – the precariat - who would benefit from income and work sharing. Gregory Albo notes (p. 272) the problems resulting from the inequality of the distribution of work: “The division of workers into those who have paid work in core jobs and those excluded from stable employment at fair wages leads to social polarization and increases the leverage of capitalists to control production and inordinately influence democratic deliberation through threat of capital flight.”
<!--[if !supportLists]-->44. <!--[endif]-->For the persistence of unemployment in socialist societies, see Susan L. Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), and J. L. Porket, “Full Employment in Soviet Theory and Practice,” British Journal of International Relations 27:2 (July 1989) : 264-279.
