In the last week of January, the number of people collecting unemployment hit a record high of 4.78 million. That same week, corporate owners announced job cuts exceeding 75,000. On Monday, Jan. 20, Home Depot, Pfizer, Caterpillar, Sprint and Halliburton all announced jobs cuts in the thousands and tens of thousands. Two days later, Boeing and Starbucks announced job cuts of 10,000 and 7,000 respectively.
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Job cuts are not the only way that the capitalist bosses are “cutting production costs” on the backs of the workers. Businesses are implementing four-day weeks, mandatory furloughs and pay freezes. Auto giant GM has closed its job bank, essentially firing hundreds of temporary and partially retired workers. Some companies are even requiring their workers to do janitorial or gardening work for the same pay so they do not have to hire additional workers.
These anti-worker measures extend beyond the private sector. State and city governments are implementing similar measures and are laying off teachers, social workers and other state workers. California’s governor just won the legal right to force state workers to take two days off per month without pay. New York City is looking at firing as many as 23,000 workers. The U.S. Postal Service is considering dropping from six to five weekly delivery days, which raises the specter of layoffs.
Job cuts sped up nationally at the end of last year and are set to continue this year. In 2008, 2.8 million jobs were lost, with 1.1 million of those disappearing in the last two months of the year alone. The projected job cuts for 2009 vary, but the numbers range from over 2 million to more than 4.5 million.
Workers did not cause this economic crisis. Rather, it is the product of the incessant drive for profit that is inherent in the capitalist system. In their frenzied race to out-produce and outsell each other, the capitalists eventually produce more than they can sell for a profit.
In the crisis that ensues, capitalists seek to cut their losses from unsold products and services at the expense of workers. Right now, corporate and bank executives are coping with their losses by firing thousands of workers. Their bottom line is all they see; workers’ lives are immaterial to them.
Layoffs, super-exploitation and taxpayer-funded government bailouts may be great for the rich, but only aggravate the crisis facing tens of millions of workers, both employed and unemployed. None of those measures address the root of the crisis: capitalist overproduction.
Real solutions must start with immediate relief for workers in the form of full and comprehensive unemployment insurance, job creation programs and services that meet people’s needs. But the only escape from these recurring crises is a system where human need, not capitalist profit, drives the economic gears of production.
