Thatcher's legacy Part 4

I hadn't intended developing this series of posts any further as it is threatening to become a political version of Game of Thrones, but Thatcher's legacy of inequality and the virtual enslavement of much of the British workforce has become so bad now that it is actually embarrassing some Tory MPs and threatening to be a scandal. As a result, I feel that I should continue to highlight the real consequences of Thatcher's legacy, and make no mistake, it is her legacy as it is the result of the processes she quite deliberately put into practice, and reveal the true depth of her hatred for and loathing of, ordinary working people. One of the most graphic example of the Thatcher legacy is the nature of the casualised and dehumanised British workforce, where, in a factory just 6 miles from where I live, 200 workers were made redundant with 15 minutes notice. You see, those workers weren't actually people, they were merely expendable units of production, in fact they were a nuisance, but even worse, they were a cost, and that is inexcusable. What Thatcher achieved was a deliberate and massive shift of power within the workplace with the purpose of allowing employers and managers to do exactly as they wish with no restraints. Power relations within the workplace are now so polarised that we had the case in the UK where a lady was so scared to seek time off work that she delivered her baby in the toilet, because in her workplace she was subject to a six strikes and you are out policy. In this workplace, if a worker was not considered to be working fast enough they were warned over a tannoy, because the entire workplace is monitored by cameras. If you received six black marks, or 'strikes' over a six-month period you were instantly dismissed. Strikes included periods of reported sickness, excessive toilet breaks, errors, excessive chatting, horseplay, using a mobile phone, or wearing one of 802 banned items of clothing. Now, could I be accused of hyperbole if I likened such conditions to Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia? Perhaps, but I can most certainly liken them to an Orwellian scenario. This is happening today, in modern Tory neoliberal Britain.

It is now quite usual for workers in Britain to be under constant surveillance from security cameras and have to undergo body searches at the end of their shift. What this tells us is that employers now routinely regard their workers as criminals who seek to steal and pilfer at every opportunity. Where do such attitudes come from? When Thatcher became Prime Minister she made no secret of her hatred for organised labour describing Britain's trade unionists as 'the enemy within.' This was a Prime Minister speaking about ordinary working people, many of whom may have voted for her. She banned trade unions at the government's surveillance headquarters, GHQ in Cheltenham, on the grounds that all trade union members were potential Soviet spies. She then proceeded to pass six major anti-trade union Bills designed to neuter the influence of workers organisations on any and every workplace. This transference of power into the hands of avaricious employers and managers has had quite devastating consequences. For example, 1.5 million British workers are now on zero-hour contracts, which is a form of slavery. We had an employer answering to a House of Commons committee yesterday as to why his workforce are penalised 15 minutes wages if they clock in one minute late, and why these same employees have to pass through a fingerprint security check going into and leaving their work, after being bodysearched. These employees are given a list of 802 brands of clothing that they are forbidden to wear at work. In this particular workplace, people were so afraid of losing their job if they took time off for any reason that there has been 110 ambulance call-outs in the past three years for workers who suffered chest pains, strokes, injuries, live births and miscarriages, in addition to the lady who had her child in the toilet. Any, and all of these described would have counted against the workers as strikes.
     
The neoliberal obsession with 'outsourcing' has handed power to a series of quite appalling employment agencies, some of whose personnel, according to female employees, demand sexual favours in return for a job. In addition, they announce that anyone can be dismissed at any time with no notice and no explanation. Now, if all that I have just described is not a state of slavery, then some enlightened person will have to tell me why it isn't. This is the end result of Thatcher's demonising of organised labour and subsequent dehumanising of individual labour. What she successfully did was deny the essence of the genius of Adam Smith and promote the notion that profit and success was the result of executive and entrepreneurial genius, rather than the result of labour. A profitable enterprise is a communal effort, but the actual value of the product comes from the labour of the workforce according to both Smith and Marx, but not in today's neoliberal universe. In this world, the individual worker has been completely dehumanised and is regarded as a thing, a cost that must be minimised as much as possible. An organised labour force is the devil incarnate and heralds the end of civilisation, and the tragedy is that much of the British population has bought into this narrative and are active participants in their own increasing slavery. You can certainly fool some of the people all of the time.

We now live in a society that demands 24 hours a day, 365 days a year business activity. Nothing, not religion, not holy days, not sickness, not pregnancy etc. is allowed to interfere with profit-making. No human consideration is allowed as any kind of excuse for a disruption in production. If a worker gets sick, pregnant etc. get rid of them and get someone else. Of course, not all workplaces are like that, but they soon will be. Thatcher did a marvellous thing for industry, if a worker has a complaint, fire him/her, simples. No need for disciplinary or grievance procedures, no need to consider a workers complaint, simply get rid of them. Thatcher had a self-confessed hatred for the public sector and between her and her successors, they have almost destroyed the public sector through competitive tendering that has resulted in increasing privatisation that then drives down costs by forcing fewer people to do more work for less pay in an insecure working environment. As I said, not all workplaces are like this, but this model is spreading inexorably and is now becoming dominant in the care sector, catering. retail distribution, transport, manufacturing and hospitality, and that covers a great deal of the workforce. In conclusion, the greatest cheerleaders for this fascist ideology are the people who will govern the UK in the event of a vote to leave the EU. They are Thatcher's most zealous disciples, and she was a genuinely bad person. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat.