Christiane Maringer
Communication and Information, Communist
Party of Austria
Contribution at the conference “Against
Casual Labour and Flexicurity, for the Right to Work And Work with Rights. For a
Europe of Workers and Peoples”
July 2007, Portugal
Dear Comrades,
On behalf of the Communist Party of Austria
I thank you very much for the invitation to this conference. It focuses on one
of the central issues which we are also dealing with politically in Austria. In
doing so the Communist Party of Austria connects an analysis of the conditions
– the number of people who have to live precariously is steadily increasing –
with the demand, that each and every person living in our society has a right
to existential security. We can find solutions to the problems for the inhumane
living conditions neo-liberal capitalism is creating for ever more people only
by cooperating internationally.
I would like to start out with five theses
about the topic: Precarious working-conditions – a problem concerning women?
Thesis number 1:
Precarious working-conditions are a global
problem which concerns men in a quantitatively and qualitatively different way
from women. On a global level, patriarchal conditions burden women with two
thirds of all socially necessary work, while it only concedes 10% of incomes to
them. Answers regarding a future re-distribution of work and wealth must take
into account a cross-border-approach and pay particular attention to migration.
Thesis number 2:
Precarious working conditions have always
concerned women and thus have not been duly acknowledged. The terms describing
the phenomenon which I don’t have to go into further detail here because I think you are all familiar
with them are the following: industrial reserve army, unpaid house- and family
care work, care for infants, the sick and the elderly, double and threefold
burden, wage- and income disparities and poverty in old age.
Work on call has been a reality for women
long before anybody talked of precarious working conditions. These working
conditions became a topic on the political agenda when it could no longer be
denied that they also concerned the working conditions of men and of the middle
classes.
Thesis number 3:
The trade union movement, the Social
Democratic Parties and the “Left” in the widest sense of the word still adhere
to an outdated idea of work. The classical model of the “family breadwinner”
has expired which has led to a disruption of bourgeois (family) structures. At
the same time unpaid yet socially required work, among other things, serving
the reproduction of the individual or being spent on the intellectual
appropriation of the world, are not considered as “work”.
Thesis number 4, at the same time my core
thesis:
Precarious living and working conditions
are a central component of neo-liberal politics and company strategy. In other
words: They are an expression of the trimming of markets and of people to the
requirements of globalised capitalism. The aim is to have deregulated labour
markets with flexible and cheap labour on the one hand, and to dissolve the
links between social security and work for wages on the other. This process is
accompanied by a destruction and privatisation of welfare state benefits. Each
and every risk in life is individualised and privatised, from the additional
health insurance to old age pension and care provision.
This contemporaneousness of unprotected,
short-term work not guaranteeing one’s existence or temporary unemployment on
the one hand, the segmentation or disintegration of social welfare services, of
safety nets and public goods on the other hand, results in insecurity and
individualisation. And that is exactly the third component: pusing people
towards the “one-person-companies”, with “self-reliance” and self-management
being its characteristics.
Thesis 5:
Precarious living and working conditions
mean individualisation and competition, a lack of resources in time and money,
shame and – above all – a lack in common spaces beyond the traditional spaces
of collective interest representation. This means that strategies to cope with
the situation also remain on the individual level.
What to do?
How can we re-invent and re-construct the
social and solidarity? How can working and living conditions be re-appropriated
and democratised, even beyond the concept of wage labour? Where is the
emancipatory perspective from which we can see precariousness as liberation
from forced labour and alienated wage labour? Even if there is no universal
recipe, we think that solutions found on specifically local levels should
consider the following elements:
-
Redistribution and
re-evaluation of paid and unpaid work within the framework of gendered and
international divisions of labour;
-
An unconditional basic income
as a precondition for facilitating work, social security and survival beyond
wage labour conditions;
-
An unconditional right to
rights beyond citizenship (“residential citizenship”);
-
The creation of new spaces such
as social centres, in which unemployed and precariously employed people can
meet and share their experiences, where self-empowerment and reciprocal
empowerment can take place, where contacts can be exchanged and networks can be
built.
“There is enough for everybody” sums up the
positions of the Communist Party of Austria on new, socially sensible jobs and
a life of existential security.
In Austria, one percent of the population
owns one third of the entire property that there is. Together with further nine
percent they own two thirds of all the property. And 90 percent share the
remaining third. Only unreasonable persons would call that reasonable. This
condition has been created and is being reproduced. Among others by a policy
which understands itself as a gigantic machinery of redistribution of social
wealth from the bottom to the top. The exponents of this policy by those in
power for the job they do for them – independent of the party they belong to.
There is a need for an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism!
The Communist Party of Austria has summed
up in a concept for employment and social politics, its ideas for bringing
about a redistribution of means, for creating new jobs and introducing a new
unconditional basic income guaranteeing everybody’s existence.
- Reduction of weekly and life-long working hours
We think that a 30-hours’ working week with
full wage adjustment and 35 years of life-time-work are enough. The rapid
technological progress facilitates and requires this reduction of working time.
Almost one million people – women in particular – work part-time. The Communist
Party of Austria demands the inclusion of all work schemes within the social
security system – which is the same as the re-introduction of a legal
obligation.
- Investments which are effective with regard to jobs, because
privatizations cost jobs
Public investments have a positive effect
on employment rates. Consequently, the Communist Party of Austria demands
investments in social housing, in the public education, health and care
systems. Postal services, railways and energy supply must remain in public
hands. Due to a so-called reform of administration, women’s workplaces,
workplaces for “people with special needs” and apprenticeships which had been
created in the public sector (that is by the state and the communes) were wiped
out without any substitution.
- Measures stimulating demand
A reduction of the taxes on wages and
salaries of 10 percent, which is a social tax reform in favour of low and
medium income earners, would increase the overall spending power by 10 billion
euros. The minimum wage which is being introduced at the moment is not
far-reaching enough. The introduction of a minimum wage of € 1,300 as demanded
by the Communist Party of Austria would have stimulating effects on both the
demand and on employment.
- Measures in Job Service-Politics
On principle, the Communist Party of
Austria is opposed to unemployed people being subjugated to any form of forced
labour. The means from the unemployment insurance must without exception be
used for reducing unemployment and in favour of the unemployed.
- An expansion of the public and communal employment sector and
developing the communal, social and environment infrastructure.
In particular, those groups will benefit
from this measure for whose work no market-compatible prices or any prices at
all are paid, in particular those working in the care and health sectors.
- Creating jobs in the educational sector which are required by a
modern, multi-ethnical society
- Measures for youth employment and apprenticeships
For thousands of young people who do not
find an apprenticeship, a security network is being designed which does not
offer them any perspective. Full integration of vocational education into the
public education system is necessary so that apprenticeship is dissociated from
profit-making and other limitations.
Securing everybody’s existence by means of
the introduction of an unconditional basic income
A meaningful, adequately paid and secure
job is considered the key to participation in social life. Such jobs, or any
jobs at all, a lot of people can only dream of at the moment. Of course, such
so-called “normal employment” was denied to many also in the past. For the
majority of women and migrants precariousness has always been the normal state
of affairs. Therefore, it is not enough to adhere to the “right to work” as the
only demand. The demands we are raising are practicable and can also be
financed, on the precondition that there is a change in political will.
Therefore, the Communist Party of Austria proposes the following concept:
The idea of a basic income provides for an
income which all the members of society are entitled to. This is an income
people get without any precondition, this is, without employment, without
having to prove a preparedness to accept employment under whatever conditions
and without having to prove a special need. It is an income which secures a
person’s existence. Thus there is no longer any stress on the unemployed to
have towards accepting all kinds of jobs. Those receiving such a basic income
would not be exposed to any unworthy social stigmatisation.
By demanding an unconditional basic income
we find ourselves in good company with a number of NGOs in the country, ranging
from attac to the Catholic Social Academy and even some bishops. Yet,
what makes the idea of an unconditional basic income so attractive for us as
communists is not only its social-political dimension. The unconditional basic
income is an important political demand which goes far beyond the current
condition of society. Each and every one of us is able to imagine what that
would be. How our concrete lives would change if we were no longer forced to
work in order to guarantee mere survival. Thinking of new social conditions and
relations with a good life for everybody takes time and costs money.
The introduction of an unconditional basic
income which guarantees our existences – even the debate about it – allows for
the discussion of work ethics and of assessment of work and it also changes our
way of thinking with regard to what we consider as work.
The Communist Party of Austria also demands
equal political and social rights and duties for everybody with her or his
vital interests in Austria, independent of their citizenship!
Financing these measures is only possible
if means and resources are radically redistributed.
The radical measures of redistribution
demanded by the Communist Party of Austria comprise the following:
Ø
Re-introduction of an income
tax of 5 percent on all private property exceeding one million euros.
Ø
An increase in the tax-rate of
top-income-earners to 60 percent.
Ø
Taking back the reduction of
the corporation-profit-tax (it was reduced from 34 percent to 25 percent) and
also of the other tax privileges granted to big companies.
Ø
The introduction of the “Tobin
Tax” of 0.1 percent within the EU.
Ø
The introduction of a tax on
the value added, which means the collection of social security contributions
from employers according to the value added.
Ø
The collection of tax dues from
companies. Since the year 2000 the companies have been granted a sum of 1.6
billion euros of tax relief.
Ø
The collection of social
security contributions – these outstanding debts amount to almost one million
euros.
Ø
The abolition of tax privileges
for private foundations.
The measures and demands suggested by us do
not overthrow the capitalist system, but they require a decisive change of
political power relations. And for that reason alone, if for no other, we
should fight for them.