| Communication and Information, Communist Party of Austria | |||
| Quinta, 05 Julho 2007 | |
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Christiane Maringer Este endereço de email está protegido contra spam bots, precisa de ter o Javascript activado para poder visualiza-lo
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. |