LIVING FOR CHANGE

FEW JOBS BUT PLENTY OF WORK

By Grace Lee Boggs

Michigan Citizen, June 10-16, 2007

It is painful to watch Detroit workers, labor leaders, community leaders begging corporations not to take Jobs out of our communities, cities, country, trying to lure them to stay with tax breaks, appealing to their compassion and patriotism.

Deep in our hearts we know these efforts are in vain. We know that multinational corporations like Ford and GM move Jobs overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor and weaker environmental regulations. We know that their only interest is more profits and that they couldn't care less about us, our country, our communities or our planet.

We also know that multinational corporations like Wal-Mart are turning us into mindless consumers, unable to distinguish between Needs and Wants. We know that many of the "goods" our Jobs produce are not needed and are often (like munitions or gas guzzlers), "bads." But rather than assume the responsibility for creating another more human and more Earth-friendly way of making our livings and living, we keep begging the multinationals to give us back "our" Jobs so that they can lay us off again.

It isn't easy to assume responsibility for creating a better way to live and to make our livings. But the time is approaching when we can no longer evade that challenge.
To prepare ourselves, it is helpful to recognize that for most of human history, the concept of Jobs, of Labor, of working only to get paid, didn't even exist. Work, as distinguished from Labor, was done for human reasons:

• To provide necessary and useful goods and services.
• To develop our mental and physical capacities, our skills, our creativity, our artistry.
• To learn how to work cooperatively.

In other words, for most of human history, we saw ourselves not as Labor but as Working to create the goods and services needed by our families and communities.

Labor, Jobs, working for pay, only began with capitalism. Jobs are only a few hundred years old, only a blip on the screen of humanity in evolution.

As long as U.S. corporations were not multinational, we could still extract concessions from them through Labor struggles. But that period is fast coming to an end. At this point

• * we can continue to put our faith in these multinational corporations, hoping that things will get better when they are actually getting worse.
• * OR we can refuse to accept the slot of Labor and Job-holders. As self-determining human beings, as citizens and as members of communities, we can begin the struggles necessary to create a better kind of economy, the kind of economy which serves our deep human need for Work that produces the goods and services needed by our communities and cities, develops our skills, encourages our cooperation, and empowers us to build strong families and communities and make political decisions for our communities and our country.

Meeting together in our workplaces and communities, we can decide what to produce and when, when to use and when not to use advanced technology, what to produce locally and what to import from other localities, always making our decisions according to the human needs of ourselves and our children - and not to increase profits or to compete on the world market.

Some rethinking is already beginning. For example, as the Ford Wixom plant was shutting down, a 31 year old worker told a reporter, "When I started working here 11 years ago, I expected to follow in my father's footsteps and retire with a pension. Now I realize I have to rethink what it means to be an American worker." ****

For a copy of A JOB AIN'T THE ANSWER, the little pamphlet written by James Boggs in 1981, send a self-addressed stamped envelope enclosing $1.00 to the Boggs Center, 3061 Field St., Detroit Mi 48214.

My interview on Bill Moyers' Journal has been delayed because Sunday afternoon programming on Detroit's PBS station is being pre-empted for fund-raising. I expect it to air the weekend of June 15-17.

Email Grace Boggs Center,