In the Marxism Economy, at first sight, it looks as if goods and things are produced mainly for people's needs. Obviously every society has to do this. But under capitalism, goods are not merely produced to satisfy someone's want or need, but primarily for sale. That is the paramount function of capitalist industry. The nature of industrial capitalism can be worked out from the definition of the two systems where “large scale or complex machine or associated technique is widely applied to the pursuit of economic efficiency on the basis whereby the capacity of work of the members is sold to others who control and organise it in such a way that the latter groups maintain relative advantage with the regard to those resources which are scarce and generally viewed. (Watson, 1995).
3. Conflict between Employer and Employees
3.1 In Management Studies
In management, they say conflict is between employees or between employees and employers. In other words, conflict is a disagreement between two or more individual, groups or organisations. In every organisation or company where people work together, misunderstandings and agreements will occur. Sometime, conflicts often are hidden in a workplace, which has not been dealt with in an open way. These types of hidden conflict can lead to decreased motivation among the employees. So, in Management studies, they discuss conflict more in Human Resource way, it is all about motivations and relationship between people. Moreover, in Management, conflict between employer and employee is usually caused by Discrimination, which is also from Human Resource perspectives.
3.2 In Marxism
3.2.1 Labour Power
What we have to be clear about is what the capitalist has bought. The worker has sold not his labour but his ability to work. This Marx calls his labour power. Also, as Marx defines, ‘labour power is the abstraction of human labour into something that can be exchanged for money.’ In addition, capitalism can purchases labour power as a commodity.
In other words, ‘Labour power is a commodity governed by the same laws as other commodities. Its value is determined by the labour-time necessary for its production. Labour power is the ability of the worker to work. It is "consumed" by the capitalist in the actual labour-process.’
Marx explains, "I use the term labour power or capacity for labour, to denote the aggregate of those bodily and mental capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any kind"… "The value of labour power, like that of every other commodity, is determined by the labour time necessary for the production, and consequently for the reproduction as well, of this specific article as well.
3.2.2 Capitalism Power
As Campbell (1981:34) describes, ‘…as in slavery, where the producers themselves are owned by the slavery owners; in feudalism where the land is owned by the landlords; or in capitalism where machinery and factories (capital) are owned by capitalists.’ In capitalism, the ‘machineries and factories’ is not the only thing owned by capitalists (or factory owners), also labours. For example, in a car making factory, all the machineries are fixed assets to the factory owner, machineries can not make profit for the factory owner if no one operates them, and so labourers who operate machineries are the main assets to the factory owners.
In addition, labour power is a commodity (which is bought and sold on the 'labour' market), because it has an exchange value. As Campbell (1981: 38) says ‘all commodities labour power has an exchange value, its price (the wage), yet again like all commodities, it also has use value to the purchaser.’ The purchaser here is any capitalism or any factory owners. It continues ‘one purchased, like any commodity… Labour power is owned therefore, like a machine, and is put to work’ (Campbell 1981:38) As the labour power is a commodity, so once it is purchases by factory owner, the owner has the power to either use it or exchange it to others. Also, in capitalism, once the owner purchases new labour power, he has the rights to make decision on how much he will pay to his new labourers, and how long the new labourers will work every week; also he can fire any of the labourers in his factory any time if he feels not satisfied with them.
‘… in a capitalist economy the vast majority of people have only their labour power to sell in order to gain income with which to purchase food, clothing, housing and other goods and services. The means of production are owned by the capitalist class and if they are unwilling to hire labour, or wish to reduce the numbers of workers they employ, this puts workers prosperity immediately at risk’ (Campbell 1981:111)
Marx’s argument was against capitalism, which he referred to as a stage at which every society must go through that can bring about the seed of its own destruction. He indicated that human essence was labour and physical effort needed in the production of the means of subsistence. Hence, some forms of production are needed for survival. The suggestion being that it is acceptable for oneself but not for others because some individuals may have all factors of production (capital, entrepreneurship, labour and land), while others may have nothing but just their own labour, which eventually will result in uneven distribution of wealth and income. Additionally, Marx argued that capitalism deprives the labour force of their ‘creative fulfilment’, and since they are portrayed to be the already planned part of the production process, they are unable to achieve self-actualisation.
3.2.3 Source of the Conflict between Employee and Employer
3.2.3.1 Employers
As Marx observed, a class conflict was sometime coming to a head within the capitalist order, which is the conflict between capitalists and exploited wage-workers. If we want to talk about the conflict is caused by employers, this will come down to a very important theory in Marxism - Surplus Value. As someone defined the surplus values as: ‘The surplus produced over and above what is required to survive, which is translated into profit in capitalism. Since the capitalist pays a labourer for his/her labour, the capitalist claims to own the means of production, the worker's labour-power, and even the product that is thus produced.’
Marx also poses the problem this way (Capital Vol. 1) ‘Workers are exploited under capitalism.’ Workers as employees in an organisation, they are working for their employer, and their employer has the power to either use or dismiss its employees in the organisation. Also, from Marx’s point of view, ‘The bosses are always out to get that little bit more out of the workers. One obvious way they do that is to get you to work longer hours.’ For example, in an car making factory, let’s assume that employer paid £ 100,000 on a car making machines, the depreciation cost on this machine is 100 pounds per week, and he employs 10 labourers to work on this machine 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, he will pay each of them 100 pounds per week. This will take the employer 10 years to start making profit. So, if the employer gets his 10 employees to work 8 hours per day, and still pays 5 hours wages to them, therefore, the employer pays 4 pounds per hour per employee, now he gets all of 10 employees to work 3 extra hours per day without paying them, this will make £4 x 3 hours x 10 employees = £120 extra profit per day for employer, also this £120 extra money per Day will cover the whole depreciation costs for the whole month, and still got £20 extra profit per day. This is the surplus value that employer gets from its employees. Of course, the car factory owner will be really happy about this £120 extra income per day, however, but the employees are not happy, because they did not get paid for that 3 extra hours work every day. Obviously, this happy and unhappy motivation will cause the conflict between employer and employee.
3.2.3.2 Employees
There are some reasons that lead to conflicts between the employees and employers of a business, such as levels of pay, working condition and changing practices. It is common for employees and owners to disagree on new wage levels. This is because workers generally want more than the owners are prepared to pay. Conflict may also arise if workers are not satisfied with their working environment. The consequences are that employees have no motivation to work and hence less output will be produced. It leads to lower level of revenue and profit.
As I said in the second section ‘Marx is the representative of the working class’, but what is a ‘class’, ‘A class is thus a strata of society grouped in accordance with their relationship to the production process.’ (Campbell, 1981: 34) Who is in the working class then? Obviously, it includes workers and labourers. They are working at the bottom of the whole organisation structure, in generally, they are the people who work the longest working hours and earn the least money.
Before the Trade Union was found, some individual employees would go and destroy factory equipments to show how they were not satisfied with their employer (e.g. they have not been paid for some extra working hours), but, usually they would be end up with lost their jobs. However, after a few years, they found out ‘only when they band together in common action can they begin to make serious inroads into the dominance of the employer.’ (Hyman, 1975:33) Therefore, the Trade Union was found by working class labourers and their basic rational of trade unionism is summed up in the familiar motto: unity is strength. The Trade Union unites all the labourers to try for increasing in pay, etc. For example, The Trade Union’s ‘periodical resistance…against the wages system’, wrote Marx, ‘and their periodical attempts at getting a rise of wages, are inseparable from the wages system, and dictated by the very fact of labour being assimilated to commodities.’ (Marx, 1958: 441, cited by Hyman, 1975: 33) So, As Trotsky said in his paper- ‘In the struggle for partial and transitional demands, the workers now more than ever before need mass organizations, principally trade unions.’ (Trotsky, 1938)
The role of Marxists in the union is advanced a programme representing historic interesting of working class’. The trade unions are the basic organisations of the working class. But they are much more than that. They represent working class labourers to negotiate with employers. Sometimes, if they can not get extra pay or longer holiday for labourers, they will organise labourers to go on a strike. Usually, employers will ask to negotiate with the Trade Union again, and they will raise the wages or agree with what their employees asked for. However, in some cases that capitalists had won by waiting out the strikers – after all, working people need to eat and usually can not last long without income. In other situations, capitalists have crushed general strike with repression and broken them through combination of police pressure.
4. Conclusion
According to Moorhead & Griffin (1998, 1), Employee performance is frequently described as a joint function of ability and motivation, and one of the primary tasks facing a manager is motivating employees to perform to the best of their ability. From my point of view, I would say that I strongly agree that conflict is an essential part of management (As I said in the previous section), however, in this essay, I not am attempting to discuss the conflict between employee and employer from management view, but discuss the conflict between those two parties through Marxism and Labour Theory. In this essay, I first introduce the Marxism and Marxism Economy, in Marxism Economy, I emphasise on the capitalist industry. In the next section, section 3, I start discussing different issue on the conflict between employers and employees through Marxism. Overall in section 3, it argues that there always is a conflict between those two parties. Why? If we explain this through Labour Process Theory, because, ‘the capitalist purchases wage earners to accumulate more capital through surplus value extracted from the labour process via technology, fractionated tasks, placing knowledge of craft into the system, minute control, and substitute ions of cheap labour for more expensive labour.’
However, the employees in an organisation, they always want to work less time and get more pay. As the employer and employee have different needs during producing process, there is always a conflict between them. In the final section, I overview the whole essay, and discuss the why the conflict between employer and employee is inevitable, in addition I illustrate the answer with some of my opinions at the end.
Most of people believe that employers are always trying to maximise their profit all the time, and they are try to make more profit by forcing their employees to work longer hours. From a different point of view, Campbell (1981:75) argued that ‘It is often argued by orthodox economists and others that the motivation and goals of firms is no longer to attempt to maximised profits’. Now they see ‘all of their employees, consumers, managers and society as a whole.’ Employers now are gradually increasing their employers’ wages, and providing them with pensions, and other benefits too.
However, the reason that employers can provide their employees higher wages and more benefits, because they are still making extra profit by getting surplus value from their employees in a different way. Therefore, employer wants to make more profit by getting their employees works more, employees want to be paid more and get as more benefits as possible from their employer. From my point of view, conflict is a process that begins when one party observes that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affects something the first party cares about. Conflict is inevitable because people will always have different viewpoints, ideas, and opinions. Also, as Marx said, ‘The only goals that political economy sets in motion are greed and the war amongst the greedy’ (cited by Campbell, 1981:21). To conclude, if employer wants to make profit in an organisation, it is impossible to manage its employees in a humane way, so the conflict between employers and employees is always irresolvable.
Bibliography
Watson, T.J. (1995) Sociology Work and Industry, London: Rouledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Campbell, M. (1981) Capitalism in the UK, A perspective from Marxist Political Economy,
London: Croom Helm Ltd.
Hyman, R. (1975) Industrial Relations, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd.
Lukacs, G (1978) The ontology of Social Being, 3. Labour, London: The Merlin Press Ltd.
Web:
Sewell, R. and Woods, A., What is Marxism?
From: (Access Date: 11-04-05)
Sewell, R. and Woods, A., ‘An Introduction to Marxist Economy’
From: (Access Date 06-05-05)
David M. Boje (1999) ‘Labour Process Theory and Other Grand Narratives’
From: (Access Date: 11-05-05)
‘Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!’(1993)
From: (Access Date 06-05-05)
Trotsky, L. (1938), The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution, ‘Trade Unions in the Transitional Epoch’, (Access date: 11-04-05)
Labour Power definition from (Access Date 11-05-05)
Brooks, M., An Introduction to Marx's Labour Theory of Value,
From: (Access Date 06-05-05)
‘Lesson from working class history’
From: (Access Date 02-05-05)
David M. Boje (1999) ‘Labour Process Theory and Other Grand Narratives’
From: (Access Date: 02-05-05)
‘ What is Marxism’ by Rob Sewell and Alan Woods
1993: ‘ Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!’
‘An Introduction to Marxist Economy’ by Rob Sewell and Alan Woods
this is one of the definition from (Access Date 11-05-05)
‘What is Marxism’ by Rob Sewell and Alan Woods
The Marxist critique of capitalism
‘ An introduction to Marx's Labour Theory of Value’ by Brooks Mick
‘Lesson from working class history’
‘Marxism and Trade Unions’ by Leon Trotsky
‘Lesson from working class history.’
‘Labour Process Theory and Other Grand Narratives’ by David M. Boje (1999)