The major tasks of the Organization of Class-Conscious Service Workers, and the New Labor Organizing Committee at large, take on the struggle against lay-offs and the worsening of working conditions. These issues directly stem from the deteriorating economy, and as the contradictions between the working and ruling class heighten nationally, so too will the contradictions that arise on the shop floor. It is of the utmost importance that we recognize the necessity to not only apply this campaign to our individual workplaces, but to use this as a means to further politicize our coworkers and make the connection of these issues to the rising fascist state. Just like rising fascism, the increasingly unnecessary restrictions on expression start by targeting some of the most vulnerable members of our class first.
I have been working my current position for a year as a part-time worker. Now, a new company is taking over the location and, through their process of rehiring everyone, informed me that they would not take me on for part-time, only full-time. This is absolutely to do with the fact that they do not want to bring in another barista, which would be necessary whether or not I work part-time. I work part-time because I have a few conditions which both greatly affects my quality of life when I work a normal 40-hour week and makes it so I am often seeing doctors. Being able to work part-time makes having a job accessible, and in order to stay I have to fight for it.
The ADA attempts to resolve the disability question by proposing the existence of a middle ground that gains disabled workers “reasonable accommodations” as long as it doesn’t put “undue hardship” on the business. Yet, as is indicated by the language, many businesses are able to find loopholes in order to avoid changing practices. Even more, many are able to avoid hiring anyone with a disability altogether by including more restrictive requirements on jobs, or can simply get rid of workers who need accommodations because the repercussions are negligible. Fellow workers might also respond to accommodations with annoyance, seeing them as hindering the flow of the workplace, or even as unfair – if someone with a disability is allowed to sit or get extra breaks, why could that not be applied to the rest of the workers? Recently I read a post on the r/server subreddit from a woman who has a limp and is being quietly fired just because she couldn’t walk at the speed of other servers. What was disappointing, but honestly not surprising, was the comments which majority read, “if you can’t keep up, don’t work in this industry.”
In the same way that managers at fast food restaurants push window times to be shorter and shorter, the main priority of these companies is speed, efficiency, how quickly a product can be turned out, over the quality of service or working conditions. Just how the companies like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts operate with automatic espresso machines instead of the manual ones in local cafes, these businesses wish to automate as much as possible, every step of the way. They wish that all workers were machines, they would replace workers with machines if possible, which is why they push quicker and quicker turnout times with heavier workloads. Accommodations for disabled workers expose how unjust the pace we are expected to work really is, and the companies ability to function just fine without such standards.
In a different way, companies make arbitrary rules that serve no purpose other than to further quell the autonomy of workers. After a separate incident where the manager tried to compel me to stop wearing my KN95 face mask at work, I learned of other food workers who were facing the same harassment in other restaurants. Starbucks actually did bring a new no-mask policy quietly into the new year, where under the Health and Safety section of the employee manual it says that anyone who wears a face mask must “request an accommodation” through the designated corporate HR number. There is, quite literally, no reason to ban masks for any reason other than to control the person who is masking.
This is of course coming around the same time as actual mask-bans are being passed in states across the country. With vague language about “intent to conceal identity” and “medical exemptions” leaving a lot of room for legal interpretation, this is not only a blatant attack on autonomy as a whole, but can and will be easily used to further oppress already marginalized people. The same argument for mask-bans are the same for the increased surveillance state – “safety.” Yet as ICE has kidnapped and disappeared thousands of members of our communities this year, it’s is clear that the concern is not safety, but rather total control.
Fascism comes from capitalism in crisis, when the contradictions of the system sharpen to a point where the bourgeois class must use dictatorship to maintain its rule. In America, the conditions of fascism are directly connected to dying imperialism, and as the US loses its footing in other parts of the world it is forced to corporatize to attempt to fix the failing economy. State-sanctioned worker’s organizations further support the control its control, with leadership of the largest unions planning and cutting deals with reactionary politicians. SEIU and their Starbucks Workers United campaign not only completely divert worker power for opportunistic reasons, but their crappy tentative agreements don’t even mention either the mask-bans nor the back-breaking speeds that management pushes on employees.
When workers are disposable, accommodations aren’t necessary steps for people’s health, or ways that people can participant in living life inside and outside of work; it’s a blockade from eking out one more cent of profit and one less rule able to be enforced. When workers are disposable, it’s keep up with the ever-increasingly impossible expectations, or be replaced. We must take every measure necessary to fight against the rise of American fascism in the workplace and our communities. Our ability to stop it will not come from voting or the collaboration with the state’s apparatuses, but from organization of the working class that rejects concessions and refuses to prostrate to the oppressive laws of the police state.