A human right with a bad RAP

What is the difference between a slave who knows that he is a slave and one who does not know that he is a slave? Ok, forget that question. But still, what comes to your mind when you hear or see the word slavery? If you are like many black people, your mind may be trapped in a dark corridor of awful images at the mention of that word. slavery conjures images of a people owned and sold by others in chains. Cotton fields. Not peaceful cotton fields with birds singing, and the sun shinning brightly, its rays sparkling on the grass blades, but fields of violence. That specific form is known as chattel slavery. But, forget the graphic imagery and the disturbing sound effects. Think basic economic slavery, no slave markets, no cotton fields, no whips, and chains. May be chains and fields in a metaphoric sense. It may sound far fetched or even seem like I am taking the experiences of slaves lightly, but I believe modern labor markets where workers cannot get value for their work to be modern day slavery. This is why I am mixed about the strikes in Nigeria and recent ones in South Africa.

Economists will be quick to point that the abundance of labor reduces the price employers are willing to pay for labor since employees compete against each other, which drives down prices. In other words supply affects prices. Nonsense! The truth is that people have been socialized to not demand their value's worth, especially for labor. I have always been struck by the bad rap given to people who go on strikes to demand a fair share for their contributions to the economic system that is supposed to be equitable in the first place.Fundamentally, what slaves of the past have in common with most workers today is their lack of freedom to sell labor at a reasonable and sustainable cost.

In the United States, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution makes involuntary servitude illegal under any US jurisdiction whether at the hands of the US government or in the private sphere, except as punishment for a crime. And yet, it is illegal for an employee of the United States Federal Government to strike. Prospective federal employees must sign standard form 61, an affidavit not to strike. I wonder why people cannot exercise their God given right to demand their value's worth. History is full of events demonstrating the suppression of employees by government. President Ronald Reagan terminated air traffic controllers after their refusal to return to work from a strike in 1981. Last year Judge Theodore Jones sentenced the Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint to ten days in jail in New York City following the breakdown of negotiations for a new contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) over retirement, pension, and wage increases.

Whatever happened to the idea that people should be free to choose a wage that they feel captures the value of their contributions? If it is hard to think about people's inability to even voice their discomfort or withdrawing their labor from the market as slavery, it is because we have normalized the abnormal. In other areas of life, you do not exchange goods if you deem the value of what you are getting in return to be less. But with labor, we seem to be so afraid to demand our worth so that people who do so are chastised as being selfish. Some people will argue that if we all demanded our fair share then the system may collapse since the perception of fair share is so arbitrary. They see one's ability to sacrifice a little bit of labor as a necessary contribution to nation-building. Fair enough. My only problem is that the argument for nation building is only used when it is time to give, but when it is time to receive, oh no. Would it not be nice for corporations to also sacrifice for nation-building by paying people reasonable wages that can see them send their children to school and pay for health, shelter e.t.c? I guess I am disturbed by the state of affairs particularly when I reflect on the fact that multinational banks such as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs often threaten governments to get subsidies to create jobs.

BBC News reported in "Bank subsidy for Ground Zero move" (6/14/2007) [1] that JPMorgan Chase struck a deal to receive large incentives and subsidies from the City of New York and the State of New York to ensure that the company does not follow through on threats to leave downtown New York for Connecticut. It is said that, " New York City officials have already paid Goldman Sachs $650m (£330m) to build new offices in Battery Park City. [...] But the paper says that JP Morgan Chase will receive an even better deal, with tax breaks, discounted electric power and rent subsidies worth $100m from city and state authorities. And it says that rent subsidies will amount to $50m per year for 15 years, or $750m. Citigroup, the first US bank to accumulate more than $1 trillion in assets, has repeatedly played state against state and locality against locality to attract at least $285.9 million in subsidies in just the four states. In 2006, it had net income of $21.5 billion.

So tell me how it is that banks are allowed to threaten and get away with chunks of our tax money when we the workers are in fact penalized for demanding a measle increase in salary. What peace is there in poverty and injustice? Do not tell me about demand and supply, because like my mother says." I do not eat demand and supply."

It is unconscionable that people are expected to settle for less because of the threat that they are disturbing peace. If you want to strike, know that you are neither the first nor last to do so. Towards the end of the 20th dynasty, under Pharaoh Ramses III in ancient Egypt in the 12th century BCE, the workers of the royal necropolis organized the first known strike or workers' uprising in history. So let the strikers strike from the streets of Lagos to Long Island. Let the Nigerians and South Africans strike! Withholding one's labor is a human right!