NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8658

Text File | 1992-11-23 | 9.7 KB | 212 lines

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Subject: Employment contracts (1905)
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Rich, please post this to ACTIV-L  ...  thank you!
Subject:  Employment contracts (1905)
======================================================================


                                   Mike Lepore < [e-mail] >

The following is a short excerpt of the address "Socialist
Reconstruction of Society" delivered by the American Marxist, Daniel
De Leon (1852-1914), in Minneapolis, Minn., on July 10,1905.

De Leon was a law professor at Columbia University who became the
editor of _The People_, the newspaper of the Socialist Labor Party.
De Leonist groups call for democratic control of the industries
through workers' councils.  Unlike most Marxian interpretations,
De Leonism calls for the political party of labor to dissolve itself
on the day of its political victory, to dismantle the state without
delay, and to surrender all management authority to the workers' own
industrial union.

This particular passage is concerned with the fact that workers under
capitalism own only our labor power, which we must sell in order to
survive.  We are forced to "agree" to the terms of employment dictated
by those who own the means of life.  Because the employment contract
is a coersion, the working class is under no moral obligation to
adhere to it, once we can organize our strength sufficiently to bring
the industries under social ownership.

                        ----------------------
                           begin quotation
                        ----------------------

     It is an inevitable consequence of the falsehood regarding the
hand-in-hand prosperity of capitalists and workingmen that their
relations are mutual, and, consequently, that they stand upon a
footing of equality.  Of course, if the two are getting along
swimmingly, they must be peers, even if it be conceded that their
peerage may be of different rank.  Down from that parent falsehood,
set afloat by the capitalist professors, politicians and pulpiteers,
and zealously carried into the ranks of pure and simple unionism by
the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class, a long line of descent
of increasingly insidious and practically pestiferous falsehoods may
be traced.  The ancestral falsehood of the hand-in-hand progress of
capitalist and workingman begets the son-falsehood of the equality of
workingman and capitalist; the son-falsehood begets the
grandson-fraud of "contracts"; and you will see how the grandson-fraud
litters a prolific progeny of its ilk to labor's undoing.

     What is a "contract"?

     I am not going to give you any socialist definition of the term.
The term has nothing to do with socialism.  It is a term the meaning
of which has grown up with the race's experience.  The definition I
shall give is the law book definition.  It is the definition accepted
and acted upon in all the courts of equity.

     A contract is an agreement entered into by two equal parties; a
contract is an agreement entered into between peers; a contract is an
agreement entered into by two freemen.  Where the parties to a thing
called a contract fall within these categories, they are said to be of
contracting mind and power, and the document is valid; where that
which is called a contract lacks any of these essential qualities,
especially if it lacks them all, the thing is null, void and of no
effect; it is a badge of fraud of which he is guilty who imposes the
contract upon the other.

     Let me illustrate:

     Suppose that some Minneapolis agent of a lecture bureau, anxious
to secure my invaluable services as a speaker for this evening, had
written to me in New York, asking for my terms; and suppose I had
answered that I would come for $500.  He would have written back
wanting me to come down a peg or so.  I would have replied.  Suppose
that after considerable chaffering I had agreed upon $400 and he had
yielded, whereupon a document would have been drawn up reading
somewhat like this:

           John Jones, party of the first part, and Daniel De Leon,
           party of the second part, have mutually covenanted and
           agreed that the party of the second part will deliver an
           address in Minneapolis on the 10th day of July, and the
           party of the first part will pay the party of the second
           part for his services the sum of $400 in U.S. currency.

     This document being signed would be a contract.  If on the
appointed day I came, delivered the goods, and John Jones failed to
pay me, I would have a just cause of action against him for breach of
contract.  If, on the other hand, I failed to put in an appearance, he
could sue and recover damages from me on the ground of my breach of
contract.  Whatever people may think of the steepness of my price, the
contract would stand.  It would stand - why?  Because both he and I
were free to accept or reject; neither of us acted under compulsion;
we were both free agents.

     But now suppose that, instead of writing, he came down to New
York, rushed into my office, whipped a Colt's horse pistol out of his
hip pocket, cocked and held it with the muzzle an inch from my head,
and said:  "Sign this!" laying before me a sheet of paper containing
this legend:

           John Jones, party of the first part, and Daniel De Leon,
           party of the second part, have mutually covenanted and
           solemnly agreed and bound themselves as follows, to wit:
           that the party of the second part will deliver an address
           in Minneapolis on the 10th day of July, and the party of
           the first part will pay the party of the second part for
           his services the sum of five cents, which sum of five cents
           the party of the second part hereby, acknowledges to be a
           liberal payment for his services, the said sum being agreed
           upon after a friendly and mutual understanding between the
           said party of the first part and the said party of the
           second part.

     Would I sign?  Why, of course, I would!  I would sign above,
below, to the right, to the left.  I would never stop signing.  I
would keep on signing like a "moving picture," until that pistol was
removed from its close proximity to my temple.

     That is the situation of labor when it signs "contracts."

     Now, say that he, John Jones, returns to Minneapolis with (he
"contract" in his pocket, and a glow of righteous, patriotic
contentment on his face.  Say he hires a hall, prints and circulates
posters announcing the meeting and address, and inserts advertisements
in the papers; say he even pays the bills, and does not cheat in that
also.  The day of the meeting, the hour arrives - but not I.  The hall
fills - but not with me.  Hour upon hour passes - whoever else may be
there, I am absent.  The audience storms at him; calls him names;
insists upon and gets its admission moneys back.  Say that, indignant
at my "breach of contract," John Jones were to institute a suit for
damages against me.

     What would happen?

     He would be thrown out of court for a swindler, he might even be
prosecuted for "assault with intent to kill." That "contract" is null,
void and of no effect; it is a badge of fraud of which he is guilty;
it is all that because I was not free, because he held me under
duress.

     Exactly so with the workingman who signs "contracts"; exactly so
with the capitalist who extorts them.

     The workingman does not stand upon a footing of equality with the
capitalist; he is not of contracting mind and power with the employer.
The latter holds over him the whip of hunger that the capitalist
system places in the hands of the master, and with the aid of which he
can cow his wage slave into acquiescence.

                        ----------------------
                           end of quotation
                        ----------------------

The best source of De Leon's pamphlets and speeches is the publishing
department of the Socialist Labor Party:
      New York Labor News
      914 Industrial Ave.
      Palo Alto, CA 94303 U.S.A.
         (send for a free catalog)

Several De Leon speeches have been scanned into computer files.  When
proofreading is completed, these documents will be donated to file
archives.  To keep informed, subscribe to ORGANIZED THOUGHTS, an
electronic journal dedicated to syndicalist and libertarian socialist
debate.

The mailing list for ORGANIZED THOUGHTS is being converted into a
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Thank you for your interest.  --  Mike Lepore  < [e-mail] >