Marx in the News

In a recent article in the SunTimes, it discusses how workers were disrupting business in Ikea stores across all France because they were demanding a salary increase of 4 percent. This labor dispute all started in a Swedish Ikea and has forced one Ikea in France to shutdown while the negotiations take place. There have been 26 stores disrupted by this while only one was shutdown due to the workers disrupts in front of customers. The Ikea spokesperson in France has said that the workers would receive a 2 percent salary increase with the a 1 percent merits increase, but the decision would not be finally until the union delegates met on Monday.
This article describes Marx's attitude about labor and how when production increases, there is a decrease in wages which strongly affects the workers and especially in this scenario. Workers are fighting for a fair salary increase because they feel with the increase in the company's sales, they should also profit it from it. They are the ones selling the products and making the customers interest while some are probably doing the actual labor. While I feel workers should profit from the production increases, Marx feels when production does increase, workers are going to get depreciated because he feels there is no way to increase the production without decreasing wages. So if these workers were fighting in Marx's time, they would not receive an increase in wages because he knew in order to make more products for other people, he needs to depreciate his workers no matter how hard they were working.
I knew if I was working so hard to produce products for other people, I would want my wages increased in order to reflect my work. But our labor power equals time and we are going to get paid for our time instead of the actual products we produce. Marx feels that workers are never going to get appreciated for their labor because production is always going to be increasing.

The link to the article: www.suntimes.com/news/world/2046671,france-ikea-strike-021310.article