Digging your own grave

Death, injury, and wage labor

Katy Slininger
Sep 7, 2018 · 5 min read
Still from Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976)

Death

Last month at a recycling plant serving Disney World, a worker died after falling into a vat of oil. As they always do, a company spokesperson called John Korody’s death a “tragic accident.” It’s sad, of course, but no one is at fault when it’s an accident. We can’t prevent all accidents at work.

So why did the news feel so dreadful? Though I initially accepted the premise of it being an accident, I still felt disturbed. At first I thought maybe his age was the underlying injustice. In a slightly more compassionate society, a 61-year-old would have been relaxing at home after a lifetime of labor. That anyone over the age of 55 still needs to earn a wage to survive is a horrifying yet inevitable development of the capitalist system. But would Korody’s “accident” feel less unjust if he were younger?

In another Disney-related incident this summer, 33-year-old worker Juan Alberto Ojeda was killed after a “motorized utility cart” he was fixing jumped a curb, ran up a fence, then fell back onto him. In July, a 63-year-old United States Postal Service carrier in Texas baked to death inside of her un-air-conditioned mail truck. Just two more accidents.

The reality is, there are no “accidents” at work. Even if an employer did everything in their power to create objectively safe conditions, one hundred percent of deaths and injury on the job are preventable regardless of worker age, because wage labor is preventable.

The particular dread socialists feel in response to worker deaths is the recognition of an additional, compounding tragedy on top of death alone: the meaninglessness of it. We are not in the situation to produce something we value ourselves, or spending our time as we choose, but are actively and consistently forced into these situations in order to survive by wages. Korody did not choose to stand above a vat of oil that day, he was forced to be there by a coercive capitalist system — he was walking a plank with a sword to his back. It was not an accident.

Of course, the meaningless wage laborer’s death is not always senseless. Alienation is the condition for the meaninglessness of all on-the-job “accidents,” but unsafe working conditions are usually the direct cause. Most worker deaths are not senseless, but easily traced back to the negligence of, or willful harm inflicted by, capitalists.

In the 1976 documentary Harlan County, U.S.A., we see the emotional aftermath of a mine collapse where 76 workers were killed by a coal company. It was a direct result of delayed safety inspections and demands for speedier work. The wife of one coal miner describes the incentivized harm to workers under capitalism in an interview:

“Now I’d like to know, since they died, in order to help the living, find out what caused the explosion. You know, you learn from a tragedy. And then they can help others — others to live, and then it wouldn’t happen again. But as long as they’re greedy, and as long as they’re rushing the coal miner and wanting production before lives, there will always be tragedies.”


Disability

On a daily basis I watch my coworkers wince, groan, and struggle to meet production demands. They lift packages through pain, most likely causing further injury. One recently pointed out her slumping shoulder to me. “I’m pretty sure it’s dislocated, but the doctor they sent me to said they saw nothing wrong.” It sits inches lower than her other shoulder and her hand regularly turns blue.

I’m currently wearing a wrist brace after only a few months of work in a manual labor position. Though not yet debilitating, the small pains signal a future of disability claims, physical therapy, and limited duty. I’ve worked manual labor jobs before, but as I get older repetitive motions more quickly take their toll.

Of course there is workman’s compensation but, like employer-provided insurance, power and control over services result in inadequate care. Companies barely comply, finding ways to deny their responsibility, with doctors become the medical equivalent of an HR representative. Instead of caring for disabled workers, they become capitalist henchman protecting the corporation.

Workman’s comp policies are sold to workers as protection from the physical toll of wage labor, and as accountability for employers, but is very clearly a conciliatory deal. It entrenches dependence on your boss for health care and keeps workers from questioning the underlying conditions that cause them physical harm.

Like workplace deaths, it is important to analyze the difference between work-related injuries/disabilities and off-the-clock inevitabilities. It is also important to address the injustice of power relations that cause damage to the human body without engaging in ableism. Holding the capitalist system responsible for causing preventable harm to the human body while avoiding vilification of life with disability is a complex objective, but a necessary one. Completing the analysis results in a stronger, broader movement for full liberation from capitalist oppression.

The dread over impending disability is not an abstract or absolute emotion, but is highly dependent on the relationship between our body and wage labor. Boots Riley’s 2018 film Sorry to Bother You grotesquely depicts how the human body is a problem for capitalists to solve. Its intrinsic weakness is a hurdle to cheap and steady production, and therefore profit. The logical solution to the worker’s troublesome body is to turn them into unbreakable beasts of burden.

Ableism is rooted in the potential productive value of bodies under capitalism — we are enculturated to fear injury and disability because it decreases our value to the economic system. Socialism is a proposal for relief from this dynamic, even outside a fully-automated utopia. If we collectively determined what work needs to be done, and distributed that work evenly, we would dramatically increase leisure and eliminate coerced physical exertion. Once living a life of relative leisure, with all material needs met, is the long-term lifting capacity of your lower back still a concern? Would disability be distressing in a society built to fully accommodate a multitude of different bodies? Is chronic illness and pain so terrible if we have free, unfettered treatment?


The mission for socialists is not the (obviously impossible) elimination of injury, disability, and death. It is putting humans in control over their own bodies and collectively building a society where preventable harm is actually prevented. The work we do, even unsafe work, should be freely and democratically chosen, and should have a clear purpose to the individual and collective society. We have the right to die truly by accident, and experience fulfillment in the meantime.

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