5-hours day - Theses on reduction in working hours

11-15

11

The struggle to reduce working hours is a struggle against fascism and imperialist wars.

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It is also a struggle against unemployment, against the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto the working class, against social impoverishment and lack of solidarity.

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In capitalism, artificial intelligence is an instrument against the working class.

We, on the other hand, see artificial intelligence as a guarantee for the reduction of working hours in general and for the 5-hour day in particular. The "only" prerequisite is that the working class has artificial intelligence at its disposal and not the capitalist class. The class struggle will decide who benefits or harms from artificial intelligence, the working class or the capitalist class. Only with the socialist world revolution can the 5-hour day be realised on a global scale.

12

Accompanying demands for the 5-hour day:

- Rest breaks on the 5-hour day

- 30-minute recovery time for night workers

- Additional shifts off for night workers

- 30 additional days of holiday

- Early retirement with 75% continued pay

- Reduction of the age limit to 60 years

and many other measures to reduce working hours in the company.

13

The yellow unions do not view the demands for a reduction in working hours from the perspective of the workers, but from the perspective of the capitalists and in defence of the capitalist state against the proletarian revolution.

The yellow unions are on the other side of the barricade on the question of the reduction of working hours and their betrayal must be exposed and condemned by us in front of the masses.

On the other hand, RILU views the demands for the reduction of working hours exclusively from the workers' point of view, namely to use them as a means of struggle against capitalism and for the end of wage slavery.

The RILU focus their struggle for the 5-hour day on the basis in the workplaces and carry out oppositional work in the yellow unions for this purpose.

All demands for reductions in working hours in general and the demand for the 5-hour day in particular are fraudulent for the working class if they are not linked to full wage equalisation.

Any attempt by the capitalists to make up for their own losses by reducing working hours through even more intensification of work, rationalisation, flexibilisation, stress etc. must be thwarted at all costs.

The struggle for the 5-hour day opens the door to the world socialist revolution for the RILU.

14

The basic economic law of world communism is the absolute correspondence of productive forces and relations of production at such a high level of their development, where people have to spend less and less time and labour for the inevitable material world production, and in return satisfy their needs all the more and all the better.

It is the maximum satisfaction of the constantly growing material and cultural needs of the entire world society through the gradual minimisation of the time and labour required for the actual sphere of world production, on the basis of an abundant supply of goods, maximum productivity and the permanent revolutionisation of science and technology.

[Programme of the Comintern (SH) - §5]

15

Friedrich Engels:

" 'Proletarians of all countries unite'! Only a few voices responded when we shouted these words out into the world. Forty-two years ago now..." (MEW, Volume 22, page 58/59, German edition)

And so we of the Comintern (SH) will perhaps have to wait a few more decades after we shouted our slogan

"World proletariat - unite all countries!"

out into the world on 31 December 2006.

Friedrich Engels continued:

"The International lived only nine years. But that the eternal union of the proletarians of all countries founded by it still lives, and lives more vigorously than ever, there is no better witness to this than today. For today, as I write this line, the European and American proletariat is holding a military review of its forces mobilised for the first time, mobilised as one army, under one banner and for one next goal: the standard eight-hour working day, already proclaimed by the Geneva Congress of the International in 1866 and again by the Paris Labour Congress in 1889, to be established by law. And the spectacle of today will open the eyes of the capitalists and landlords of all countries to the fact that the proletarians of all countries are indeed united today. If only Marx were still standing beside me to see this with his own eyes!" (London, 1 May 1890)

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And so we also long for the day when the entire world proletariat holds a military review of its armed forces, mobilised as one world army, under one world flag and for one next world goal:

For the 5-hour day established by law worldwide !