the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 16, 2018
In the early morning hours of April 14, the U.S., assisted by its imperialist allies Great Britain and France, carried out a series of missile strikes on three targets in Syria.
As of this writing, the number of casualties is not known.
These missile strikes were supposedly a response to a chemical attack the Syrian government is said to have carried out on a rebel-held city, Douma.
Can anyone believe that the U.S. leaders are truly outraged by chemical attacks? Around 40 people were killed in the apparent chemical attack in Douma—but is the death of those 40 somehow more monstrous than the deaths of 350,000 Syrian civilians killed by bombs and guns, that the U.S. government apparently had no problem accepting? Or the millions dead in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of the U.S. military?
The U.S. government is no champion of democracy or peace in this region. It has long supported groups that were every bit as brutal, and every bit as reactionary and fundamentalist as ISIS. It supports Saudi Arabia, the most reactionary state in the region, which is also supporting fundamentalist groups in Syria.
Syrian president Assad’s brutality is not really a problem for the U.S. leaders, either. Until recently, the U.S. government was happy to sit back as Russia reinforced Assad in Syria’s civil war. U.S. leaders criticized Assad’s dictatorship and offered some weak support to rebel militias in order to cause some problems for Russia’s client state and to support Saudi Arabia. But they did not move to do anything that might further destabilize the region. They justified their actions under the banner of crushing ISIS while Assad’s forces, supported by Russia, crushed their opposition.
The recent collapse of the ISIS militias has created a new situation in which the U.S. is on the outside looking in. With Russia’s support, the Assad regime has been able to beat back the militias supported by the Saudi regime. In addition, Turkey, unhappy with the American support of the Kurds, has grown closer to Russia recently. In fact, Turkish president Erdogan recently held a summit with Russian president Putin and Iranian president Hassan Rohani, to discuss the settlement of the Syrian conflict.
It is no coincidence that the Western bombing attacks occurred right after the last Saudi-supported jihadist militias were driven out of Douma. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are losing the last shreds of leverage they have in Syria; so, the U.S. made a show of force—to assert that the U.S. and its ruling class would still protect their interests there, no matter what Trump recently said about “leaving very soon” and “letting someone else take care of it.”
Only now do the U.S., Britain and France shout in outrage about the Syrian government’s treatment of its own population. Only now, Trump calls Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a monster and an animal. The hypocrisy of imperialists knows no limit!
The day after the U.S. missile attack, Trump declared “mission accomplished.” Military chiefs announced that they had “struck the heart” of Syria’s chemical weapons manufacturing capabilities and stockpiles. But there is absolutely no indication that they touched these chemical weapons. And they certainly did not force anyone to agree to stop the killing—themselves included.
The day after the attacks, the Syrian population continued to die at the hands of the government, and the fundamentalist rebels, and all the countries supporting either side. Assad was seen going into work as if nothing had happened.
The U.S. show of force, under the pretext of outrage over the use of chemical weapons, does not at all aim to defend the Syrian population, nor to put an end to the war which has continued to punish and displace the Syrian population for seven years. This show of force is for the sole purpose of imposing the U.S. rulers’ right to participate in the disgusting chess game being played with the blood of the population.
The working class of the U.S. has no interest to support this barbaric attack on the population of Syria.
Apr 16, 2018
Jeffery Zeigler, a white homeowner in Rochester Hills, a suburb of Detroit, is charged with intent to murder after he fired his gun on a 14-year-old black teen. The teen, Brennan Walker, a freshman at nearby Rochester High, got lost on his way to school. One neighbor whose house he knocked at was kind enough to give him directions, but lost again, he knocked on Zeigler’s door.
Zeigler came to the door with his shotgun. Seeing this, the teen ran away. Despite the fact that he was in no immediate danger, Zeigler fired on him anyway.
Zeigler claims he thought it was a break-in. The incident occurred at 8:30 in the morning.
Zeigler tried to claim he tripped on his way to the door and the gun went off accidently. Fortunately, Zeigler had surveillance cameras and when police looked at the video, it showed he was lying.
Michael Bouchard, the Sheriff of Oakland County, where Rochester Hills is located, said the law is clear. Someone has the right to defend themselves if they’re really in danger, but not to come out shooting when someone is running away.
Zeigler is a retired Detroit firefighter. The money he was paid off the backs of Detroit taxpayers while he was working allowed him to retire to a wealthier suburb. Yet he still harbors racist attitudes.
The fact that one neighbor was willing to give the child directions shows that not everyone is racist. It’s certainly true that only some individuals are racist, yet we live in a society so distorted that someone like Zeigler can’t distinguish a 14-year-old teen dressed in clean clothes for school, carrying a backpack, and knocking on his door at 8:30 in the morning, from someone trying to burglarize his home.
We live in a time period that reinforces these kind of racist attitudes, when Trump signals his approval directly from the White House. The NRA responds to shootings like this by saying it’s okay for someone to defend their castle.
The only reason tragedy was averted in this case was that a 14-year-old black teen was smart enough to understand the racist attitudes that confront him in this society and ran away.
Apr 16, 2018
A West Virginia teacher said of their state-wide strike, “We wanted to inspire teachers all across the nation.” And inspire they did.
Following the increase in wages won by West Virginia teachers in their recent strike, teachers in Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona have threatened to follow suit.
Oklahoma and Arizona are two states that cut taxes, with the biggest beneficiaries being the corporations and the wealthy. For example, Oklahoma’s budget suffered a five hundred million dollar drop in revenue from natural gas production. So naturally, public workers, including teachers, are supposed to suffer the consequences through pay cuts.
In Kentucky, for the same reasons, new teachers will only get a 401(k) type pension, without Social Security, thanks to the governor of Kentucky taking away regular, defined pension benefits, due to “budget constraints.”
Although these states are Republican-controlled states, legislators in Democratic-controlled states have also forced teachers and students to make do with ever fewer resources.
The corporations pretend they cannot make profit without more handouts from every state; the state legislators, whether Republican or Democrat, go along with this nonsense.
The entire population pays and pays, not only teachers. While the money exists to cover the many costs, politicians pit the population against teachers and public workers, and everyone loses. Students get a worse education; roads, waterways and sewers are allowed to disintegrate. More jobs are cut.
Teachers in four states have made a start on trying to get what is needed for a decent education. Teachers in West Virginia won partial relief, while Arizona and Kentucky have seen big demonstrations of teachers and supporters determined to win gains.
After a 9-day walkout with big demonstrations and school shut-downs, Oklahoma teachers got a $6,000 addition to their salaries. And in Arizona, to try to prevent a walk-out by teachers, the state legislature has agreed to offer teachers 20% more in wages over the next three years.
No doubt, other fights will have to follow to make legislators pay what the population–not the corporations–needs.
Apr 16, 2018
More than one third of college students questioned in a survey said they did not have a stable home, and about one in eleven said they were homeless. The newly-published survey covered 43,000 students at 66 colleges in 20 states and Washington D.C., so these numbers point to a real, deep crisis that is prevalent across the U.S.
Similar surveys in recent years have yielded similar results. And the situation is worse at community colleges: 46 per cent, or nearly half, of the community college students surveyed said they had difficulty paying for housing. And that, too, is not a surprise. The proportion of students from a working-class background is higher at community colleges, because sky-rocketing tuition and other costs put four-year universities out of their reach. In other words, the crisis of poverty in colleges hits, first and foremost, the working class.
Students try to cope with homelessness in different ways, such as living in a shelter, “couch-surfing,” living in their cars or trying to catch sleep in empty buildings on the college campus. But dealing with housing issues, students often miss class and can’t concentrate on their studies. Especially since the same students often go hungry as well.
Even if they can escape homelessness and hunger, many working-class students have to spend long hours working while they go to school–which again makes it harder for them to complete their degrees.
In the end, all this means that working-class students often can’t get the college degree that they are told would help them out of poverty. It is the same old vicious cycle that traps workers, generation after generation, in a web of poverty and exploitation.
The only difference now is that a deep, lasting economic crisis has more openly exposed the age-old lie that, through education, capitalist society offers the working class a way to improve its condition.
Apr 16, 2018
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in the wake of the news that Cambridge Analytica had collected and used the personal information of up to 87 million of Facebook users. Early in the hearing, Senator Orrin Hatch asked Zuckerberg, “How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” The question was so basic, Zuckerberg answered it in just four words, “Senator, we run ads.”
Zuckerberg’s subsequent testimony made it clear that Cambridge Analytica is hardly alone in collecting such information. Facebook exists for the express purpose of selling users’ personal information to advertisers so they can more effectively target their ads to consumers. As media theorist Douglas Rushkoff once put it, “We are not Facebook’s customers, we’re its product.”
Facebook has convinced many people it is the only way to communicate. What many don’t understand is that in the process, Facebook and its advertisers are gathering every bit of information on everything clicked on; not just what products a person might be curious about, but what they’re interested in politically and socially. Marketers have the ability to collect users’ relationship status, employer, job title and education.
A New York Times writer, Brian Chen, investigated what Facebook had on him and found it had his entire phone book from his iPhone because he had uploaded it when using Facebook’s messaging app. The company not only had his “Friends” list, but a list of “Removed Friends” he had “unfriended.” They don’t intend to make it easy for people to truly delete their information, at least not without paying for the service.
It’s not just Facebook, either, of course. Chen also looked into Google and found it had collected more than 10 times as much data on him as Facebook, including articles he’d read and apps he had opened on his Android.
Add in the photos that someone can gather from platforms like Facebook and it hardly seems difficult for someone to assume someone else’s identity.
If anyone expects Congress to do something to stop this invasion of privacy, don’t hold your breath! Facebook’s stockholders certainly don’t. The price of Facebook stock shares rose 5.3 per cent by the day after Zuckerberg’s testimony. Zuckerberg’s own stock rose in value by three billion dollars.
The senators who questioned Zuckerberg appeared pretty clueless about how Facebook operated. If they really had any intention of regulating companies like Facebook, they might have brought someone in as competent as Zuckerberg to testify about the problems.
This should come as no surprise since the politicians serve in the interests of the wealthy like Zuckerberg and corporations like Facebook and Google.
Apr 16, 2018
By a vote of six against five, on April 5 the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that former president Lula must go to prison. Following after many politicians, big bosses, and high officials, the ex-president has fallen victim to the Petrobras scandal.
Lula is the target of a dozen investigations, but the judges didn’t find any major, concrete evidence against him. He is not being sent to prison for twelve years for purely legal reasons.
The condemnation of Lula, leader of the Workers Party, is above all political. We can understand the indignation of those who demonstrate against his imprisonment, because dozens of politicians who are openly corrupt and were caught at it are still governors of states or continue to sit in the senate or the national assembly. Michel Temer, the current right-wing president, only got his position because Dilma Rousseff, from the same party as Lula, was removed from power. Temer is also accused of serious corruption, but the national assembly refuses to launch an investigation.
Forty years ago, Lula was a worker, a militant, a leader of strikes that shook the dictatorship. Even though he was not a revolutionary, for years he represented the hope of a better world in the eyes of Brazilian workers, a world where the military and the bosses would not be all-powerful.
Later, as president from 2003-2010, Lula benefitted from a healthy economy to give the poor a few more social programs. But he also deceived the voters of his own party, the Workers Party. He gained power promising a clean and transparent government, but he ran the government just like his predecessors. Lula, and then Dilma Rousseff, governed in an alliance with the right.
The Workers Party was worn out by having the power. And when there were big demonstrations against that party at the end of 2013, the right saw a chance to take its revenge. Dilma Rousseff was removed from power in 2016, and now Lula is in prison. From the perspective of the coming October presidential election, where they are favored to win, Lula’s opponents are glad to see him isolated.
The bourgeoisie and reactionaries never accepted that a man who came from the ordinary part of the population might become president, and now they want to take their revenge by throwing Lula in prison. But they will not so easily cage the aspirations of the workers and the poor.
Apr 16, 2018
This article is from the March 10th, 2018 edition of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in Martinique and Guadeloupe.
For several weeks, the extent of soil contamination in Martinique and Guadeloupe by the banned pesticide known as Kepone has been back in the news. Both animals and humans are severely affected. But no one talks about those who had to work for years with pesticides and herbicides like Kepone: the agricultural workers.
On Saturday, March 3rd , banana workers and their unions CGT Guadeloupe and CGT Martinique felt the need to make their protests heard. They organized a joint press conference in Pointe-à-Pitre [Guadeloupe’s largest city] to publicize the complaint they planned to file so that the banana plantation owners who sold Kepone might be punished. They demanded that agricultural workers—both those living and dead, as well as their descendants—be compensated for having been poisoned while working with these dangerous products. Marie-Hellen Marthe, also called Surelly, the General Secretary of the CGT Martinique agricultural workers’ union, and her comrades, Luciana Vincent Sully and Marie-Sainte, Albert Cocoyer, the General Secretary of the CGT Guadeloupe banana workers’ union, and Jean-Marie Nomertin, a former banana worker and the General Secretary of the CGT Guadeloupe federation held the conference. Jean-Marie Nomertin is also known for being the spokesperson for our political group, Combat Ouvrier, in Guadeloupe.
The banana workers who were present filled the room. They described their experiences. Kepone was used under several names: Chlordecone, Curlone… The pesticides were spread on the ground by hand and by crop-dusting. The workers who spread it came into direct contact with the dangerous products. These products are so toxic that some workers were burned, with the chemicals eating into their skin and flesh. Others died from poisoning in the hours after the product was spread over the ground. Even the workers who were not directly involved in spreading the pesticides suffered from the effects, since they worked in the middle of the polluted plantation.
In order to get the workers to agree to expose themselves to these poisons, the plantation bosses presented the job of spreading them as if it were a privilege: those who sowed the pesticides got to finish their workdays much earlier. Those who hesitated or refused to work in contact with the products were simply fired.
As a result, a high number of workers died of cancer (particularly prostate cancer), Parkinson’s disease, and even paraplegia well before the age of retirement. The poison also affected their children, since some of them were born with handicaps or developed them later.
Since the 1970s, banana workers in the fields have denounced how dangerous these products are. Workers at a demonstration in 1974 held up a sign that said “No to Nemacur!” [another banned pesticide used to kill nematode worms].
Today, the agricultural workers of Martinique and Guadeloupe are attacking those who are directly responsible. On the one hand, they target the banana industry bosses who are mostly békés [descendants of the European colonists], most notably Hayot, De Lucy, De Lagarigue, Lemetayer, Duflo, Lignières, Chaulet—for having marketed known poisons. On the other hand, they target the government for having granted exemptions to the plantation owners even after Kepone was outlawed in France in 1990. They call for reparations, including for their comrades from the islands of Haiti, Dominica, and Saint Lucia, as well as their family members.
The workers of the two islands are united in this fight, since they have the same exploiters and poisoners: the large béké families and the French government. These are the true killers!
Apr 16, 2018
The following editorial appeared in the workplace newsletters distributed by Lutte Ouvrière, the revolutionary workers group active in France, during the week of April 2. Since it was written, there have been two weeks when railroad workers went on strike for two days each. These strikes were widely followed. The head of SNCF, the French national railway company, had to admit that in the second week, the country’s whole rail network was shut down.
Railroad workers are expected to go massively on strike on April 3 and 4. Train drivers, rail traffic controllers, ticket controllers, station agents, mechanics, track men: all categories, including management, are mobilized and, on average, only one train out of eight or ten should run.
Some commentators spent the past few weeks trying to prove that it was no longer possible to organize a strike comparable to the movement that shook SNCF (the state-run railroad corporation) in 1995. But the railroad workers are showing that they haven’t lost their fighting spirit and determination. They just won’t bow down and they have a ton of good reasons to stand up to the government. By fighting back today, railroad workers are showing the way!
Working people have been told by the government that economic recovery is here; they have heard that companies are making record-high profits; and they have seen a handful of the super-rich accumulate unprecedented wealth. Why then should workers be dismissed, have their wages frozen or their retirement benefits diminished? Why should workers accept growing job insecurity?
The government’s plan for the railroad sector is yet another gift to big capital owners and an attack against working people. It means fewer rights for railroad workers but also the end of what was left of the “public service” mission of the SNCF.
When they stand up for their status, railroad workers stand up for their jobs, wages and retirement benefits. That is exactly what the employees of Air France are doing. And the employees of Carrefour supermarkets for that matter, who went on strike last weekend against the layoffs announced by management. And the public-sector workers who joined the strike action of SNCF workers on March 22.
We must show our support for this strike, even if it makes our lives complicated. Before the strike even began, railroad workers had to face a strike-breaking campaign, which will no doubt intensify when commuters are confronted with the problems caused by the strike. In August, 2016 the French government adopted a labor law that made it easier for the bosses to impose their side on all aspects of labor-management relations, called the El Khomri law. During the movement against this El Khomri law, the socialist government used any and every argument against striking workers in refineries and SNCF. They were accused of blackmailing the entire country, of lacking solidarity towards the victims of floods, and even of wanting to disrupt the European soccer championship!
Similar arguments will inevitably be used against striking railroad workers. Their “selfishness” or “corporatism” will make the headlines—drawing attention away from the outrageous greed of the capitalist bosses.
The CEO of car maker Peugeot, Carlos Tavares, was recently handed a one-million-euro bonus for the takeover of Opel, but the wages of Peugeot workers are still frozen. The management of Carrefour supermarkets dared to announce a yearly profit-sharing bonus of 57 euros per employee while the shareholders received 356 million euros! As for Whirlpool, this company recently offered a clothes dryer to every employee being laid off. And no member of the government was shocked by this!
So, let’s face it: this strike will cause a number of difficulties for most everyone. But the workers’ best interest is for the strike to gain momentum and be victorious.
In the public and private sectors alike, we have been under fire for decades. Since coming to power, French president Macron has multiplied the government’s attacks against working people. He has dismantled labor legislation, made it easier for bosses to sack workers, lowered housing aid, diminished the number of subsidized jobs, increased workers’ share of social security, reinforced controls on the unemployed, etc. Up until now, he hasn’t met strong opposition. But today, railroad workers are ready to put up a fight and that can make a huge difference.
If the railroad workers’ strike picks up strength and gets the support of working people, Macron’s government could be facing defeat for the first time.
This victory would benefit all working people. It would put an end to the government’s offensive. It would teach a lesson to arrogant local chiefs and dignitaries. And it would restore the workers’ self-confidence.
So let’s all say it loud and clear: the railroad workers’ strike is our strike. We must stand up for it. Alongside the railroad workers, we can make Macron and his government bite the dust.
Apr 16, 2018
According to a study recently released by the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), the agency that grades students nationally every two years, Detroit schools are worst in the U.S., again, when it comes to testing children’s test scores in math and reading.
Detroit is not alone in its so-called bad report card. Students in cities like Baltimore and Cleveland have also ranked poorly.
Whether they are studies conducted on a state level or on a national level by so-called education experts, millions of dollars are spent every year that show the same results, generation after generation: poor kids tend to do poorly on these standardized tests.
We live in a class society, where children of class privilege have access to a whole range of things poor kids aren’t guaranteed: food, clothing, shelter, and culture. They have schools near where they live and transportation to get them there. They have laptops and go on field trips. They live in neighborhoods where much more money and many more resources go into their school systems. And in those schools, they have access to the ideas, the technology, the science, the reading, the math, that these standardized tests are based on. It’s why these are the kids who score highest on tests–on knowledge they have had access to!
All those politicians, State Boards of Education, and experts with agencies like the NAEP, say they want to address the problems in the schools, of which these low test scores are a symptom.
But just to begin to overcome some of the problems would have to mean that school funding in cities like Detroit and Baltimore not only be brought up to the higher levels of funding that exist in the wealthy areas. That funding would have to be tripled and quadrupled to allow kids coming from poor backgrounds to overcome all the deprivation they have faced over their young years–whether it is in the form of resources for laptops, for field trips, for food service, for transportation, for tutors, for counselors.
They need more. And until we have a society where there is no poverty, where people have meaningful work, and have what they need to live full, productive lives, this system needs to expend any amount it takes to fix the problems this system has created.
Apr 16, 2018
Because of complaints about homelessness, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority jumped up its spending on policing by 37% this year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Metro’s budget for policing is now close to 207 million dollars a year. This is huge.
Increased policing is no doubt a response to complaints by others about the homeless–not intended to help the homeless themselves. Homelessness is a social issue that comes out of huge cuts in social programs. It is an economic problem, due to skyrocketing rents and falling wages.
And you can’t solve social and economic issues with more cops.
Apr 16, 2018
The Southern California Metropolitan Water District’s Board of Directors recently voted to accept two-thirds of the cost of building two massive water tunnels–a cost that will be paid mostly by the public. The project is as big or bigger than the English Channel Tunnel and Boston’s Big Dig.
State and local officials claim that this project is necessary to secure more water resources for growing population centers, including Los Angeles and San Diego. But the dirty little secret is that in Southern California total water consumption by people and business has actually declined by at least 20 per cent over the last two decades.
No, the real purpose of the water tunnels is to divert much more fresh water from two big rivers in Northern California to the big industrial farms and ranches of the Central Valley. These farms and ranches already suck up 10 times as much water as all 38 million people who live in the entire state. It takes massive amounts of water to produce crops in the middle of bone dry deserts!
The population will pay more and will face huge environmental destruction, especially in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta, the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast, all to “irrigate” the profits of the industrial farms and ranches in the South.
Nobody really knows how much these tunnels will cost. Currently, officials claim the price tag is “only” 17 billion dollars. But factoring in long-term financing costs, estimates are that the real cost will range as high as 67 billion dollars. To pay this, the water district may soon impose much, much higher water bills and property taxes on most state households.
Apr 16, 2018
Gas prices are skyrocketing in California. The average price for a gallon of self-serve regular gas in Los Angeles County is now around $3.50, up from $3.00 per gallon a year ago. This translates into a 17% hike, in just one year.
This huge rip-off includes a federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon. Add the State of California’s sales tax, around 9 cents, and then 2 cents more for underground storage tank fees.
Then come the excise taxes, taxes directly levied on companies, which pass them on to us by increasing the gas price.
In California, excise taxes on gas are about 47 cents. These excise taxes include 10 cents a gallon—supposedly for the cost of producing cleaner burning gasoline; 12 cents a gallon for California’s cap and trade program; 7 cents a gallon for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
In total, the California drivers pay around 77 cents as taxes for every gallon at the gas pump, or about 22% in taxes. But there’s more!
Add on the “California mystery gasoline surcharge,” that roughly translates into an additional charge of 20 to 30 cents on every gallon pumped in the state! This mysterious surcharge corresponds to between 3 billion to 4 billion dollars a year of income to the gas industry!
In California, the oil refinery industry is consolidated in the hands of a few companies in recent years. Tesoro and Chevron have been estimated to make up nearly half of the state’s refining capacity.
We are getting robbed at the gas pump by these companies and by the state and federal governments, which give our tax money over to these companies in tax breaks and other financial schemes.
Apr 16, 2018
When Chicago Public Schools recently did a “blitz” of health inspections at 125 of the system’s 650 schools, 91 failed. CPS’s own inspectors found rodent droppings, pest infestations, filthy food-preparation equipment, and bathrooms that were dirty, smelly and lacking hot water.
Behind all of this filth is the privatization of custodial services. CPS turned over management of these services to corporate giants Aramark and Sodexho-Magic. At the time, the School Board claimed this would both save the schools money and result in cleaner schools. But Aramark and Sodexho realized “savings” by laying off the people doing the cleaning. The number of custodians working in the buildings has dropped by about half.
It has been obvious for months that privatization has produced filthy schools. Last June, a number of Kenwood Academy students complained of nasty conditions at a Board of Education meeting. Mollison Elementary parents brought in news outlets to publicize the rat infestation at their school.
The custodians themselves have been speaking out. 150 picketed the Board of Education the week before the “blitz.” One explained that she spent hundreds of dollars out of her own pocket to buy cleaning supplies: “The cleaner I get is 98 percent water and 2 percent solution. I can’t clean 15 rooms, a library, six bathrooms and three flights of stairs with water.” She pointed out that CPS and Aramark were faking their inspection system before this “blitz”: the inspector would visit one school, and then Aramark would tip off all the schools in the area. “That’s the only time you get supplies, everything you need, when they’re having a ‘blitz’ or an inspection.”
Despite their criminally poor work, the management companies are set to take over management of all maintenance and facility services at the schools. Clearly, CPS puts the profits of these corporations before the health of students and teachers.