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
Dec 10, 2018
No two ways about it: this has been another year of attacks on the working class. The bosses have been on the offensive. The corporations have increased their profits, at the expense of their workers’ standard of living.
The papers have been filled in recent weeks with news of the planned layoffs and shutdowns by major corporations.
Sears and Toys ‘R’ Us declared bankruptcy. GM announced the mothballing of 5 plants, and the layoffs of 14,500 workers. And Ford is poised, according to analysts, to declare layoffs and shutdowns that will dwarf GM’s. Not because any of these companies were truly forced to, but in order to make more profits for financial interests and stockholders.
Official unemployment rates are low, but we all know that these are false. At the same time as they report 3.7 percent unemployment, they also report that one third of adults of working age are still not in the workforce. Many of the people who are listed as employed are working part-time, or temporary, or officially “self-employed.” And prices continue to rise, while our wages haven’t risen in years.
In the run-up to the elections, no one mentioned these issues that are confronting all working class people throughout this society. Certainly, the Republicans never mentioned them. But neither did the Democrats.
At the same time, corporate profits have gone through the roof.
And it has come directly out of our hides. Our loss is their gain. Our further misery is the basis for their increase in profit. They are making more money than ever before—because they are making our lives worse.
And it is almost certainly about to get worse.
More and more economists are predicting a new recession in the next year or two. Stock markets are trending downward; they have already lost all gains they’d made for the year. When stock markets go down, who pays for the losses? Not the brokers, not the traders. No, we do—out of our 401(k)s, or in further layoffs and closings. One way or another, they make us pay.
What should we do heading into this next year? It would be a huge mistake to figure that something changed in this past election, to wait for the Democrats to do something to fix our situation in this next year. We’ve seen that play over and over and over again. Democrats get elected; they tell us to wait for them to do something; nothing gets done.
The Democrats do not represent the working class. No matter what they say, they represent a section of the ruling class.
No, if we want something to change for us, we will have to make it happen ourselves.
But there are things we can do. The working class has a lot of power, whether we’re conscious of it or not. And we have seen evidence of that in the past year, as well. Teachers struck and shut down whole state educational systems, from West Virginia to Arizona. They forced the state governments, who represent the capitalists, to give them something to pay them more, to keep the educational systems running, and to help the students. These strikes have shown workers the way—shut things down, and you get their attention. That is where our power lies.
The working class has the power, if we choose to use it.
We can help make 2019 a year of fights—and not a year of lost time and further attacks.
Dec 10, 2018
After running a year-long competition, pitting one city or state against the other, Amazon announced in mid-November that they chose New York’s Long Island City and Virginia’s Arlington as Amazon’s second headquarters. So, Amazon now has three headquarters: one in Seattle, one in New York, and one in Virginia.
If you are wondering why Amazon has three headquarters instead of one, the simple answer is that these headquarters come for free to Amazon since they are built by taxpayer money. That is, the workers are funding the Amazon’s headquarters, not Santa Claus!
Amazon says that New York and Virginia locations each will receive a $2.5 billion investment from Amazon. But, in reality, Amazon will profit by getting kick-backs or so-called “incentives” from the states and cities.
For example, New York State will give Amazon 1.5 billion dollars in employment tax credits, plus another 325-million-dollar tax credit for the size of the land that will be occupied by Amazon offices. New York City will provide a job creation tax credit of 897 million dollars over 12 years, plus a partial property tax abatement of 386 million dollars over 25 years. Thus, New York City and State will give Amazon over three billion dollars.
So, Amazon will gain over half a billion dollars just by building a so-called headquarters in New York!
Dec 10, 2018
On Black Friday, Amazon workers in England, Germany, Italy and Spain walked off the job and protested low wages and poor working conditions. Workers chanted slogans like, “Next day delivery should not mean a lifetime of pain for Amazon workers.”
Workers are facing the same problems all around the world. It’s nice to see someone stand up!
Dec 10, 2018
JB Pritzker, the billionaire, won the governor’s office for the Democratic Party just weeks ago. One of his biggest campaign planks was for a “graduated income” tax—one that would make the rich pay more to fund public services. Pritzker was always vague on the details, but as late as September he said his non-proposal would mean “the vast majority” of Illinoisans would pay less. It’s only three weeks after the election, but here’s what he says now: “There was, of course, in the heat of the campaign misunderstandings about what a progressive or graduated income tax really does for the state.” He didn’t even wait to take office in January, to backpedal! A rich Democrat that would tax the wealthy? It’s about as “real” a notion as Santa Claus.
Dec 10, 2018
On December 4, Jeffrey Epstein settled a civil case that will keep the details of his crimes sealed away—for now.
Epstein is a known abuser of children. For years, he lured dozens of teenage girls into his Florida mansion. He offered to pay them for massages—but instead coerced them into having sex with him or others. He then coerced them into luring their friends into the same situation. Thirty-six of these girls, some as young as middle school, told their stories to the FBI, and in 2007, Epstein was facing a case that should have put him in jail for life.
But the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami cut him a deal. Epstein spent just 13 months in a private wing of the Palm Beach County stockade. He was allowed “work release” to his downtown office for up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. His deal included immunity from federal prosecution for Epstein—and any unnamed “potential co-conspirators.” The deal sealed the details of Epstein’s crimes and shut down an ongoing investigation likely to catch other rapists and child molesters. According to a Miami Herald reporter, it was “one of the most lenient deals for a serial child sex offender in history.”
Why did he get his deal? Epstein was a money manager for some of the richest people on earth. His “potential co-conspirators” include many powerful men who spent time on his private island, nicknamed “orgy island,” or who flew in his private jet, called “Lolita Express.” He counted Bill Clinton and Donald Trump among his friends. Trump once said that Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
And Alexander Acosta, the U.S. Attorney who cut the deal to protect this serial child molester, is serving today as Trump’s Labor Secretary. He is the official who is supposed to stop human trafficking!
These ruling class men cover up each other’s crimes, at our children’s expense.
Dec 10, 2018
For the third year in a row, life expectancy in the U.S. went down in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control. This means the average person is dying at a younger age. With all the improvements in technology we have, this tells us that something is deeply wrong with our society.
Heart disease and cancer, the two leading causes of death, are killing fewer people. Instead, people are dying younger mostly because of drug overdoses and suicide–diseases of despair.
These problems are made worse by the lack of public services. Medically assisted drug treatment programs have been proven to help–but these programs are rarely accessible unless you have the money. And mental health services for suicide prevention are also woefully inadequate. One Stanford University researcher expressed it clearly: “The frustration that many of us feel is that there are things that could save many lives, and we are failing to make those services available.”
Addiction and suicide are becoming more common because our society increasingly fails to find a place for people. One third of the working-age population is not working. And many of those working have part-time or non-permanent jobs that don’t allow a worker to have a stable livelihood.
But the fundamental problem is not the drug addict, or the hopeless person who commits suicide. The problem is caused by the people who run this society, who create and profit from addiction and hopelessness. They are the ones we will need to take on.
The working class has an alternative point of view to offer. This society sets us against each other. But for the working class to find solutions to the problems we face, we will need to come together to build our power collectively.
There are no individual answers to the problems of jobs, declining wages, the destruction of public services, and the increased cost of living. When we come together to take these problems on, the working class will have to renew the old slogan of the Industrial Workers of the World: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” This idea by itself can help shake people out of the individual despair many find themselves in.
Dec 10, 2018
For days on end, the bosses’ media and politicians from both parties waxed poetic about former President George H. W. Bush. He was eulogized as a symbol of a “bygone-era” of civility in politics, memorialized for his call for a “kinder, gentler” nation.
In reality, he was hardly a “kinder, gentler” politician. As director of the CIA, Bush propped up the murderous regime of Augusto Pinochet, a regime that jailed, tortured and killed thousands of Chileans.
This is the same Bush who served as Vice President when the Reagan administration was carrying out the Iran-Contra Affair. This was a secret plot in which the U.S. sold arms to Iran, then supposedly an enemy of the U.S. Profits from the arms sales were in part used to fund U.S.-backed Contra rebels attempting to overthrow the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
For seven years, Bush refused to cooperate with investigators about the Iran contra affair, by turning over his diaries. Sound familiar?
Shortly after taking office as President, Bush proceeded to pardon six top Reagan officials implicated in Iran-Contra.
During his election campaign for President, Bush ran an infamous campaign ad linking the release from prison of Willie Horton, a convicted rapist, to his opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. For many years, it was considered the most racist campaign ad ever run.
As President, Bush directed the U.S. invasion of Panama. An estimated 3,000 Panamanians died in the attack. And for what?
The U.S. also carried out its first war against Iraq under Bush. The U.S. went to war supposedly in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein, previously a U.S. ally.
Part of the justification for this Iraq war was the claim that Iraqi soldiers were pulling babies from incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals. A 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl testified before Congress she had witnessed these crimes. She was actually living in Washington, D.C. at the time and was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador!
The first Iraq war set the stage for the second one, with all its terrible costs.
A “kinder, gentler” president? What a crock!
Dec 10, 2018
What follows are two editorials of the revolutionary working class organization Lutte Ouvière in France. In these excerpts from workplace newsletters, they address a nationwide movement called the “Yellow Vest” protests.
The “yellow vests” worn by protesters are hazard vests required for all drivers in France. They have become the symbol of the economic distress of the protesters. A new fuel tax planned for January sparked the protest. Gasoline in France costs roughly $7.00 a gallon and with the new tax, prices at the pump would go up!
In France, workers get only one paycheck a month. The rising cost of living has eaten into wages and retirement benefits. Half way through the month, many lack money for food and skip meals. The gas tax increase was the last straw in a worsening situation.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in more than 2000 rallies across France. The November 17 protests were a success despite the tragic death of a demonstrator in Savoie (a region in the Alps) and the injuries caused to some at different roadblocks. In some places the protests continued the next day and the following days as well.
For many demonstrators, these protests were their first experience of collective action. The rallies were organized at grassroots level and not by unions or political parties, as is usually the case. The politicians who pointed out the absence of clearly “identified organizers” were actually lamenting the fact that they had no one to negotiate with to put an end to the movement! For the workers, the problem is different: it’s about getting involved in the struggle and organizing it according to their interests.
The public and private-sector employees, unemployed workers and pensioners who participated in the roadblocks expressed their discontent by saying that they’ve had enough of having to tighten their belts just to have money for gas to get to work or to find work!
The working class must push for its own objectives and rally behind its own demands. The [President] “Macron, resign!” slogan is widely accepted. There is good reason to want to get rid of this government which caters to the rich.
But if workers want to fight for their right to a decent existence, they must target those in command—the capitalists who are leading the war on workers and whom President Macron cares for so deeply.
It is so that the shareholders of large companies can continue to make billions in profit that workers are forced to survive on low wages when they have a job or on unemployment benefits when bosses decide to close down companies in order to make even more profit.
Those participating in the “Yellow Vest” movement aren’t only employees; other social categories are taking part too. Bosses of transport and construction companies, farmers and artisans are putting forward anti-tax demands which correspond to their interests. These “anti-tax” demands limit the scope of the protests to opposition against the government which also allows right-wing and far right parties to attempt to play a role.
As long as the profits gained by the capitalists aren’t called into question, right-wing politicians like Marine Le Pen will be willing to swear they care for nothing but “the people” and its needs.
Public funds and money from taxes are going directly into the capitalists’ pockets. The 40 richest companies on the French stock market collect billions in subsidies and tax credits. If the government ends up easing the burden on small business owners by lowering fuel prices, it will look for other ways to take from the workers and give to the capitalists.
Prime Minister Philippe said that his government would not back down and he feels for those suffering. Workers aren’t asking for his understanding or charity to make ends meet. All they want is to make a decent living from their work. Workers are the ones who keep society running or who did so before getting laid off or retiring.
To prevent our standard of living from plummeting, we must demand that wages, benefits and pensions be increased at the same rate as prices. That means engaging in a major struggle against big business and the government that is at its service.
Employees know each other and meet every day at their workplaces where they are grouped together. Workers have the means to organize this fight. They have a fundamental weapon at their disposal because they are at the heart of production, of the distribution of goods and services and of the entire economy. Strike action allows workers to hit capitalists where it counts, right at the source of their profits!
Today, tomorrow and in the days that follow, we must continue to discuss our interests among workers and prepare to take the money that’s missing at the end of the month from where it can be found—in the capitalists’ treasure chests!
The government was outraged by “scenes of urban guerilla warfare” during the demonstrations on December 1. After years of taking hard hits to their living conditions, the working classes have had enough. Who can blame them? As one single mother living on the minimum wage put it: “It’s pretty violent when there’s nothing left in your fridge to feed your family before it’s even the end of the month.”
Opposition leaders, from the extreme right to the left, have all expressed their views. The rubbish they say about “an institutional solution” won’t change a thing for workers struggling to make ends meet. But the opposition parties hope to make the most out of rejecting President Macron’s policies and arrogance.
The “wealth tax” was a very small levy on the income of the capitalists, but it has been almost completely eliminated by Macron’s government. Yet this very same government says that increasing the minimum wage is impossible! Macron’s policies are all aimed at defending the interests of the capitalists.
Everyone in the demonstrations has taken up the cry of “Macron, OUT!” It is easy to understand why. But even if Macron goes, whoever replaces him will still carry out the same policies. The style may change but the roadmap won’t. It will be devised by the same capitalists who always dictate what governments do. If lightning bolts are only directed at Macron and his government, they’ll simply be hitting the lightning rod that is there to protect the capitalists.
When their system is in crisis, the capitalists maintain and increase their profits by enforcing wage freezes and increased exploitation. They apply speed-ups for those who still have jobs and leave nothing but unemployment for the rest. For all workers, refusing a drop in purchasing power means bringing the fight into the workplace and fighting for better wages.
Many of the “yellow vests” are calling for transparency in the state’s accounts. They know that the taxes they pay are not invested in essential public services. They want to know where the money goes. It’s in our own interests for the workers to monitor what the government does with the money. But workers should also monitor company accounts. The capitalists claim that they can’t increase wages or that they can’t hire anyone? If company accounts are made completely transparent and audited by the workers, the workers will then know where the billions made from their exploitation go.
By challenging the capitalist domination over our living conditions, workers will be opposing policies that affect all the lower classes. When capitalists freeze wages, close down companies, lay off workers, they affect neighborhoods, towns, sometimes even a whole region, including independent workers, small businesses, etc., whose fate is linked to that of the workers.
It is through collective struggle that we can enforce linking increases in wages, pensions and social benefits to cost-of-living increases so that price increases do not neutralize any gains that we make.
The day after this newsletter was published, on December 4, the French government announced they will delay the start of the fuel tax by six months. Demonstrations continue. This promise did not stop the movement, as the government might have hoped. One protester summed up his resolve with the statement, “these are just words. We want to see action, quickly.”
In addition, at dozens of high schools across France, students are protesting in the streets. They point to planned changes to their education system, which they say will worsen inequality. One student said that planned changes will “kill the vocational schools.”
Dec 10, 2018
Asia Bibi, a farmworker and mother in her 50s, is still at risk for her life in Pakistan, where religious fanatics call for her murder and a house-to-house hunt for Bibi continues. Offers of asylum are being discussed with some government officials in England, Spain, France and Germany.
She was condemned to death in 2010 for blasphemy against Islam, and was finally acquitted by the Supreme Court in Islamabad this October.
Almost ten years ago, Asia Bibi was accused by her Muslim neighbors of defiling the water of a well. She used the same tin cup used by Muslims to drink–but she is a Christian. Despite the fact that there is nothing in the precepts of Islam barring people of other religions from sharing a cup, Asia Bibi was accused of blasphemy and imprisoned under the 1986 “anti-blasphemy” law.
Condemned to death in 2010, she appealed, despite the threats to herself and her family. She won the support of many people, including some prominent politicians. Islamic fanatics killed two of them, the governor of the state of Punjab and the Pakistani Minister of Religious Minorities, both of whom advocated amendments to the anti-blasphemy law or its repeal.
This law serves as the pretext to accuse many hundreds of people every year, without any relationship to their religious beliefs. Some of these people are sentenced to death, though up to now, no one has been executed. The law continues to be enforced, regardless of which of the two political parties who divide power in Pakistan is in charge. In the context of their limitless corruption, it serves as a red flag they can wave to mobilize demonstrators, for or against its modification.
Pakistan is not alone in the role played by religious fundamentalism. There might not be an anti-blasphemy law, but in the United States, politicians use religious ideas to reinforce the most reactionary attitudes in the population. Christian fundamentalists have murdered doctors who carried out abortions. They form a base of support for those who seek to bar Muslims from entering the country. And as in Pakistan, religious fundamentalism is used to stir up hatred against homosexuals and women who demand equality.
In Israel, Jewish fundamentalism plays a similar role, justifying the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land by reference to the Bible, and reinforcing the same types of sexist and homophobic attitudes that are defended by Islamic and Christian fundamentalists.
The acquittal of Asia Bibi came just a few months after the election of a new prime minister, the ex-cricket champion Imran Khan. Outside of promising to fight corruption and fiscal fraud, Kahn calls himself a partisan of an “Islamic Providence state,” and says he is in favor of the anti-blasphemy law. In this context, the tenacity of Asia Bibi’s lawyer and of her family, her support within the country and abroad, and the courage of the judges who acquitted her, did not suffice to free her from Pakistan. The authorities finally released her from prison–but she is still barred from leaving the country, even though she and her family remain in danger of their lives.
In Pakistan, the situation for women is still terrible, especially for poor women, whatever religion they belong to. The acquittal of Asia Bibi is a victory won in women’s long, difficult struggle for equality.
Dec 10, 2018
The following article is the editorial from The Spark’s workplace newsletters, for the week of Dec. 3.
General Motors is closing down five plants and laying off 14,500 workers.
That announcement—shocking because it comes in the midst of so-called “good times”—was justified by one lie after another.
No one wants cars, says GM. Not true. In 2018, six million cars will be sold. The problem isn’t car sales. The problem for GM and the other two “American” companies is that cars produce less profit than do trucks and SUV’s. GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler have now decided to hand over the car market—except for the biggest, most profitable luxury models—to Japanese companies.
Remember, the three companies did this once before, when they ceded the market for small cars to Japanese and German automakers.
Ford, GM and FCA are now throwing away the whole car market. They don’t give dealers many choices, and they push consumers to “step up” to an SUV or even a truck—all the while counting out more profit.
GM expects these job cuts to provide it with 4.5 billion dollars more profit by the end of 2020.
But, says GM, the auto industry is changing rapidly, and GM needs to accumulate more profit to invest in electric cars and self-driving vehicles. Well, if that were the issue, GM already could have been investing—and many times that much. It had the money, but instead GM gave it away to Wall Street. Over the last three and a half years, GM bought back stock to the tune of 10.6 billion dollars, and put in motion plans to buy back almost four billion more—14.5 billion dollars.
Stock buy-backs do nothing but enrich the stockholders who get the money, and they enrich the stockholders who hold onto their stock, whose price is driven up. They are an enormous gift, added to many billions more GM paid out in dividends in the same period. All told, GM gave away 20 billion dollars to stockholders.
GM is not cutting production in order to invest in the future, it is cutting production in order to go on enriching stockholders right now.
If anyone still believes this lie that we are all stockholders—because we have a couple hundred shares of stock in our 401(k) accounts—pay attention to this: 90% of all stock is owned, often indirectly, by the richest 10% of the population. Most of it is held directly by the big Wall Street banking and “investment” firms.
No, GM is not cutting jobs to prepare for a high-tech future. It is answering the demands of Wall Street for still more money. Ford did it by paying out consistently high dividends, even when it had to borrow money to do it. If you owned a million dollars in Ford stock ten years ago, you are worth five million today.
All the companies are doing it. This year, the 500 biggest companies will hand over almost a trillion dollars in stock buy-backs—and almost as much more in dividends. These are pure gifts to people who do nothing but accumulate more money by owning money.
By the way, GM will certainly use the threat of these closed plants to extort still more wage and benefit concessions in the contract negotiations coming up this September. Every concession will mean still more profit—not only for the auto companies, but also for the benefit of Wall Street.
This is the world we live in today—a capitalist world, where production is carried out for profit, not to satisfy the needs of the population. It is a world where labor creates value, but doesn’t benefit from most of that value. It’s a world where those who do the work are denied a decent life, so the value they create can be stolen and handed over to the very tip top of capitalist society.
This is the world we live in—and it will go on being our world until the working class gives up the false hope that we can accept it and still live well. No, we can’t. And we won’t be able to live well until workers begin to move, fight back, refuse every indignity, and start tearing up this outrageous world.
Dec 10, 2018
The market of very risky loans for the most highly indebted companies has been booming. Last year, these very risky loans, called leveraged loans, broke the one trillion dollar mark. This year, they are the fastest growing kind of corporate loan in the U.S.
In many ways, corporate leveraged loans resemble the old subprime mortgage business, which collapsed 10 years ago. Just like how banks dealt with subprime mortgages 10 years ago, the banks today don’t bother to check if the companies can pay back the leveraged loans before lending the money to these companies. That is because—just like 10 years ago—they don’t hold onto these corporate loans. Instead, the banks combine the loans together and then chop them up into financial securities in order to sell to pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds, mutual funds and endowments all over the world, which seek these financial securities because they pay very high interest rates.
Not surprisingly, there is a very good chance that most of the very indebted companies that have taken out even more loans will default when an economic downturn hits, rendering the financial instruments worthless. And this could set in motion another financial collapse on a global scale, just like the subprime mortgage crisis did 10 years ago.
So what if the companies go bankrupt sometime in the future? The bankers and the big stockholders and owners already got their money.
So what if a rash of corporate bankruptcies brought on by this lending ignites a financial avalanche? Well then, these capitalists figure that the government will just make the working population pay for a new bailout ... just like it did after they brought on the financial collapse 10 years ago.
Dec 10, 2018
About 15,000 students in Los Angeles public schools are homeless, “and the actual figure is likely much higher,” according to L.A. school district officials. These are students who don’t have a permanent address. A homeless student may not be living in the street, but his or her family’s living arrangement (usually a motel, a garage, a room in a friend’s house, a shelter, or a car) does not allow for a place for the child to do homework, study, or even play–not to mention the emotional toll such instability takes on a young person’s physical and emotional development.
But chronic poverty, which eventually results in homelessness, is certainly not limited to one area. In fact, 80 percent of L.A. school district’s more than 600,000 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals at school.
Working-class people know the reasons behind the poverty. Jobs pay so little, and rent is so high in L.A., that working-class families keep paying a bigger and bigger part of their income for housing–until a family can’t afford the rent of a house or apartment and becomes homeless. Typical is the single, working-class mother who, having no credit or money for a down-payment, can’t rent an apartment–or sometimes even a garage–and is forced to live in a motel, where she ends up paying more, and is thus not able to break the downward spiral of poverty.
In other words, the reason behind poverty and homelessness is the workings of the capitalist system–the capitalists’ drive to increase profit by paying their workers less and, at the same time, increasing the prices of the goods and services they control.
The consequences are devastating from a human standpoint. Being deprived of a healthy development and an adequate education, children who grow up in poverty get stuck in the vicious cycle of perpetual poverty–especially when, as one L.A. Times reporter points out, the economy is organized to “serve those at the top.”
Dec 10, 2018
Police in Hoover, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham, shot a black man in the back after a shooting took place. Two people were wounded, 18-year-old Brian Wilson and a 12-year-old girl. Two cops nearby responded, one shooting and killing 21-year-old Emantic (EJ) Bradford, Jr.
But Bradford was not the shooter! Police eventually arrested another man, 20-year-old Erron Brown, for attempted murder in the shooting of Wilson.
Protesters have carried out numerous demonstrations over two weeks against the shooting of Bradford by the cop. Bradford’s family have also spoken out against his shooting by police and also against their actions since.
The cops initially claimed Bradford was responsible for shooting the two people wounded and that they shot him while he fled. They have since admitted, based on witnesses and forensic evidence, that Bradford did not fire the rounds that wounded the other two.
The cops also said Bradford had “brandished” a gun, but changed their story later. They said that he “had a gun in his hand,” when police shot him. Bradford’s family point out he had a permit to carry a weapon.
Gun rights advocates frequently say there need to be “good guys with guns” present when a shooter starts shooting. For cops around the country, that doesn’t seem to hold if the “good guy with a gun” happens to be black.
For example, Jemel Roberson, a black security guard in Midlothian, Illinois was shot and killed by a cop after Roberson shot a gunman who opened fire in a bar.
In Alabama, Bradford was “the good guy with a gun” that police shot in the back. The police give the appearance of a yet another racist coverup of the killing of a black man.
Dec 10, 2018
Teachers and staff at Acero charter schools hit picket lines Tuesday December 4th, in the first-ever charter school strike. The Acero network includes 15 schools, of over 7,000 students, with 550 teachers and staff. (Acero is the new name for the UNO schools–they “rebranded” in the wake of political and financial scandals.) Acero is the second largest charter school network in Chicago, with schools concentrated on the Northwest and Southwest sides, and a student body that is 95% Latino and overwhelmingly working class.
Staff and teachers held informational picketing Monday, before striking, getting a good response from students and parents. Those striking called for smaller class sizes and higher pay. Acero classes are uniformly large with most classes at 30 to 35 students. The Acero school day is an hour longer than the public schools, while teachers are paid substantially less.
The union demanded raises for teacher aides, as well as a salary schedule, a path for aides to become teachers, and more money for special education services. Acero has the money–the union notes that Acero took in 10 million dollars in additional funding last year, while actually cutting the amount that it spent in the classroom by one million. And the network is sitting on 24 million dollars in reserves. Acero’s “CEO,” Rich Rodriguez makes $260,000 a year–more than the woman who runs all of Chicago’s 500 public schools.
The strike gives the lie to the claim that charter schools are better for students. Charters siphon public money for their private operators, at the expense of working class kids’ education.
Early Sunday morning, the bargaining team reached a tentative agreement and suspended the strike. Teachers and staff won pay improvements, smaller classes and the sanctuary policy. Undoubtedly, it’s not enough. But it is more than they would have got without a fight.