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 11, 2023
In the last two years, the attacks on the working class escalated as the corporations raised prices much faster than wages. This raging inflation brought down the standard of living of every working person and their families. For more than 40 years now, the working class in this country has seen their lives steadily worsen.
For too many years, there has been little resistance from the working class. But in 2023 more workers began to fight back, with a marked increase in strikes. The strike by UAW autoworkers was the most significant, but not the only one. In Michigan, there were also strikes at Blue Cross and the Detroit casinos. Around the country, there were strikes by hospital workers; by hotel workers in Los Angeles and Las Vegas; by SAG-AFTRA, the ordinary workers who make the film and TV industry run; by Portland teachers; as well as many other smaller strikes. There were organizing attempts and fights by workers at Amazon and even Starbucks.
Certainly, there have been bigger strike waves in the past. But the half million workers who went on strike in 2023 were four times as many as in 2022 and eight times as many as in 2021. This could be the opening to a new period of working class struggles.
Nonetheless, the strikes that did happen show that an opportunity was lost. Two big industrial unions, the Teamsters at UPS and the UAW at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, had contracts that expired this year. A fight by those workers together had the potential to bring even more workers into a struggle that could really push back the bosses. That did not happen.
A fight by the Teamsters at UPS could have opened the door for a fight by millions of other workers who work in delivery and transportation—workers who also face low wages and also have jobs that are often only temporary or part-time. But after posturing that they would not extend the strike deadline, the Teamster leadership backed down. They pushed UPS workers to accept a contract that had some pay raises, but allowed UPS to continue to leave the majority of the UPS workers with jobs that are only part-time.
The new leadership in the UAW also promised a stronger stand against the auto bosses. The leaders did call a strike, but the strike was limited to a few plants and less than one third of the workers. When the strike was settled, the new UAW leadership acted just like the old UAW leadership, trying to sell the contract to the workers. They called this contract a “record” contract, even though the pay raises did not nearly give workers what they had lost to inflation. And the contract did nothing to address the horrible working conditions that auto workers face.
The way this strike was organized, there was no way for workers to get what they really needed—not unless, that is, they broke out of the straitjacket that the unions under this “new” leadership put on the strike. To fight for raises that keep up with inflation, to fight for decent working conditions, to fight for full-time jobs—all this would take a fight against the capitalist class. Today every part of that class bases their profits on high prices and low wages, on speed-up, and on jobs that are part-time and temporary. In other words, what is needed is the power of the whole working class.
Shawn Fain, the new president of the UAW, may have said that the working class is in this together. But he didn’t call on other workers to join the fight. Actions, not words, count.
Most of the workers in the auto industry today work for the parts suppliers. They work for even lower wages and have worse conditions than the UAW workers at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Those workers had their owns reason to come out and join a fight together. The problems will not be addressed by one union at one or a few companies. Every worker is involved. Spreading the fight is what the working class needs to do.
That is the perspective and the attitude that the working class needs going forward. The strikes this year may have been limited. But workers who came through them have an experience that can help them gain a wider perspective. There is no reason they have to wait until the next contract to begin their next fight.
Dec 11, 2023
For months, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office has been planning to build a tent camp to house migrants on a former industrial site in Brighton Park, on Chicago’s Southwest Side. The plot at 38th and California had been used by a zinc smelter, a rail yard, and for parking trucks. Initial tests showed mercury, arsenic, and lead contaminants in the soil.
No matter, the city said, that could be cleaned up during the preparation for the site. Work had just begun, with tent structures going up, when Governor Pritzker and the Illinois EPA stepped in, putting the project on hold.
Anyone who’s been through a Chicago winter knows that a tent camp is a terrible idea for housing. There has been a lot of pushback in the neighborhood for months. Currently the city is housing 13,500 migrants in shelters, with 580 still occupying police stations and even O’Hare and Midway airports—down from several thousand months ago.
For the migrants, coming from countries like Venezuela, this has been a mess every way you look at it. Chicago is a wealthy city, with lots of vacant office buildings downtown. But all it can offer to the migrants is a toxic lot with tents, in the winter.
Dec 11, 2023
At a 5:30 PM news conference on Thursday, December 7, Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) officials announced that Baltimore’s light rail line would be shut down at midnight that night. This light rail line normally transports thousands of riders every day to work, school, medical appointments, and other crucial parts of their lives. Shuttle buses were supposed to be available at all light rail stops to transport light rail riders. But they got people to their destinations later than usual.
The light rail shutdown was prompted by electrical problems on some light rail cars. On October 21 a high-voltage electrical short caused an electrical explosion and fire on a light rail car that injured a passenger. During the shutdown, inspections were supposed to be done on all 53 light rail cars and repairs made as needed. When at least six cars are inspected and repaired, light rail service is supposed to resume on a limited basis. MTA said it did not know when this would be accomplished.
Officials say the light rail cars are between 21 and 34 years old. They were all supposed to have had a mid-life overhaul after about 15 years of service. But maintenance was deferred, and it wasn’t until 2014 that overhauls actually began, after MTA awarded a 150 million dollar contract to rail car manufacturer Alstom to make needed improvements on all 53 cars. Now overhaul work is still underway even though many cars are past their complete replacement dates according to industry standards.
“The reason we are having this service shutdown in the first place is because (mid-life overhaul) was deferred so long,” said Eric Norton, director of policy and programs for the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance. Norton says federal data shows that Baltimore’s light rail line breaks down more frequently than similar lines in other cities.
Alston itself has also been criticized for problems with their work. A recent report from the Amtrak Office of Inspector General said that all the trains produced by Alstom for Amtrak have had defects including spontaneously shattering windows, leaking hydraulic tilting systems and corrosion between cars caused by water drainage problems.
So, there’s plenty of blame here to go around regarding MTA’s suspension of light rail service in Baltimore—from MTA officials to Alstom. But they aren’t going to pay for it—ordinary light rail riders and Maryland taxpayers are.
Dec 11, 2023
Last May, California, along with Arizona and Nevada, agreed to cut the amount of Colorado River water it uses by 10% until 2026. In return, the federal government is offering recipients of Colorado River water in these states—agricultural landowners—1.2 billion dollars from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
That will amount to handing out millions of dollars to big landowners—supposedly to persuade them to give up part of their irrigation water to save the Colorado River, which has been shrinking under the effects of a long drought.
But all that talk about “sacrificing to save the river” is actually bogus. As Politico also reported recently, big landowners in California have so much water that they have already been forgoing much of it under previous agreements—selling it, basically, and for much less than what the federal government is offering them now.
Landowners in the Palo Verde Irrigation District, for example, a small agricultural area at the California-Arizona border, had already reduced the amount of Colorado River water they used by 130,000 acre-feet per year (a quarter of California’s share of the cuts) since 2004. In return, first the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and then the federal government had been paying them 270 dollars per acre-foot. But now the Biden Administration will pay them 400 dollars per acre-foot—about 50% more!
But the biggest winners of this “water conservation” scam will be the big landowners in the Imperial Valley, another small agricultural area in the Sonoran Desert and the single biggest recipient of Colorado River water. The Biden Administration will pay Imperial Valley landowners 800 dollars per acre-foot, twice as much as what it is offering other water districts, amounting to an annual 200-million-dollar gift to Imperial Valley landowners, at the expense of taxpayers. The excuse for the higher price is that these landowners get 800 dollars per acre-foot for the tons of water they have already been selling to San Diego since 2003.
The federal government has built, and owns, the extensive water system that channels Colorado River water to agricultural landowners in seven states. And big landowners obviously get much more water than they need from the Colorado. So, the government could just impose the cuts. Why, then, is the federal government dishing out hundreds of millions of dollars on top of the free water the landowners get?
Because that’s what politicians that run the government do: they hand out money to big business. And the shrinking of the Colorado River? To these politicians, it’s just another excuse to shovel money to the coffers of big companies.
Dec 11, 2023
Several months after a fire in a three-story apartment building in Washington, D.C.’s mostly working class and black Anacostia neighborhood displaced 18 residents, the city is still putting up a number of families in a hotel.
Eleven families in the burned-out building were in D.C.’s Rapid Re-Housing Stabilization program, which subsidizes rent for around a year for families who were homeless. As with many housing subsidy programs, the household pays around a third of their income toward the rent, and the city pays the landlord the difference.
Investigations after the fire exposed the shockingly bad conditions in this building. There were 59 housing violations such as holes in the walls and mold in bathrooms. The washing machines were broken. Electrical outlets were broken. Air conditioning and ovens didn’t work.
But D.C. has been paying around $1,500 per month per family to the politically connected landlord to basically warehouse these women and children in this run-down, infested ruin.
The D.C. government feels it has to do something to address homelessness. But at the same time, as a government under capitalism, it is duty-bound to not interfere with the housing market—meaning, landlords’ rights as property owners to raise rents horrifyingly high, and to maintain their investments as poorly as they please, so long as the rent money keeps coming.
This kind of outrageous situation will happen again and again, until the working class builds a better system.
Dec 11, 2023
For some people in the U.S., the period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is called “the holidays.” Some even get extra time off to gather with family and celebrate. And for many big corporations like Amazon, Walmart, or UPS, these are holidays indeed for their giant profits!
But for retail workers, delivery drivers, and many others, there is no holiday season: there is only “peak.” Hours stretch on and on with few breaks. Work weeks of six or even seven days become the norm, for a month and a half straight. Many of these workers are officially part-time—even while they’re putting in 70-hour weeks!
Workers need those hours, because pay in these industries is so low. For most of the year, workers struggle to get enough hours to pay the bills or work two or three jobs. Many workers kill their bodies during “peak,” just to save up a little to survive the rest of the year.
What a crazy system, where instead of the holidays being organized for human beings to enjoy each other’s company and celebrate, they are organized for all of these companies to maximize their profits—at the expense of a huge share of the working class.
Dec 11, 2023
Half of all members of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists reported drug shortages, according to the New York Times. Many drugs from every therapeutic category have been in short supply at some point since the early 2000s, on average for around 1.5 years. These include potentially life-saving cancer drugs, antibiotics for treatable illnesses, and medications for ADHD that allow people to function day-to-day.
Most of the drugs in short supply are generics, which are less profitable for the drug manufacturers to make. As a result, the drug companies simply stop producing them or limit their amounts. Larger health care systems watch for supply shortages and engage in panic buying, leaving little or nothing for smaller health care systems.
The federal Food and Drug Administration is responsible for holding pharmaceutical companies to quality standards, but winds up relaxing the requirements when drugs are in short supply. Patients wind up receiving lower quality drugs. At other times, health care providers are forced to switch to a completely different, less effective alternative medication. Deaths from septic shock, for example, increased by 10% in 2011 when there was a shortage of the best drug for treating it, norepinephrine, according to the Times.
In this society in which the quality of health care one receives is based on how much one can afford to pay, it’s workers who more often than not wind up not receiving the drugs they need. Many have stories of going to one provider only to be told they have to go elsewhere. How many workers have time for this, and how many go without treatment because they have no health insurance?
The politicians in Congress have supposedly tried to address problems of drug shortages, yet the problems continue. Profit still remains at the heart of medical care in this country, so we shouldn’t hold our breaths waiting for the politicians of either party to find a way to force the pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs without guaranteeing them profits.
Dec 11, 2023
This award-winning non-fiction book narrates the events surrounding a 2012 school bus crash and fire in the West Bank. Seven Palestinian kindergarten students died. The author painstakingly details all the events which led up to the crash, some personal, some historical. He presents the historical details by telling the stories of all the individuals involved, the parents, the teachers, the security personnel, of how they all came to intersect on that fateful day. As each character unfolds, he presents maps and detailed background information which enable the reader to see the plight of the Palestinians, mainly in the West Bank but also in Gaza, and why and where they are today. It’s no wonder many say this is the book of the year.
This film shows the work that went into organizing the August 28, 1963, civil rights march of 250,000 people in Washington, D.C. Colman Domingo stars as the title character, Bayard Rustin, who dreamt up the idea of a massive march on Washington to push John F. Kennedy to back civil rights legislation. He was a Black homosexual in a time period where persecution and racism were both rampant and had also been a young Communist. The film shows how personal attacks were used against him to try and control his outspokenness.
The film focuses on what the top civil rights leaders thought and did, and in that sense gives a somewhat lopsided view of the movement. You still get glimpses of the bubbling energy of the youth driving the movement, looking for direction and leadership.
Dec 11, 2023
In November, the earth’s average temperature reached a new high. Two weeks after that, more than 200 scientists reported that we are clearly headed toward a tipping point, beyond which changes to the earth’s climate would be irreversible.
The steady increase in the earth’s temperature has already been causing more, and more severe, storms, heat waves and wildfires—killing thousands of people, and turning millions of people into refugees, around the globe.
So, in a rational world, the ongoing COP28 climate conference, attended by representatives of practically every government, would represent a precious opportunity to organize immediate action against rising temperatures—to find ways to reduce the use of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal), for example, the burning of which causes the earth’s temperature to rise.
But, no—not in this world run by capitalists. At COP28, as at previous climate conferences every year, governments kept arguing about things like whether to call for a “phase-out” or a “phase-down” of fossil fuels—or even about what those phrases are supposed to mean!
But outside of those useless meetings, 2,400 fossil-fuel lobbyists also attended COP28—four times as many as those registered at last year’s conference. They were there to cut lucrative deals for oil companies, guaranteeing more burning of fossil fuels, and more warming of the earth.
But what else could be expected from a climate conference that is held in one of the top oil-producing countries in the world, the United Arab Emirates, presided over by the head of the UAE’s state-owned oil company?
It’s like making an arsonist fire chief. It’s no wonder that, over the 28 years since these climate conferences began, the earth’s temperature has only continued to increase, leading to more, and bigger, human catastrophes.
Dec 11, 2023
In the first lawsuit of its kind since Roe was overturned, a Texas mother of two has sued the state seeking an emergency abortion. She seeks a medical exception to the state’s abortion bans.
Kate Cox is 20 weeks pregnant. Her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition. She has been to the Emergency Room four times in severe pain. Her doctor recommends an abortion. Because of her complicated medical situation, she could lose the ability to have children in the future if the abortion is not performed soon. She wants her doctor and her husband protected from prosecution for helping her terminate this pregnancy.
Her lawsuit was filed, and a county judge ruled in her favor on December 7. On December 8, the reactionary attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, appealed to the Texas Supreme Court to block the abortion.
Late on Friday, December 8, the Supreme Court of Texas blocked the abortion from proceeding, stating they need more time to consider all the arguments in the case.
Here are the two main arguments in the case. The lawyer arguing the case for the state of Texas, Jonathan Stone, made the argument that Texas must continue bans on abortion. He stated, “The only party that’s going to suffer an immediate and irreparable harm in this case … is the state.”
The attorney representing Ms. Cox, countered: “I would just note that the harm to Ms. Cox’s life, health and fertility are very much also permanent and cannot be undone.”
These two arguments are what the Supreme Court of Texas needed “more time” to consider! Reactionaries in Texas pretend medical exceptions exist within abortion bans to protect the life and health of the mother. But when time is of the essence and a woman asks for help to protect herself, her doctor and her family from prosecution, these judges dither.
The words repulsive, disgusting, and despicable only begin to describe an attorney general and judges who are delaying legal protection for a woman in medical danger!
Dec 11, 2023
The following is excerpted from a report by Gary Walkowicz at the 2023 convention of the Working Class Party of Michigan. Video of this speech is available at the independent website workingclassfight.com.
In our first campaigns, we were mostly talking about the problems of low wages and jobs that aren’t enough to live on. We talked about how money that we need for schools and roads are being given to the wealthy in order to make the rich even richer. And those things certainly are still happening. And those things are actually getting worse. We will certainly talk about them in our campaign in 2024.
But this year, we can’t only talk about those things, because the world is changing. Look at how much has changed since we ran our first election campaign in 2014. So, the war on our standard of living is continuing. But today, we’re also looking at real wars. All the military conflicts that are happening around the world. And we are looking at the real possibility of an even bigger war, a war that we will be put in the middle of.
So, what does the world look like today? The news reports we see from Gaza are horrifying. Bombs are being dropped on hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings. Bodies are being pulled out of the rubble. More than one in every 200 Palestinians living in Gaza have already been killed in the last three weeks. These are the scenes of war. The horrific pictures we see today from Gaza could have been right from World War II. Or they could have been pictures of the villages of peasants that the U.S. destroyed in Vietnam. Or they could be pictures of the civilians that the U.S. military killed in the city of Fallujah during its war against Iraq.
Many people are appalled and angry at what we see happening in Gaza. Rightfully so. But we also have to understand the big picture. We should also take warning that what is happening in Gaza could be showing us that a bigger war, a world war, is on the horizon. Another world war would mean that the horrors we see in Gaza would be multiplied a thousand times over.
Another world war may or may not happen immediately. It may not start in the Middle East, but a world war is moving closer.
The military forces that the U.S. sent to the Middle East are not peacekeeping troops. They are not there to protect Israeli citizens or Palestinian citizens. They were sent there to maintain U.S. rule over this region. Within days, the U.S. military had attacked Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, risking retaliation and escalation of the war.
And all of this is happening in the midst of an explosive situation in the Middle East. Going back 100 years to around World War I, the peoples in the Middle East have been living under the domination of imperialism. First, it was British and the French, and then it was the U.S. that controlled this region in order to have access to the oil fields and ensure the profits of the oil companies, as well as U.S. banks and other corporations. To maintain its control over the Middle East, U.S. imperialism has played off one people against another. It has propped up friendly dictators who oppress their own populations. It has pitted one regime against another regime, leading to regional wars. And most of all, it set up the Israeli government to act as its policeman for the region.
U.S. military and financial aid to Israel has made this relatively small country into one of the world’s best equipped and most powerful military forces. But for most of the people living in the Middle East, U.S. imperialism’s domination has meant only misery and desperation. Even many Jewish people living in Israel, especially those who came from Eastern Europe and North Africa, they also live in poverty. They have no prospects for a better life as long as U.S. imperialism uses Israel to be its policeman in the Middle East.
Today, Israel, backed by U.S. imperialism, has invaded Gaza to punish the Palestinians and to impose a new rule over them. But for 75 years, the Palestinian people have resisted their oppression. And many other peoples in the Middle East feel a solidarity with the Palestinian people, and they recognize in them their own oppression and exploitation.
These other peoples in the Middle East also have their own reason to resist what has been imposed on them. There’s a built-up anger in the Middle East that could explode at any time. If that happens, will the U.S. government intervene directly, sending in troops to attack these populations? If the U.S. intervenes directly in the Middle East, would that bring in the possibility of other countries intervening? Looking at history, these things are certainly possible.
U.S. imperialism’s domination over the Middle East and North Africa and this whole region has already led to one war after another. The ongoing war in Yemen has killed up to a million people and has resulted in a humanitarian crisis for an entire population. The two sides in the war in Yemen are proxies for the regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran. And standing behind Saudi Arabia and Iran are the U.S. on the one hand and China and Russia on the other hand, which means any war in the Middle East could spiral into a bigger war. The threat of a regional war could lead to a bigger war.
And that threat is not only in the Middle East. The war in Ukraine has faded into the news background, but that war continues for almost two years now. Over 100,000 soldiers and civilians, Ukrainians and Russians, have died. And the U.S. is also deeply involved in this war. The U.S. government, along with their NATO allies, have been pushing against Russia for decades. They have surrounded Russia with troops, military bases, missiles, bombers, and other weapons right up to the border of Russia. When Putin responded to these provocations by invading Ukraine, the U.S. began pouring weapons into Ukraine. The U.S. has kept this war going in order to weaken Russia, using the Ukrainian people as their proxies. The U.S. supplies the weapons, Ukrainians supply the deaths.
And then in Asia and the Pacific region, the U.S. is pressing against China both militarily and economically. The U.S. flies warplanes and sends its naval forces through the South China Sea, right up to the coast of China. The U.S. government has been arming its allies who surround China, like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia.
The U.S. military threat against China backs up the U.S. economic attacks on China. The U.S. has been putting sanctions on important computer chips and other valuable commodities, denying access to China. The U.S. today is waging an economic war against China. And during the history of capitalism, economic wars often lead to shooting wars, just like happened before World War I and World War II.
And finally, we see the U.S. government today continually increasing its military budget. Many other countries in the world are doing the same thing. What are they preparing for, if not for war?
Today there are wars in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, in Sudan and elsewhere. Wars are spreading. And the history of capitalism tells us that another world war is nearing. World War I and World War II both started as regional wars that expanded into a world war. Today the capitalist class and the political leaders of their capitalist system are ready to provoke a third world war. Did you hear the cabinet minister from Israel recently, who just casually suggested that Israel should drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and its two million people? It’s insanity. This is where we’re headed.
And when the world war comes, people in this country will not escape it. We will suffer here too.
So, can war be stopped? For the ordinary people of the world, for the working class of every country, we have no reason to go to war. We have no reason to kill each other. What could the working class do about stopping the coming war? How can we stop this madness?
A fight to stop war would mean that the working class would have to make a fight at a different level. To stop war, we have to understand where the push toward war comes from. It comes from the normal functioning of the capitalist system. To stop war, we would have to make a fight against a system that produces war. That could mean a fight against the system before the war starts. Or it could mean a fight against the capitalist system during a war or after a war.
Now, that might sound like something impossible, like something that could never happen. But it has happened. During World War I, the working class in Russia wanted to stop the war. The Russian working class made a revolution to overthrow the capitalists in their country who were waging that war, and the working class took power in their own name. And also, after World War I, the working classes in Germany, Italy, Hungary, China, and other countries fought for revolution. In the end, these other fights were not successful in building a state run by the working class. But the working class in the world, after World War I, made enough of a fight that the international capitalists could not do what they wanted to do. The capitalists could not overturn the successful revolution made by the workers in Russia.
Even in this country, in 1919, workers in Seattle went on a general strike and refused to load the U.S. military ships that were being sent to Russia to try to overthrow the workers’ revolution.
After World War II, we saw other kinds of revolutions in Africa and in Asia. Now, these revolutions were not led by the working class, but they were made by the population to throw out the imperialists who sucked all their profits and resources out of their economies.
The suffering of war often leads to revolutions, and the working class has the power to change the world. What has been missing since the Russian Revolution has been a party built in the working class to organize a fight to take power. And that’s why we did the work to put the Working Class Party on the ballot and keep us on the ballot.
Now don’t misunderstand me. The Working Class Party here today is not the party I’m talking about. When the working class builds its own revolutionary party, it will be something more, something bigger. But by the Working Class Party being on the ballot, we have a chance to address the working class and tell workers something different than the lies that they will hear from Biden and Trump. In our campaign, we can talk about the strike in Auto, which was supposed to address the attack on our standard of living. This strike accomplished a little, but it could have been something much bigger.
Having Working Class Party on the ballot allows us to address workers about the war that is coming, a war that most people don’t see coming, a war that will be a disaster for humanity.
Finally, in our campaign, we can say that the working class has the capacity and ability and the power to take on the problems we face and make a fight that will benefit humanity.
Dec 11, 2023
The bombs continued to rain down as the U.N. chief Antonio Guterres warned of "the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza." He supported a resolution calling for a humanitarian cease-fire, saying that Israeli attacks have hit 339 education facilities, 26 hospitals and 56 other health care facilities, that 85% of the population of Gaza has been forced from their homes, and that "nowhere in Gaza is safe." Thirteen of the fifteen members of the U.N. Security Council backed this resolution, while one abstained.
But the U.S. said no and vetoed the resolution. The U.S. again voiced its support for the Israeli state’s murderous policy. After all, Israel is the ever-reliable cop ready to help U.S. corporations control the wealth of the Middle East.
If there was ever any doubt, this veto has made it clear that the war on the people of Gaza is the U.S.’s war.
Dec 11, 2023
Hurricane Otis hit the Mexican city of Acapulco on October 25, killing at least fifty people, and leaving thirty missing. But the hurricane itself was just the beginning of the disaster.
In addition to the homes, businesses, and infrastructure destroyed, the mayor estimated that 666,000 tons of garbage were still piled across Acapulco a month later, with only about 211,000 tons collected so far. These piles of trash are full of rotten food, human waste, human remains, and millions of cockroaches and other insects. Residents and aid workers alike report stomach infections, rashes, and other illnesses that come from the trash.
The Mexican government sent in thousands of troops and aid workers after the storm hit, but the amount of trash has overwhelmed the available support. The landfill is not big enough, and there are not nearly enough garbage trucks. And of course, the government prioritized restoring power and clearing debris in the wealthy tourist resort areas. Some hotels had even reopened while people in the poor areas farther from the beach still lived surrounded by mountains of contaminated garbage, lacking power, clean water, and hand sanitizer.
Storms like Otis are only going to become more common as climate change continues. But this capitalist society does almost nothing to prepare for them—not in Mexico, nor in the United States.
Dec 11, 2023
We publish below two articles from the Workers Voice (number 311, November 24, 2023) newspaper of the Organization of Haitian Workers (OTR). These articles describe a strike and factory occupation at Premium Apparel, a subcontracting company owned by the Apaid family.
Last Thursday, November 9, around 9 a.m., the management of the Premium factory, owned by the Apaid family, announced the permanent closure of the company. The workers’ anger bubbled over, and they stopped work immediately to demand immediate payment for the last two weeks of work, legal benefits, and compensation.
Clifford Apaid, the boss of Premium, accompanied by his father, André Apaid, thought that the announcement would sail by the angry workers, but they had an unpleasant surprise.
The two crooks, father and son, had to spend the entire day and sleepless night on site in a tense and electric atmosphere. They thus had the opportunity to get to know the excited workers better! Chanting their demands, workers massed in front of all the exit doors, standing guard and preventing the two thug bosses from fleeing. Upset and panicked, these bosses were glued to the telephone to call the police.
For their part, the workers forgot hunger, thirst, and sleep. Overexploited during the day in these subcontracting companies, living in shanty towns plagued by gang violence, starved by these bosses who pay them poverty wages, these workers never know happy days—they were white hot with anger and determined to get what they were owed.
From 9 a.m. on Thursday until 4 a.m. on Friday, the workers, the majority of them women, continued to mobilize non-stop within the factory grounds, demanding their due before they would leave the factory. Around 5 a.m., the big artillery came: a police armored vehicle entered the courtyard by force after breaking down the main barrier. Among the police, a judge came to ask the workers to let the two exhausted detainees leave.
This is already a first victory for the workers! It is moral and psychological! The time when bosses could get away with anything is over. Thanks to their constant struggles—work stoppages, strikes, mobilization and demonstrations for several days in a row—the working class has visibly acquired class consciousness and combativeness. The class struggle is no longer one-way. Faced with the greed and arrogance of the bosses, workers understand more and more that they must rely only on themselves, on their strengths and their struggles. This is indeed the path to their emancipation!
More than a hundred Premium Apparel workers spontaneously decided to occupy the factory, keeping the boss and some factory shareholders with them. The objective was to increase the pressure in order to obtain satisfaction for their demands. A form of struggle and conscious mobilization of workers, which thereby joins the various forms of protest that the history of the international workers’ movement has experienced.
The night of November 9 to 10, 2023 will appear in the list of examples where workers, during their struggle, took control of their factory for one or more days. After the allegiance of factory security guards, Premium Apparel workers were given control of all doors. Inside, no place was forbidden to them. Workers could assemble freely to organize their protests. They made signs with their demands; they formed small groups to discuss among themselves while setting up a surveillance system to counter the police who were harassing them.
Although this form of protest, strike with factory occupation, is currently at an embryonic stage in the Haitian workers’ movement, there is nevertheless a growing tradition, particularly in the subcontracting sector.
In January 2022, Valdor workers, noticing that the managers had decided to close the factory without warning them, quickly rushed to the factory while alerting those who lived far away. They detained an executive caught trying to collect company files to flee to Sri Lanka.
During the Sewing International S.A. (SISA) strike in 2019, after the death of a worker deprived of care in an OFATMA center, workers occupied the factory on numerous occasions. Groups of workers kept vigil in the factory for several nights. It was a memorable experience for all the strikers and beyond.
Factory-occupied strikes, when planned, organized by all strikers in assemblies, can be a formidable weapon in the hands of workers in their struggle against their exploiters. During the Russian Revolution of 1917, workers built councils or soviets to organize the occupation of their factories. These councils constituted the laboratory where workers figured out the organization of the revolution.
Dec 11, 2023
This article is translated from the December 6 issue, #2888 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.
The entire political class paid tribute to the butcher of American imperialism, Henry Kissinger, on the occasion of his death, from Trump and Biden to Zelensky and Macron.
During the 1970s, as National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State, he was the man most responsible for American foreign policy and all the wars and atrocities that accompanied it.
It began with the Vietnam War, where he torpedoed peace negotiations in 1968 to weaken President Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats, only to hammer out a similar agreement in 1973 when Nixon was in office. In the meantime, tens of thousands of American soldiers and almost two million Vietnamese died in an atrocious war in which the American military used all kinds of weapons of mass destruction such as napalm. At the same time, to prevent supplies to the Vietnamese resistance from transiting through Cambodia, Kissinger ordered bombing raids on this neutral country, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.
All this did not prevent him from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the 1973 agreements with Vietnam! It’s true that Kissinger was not against peace if it served the interests of the U.S. bourgeoisie. Indeed, it was for this reason that he renewed relations with Mao Zedong’s China in 1972, as a means of better isolating the USSR.
This is also why he massively armed the Israeli state against the Arab states during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and not because it would have been part of his ideals due to his Jewish origins. At the same time, he made this cynical statement privately: "If they [Russian leaders] put Jews in gas chambers in the Soviet Union, [which they didn’t!] it’s not an American concern. Maybe it’s a humanitarian concern."
In Latin America, Kissinger fiercely pursued the U.S. policy of treating the region as its own preserve. After leftist Chilean President Allende came to power in 1970, Kissinger was the architect of the coup d’état led by his friend General Pinochet in 1973. He supported and even installed other anti-labor and anti-communist dictatorships, such as the one in Argentina. He was also one of the architects of the “Condor Plan,” a kind of international torture and repression plan for six South American dictatorships.
Before and after him, the imperialist bourgeoisie has been able to count on the services of many monsters. Kissinger was a first-class, unscrupulous, and brilliant one. And that’s why so many politicians are paying tribute to him today.
Dec 11, 2023
What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of November 14, 2023.
After a brief cease-fire, Israel has resumed the war in Gaza. Hamas terrorists had killed over 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians. Then the Israeli government unleashed their terror campaign, firing missiles and dropping bombs on hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings in Gaza, killing over 13,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. At the same time, Israel has exchanged fire with Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.
The U.S. government is in this war. The U.S. has armed Israel to the teeth with military aid. The U.S. uses Israel as its policeman in the region, to ensure access to Middle East oil and profits for U.S. corporations. The U.S. sent two naval task forces and Marines to join all the other U.S. navy, air force and special forces in the region. Within days, the U.S. forces had engaged in fighting with militias in Syria and Iraq. The situation in the Middle East is a tinderbox that could explode into a wider war.
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues. That war is now almost two years old. More than one hundred thousand have died, soldiers and civilians, Ukrainians and Russians. The U.S. is also in this war, backing Ukraine to weaken Russia. The U.S. and its NATO allies supply the weapons to Ukraine. The Ukrainians supply the deaths.
Other regional wars continue around the world. There is a war in Afghanistan, a legacy of the U.S. invasion in 2001. When U.S. forces left Afghanistan after 20 years, they left behind chaos and destruction and the seeds of another war. There is a war in Yemen that has gone on for a decade. Over a million people have died. Wars also continue today in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. Behind the scenes of most of these wars are the major world powers, including the U.S.
In the last 10 years, the number of wars around the world has gone up by 70%. According to the United Nations, today the number of wars worldwide is the highest since World War Two. The wars we see today are very much like the regional wars that led directly to World War Two and World War One. That is something we can’t ignore. We can’t put our heads in the sand. We have to see what is coming. The warning signs of another world war are there. Today, the U.S. government is steadily increasing its military budget. Many other governments are doing the same. What are they preparing for, if not for war, a bigger war than the ones being fought today, a world war. World War One killed about 22 million people, half of them civilians. World War Two killed 85 million people—3% of the entire world’s population. Much of Europe, Russia and Japan was destroyed.
That is the future that we may be facing today. And if there is another world war, people here will not escape it. The U.S. is the world’s biggest economic and military power. The U.S. government is already directly or indirectly involved in most of the wars going on around the world today. If there is another world war, this country will be right in the middle of it. There will be no escape.
But why do we even have wars in the first place? World wars come from the competition between capitalists for more profits. Capitalists from every country fight over the world’s resources and the profits produced by workers’ labor. They use their own governments to go against the capitalists of other countries. If they can’t settle things peacefully, then they are ready and willing to go to war to gain their advantage. The longer capitalism has gone on, the more deadly their wars have been. The wars of the 20th century were the most murderous in human history. A third world war would be even worse.
But we do not have to accept this kind of future. The ordinary people, the working people of the world, have no reason to go to war. We have no reason to kill each other. Working people can live together in peace.
To change our future, we will have to get rid of the system that produces war. The working class has every reason to do that. The working class has the power to do that. The working class of the world has the power to build a better society, free from those barbarians and war-mongers who are leading humanity to the brink of destruction.
Dec 11, 2023
Here are some strikes that are currently going on in the U.S. These strikes may remain isolated and separated today. But others could join them. New strikes arise almost every week.
On December 7, ramp and tug workers of Teamsters Local 100 struck the main U.S. cargo hub of DHL Express, at Cincinnati/N Kentucky International Airport. The workers unionized in April, began first-contract negotiations in July, and faced months of unfair labor practices by DHL trying to intimidate and undercut their union. Activists have been singled out for discipline, their legal activity on-site has been punished, and they have even been put under off-site surveillance!
The local NLRB office has backed up their charges. The workers want to see what DHL’s attitude will be after 130 flights per day can’t be unloaded, and 350,000 packages per day can’t be processed, without their essential skills, experience, and labor power!
The National Nurses Organizing Committee struck three Ascension Medical Centers in Austin and Wichita on December 6. The nurses are trying to negotiate a first contract. They are way past tired about their patients’ safety being endangered by common hospital cost-cutting that leaves them without basic things like thermometers, patient gowns, blankets for newborns, or working IV pumps!
Short-staffing is a major issue. Cut-to-the-bone nursing staff are rotated to cover beds without regard to expertise. A neonatal nurse specialist might be suddenly assigned to an oncology wing. This is an everyday practice that presents dangers for patients and puts stress on nurses constantly having to adapt to environments they are not familiar with.
Not that Ascension is broke! It is second-largest and wealthiest nonprofit Catholic health system in the country. In 2021, Ascension reported a net income of more than $6.4 billion. The CEO took home compensation of more than $13 million. Ascension ALSO runs an investment company managing more than 41 billion dollars!
After the nurses’ one-day strike, the hospital retaliated and declared them locked out for the next three days. Clearly, patient care comes LAST at Ascension!
Dec 11, 2023
The following is a speech by Mary Anne Hering at the 2023 convention of the Working Class Party of Michigan. Video of this speech is available at the independent website workingclassfight.com.
There’s a war that is being carried out against children. In this country it is a war on public education, social services, and other services; and it destroys the minds, the spirit, the socialization, the health, and the hope of our children.
At the same time there are wars being waged in the world. In particular right now there is a war in Gaza where kids, even newborns, are being destroyed physically.
If Gaza is the one we see right now, we have to understand that there are wars all through Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Central and Latin America that are every bit as horrible and destructive to children, but the U.S. media ignores them.
Almost every one of those wars is funded one way or another by the United States. Some also get money from other big powers linked with the U.S.—Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, for example. But the biggest amount of money comes from the U.S. government. The U.S. spends more on its military than the next nine countries spend combined.
That money is robbed from the money we pay in taxes.
It’s robbed from public education.
It’s robbed from health care.
It’s robbed from housing.
It’s robbed from access to food.
The killing of children in Gaza and what is happening to children in this country are tied together by a huge transmission belt that sends billions of dollars from this country to carry out wars like in Gaza, where children are harmed and killed in these wars.
At the same time, it harms the children of this country, just in another way. This government takes money from education to give to wars.
So, what do working class families and their children face?
There aren’t enough teachers, so kids can’t get the needed attention and instruction, so they don’t learn. There aren’t enough buses, so kids can’t get to school. Funds are cut from school lunches, so kids go hungry.
And we can’t forget the steep increase in mental health problems among children, including suicides.
All of these problems should be a signal that public education needs many more resources, yet this government takes the money away and funnels it to wars.
When it comes to public education and all other human service needs, it’s the same old story over and over again: Politicians say there is not enough money for the schools, not enough money to fund childcare, not enough money for food stamp benefits, yet politicians can find nearly a trillion dollars and more to spend on the military every year.
So, parents and communities are expected to fundraise or pay extra taxes, millages, you’ve heard of those, to hire enough janitors to clean the schools or bus drivers to take the kids to school. Teachers are expected to dig deep into their pockets to buy books or cleaning supplies. Grandparents and even great-grandparents are expected to do childcare because funds for early childcare are cut out. And people in charge of schools have to find the funds and are forced to go to the government and beg each year.
Recently the Detroit school superintendent of the public schools went before the Michigan legislature. He essentially argued that funds for special ed, at-risk students and English language learners be channeled and moved over into basic core instruction.
It’s essentially the same game each year: Just move the money around that is inadequate, move that around. Rob from one set of programs this year in order to cover another.
We sit in the middle of the biggest empire, and it’s built on going to wars in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa.
Obviously, this cannot serve us.
We pay an enormous price that has hemorrhaged the well-being of our children while at the same time it kills the children of Gaza and other countries in these wars.
This system we live in, capitalism, wages war against the working class all over the world. Living in the belly of the beast, the U.S., we have to understand the direct links that tie the problems we face here to the horrific problems ordinary people face all over the world.
Today the focus is on the war in Gaza, but there are wars still going on in Ukraine, in Yemen, in Sudan, in Syria, funded by the U.S. government, which at the same time carries out a war on our standard of living in this country.
In all these wars, it is the children who suffer the most.
Next year we’re going to run Working Class Party candidates. We have to keep in mind not just that there isn’t enough money going to what it is we need in this country as far as public education and health care and other human services. We have to pay attention to where the money is going, and we say that children, all children, should be our first priority.
Thank you.