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
Sep 10, 2001
The government’s “official” unemployment rate jumped by half a% in August, reaching 4.9%.
In fact, the real rate of unemployment is much higher than this. The government itself admits–in its detailed report–that over 10% of the work force is today unemployed or underemployed. And even this understates the real situation, given all the fiddling that government statisticians have done over the last few decades. Over the summer, half a million people dropped out of the workforce–and they appear nowhere in the ranks of the unemployed. Where did they go? Certainly not on a long sea cruise.
With our ranks reduced by attrition, lay-offs, and a virtual hiring freeze, we are beginning to feel the reality of last spring’s job cut announcements.
What happened? Why this big jump in unemployment?
What happened is that corporate profits are down. For years, they jumped from one new profit record to the next. But this year, profits aren’t hitting a new record. They’re still enormous, just not as enormous. That was enough to unleash the corporate axes.
Today, we see the spectacle of corporations, which are making billions of dollars in profit, talk about their need to “cut costs” to avoid “disaster.”
They cut back on investment–throwing people out of work at all the companies that provide the goods and services that other corporations need. Above all, they cut back on “labor costs”–that is, they cut jobs, expecting that those who are left will pick up the slack. And they use the threat of job cuts to begin to reduce our wages and benefits.
For big corporations, it is a simple math problem they have learned by heart: the fewer people they pay, the more work they can get the rest of us to do for them, the higher the profits that they can skim off for themselves, the higher the dividends, interest payments, multi-million dollar salaries, bonuses, stock options, etc. for their executives.
Of course, this is nothing new. Even during the supposed “good times,” when the corporations jumped from one record profit to the next, they never stopped “cutting costs”–it was the means by which they made those record profits.
But now, their bubble economy is obviously in trouble–and their high profits aren’t enough to rescue the financial markets. Thus, the capitalists stand poised, ax in hand, to chop our jobs, forcing millions of us out into the streets, while the rest of us are worked to death.
We are simply “collateral damage” in the capitalists’ never-ending war to increase their profits and wealth at our expense, at any cost.
No more!
Big corporations should be prevented from cutting jobs–why not? The government has all the means to pass the laws to stop this. If the politicians don’t do it, it’s because they stand on the bosses’ side, not the workers.
A government in favor of the workers would prohibit all lay-offs. It would prohibit the job cuts which keep young workers out in the street, unable to find a decent job. And if a corporation making profits decided to break the law anyway, laying off workers, a government in favor of the workers would take over that corporation from its owners as a penalty.
If they can take the cars of people innocently caught in the cross fire of some sting, they can certainly take over a company which breaks the law.
The working class is not a number, a trivial cost to be cut by some big shot. We are the ones who produce everything. We are the ones who built this society, with all of its vast wealth. We are the ones who should enjoy the fruits of what we produce.
And the first fruit should be a decent job paying a comfortable wage!
Sep 10, 2001
Total compensation of CEOs (chief executive officers) of major U.S. companies increased this past year to an average of about 13 million dollars per year. And in the largest corporations, the biggest increase in total income was awarded to those carrying out job cuts. In fact, the CEOs of 52 major companies which announced layoffs of at least 1,000 workers earned 80% more on average than other CEOs.
If these companies are doing so badly, why are their CEOs being paid so well?!?!?!
Sep 10, 2001
After 11 years sitting on death row, Dennis Counterman has been granted a new trial. In 1980, Counterman had been convicted of setting his own house on fair–a fire that killed his three sons.
The prosecutor–obviously in a hurry for a conviction, no matter what he had to do to get it–withheld statements and police reports that indicated Mr. Counterman had not set the fire.
Even a statement given by Dennis’s wife, Jane Counterman, was doctored: Parts of her statement were whited out in the police report that prosecutors turned over to Mr. Counterman’s lawyers before the trial. Another statement made by Mrs. Counterman and two statements by neighbors were never turned over to the man’s lawyers. These statements were critical, showing that Mr. Counterman could not have set the fire, and indicating that it was probably one of his young sons who did.
Ordinarily in a case like this, Counterman would have gone to his death without further notice from the legal system. Both he and his wife suffer from mental retardation. They do not have money for high-priced lawyers. He was fortunate to end up with appeals lawyers connected to the Defender Association of Philadelphia. They noticed that prosecutors were cross-examining witnesses about statements that had not been turned over to defense lawyers before the trial, as is required by law. That unraveled the whole skein of lies and evasions which the prosecutor had used to get a quick and easy conviction.
Without the intervention of the Defenders Association, Counterman would have gone to his death–one more notch in the gun of a conviction-happy prosecutor.
Sep 10, 2001
The Bush administration used the highly publicized official state visit of Mexican President Vicente Fox in early September to publicize a push for what it is calling “immigration reform.” There are currently an estimated four million “undocumented” immigrants from Mexico living in the U.S. without legal authorization. But there are also millions more undocumented immigrants from Asia, Europe, as well as the rest of the Western Hemisphere.
The Bush administration has yet to formally present a fully fleshed out immigrant reform plan. But Bush has already made it clear that what he means by “immigrant reform” is not an extension of full legal rights to all immigrants.
The centerpiece of the Bush immigration reform plan is an expanded “guest worker” program that it is assumed will be run along the same lines as the current U.S. guest worker program in agriculture. Under this program, guest workers may work only for the employer who contracted them, and when the contract ends–or when they lose their job for some other reason–by law they must return home. Workers also have no right to form a union. Anyone who even dares to speak out risks not only losing his or her job, but also being kicked out of the country.
The new “reform” might give a kind of legal status to millions of immigrants without papers. But under a guest worker program, the workers remain completely at the mercy of the bosses and are forced to continue to accept the worst forms of oppression and exploitation at the hands of their bosses, landlords, merchants, as well as the government itself.
This is a reform only for the bosses, who want to have the best of both worlds. On the one hand, they want to continue to have the possibility to tap into a vast reservoir of workers living under desperate conditions, who are completely at their mercy, a form of indentured servitude. On the other hand, they don’t want the hassle of worrying about the legality of the situation. They want this super-exploited and super-vulnerable workforce to be legalized.
Of course, the fact that a major part of the working class is forced to accept such conditions is an attack not just against these immigrant workers, but against the entire working class. Bosses can threaten that if workers don’t accept worse pay and working conditions, there are “guest workers” who will. And with unemployment growing, many workers, including from families of more established immigrant workers, can feel threatened by the more recent immigrant workers.
Of course, this is nothing new. This country was built by waves of tens of millions of workers who came or were brought here as cheap labor from other countries, starting with the slaves brought from Africa and the indentured servants from Europe. And the bosses have always tried to divide and pit the newest wave of workers against the older established workers, making them compete with each other for jobs, pay, etc.–a competition that has benefitted only the boss.
To put an end to this competition means to demand decent, livable wages for everyone, across the board. It means to fight for wages and conditions to be determined not company by company or even industry by industry but for the whole working class. We all work. We all need a certain amount to have a decent, comfortable life.
Corporate executives and politicians may say that it’s unrealistic to demand that every worker be paid a decent wage. Why? They pull down 10 or 20 million dollars per year. If they can’t find the way to give us what we need, then take their bonuses from them. Put corporate profits back where they belong–into the wages of workers who produce them.
Sep 10, 2001
This June, federal prosecutors made a deal with Sara Lee Corporation, concerning an outbreak of listeriosis in 1998. Fifteen people died, six women miscarried, and at least 80 more were made seriously ill by hot dogs and deli meats produced by Sara Lee’s Bil Mar Foods manufacturer in Michigan.
Sara Lee admitted it manufactured and distributed contaminated meat, a MISDEMEANOR charge carrying a maximum fine of $200,000. The corporation also agreed to spend three million dollars on food safety research and to pay back more than a million dollars to the Agriculture Department, which had bought some of the contaminated meat. In addition, the corporation settled out of court with the families of those who died and those who were sickened, after class action lawsuits were filed.
Sara Lee also spent 25 million dollars to clean up the Bil Mar plant, which is a drop in the bucket compared with the profits made year after year by this 17-billion-dollar a year corporation. (Apparently the clean-up didn’t solve Sara Lee’s problem of manufacturing contaminated meat products, because this July it had to recall 13,000 pounds of lunch meats for possible salmonella contamination.)
During a hearing confirming the June settlement, a U.S. attorney in Michigan federal court stated, "The government uncovered no evidence that Sara Lee intentionally distributed adulterated meat. Nor was there any evidence the company and its personnel attempted to cover up evidence or obstruct meat inspection procedures."
Some workers say otherwise, and they said so in a report that went to the U.S. attorney’s office during the investigation of this Bil Mar case against Sara Lee. This report has just been made public–AFTER a copy of the report found its way into the hands of a newspaper reporter.
In April 1998, months before the listeriosis outbreak, workers said they were allowed to send out meat for sale even if they suspected listeria. So long as they were NOT SURE meat was contaminated, they could send it out. The company had lab test results that were kept secret from Agriculture Department inspectors. Furthermore, management ignored microbial contaminants, even though they had to credit money back to a company that bought 218 cases of meat which tested positive for listeria.
In every industry, on every production line, workers listen to managers ignoring problems of quality because they interfere with getting out the production. “Ship it anyway,” they say, even if the defective product is food. Sara Lee was just acting like every other capitalist concern.
The meat industry, and every other food industry, will continue to produce contaminated products because businesses produce food for profit. Our health and safety is their concern only when we force them to pay attentionto it.
Sep 10, 2001
On January 6, 2000, Malcolm Rent Johnson was put to death for rape and murder by the state of Oklahoma. Mr. Johnson was convicted of these crimes in 1982, with the most damaging testimony coming from an Oklahoma City police lab chemist, Joyce Gilchrist. Gilchrist testified that six samples taken from the victim’s bedroom showed semen consistent with Johnson’s blood type.
A newspaper reporter has now obtained an internal police memorandum, written on July 31, 2000, which shows that the evidence used to convict Johnson was fraudulent. This memo was sent to the Oklahoma City attorney’s office by Laura Schile, another lab chemist on July 31. Ms. Schile’s re-examination of the microscope slides used by Gilchrist in the Johnson case indicated that “spermatozoa is not present.” Her analysis was confirmed by the other three chemists working in the lab. Sperm does not deteriorate for decades, so there is no chance it was on these slides earlier, when Gilchrist testified in court that it was.
Gilchrist was clearly lying, and her lies cost Malcolm Rent Johnson his life.
This is not a question of one pathological liar ready to fabricate a story to get convictions–although Gilchrist certainly was that. Gilchrist’s lies had long been suspected as a result of questions by other medical technicians. As soon as Gilchrist came under suspicion, the Oklahoma City authorities, if they were concerned with justice, would have pulled all her cases, putting an absolute hold on all executions. Instead, police and prosecutors have been busy defending HER and claiming that her lies were innocent mistakes and/or that they didn’t cause any innocent person to lose their life.
As of today, 11 of 23 people condemned to death based primarily on her testimony have been executed.
No wonder authorities have not publicly released Schile’s memo exposing the role that Gilchrist’s lies played in sending Johnson to his death. Instead, they harassed Schile so much she finally resigned from HER job on August 2, citing a hostile work environment as the reason for her departure.
Public officials in Oklahoma City are as guilty as Gilchrist of lying to convict and execute Malcolm Rent Johnson for crimes he almost surely did not commit.
Sep 10, 2001
In Mid-August, the Argentinean justice system released former Captain Astiz, who was one of the people directly responsible for the tortures which took place under the military dictatorship which lasted from 1976 to 1983. According to international human rights organizations, over 30,000 people simply "disappeared" during these years. Most were militants of left wing and extreme left wing organizations. One of the methods used by the military was to torture prisoners until they talked, and then to either kill or drug them as they were flown out in airplanes over the ocean, where they were tossed out in order to get rid of the bodies.
After the return of "democracy" in 1984, there were a number of attempts to go after the military people, at least those in the secondary ranks. But this did not lead to the arrest of those who carried out the tortures, nor of those who ordered them. To the contrary, there were a number of amnesty laws voted which excused the military, saying they were just following orders. One law stated there was a "final limit" imposed, so that it was no longer legal even to pursue anyone for crimes committed under the military dictatorship. Not a single government which has held office in Argentina since 1984 has overturned this law which allows assassins to remain free.
Among these assassins, Astiz, who was nicknamed "the blond angel of death," never tried to hide his role in the crimes he committed. His own bragging eventually did lead to him spending three months in prison (followed by parole–of course!) In an interview he openly admitted that he had been, "trained to kill political people and journalists." His conviction was because he didn’t "apologize for his crimes"; it was not for the crimes themselves which had been covered by the amnesty law.
If Astiz was put into preventative detention on July 1, it was because of a request by an Italian judge to extradite him, because of crimes he had committed against Italian citizens. But the same Argentinian judges who detained him have now refused the judge’s extradition request and released him.
The Argentinean state–its judges, its military and the politicians of the bourgeoisie–are all in agreement to protect these torturers from the past, because they may be able to use them again in the future–just as the U.S. recycled those responsible for torture in Viet Nam and used them again in Latin America or in other places around the world.
The military, whether in Argentina or elsewhere, obviously has very little to fear from the state apparatus of which it is the spinal column. Workers, like those in Argentina who directly suffered under the dictatorship and whose families were persecuted, have every interest themselves to judge and to condemn these assassins in uniform. But to do that, the workers can only count on their own mobilization, expecting nothing from the judges and politicians of the bourgeois state.
Sep 10, 2001
On September 5 Ibo Simon, a famous TV talk show host on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, went on trial in the capital of Point-à-Pitre. The organization "Friends of Haiti" had sued him, and as a result he was summoned to appear before the court for having made racist and anti-foreigner remarks against Haitian immigrants. This suit was supported by a number of organizations and political groups of the left and far left (including our comrades, Combat Ouvrier, that is Workers Combat), nationalist groups and unions. An "Appeal against Barbarism" was signed by a large number of people and well-known personalities.
Ibo Simon’s racist, anti-foreigner and contemptuous remarks aren’t new, but they have taken a much more systematic and violent direction in recent months, in particular since the local government election campaigns. Supporting himself on the feelings of frustration of many people and on their feelings of insecurity, linked to the increase in crime of every type, and putting the blame on immigrants, Ibo Simon obtained more than 20% of the votes in Point-à-Pitre, forcing the current mayor into a runoff election.
The fact of being black himself doesn’t prevent Ibo Simon from regularly taking on "blacks" who he says are only good for nothing and lazy. But his racist hatred is aimed especially against the Haitian community, which makes up the most important immigrant population. He regularly calls Haitians vermin, riff-raff, even dogs, and Ibo Simon has several times launched appeals to form attack groups to kick Haitians out of certain neighborhoods.
But the Haitians aren’t the only ones whom Ibo Simon uses as scapegoats and on whom he puts all the responsibility for the problems of the island: crime, unemployment, lack of hospital beds, etc. He also attacks people from the small island of Dominica which is located between the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the second largest community of immigrants in Guadeloupe. Ibo Simon and his supporters had called on people to ransack the house of a family from Dominica in the town of Morne-à-l’Eau last July 22. He accused the renter of not paying his rent and of having had an argument with the Guadeloupean landlord. Ibo Simon appealed to his supporters to carry out more of these punitive expeditions.
Although the government’s Radio and TV Council has been dealing with the question for a long time, it doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to make a decision to demand that Ibo Simon be kicked out of his job.
In any case, the workers of Guadeloupe have many reasons to not let such remarks and such actions occur without reacting. By trying to turn the attention of the poor against "foreigners,” Ibo Simon and those like him only protect the bosses, who alone are responsible for the unemployment, misery and exploitation which rages on the island.
Sep 10, 2001
In recent weeks, the conflict in the Middle East has reached a new height. On the one hand, there are almost daily attacks by the Israeli military within the Palestinian-controlled areas, including bombing raids on population centers by the most advanced aircraft, like the F-16s. On the other hand, there are suicide bombings carried out by Palestinians within Israel, which get extensive coverage in the mass media with all their dramatic and gory aspects.
All this creates the impression that the conflict is now becoming a full-scale war.
In this war, however, the two sides are by no means equal. In fact, they could hardly be more unequal. On the one side is the Israeli army, one of the world’s best-equipped and best-trained, which can count on the staunch support of the predominant power, the U.S. Facing this military might of Israel is another army, but one which has practically no material resources compared to Israel. This army, however, has a quality which can’t be measured by material means. It’s made of young, militant Palestinians absolutely ready to die for their cause. And while this army is not backed by any big power like the U.S. or its European allies, it counts on the enthusiastic support of a desperate and impoverished population determined to fight for a better future.
The choices made by the two sides for weapons and tactics are certainly a sign of this inequality. But, on the Palestinian side, the choice to carry out suicide bombings was not the only possible choice.
It’s true that these bombings, even if symbolically, have taken the Palestinian struggle a step further. Young Palestinians are no longer limiting themselves to throwing stones at Israeli soldiers or tanks within the Palestinian territories. They are now taking this war into Israel proper. But if a suicide bombing is an expression of the willingness to fight to the end, it is also an expression of frustration and despair. While this uprising has been growing in numbers and resolve, it has, nonetheless, been still unable to improve the conditions for the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A large part of the population in these areas is made up of Palestinian refugees who were driven from their homes in what is Israel today, first by terrorist attacks carried out by Zionist gangs, then by several wars carried out by Israel once it was established as a state in 1948. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been trapped since then with no land or decent jobs. And with the growing incursions of Israeli settlements, they have even fewer prospects.
This may explain why so many young Palestinians are ready to blow themselves up. But after each one of these spectacular acts of determination, the big question remains: How to change the status quo? For a whole existing political setup, supported not only by the Israeli state, but also the U.S. and other big powers, cannot be changed by individual acts, no matter how daring and dramatic they are. In fact, those acts of individual terrorism work against the very thing which needs to happen: that is, the real mobilization of the masses of the poor population, their consciousness that the outcome depends on all of them and not on just a few brave martyrs.
All the conditions for such a struggle exist among the Palestinian population. The head of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, however, has never proposed this kind of fight. Instead, he has told the Palestinian population again and again to put their faith into negotiations with Israel and the U.S. But the use of the F-16s on the civilian population alone shows the determination of the Israeli state to preserve the status quo at all costs–and, thus, what chance this prospect really stands. That’s why organizations opposing Arafat’s rule, above all religious organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have steadily increased their support during the uprising at the expense of Arafat.But neither do these organizations propose for the entire mass of poor Palestinians to organize and fight for the overthrow of the existing political setup in the region. They propose, instead, that certain individuals or organization act in the name of the population–whether these are “martyrs” who blow up themselves or charities that set up soup kitchens or hospitals to help the poor.
This is a conscious choice on the part of these organizations. Neither the PLO nor Hamas represent the interests of the Palestinian workers and poor. They represent the interests of a more privileged layer of the Palestinian population, made up of merchants, professionals, clerics, army and police officers, bureaucrats, etc. That is, people who aspire to improve their own situation by being able to run their own state. But that doesn’t necessarily require changing the whole political framework in the region. That’s why their proposed goal, in the end, amounts to nothing more than another Arab nation-state in a region full of small, rival Arab states.
Palestinian workers can look at the neighboring Arab states to see what that would mean for them. These states are led by various dictators and kings who, in one way or another, enable corporations based in the U.S. and Europe to plunder the region’s resources, above all oil. What’s left for the workers and peasants is poverty and oppression.
The Palestinian workers today have the possibility to lead a fight which can blow up this straitjacket entrapping the workers and poor in the whole region. Their uprising, the Intifada, has the energy and strength to topple the entire political framework in the Middle East. But for that to happen, the Palestinian masses need to control their own struggle. They have to move beyond the goals proposed by nationalist or religious organizations. If they do that, they could have the possibility to pull with them the laboring masses throughout the region, including in Israel itself.
Sep 10, 2001
Delegates of the United States and Israel walked out on the U.N. conference on racism on September 3. Secretary of State Colin Powell said his negotiators could not persuade other delegates to remove criticism of Israeli treatment of Palestinians from conference documents. (Of course, the U.S. was perfectly happy to escape a conference where it had already objected to calling slavery, “a crime against humanity.”)
The rest of the world seems to have no trouble condemning the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, which has amounted to a war–killing, arresting and terrorizing hundreds over the last few months and thousands of Palestinians over the last five decades. (Of course, as we have seen many times, the fine words denouncing such actions are nothing but a dead letter, not worthy of the cost of the paper they are written on.)
While the Israeli government continues its long-standing war on the Palestinian population, the U.S. and Israeli governments pretend they are worrying about whether the Israeli policies should be called “racist” or “Zionist” or “apartheid.”
Of course, the rest of the delegations come from governments just as hypocritical as the U.S. or Israel. The French never heard criticism of their murderous reign in Algeria or Viet Nam. The British don’t accept being rebuked for two centuries of colonial oppression around the globe. Most of the countries in Africa and Asia carry out repression of different ethic groups inside their borders and deny they do it, just as Sudan and Mauritania deny the obvious existence of slavery within their borders. The difference is simply that the U.S., the predominant power in the world, is also the most arrogant in demanding that reality be rewritten to conform to its wishes.
In every country, politicians continue to whip up hysteria against some group or another–no matter if the so-called enemy is described by skin color, ethnic origin, or religious preference. And the resolutions produced by conferences like this one are nothing but pieces of paper which they all are ready to use as toilet paper as soon as they sign them.
Sep 10, 2001
Striking Crank’s Catering workers greeted afternoon shift Dodge Truck workers with smiles and cheers on Friday, September 7. They smiled because truck workers were bringing in their lunch while others promised to call for take-out.
“No cafeteria! No vending!” strikers from UFCW Local 1064 chanted as they asked Dodge Truck workers, members of UAW Local 140, to support their strike by boycotting the cafeteria and vending machines.
In May 2001, Crank’s workers voted to join the UFCW union. A co-worker who had been fired for refusing to sell spoiled meat was able to get her job back during this campaign.
Their first contract negotiations initially went well and a tentative agreement was reached. Then Jeff Crank, the owner, fired his own negotiator, withdrew the offer and replaced it with his “final” offer–a much worse one. In response, workers voted to begin their strike on Wednesday, September 5.
The strike coincided with a sanitation headache for Crank’s. A recent visit from the health department found numerous violations. Food service workers explain management had cut back hours, allowing no time for proper clean up. Management also demanded that workers “work off the clock” to clean up.
Jeff Crank told strikers he has deep pockets and can wait out the strikers. But where does Jeff’s money come from?
IF those pockets are deep, then they are deep with union money earned in UAW buildings and offices.
Before it was taken offline, the Crank’s Catering website listed numerous UAW-affiliated references as “satisfied customers.” Here is a partial list: UAW GM National Human Resource Center, UAW GM Tech Center, UAW Ford, UAW Chrysler National Training Center, UAW Chrysler Wayne Center, UAW Dave Miller Building, UAW Union Locals 1248, 155, 1264, 212, 2280, and 228.
Crank’s also catered the most recent LaborFest. How hypocritical! (And the lines were long at LaborFest because not enough workers were called in and not enough food service gloves had been supplied to the workers who were there.)
Crank’s has hired scab workers as replacements. And a few former managers were demoted to workers’ positions, only to cross the picket line. One of these former managers is black and he makes a special point to appeal on that basis to black Crank workers to cross the line. He, obviously, wants them to forget that Cranks systematically pays black workers less than its white workers. Many of them are stuck at $7.40, $7.50 and $8.00 an hour. One of the demands of the Crank workers, white and black, has been equal pay for equal work.
This company has a lot of business in union offices and buildings. Until it straightens up, it ought to have no business!
Sep 10, 2001
A 14-year-old legal battle entered a new stage in June, when a U.S. immigration judge in Los Angeles ruled against the deportation of two Palestinians, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehade. The judge agreed with the defendants that a 1990 "anti-terrorism" law cold not be used against them retroactively.
Hamide and Shehade were among the so-called "L.A. Eight," seven Palestinians and one Kenyan who in 1987 were arrested on charges of "terrorism." The accused were supporters of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), which at that time was branded a "terrorist organization" by the U.S. government.
Of course, things have changed since then. In an effort to quell a massive Palestinian uprising, the U.S. actively sponsored a pact between the PLO and its arch-enemy, the state of Israel, in 1994. The leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, returned to the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel as the head of a "Palestinian Authority." The U.S. government started to aid and train PLO units as a police force in the occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza Strip.
So, now that the PLO is no longer called "terrorist," one would think that the U.S. government would stop persecuting the L.A. Eight. But that’s not the case. The Justice Department still threatens to appeal the June ruling against the deportation of Hamide and Shehade.
A surprise? Not at all, for the government’s case against these eight activists never had any legal basis to begin with. Having never been involved in any kind of activity that could even remotely be considered terrorist, the L.A. Eight never had any criminal charges filed against them. Instead, the government made an about-turn and accused these eight immigrants of visa violations. Those charges, however, didn’t go very far either. Three of the eight no longer face any charges. Three others now face less serious charges such as overstaying their visas. Hamide and Shehade are the only ones who still face the threat of deportation–if the Justice Department decides to charge them with "advocating worldwide communism" under the McCarran-Walter Act, a cold-war relic.
This is a case that the U.S. government, through different departments and agencies, and under four different presidents, has been relentlessly pursuing for the past 14 years. So, obviously, what’s involved here is not some odd mistake or accident, but a very conscious effort by the U.S. government. The question, of course, is why?
There is only one explanation which makes sense: the L.A. Eight were activists who tried to expose the reality of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The U.S. government has a very long history of repression against people and organizations who oppose, or are a hindrance to, its policies. In the past one-and-a-half centuries, the U.S. government has repeatedly framed up, jailed, blacklisted, deported or even assassinated union organizers, communists, leaders of the black movement, American-Indian activists.
This kind of repression is simply part of the normal workings of capitalism, a system which is based on exploitation and thus relies on intimidation and terror.
Yes, terror... In the never-ending case of the L.A. Eight, the only terror involved is that used by the U.S. government against these activists, whose only "crime" was to publicly speak out in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people.
Sep 10, 2001
We reprint the following letter from a prisoner at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle, Indiana.
On August 15, three pigs were assaulted in GHU, one on the right wing, one on the left and one outside. After the smoke cleared there was blood everywhere. Backup was called in and the cell-house was locked down. Without doing any kind of investigation, the pigs locked up one guy, Sean Parks #952684, for assault on three staff members. To carry out those three assaults, Parks would have had to move with speed unimaginable. With all the blood everywhere, they could have determined if he did it or not. All they had to do was check his clothing, but they didn’t. Now he sits on lockup facing outside criminal charges for something he didn’t do. Parks kept telling the pigs as they were taking him out of the cell-house that he didn’t do anything and for them to test his clothing and his body for blood and bruises, but this was ignored. There are several witnesses who can vouch for Parks, but the staff has said that if he didn’t do it, then someone else did, and until they get the perpetrator, Parks wasn’t going anywhere. They came to the cell I live in today around 10 a.m. and wanted me to speak to I.A. and when I told them “no” they threatened me with a conduct report for refusing to cooperate with an investigation. I am not concerned with their threats. What I need is some help for Sean Parks. I need letters, petitions and calls to the commissioner of the Department of Correction and the superintendent, inquiring why Parks is being held for something he didn’t do.
In struggle,
Kalomo Yero Yerodin
Please write to or call:
Commissioner Evelyn Ridley-Turner
Indiana Dept of Corrections
E334 Ind Government Center South
302 W. Washington St
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 232-5715
Superintendent Craig Hanks
Wabash Valley Correctional Facility
PO Box 1111
Carlisle, IN 47838
(812) 398-5050
Sep 10, 2001
The NLRB issued a complaint against Toledo Hospital at the end of August, accusing it of “interfering with the employees right to a free and fair election.” This stems from a UAW organizing drive which started over a year ago, culminating in a union representation election in April which the UAW lost.
Among other things, the NLRB said that there was evidence that the hospital had promised to withhold pay and benefits if the union won and that it conducted improper surveillance and interrogation of employees.
Hospital management certainly did use almost every dirty trick in the book–and not just the ones the NLRB found evidence for. But this was not the whole story of the union’s loss.
If those dirty tricks worked, it was in part because the union drive was carried out in the fashion typical of unions these days: that is, workers were asked to sign a card, then, when enough signatures were gained, eventually to go vote. What it did not do was give the workers any real reason for keeping their allegiance steadfast.
During all the months the union drive was going on, the hospital continued to attack workers. Even when it was trying to pretend it was the workers’ best friend, its actions proved otherwise. There were plenty of things the workers who were pulled into the union organizing drive could have done to organize against the hospital’s actions. Over 300 workers signed the original statement declaring themselves an organizing committee. Even a quarter of those workers could have been the nucleus needed to bring other workers inside the hospital to fight on the problems immediately facing them. That would have gone a long way toward proving that the hospital’s scandal-mongering attacks on the union were nothing but a pack of lies.
What now?
The union originally collected signatures from almost two-thirds of the workers in the hospital. Even though the original election lost, there has to be a large residue of support for the idea that the workers want their own union–all the more so since as soon as the union drive was over, management dropped its “friendly face” mask, revealing itself once again for the ogre it had always been.
The NLRB hearing will be on October 1. If the NLRB law judge is to rule according to what the hospital did, he or she will certainly rule in favor of the workers who want a union. But that’s only the beginning. There still will be another election. And the hospital is apt to appeal any finding that awards the union another chance at an election. The best way for those workers who want a union to get it is to begin acting as though they already have it. Answering management’s attacks by pulling people together to respond not only will prepare for the election, when and if it ever comes, but it will also set up a functioning union in the workplace, regardless of how all these rulings go.
The NLRB ruling affects only support workers, that is housekeepers, cafeteria and laundry workers, as well as some clerical and secretarial workers; and laboratory, radiology, operating room technicians as well as licensed practical nurses. But nothing prevents other workers who want a union from working now to put it in place and make it function.
It lies in the hands of the Toledo Hospital workers whether or not they have their union. No one can take from them what they are ready to build themselves.