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 8, 2003
Both Republican and Democratic Party politicians are hailing the Bush administration’s decision to try to get United Nations Security Council backing to send a multinational military force to occupy Iraq.
Of course, even if the U.N. Security Council does give its stamp of approval to sending a multinational force into Iraq, this would not change the nature of the war. It would just mean that, along with the U.S. military, more troops from more countries would help impose imperial domination over the Iraqi people, secure imperial control of Iraqi’s resources, especially its oil, maintain Iraq as a semi-colony of the big foreign powers, especially of the U.S.
Up until this time, the Bush administration had done this job without the other lesser imperialist powers, without the U.N., only with its very junior partner, Great Britain, at its side. But the Bush administration figured that it could do the job. With the mightiest and most overwhelming war machine in the world, Bush and his "brain trust" figured that the Iraqi people would just bow down to the mighty U.S. occupiers.
But that didn’t happen. On the contrary, after the U.S. began to occupy their country, the Iraqi people began to demand that the U.S. get out. And after the U.S. military responded to these demands by shooting down Iraqi demonstrators, parts of the Iraqi population took up arms in a guerrilla war that the U.S. military so far has not been able to stop or contain.
Now, the Bush administration is going to the U.N. to get help. Will Bush get it? That depends on how much the U.S. government and U.S. companies are willing to give up to their European "allies" and "friends." Up until now, the Bush administration had tried to cut these "allies and friends" out of benefitting from the spoils of war in Iraq that is, all the oil, construction contracts, etc. Instead, they tried to keep it all for U.S. companies. Of course, the governments of France, Germany and Russia were upset. This is why they resisted the U.S.-led-war and opposed the U.N. from sanctioning that war. Of course, these governments had always signaled that they would change their position and send large contingents of troops to Iraq–if the Bush administration made it worth their while, that is, if the Bush administration agreed to share out some of the profits and riches from that war.
This is what is being debated at the U.N. right now. Under the guise of "bringing peace to Iraq" under the banner of the U.N., the diplomats of the different countries are debating how to carve up the riches and wealth of Iraq.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the capitalist thieves from these different countries will come to an agreement on this. But working people in the U.S. should have no illusions or get side tracked by this sideshow, even if they doagree.
With or without the U.N., the war in Iraq continues. The horrific casualties mount. Hundreds of U.S. troops have already been killed, more than during the official war, and six thousand have been shipped home, wounded, or otherwise disabled. Thousands and thousands of Iraqis continue to be shot down at U.S. checkpoints and raids, or felled by such silent killers as disease and abject misery.
Working people should relearn the lesson that previous generations learned from the war in Viet Nam: what got the U.S. out of that dirty, murderous war was the mobilization of people in this country in the streets.
There is no other way.
Sep 8, 2003
EPA (Environmental Protection Administration) officials announced at the end of August that they were gutting the clean air rules for old, obsolete power plants. Plants that were required under law to upgrade to the latest anti-pollution technology now won’t have to.
Only a few days later, two of the EPA’s movers and shakers who pushed this polluters’ dream were rewarded. John Pemberton, chief of staff of EPA’s air and radiation office, quit EPA for a job as "director of federal affairs" with Southern Company. Southern is the nation’s No. 2 power-plant polluter.
Likewise, Ed Krenik, EPA’s associate administrator for congressional affairs, left EPA for a post with Bracewell & Patterson, a big law firm that for the past two years coordinated power-plant polluters’ lobbying.
The utility companies evidently believe in the old saying: "You get what you pay for."
Sep 8, 2003
The General Accounting Office of the U.S. Congress recently put the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on its watch list of "high risk" programs. The PBGC is the government agency that backs up company pension plans when they fail. It is underfunded by 5.7 billion dollars–and its deficit is expected to grow substantially. The General Accounting Office concluded that "additional severe losses [to the PBGC] may be on the horizon."
Pension plans covering hundreds of thousands of workers at some of the largest companies in the country have stopped making pension payments–some because companies went out of business. But what is most shocking is the number of big corporations that continue in business and yet dump their pension plans, using the bankruptcy courts to pull off this maneuver. In the last few years alone, Bethlehem Steel, LTV Steel, National Steel, U.S. Air and Polaroid, among other companies, got away with this scam.
The impact on workers is often devastating. The PBGC fund may cover current retirees pensions, but when the PBGC takes over a bankrupt pension fund, it does not pay retiree health benefits. And it also sometimes cuts the retirees’ monthly benefit payment, depending on how much it is. But that’s not the worst of it. Workers at these companies who haven’t yet reached retirement age can see their pension benefits frozen at the point the company handed the pension plan over to the PBGC. And, what’s worse, they have to work until they reach 65 before they can even begin to draw that money.
Now, they tell us, the PBGC itself is in crisis. Congress says it will hold hearings in September to see how to "fix" it.
The PBGC fund is a kind of insurance plan for pensions, paid for by taxes on the companies that have pensions. But payments made by companies have long been lagging behind increases in wages, cost of living, etc. So, it’s obvious that the first thing Congress should do–if it intended to "fix the crisis" in the interests of the workers–would be to increase the tax on employers, making it proportionate to what it was years ago. At the same time, Congress should increase the amounts of money that companies have to pay into their own pension plans so that if a company goes through a period of bad times or even goes out of business, the plan can pay off on all pension obligations. Furthermore, Congress would make sure that companies put in everything they are required to put in. Today, by contrast, the traditional pension funds are at least 300 billion dollars short–and that’s according to the current, inadequate funding rules. General Motors alone is underfunded by 19 billion.
But not a peep is coming out of Congress or the Bush administration about cleaning up the situation like this. Just the opposite. Bush has proposed an accounting change that would allow companies to further reduce what they pay into their funds.
Finally if, as Bush and Congress say, they want to rescue the PBGC, they would prevent companies from buying up other companies while dumping their pensions plans. In fact, this is what happened at both Bethlehem, which was bought up by the International Steel Group, the second largest steel company in the country, and National Steel, which was bought up by US Steel, the largest steel company. If a company has money to buy up another company, then it has money to cover its pension plans.
Yet, here again, not a peep is coming out of Congress nor the Bush administration. Not a single proposal to stop this outrageous practice.
The crisis of under funding in the PBGC today, threatening every worker’s pension, was created by Congress and one administration after another making it easier for companies to get out from underneath their pension obligations.
These very same bodies, led by the same two parties, are not about to rescue our pensions. Just the opposite. They are simply talking about a "crisis" in order to justify new, bigger attacks on the pension system–reductions in what the PBGC will pay out, reductions in what companies have to pay into their pension plans.
If we want to keep or get back our pensions, we are going to have to do what earlier generations of workers did to get the pensions. We’re going to have to fight, to mobilize ourselves, to demand the right to have a reasonable life in our later years, after having contributed all our working lives the labor that lets this society function.
Sep 8, 2003
Two years after the September 11 terrorist attack on New York City’s World Trade Center (WTC), thousands of workers and residents in lower Manhattan continue to suffer from exposure to the dust and particulate debris at Ground Zero.
Exactly how many is not known, because the Bush administration has blocked all proposals to fund a serious health study. But a recent National Defense Council Environmental Impact report estimates that as many as 10,000 New Yorkers living or working near Ground Zero suffer health effects related to air pollution. These include several hundred firemen and paramedics who had been a part of the initial rescue efforts. To this day, most of them are still on disability or are now limited to desk work. Most often, those stricken have a compromised immune system, which leaves them open to rampant infection and disease. They also suffer from reduced lung capacity and a cough that doctors now call "World Trade Center cough," a dry and persistent cough that can be triggered by even mild irritants, such as cold air or exhaust fumes. About 20% also continue to have serious stomach problems, as the result of swallowing very fine concrete dust.
They are not the only ones. This past month an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that several dozen babies had a low birth weight after their mothers were exposed to dust from the World Trade Center collapse.
These people are not just the victims of the terrorists, but of the U.S. government, which posed as people’s protection from the terrorists. From the first days following the attacks, high government officials assured the public that they need not worry about the dust. On September 13, 2001, even before tests could have been run and analyzed, Bush’s head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, announced that New York’s air and water were safe. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani pronounced the air quality safe and acceptable on September 28.
For nine months after September 11, both the EPA and the New York City Health Department insisted that the dust contained few contaminants and posed little health risk to anyone but those caught near the initial plume from the towers’ collapse. On April 2002, Whitman continued this line when she told public television’s Nightly News, "Everything we’ve tested for, which includes asbestos, lead and volatile organic compounds, have been below any level of concern for the general public health."
This was a lie. Private tests showed that asbestos, heavy metals, and toxic chemicals, including poisonous PCBs, were at highly dangerous levels not only all through the WTC site, but all across lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. A scathing report issued by the EPA’s own Inspector General’s office in January 2003 even castigated high officials in the Bush administration for revising information released by the EPA. Needless to say, this January report has yet to be officially released.
Why did the Bush administration go to such lengths to hide the truth? Very simple–the government and private sector bosses were trying to avoid paying for all the precautions that workers should have taken during the rescue effort and demolition of the site, nor did they want to pay for the vast clean-up necessary.
Kevin Mount, a now chronically ill 49-year-old sanitation worker, who for several months after September 11 sifted debris from the WTC, told the New York Daily News, that while he and the other members of the recovery crew were outfitted only with a paper mask, "the FBI and government big shots were well taken care of. They got those environmental hazard suits, masks, gloves, the works.... But our bosses told us that we were lucky to have a job."
Tragedies and crises only bring out society’s class divisions, inequities and injustices that much more.
Sep 8, 2003
For 37 months in a row, each and every month, U.S. manufacturing companies have eliminated more jobs than are created. Month after month, we see numbers like "44,000 jobs axed from payroll." Month after month, the ranks of the unemployed grow and grow–much more than the official statistics show. Since February 2001, at least 2.6 million jobs vanished.
Surely this means that not as many goods and services are being produced? Wrong! More are being produced. What accounts for this apparent contradiction is productivity. The average output of the average U.S. worker is not only up–it’s way up. In 2002, while jobs were disappearing, the growth in productivity was averaging close to five% per year. In manufacturing, the increase in productivity was even higher.
The owners of businesses are extracting more and more output from fewer and fewer workers. This is why, even though we know it is a lie, we can hear politicians say we are in a "recovery." It’s always a recovery for the rich, when they can take more products from a smaller payroll!
But why should this be a recovery for the rich? They make no goods. They provide no services, unless supporting Wall Street speculators can be called a "service." No, the goods and services necessary to move the economy come only from the labor of millions and millions of workers. So why should we not get the benefits of our labor?
Advances in productivity need not automatically go to the bosses. Workers could greatly enjoy the benefits of productivity growth. Making more output in a day means everyone can go home early. Need a vacation day? Take two! Need a week’s vacation? Take a month!
Making more goods and services per hour means everyone can slow down–with all the accompanying health and safety benefits. Also, making more goods and services in a year means that everything should be cheaper–everything from health care to fishing poles!
Yes, productivity increases such as we see today would mean a great recovery for the working class. But not if we let the rich take it all for themselves!
Sep 8, 2003
Amina Lawal is a young Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning in March of 2002, in the name of the Islamic law. This law, the "sharia," was introduced into the penal code by the military regime in 1999. The crime of this mother of three, in the eyes of the religious law, was having a child "outside marriage." She is appearing before a judge at the end of August in an appeal [against the sentence]. Her lawyer, who is a woman, is not allowed, by this same reactionary set of laws, to defend her in court. Only a man is allowed to speak in her name. Which is the point of this religious law–it is, above all, a law against women.
A campaign by Amnesty International is trying to save the life of Amina Lawal. On Tuesday before her appeal, 200 people protested in front of the Nigerian embassy in Paris.
Another young Nigerian woman, Safiya Husseini, was also condemned by a religious tribunal to death by stoning in 2001 for adultery. Her life was saved by an international campaign in which 600,000 people signed a petition against her death, forcing the president of Nigeria to suspend the sentence.
Here are two cases of religious barbarism made public. But how many similar cases are unknown, cases in other African, Asian or Arabic countries governed by fundamentalist dictatorships? And these dictatorships are the good friends of the three most important powers in the world–the U.S., Britain and France.
Sep 8, 2003
The following is excerpted from an article in the September 4 issue of Lutte Ouvrière [Workers Struggle], newspaper of the French Trotskyist organization of the same name.
On August 19, 1953, the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq, was overthrown in a coup d’etat organized by the U.S. The CIA and those around the shah (the king of Iran) carried out the coup in order to break Mossadeq’s attempt to escape the greed of the international oil companies.
Fourth largest producer of oil in the world, Iran was long a target for the imperialists. From the beginning of the 20th century, Great Britain had exploited the oil of Iran. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was a veritable state within a state, an extension of Great Britain which itself had occupied parts of Iran since World War II.
At the end of April 1951, Mossadeq was named prime minister under the pressure of demonstrations in the street. He had put together a diverse group of nationalists into a coalition called the National Front which found support both from the popular masses and from representatives of the Islamic religion. Mossadeq proposed a measure, which parliament voted, to nationalize Iran’s oil. The Iranian National Petroleum Company was created. British technicians who refused to work for it were expelled from the country in September. In October, the British closed a refinery in Abadan, one of the most important in the world, and organized a blockade against the sale of Iranian crude oil. After a little while, the American oil companies joined in, showing their solidarity with the British actions.
Mossadeq’s response was "Better to be independent and produce only a ton of oil each year than to produce 36 million tons and be slaves of England." His words played to considerable popular support, shown by a number of demonstrations. There were similar situations elsewhere in the Middle East. For example in July 1952, nationalist Egyptian army officers, including Nasser, overthrew the king of Egypt, who was the personification of corruption and of submission to the English imperialists.
Iran was also in the midst of an economic crisis in 1952: the nationalized oil company couldn’t sell its oil on the world market. The middle classes in the bazaars and the big landowners were withdrawing their support from Mossadeq, who also faced a hostile American government under the Eisenhower administration. The shah dismissed Mossadeq in July of that year, but took him back a few days later under pressure from the National Front, the religious leaders and demonstrations in the streets. The situation was becoming too unstable in the eyes of the Western powers.
The U.S. government decided to overthrow Mossadeq. The CIA came up with a plan, supported by the British secret service. A candidate was found to carry out the plan: a General Zahedi, who had attempted a failed coup to overthrow the government at the start of 1953. Pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars to buy military, religious, and parliamentary support, as well as demonstrators hostile to Mossadeq, the American government succeeded in rallying forces for the shah, who had fled to Rome. On the 19th of August, these supporters of the king, with the police behind them, held demonstrations to bring back the shah. The shah returned, Mossadeq fled. He was condemned to death, but after three years in prison he was assigned to home detention until 1967. The Toudah, the Iranian Communist Party, had not called very clearly for resistance to the coup d’etat. It was harshly repressed, its militants and a large number of workers were persecuted.
The imperialist powers had reestablished their control. In 1954 a consortium was set up, in which the American oil companies controlled 40% of Iranian oil, the English oil companies controlled another 40%; the French oil companies got 6%. The Iranian National Oil Company got to sign the accord with the consortium.
The attempt by Mossadeq to lighten the imperialist guardianship of Iran failed. The population, which had hoped under Mossadeq to see an improvement in their conditions of life, were forced to submit to the dictatorship of the shah for the next 30 years.
Sep 8, 2003
Slavery and prostitution, as well as forced enrollment in armed groups, indentured servitude and begging are growing throughout the world, according to the latest annual report by the U.S. State Department.
More than eight million youngsters worldwide are exploited by networks which steal children, and each year another 800,000 new victims are grabbed in their own countries. In western Europe alone, a half million prostitutes are brought from Eastern Europe.
This disgusting traffic in humans is supposed to be worth more than seven billion dollars per year, in so far as the amount can be known. All the countries concerned, whether those of the victims’ origin, those seeing the traffic come through or those of the traffickers’ destinations, scarcely oppose this traffic in humans–and sometimes the corruption involves their own police or others at the highest levels of the country.
It’s not so astonishing. Human traffickers and such mafias are nourished by social catastrophes which cover many countries of the world, catastrophes thanks to the pillage of the planet by the big multinational corporations and the governments which support them. To rid the world of such traffic in human beings, it is necessary to sweep away capitalism, which by definition is all about buying and selling.
Sep 8, 2003
The following is excerpted from an article in the August 29 issue of Lutte Ouvrière [Workers Struggle], newspaper of the French Trotskyist organization of the same name.
The spiral of violence in Israel quickly restarted after the suicide attack that killed 20 people on August 19 in Jerusalem. This attack made it possible for the Israeli government to officially justify the resumption of its attacks and its raids against the Palestinians... which actually had never really stopped.
The "truce" proposed by the United States had been accepted by the two parties on June 29. For better or worse, the Palestinian prime minister forced the truce to be respected and the suicide attacks had stopped.
On the Israeli side, however, none of the conditions of the agreement, limited as it was, were respected: no end to setting up colonies, no end to the destruction of Palestinian homes and no withdrawal of the Israel army from the towns of the West Bank.
The construction of the wall that turns all of the West Bank into a vast concentration camp was not stopped, not even for a single day; and along with it came the destruction of the fields, the crops and the wells of the Palestinians. The majority of the Palestinian political prisoners remained in the Israeli jails.
And the Israeli government continued the "targeted attacks" on Palestinian leaders, especially Hamas.
Thus on August 8, eleven days before the attack in Jerusalem, the Israeli army killed two militants of Hamas in Naplouse. On August 14, two others were killed in Hébron. On the 18th, Israel destroyed three Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem and arrested three Israelis along the way because they opposed what was taking place.
Sharon could not be unaware that such acts would maintain a climate likely to produce new suicide attacks.
After the attack on August 19, the Israeli army stepped up its repression. For the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank, the already terrible situation it endures became more degraded, more humiliating, more difficult.
It is not the policy of the Palestinian terrorist movements, with their bloody attacks, that will serve the interests of the Palestinian population. The terrorists on one side, the Sharon government on the other, act as two factions playing with the fate of the populations, digging a ditch of blood, ever more deep, between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
And the Palestinian Authority, which wanted to demonstrate its capacity to act as a true state able to control the Palestinian population, now finds itself trapped: either it concedes to the demands of the Israeli government and attempts to crush movements like Hamas, risking a true civil war within the Palestinian territories. Or it does not do this, giving Israel the pretext to again occupy the Palestinian territories.
American imperialism will not force the Israeli government to change its policy. Only the reaction of the populations of that region can do it. In the past, it was the first Intifada, the revolt of the stones, which led the Israeli state to take a few small steps toward the recognition of the Palestinians in their own state. And 20 years ago, it was the reaction of a part of the Israeli population, shocked to see its youth dying in Lebanon or becoming prison wardens there or in the West Bank or in Gaza, that led the Israeli state to reconsider its policy, at least for a moment.
Sep 8, 2003
This summer the Baltimore Health Department announced the infant mortality rate in the city is lower than it has ever been. It declined from a rate of 12 deaths per 1000 live births in 2001 to a rate of 10.4 in 2002. This rate still makes Baltimore (and any other large city) more deadly for infants than in Sweden, Japan, France, Spain, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Greece, Ireland–or even Croatia. Even tiny Cuba with scarce resources thanks to 40 years of boycott by the U.S. has a significantly lower infant mortality rate than Baltimore.
Dr. Peter Beilenson, Baltimore’s Commissioner of Health, attributed the decline in the rate of infant mortality to a series of programs dealing with pre-natal care.
Yet two weeks after the improvement was announced, Maryland’s Governor Ehrlich declared heavy duty budget cuts, which immediately slashed over a million dollars from Baltimore’s Health Department. Beilenson warned the cuts would adversely affect the city’s neediest population. He said the successful prenatal care programs would have to go.
This governor, Robert Ehrlich, who throughout his campaign made a point to be photographed holding his 3-year-old-son in his arms, clearly does not extend his concern for children and parenting to Baltimore’s ordinary families. Pure and simple, his proposals mean that many more babies will die!
Sep 8, 2003
The State of Michigan will stop paying for dental care for adults on Medicaid. Governor Granholm says the cuts are necessary to reduce the state’s budget deficit.
The dental care cuts affect 600,000 of the poorest, most vulnerable people. This includes people in nursing homes, the majority of whom are working people or retirees on Medicaid because they’ve exhausted all of their savings.
Their teeth will become infected because they won’t receive preventive care. This is known to shorten people’s lives. Many of these people will lose their teeth.
The state says they still will be eligible for treatment. Yes–when they are in severe pain with swelling and infection! And the treatment? The state will pay to have their teeth removed. The state, of course, won’t pay for replacements.
The state will also require Medicaid recipients with children to pay co-pays for their medical care. In other words, they will put off getting care for their children until the illnesses are really serious. These children will carry health problems with them for the rest of their lives.
Claiming the state has a budget deficit, Granholm is giving out more in new tax breaks to big business alone this year than the entire budget deficit. In order to give money to its wealthy and powerful friends Granholm commits the most vulnerable people in the state to pain, disease, and shortened lives!
Sep 8, 2003
Despite all the talk of gloom and doom for the budget, Maryland ended its 2003 financial year on June 30 with a surplus of 122 million dollars. Top state officials obviously lied when they claimed there would be a deficit for the year. Just like they’ve been lying every time they claim there’s no alternative, but to cut social programs like education, health care and drug treatment in order to balance the budget.
In reality, social programs like these are being cut, so that the state can continue forking over more and more millions of dollars every year in tax breaks and other subsidies to the corporations and rich people in Maryland–like the estimated 650 million dollars in sales taxes on businesses services that companies in the state don’t have to pay every year, just to give just one example.
Maryland’s phony budget crisis is being used to justify its ever greater robbery of the poor to finance its ever greater gifts to the rich.
Sep 8, 2003
A bomb was brought into the main post office in Detroit last week.
How did the bomb get to the post office? A terrorist? Well–you decide!
A suspicious package was first found in a home on the west side of Detroit during an identity theft and mail fraud raid.
Instead of taking it to the usual place on Belle Isle where packages like this are inspected–a postal inspector brought it to the post office in the middle of the city and carried it right into the building, putting the lives of hundreds of postal employees at risk.
The object was then taken BACK out to be x-rayed. The x-rays confirmed that the package could indeed be dangerous.
Throughout the whole ordeal, before, during and even after the Bomb Squad arrived and detonated the object on a field behind the Post Office, management denied any danger to the postal workers inside. They issued statements with phrases like, "IF there was a bomb," and "IF it came into the building."
But it DID come into the building. And the Bomb Squad decided it could be dangerous enough to explode.
With fools like this abounding in management, the terrorists will have to take a back seat!
Sep 8, 2003
There’s been a discussion going on lately in Bluesweek about whether or not there’s a need for universal health care. Some management people have argued that health care is not a right that people should expect. They point to countries that have national health care and point out that it’ s inefficient.
In fact, whatever problems there are in countries that have national health systems, those countries still have better overall health statistics than does the United States. The U.S. ranks way down on the list of industrialized countries in life expectancy and rankings for infant mortality, despite being the richest country in the world. And if there are problems with the medical care in those countries, it’s because they are still societies based on profit. Drug and medical supply companies, banks and others still profit from health care there. And the very wealthy still don’t pay their share of taxes in those countries.
Breathing and food might not be considered rights either, but they’re necessary to life, just as is medical care. With the wealth and knowledge in the world today, there’s no reason people have to go without the basic necessities, except that we live in a society based on profit. It’s only a very few wealthy families that reap the real benefits of the system.
Workers produce all of the wealth. Why should any of us have to beg for the basic necessities?
Report from Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Detroit, MI.
Sep 8, 2003
"Deacons for Defense" is a film based on true events that took place in Bogalusa, Louisiana, during the Civil Rights Movement. Even if the characters are fictional, they are based on the experiences of people in Bogalusa.
The movie starts in 1965, when this town was still officially segregated. The Klan there had an especially long history of violence, including lynchings and attacks on civil rights organizations. The central character of the story is Marcus Clay, a black worker at a paper plant which provides Bogalusa 70% of its income. The plant is segregated, and black workers are never promoted beyond the lowest-paying menial jobs. When Marcus’s friend and neighbor, T.J., applies for an opening for supervisor, white workers, who are also members of the Klan, badly beat him. Marcus doesn’t help T.J. for fear of retaliation against his family.
Marcus’s attitude changes when he sees the police brutally beating civil rights protesters, including his own teenage daughter. For protecting his daughter, it’s Marcus’s turn to get beaten by the cops–many of whom are also members of the Klan. Finally convinced that being timid offers no protection for black people anyway, Marcus suggests that the community arm itself in defense against the Klan’s violence.
The people are more than ready to act on Marcus’s suggestion. They form an armed organization, which they call "Deacons for Defense." Armed with rifles and baseball bats, the Deacons stand their ground against the Klan’s attacks.
The Deacons’ strength comes from the black population, which stands united behind its armed organization. The population is now determined to fight segregation and Klan terror at any cost. The boycotts and strikes bring financial pressure to bear on the bosses. The corporation that owns the paper plant sees itself forced to order the local manager to desegregate. The federal government follows suit, ordering local officials, all of whom are in fact tied to the Klan, to stop the attacks against black people.
"Deacons for Defense" does a good job showing the development and different aspects of this struggle. It shows, realistically, how terror can uphold oppression against an entire population–but only up to a certain point. The movie also shows how racism and segregation are used by the bosses to divide the workers, keeping wages low for everyone.
"Deacons for Defense" also shows two conflicting realities of the Civil Rights Movement. On the one hand, Klan violence and the protection it received from government officials made it necessary for the black population to form independent organizations to defend itself. The strategy of "non-violence" promoted by some of the movement’s leaders, however, stood opposed to this–and not because these leaders, who had armed bodyguards themselves, were opposed to all violence. They were against the black population arming itself in its own defense, asking it instead to depend on the government.
Regardless of how this history is taught in schools today, the fight against segregation and Klan terror could not have been won without the black population’s readiness to defend itself, with arms if necessary.
"Deacons for Defense" was made for TV, but it’s now available in video stores. It’s definitely worth seeing!
Sep 8, 2003
In early September Verizon Communications, the largest phone company in the country, reached an agreement with two unions representing 79,000 of its work force. The president of one, the Communication Workers of America (CWA), hailed the agreement, claiming that it "meets the union’s key goals of protecting members’ job -security rights, health care and other benefits and provides fair wage and pension improvements."
According to what was released to the mass media, it appears that the new agreement does keep the job security rules that at least formally make it more difficult for Verizon to lay off current unionized workers. But, for the first time, these small protections do not apply to new hires. In other words, the union officials agreed to sell out future workers–hardly a way to "protect members’ job-security rights."
Neither does the new agreement "protect" workers health care benefits, as the union officials claim. A Verizon vice president told the Wall Street Journal that workers will pay 25 to 30% more in out of pocket health care expenses than they used to pay–a hefty increase.
And neither are wages "improved" as claimed. On the contrary, in the first year of the new agreement, wages are frozen, and workers only get a lump sum bonus. In the following four years, workers get minuscule 2% raises, which don’t even cover inflation.
No, this new agreement is a real step backward for the workers. In 2002 the chief executive of Verizon was paid 20 million dollars. With an agreement like this one, the company will probably give him a raise to 30 or 40 million.
Sep 8, 2003
The United Auto Workers has reached a secret understanding with DaimlerChrysler, according to Business Week of September 8. The UAW has agreed to keep quiet when the company closes or sells some of its plants to lower-wage companies in exchange for the company standing aside in union organizing drives.
Rumored to be in the works for years, the sales are expected soon after the September contract, says Business Week. Of course, the UAW also agreed not to hold the new owners to DCX-level wages and benefits! In other words, the union is giving up the jobs of high seniority workers in exchange for getting more dues-paying members at lower-wage plants.
Business Week says that UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President Nate Gooden made the deal last fall when they took a trip to Germany to meet with DCX (DaimlerChrysler) officials at their headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Is this report true? Look at what happened since last fall’s trip. DCX allowed a card check unionization of two Freightliner plants in North and South Carolina–plants where DCX fought and defeated all previous unionizing drives.
Since then Gooden has been going around bragging that the UAW will organize a Mercedes plant in Alabama. It seems he knows that he and the company have a deal. Gooden is the same guy who, right around the time that the company started talking about selling its McGraw Glass plant in Detroit, made the comment, "Chrysler never should have been in the glass business in the first place."
Agreements like this may allow the union to make up for some of its huge losses in membership over the last couple of decades. But for the workers, it’s just one more big retreat in the face of the bosses’ attacks.
If workers leave their future in these gentlemen’s hands, the future for the working class will be nothing but more concessions, lower wages, and fewer benefits.
Sep 8, 2003
The governor’s office still demands concessions of $4,000 per person. If not a pay cut, then they want us to agree to the BLT (work for free) plan. If we don’t agree, Governor Granholm is threatening a LOT of layoffs.
In some departments, it appears managers were told to scare workers that if we don’t agree to concessions, there will be BIG layoffs. Managers were told if they don’t scare the workers, the layoffs will start with the managers.
We shouldn’t be willing to accept either one! We can’t afford to lose any more employees, and we can’t afford any concessions in our pay and benefits. The answer is NO! Period.
The state has plenty of money
The governor e-mailed a Labor Day message to state employees last week. It talked about the state budget problems and looking for ways to lessen the impact on state workers.
She’s not looking hard enough at the huge sums she’s spending on corporate welfare. A Detroit News article says the state has given away 1.38 billion dollars in tax money in just one program called MEGA (Michigan Economic Growth Authority), spread over 20 years.
IF the state is desperate for money, why give billions to rich corporations?
Who makes $42,000?
The Detroit News on 8/20/03 said the average state employee makes $42,000 a year. A lot of management salaries were averaged into that figure. Try $25,000-$35,000 for far too many of us.
How are our families to make ends meet if $4,000 gets taken away? The price of gas is up, electric is going up. The politicians don’t prevent companies from increasing prices.
Someone has to take a stand. It could be us, if we’re ready.
This is no compromise!
The Free Press, Oakland Press and Lansing State Journal on 9/12/03 said Mark Gaffney, who heads the Michigan AFL-CIO, wants to offer his services to Governor Granholm. He hopes to "mediate a compromise, which might include a mix of concessions and layoffs." This is NO COMPROMISE.
Mark Gaffney is talking about state workers giving up a lot and the governor giving up nothing. This is our contract, not his. Let the governor talk to us. We’ll tell her what for!
Reports from Michigan State Workers, Detroit, MI.
Sep 8, 2003
DCX just distributed a booklet to workers at a St. Louis assembly plant outlining the contract changes it intends to implement in coming months. It wants to reduce the number of skilled trades classifications from 15 to 2, it wants to reduce everyone else to one single classification, and it wants the right to move laid-off workers hundreds of miles away (as opposed to a limit of 50 right now).
How, you ask, could DCX make these contract changes public as a done deal–even before the contract was negotiated?
Good question? Maybe we should ask Nate Gooden who heads the Chrysler talks for the UAW.
Report from McGraw Glass, Detroit, MI.
Sep 8, 2003
As we approach the UAW contract expiration date, there are a lot of articles in the newspapers talking about how jobs have been lost over the years. The focus has been placed on cheaper labor in other countries, or on work going to non-union plants in the U.S.
But what HASN’T been talked about is the speed-up that has taken place over the years, in all the plants. Overloaded jobs are not even discussed. If the International union were really serious about job security, they would have to put that issue on the table, front and center!
Not one dime, not one job, not one benefit!
That should be the rallying cry of all UAW workers when it comes to this current contract. For now–all we know are just the rumors floating around–but we all know that the companies are all situating themselves to say that they can’t afford to go on as they have in the past.
We agree. We think that all the CEOs should take drastic pay and perk cuts. We think that all the big shareholders can forgo their dividends for awhile and live on the interest on their millions.
Reports from Ford Rouge, Detroit, MI.