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
Oct 20, 2003
Ten years ago, two-thirds of workers in the United States had some level of health care available through their workplace. Today, less than half of us do. And even if we do, our health care premiums have gone up 75%.
United Auto Workers Union president Ron Gettelfinger recently made the point that health care in this country is so broken, it cannot be fixed contract by contract. This may be a self-serving justification for the fact that the UAW just gave up concessions on medical coverage in its new contract.
Gettelfinger’s point is nonetheless true.
Medical care in the U.S. is a chaotic patchwork, twisted beyond reason by all those who compete to make profits out of human need. Health care delivery in the U.S. is the most costly in the world and yet delivers the least care for society as a whole.
Could it be otherwise, with so many interests extracting profits at every level? Layers and layers of hospitals, doctors’ associations, drug manufacturers, medical equipment suppliers, insurance companies and yet more insurance companies, all uncoordinated, all competing, all doing nothing whatever to deliver care–unless they are first assured of a profit. More and more, health care is available only to those who can pay the bill.
Gettelfinger proposes that we have to elect Democrats who will implement the health insurance "reforms" that Clinton proposed.
In fact, the reforms that Clinton proposed would not extend medical coverage to everyone as a right–and they certainly wouldn’t take the profit out of the health care system.
Society is so advanced technologically, and has so much wealth at its command, that health care can and should be treated as a basic human right. The care of everyone in society could be guaranteed out of the government’s current revenues, in a coordinated, efficient, and up-to-date system, costing far less than today’s profit-riddled, limited-coverage chaos.
But to have the medical system the population needs, the population will have to fight to take this government money away from all the corporations, like Halliburton and Enron, and the wealthy people who get it today–and that won’t be done by asking the politicians for help.
The politicians have certainly come up with money for social needs before–but only when popular movements arose which left them little choice. When faced with the workers’ movement in the 1930s, the politicians found money–in the depths of the Depression!–for Social Security, public welfare, jobs programs and unemployment compensation. The force of the great social movements of the 1960s "persuaded" the politicians–Republicans and Democrats alike–to not only revoke legal discrimination, but also to find money for jobs programs, Head Start, Medicare and Medicaid, upgraded public education, improved social welfare programs and public housing.
If these programs have been going down the tubes in recent years, it’s because the social movements have subsided.
Today the increased cost of health care looms more and more as the biggest issue in union contract negotiations. Workers recently went on strike against supermarket chains in California, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky, largely because the bosses demanded huge increases in workers’ co-pays. In Michigan, workers in the three Detroit casinos have voted 95% to authorize a strike, with the health care issue front and center.
In the strikes and threats of strikes today, it’s clear that workers in every industry, in every region, are demonstrating their desire to have the health care problem solved. And while it can’t be solved contract by contract, the fights that some workers have started to make can be the beginning of a much broader movement–if other workers join in and it goes beyond a fight carried out only over union contracts.
The working class has the power–if it uses it–to take control of the health care system out of the hands of the corporations and the wealthy class that owns them.
Oct 20, 2003
Teenagers at Washington D.C.‘s Ballou Senior High School took mercury from an unlocked science lab in early October. This metal in liquid form is highly toxic. As the teenagers played with it, they spread it on themselves, their clothes, school hallways, the cafeteria and the gym. Some students either took the mercury itself home or had it on their clothes when they got home.
The 1200 students attending Ballou will spend a month at other area high schools while Ballou is decontaminated. At least five students tested with high enough levels of mercury to raise concern. Of 332 bags of clothing turned in for mercury testing, 24 showed traces of mercury.
Five city buses which pick up students from Ballou were pulled out of service and tested, with one needing cleaning from mercury contamination. More than 80 homes were tested for mercury, from which 69 people have been removed to hotels while their homes are cleaned of elevated levels of mercury.
What puts young people at far more risk than a stupid prank with mercury is the abysmal state of their schools. How were the kids able to pull this off? No one was monitoring the situation; the school staff was stretched too thin in every way.
Like most jurisdictions, the city of Washington claims it has to cut back on school funding. This past summer more than 400 positions were scheduled for cuts among janitors and clerical staff. High school teachers are expected to "educate" between 150 and 200 young people per day.
When there are fewer adults around, each one has more to do. How much can a janitor do without supplies, without enough people for cleaning and without building repairs? When the cafeteria contracts are cut back and fewer adults hired, how long are the lines? Which foods can be prepared? How secure are youngsters in schools where only one door is unlocked and a guard has to screen people for weapons? What if a fire broke out?
The science lab at Ballou High needed renovations. But there is no money for renovations. What kind of science teaching could the students have? In which round of budget cuts did they lose their art classes or their physical education? What happens in a classroom of 30 students with one teacher when more than half the students don’t read at grade level? This is not education.
Without enough money, there is no possibility of a decent education. And these same problems exist in every big city in the country, especially in the poor neighborhoods where 75% or more of the students lack basic skills. Political leaders don’t choose to provide the money needed really to educate youth.
More than mercury poisons the schools of our nation.
Oct 20, 2003
Californians booted Gray Davis out because he gave away tax dollars to the big energy companies and then said that he had no choice but to slash education and health care spending, as well as lay off over 17,000 state employees. So now they have Arnold Schwarzenegger who says very little, but by what he says makes it clear he will continue to attack the programs working people need.
In fact, all the recall election did was replace a Democrat, who serves the interests of the big corporations and the bosses, with a Republican, who does the same.
AFL-CIO officials helped pave the way for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Maybe they didn’t campaign for him. They didn’t even want him. But by being the most loyal supporters of Gray Davis, they gave people no other choice.
Instead of proposing to working people to fight against the attacks Gray Davis carried out, they counseled workers to vote for him. For what? So he could attack again? Instead of exposing Schwarzenegger for what he is–that is, the very same as Davis–the AFL-CIO officials effectively helped Schwarzenegger look like the only alternative.
Working people cannot afford to keep on waiting for a savior. We have to fight to defend ourselves, for what is rightfully ours. We have to fight to stop the layoffs, stop the cutbacks and tax increases. We have to fight to put our needs first, instead of those of the wealthy and the fat cats, the friends of Arnold and Gray.
It’s futile to vote for either Republicans or Democrats, two parties that both represent the ruling class. We need to start figuring out how to build up our own party–a party that represents our interests and that breaks through the bosses’ and politicians’ wall of lies.
Oct 20, 2003
In mid-September, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would pursue the deportation of two U.S. residents of Palestinian origin based on the Patriot Act.
This move is the continuation of a 16-year-long vendetta carried out by the federal government against the two men, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh. In January 1987, the FBI raided the homes of Hamide and Shehadeh and arrested them at gunpoint together with six others. The "L.A. 8," as these seven men and one woman were dubbed, were charged with belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the U.S. government called a terrorist organization.
That accusation didn’t last long. Within three months of the arrests, the government dropped subversion charges against six of the eight. They were instead charged with minor visa violations, which have long been dropped.
Hamide and Shehadeh, however, continued to face charges of "terrorism" and "communism" under the McCarran-Walter Act, a McCarthy-era law that allowed the government to deport non-citizens for their political views. On several occasions, federal courts ruled in favor of the two men, calling on the government to drop the charges. But every time the government filed new charges. Even the repeal of the McCarran-Walter Act by Congress in 1990 didn’t stop the persecution of Hamide and Shehadeh.
When the government’s case seemed to be stuck in federal appeal courts and going in a circle, September 11 happened. The Patriot Act fueled new blood into this endless vendetta pursued by the administrations of four different presidents. The Bush administration decided it could use these new laws against Hamide and Shehadeh. Never mind that these two men have lived in the U.S. for nearly 30 years and never had any links to any kind of terrorism, or terrorist organization.
This case was never about "fighting terrorism" in the first place. Even former FBI director William H. Webster admitted in 1987 that his agency had found no evidence linking Hamide and Shehadeh to terrorism. This was only a case designed to shut up opposition to U.S. policies in the Middle East. These two men were Palestinian activists who spoke out against what the U.S. had done to people in that region. For that, the U.S. government decided to punish them and make an example of them. The September 11 attacks simply provided the government with a new opportunity to carry out its vendetta.
Oct 20, 2003
A white man, after bringing his pregnant wife into Abington Memorial Hospital in suburban Philadelphia, demanded that no black doctors or nurses be allowed any where near her when she gave birth. The hospital acceded to his demands.
In other words, ignore the actual needs of a woman and her soon-to-be-born child. Throw medical science to the winds. Replace it with outright reactionary prejudices.
Might as well have taken her to a faith healer, for all that medical competency came into his–and the hospital’s–decision.
Oct 20, 2003
President Bush has been pushing Congress to give his administration new powers in the name of stopping terrorism–the so-called "Patriot Act II."
He wants the government to be able to have bail denied for anyone it labels a terrorist–without offering any proof, without having in any way to justify the label.
In other words, the administration wants the right to put in prison and indefinitely hold anyone it chooses, regardless of what they have done–or not done. We can see by the way the Patriot Act I has already been used what this would mean.
Following September 11, the government used the population’s fear of terrorism to get the first Patriot Act passed. Within six months of the Act being passed, the Justice Department ran seminars on how to stretch the law, using it against people who had committed no terrorist act, but were accused of ordinary crime–without having to prove anything.
The Bush Administration also used this law, for example, to question people about their political beliefs, whether they opposed the war in Iraq and U.S. policy toward Israel.
"Patriot Act II" would also set up 15 new crimes for which the death penalty could be applied. Included is a provision that says if there is a death as the result of acts which are committed in order to influence the government or the population by intimidation or coercion, the death penalty could be applied. In other words, protesters against the war could be charged–so could strikers. It’s happened often enough that a company gets an injunction, and then cops attack a picket line and someone is killed. Under this proposed law, ALL the picketers could be eligible for the death penalty.
Already the government has threatened to charge strikers with "terrorism." Just two months after September 11, the Attorney General of South Carolina accused five South Carolina longshoremen of "terrorism." This followed a clash between 150 picketing longshoremen and 600 armed police.
Finally, Patriot Act II would allow subpoenas without court approval. Now, when the Justice Department wants to get access to records on a terrorist suspect, it goes to a secret court, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, before which only the government can appear, and which decides yes or no. If yes, the feds can compel libraries to turn over records of who has asked for certain books, a company that provides Internet service to say all the web sites and email addresses a person has contacted, hospitals to turn over medical records, banks to turn over financial data, and religious and political organizations to turn over membership lists. It is illegal for the organization turning over the information ever to tell anyone what was provided, even if the person investigated was proven to be guilty of no crime. It’s obvious these FISA courts offer little protection to people the government wants to prosecute.
But now Bush wants to bypass even the fig leaf of this FISA court. He wants the Justice Department to be able to issue an "administrative subpoena" with absolutely no court looking over its shoulder at all.
No one should believe that any court is a real protection against government repression, much less the FISA court–but the fact the Bush administration wants to do away with even this court tells us a great deal about its intentions.
The Bush Administration wants to be able to arrest people who have committed no crime against other people. For the administration, protesting its wars or carrying out strikes is crime enough.
Oct 20, 2003
For several years, Lieutenant General William Boykin has been touring the country making inflammatory fundamentalist speeches against Muslims and people in other countries. In June of this year, Boykin declared: "Ladies and gentlemen I want to impress upon you that the battle that we’re in is a spiritual battle. Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army."
A year earlier, in a speech in Oklahoma, about a Muslim military opponent in Somalia, Boykin said he had defeated him because, "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
He calls George Bush’s election a miracle, since he wasn’t elected by a majority of voters, "he was appointed by God." He calls himself a warrior in the kingdom of God and says that the "spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
Of course, Boykin’s remarks are offensive. But they’re more than that. In the atmosphere the ruling class has whipped up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, they are also an encouragement to attacks on Muslims and other immigrants. In short, they’re nothing but advocacy of terrorism, a call for a Christian "Holy War"–a Christian "jihad."
So has Boykin been put on trial? Has he been dismissed from his job? Is he being sued? No, in fact, he was appointed to his current position, as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, in between these two speeches and many more. And Rumsfeld, whose deputy he is, defended him.
Rumsfeld must have wanted someone to spew out this kind of reactionary garbage. If not, why would he have appointed him?
Oct 20, 2003
Soldiers have recently been allowed to return home on two-week furloughs from their assignments in Iraq. When a 21-year-old artilleryman returned to his home town in Florida, he was asked by a friend, "So, how are you doing over there?" "It’s madness," the soldier replied. "In the beginning I was into this; we all were," he said. But "we haven’t found anything, no weapons of mass destruction, no Saddam, no nothing. And the people there hate us. If we were rolling through a town and they were cheering, hell yeah, it would make us feel better. But when they’re not cooperating and throwing rocks and giving us evil looks, we don’t want to be there. We’re conquerors to them. It wasn’t supposed to be like that."
Another friend asked,"What are you exactly doing over there?" He replied:"Ever seen the show ‘Cops’? That’s basically it: kicking in doors, searching things, looking for weapons and gold and stuff like that."
Last month U.S. soldiers in Dhuluaya, a small town about 50 miles north of Baghdad, were ordered to destroy a strip of date palm, orange and lemon trees a kilometer long. Nusayef Jassim, one of the 32 farmers whose fruit trees were wiped out, said:"They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn’t capture anything. They didn’t find any weapons." The farmers were refused compensation for the loss of their trees when they sent a delegation to a nearby U.S. military base and were told by officers there that what happened was "a punishment of local people because ‘you know who is in the resistance and do not tell us’."
According to eyewitnesses, one of the American soldiers involved in this operation broke down and cried, when soldiers dragged away children who lay down in front of a bulldozer to try to stop it from destroying their mother’s trees.
Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in a distraught voice:"It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands are worth."
The Bush administration may claim that things are going well in Iraq, but this is daily reality for both Iraqis and the U.S. soldiers being ordered to terrorize and brutalize them.
Oct 20, 2003
The Bush administration, which has been complaining lately that the news media are not reporting any of the good news coming from Iraq, only the bad, was pleased recently to see letters appearing in U.S. papers that came from soldiers in Iraq telling the good news.
During September, letters signed by members of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Division were sent to various newspapers. Some were published. All of them described the tremendous good works that soldiers of the Division had accomplished in rebuilding Kirkuk, and the appreciation expressed by the people in Kirkuk for all the battalion had done.
Strangely enough, all the letters were identical–although they were supposedly to have been signed by 500 different soldiers!
Apparently the military couldn’t find anyone who had anything good to say–except one guy with a Xerox machine.
Oct 20, 2003
Both the House and the Senate passed the Bush administration’s request for 87 billion more dollars to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This money is added to the 79 billion dollars appropriated by Congress earlier this year for these wars.
It comes to 166 billion appropriated this year, about half a billion dollars a day–which could have been used to deal with problems existing here in the U.S. Instead this money will go in big chunks to Bush and Cheney’s cronies in big corporations–who get big military contracts. It’s going to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan, destroying their countries in the process.
To get an idea of who profits from this, look at the details from what two Congressmen asked the White House Office of Management and Budget. Gasoline can be purchased in the region for about 71¢ per gallon and brought into Iraq for another 25¢. And these costs are already exaggerated by many factors like exchange rates.
So what is Halliburton charging the U.S. government? $1.62 and up per gallon, or about TWICE the cost estimate.
War is hell–for everyone except the Pentagon’s contractors making fat profits from blood.
Oct 20, 2003
On October 16, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the U.S.‘s right to occupy Iraq and control its political affairs.
The governments that once posed as militant opponents of the U.S.-led war on Iraq–notably France, Germany and Russia–all dropped their pretenses and joined this vote. At a time when the violence associated with the occupation is only increasing in Iraq, when the material situation continues to deteriorate, this vote proves that these governments are as cynical about the plight of the Iraqi people as the Bush administration is. In fact they have always been.
It’s true that these governments still refuse to send troops to Iraq or share the cost of occupation. But the reason for their unwillingness is the same today as it was before the war: they want a share of the spoils from the conquest of Iraq, if they are to share its burden.
If anything changed at all, it’s not the position of these governments but that of the Bush administration. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co., who had thumbed their noses at these governments and the U.N., are the ones who went back to ask for their help in occupying Iraq.
Bush wanted to fight the war alone so that, as a New York Times editorial put it, he can "steer contracts toward favored companies"–in other words, so that companies like Cheney’s Halliburton can plunder Iraq’s oil wealth as well as American taxpayers under the pretext of "rebuilding Iraq." The fact that the European powers still refuse to contribute troops or money to the occupation is proof that Bush and his "favored companies" are still not willing to share their "reconstruction" booty with anyone else. Not to mention, control over Iraq’s oil.
Will Bush and his "favored companies" be forced to make concessions to European companies? Will they eventually allow them to put their hands on some of Iraq’s oil wealth, or, collect the debts Iraq owed them before the war? It remains to be seen. But whatever the outcome of the fights, or agreements, between these thieves is, it will not change the reality for the Iraqi population. For, what difference does it make for Iraqi people what country’s capitalists rob them? What difference does it make for Iraqi people what country’s soldiers shoot them down when they protest against unemployment, poverty and humiliation?
Nothing will change from the viewpoint of working people in the U.S. either. After the U.N. vote, Donald Rumsfeld said "I couldn’t draw a connection between the resolution and security [in Iraq]"–and admitted it’s not likely that other countries will send troops to Iraq in the near future. But even if other countries eventually send troops, it doesn’t mean the U.S. will pull out of Iraq. U.S. troops will still be carrying out the horrendous work of occupying Iraq–and dying in the bargain.
Regarding the financial cost of the occupation, the same New York Times editorial admitted that "the price of exclusive control is that most of the costs of occupying Iraq will still have to be borne by the American people." What the New York Times didn’t say, however, is that "sharing control," that is, allowing other countries’ bosses a few crumbs of the loot, will not change that reality a bit. The U.S. will still be spending big bucks–because those bucks are going into the coffers of U.S. companies, under the pretext of "helping" Iraq. After all, most of the billions of dollars that Congress is about to hand Bush for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan will not even leave the treasuries of the U.S. banks they are in now. These billions will just be handed over to Bush’s "favored companies," just like the 79 billion dollars Congress gave Bush for the war earlier this year.
If we want to stop paying for these wars of conquest that decimate other countries–in our tax dollars as well as in our blood–we have to oppose them. We have to demonstrate, organize in workplaces and neighborhoods, demand that the troops be brought home, that they be given jobs here. We can’t expect bosses and politicians, whether they are American or from other countries, to do that for us.
Oct 20, 2003
On October 14, over 2,000 mechanics, who maintain the trains and buses of the Los Angeles public transit system, went on strike. The mechanics, represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), had been working without a contract for over a year. Once the picket lines went up, the rest of the unionized workforce, including over 5,000 drivers and clerks, refused to cross, shutting down all subway and light-rail lines and the vast majority of bus lines.
Among other things, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) says it wants to increase what mechanics pay for health insurance to $207 per month, up from $6 per month for a family with children. The MTA is also demanding big cuts in vision and hearing benefits, as well as big cuts in health benefits for retirees.
The MTA claims that its health benefit costs have been "skyrocketing"–which the news media has accepted at face value and continues to repeat.
It’s a lie. The MTA pays less per worker for health insurance than it did 10 years ago! In 1993, the MTA paid $573 per month for health benefits per worker. The next year, it dropped the payment to $534 per month, and it has paid that amount ever since.
Obviously, MTA payments have not kept up with inflation, much less with the skyrocketing cost of health insurance. This has left the union-administered Health and Welfare Trust Fund that runs the health coverage for the mechanics, nearly insolvent, in need of big increases in payments from the MTA. The MTA has refused to increase its payments, charging that the union-administered fund is "inefficient" and "mismanaged."
It’s a smokescreen!
The newspapers estimate that the MTA would have to pay 50 million dollars a year to keep up the mechanics’ benefits. For the MTA, it is a drop in the bucket. For example, the MTA paid 5.8 billion dollars to build the Red Line subway, making it, mile for mile, the most expensive subway in history–anywhere in the world. A recent report found that the MTA pays its prime contractors three times as much as what the original contracts called for. So, a lot of money, hundreds of millions and billions of MTA money, is poured into enormous profits for the construction contractors, the engineering firms, lawyers and accountants, many of whom are related to MTA board members.
The MTA also spends a lot on itself. A few years ago, the MTA built itself a new headquarters, the 27-story Gateway Center, trimmed with Italian granite, along with a 7,000 gallon aquarium, 52-foot high main lobby, executive offices with 20-foot high windows. The cost of the building would have bought 2,000 brand new buses for the overcrowded bus system, if that were its priority, which it isn’t. The political and business elite also regularly tap MTA money to pay for their pet projects, like the fancy walk-way and pedestrian mall that is now being built to enhance the new prestigious Disney Orchestra Hall and Cultural Center.
So, the MTA has plenty of money to pay the mechanics, as well as all the workers and employees who are honoring the mechanics’ picket line and also happen to be working without a contract. But the only way the workers are going to get it is to fight for it. This strike is long past due.
Oct 20, 2003
"It was good to learn that the one billion dollars in business for Delphi was a complete mirage. I think we knew it all along, but it was good to hear from GM that was the case." So said a spokesperson from UBS Warburg, one of the big Wall Street brokerages, after GM reassured brokers that its new agreement with the UAW, which promised work to Delphi, didn’t tie its hands at all. The work was "already in the pipeline."
GM executives couldn’t keep themselves from gloating about the contract as it talked in a conference call with the big financial houses on Wall Street. Investment bankers learned that GM expects to save "billions" in lower wage, cost-of-living, health care and pension costs. A GM vice-president, Troy Clarke, let Wall Street know that the agreement to replace the tens of thousands of auto workers who will leave during this contract won’t mean much new hiring–if any.
All the auto companies had begun to crow about how much they had squeezed out of this contract–practically as soon as the workers had ratified it.
Ford officials let it be known to the media that they expect to get rid of many more jobs because of work rule changes. A Detroit News auto analyst reported, "Privately, Ford officials are lauding the more flexible rules as a game-changing coup. Publicly, they have been careful not to trumpet the changes as a victory over the UAW." At least until after the contract was ratified!
Nor could these big companies stop bragging about how much profit they were making this year–Ford 1.3 billion dollars and GM 2.3 billion dollars. These are the same companies that have just been crying poor during negotiations, insisting they couldn’t "compete."
Arrogant–that’s what they are!
They’re not worried about the workers’ reactions. They think they’ve housebroken us. They think they can be kings of the hill for the next four years.
They could be very wrong!
Oct 20, 2003
On October 11, workers of the three largest supermarket chains in southern and central California went on strike. The walkout involves 859 stores, with more than 70,000 workers organized in seven locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). An additional 8,000 warehouse workers and drivers, represented by the Teamsters union, are honoring the picket lines.
The strike vote was overwhelming: 85% of the workers voted, and 97% of them said "NO" to the companies’ offer, which was nothing but a long list of take-aways. For example, the companies want workers to pay half of their health insurance premiums, plus co-payments and deductibles. Seventy-five% of these workers work part-time, on an "as-needed" basis. On average, they make $12 a week. If the companies won this demand, most workers would lose health care coverage for themselves and their children.
The companies also want to freeze wages, eliminate premiums for Sundays and night shifts, reduce pension benefits, start a two-tier wage scale with lower pay and benefits for new hires, introduce split shifts and have the right to open non-union stores.
By any measure, this is a massive attack on the workers’ living standard. It is the same kind of attack that workers are facing these days in every industry–airlines, steel, auto, state governments, to name a few.
The companies try to justify their attack by pointing to competition from Wal-Mart and other discount chains. This is a lame excuse, to put it mildly. Wal-Mart doesn’t sell groceries in California. Even with the 40 "superstores" Wal-Mart said it would open in California within the next five years, it would control no more than one% of the grocery sales in the state.
But beyond this simple math, why should workers pay for the companies’ possible loss of market share anyway? The companies owning the supermarkets on strike–Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway–are the three largest in the country. In the first half of 2003, Kroger made 542 million dollars of profit. The profits of Albertsons and Safeway in the same period were 334 million and 324 million, respectively. The three have increased their profits by 91% over the past five years. These giant companies surely have every means to compete with Wal-Mart and other retailers! And if they don’t, let them cut profits.
The first week of the strike was marked by militant, enthusiastic picket lines. Many workers had begun to wear "No Concessions!" buttons even before the strike started. The strike has also been enjoying widespread support from other workers, and the community in general. Many customers not only honored the picket lines but brought snacks and water for the picketers.
Undoubtedly, the strikers are facing a formidable fight in the weeks to come. As the strike continues, they will come under increasing pressure to accept some of the companies’ demands. Union officials have already been quoted in the press saying that they are willing to make a compromise. But it’s not a compromise when the only question on the table is how much workers ought to give up. Once workers accept one concession, the companies will come back for more in the future. As one striker put it,"They are going to keep pushing us and pushing us until we don’t have anything."
It will take a determined fight for the working class to turn back the tide of concessions sweeping every industry in this country. But that determined fight has to start somewhere. And today the supermarket workers of southern and central California–are fighting.