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
Feb 2, 2004
Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, which handles the nation’s money, recently declared to an economics conference in London: "We can be confident that new jobs will displace old jobs as they always have, but not without a high degree of pain for those caught in the job-losing segment of America’s massive job-turnover process."
Yes, there’s a "high degree of pain." In that, Greenspan is right. If you lose your job and find a new one, the odds are you will earn about 20% less than you did, have fewer benefits and probably end up with no pension. That’s if you can get a full-time job. Almost five million workers are today working part-time for lack of finding a full-time job. Their pay and benefits are worse still.
And that’s only the half of it. In reality this "massive job-turnover process" that banker Greenspan speaks about has been destroying more jobs than it’s been creating–two and a half million more jobs destroyed than created since the "economic recovery" began two years ago. And that doesn’t tell the whole story either. Just to keep up with the growth in the population, a million and a half to two million new jobs would have to be created every year.
What does this banker who is called the architect of America’s prosperous economy propose to do about it? Nothing.
And yet, there’s a great deal that could be done. There are schools that need to be built; there are roads that are crumbling, sewer systems that pollute our rivers and lakes, bridges that collapse. There are older people who need someone to give them a hand every day. There are young people who need extra attention with their school work.
Any one of us could make up a list two miles long of this country’s unmet needs–needs that could begin to be met if all the people who wanted a job were put to work.
What is the point of an economy anyway, if not to provide jobs for everyone who wants to work? What is its purpose, if not to respond to society’s problems calling for an answer?
This economy has sizzled along, it’s true–but only because speculation has started up again on Wall Street, only because financial interests are speculating in real estate. But speculation isn’t real–our unmet needs are.
Dripping in wealth as this economy is, it cannot answer the needs of this country’s population.
It’s not jobs that need to be "turned over"–it’s the whole economy.
Feb 2, 2004
In his State of the Union Address, George Bush hinted at the possibility that he would back a constitutional amendment blocking gay marriage.
Using carefully coded language, without saying straight out what he was hinting at, Bush called on Americans to "defend the sanctity of marriage," and accused judges of "redefining marriage by court order, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives." He said that "the only alternative left to the people would be the constitutional process."
All this was in reference to recent cases such as the one in which the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled there was no legal justification for the state to prevent same-sex marriages.
In fact, Bush is dancing around the question, appearing to promise more than he really did. Raising it in his speech was a way to play up to reactionary religious groups, and to rally them for his election campaign.
The language Bush and others use on this issue is exactly the same kind of coded language that racist politicians used to justify segregation in the South without coming right out and saying it–talking about "states’ rights" and "will of the people," for example.
Bush is pandering to a Christian right that pushes reactionary prejudices on the population–people like Jerry Falwell, who said in 1999 for example,"these perverted homosexuals ... absolutely hate everything that you and I and most decent, god-fearing citizens stand for.... Make no mistake. These deviants seek no less than total control and influence in society, politics, our schools and in our exercise of free speech and religious freedom.... If we do not act now, homosexuals will own America!" Falwell went on in 2001 to blame feminists, gays and secularists for the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.
That’s a lot of hate directed toward people who simply want to make a public commitment to live their lives together. If marriage–which is supposedly this commitment–were really so important to leaders of the Christian right, you’d think they would welcome with open arms ANYONE who wanted to make a commitment and have it recognized by a judge or minister.
It certainly doesn’t take the stamp of approval of the government or church to make a personal commitment between two people real. And such a stamp of approval certainly doesn’t guarantee that a relationship is a good one or will last, as all the cases of spousal abuse and divorce clearly show. Plenty of heterosexuals can already attest to that.
But what business is it of the government’s who wants to make such a gesture, or who they want to make the gesture with?
This is nothing but a blatant attempt by Bush to rally his reactionary troops, and to deflect people’s attention away from issues that really affect our daily lives. The more he can talk about gay marriage, the less he has to talk about the economy or Iraq.
Feb 2, 2004
A sociology professor at Northwestern University recently performed an interesting experiment. The sociologist, Devah Pager, organized students to apply for jobs at 350 companies in the Milwaukee area. These were for low wage jobs as waiters, dishwashers, drivers and warehousemen that were listed in the newspaper. The black and white students were given similar job histories and demeanor.
White applicants who admitted having an 18-month criminal record were called back 17% of the time. Black applicants with no criminal record were called back only 14% of the time.
Yet, there are people today who claim there is no racist bias in hiring–or, what’s worse, people who claim that black workers get preferences!
This study shows similar result to a number of other studies, including ones carried out in Chicago and Boston.
Studies like these show why the black unemployment rate is twice that of the white unemployed: blacks face systemic racism on the part of employers. The capitalists, of course, profit mightily from this setup, which is why they maintain it.
Feb 2, 2004
In his State of the Union message on January 20, 2004, President Bush told Congress, "For the sake of job growth, the tax cuts you passed should be permanent." What? What job growth?
In his first three years in office, Bush pushed through two big tax cuts and a third smaller one, all favoring the wealthy. But there has been NO job growth. None at all. In fact, three million jobs have been LOST in the three years since he took office.
In his weekly radio address, Bush declared, "We’ll press forward on an agenda of economic growth so that everyone who wants to work can find a job."
He should have added a "job at starvation wages with no benefits." Because that’s what he meant.
Feb 2, 2004
If you thought telephone mass marketers were bad, there’s worse: presidential candidates and primary elections!
Millions upon millions of dollars are raised and spent by a few candidates–putting forth even fewer ideas.
This onslaught is justified in the name of democracy. Supposedly, the population of the U.S. is being given this opportunity to choose–but who is choosing the candidates?
Who is providing the many millions of dollars that it takes to pay staff, buy commercials and air time, pay public relations and advertising firms, buy and mail billions of pieces of literature? The so-called "choices" that are offered to voters are only those "choices" that first attract millions of dollars before reaching the voters.
All major candidates bury the question of who’s paying their bills. Candidates imply that campaign finance restrictions limit everyone to a donation of $2000, so that the wealthy don’t have overwhelming influence.
In reality, the wealthy have all the means they need to get around the law. They can use corporations, banks, financial firms, and law firms they control, through which they can gather the thousands of $2000 "contributions" necessary to buy candidates. According to candidates’ financial filings collected by www.opensecrets.org, the big investment firm of Goldman Sachs organized enough "individual" contributions so that it is among the top 10 institutional investors in the campaigns of not only George W. Bush but also of Howard Dean, John Kerry and John Edwards!
The candidates also rely on their ties to the large news and advertising media. Those candidates or those ideas which don’t appeal to the media owners don’t get air time or press coverage, as recently shown when MoveOn.org tried to buy a 30-second Super Bowl commercial criticizing Bush. CBS refused to run the commercial, even though air time was available, and a pro-Bush commerical will be shown.
No, voters in this country do not have real choices. Today, without a party representing workers’ interests, we are limited to choosing among the various personalities pre-selected for their compatibility with business interests–and sent to us pre-paid.
Feb 2, 2004
One CEO (whose name was withheld for obvious reasons) reportedly spent $350,000 hiring a theatrical agency to provide for him a week’s life as James Bond. Twenty-two actors were hired as supporting cast to play everything from bartenders to casino dealers to famous James Bond opponents. A pretend kidnapping and escape was thrown in.
Workers are supposed to cut back on basic necessities, and even give up their jobs, so that executives and other rich people can live a fantasy life!
Not forever!
Feb 2, 2004
"Of course, the most dramatic recent examples of democratic progress are to be seen in the liberated countries of Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, two years after the overthrow of the brutal Taliban regime, the Loya Jirga has approved a constitution that reflects the values of tolerance and equal rights for women. ... In Iraq, too, after decades of Baathist rule, democracy is beginning to take hold." These are words uttered by Vice President Dick Cheney in his address to the "World Economic Forum" in Davos, Switzerland, on January 24.
And what lies they are! Whatever rights the new constitution of Afghanistan grants women on paper, the reality is a totally different story. Large parts of the country are still controlled by religious fundamentalist warlords who today are allied with the U.S. and who don’t allow women to work, go to school or appear in public without the burka, the head-to-toe cover.
And in Iraq, far from reinforcing democratic or women’s rights, the U.S. occupation is in fact doing away with existing laws that to some extent protected such rights. Less than a month before Cheney shamelessly uttered those lies, the Iraqi Governing Council, that is, the puppet government installed by the U.S., quietly decided to replace Iraq’s largely modern and secular personal status law with medieval Islamic law!
Under this Islamic law, known as the sharia, women are considered inferior members of society compared to men. For example, a man’s testimony in court counts more than that of a woman; men get a bigger share from inheritance; men are allowed to marry more than one woman but not the other way around; married couples are considered divorced when the man wishes so but not the woman; men have a right to child custody, etc. And then there are, of course, the Koran’s regulations about women having to cover themselves in public, which are imposed on women to different degrees depending on the country where the government claims to adhere to the sharia.
This is a huge step back for Iraq, which for decades has been one of the most secular countries in the Middle East. In 1959, one year after coming to power, the Baath Party introduced secular laws which, at least on paper, recognized women and men as equal members of society. Since then, at least in the cities, many women have been able to get an education, jobs, and to participate in social life. Even backward steps taken during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, such as the change in civil law which allowed a man to marry more than one woman "with the consent of his first wife," did not overthrow this general trend. But now the U.S.-backed government of supposedly "liberated" Iraq is ready to do away altogether with the principle of equality of women and men before the law!
By any measure, this should be embarrassing for the Bush administration. So why has its puppet council passed this regressive law? Basically for the same reason that the U.S. has turned a blind eye to the open oppression of women in other countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. As in these countries, the U.S. is in the process of making a deal with religious fundamentalists in Iraq.
The nature of this deal in the making can be seen in the developments of recent weeks. First, the Bush administration announced that elections would be held in Iraq by June 30–a date which was obviously picked in view of Bush’s own reelection campaign. The proposed electoral process, however, is anything but democratic: the current Iraqi "Governing Council," appointed by the U.S., will hand-pick caucuses of delegates, which in turn will elect a national assembly.
One of the most influential Shiite clerics in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, took advantage of Bush wanting the June 30th date. He called on Iraqi people to protest the undemocratic nature of the American proposal and demand direct, one-man, one-vote elections. Overnight, tens of thousands of Iraqis poured into the streets.
Once he had his show of force, al-Sistani called off further demonstrations. He hinted he might agree to elections as proposed by Bush, to be held by June 30, if they are overseen by the United Nations and not by the U.S. occupation authorities. And sure enough, the U.N. has already sent officials to Iraq to start the process.
Why did al-Sistani make this about-turn? Because the Bush administration–by having the council pass the new law–hinted that al-Sistani could have what he wants–the sharia in Iraq. If anyone thinks that Bush or the U.S. ruling class may have any second thoughts about delivering the population of Iraq to the medieval rule of the mullahs, they need only look at Afghanistan, where the U.S. has for decades supported religious fundamentalists–including Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Or, for that matter, to Iraq’s neighbor, Saudi Arabia, one of U.S.‘s closest allies in the Middle East, where religious police regularly beat women in the street for not covering every inch of their bodies, or for walking "too close" to a man who is not a family member.
Bush will get his rigged Iraqi elections in time for his own reelection campaign, and al-Sistani will get to impose his medieval views on the whole country.
What a "win-win" deal for Bush and his partners, the fundamentalist mullahs! The loser? It will be the entire population of Iraq.
Feb 2, 2004
Jobs are moving to China, claim media headlines. Some investment is certainly moving there. U.S. firms, which invested about four billion dollars in China ten years ago, invested more than 60 billion dollars in 2003. Of course, the amount of investment says nothing about the number of jobs in the U.S. or in China, but it clearly shows that U.S. corporations expect to make money there.
What convinces companies to invest is the hundreds of millions of low-wage workers in China. Although the vast majority of the Chinese are peasant farmers, conditions on the farms are so close to starvation that between 100 and 200 million move to the cities to find work every year. There workers find poor working conditions, huge slums and growing unemployment.
Under these conditions, local capitalists and foreign ones are able to get away with paying extremely low wages–$60 per month or less–and enforcing working conditions not seen in the industrialized countries since the 18th and 19th centuries. Some factories demand 15 hour days or more; some imprison their work force in dormitories where they must live and sleep. The number of accidents reported is soaring. More than 3500 workers died in a six month period in mining accidents in 2002. And that was only the number known due to reports in the foreign press.
As one Chinese economist put it, "... the poorest part of the Chinese population will pay the worst price in the form of unemployment and social insecurity."
China since the revolutionary period following World War II has suffered under a terrible dictatorship; but state-run enterprises maintained full employment in the cities and provided certain benefits to pacify the population, such as free schooling, low cost housing, guaranteed health care and retirement.
After Mao’s death, subsequent Chinese governments claimed they were moving toward capitalism. Yet China was not brought into the World Trade Organization until two years ago, when it finally changed some laws and regulations to aid capitalists wanting to invest there. Finally, world capitalists had enough enticements to increase investments there. The list of U.S. corporations investing in China today includes Ford, Motorola, General Electric, Honeywell, Boeing, United Technologies, Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, and FedEx. Even Kentucky Fried Chicken thinks it can make money in China–with 1000 restaurants opened there!
Foreign investment grew exactly because social benefits were cut back and wages were kept low, as China was pulled more and more directly into the capitalist world. Nonetheless, it’s not a foregone conclusion that these big multi-national monsters can get away with attacking the laboring population in this way.
The Chinese working class has a long tradition of militant strikes and social struggles that forced the imperialist countries to step back. It may seem like a sleeping giant just now. But it’s a giant nonetheless.
Feb 2, 2004
David Kay, the former U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, announced last week what most people had long ago concluded–that there is no evidence of any WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq–that is, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or even any programs to build them.
This flies in the face of everything that every member of the Bush administration had claimed for the past year and a half to justify the invasion of Iraq. Iraq’s supposed stockpiles of WMD’s were alleged to be an immediate threat to the people of the rest of the world.
Of course, it was absolute bull then, and it’s absolute bull now.
Kay is today presented as the impartial observer, making his announcement after a long, careful search for the truth. In fact, he is far from impartial, and he knew long ago there were no weapons.
From the start of his work at the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Kay’s job was to cover up that fact. This coverup started under the Clinton Administration, when "weapons inspectors" were used not to look for weapons, but to spy on the Iraqi regime. Much of what they DID look for, other than Saddam Hussein’s palaces, were facilities which became targets for the bombing the U.S. carried out in late 1998.
Kay’s statements at the time–that there WERE WMD’s and that Iraq was stopping his inspectors from finding them–were used as the pretext for that bombing campaign, which destroyed more of Iraq’s water and electrical systems.
Kay continued in his role as the loyal soldier in late 2002, after the CIA publicly threw doubt on Bush administration claims. He pulled up what he had falsely asserted four years earlier as evidence that Iraq was hiding something.
Now, even as he leaves his position, admitting there is no evidence of WMD’s, Kay continues to cover for the U.S. attempt to take over Iraq’s oil, by blaming "bad intelligence."
Kay immediately tried to deflect attention from Bush himself, stating that this was an "intelligence failure." In calling for an outside inquiry into the pre-war intelligence gathering by the CIA, he told the Senate Arms Service Committee, "It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgement. And that is most disturbing."
Just who, exactly, is he talking about when he says "we" were wrong? He couldn’t be talking about all the people in the U.S. and the rest of the world who said before the war they didn’t believe these claims. He couldn’t have been talking about Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector, who tried but could find no evidence of WMD’s. He couldn’t even be talking about the CIA, which told Bush AND Kay the same thing, at the same time, only to be told to go back and come to a different conclusion!
In other words, when Kay says "we," he can only be talking about himself and all the members of the Bush administration.
In fact, it wasn’t that they were wrong. They just flat-out lied–first Kay himself, but also Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, not to mention George W. Bush himself–and lied repeatedly when they referred to "intelligence information" that either wasn’t there or was completely made up to justify the invasion.
They knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. And any politician, Democrat or Republican, who today claims they were misled by Bush knew it also. From the beginning.
Feb 2, 2004
Bush devoted an inordinate amount of time in his State of the Union Address to make it appear that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been successfully concluded–or almost, in any case: "The men and women of Afghanistan are building a nation that is free, and proud, and fighting terror.... the people of Iraq are free." Of course, it was a crock of you-know-what from beginning to end. Even so, most striking about this speech was the one thing Bush didn’t refer to: 5the human cost, all those people who were killed, wounded or otherwise left desperate by the U.S. war carried out in both countries, and the U.S. troops similarly killed, wounded or left in a horrible state.
This comes as no surprise, since from the beginning of these wars up to today, such information is hard to find. The U.S. military provides no information about the number of civilians it has killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, although U.N. observers in Iraq had estimated before they left that tens of thousands have been killed, with many tens of thousands more expected to die as the result of the damage done to water purification and other necessities of life.
But even when it comes to U.S. troops, the U.S. military and the Bush administration have been notably reticent about admitting the level of casualties. Take the number of wounded, for example. The military publicly reports that somewhat less than 3,000 soldiers have been wounded. News organizations were forced to file freedom-of-information petitions to finally get more complete information, which, as of the end of December showed that almost 11,000 troops had been medically evacuated out of Iraq for treatment. This doesn’t count all those who ended up in non-military installations. Nor does it attempt to estimate the number of people whose disabilities will show up in later months or years–although based on the Gulf War, the military has a pretty good picture of how many will suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, for example, or the range of disorders associated with Gulf War syndrome. One indication of how pervasive these illnesses will be can be seen from the figures left over from the first Gulf War. Today, one quarter of all U.S. troops who served in that war have been put on a military medical disability connected to that service–even though that war was much shorter.
For Bush, these wars have no human cost. They are nothing but a chance to strut around, spouting tough words–just like he once strutted around, pretending to be an airman, when in reality, he was only a spoiled rich brat whose wealthy and politically well-connected family got him out of service by arranging a fraudulent placement in a National Guard unit guaranteed never to see service in Viet Nam.
Feb 2, 2004
On the same assembly line in Warren, Michigan, that produces DaimlerChrysler’s Dodge Ram and Dodge Dakota pick-up trucks, Mitsubishi Motors will build a pick-up next year.
Chrysler endlessly cites "foreign competition" as a reason that workers have to give up round after round of wage, job, and benefit cuts–so isn’t it a little strange that it would build a Japanese brand on its own assembly line?
Not only will DaimlerChrysler build the "competing" Japanese company’s "competing" pick-up; Chrysler will provide the Dodge Dakota pick-up vehicle platform on which Mitsubishi Motors can build its truck. Daimler will also provide Mitsubishi Motors with six other vehicle platforms in the next few years.
This is incomprehensible only to those who have swallowed the various corporate lies about the supposed threats of "foreign competition."
What competition?
DaimlerChrysler (DCX for short), for example, an international corporation based in Germany, owns the Chrysler Group based in the United States. It owns a controlling interest of 37% in Mitsubishi Motors, and previously owned a 43% controlling interest in Mitsubishi’s Fuso heavy truck division. In January, DCX bought an additional 22% of Mitsubishi Fuso and hinted at its intention to soon provide an extra multi-million-dollar investment in Mitsubishi Motors. DCX also has ten% of Hyundai in its investment portfolio.
And where does this German-U.S.-Japanese corporation get the money to buy up more and more shares of more and more companies around the world?
From the profits made by keeping its German, U.S., and Japanese workers from being paid what their labor is worth!
Feb 2, 2004
The Auto Workers union (UAW) just accepted an agreement with American Axle last week that includes a first-time- ever three-tier pay scale.
American Axle was based on a former GM complex, Chevrolet Gear and Axle. Older workers remaining from the old GM plant make between $24 and $26 per hour. The second tier, made up of workers at seven newly-acquired plants and the Three Rivers plant, make between $13.50 and $17 per hour. New hires, which are expected mainly at the company’s plant in Three Rivers, Michigan, will start at $13.50 per hour, but will get no cost-of-living increases for at least two years and will pay a higher amount for their health care.
Both the company and the union used the threat of jobs going to Mexico to convince workers to accept a contract that can only help the bosses to further divide workers and drive down wages and benefits. The city manager of Three Rivers, Joe Bippus, put it clearly, "The new agreement makes doing business here in Three Rivers on par with Mexico. They don’t have to move the jobs to Mexico ...." The new third-tier wages certainly will put workers here on a par with Mexican workers. The next time American Axle wants to outsource some of its jobs to a low-pay region, all it has to do is move them over to Three Rivers, Michigan.
This company, which is supposedly having so much trouble competing with companies in Mexico or China, is the same company that has built a new 32 million dollar headquarters near the site of the old Chevy Gear and Axle Plant in Detroit. The two-tier contract the UAW accepted when GM set up American Axle as an "independent company" allowed it to build the new headquarters, expand its Detroit plant and acquire seven new plants. This third-tier concession contract will now give this company still more money–letting it construct plants in other countries whenever it wants.
Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW, called this latest deal, "shared abundance." The only "abundance" here is all that money going to the company–none of which is shared.
Feb 2, 2004
With prescription drug prices shooting through the roof in the U.S., overnight bus trips across the border to Canada to buy drugs have become commonplace. For people who have different ailments and take many drugs, the bus fare and the time invested are certainly worthwhile: on average, name-brand prescription drugs cost 40% less in Canada than they do in the U.S.
These otherwise law-abiding people are actually breaking the law: the U.S. government forbids anyone other than the original U.S. manufacturer to import prescription drugs.
Why? For safety reasons, say the officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the politicians in Congress who have passed these laws. They say that they are only trying to protect the American people from hazardous drugs.
What a laugh! Drug safety regulations in Canada and European countries are actually far stricter than in the U.S. Over the past few years, the FDA has been forced to remove from sale more than half a dozen drugs that it had earlier approved because the drugs ended up killing more people than the "accepted" rate. That’s not surprising, considering that the FDA has been easing drug approval standards in recent years. The U.S. has reduced the human trial period required to approve a drug from seven years, which Canada has continued to keep. Then, in May, 2002, the FDA lifted the human testing requirement altogether "in some circumstances," under the pretext of fighting bioterrorism.
Besides, the FDA allows the sale of some drugs with well-known, harmful side effects that are banned in other countries. To give an example, in 2002 Bristol-Myers was forced to stop selling Serzone, an anti-depressant, in Canada and Europe after it was found to cause irreparable liver damage. The FDA still allows this drug to be sold in the U.S., only with a warning label on the box saying "Cases of life-threatening hepatic failure have been seen in patients treated with Serzone."
Obviously, the only safety U.S. government officials and politicians are concerned about is the safety of the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
* * * * * * *
Of course, there is another question that naturally comes to mind: why is there such a huge difference in drug prices between the U.S. and Canada when the drugs in question are exactly the same drugs, produced and distributed by the same companies, in both countries?
There is absolutely no logical answer to this question, except that it’s the way the capitalist system works. Prices are set as high as "the market will bear," that is, as high as capitalists can charge and still sell their products.
Feb 2, 2004
In the middle of January, the AFL-CIO announced it was taking control of the national strategy for the California supermarket strike and lockout. Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer of the national labor federation, and Ron Judd, one of its organizers, will handle negotiations and coordinate picketing and worker protests.
Since the strike began on October 11, it was clear that the three nationwide chains–Safeway (which owns Vons), Kroger (which owns Ralphs) and Albertsons–intended to impose enormous takeaways, including major cuts in health and pension benefits. They also demanded a permanent two-tier system, which would relegate all new employees to substantially lower pay and almost no benefits.
In the face of these demands, the officials of the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) have carried out a policy of retreat and limiting the strike. This was clear from the very first day, when union officials pulled a "surprise" move, calling the workers at only one of the companies, Vons, out on strike. Responding to this "surprise," Ralphs and Albertsons locked out the rest of the union workers anyway. All of them stayed open, using managers, workers from other stores in the chain and newly hired workers and scabs.
One month later, the UFCW pulled the pickets from Ralphs. The UFCW justified this retreat by saying they were playing the chains off against each other. But this had no meaning since the three chains had made it clear that they had a revenue-sharing deal among themselves.
Even the effort by the unions to spread the strike to the 8,000 Teamster drivers and warehousemen who also work for the supermarkets was limited to less than a month. The Teamsters went back to work just before Christmas without the supermarkets ceding a thing.
Behind the scenes, UFCW officials had made it clear they were ready to give in to many of the companies’ demands. In mid-December, the UFCW offered what union officials described as substantial concessions on health-care benefits. The companies dismissed the proposal as "inadequate." In early January, national and local UFCW officials met secretly in San Francisco with mid-level managers from the supermarket chains. After four days of meetings, union officials went further and offered to give back over 350 million dollars in concessions. To their consternation, the managers told union officials that company concession demands were not negotiable, that it was a take-it-or-leave-it offer. And–to rub it in–the companies even increased the amount of concessions they were demanding.
At that point, UFCW officials were quoted in the newspapers, saying that they "came away from that meeting scared to death." Even Richard Trumka, who is now heading the union efforts to win a settlement, admitted that the AFL-CIO was taken aback by the intractable and ruthless corporate attacks: "The movement’s probably a little behind the curve on that."
"Behind the curve"? Where has Trumka been during the last few decades? Hasn’t he noticed the string of concession demands coming from companies all over the country? Union officials may have been "behind the curve," but the 70,000 supermarket workers knew what was going on. They have already faced four months out on the line, with health benefits cut completely and their meager strike benefits slashed back by the union as well.
The UFCW has already faced many similar types of attacks and grueling and difficult strikes. Back in the 1980s, for example, the biggest companies in the meatpacking industry, including IBP and Hormel, demanded enormous concessions from meatpacking workers, who were represented by the very same union, the UFCW. The UFCW officials responded to those attacks with the same retreats and efforts to limit the workers that they are using now–ending in several crushing and demoralizing defeats. Moreover, in the case of Hormel, when Local P-9 in Austin Minnesota tried to organize a bigger fight to counter the attacks, the UFCW international leadership demonstrated its good will–to the company–by putting the local into receivership, and joining with the company to attack the striking meatpackers.
The fact that the AFL-CIO is now sending one of its top officials to negotiate a new contract does not appear to represent a change in course for the union bureaucracy. The AFL-CIO is organizing fund raising to try to partially replenish the UFCW strike funds. And, the AFL-CIO also promises to organize more protests, such as outside the homes of some supermarket executives. But that is not what will turn around the fortunes of the strike.
To do that would take a massive mobilization of workers in the region. Of course, this would have to start with the supermarket workers themselves, who the bureaucrats have limited to mainly picketing at the 850 stores. The workers would have to bring their forces together in much more massive and regular demonstrations, protests that really put their determination and fighting spirit in front of not only other businesses and government officials but also other workers. This could be the starting point for the supermarket workers to appeal to other workers to join their fight, that is, to make the supermarket strike the fight of other workers. The other workers already recognize the need for this, since as everyone says, if the supermarket workers are forced to give in, all the other bosses will line up and demand the same thing–or worse.
So far, this has been exactly the kind of fight that the union officials at the head of the AFL-CIO and UFCW have refused to organize or even consider. But the workers who are under attack can go in this direction anyway.