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
Jul 5, 2004
As L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.- led Coalition Provisional Authority, handed over a couple pieces of paper to the new Iraqi prime minister, George Bush stood by in Turkey ready to issue a comment: "Iraq has regained its sovereignty," declared Bush. "It is the world’s newest democracy," he added. Putting icing on the cake, he declared that the transfer marked the "end of oppression" for the Iraqi people.
"Sovereignty"? The new Iraqi government cannot amend or change the constitution written by the U.S. for Iraq. The new Iraqi government cannot even, for all practical purposes, overturn any of the 100 and some orders and regulations issued by the Coalition Provision Authority. One of those edicts, which was issued just two days earlier, gave U.S. civilian contractors immunity from Iraqi law while in Iraq no matter what they do–for example, torture people. The new Iraqi government has no control over the U.S. military, which continues to make its own decisions on what it will do, when, how, against who, etc. Within minutes of "power" being transferred to the Iraqis, the U.S. demonstrated what that meant: when newly sworn-in ministers of the new government tried to talk to reporters, they were prevented from doing so by ... U.S. security officers.
Yes, we are told, this new Iraqi government formally has the right to ask the U.S. military to leave Iraq. But the U.S. has already declared that it intends to stay there for at least the next three years–and as an indication, it continues to increase the number of troops in Iraq. Standing at 141,000 today–28,000 more than there were a couple months ago, their numbers could soon increase by another 25,000, according to orders already issued by Rumsfeld.
As for Bush’s reference to "democracy"–this government was not even elected. It was appointed by the previous Iraqi government, which itself had been appointed by the U.S. And even then, the previous government was overruled in several of its key choices. People it wanted in certain positions were vetoed by the U.S. Furthermore, one of the laws issued by Bremer before he left Iraq prevents people who have opposed the U.S. occupation from running for office.
Then there is Bush’s famous "end of oppression"–symbolized no doubt by the continued existence of Abu Gharib prison, with its thousands of prisoners who are still held there incommunicado.
"End of oppression?" Look at whom the U.S. appointed to be the new prime minister–Iyad Allawi, who at one time was part of the Baath Party apparatus that brutally oppressed the Iraqi people during Saddam Hussein’s regime. When Allawi saw which way the Gulf War was going, he quit the Baath Party and Iraq–only to join up forces with Britain’s MI-6 and then the U.S. CIA, both of which put him on their payroll. At which point, he used British and U.S. money to organize groups that carried out terrorist bombings inside Iraq, some of which killed civilians. One of the buildings reduced to rubble, with people inside, was a school. Today, he is trying to pull together remnants of the old Baath party apparatus, which brutalized the people of Iraq for decades.
No, this is not the end of oppression. It’s only the beginning of a new period of oppression for the people of Iraq.
Nor is this transfer of power the beginning of the end of the U.S. war in Iraq–or even the first step toward ending it. It is first of all an election ploy for George W. Bush. He must figure he’s gotten away with telling so many lies about Iraq, he might as well tell a few more. More to the point, this "transfer of power" is aimed at reducing opposition to this war in this country, by making it appear that the war is winding down.
No one should be fooled. Bush’s lies are nothing but the preparation for a still wider war. This war won’t be over until all U.S. troops are brought out of Iraq. That’s what our cry should be: get the troops home, now!
Jul 5, 2004
U.S. gasoline prices have started to drop. By mid-June, the nationwide average for regular dipped below $2.00 a gallon for the first time in five weeks. In some states, like Michigan, it was even lower, while in others, like California, it was higher. By the end of June, prices had gone down two cents a gallon more.
The big oil companies, which had claimed that higher prices were due to shortages of crude oil, now explained that shortages had eased. And Saudi Arabia announced it was increasing shipments. In fact, the amount of oil being shipped today is about the same as it was at the end of May, when prices peaked at $2.07 on average for regular. And Saudi Arabia’s announcement was only an acknowledgment of how much it had already been shipping for months.
So if all this didn’t change, what did? Nothing. The big oil companies have simply been manipulating the price of gasoline to establish a new, higher plateau today–30¢ higher than a year ago–just as they do every couple of years. Ever more profit is the name of their game.
Jul 5, 2004
John Kerry has been posing as the friend of working people, promising to raise the minimum wage, to $7.00 by 2007.
When he first announced his proposal, a young woman in the audience pointed out that she makes $7.00 an hour and is struggling to make ends meet and that’s with health insurance for her two kids covered by her boyfriend’s grandmother.
The woman was right. Who can live on $7.00 an hour? Kerry wouldn’t know about that–any more than Bush does.
Jul 5, 2004
The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has issued an "R" rating to "Fahrenheit 9/11"–prohibiting people under 17 from seeing the movie unless accompanied by an adult! The pretext is that scenes shot in Iraq show violent and disturbing images–and that soldiers in the film use the word "motherfucker."
Hypocrisy rampant! The war is "violent and disturbing"–violently destructive of young people, both American and Iraqi. The movie gives only a pale picture of how bad it is. BUT... this movie is one of the few things that has broken the ban the media has put on showing the reality of this war.
Protect young people? No! The MPAA is only protecting the ability of the U.S. government to go on sending more young Americans over to kill young Iraqis–some as young as eight and nine–or to be killed themselves.
Jul 5, 2004
Ralph Nader asked the Green Party to endorse his presidential campaign, to help him get on the ballot in as many states as possible. The Green Party convention refused.
At first glance, the Greens’ decision seems a little surprising. Very few national figures match Nader in representing the stated environmental and consumer-protection goals of the Green Party. Nader also made a credible showing as the Green candidate in 2000, amassing almost 3% of the popular vote nationwide, a large number for a new party.
But in the 2004 election, every left-leaning liberal spokesperson in town is trying to figure out how to support the Democrats–without appearing to support the Democrats! And they have all settled on the same strategy: to declare that Bush is so bad, that anyone–even a Kerry–will make a difference.
Even though all of them know it’s a lie.
An ‘anything’ like Kerry–an ‘anything’ beholden to the moneyed interests funding the Democratic Party–may be different from Bush in how he talks. But in what he does, he will carry out the interests of big business to the detriment of the population every bit as much as Bush does today–or every bit as much as Kerry himself did while in the Senate.
Today, Kerry’s policy on the Iraq war differs very little from Bush’s own, except that Kerry openly declares he would send still more U.S. troops to Iraq if elected. (Bush is already doing that–just not saying much about it!)
Kerry waffles and weaves on women’s right to control their own bodies–wobbling closer and closer to Bush’s own anti-abortion stance.
And when considering problems such as jobs for workers, Kerry’s offer is mainly more subsidies to corporations ... the same program Bush has been busily implementing for three and a half years!
Ironically, Nader himself implied, when announcing he was running, that he did not want to stand in the way of defeating Bush. But the issue posed for the Greens and others is not Nader’s stance, but Nader’s simple presence on the ballot in November. Millions of voters distrust both major parties. Keeping Nader (and others) off the ballot is designed to leave those distrustful voters with no choice but Kerry or Bush–leaving them no way to show publicly how many people understand the futility of relying on either major party.
Someone who really wants to change this society will not work to imprison working people in this same trap. They will work to construct a workers’ party.
Jul 5, 2004
Are we really getting a prescription we need or is the doctor prescribing it because he or she was paid to do so? Could we get well with a lower-cost generic drug? How can you tell?
Pharmaceutical giant Schering-Plough has been giving doctors more than $1,000 for each patient with liver disease for whom the doctor prescribed the very expensive treatment called Intron A. The manufacturer of Intron A is, of course, Schering-Plough. And if a doctor wrote prescriptions for a competing drug, he or she no longer received checks from Schering-Plough.
Supposedly doctors police themselves to prevent such bribes. Fifteen years ago, the American Medical Association adopted a guideline that doctors should not accept any gift worth more than $100. But many doctors apparently didn’t consider the money they received from the drug companies as gifts. They aren’t–they’re bribes!
In the last three years, drug company Pfizer agreed to pay a 430 million dollar fine, Astra-Zeneca paid a 355 million dollar fine and TAP Pharmaceuticals paid an 875 million dollar fine to settle criminal charges for paying physicians to use their drugs. Schering-Plough set aside 500 million dollars for legal "problems" over the last two years–just an expense of doing business!
The huge sums paid by drug companies to settle criminal charges show just how profitable the bribery has been for the drug companies. A few hundred million in fines is apparently nothing when compared to their multi-billion dollar sales when the doctors are prescribing their products.
Jul 5, 2004
In his new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore sets his sights on the Bush administration and doesn’t let up for the entire two hours.
There are all kinds of revealing snippets from Bush’s speeches–for example, when Bush quips to a dinner of business executives, "This is a dinner of the have’s and the have more’s. Some may call you the elite... but I call you my base." And–of course–Moore shows Bush stealing the 2000 election. More seriously, Moore recounts how Bush used the supposed U.S. war against terror as a way to stampede the public into accepting the international and domestic agenda that government officials had wanted to impose anyway, from invading Iraq to the USA-Patriot Act that drastically cut legal rights of individuals.
Moore ridicules Bush’s war on terrorism for the propaganda game it is. He exposes the ties that the Bush administration and U.S. businesses have with some of the same forces in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan that are supposed to be aiding the terrorists. And he shows how the Bush administration used the witch hunt against immigrants in this country as a way to divert attention from those ties and make it seem like the Bush administration was actually waging a tough war.
In the second half of the film, Moore strongly condemns the war in Iraq. He includes the kind of harrowing footage and interviews of both Iraqis and U.S. soldiers that the U.S. networks hide from view.
At the same time, Moore shows how the big corporations profit from the war and how the politicians, starting with the Bushes and those in Congress who advocate the war, don’t send their own sons and daughters to do the fighting and the dying. He goes back to his hometown, Flint, Michigan, that has been devastated by plant closings–where the military recruiters troll among the poor and the unemployed, plying their lies about how these young people can use the military to go to school and escape poverty. The film shows that it is these same young people who go on to pay for this war with their lives.
Moore’s film has obviously touched a nerve. Record turnouts to see the movie show that.
But there is one very big problem with the film: it concentrates on Bush and the Republicans. Moore actually makes it seem like the Republicans hijacked the country and that things would have been different if they had not been in power.
What a complete myth! The Bush administration never acted alone. The Democrats, at every step of the way, loyally supported Bush’s policies, including the war. They voted for it, and they continue to support its funding. Kerry and the rest of the Democrats have also made it clear that they will continue to follow those policies, starting with the war in Iraq, if they are elected in November.
In calling on people to unseat Bush while ignoring the Democrats’ very big role in this war, Moore is effectively supporting the Democrats–a party that stands for the very same policies as those the film condemns.
Nonetheless, the movie is well worth seeing. Moore may have started out with the purpose of unseating Bush; and he may want people to leave the theater with that message. But in between is a movie that shows the rottenness of an entire system that created this war and profits from it.
Jul 5, 2004
Drug prices are up three times the rate of inflation over the last 12 months, according to a new study by the American Association of Retired People. Some of the top-selling drugs most often used by seniors had price increases, like a 7.9% increase for Plavix, a blood thinner made by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Why have drug prices gone up on many of the drugs used by the older part of the population? These price increases could not have been based on new research, because these drugs were already-existing drugs.
What changed is that the senior discount card went into effect on June 1. A few seniors are supposed to get a discount on their prescription drugs, making their medical expenses cheaper. In reality, they will get a discount on prices that have been already increased to make up the difference.
When Congress passed this Medicare program, it gave yet another gift to the drug industry. The Medicare administration is not allowed to bargain for a better price on drugs, as big companies do. By 2006, when the full "discount" program is supposed to go into effect, Medicare is expected to account for half of all drug sales. The program means that one of the most profitable industries in the country will gain new sales and new profits. They have a year and a half to push up drug prices.
In fact, this dramatic price increase is not the first time we have seen such a result in the medical field. When Congress passed the original Medicare legislation in 1965, it was supposed to cover our health care in old age. In fact, within five years of this bill passing, the elderly were paying as big a share of their income for medical care as they had been before Medicare was enacted. Today Medicare covers only about half the medical expenses of those over 65, not counting the cost of prescription drugs.
The senior drug card will end up like other health care reforms–transferring money from our pockets–and from government coffers–to drug companies, hospitals, health care providers and medical equipment manufacturers.
Jul 5, 2004
The editors of the New York Times issued an apology over their coverage on Iraq. They acknowledged that much of what they had reported before the war–particularly about the supposed threat of nuclear and chemical weapons programs, as well as links between al Qaida and Iraq–was untrue.
The Times–which styles itself the nation’s newspaper "of record"–said it was misled by "misinformation" coming from "a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on ‘regime change’ in Iraq." But, said the editors, so was the Bush administration "taken in" by those people.
What reason does the Times give for not carefully checking out this "misinformation"? Simply that "editors...were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper."
What kind of scoop is it to print the same lies that all the rest of the media were putting out? If the Times wanted scoops, they could have printed the truth!
No, their interest for drumming up a justification for the invasion of Iraq was the same as all the other media: The New York Times Company is a large media corporation, with ties to a lot of other large corporations. Its directors also sit on the Boards of PepsiCo, Ford Motor Company, Alcoa, Johnson & Johnson, Lucent Technologies and Nextel, among others. They have an interest in seeing the U.S. flex its muscle around the world–so that all these corporations can make big profits all around the world.
In its apology, the Times admitted to reporting lies.
But what was it doing when it said that Bush was fooled by these lies, as if he hadn’t knowingly created them?
It lied!
Jul 5, 2004
In middle June, the Washington Post posted on its website a copy of a Department of Justice memo dated August 1, 2002. Addressed to the White House, the memo asserts that torture may be justified when applied to "terrorists" outside the U.S. It defends the view that, in times of war, the president cannot be held liable for ordering torture. Thus the memo also provides a potential defense for any government employee accused of torturing people, on the basis that "he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network."
The document describes various methods which, while causing pain and suffering, would not be considered torture because they are not "severe enough." Aware of the fact that this contradicts international laws against torture, or, for that matter, existing U.S. laws and written Army rules, the authors of the memo reassure potential torturers that such laws and rules "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations."
President Bush and his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, claim that they have never seen the memo.
Someone in the Department of Defense must have seen it though. In March 2003, parts of that memo, almost verbatim, reappeared in a Pentagon report concerning interrogation techniques that could be used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had already addressed the issue in December, 2002, when officers at Guantanamo asked him how far they could go with their interrogation methods. Rumsfeld approved several torture techniques, including holding prisoners in isolation for 30 days and "inducing stress by use of detainee’s fears," such as being attacked by dogs. When authorizing the practice of forcing prisoners to stand for four hours at a time, Rumsfeld wrote under his signature: "However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?"
Six weeks later, on January 15, 2003, Rumsfeld rescinded his initial instructions. Without giving a reason, he said that requests to step up techniques against individual detainees should be forwarded to him. A change of heart? Not likely–in April, 2003, Rumsfeld personally approved 24 of 35 interrogation techniques presented to him by Guantanamo officials.
The Pentagon has refused to make public these 24 methods. The parts of all these memos that so far have seen the light of day, however, are enough proof. They show beyond any doubt that soldiers torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or anywhere else were not acting alone. They were just doing the dirty work within the framework of a policy. A conscious policy of torture, that is, thought out and discussed at the highest level of the Bush administration.
Upon the release of the August, 2002 Department of Justice memo, a Human Rights Watch spokesperson commented: "It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid legal accountability."
Yes, these are war crimes, plain and simple. But when are the big shots who order the arrest, torture and killing of individuals, not to mention the carpet-bombing of entire cities, held accountable for their crimes?
Only when they lose a war, of course. That’s why Saddam Hussein today sits in prison while George Bush lives in luxury.
Jul 5, 2004
On June 30, Secretary of State Colin Powell visited the Darfur region of Sudan. Powell said he visited to show humanitarian concern for the hundreds of thousands of people suffering in refugee camps. In fact, Powell’s visit is nothing but a show–covering over the fact that the U.S. is cutting a deal with the regime in Sudan.
The U.S. had long charged Sudan with encouraging terrorism and tolerating the taking of slaves in the south of the country. But, looking for new allies to help it get out of its quagmire in Iraq, the U.S. government seems ready to ignore what it said about Sudan only last year. None of this has anything to do with relieving the desperate situation of people in Sudan.
The following translation is from an article that appeared in Le pouvoir aux travailleurs (Workers Power), published by the African Union of Internationalist Communist Workers. It gives some sense of how desperate things are.
The situation of the peasants of the Darfur region of Sudan has become so dire that the World Food Program speaks of a humanitarian catastrophe which could result in "tens of thousands of deaths."
While an agreement is being wrapped up in Washington between the Sudanese government and John Garang, the leader of the Movement of the Liberation of the Peoples of Sudan, ending a rebellion which has raged in the south of Darfur for years, another conflict continues to ravage the west of the Darfur region.
Helicopters continue to shoot on villages. On the ground, the Janjaweed (armed cavalry) finish the dirty work. The Janjaweed are militias composed of Arabs, heavily equipped by the Sudanese regime. They raid villages on horses or camels and massacre those peasants who haven’t fled. They seize the peasants’ herds, destroy houses, rape the women and take the children to sell into slavery.
The creation of these militias as auxiliaries of the Sudanese army has only aggravated an old conflict between nomadic Arabic-speaking people and settled black African people, that is to say, between herders of livestock and peasants. Before, when there was a disagreement over cattle grazing in a field or devastating a harvest, it was settled amicably through compensation, without violence. The Janjaweed shattered this decades-old peaceful way of settling conflicts. Of course, all the livestock herders aren’t members of the militias, but the majority benefit from their protection.
Today, there are 110,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad, a neighboring country, and 670,000 refugees displaced inside Sudan, all in great danger. Since negotiations failed between the Sudanese government and the rebels of the Movement of Sudanese Liberation, which arose a year and a half ago, the Sudanese army has been attempting to crush the movement. The rebels accuse the regime of General Bashir of excluding black minorities, especially in Darfur, the second most populous region in Sudan. The government’s policy has pushed the population to take up arms.
The Sudanese government suspects the Chad regime of supporting these rebels, the majority of whom belong to the same ethnic group, the Zaghawa, as Idriss Déby, the president of Chad. It’s true some refugees living in Chad have sent arms to the rebels and some Chad army officers have also joined the Movement of Sudanese Liberation.
In many cases, the Sudanese regime pursued Sudanese rebels across the border between the two countries and shot refugees in camps inside Chad. On May 11, a clash between Chad soldiers and Sudanese Janjaweed caused 61 deaths, according to Chad sources. In January, the Sudanese government had bombed the Tiné refugee camp, in Chadian territory. There were three deaths and 14 seriously wounded.
Humanitarian organizations demanded that the refugee camp be moved away from the border. The refugees benefit from the solidarity of the Chadian people, particularly those of their ethnic group, who, despite their own poverty, do everything they can to come to the aid of their brothers. Still, the refugees don’t get nearly enough humanitarian aid from elsewhere.
Jul 5, 2004
The Pentagon is highly selective in how it reports on the number of U.S. troops in Iraq who’ve been injured, disabled, have gotten sick or have serious mental problems as a result of the war. As of mid-June, it reported 5,457 troops had been "wounded in action" in Iraq, meaning hit directly by enemy fire or improvised explosive devices. But there is a much larger number of troops–double that number–not included, which the Pentagon labels "non-combatant" or "non-hostile" casualties. On the Pentagon’s Website tracking casualties, this category is left blank. The figure is a carefully guarded secret.
When TV journalist Bill Moyers sent reporters to ask for clarification on casualty numbers, the Pentagon refused to give out information, claiming no one asked about it before. A blatant lie, since UPI investigative reporter Mark Benjamin has been requesting figures–unsuccessfully–for a year. Benjamin became suspicious of official numbers as he noted the numbers of troops in military hospitals or returning home with heat exhaustion or suffering depression and other mental disorders from "extreme duress."
A growing number of troops are coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One soldier, after spending months in Iraq running missions, described what it was like when he returned to the States: "Uncontrollable crying, panic attacks," feeling disoriented, useless and helpless; and further he described a "feeling of betrayal by the military." Men and women like this are not counted among casualties by the government.
So what is an accurate figure of casualties? Moyers’ reporters–through persistent research and tallying numbers from the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force–estimate that more than 11,000 have not been counted. But, as they say, that’s a conservative estimate. The actual number may be much higher. And that’s in addition to the Pentagon’s figure of over 5,000, totaling roughly 16,600 casualties, one in twenty troops. And this is only the beginning. As the first Gulf War demonstrated, the largest number of casualties did not show up until months or years later when soldiers exposed to depleted uranium, used to coat ammunition, began to come down with a range of debilitating ailments. This time also, depleted uranium has been widely used.
The Bush administration understands only too well that casualty figures might encourage increased sentiment against the war and for U.S. troops to be brought home immediately. It’s no surprise that this administration, which has lied about everything else in this war, is also lying about what is happening to U.S. soldiers.
There’s an even bigger lie told by the Pentagon, by the politicians of both parties and by the news media. That concerns the number of Iraqi people killed by the U.S. in this 16-month war. While human rights groups estimate the direct numbers in the tens of thousands, and the indirect numbers much higher, not only does the Pentagon refuse to report these figures; it regularly lies when reporters turn up another incident of massive civilian casualties caused by U.S. fire power.
What a mockery they dare to call this murderous war "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
Jul 5, 2004
More than 100 wells in a mile square of Harford County, north of Baltimore, are being tested for the gasoline additive MTBE. Already 34 have been found with levels of MTBE above the recommended levels, 13 at "worrisome" levels, according to an official from Maryland’s Department of the Environment, which has been testing the wells.
At the center of this square mile sits an ExxonMobil gas station. Ground water below this gas station tested at more than a THOUSAND times the allowed limit of MTBE. Still, ExxonMobil denies responsibility and wants Maryland officials to go looking for another "source."
More than 60 lawsuits have already been brought against big oil companies in similar cases across the country. A neighborhood of Poughkeepsie, New York, has 100 wells showing MTBE contamination.
MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl ether) has been added to gasoline since the 1970s. Because gasoline is a known component in air pollution, this chemical was created to lower the amount of pollution going into the air.
However, when gas with MTBE ends up in the water, the contaminant not only gives water a bad taste, but also has certain health consequences. The Environmental Protection Agency has long known that MTBE caused rats and mice to develop cancer, as well as kidney, liver and other problems. But even though it has been used for over 30 years, the EPA still hasn’t come out with standards for human consumption, claiming it is still studying the matter.
Meanwhile the friends of the oil companies in Congress have been pushing legislation that would absolve oil companies of any liability for damages from MTBE in gasoline.
The problem of water contamination in Harford County may be in the news now due to current contamination, but troubles with MTBE at this ExxonMobil gas station were already known 13 years ago. The state didn’t close the gas station nor make ExxonMobil pay any damages.
The corporations pollute and government officials close their eyes–there’s plenty of blame to go around on all levels of government.
Jul 5, 2004
A study by the University of Maryland during the power plant failure last August found the skies in the Northeast experienced a 90% reduction in sulfur dioxide, the main component in soot, and a 50% reduction in smog. Air visibility increased by some 20 miles during the blackout that lasted from two to five days, differing by how quickly the plants came back on line.
Said the lead scientist, "What surprised us was not so much the observation of improved air quality during the blackout, but the magnitude of the observed improvement."
In other words, without pollution–coming above all from power plants that have been allowed NOT to install pollution equipment–we could see around us and breathe without coughing.
Jul 5, 2004
A federal district judge in San Francisco granted class-action status to a lawsuit by women Wal-Mart employees. Six women began the lawsuit in 2001. The judge’s decision, if upheld, adds about 1.6 million women to the complaint. The women are suing for compensation because of Wal-Mart’s sex discrimination in wages and promotions.
Wal-Mart’s abuse of labor is legendary. The U.S. poverty level for a family of 3 is $14,630 a year; the average yearly salary of a Wal-Mart "associate" is $13,861. Moreover, concealed within this astonishingly low average, court filings reveal that women hourly "associates" earn about $1,100 less per year than men. And Wal-Mart employs 65% women!
Any court of justice would order restitution, immediately, on the face of it. But in this court system, it still may be years, if ever, before Wal-Mart has to pay anything at all.
And even if Wal-Mart is eventually compelled to pay up and to change its practices, what would such a court order mean? Simply that all workers will have equal opportunity–to work full time for poverty wages!
It’s always the practice of employers to divide workers by paying different wages to different groups. Once a lower wage is established for one group–at Wal-Mart, the women workers–that wage becomes a millstone on the necks of all other workers as well. Even the highest wage is defined by its distance from the lowest.
Of course it is in every Wal-Mart worker’s interest to see that those in the lowest-paid ranks are brought up to a higher level and as soon as possible.
Beyond that, it is in the interest of every worker to make working full-time for poverty wages a horror of the past, instead of the millstone around our collective necks that it is today. And that won’t be done by court order, but by a mobilization of the workers.
Jul 5, 2004
The Detroit school board announced layoffs last month of 3,200 workers, including 1,400 teachers and hundreds of skilled trades workers, engineers, custodians, secretaries, guards, bus drivers, boiler operators and food service workers. This sparked a series of protests.
Over 700 people showed up at the next School Board meeting on June 17; over 300 protested at the schools’ CEO Kenneth Burnley’s house that same week; and smaller protests have continued at the Detroit Public Schools bus terminals and other sites on a daily basis.
Last week, school officials announced that the budget deficit was even worse than they’d thought. They "discovered" millions of dollars of debt, hiding under a rock, apparently; and now they say that they will need to cut almost 250 million dollars from next year’s budget–which will mean, they say, even more layoffs.
In response, people packed a school budget hearing to voice their disgust. In this meeting, students spoke powerfully about the horrid conditions in their schools, which are literally falling down around them. They need much MORE money to make things better, not much less!
Detroiters know that laying off workers doesn’t produce savings in the budget. The school district has been laying off workers for years. It then turns around and fills these jobs through private contractors–including national corporations like ARAMARK. This means lower wages and no benefits for the workers, but big profits for the private companies–which get paid much more than what the district had once paid out when its higher-paid employees did the work.
School board members treat the budget as a cash cow for their friends. That’s one reason why it’s in such bad shape.
But the bigger problem is how the schools are funded. In the 1990’s, Michigan changed the financing structure for its schools to eliminate a great deal of property taxes that corporations pay. Until then, local property taxes were the main source of funds for the schools. Afterwards, state funding became the main source, paid for by a rise in the state sales tax from 4% to 6%. State officials said this would equalize the funding of the schools, and help poorer districts like Detroit. In reality, just the opposite has been true.
State funding has been far short of what the state promised. This has left many school districts in financial trouble in recent years. More and more have spent nearly all of their "rainy day funds," just to stay afloat.
School districts in wealthy cities can fill the gaps in their school budgets with home property taxes. For everybody else, those taxes are a hard burden–and they can’t begin to make up for what they’ve lost.
Detroit’s situation is similar to that of large cities and towns across the country. All over the country, school conditions are getting worse and worse, as more and more of school budgets get diverted into corporate hands.
The only way this is going to stop is if workers in Detroit and other cities say loudly and clearly that they won’t accept such attacks on their children’s future. People in one district can’t do it alone–but workers everywhere face the same problems with the schools. And what starts one place can spread.
Jul 5, 2004
On June 29, the government’s Air Transportation Stabilization Board (ATSB) turned down United Airlines’ application for government loan guarantees, saying that United was in good enough shape to get money from the banks without a government loan guarantee. This admission that United is in a good financial position was ignored by the business press as well as Wall Street. Instead, they all continue to pretend that United will collapse–if it doesn’t get further concessions from its work force.
They have justified previous wage and benefit concessions by arguing that United couldn’t compete with low-cost carriers like Southwest and JetBlue. False! It wasn’t wages and benefits that made those companies so low cost. BEFORE the concessions, ramp workers for Southwest, for example, made essentially the same as workers at United.
But today, it’s supposedly the increased oil prices that are the problem. United says it has to pay an extra 750 million dollars this year alone for jet fuel. If it really were true that United could go under because the oil companies inflated their prices, United has a very easy way to reduce its oil costs: get the banks which control United–JP Morgan Chase and Citibank–to reduce these inflated oil costs, since they also control the biggest oil companies. Lee Raymond, on the Board of Directors of JP Morgan Chase, is the CEO of Exxon-Mobil. Kenneth Derr, on the Board of Citibank, was the CEO of Chevron Corp. And United itself has a director who was on the board of BPAmoco. These big companies and banks are all tied together. A very few financial groupings control almost all the economy today–through direct ownership, financial control and links between companies’ boards of directors.
The interest of the banks, of United, and of all corporations, is not to reduce their profits by reducing oil profits. No, they want the workers to make further concessions–which will increase their profits.
Immediately after the ATSB turned down United’s request, a propaganda barrage began from journalists, commentators, stockbrokers and bankers, saying that if United can’t survive, the workers would have to make concessions, maybe as big as they gave up before. These well-off scribblers and wealthy thieves suggested that United could begin by reducing its pension fund–it could freeze pension benefits at current levels or even just terminate the plans, dumping them into the hands of the government.
This would be round two of concessions by United. USAir workers have already given concessions two times and now the company is demanding a third round of concessions.
When flight attendants and other United workers were offered early retirement packages as part of a massive reduction in the number of workers, they were told they wouldn’t have to pay for retiree health. But just a month ago United got the unions to agree to have the 27,000 retirees pay an average of $1,852 a year in health care costs out of their own pockets.
The demands of these companies for concessions is nothing but an outright mugging. And just like the worst neighborhood hoodlum, these companies will come back to rob you again if you open your door to them once. If United workers are to protect their interests, they need to slam the door in the big thieves’ face before the thieves get any bolder. Refusing to give any more concessions would be a good way to do it.