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
Aug 29, 2005
As the price for one barrel of crude oil continues to jump upward, the "experts" tell us that the demand for oil is exploding, while the capacity for producing oil is limited.
It’s an old con game–and every bit as false as it was in 1973, when the price for a barrel of oil increased by 400% in a few months time. In 1973, many "experts" predicted that the world would run out of oil in 1982. The world didn’t run out of oil. And the reserves–that is, the oil not yet used–are larger today than they were in 1973.
But, of course, the reserves of oil eventually could be exhausted–even if the reserves that are known today won’t soon be gone.
So what should be done?
Some fools tell us we should drive less. Well, yes, but how? How do we get to work, when there isn’t fast and convenient public transportation within a city, much less between a city and its suburbs? How do we take a vacation or visit our families or get to an out-of-town wedding or funeral, when the cost of airline travel is too high and few trains go where we want to go?
Drive less? That’s putting the cart before the horse–and don’t be surprised if some fool tells us to get a cart and a horse!
Drive less? Here’s what we would need: first of all, more efficient and user-friendly public transport; travel and work organized so as to ease enormous traffic blockages, which gobble up gasoline; affordable and comfortable housing with good schools built near where we work.
A rational society would organize to use the resources of the planet so that they could be preserved for future generations. It would also take into account how not to poison the atmosphere with pollution. It would work out ways to transfer workers from one industry to another, without causing them to lose their wages, benefits, pension accruals, seniority, etc.
But despite all the talk about an oil shortage, that’s not what the rulers of this country are doing today. No, they let the "marketplace" decide on how to use energy and which energy will be used.
And today the only thing the marketplace is doing is giving an enormous benefit to the big oil companies. In 2004, Shell Oil’s profits were 48% higher than the previous year; ExxonMobil’s, 18%; and BP’s, 26%. This year, it’s even worse. In the first two quarters of this year, oil company profits soared to even greater heights than in 2004.
None of this exorbitant profit is going toward easing whatever energy shortage might exist.
No, the only energy plan that the capitalists and their political friends have is to make the working people pay–pushing up the prices, not just on gasoline at the pump, but on everything else where crude oil or the energy derived from it plays a role: plastics, the chemical industry, agriculture, anything requiring transport, other forms of travel, etc. They even push up the price of natural gas–although natural gas doesn’t come from crude oil!
This is not an "energy" plan. It’s a "bigger profit" plan.
Take away the capitalists’ enormous profits–put them to use benefitting society as a whole. Use them to organize the planet’s resources rationally. It’s the only plan that can benefit all of humanity.
Aug 29, 2005
Cities across the Detroit metro area have experienced power outages in recent weeks.
Why? Because of thunderstorms or tornadoes? No. Almost every time, DTE Energy claimed there was an unforeseen problem at one of its electrical substations.
Strangely enough, these power outages come at a time when Michigan’s major utility companies, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, are pushing for public funding for the construction of a new power plant, most likely a nuclear one. They claim the state could run out of electricity if they don’t get help.
Just a year ago, the head of Michigan’s Public Service Commission, Peter Lark, was assuring everyone that Michigan’s electrical "deregulation" law would not cause the same kind of electrical crisis that occurred in California. Now Lark is echoing DTE’s statements about an impending power shortage, saying, "We’re not likely to have enough energy to meet demand . . . so we’ll need an additional something."No one can say for sure what’s behind all the recent power outages. They appear strangely reminiscent, however, of the rolling blackouts that were used to extort higher rates from California residents during the electricity crisis there.
Finally, after receiving many complaints about all of the power outages, the Public Service Commission says it is "investigating" their causes.
We can bet the utilities will have their new plants all paid for by us–long before the PSC finishes its "investigation." That’s what government agencies are good for–blocking everyone, while the big companies make an end run to more profits.
Aug 29, 2005
The giant oil companies just announced record profits for 2004. ExxonMobil, the biggest oil company in the world, had after-tax profits of 26 billion dollars last year on its ongoing operations, up 52% from 2003. ChevronTexaco had 13 billion dollars in profits, up 85% from a year ago. And Shell Oil had profits of 19 billion dollars, up 48% from 2003.
That $3 per gallon of gas and those $400 a month heating bills? Right from our pockets to theirs!
Aug 29, 2005
A number of organizations and anti-war coalitions have called for a demonstration in Washington on Saturday, September 24 to protest the war in Iraq. It’s a good opportunity for more of us to show our opposition to the war.
Aug 29, 2005
The FDA has again rejected an application to allow over-the-counter sales of the "morning after pill," Plan B, despite the fact that an advisory board recommended the move more than two years ago. The drug has been found to be safer than many currently available without a prescription.
The FDA says they need 60 more days to "gather public sentiment" about the idea. Since when does science have anything to do with "public sentiment"?!Clearly, it’s not ALL of public opinion that they’re so concerned about. The FDA is simply bowing to reactionary religious groups, who do not want to make it easy for women to avoid pregnancy.
The FDA admits that Plan B has been shown to be safe for women 17 and older. But they say right out that what worries them is that young teens may react to the easy availability of the drug by having more sex.
As if keeping the drug off the shelves will stop teens from having sex! But it COULD help stop them from becoming teenage mothers.
Karen Pearl of Planned Parenthood hit it on the nose when she said, "There is no question that this is an indication of ideology getting in the way of science."
Aug 29, 2005
A survey done by office furniture designer Steelcase, Inc. confirmed what American workers already know: most office workers use their lunch breaks to do all kinds of things other than eating lunch and relaxing.
Many workers catch up on work during the lunch hour. Others run errands–women workers who have to pick up their children after work, for example. One woman who was surveyed said that free time had become more precious to her than eating lunch.
As years go by, workers work more and more. That means we live less–and live worse, too. And why? So that the bosses can make more profit.
It’s time to stop this madness!
Aug 29, 2005
The fallout from the August 9 chemical plant explosion in suburban Detroit has just been found to contain lead and arsenic. In addition, there are traces of several suspected cancer agents, as well as other chemicals that can cause hormone or developmental problems in children.
So much for the assurances that there were no dangers to residents and workers in the area. And yet public officials continue to say there’s no risk!
It’s very easy for them to claim that today–the EPA is refusing to release its data. In other words, it doesn’t want anyone else to challenge or verify it.
Aug 29, 2005
Shares of Altria, corporate owner of Philip Morris cigarettes, hit a record high of $71.08 per share on August 18.
Philip Morris faces penalties of 10.1 billion dollars damages to lung cancer victims who earlier won a class-action suit. With such an enormous penalty threatening, why would these stocks hit a record?
Because on that same day, the Illinois Supreme Court cancelled a class-action suit that had won $1.06 billion from State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance. Philip Morris just happens to be appealing its case to that same court. Investors were not slow to see the handwriting on the wall!
Class-action suits allow many workers or consumers with small claims to join their resources against large, powerful companies. Even though these class actions aren’t usually successful, the few big ones like Philip Morris’ or State Farm’s have put a sort of brake on some of the worst corporate practices. Of course the companies have complained long and loud–and in the reactionary political atmosphere of today, the courts have no problem helping them out.
It’s of a piece with the campaign by right-wing politicians to protect corporations from legal action–to make it harder for the ordinary person to sue. President Bush signed the "Class Action Fairness Act" (fair only to businessmen!) on February 18. The Act made it easier for corporations to get cases out of state courts, into the generally more corporate-friendly federal courts. That was Strike One.
Strike Two is now the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision, which may now be extended to many other states with similar consumer-protection and class-action laws.
This kind of decision will only encourage the corporations and their politicians to wind up to pitch Strike Three. That is, unless they begin to hear the roar of the angry crowd.
Aug 29, 2005
George Bush and other supporters of the war in Iraq are launching an all-out attack against Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, who’s been protesting outside Bush’s Texas ranch.
They have the resources of the Republicans behind them. They have a number of Democrats on their side. They have the radio stations and TV that control virtually 100% of the airwaves. They have the newspapers that practically control 100% of the print media.
They’ve organized counter-protests against Sheehan, scaring up a lot of hired hands waving signs printed for them. And of course they were able to find some parents ready to say they are proud their sons died in Iraq, claiming Sheehan doesn’t speak for them.
But public opinion polls continue to show that an ever bigger majority of people oppose the war. From what you hear in stores in working class neighborhoods, and in other places where people gather, it’s obvious Sheehan does represent what the majority believes.
If it weren’t so, Bush’s people would have scooped her up just like the government did in the early years of the Viet Nam War. She’d be sitting in some jail by now. If they’ve held back up until now, it’s not out of respect for free speech, or for the right of everyone to form their own opinion. It’s a recognition of numbers.
Aug 29, 2005
In the early hours of an August Sunday morning, a cross was burned into the lawn of a black family in Dearborn Heights, a suburb of Detroit. The attackers also messed with the gas line running into the Davis family’s house, causing the pilot lights on the family’s stove to go out, then allowing gas to continue flowing.
This was the fourth blatantly racist attack reported in the mostly white Detroit suburbs in the last two months, including another cross burning in the suburb of Trenton.
Some people say it’s just a prank. A prank? Gregory Davis and his wife have to worry about their kids’ safety every time they leave the house. When they get home, they have to check the gas line to make sure the house won’t explode. They have to look over their shoulders to be sure they won’t be attacked.
This was no prank. It was pure and simple terrorism–aimed at keeping the black population from having full access to what the white population has.
Gregory Davis said he’s not going anywhere. He said, "We are here and we are not leaving. I’m not backing down from anybody."He’s right, and he can use the support of others, because the authorities certainly haven’t stopped the racist cowards from their night-time attacks.
There are many black people who can see the reason to support Davis and his family. But white workers should see the reason, too. Racism exists because it benefits the rulers of this society by dividing the working class.
There are white people in Dearborn Heights who know who did this terrorist act. They can track the perpetrators down and confront them, let them know they’re the ones who aren’t welcome. The ones who know who did it and do nothing are just as guilty as the racists themselves.
Aug 29, 2005
In early July, a U.S. immigration judge postponed a scheduled deportation hearing against Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, two immigrants of Palestinian origin, without setting a new date. A month later, as if to counter the judge’s move, the U.S. government added new charges against the two under the newly-passed REAL ID Act.
Hamide and Shehadeh, along with five other Palestinians and one Kenyan, have been prosecuted by the U.S. government for more than 18 years. In 1987, the federal government charged the L.A. 8, as the defendants are often called, with supporting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the U.S. then called a terrorist organization.
The government’s case faltered quickly, however, as even the then-FBI director William Webster testified that the FBI had found no evidence of criminal or terrorist activity by the L.A. 8. And officials have never claimed that the eight immigrants have done anything wrong in the last 18 years. Nonetheless, the officials have continued to go after the eight–charging six of them with minor visa violations instead. As for Hamide and Shehadeh, the government has kept charging them under different laws, including the USA Patriot Act, which was passed almost 15 years after the L.A. 8 were first accused!
Why has the U.S. government, under four different presidents, pursued this case so relentlessly?
There is only one logical answer: the government has been using this case to send a message that it will not tolerate opposition to U.S. foreign policy. And the warning is certainly not limited to immigrants. Since 9/11, most of the people charged under the Patriot Act–or, for that matter, held without charges–were U.S. citizens. No one should doubt that the government would try to use laws like the Patriot Act against any opposition–including, for example, anti-war protesters and labor organizers. U.S. history is full of such examples.
Aug 29, 2005
Returning to his homeland, the new Pope expressly made a point to visit a synagogue in Cologne, Germany. During the visit, he condemned the Nazi genocide of the Jews as an "unimaginable crime."Yes, a terrible crime was committed against the Jewish people. In Cologne, where the Pope visited, their numbers were reduced from 20,000 in 1933, to fewer than 100 left alive in 1945. The deaths of more than 11,000 of them have been documented, but most of the others disappeared without leaving a trace, exterminated in the Nazi death camps.
Pope Benedict XVI may have noted this, but he ignored the demand to open the Vatican archives, which would shine a light on what the Catholic church did during the Nazi period–just as every other pope has refused during the 60 years since the fall of Nazism.
Nonetheless, the church’s tolerance of, and even encouragement to the Nazi regime as it exterminated the Jews in Germany and throughout Europe is well known–as was the church’s aid given to some of the most responsible Nazis, helping them to escape in 1945.
Perhaps less well known is the degree to which the church aided the Nazi regime to put itself in power. In the period between the two world wars, a Catholic party, the Center Party, supported Hitler for chancellor in January 1933, and it even had a minister in Hitler’s first government. In March of that same year, the Center Party, headed by a high Catholic prelate, Monsignor Kass, gave Hitler their votes in the Reichstag–92 deputies in all–giving Hitler the votes he needed to assume full dictatorial powers.
The Center Party could not pretend it didn’t know what the Nazis were going to do–they were already doing it. All Communist deputies and some Socialists had been arrested before the Reichstag vote–to prevent them from voting against Hitler’s dictatorship. Three days before the Center Party voted for Hitler, the first concentration camp opened its doors at Dachau, near Munich. For weeks, the Nazis had been carrying out a reign of terror in workers’ neighborhoods. Thousands of communist, socialist and trade union militants had already been rounded up by Storm Troopers, herded into prison, from where they were sent to Dachau–its very first victims.
Exactly at this moment, the Catholic bishops lifted their earlier condemnation of Nazism and appealed to the faithful to loyally support the regime.
In July of 1933, the Catholic Center Party dissolved itself, leaving the field open to the Nazis, the only remaining legal party. Two weeks later, the Vatican signed an accord with the Third Reich, in which the Nazis promised to respect the interests of the church.
Certainly, the Nazis did not fully respect this agreement, and priests who were not docile enough were persecuted. But the church was able to save the essential part of its interests: buildings, institutions, finances. And Hitler demonstrated his recognition of the church when he made it obligatory to pray to Jesus every day in the public schools. He thus overthrew the constitution of the Weimar Republic, which had finalized the separation of church and state in Germany. And he resurrected the taxes that the state had collected from every German–to hand over to the church.
It wasn’t until 1937, long after the Nazi regime was firmly installed, with German troops preparing to begin their march through Europe, that the Pope finally took a public position critical of Nazi racist policies. This did not prevent the Pope from offering to send priests along with the Nazi army when it invaded Russia–in order to convert the Russian peasants!
The Catholic Church was not the only church to preach obedience to the Nazi regime and close its eyes to the persecutions of the Jews. The main protestant churches did exactly the same, as the Lutheran church admitted in 1945.
Certainly, not every German Christian supported the Nazi regime. And some of them–pastors, students (like the White Rose group in Munich) or even soldiers–tried in their own way to help people persecuted by the regime. Some even resisted its actions, risking their own lives to do so. But these were always the actions of individuals. The hierarchy of the churches, both Catholic and Protestant, put themselves squarely in the camp of the Nazi regime.
So, of course, the Vatican archives remain closed–locked with "seven seals."
Aug 29, 2005
Ever since June 22, when British police gunned down Jean Charles de Menezes on his way to work, one official lie has followed another.
Now, five weeks later, the police have been forced to admit a few things because someone leaked subway surveillance films to the newspapers.
#1: Menezes did not run from police–he walked calmly to the subway station and bought a newspaper before boarding a train and taking a seat.
#2: He was not challenged by undercover agents who followed him for many blocks.
#3: He was not wearing a heavy winter coat–only an unpadded denim jacket–and he did not have a knapsack.
#4: When undercover agents identified themselves to Menezes in the subway car, he stood up. After one cop grasped him in a bear hug, immobilizing him, another one shot him repeatedly at point blank range. Seven shots went through his head, one through his shoulder, three missed.
It was a public execution carried out in an extremely bloody, grotesque fashion. Unable to prevent the terrorism that had taken the lives of 56 people a couple weeks earlier, the police were determined to show how tough they are.
Tough? No, the British cops showed themselves for what they are: just a bunch of bloody murderers.
Aug 29, 2005
After missing the third deadline they had set themselves for finishing Iraq’s new constitution, Shiite and Kurdish members of the constitutional committee announced on August 27 that they were ready to put the constitution to the vote of the Iraqi people. But even these politicians admit that they haven’t been able to come up with a document that has the approval of the Sunni members of the committee.
At the heart of the dispute is the question of how oil revenues will be divided. Two of the three major groups represented on the committee, Shiites and Kurds, want Iraq to be a federation divided into autonomous regions, while Sunnis insist on a central administration. This is because Iraq’s rich oil fields happen to be concentrated in the south and in the north–regions controlled by Shiite clerics and Kurdish warlords, respectively. Those parts of central Iraq where Sunnis are the majority, on the other hand, have little oil.
This is a fight about what clique of gangsters will get to plunder Iraq’s wealth–a real fight which will not be resolved on paper, no matter how the constitution is worded. Violence is already an everyday reality in central and south Iraq. Bombings targeting civilian crowds, especially Shiites and Sunnis, and the dispute over the constitution look like signs of a bloody, destructive civil war in the making–including within each broad group. Last week, for example, Shiites supporting Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, attacked Shiites supporting Muqtada al-Sadr, a cleric with a strong following among poor Shiites who opposes dividing the country up. At least six Sadr supporters were killed, and dozens were wounded.
These U.S.-approved "leaders" of Iraq may disagree violently and passionately about how to share the loot. They are, however, in complete agreement on one issue–that Iraq should become a country ruled by religion. The second article of the new constitution states that no law may be legislated which contradicts Islamic law, that is, the Sharia. This directly turns on its head the pretense of the same constitution that all citizens are equal. For this "Islamic law" sees women as half persons. According to Islam’s holy book, the Koran, women inherit from their parents only half of what their brothers inherit, and it takes two women witnesses to neutralize the testimony of one man before a court of law. As for marriage, a man is allowed to marry up to four women, while a woman can’t marry more than one man; and only men can request a divorce!
It is truly outrageous that this new constitution will thus overturn Iraq’s present civil code, one of the most modern in the Arab world. In fact, whatever rights Iraqi women enjoyed are already under attack. In south Iraq, where Shiite mullahs are in charge, thugs routinely harass women who go out without covering their entire bodies. Iraq is well on its way of doing away with its decades-old secular traditions and turning into another Middle-Eastern country ruled by thousands-of-years-old religious codes.
As brutal and repressive as Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship was, the U.S.-sponsored "new" Iraq, facing civil war and backward religious laws, is even worse off. But then, this is hardly a surprise. In fact, submitting their country to medieval religious laws seems to be a pattern among Middle Eastern regimes that are friendly with, in fact propped up by, the U.S. Just look at Saudi Arabia, which to this day doesn’t allow women to drive. Or, for that matter, Israel, which grants immediate citizenship to any person of Jewish religion, while it denies full citizenship rights to Arab Israelis who lived on that land even before it became Israel.
Aug 29, 2005
On August 22, Pat Robertson, the head of the Christian Coalition, called on the U.S. government to assassinate the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. "Take him out!" declared Robertson on his television program, "The 700 Club."
His remarks set off a political firestorm, which the Bush administration quickly tried to put out. No less than Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the bloody U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, pretended that the U.S. would never assassinate a foreign leader. "Certainly it’s against the law. Our department doesn’t do that type of thing," said Rumsfeld, probably crossing his fingers.
Chavez was undoubtedly NOT reassured. Almost since Chavez was elected Venezuela’s president in 1998, the U.S. has gone after him, including by openly sponsoring a military coup against him. The coup failed–but only because of an outpouring of opposition from the poor masses in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.
Why has the U.S. targeted Chavez? Quite simply–he has tried to take a slightly independent stance; that is, he showed that he was not willing to blindly do the U.S.‘s bidding. His government did not endorse Plan Colombia, the U.S. war in Colombia, and he has opened up and expanded diplomatic and economic ties with Castro’s Cuba. And Chavez dared to sell a small amount of oil to Castro’s Cuba at reduced prices! Chavez’s independent stance was especially unpardonable for the U.S. since Venezuela sits on some of the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East. In fact, it is the fourth largest exporter of oil to the United States.
The fact that Robertson would call on the U.S. government to assassinate Chavez is hardly a surprise. Robertson has embraced every military dictator, every bloody U.S. intervention throughout the world, especially in what Robertson calls "the U.S. backyard," Latin America. In the 1980s in Central America, when the U.S. was fighting to tighten the screws over those small countries, Robertson was an avid supporter of the U.S.-sponsored Contra terrorists against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, a war in which the Contras killed more than 50,000 people. He strongly backed General Rios Montt, the dictator of Guatemala, who paraded around as a born-again Christian while he carried out wholesale massacres of tens of thousands of people. And Robertson supported the dictatorship in El Salvador during the time of the death squads, when they were killing 1,000 people per month.
For decades, this has been Robertson’s role: using his Christian Coalition, with its vast empire of television and radio stations and its network of churches throughout the country, to curry support for the most bloody and reactionary policies of the U.S. capitalist class–and not just abroad, but obviously, here as well.
The U.S. ruling class has always made use of religious mouthpieces to justify their most criminal policies.
And, Robertson, with all kinds of connections to the capitalist class as a whole, is perhaps one of the biggest. These connections nourish his movement with money and access. After all, Robertson spouts his poison on "The 700 Club" not just on his own Christian stations, but on the Walt Disney Company’s Family Channel.
That’s right. The most blatant lies and reactionary prejudices pumped into the home by Disney as . . . "family" entertainment.
Aug 29, 2005
Last year Congress passed the so-called "Job Creation Act."In fact, it was nothing but a tax amnesty for U.S. corporations that do business overseas. They were allowed to bring their profits back, paying only 5¢ on the dollar in taxes. The "normal" tax for corporations would be 32¢ on the dollar. (Of course, most companies never pay that amount, thanks to all the tax exemptions given by Congress.)
So what were the results of this "job creation" act? Hewlett Packard is bringing back more than 14 billion dollars in profits while laying off 14,500 people; Pfizer is bringing back 37 billion dollars, while planning to close 20 factories.
The companies are laughing all the way to the bank over this latest Congressional joke.
Aug 29, 2005
General Motors knows advertising. Their "employee discount for everyone" campaign boosted their sales to record levels.
At the same time, GM left no publicity stone unturned, endlessly repeating how badly the company is doing and–its real point–how much it wants concessions from its workers.
GM is relying on the old saying, tell a big lie often enough and people start to believe it. GM is the world’s biggest industrial corporation. Its profits–after expenses and after taxes–are always enough to pay, every year, $2.00 per share in dividends to its stockholders–most of whom are the wealthy, or the big banks and investment firms. In only the past five years, GM has made the rich richer by about 20 billion dollars.
But those rich shareholders want MORE, and GM is trying hard to oblige, pressuring the workers–who create all these riches–to give up even more of their wages, benefits, and jobs.
And who do we find helping to increase GM’s pressure? None other than the workers’ union leaders.
At an August leadership convention in Chicago, UAW Vice-president Richard Shoemaker had a special meeting with local union presidents from GM. He reportedly told the presidents about GM’s "myriad problems," prompting one local president to tell the Detroit News, "He’s come to the consensus that we have to do something. He’s just in a quandary about what that something is." It was very clear that the "something" would not involve a fight for the workers to keep their wages and benefits safe from marauding banks and investment firms!
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger publicly makes strong-sounding statements that he won’t re-open the GM contract. But in lesser-reported moves, the UAW already has relieved GM of its contractual responsibility to pay for filling 6800 jobs. And according to a UAW memo of June 2005, the UAW has let GM know it is willing to give up 12.7 billion dollars in health care benefits. Active workers and retirees can take that as a warning about what’s involved in Shoemaker’s "something."In fact, by proposing concessions without formally re-opening the contract, UAW leaders make their deals without risking a vote of the workers. But a vote is not the best way to stop these attacks.
It’s the labor of those workers which creates every dime of every billion dollars that GM hands over to banks, investment firms, and executives. That money can stay with the workers just as well as it can go to the parasites. And with more reason.
And the workers will have it–when they apply enough persuasion, en masse.
Aug 29, 2005
There’s a battle going on right now, pitting mechanics and cleaners against a giant airline, Northwest. On the company’s side, a decision has been made to either break the union involved, AMFA, or to force the workers to give up so much that their union might as well have been broken. Not only did Northwest demand a 25% actual pay cut and an end to pensions–it also insisted on eliminating nearly every cleaner and half of all the mechanics.
On the workers’ side, there was determination to resist the attack, as well as confidence that the company cannot long do without their skills–at least as far as the mechanics are concerned.
The AMFA workers have gained a certain amount of support from other workers. It’s obvious that other workers at Northwest–even while continuing to work–are giving a hand today in all the many ways that workers can. And some workers from other airlines have joined the Northwest picket lines.
At the same time, leaders of other unions seem to have gone out of their way to stab this strike in the back. Announcing that they would not respect the picket lines, the head of an IAM local in Minnesota wrote to AMFA, saying: "I hope you and your membership are prepared to practice what you preach. Stand alone." And an international IBEW official prohibited the Detroit IBEW local union hall from being used for a fund raiser for the strikers. AMFA supposedly committed a crime by attracting Northwest workers away from the IAM in 1998.
Whoever was right and whoever was wrong in 1998, that’s not the issue today. Workers are being attacked by a big company, and that attack, if successful, will spread to other workers beyond AMFA at Northwest–and beyond Northwest, to workers not just at other airlines but throughout the country.
In some ways, it seems like a replay of the 1981 strike led by PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers’ Organization).
At that time, other unions formally gave the PATCO controllers some money and statements of support–even going so far as to organize a big demonstration in Washington, D.C. on Labor Day, with the PATCO strikers leading the march. But leaders of the other unions did not call on their members to respect the picket lines; they certainly did not call on their members to join the fight, although many workers, themselves under attack, were calling for a more generalized fight. Leaders of the other unions proposed to leave the PATCO controllers to make the fight alone. And the leaders of PATCO said that the controllers’ skills were enough to let them win alone. They were wrong.
The PATCO strike was a big turning point for labor in this country. It showed that a craft union of highly skilled workers not only could lose a big strike, but that it could be totally broken and most of the workers replaced permanently if the strike was not joined by other workers.
It’s useful to remember what happened in the PATCO strike–not because the same outcome is inevitable, but because there’s no point to make the same mistakes all over again.
It’s not enough to have skills–as the mechanics do. Their fight needs to be part of a larger workers’ mobilization. That’s what can make big companies like Northwest, United and General Motors–and all the rest–back off. And the Northwest mechanics and cleaners could be the people to start a mobilization going. They’ve already made the first step–showing they, at least, are ready to fight. At a time when other workers want to fight, but few unions call on them to do it, the Northwest strikers could convince other workers to join them in a broader struggle. There are other Northwest workers, other airline workers, other workers in the airports. There are neighbors, relatives, friends. But the Northwest strikers have to make the effort to get others to join them.
So what if treasonous leaders of other unions won’t join the fight? It’s what the workers do that will make the difference. And the AMFA mechanics and cleaners have every right to insist that others join their fight.