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
Apr 2, 2007
Democrats in the House and then the Senate voted to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
Does that mean U.S. troops are going to be pulled out of Iraq soon? Don’t bet your life on it. Don’t even bet a plugged nickel on it.
First of all because Bush has already said that he is going to veto whatever resolution comes to his desk.
But that’s not the worst of it.
The House Democrats supposedly passed a "binding" resolution for the U.S. to get out of Iraq–but not for 17 months. And we all know how much garbage these people can dredge up within 17 months to justify breaking their "binding" promises.
The Senate Democrats didn’t even have the stomach to pass a "binding" resolution. They just passed something that expressed the "sense of the Senate" that they want "most" U.S. troops out of Iraq in 12 months.
In reality, the Democrats are doing nothing but trying to get us to play the waiting game.
They"re making a show that they really do want to get out of this war, but there’s nothing they can do about it, since Bush is sitting in the White House.
These resolution are aimed at making us wait until the 2008 presidential election.
In reality, not even then. Because then we are supposed to wait until the new president gets inaugurated in January, and then wait until he chooses his cabinet, and then wait until he figures out what to do.
In other words, wait, wait, wait.
No! There’s a war going on. Every day we wait, more Iraqi people are being slaughtered. Every day we wait, more U.S. troops are being sacrificed on the oil companies’ altar of profits.
Wait? For what? For the Democrats to try to drag this out longer?
No!
If the Democrats were opposed to this war, they would not have passed such a timid, little milk toast resolution. They would have ordered Bush to immediately start the pull out. And, if he didn’t, they would have called on the population to get out in the streets and shut this country down. There are enough people opposed to this war, angry about this war, who could do that.
But the Democrats won’t upset the apple cart. Not those political fence-sitters.
If this war is to be stopped it will be stopped by the people really concerned: by the laboring people of this country who are paying this war’s price many times over. We are the ones in the army paying the price with our lives. We are the ones whose children’s schools are closing because all this country’s money is going for war. We are the ones who see people around us dying from lack of medical care in this country–for the same reason.
We are the people who need to be out in the streets now. We need to be saying, NO more! Not one more day of war. Stop. Stop NOW. Troops out now!
Apr 2, 2007
The top one% of U.S. taxpayers averaged more than $1,100,000 in income in 2005, a rise of 14% in one year, according to newly released data from taxes. In that same year the average income of the bottom 90% actually dropped by about one%.
Thus, the gap between rich and poor grew wider. The 300,000 people at the top had about as much income as the 150 million people at the bottom.
This gap has doubled since 1980 and it is the highest recorded since 1928, just before the great stock market crash of 1929.
This enormous difference is simply the result of capitalist exploitation of the working class.
Apr 2, 2007
Faced with hundreds of angry parents, students and teachers, the Detroit Public School Board voted 6-5 to deny a proposal to close 26 schools next year and up to 16 the year after.
School Board president Jimmy Womack accused those who voted “no” of doing it only because they’re up for election this year. Board member Annie Carter, who voted against the closings, agreed. She said, “There were board members trying to figure out how the vote would go. They saw the handwriting on the wall. If we voted the way the district wanted us to go, we would have been voting ourselves out of office.”
School Board members know this so well because parents and others in the city have been making their opposition to closings known for months–with protests in front of schools and administration buildings, and showings at Board meetings like the one on March 23.
Even so, the Detroit newspapers were quick to say that the vote could be reversed as soon as the next Board meeting on April 4. The Detroit Free Press did their best to help that happen: a day after the vote, they reported that one of the Board members to vote “no,” Jonathan Kinloch, was driving on a suspended license. A day later he reversed himself and announced that he might change his vote to a “yes” at the next meeting.
Other School Board members, knowing that the skeletons in their closets might be plastered all over the newspapers, must have gotten the message.
The Detroit School Board must be banking on having a much smaller crowd at the next meeting–so they can vote for the school closures in peace. Whether they still feel pressure to vote “no” is up to the people of Detroit.
Apr 2, 2007
The Westin Bonaventure hotel in downtown Los Angeles filed a law suit against the Grand Avenue project, a massive two-billion dollar, 3.6 million-square-foot development planned right next door. Among other things, the Bonaventure suit charges that all the subsidies short-change the L.A. schools and community colleges of 25 million dollars over eight years.
Isn’t it amazing that a big company shows such “selfless” concern about the schools! Not quite. Included in the Grand Avenue project will be a brand new five-star hotel, which is slated to get 66 million dollars in subsidies. The Bonaventure is obviously just trying to stop its competition.
Of course, the Bonaventure, which was built in the 1970s, got plenty of subsidies when it was built, money that most certainly also should have been spent on the schools and the students. But the Bonaventue sure didn’t complain about those subsidies.
Apr 2, 2007
April 16 is when federal taxes are due this year. And as workers around the country dig even deeper to pay our tax bills, let us remember how much bigger the share of the tax burden is that ordinary workers are now paying.
Corporations have been paying steadily less. In the 1940s, corporations paid 33% of federal taxes. Today they pay around 7%.
So, the tax burden is being shifted from corporations to individuals. At the same time, the burden of taxes on individuals is also being shifted off of the wealthy onto the shoulders of working people.
The taxes paid on income earned by wealthy people have been cut tremendously. The tax rate on capital gains, that is, investment income, has dropped from 28% to 15% since 1980. The top dividend tax rate was cut from 70% to 15%. A recent study by the Citizens for Tax Justice showed that 43% of the dividend tax cuts are going to people with incomes over 1 million dollars, the top one-tenth of one%.
Wealthy people pay a lot less on inheritance taxes. The top estate tax rate has decreased from 70% to 48%. The amount exempted from estate taxes has increased steadily for the last five years from $600,000 to 2 million dollars in 2006, and it will increase to 3.5 million dollars in 2009.
To make up for the tax cuts going to the corporations and the wealthy, the government turns to taxes that hit working people harder. As incomes go up, workers pay more in regressive taxes like Social Security and Medicare, whose rates are fixed and are paid from the first dollar earned. A greater burden for paying for social services, infrastructure and education has been shifted to the states and local governments. And their taxes are even more regressive than the federal government. For example, state and local governments have increased all kinds of sales taxes and fees.
Both parties have given their stamp of approval to this shift in the burden of taxes. The Democrats like to blame Bush for tax cuts for the wealthy, but every time they come to a vote, just enough Democrats vote with the Republicans to allow them to pass.
Marx and Engels called for a progressive income tax in the Communist Manifesto 160 years ago, and it would still be an advance today.
Apr 2, 2007
Congress is preparing a new attack on immigrants without papers–all those people whose work helps keep this country running, as well as on wives, husbands and children.
On March 23, Democrat Luis Gutierrez and Republican Jeff Flake introduced an immigration “reform” bill into the House of Representatives.
On March 30, Republican senators submitted ideas for a proposed “reform” bill to Democratic Party senators, as the basis of negotiations the two parties will carry out over the next two weeks when Congress isn’t in session.
As the Los Angeles Times commented, “Though public work on an immigration overhaul appeared to have slowed, momentum simply moved behind closed doors.”
Closed doors is right–plus shutters on the windows. The two parties are trying to cobble together a bill that will meet the demands of business for more workers whose legal status leaves them fully vulnerable–forced to work long hours, in horrible conditions, at an inhuman pace of work, for low wages and few or no benefits. But, at the very same time, both parties are trying to appear as the ones who “give” immigrants a legal status.
A difficult trick? Not for politicians whose experience ranges from political skulduggery to outright criminality.
Whatever final form comes out of these pretended negotiations, one thing is clear. It will not benefit the interests of immigrants, nor of the rest of the working class.
The main proposal in the Gutierrez-Flake bill would put most undocumented immigrants into a “provisional” status for at least six years–during which time they could be expelled for any number of reasons, including not keeping a job. Those who survive that could start the process of applying for permanent resident status, then citizenship, which would take at least seven more years–during which time they can still be expelled. And this assumes all goes well. Many things will not go well. As of 2006, about ten% of those who applied after the 1986 “reform” are still waiting–twenty years later.
Add to that fees upon fees, fines upon fines, a requirement to leave the country before they could apply for permanent residency–what it all means is that the immigrants who are here today without papers are looking toward an indefinite period of “indentured” servitude. They cannot risk opposing their boss–for fear of losing their “legal” status.
And guess what? This Gutierrez-Flake bill is supposed to be the one that is “friendly” to immigrants. The other one is worse. To give some idea–not only does it include all these same features, it also requires people here during their provisional status to pay $3,000 every three years, and to pay another $10,000 total to apply for citizenship–compared to $375 currently.
Both versions include provisions for guest workers whose only legal status is to have the right to come here to work whenever some company wants to import them, misuse them, mistreat them, barely pay them, and then expel them when it is done with them.
Many so-called “friends” of immigrants are trying to push the idea that immigrants should not only push for, but be happy if they get, the Gutierrez-Flake bill.
It’s like the old hard cop-soft cop routine. And you know how that ends up. The hard cop attacks you, the soft cop puts you in prison.
The only reasonable immigration reform is full legalization for all immigrants who are here, and right away. If the bosses can make money off of people’s labor, then those people and their families should have full legal rights.
The lack of legal rights puts up a big barrier in the way of undocumented immigrant workers who want to defend themselves against the bosses. And when they can’t defend themselves, every worker is more at risk. Their low wages threaten every worker’s wages. Their horrible conditions promises worse conditions for everyone else.
The working class is one single class, and we have one class enemy–the bosses who exploit us all, regardless of our legal status or our citizenship. All of us together–immigrant or citizen, with or without papers–have one fight to make. Against those same bosses.
Apr 2, 2007
The following article is from the March 30 issue of Lutte Ouvriére (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.
A German judge in Frankfort has just been removed from a case where she took the side of a violent husband against his wife. The wife is a young woman of Moroccan origin living in Germany, who separated from her husband after he beat her. She went to court requesting an accelerated divorce. The judge turned her down, arguing that in Moroccan communities, men have the right to punish women, so there were no grounds for claiming excess severity in a German court. In other words, according to the judge women “expect it.” When the woman’s lawyer requested that the judge remove herself from the case on grounds of prejudice, the judge reaffirmed her position, and quoted the Koran, which permits a husband to punish a woman who injures his “honor.”
The case caused a scandal. The government’s Minister of Justice pulled the case from the judge, but said her behavior was an isolated case. However, German newspapers reminded their readers that in 2005 some brothers went on trial for killing their sister, who they accused of living in the Western manner. One brother was given the relatively moderate penalty of a little over nine years in prison, while the other brothers were freed for lack of evidence. The press pointed out that German courts more and more frequently hand out lenient sentences in “honor crimes,” although there have been 50 such deaths over the last ten years.
Judges who allow men to beat and kill their wives or women relatives on the grounds that their “culture” permits it exhibit their own reactionary prejudices, as well as racist scorn. And it’s not just one judge, unfortunately for all those men and especially women who try to lead their lives free of control by bigots of any religion.
Apr 2, 2007
Gas prices have increased steadily since the elections were over. Obviously, the oil companies had dropped the price of gas so that it wouldn’t be an issue during the elections. Recent increases were so rapid, they have brought the cost of a gallon of gas back to its old highs in some cities.
With these price increases the oil companies are giving the usual excuses about problems in the Middle East, confrontation with Iran–just as other times they used other excuses.
Not one word is true. From 1999 to 2006, the price of oil has increased seven times, going from $10 per barrel of oil to more than $70 last summer.
The oil companies are increasing gas prices just in time for the high driving season of spring and summer. The oil companies and other big speculators are out to boost their profits by squeezing us as much as they can.
Apr 2, 2007
On March 9, the Bundestag, the German Parliament, passed a law raising the retirement age from 65 to 67. The vote passed by a large majority of 408 to 169 with 4 abstentions.
This measure was put forward by both the “left-wing” Social Democratic party, along with its partner in a “great coalition” since 2005, the right-wing Christian Democrats. Only 11deputies from the Social Democratic Party dared oppose it this reform, even though it is going to mean a considerable worsening in workers’ conditions.
The legal age of retirement is going to increase in steps from 65 to 67 beginning in 2012. Only workers who made contributions to Social Security for 45 years will be eligible to retire before age 67 ... but that will affect very few in the years to come. For each year a worker falls short of the needed 45 years of service, they’ll get 3.6% lower benefits.
In reality, despite the government’s plans to push work for those over 50, no boss really wants to employ older workers. Furthermore, many people actually retire at around 63. Even the labor commission of the Social Democratic Party uses the expression 60+, estimating that in “60% of businesses in Germany no one over 50 years old is employed.”
So older workers will be facing reduced Social Security benefits if they don’t have the 45 years or they can’t pay for the missing years of tax contributions out of their own pockets. Further, Social Security benefits have not increased since 2004 and will not increase until at least 2009. Thus, every year inflation lowers their real purchasing power.
Social Security retirement pensions were first introduced in Germany in 1889 by Bismarck. At that time, the legal retirement age was fixed at 70. In 1916, it was lowered to 65. In 1957, when Germany still hadn’t totally recovered from the destruction of the war, when there was a large housing shortage, and even according to official statistics a million families lived in misery, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who was considered far from being a progressive, introduced a “dynamic” pension. That tied Social Security pensions to wages and significantly increased pensions from the poverty level that had been established under Bismarck. They were raised to 70% of the average wage earned by the worker. At that time, pensions rose by 65.3% for blue collar workers and 71.9% for other employees.
Fifty years later, Germany is one of the major economic powers of the planet. It is the biggest exporter in the world. It has an abundance of wealth, yet the rulers pretend that it’s no longer possible to finance Social Security pensions at the same level. Officials claim that this is because of the “catastrophic” increase in the number of those going to retire in the decades ahead. In fact, the real reason is that, after the bosses have exploited their workers for decades, they no longer want to finance even a half-way decent retirement. And politicians of every political stripe, including those who pretend to be on the left, have shown how ready they are to do the bosses’ bidding.
Apr 2, 2007
On March 27, Armenta White was strangled to death by her boyfriend, who then turned himself in to the police.
This was just one of the latest in a growing number of domestic violence deaths in Detroit. During a recent two week period, five women in the area died as the result of domestic violence. There have been others in the meantime.
Domestic violence fatalities have been on the rise in Michigan for several years. Between 2004 and 2005, domestic violence fatalities jumped up 74% according to the most recent official statistics... and these statistics are known to understate the problem.
In Michigan, this violence might be somewhat worse than other parts of the country, because the economic and social conditions are worse. The fact that there is higher unemployment, falling pay and benefit cuts causes greater stress and conflict to the family and in the most intimate personal relations.
But underlying this violence is the continued inequality of women in this society, which is reflected in the laws and the way the laws are enforced by the police and courts. Throughout the country, the laws still treat women like the property of men. It is not as explicit as it was just a few decades ago. But it is still very much there.
Jaycee Memminger, a Detroit woman who filed for divorce a few years ago, got a court personal protective order (PPO) against her husband after he locked her and their two children out of their home and froze her bank account. But he violated the PPO 13 times, and each time the most the judge did was jail him for 24 hours ...until the man shot Memminger in the face!
Memminger’s ex-husband is now in prison. But even if he had killed her, he could not have been given life in prison, because in Michigan as in many other states, a man who murders his spouse in a domestic dispute is not subject to as stiff a penalty as a man who murders a total stranger under other circumstances.
It is easy to point fingers at the way women are treated in the Middle East. But in this country, supposedly so advanced and modern, women do not have equal status. They are still treated like the property of men.
Apr 2, 2007
On Saturday, March 24, the United Nations Security Council with representatives from the United States, France, Russia, Great Britain and China, voted new sanctions against Iran.
Along with several attempts since 2003, these world powers are once again trying to force Iran to stop its development of nuclear technology. The Security Council justifies its resolution by referring to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. That treaty reserves this technology to the countries that had it before 1967 and who are–surprise, surprise–the members of the Security Council.
But the politicians of the world powers, once outside the hushed halls of the United Nations, use other arguments. They pretend to be concerned about the danger of the dissemination of nuclear arms throughout the world. In reality, these same powers control nuclear armaments. They also allow their allies, including Israel, Pakistan and India, to build their own nuclear weapons.
These representatives of the big powers now pretend that it is shameful to furnish this technology to Iran. Yet, these same big powers, especially the United States and France, previously sold this technology to Iran, as well as Iraq, when these countries were their allies.
The western leaders say that it is not possible to trust a country like Iran with such a destructive technology. But which country is the only one in history to have used atomic weapons? The United States, which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Furthermore, all the big powers carried out atmospheric nuclear tests. France carried out underground tests as late as 1995.
These big powers all agree that oil reserves are drying up. They all say that it is necessary to develop alternative technologies, including nuclear energy. But they refuse to allow Iran to have access to it. They say that there is a more important consideration, namely that Iran is a dictatorship. Of course Iran is a dictatorship. But what these powers really object to is that it is a dictatorship they don’t control.
Today the British government is protesting the fact that 14 British sailors have been taken prisoner in Iran. The U.S. is backing Britain up. But these sailors were off the coast of Iraq and Iran because they are part of the coalition that is occupying Iraq. And that coalition is creating indescribable chaos and misery there.
No matter what the intentions of the Iranian leaders are, no matter what their game may be with these 14 sailors, the world powers are in no position to be giving lessons on morality.
Apr 2, 2007
Three years after pro-football player turned U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan, the Army has issued its report on how he died. They apologized to the Tillman family because, as suspected from the beginning, Tillman died from “friendly fire,” that is, his own side killed him by mistake.
Tillman’s father still is angry with military officials. He is quoted on March 21 in the press, “All I asked for is what happened to my son, and it has been lie after lie.” The New York Times says its own review of thousands of pages on the case shows “shifting testimony, the destruction of obvious evidence in the case and a series of contradictions about ... details surrounding the shooting.”
This case concerns a well-known person. Said Mrs. Tillman, “If this is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual, how are they treating others?”
Of course, everyone knows the answer to that question.
Apr 2, 2007
Congressional Democrats are investigating the firing of eight federal prosecutors by the Justice Department.
They say the prosecutors were fired because they were either investigating Republicans for corruption or refused to investigate Democrats before the last elections. They are pressuring Bush to remove Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. They are threatening to issue subpoenas to Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.
These fired federal prosecutors are being held up as fighters against corruption, because they carried out a couple of high profile investigations and trials.
But what federal prosecutors normally do is prosecute small-time drug dealers, never touching the really big time operators. They don’t touch the big-time traffickers, businessmen, banks, and real estate operators who make the big money. Or they go after immigrants by claiming they don’t have required documents, thereby paving the way for businesses to virtually enslave their workforces. Or they attack ordinary people in some other way.
As for corrupt politicians and officials, just about the only time they go after one of them is when they have already been exposed in the news media. This is why one of these prosecutors went after former congressman Duke Cunningham.
In fact, the only reason the Democrats are making a big deal about the fired prosecutors is because it is a way of avoiding a confrontation with the Republicans over something of substance. It’s a way of covering up for the fact that the Democrats have not proposed to repeal one single Bush tax cut to the wealthy and big corporations, not to speak of stopping the war in Iraq, among other things.
This latest scandal is just a political game in which Democrats and Republicans try to position themselves for the coming elections.
Apr 2, 2007
Last year, when GM wanted concessions from its workers, it restated six years of financial results in order to show increased losses. This year, when GM wanted to impress Wall Street, it restated its earnings to show that it has more profits. And we can be sure–before the contract comes up in September, there will still be another set of restated figures!
None of the numbers they are throwing around can be taken seriously.
If we really want to judge how much money a company like GM is making, we only have to look at how much GM pays out to its big stockholders and executives. In the past three years, that is, the years of so-called big financial losses, cash dividends to big stockholders amounted to about ONE BILLION dollars a year, on average. Top executives of the company were just as generously rewarded. CEO Dick Wagoner made 28 million dollars in three years!
These numbers tell the truth about GM’s financial health. It is rolling in money!
Apr 2, 2007
Bosses have long used spy programs to count keystrokes of workers to speed us up. But some big companies like Target and Wal-Mart are now rolling out a new computer program that ramps up their profits while making life hellishly impossible for workers.
Workers are supposed to be on call 24/7 and come to work whenever the computer calls them! And they are supposed to pack up their things and go home whenever the computer tells them.
Imagine having to leave your kids at a moment’s notice to go to work! Imagine going to work for 1.75 hours and then the computer tells you to go home! When do you come back? “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Imagine the rent being the same every month, but your income being totally unpredictable.
In fact, it’s not the computer that is responsible for such an abomination. It’s the big companies that hired the programmer.
But workers can puncture this bosses’ fantasy balloon, and bring them back to hard reality.
Apr 2, 2007
The proposed minimum wage bill still in the Congress would raise the wage to $7.25 in two years. But it’s different for workers with tips. Right now they can receive only $2.13 an hour, and the proposed bill leaves that level unchanged!
Why should any worker have to rely on the generosity of the customers for most of their pay? As the millions of waiters and waitresses, bartenders, Skycaps, wheel chair pushers and others depending on tips know full well, often people don’t tip, especially some of the richest ones.
No doubt the bosses paying $2.13 an hour would prefer to pay nothing, and unlike under slavery, they wouldn’t have to pay for food and shelter. $2.13 an hour is pretty close to nothing.
The politicians pretending to do something about the working poor prove whose interests they are really protecting when they leave the millions of workers getting tips at $2.13 an hour.
Apr 2, 2007
Planning a flight soon? The Federal Aviation Administration announced a plan this month to cut back the number of air traffic controllers.
Yet, in the last 10 years, miles flown have gone up 25%. Meanwhile, the number of airline employees has dropped by 25% and more than half the maintenance on major carriers has been outsourced.
In December 2005, a Department of Transportation report on airlines pointed out that the FAA had failed to inspect 1400 facilities for airline maintenance. In fact, the report said, “Neither the FAA nor the six air carriers we reviewed provided adequate oversight of the work that non-certificated facilities performed.”
Northwest Airlines might be the worst example of all the major carriers, cutting the number of mechanics they employ from 3600 to 900. Another carrier, a new one not named in the report, had added 60% more routes but cut maintenance by 14%.
So what did the FAA propose? The FAA had its excuses ready, replying that work is supervised by certified mechanics, even when those doing the work are not certified. The FAA proudly points to its new electronic safety system called Air Transportation Oversight System. The safety of the public now depends on a computer program, not on actual visits by FAA inspectors.
But the overcrowded air travel system is throwing more and more people onto more planes with less and less service and maintenance.
It might be time to take a train.
Apr 2, 2007
On March 27-28, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union held its Bargaining Convention in Detroit, to formally set its goals for the Big 3 contract talks this year.
But which was the real convention? The one seen by those who attended? Or the one written up in the Detroit newspapers?
What appeared in the Detroit papers, the News and the Free Press? Dramatic headlines: “UAW warns: We’ll shut down Delphi.” “UAW to members: We’ll fight givebacks.” “Gettelfinger doesn’t rule out strikes.”
The delegates and others who attended the convention were scratching their heads. When did he say that?
In fact, the headlines weren’t from the convention, but from a few words uttered by UAW president Ron Gettelfinger at a press conference after the first day’s proceedings. Nevertheless, just beneath the headlines were the real messages: “The UAW plans to take a realistic and creative approach to future bargaining.”
Yes, all of the give-backs and take-aways in the past have been justified with such language. Two-tier and three-tier wage structures in the plants, rampant outside contracting, work standards tossed in the wastebaskets, grievance procedures left to rust, retiree pension and healthcare promises broken–all of these have been “realistic and creative.”
And this is exactly what workers heard, who were at the convention and listened carefully. They heard bargaining resolutions that were watered down and already full of room for more concessions–even though the resolutions are only opening bids.
Certainly in Gettelfinger’s opening speech, there was not even token rhetoric about drawing any lines in the sand, not to speak of a readiness to take back from the companies what has already been extorted from workers. Instead his theme was “times are hard” and the union would “do what’s necessary.” This is the exact language that has been used before previous concessions!
So the convention was more like a painful visit to the dentist or proctologist.
Of course, some delegates did take the floor to voice their opposition to the headlong rush to impose new concessions. They spoke up against such concessions as whipsawing, secret “unpublished” give-backs, and two-tier wages, but were not quoted in the newspapers. Not surprisingly, the Detroit papers did not quote or mention any of those who stood for a more militant approach.
Workers not at the convention would have had to search quite far and wide to find reports like those of CNNMoney.com. Under headlines “UAW brass faces criticism on lack of strategy” and “UAW boss won’t close door on more concessions,” CNN noted that Gettelfinger did not criticize the Big Three’s corporate executives or directors.
CNN also reported on delegates who stood up for a different approach. A delegate said, “This union is in crisis. It’s not working.” Another came with over 1000 signatures from his local membership on a letter declaring they didn’t want any more concessions and they wanted back some of what they’d already given up. In fact, that letter had spread even further, gathering more than a thousand signatures from members of many other locals. “Concessions are just leading to more concessions,” said the letter.
The media coverage was slanted in order to build up Gettelfinger’s image among the UAW readers, to make it appear as if the contract talks were in strong hands–and therefore, that workers need not do anything on their own. But it’s workers’ own initiative that scares the companies most. The hardly-reported real convention showed how much that initiative will be needed. It also showed that a base of support for that initiative exists.
Apr 2, 2007
Among the rumored bidders for Chrysler Group is none other than General Motors!
That’s right, the same GM that in 2005 was crying and moaning about how broke it was, about how it was on the verge of collapse.
GM then turned to its old partner, the compliant, eager and willing UAW bureaucracy, and got it to agree to re-open the contract. Together, GM and the UAW bureaucracy rammed through a $1 an hour pay cut from active workers, and took pension money away from retirees by increasing their health care costs, up to $752 a year. Finally, GM got the UAW bureaucrats to agree to change the way retiree health benefits are funded. No longer would the company guarantee health benefits. Instead, retiree health benefits are to be paid out of what is known as a VEBA fund–which runs out.
And now, its appetite whetted by what it took from the workers and retirees just two years ago, GM is on a new campaign to gain a whole new round of concessions in a new contract, claiming yet again that it won’t otherwise survive.
Yet at the same time, this same company is in some kind of a bidding competition with Wall Street hedge funds and investment companies to gobble up Chrysler!
How arrogant and naked their drive for profits at the workers’ expense!
The bidding competition to buy up Chrysler also proves something else: that Chrysler is not as broke as it claims either. Not by a long shot. No, Chrysler is playing the same game as GM. Chrysler is bursting with wealth and resources and cash. That is why so many companies are circling it like vultures.
Any potential buyer of Chrysler, whether GM or one of the private funds, is not looking to sink a lot of money into the company to boost production and jobs. They are not buying it in order to support and improve products, markets, and jobs.
If one of those private investment companies gets hold of it, it will look to do the exact opposite: to “restructure” one more time, that is, rip it apart, piece by piece, close down or sell off what isn’t highly profitable. And if GM gets hold of it, it will close down production of competing products and play the workers of both companies against each other.
In other words, all of the attacks against auto workers over the years will accelerate: more workers’ pensions disappearing, more wage and benefit cuts, the pace of work speeded up intensely. Meanwhile the financial and corporate hogs feast on higher profits, fees and dividends. It’s what all the bidders are counting on.
Of course, there is always the possibility that DaimlerChrysler won’t sell off Chrysler after all, and it is just trying to use this sound and fury over selling Chrysler as a way to try to extort greater concessions in the upcoming contract negotiations.
But no matter what, it is a carefully rigged game to make it look like workers have few options, other than to make the best of two bad choices. Either take a low-ball buyout and get some little money to use as a stake while looking for a new job. Or else hang onto your job and hope the new boss won’t cut back too far. Either way, it’s a loss.
But the workers don’t just have two options, both of them bad. We have a third option: That is to dig in our heels and say “No!” to this rigged game. Not one more layoff or job cut, and not one more concession. That is, we have to show we are ready to fight. And when one group of auto workers starts to make a fight, that fight can be taken up by the other auto workers, as well as workers in all the other industries where the bosses are carrying out the same attacks, or even worse ones, in steel, the airlines, etc.
It is time, past time, to stop the bosses’ concession drive. It is time for the working class to organize together to begin our own counter offensive.