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
Sep 10, 2007
If there is one term to describe what the U.S. “surge” is doing to Iraq, that term is “ethnic cleansing.” Iraqis are being violently “resettled” according to their ethnicity or religious sect.
The Iraqi Red Crescent reports that more people have been displaced from their homes since the surge began–600,000–than what had been displaced in the whole rest of the war–499,000. And these official figures can only seriously understate the problem.
Today, Baghdad, which as late as two years ago was still ethnically diverse and mixed, has become a religious war zone, with Sunnis pushed to the west, and Shiites to the east.
These are forced moves, people fleeing to stay ahead of military forces–either those of the U.S. army, which has been moving through big parts of Baghdad and the area west of Baghdad, “cleaning” them out in wide swaths; or those of the sectarian militias, which go into neighborhoods, killing some individuals to terrorize the rest to leave.
The very necessities of life are being used as weapons of warfare–with electricity, water and food denied to areas the U.S. or the militias want to clear.
The whole of Iraq is being force marched into three parts: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south–with each part controlled by military forces organized along sectarian or ethnic lines. Within the Shiite areas, further resettling has been going on, depending on which militia controls which area: the Mahdi army in Baghdad, or the Badr militia in Basra and the south of Iraq.
To reinforce these moves, the U.S. has been funneling money and weapons to certain of the militias, helping them to impose their order on “their area.”
The U.S., faced with increasing problems in its own army, is moving to relieve some of those strains by moving openly toward “ethnic cleansing” as its “final solution.”
The human cost is enormous, with 600,000 Iraqis dead already by the summer of 2006, and how many tens of thousands more since. But no human cost is too great for U.S. imperialism bent on maintaining its control over Iraq, its oil and the oil of the whole Middle East.
On September 15, Bush will deliver his report on Iraq, after leaking its conclusions to the press for weeks. He will say that there is progress on the military level, with U.S. forces reducing violence in Iraq, while the Iraqi government has not moved to end ethnic and religious violence.
What crass cynicism! The main representative of U.S. imperialism blames the Iraqis for what 16 years of intermittent U.S. warfare has done to the country.
As for this blatant lie that violence has dropped–well, yes, it drops every summer because of the drastically high heat. But the number of Iraqis killed this July is still double the number of those killed last July, according to official statistics.
The only peace the Iraqis know is the peace of the graveyard.
The U.S. has no business being in Iraq. Two years more of this damned war? NO! Not two years, not six months, not two weeks more. Every day the U.S. stays only makes the situation for the Iraqis that much worse.
U.S. out now!
Sep 10, 2007
On August 24, concrete fell from the Route 193 bridge onto the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Just a couple days later, Metro had several fires, causing trains to stop between stations and closing several stations.
Washington D.C. is the capital of the richest country in the world–and they can’t even keep the trains running or the bridges from shedding concrete on the roads below. What gives?
It’s simple. The government takes our tax money and gives it to wealthy corporations. Those wealthy corporations in turn gamble our money on the stock market. That’s why there is no money to upgrade Metro’s electrical capacity and no money to fix the bridges we drive on and under.
Sep 10, 2007
The impact of the housing crisis is growing. The Mortgage Bankers Association says that more than 600,000 homeowners were unable to make their mortgage payments during this past quarter (April, May and June). They now face the prospect of eviction. And this was before the housing credit crunch hit in July. Mortgage delinquencies are expected to grow dramatically during the next year or two as interest rates on millions of adjustable rate mortgages re-set much higher.
Millions of people could be thrown out of their homes–more people than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Entire suburban tracts that look comfortable today may be turned into wastelands with large numbers of abandoned vacant houses, and all the social disorders which then follow.
The slowdown in housing seems to be triggering a vast range of layoffs. The government just announced that overall there were 4,000 fewer jobs in the country in August than in July, the first drop in four years. Then Countrywide Financial, the largest home mortgage company, announced it will lay off 10,000 to 12,000 workers. Other mortgage companies, real estate companies, banks and other financial institutions are now also cutting back hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Hundreds of thousands of construction workers are also out of work, with more soon to follow. Overall, there are probably half a million fewer construction jobs, many not reported because they were in companies that hire large numbers of immigrants without papers.
All these cutbacks can only lead to more layoffs in the building materials, home appliance and construction equipment industries. It’s not clear where the vicious cycle will stop.
Millions of people needed homes, but were forced into impossible mortgages because speculators drove home prices to ridiculous levels.
People need jobs, but are losing them because the collapse of this latest speculative bubble makes the bankers and financiers hoard their money.
If there ever was a degenerate system, it’s this one.
Sep 10, 2007
Elvira Arellano, a 32-year-old woman who came to this country from Mexico, was deported on August 20. A year ago, facing deportation, she took sanctuary in a Methodist church in Chicago, from where she has been speaking out against the situation facing immigrants to this country. She was arrested in Los Angeles, after she went there to speak at churches that support rights for immigrants.
Like millions of workers from Mexico and other poor countries, she entered this country without papers in hopes of a better life, 10 years ago. She had one son who was born here.
Taking various low wage jobs to support herself and her son she paid taxes and Social Security, though she doesn’t benefit from them.
When the Immigration Service deported her, she was separated from her son, who is a U.S. citizen and has never lived in Mexico.
The push of the Immigration Service to carry out arrests like this is aimed at silencing those who demand legalization. And that is nothing but support for bosses who know they can pay very low wages to immigrants because of their shaky legal situation.
At the same time, it is an attack on the rest of the working class, which suffers when millions of workers, a part of their class, are low-paid and super-exploited.
Sep 10, 2007
The news media blames low-income working people for the housing crisis, unwisely taking out “sub-prime” mortgages that they can’t possibly afford. This is crap, and they know it.
The runaway housing prices were not caused by people buying houses for themselves. The problem was fueled when the previous speculative bubble burst in 2000–that time, in technology stocks. When the price of tech stocks collapsed, pulling down the stock market, the government rushed in to bail out big investors who otherwise would have lost billions.
Once all this new money was pumped into the financial system, the big investors–Wall Street banks and brokerage houses–had to find somewhere else to invest it. They found...real estate.
Real estate prices had begun to rise in areas of the country where many people were moving–places like California, Florida and New York City. The biggest banks were loaning money to big construction firms and the “housing boom” took off in those areas, spreading then to other areas.
This price rise was noticed by speculators, who started buying houses, only to re-sell them, making a quick profit.
This quick buying and selling of houses–or “flipping” them–helped fuel even faster skyrocketing prices all over the country, as well as a rash of new construction, as speculators demanded houses, and builders built houses, just to make a quick return on this skyrocketing price. Often speculators were selling to speculators, who resold to other speculators.
Working people simply needing a place to live were trapped by this whole speculative bubble. Many workers–with steady jobs, and sometimes two or three jobs–could no longer afford to buy an ordinary home; the price had become too expensive.
This is when the biggest banks and mortgage firms started pushing sub-prime loans: loans that started out at a low rate of interest but then spiked up to a much higher rate after a couple years. In other words, investors were trying to hold off the popping of the housing bubble by convincing working people that they could afford a home–if they took out such a dangerous mortgage. What would happen when the higher interest rates kicked in? No problem, they told prospective homeowners: home prices would just keep climbing, and they would be able to take out another low-interest mortgage in a couple years, on a home that would be worth even more.
And that’s not all–with wages not keeping up with inflation, people started buying more and more on credit just to pay the bills–racking up big credit card or loan debt.
And then came the ads and the hard-sell to refinance their houses all over again, to “consolidate” their debt, to use the rising value of their houses to pay off their credit card debt–and to take on even more mortgages that started off at a low rate of interest but then reset to a much higher rate further on down the line.
Then the inevitable happened: too many homes had been built, and prices began to fall. Speculators couldn’t resell their houses for more money, so they quickly began to default on their mortgages. They account for more than one third of all the current foreclosures. This pushed housing prices further down.
So, then, people stuck with exorbitant mortgages at high interest rates were being forced to default. The banks began to foreclose on their homes, leaving them with nothing.
Capitalism doesn’t care about the long term. All it cares about is what profit can be made now. At every step of the way in the housing bubble and now into this latest financial crisis, it has found ways to take advantage of working people who are struggling just to get by.
Finally, as the big banks and brokerages start to lose big bucks in this mortgage fiasco, the government is doing what it always does: it’s pumping money in to bail out the big players, while leaving working people to take the hit yet again.
Enough is enough. Working people didn’t cause this crisis. And we shouldn’t pay for it, either.
Sep 10, 2007
In August, 181 miners drowned underground following torrential rains in eastern China. TV images showed the failed rescue attempt launched with pumps that couldn’t handle removing thousands of gallons of water from the mine.
Anger exploded when the local authorities refused to give the families of the miners information and a rumor spread that rescue operations would be stopped. Family and friends of the trapped miners attacked the buildings of the mine company, armed only with sticks and stones. They also clashed with local police forces called in against them.
A few hours before the catastrophe, miners had warned management that water was rising and that some tunnels were already inundated. But management did not want to stop production.
The Chinese government, showing which side it took, spoke about a “natural disaster,” and refused to pay any compensation to the victims.
Mine accidents in China have been a daily occurrence for a number of years. In the first quarter of 2007, according to official statistics that probably underestimate the reality, at least 1792 people died in coal mining accidents.
Most of these accidents took place in small private mines employing between 10 and 30 miners.
These mines, given to private owners by the government in the 1990s, often hired workers from the poorest part of rural areas. They work 10 hours a day, without health coverage or any kind of pension. If they refuse to go into a dangerous situation, they can be fired. Unions are still trying to gain a foothold in these mines.
The Chinese government turns a blind eye to work and safety violations. Tens of thousands of these small mines were supposed to have been shut down over the last two years. Instead many stayed open and others opened, even clandestinely. Their unscrupulous owners bribe the authorities and the local politicians, who are often stockholders of the mines in their region.
In the West there is much talk about the development of capitalism in China. This development has profited, above all, the large corporations of the imperialist countries. Meanwhile the Chinese workers live and work under conditions as bad as those suffered by miners in the 19th century American West.
Sep 10, 2007
On August 15, 1947, new flags were raised on official buildings in New Delhi and Karachi, celebrating the birth of two new independent states: India and Pakistan. The partition of Britain’s former colony led to a bloodbath costing thousands, if not millions of people’s lives in the following months.
India and Pakistan were born in massacres carried out between populations which stamped their mark on the entire subsequent history of the region.
India had been England’s most important colony. The English bourgeoisie bled India of a great part of its riches, which were then used to support England’s industrial surge.
In order to maintain its domination over so vast and populous a country, the British crown divided people in order to conquer them. It maintained India’s barbaric caste system. It created a gulf between the religious and ethnic communities. In 1935, for example, the 15% of privileged Indians, authorized to vote based on the high taxes they paid, were divided into distinct electoral colleges for Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, untouchables, etc.
But to rule, dividing up the population wasn’t always enough. The history of colonial India is marked by revolts suppressed with extreme violence. In 1857, the revolt of the indigenous soldiers, the Sepoys, was crushed only after a year of battles. After World War I, India was, like many other countries, stirred by a wave of strikes and demonstrations.
At the end of World War II, a new series of strikes swept the cities and countryside. In Bombay in 1946, 20,000 sailors occupied the city for three days and raised the red flag before they were suppressed by force. The British killed 250 of them in three days.
British imperialists understood they could no longer dominate India in this way. In order not to lose everything, imperialism decided to step down in favor of the Indian bourgeoisie and the big landlords. This strategy worked thanks to the existence of influential nationalist parties, the Congress Party led by Gandhi on the Hindu side, and by Jinnah of the Muslim League.
The Congress Party was created in 1885 by a high English functionary, who declared he wanted a Hindu party capable of being “the safety valve for the considerable and still growing forces engendered by our action.” Linked as it was to England, the Congress Party didn’t even demand autonomy but simply wanted an “equitable” attitude toward the colonies. In 1914, its leaders assured London of their “profound devotion to the throne.” The Muslim League was created in 1906, to play the same role among the Muslims.
During the revolutionary period of 1918-1922, the Congress Party had to offer a more radical anti-colonial program. Otherwise, the masses might well have turned against it. But in order to remain a valuable negotiating partner with Britain, it also had to show itself capable of containing these masses and preventing their mobilization from spilling over into a revolution. That’s where the doctrine of non-violence elaborated by Gandhi, the principal leader and symbol of this party, acquired its particular political meaning.
In order to preserve its interests, the English bourgeoisie in 1946 proposed to create an independent federal state in India, which would be divided into zones according to religious majorities. But the Muslim League demanded an independent Muslim state; meanwhile the Congress Party demanded a unified state.
In February 1947, the new British official set over the Indian subcontinent, Lord Mountbatten, faced with the failure of the federal proposal, supported partition of India into two states: the current India, with a Hindu majority, under the control of the Congress Party, and Pakistan, with a Muslim majority, under the control of the Muslim League. Pakistan was further divided by being cut into two parts 900 miles apart.
After the borders were announced, millions of people sought to rejoin their new country, convinced they could no longer live together. Nine million Hindus left Pakistan and six million Muslims left India. A million refugees crossed the borders on foot, forming human columns over dozens of miles long, in rags, exhausted, starved, crushed by sorrow. Others, leaving in trains, never arrived. Witnesses described “death trains” filled with mutilated cadavers, the train wheels dripping blood. There were between 150,000 and a million deaths in a few months.
The imperialists threw these communities against each another. In so doing, they dug a ditch of hatred, fear and blood between Hindus and Muslims. And the Hindu and Muslim nationalist leaders, whose sole goal was to gain their own state, were the accomplices of this policy.
These two states are still dependent on imperialism, even if only as dominions of the British Empire in the Commonwealth. Sixty years later, neither India nor Pakistan has escaped misery. Moreover, they clashed in three wars, in 1947, 1965 and 1971. Pakistan was dismembered, its eastern part becoming Bangladesh in 1971.
The Western media dare to speak of an “Indian miracle” and “economic performance.” They dare even to call India the “largest democracy in the world.” But, for the vast majority of its population, India today is, above all, the barbarous result of past colonial exploitation, followed by an epoch of so-called “development,” which left its population to live in completely unequal and backward conditions. These were the fruits of British imperialism’s calculation, with the aid of accomplices among the Hindu and Muslim nationalist leaders.
Sep 10, 2007
Congress has passed a law allowing government spying on all phone calls and e-mails starting in the U.S. and going out of the country, all without any court order. Undoubtedly calls within the U.S. will be picked up too.
Many people think this has nothing to do with them since they aren’t terrorists. Wrong!
Just look at how the government used such authorization to disrupt social movements in the past. When workers carried out sit-in strikes and massive picketing to build unions in the 1930’s, government finks were right there, carrying out provocations to get people arrested or killed. During the McCarthy period, when the companies fired the militants who built the unions, the FBI supplied the names to the employers. The government spied on the black movements of the 1950’s and 1960’s, often turning the names of activists over to the KKK. Those who opposed the war in Viet Nam were harassed by government agents, just as government today harasses those who oppose the war in Iraq.
When Congress passed the current authorized for unchecked spying, many politicians said it was only temporary. No, the only time when government repression was eased was when massive social movements pushed the government back.
Sep 10, 2007
Within days of the September 11, 2001, attack, Bush proclaimed a “war on terrorism”–a new kind of war, as he called it. For the last six years, the fearful atmosphere originally produced by the attack on the World Trade Center has been carefully reinforced, with declarations of “red alerts,” “orange alerts” and “yellow alerts”; announcements that al-Qaida “sleeper cells” were broken up; and requests that the population be “vigilant,” that any “suspicious behavior” immediately be reported to the FBI.
Whatever al-Qaida is–if it actually existed before September 11th–and whatever despicable things it might have done or be planning to do in the future, this U.S. “war on terrorism” is not aimed at rooting it out.
Bush’s “war on terrorism” has always been a propaganda campaign used to justify a wide-ranging attack on the population in this country, especially the working class, and to justify U.S. wars against other people, especially for oil.
Long before September 11, 2001, the U.S. had been carrying out a war against Iraq, starting with the bombing and invasion of that country in 1991. While U.S. troops were withdrawn in 1991 from inside Iraq, the bombing continued. September 11 was used to justify going back into Iraq, setting in motion a war that created still more horrific conditions for the people of Iraq.
Terrorism carried out by the biggest military power in the world can only spawn more terrorism. U.S. military actions against other people have created such a deep reservoir of anger that someone like Osama bin Laden has had no trouble finding recruits. People around the world are paying the price.
Sep 10, 2007
An Air Force B-52 bomber flew across the country on August 30 carrying six missiles with nuclear warheads attached.
Apparently, no one knew they were nuclear warheads–not the people who loaded them, not the pilots, not the flight crew, nor anyone on the ground. The mistake was discovered only ten hours after the plane landed, shortly before they were to be destroyed.
But, says the Air Force, it was only an accident! They probably would have said the same thing if the nuclear warheads had exploded.
Politicians and the media constantly harangue us about the dangers of terrorism to the “homeland.”
In fact, the biggest danger to the population comes from this government that casually tosses around “weapons of mass destruction.” This same government–which is charged with assuring the safety of food, drugs, chemical waste plants, and mines, among other things–assures only profits at the population’s expense. The danger to the well-being of the U.S. population sits in Washington, D.C.
Sep 10, 2007
In the last few years, more than a hundred people have died in all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accidents. At least 15 people have died from a design flaw in BB guns, with another 170 seriously injured. And lead–which can delay or damage brain development in young children–has been found in such popular toys as Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer.
What these safety hazards have in common is their supposed regulation by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Congress currently funds the CPSC with only 62 million dollars to ensure the safety of all consumer products for the entire country.
What does this level of funding mean? It means that not only has the budget dropped by half in the last 30 years. It also means the number of inspections and the number of employees have also dropped by about half, under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
There is one part-time inspector for the largest ports with imports from China–Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. Only one inspector is left to ensure the safety of all toys in the country. It is, therefore, no surprise that the CPSC investigates less than one in every seven reported injuries or deaths related to consumer products.
Industries don’t regulate themselves. Money must be spent to ensure safety. The Utah coal mining company Murray Energy was using the least safe method of mining coal when the accident occurred in August. It wasn’t the company that paid the price: it was the six miners and three rescuers who died.
This kind of government treats deaths from safety hazards as the cost of doing business. It shows where its full allegiance lies–with the companies that pollute, maim and kill.
Sep 10, 2007
Five earthwork levees protecting East St. Louis from Mississippi floods are unstable and need repair, says FEMA. The levees are as unreliable as New Orleans’.
But FEMA says there’s no money to fix the levees.
Instead, FEMA will erase the levees from future flood-control maps! Just pretend they aren’t there.
The 31,000 inhabitants of East St. Louis will surely enjoy their new status as an “unprotected flood plain,” when the water starts pouring in.
Sep 10, 2007
Just six hours before he was to be killed, Kenneth Foster learned that Texas governor Rick Perry commuted his sentence to life in prison.
Foster hadn’t killed anyone, but he was convicted as an accomplice, since he drove his grandfather’s car on a ride with buddies, which degenerated and ended with two robberies and a killing. According to Texas law, an accomplice has to suffer the same penalty as the direct author of a crime.
Apparently, it was too much for even the blood-thirsty governor of Texas to kill a man who’d done nothing but drive a car. He has approved 163 other executions, 11 more than the previous record held by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Texas holds a revolting record, with 402 executions, or a third of the national total since the Supreme Court re-authorized the death penalty in 1976. In the year 2007, executions in Texas made up two thirds of the national total. But thirty other states still have the death penalty, in addition to the U.S. government.
There are more than 3,300 still awaiting execution on Death Row. Many hundreds more, originally sentenced to death, have subsequently been found to be innocent. A crushing majority come from poor neighborhoods, and a third of those to be killed are black.
The death penalty does not deter further violence–as every study shows. The U.S., one of only two industrialized countries with the death penalty, has an unbelievably higher rate of violent crime than all the other countries. The same is true within the United States: on average, states with the death penalty have a much higher rate of violence than states without it. The death penalty only adds to the violence, legitimizes it. Official executions demonstrate the barbarity of a society, every bit as much as do the crimes the death penalty pretends to combat.
Sep 10, 2007
On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, George Bush actually dared to visit New Orleans.
“This town is better today than it was yesterday, and it’s going to be better tomorrow than it was today,” he prattled, adding, “We’re still paying attention. We understand.”
And that’s a boldfaced lie.
The population of the city is only 68% of its level before the hurricane. Those who returned have received little help in rebuilding their lives. Only 22% of the 180,000 families who applied for Road Home grants to help in rebuilding their homes have received any money.
There still are few public services available in the city. Many hospitals remain closed, including all public hospitals.
Bus service is way down compared to before the hurricane. Out of 368 buses running in Orleans Parish before Katrina, only 69 have been put back into operation.
Only 83 out of 128 public schools have reopened. Of those that have reopened, 70% are now charter schools, run for profit, without proper teacher certification. These schools can only be worse than those that existed before.
Despite the experience of Katrina, residents of New Orleans are no better protected from future hurricanes than before the storm. The levees have not been rebuilt even to their pre-Katrina level. They are not strong enough to withstand a Category 3 storm, let alone a Category 5.
Conditions are worse in the poorer areas of the city. Much of the Lower Ninth Ward remains vacant lots. The Army Corps of Engineers has been quicker to rebuild the levees in wealthier parts of the area like Lakeview than in the Ninth Ward.
Scientists had warned well before the storm that the city’s levee system was inadequate. Thousands lost their lives as a results and hundreds of thousands had their lives turned upside down.
The government, at every level, ignored the warnings. Today, Busy says the government is “still paying attention”–with exactly the same level of criminal negligence that produced the first catastrophe.
Sep 10, 2007
Leona Helmsley died and left 12 million dollars to her DOG!
Leona was the real-estate tycoon who once said, “Only the little people pay taxes.”
We are always told that the wealthy need tax breaks and tax cuts so that they can provide jobs.
Let’s see. How many jobs does pampering a 12-million-dollar mutt create?
Sep 10, 2007
Ford, GM and Chrysler say they are losing money.
It’s called Bankruptcy B.S. at contract time.
The auto business goes in cycles. Stacked up against the few supposedly bad years are many good years. Even if the companies can claim to lose money for a couple years, they made tons during the 12 years before that.
Ford reported 10 good years, Chrysler had 11 and GM had all 12 years profitable. Over 12 years time, the three companies rolled up over 133 billion dollars in profits.
We have no reason to give up a dime to these big thieves rolling in wealth.
Sep 10, 2007
The auto companies say they can’t continue to shoulder what they call the “health care burden.” So they want the union to manage a retiree health care fund.
Under their plan, the companies would put some money up-front into the fund. To be more exact, the automakers want to fund this retiree health care plan, known as a VEBA, at much less than what’s needed. And then walk away. Health care for retirees would no longer be guaranteed.
The UAW agreed to assume responsibility for retiree health care plans like this at other places. In the case of Detroit Diesel and Caterpillar, the union-managed funds have already run short of money, forcing retirees to pay much more for their own health care coverage, or go without, and inducing current workers to cut their wages to make up some of the difference.
It is clear why the auto companies want to divest themselves of any health care obligations.
But it would be a disaster for workers to give up guaranteed health care–something that was fought for and won years ago, something workers have paid for by their labor all their working lives.
Sep 10, 2007
The best way to protect all of our wages is to fight to bring everyone’s wages up–temporary workers, two-tier workers, and contract workers.
And to fight to eliminate the whole policy of having “temporary” or “two-tier” or ”contract” workers. All workers deserve the same wages and benefits–high ones. Without our collective labor, there would be no cars or trucks. And without our collective solidarity, workers lose our power.
Sep 10, 2007
In 2006, the year that GM and Ford maintained they lost money, they awarded a total of nearly 79 million dollars to just their top four executives.
How dare these parasites expect workers to give up a single dime!
Sep 10, 2007
Union contracts in auto expire on September 14. Auto workers have endured months of unrelenting propaganda, orchestrated by the auto companies.
From every newspaper page and every TV screen, the message blares out: the big multi-billion-dollar corporations, Ford, GM, Chrysler, claim to be in deep financial trouble. Nearly bankrupt! About to sink forever because of–labor costs.
Of course it’s all lies. The actual labor cost in the average new vehicle is just over 8% of its price. That’s right, only eight%! What happened to the other 92% of the costs?
And yet the companies dare to demand concessions from workers.
The companies say their burden of “legacy costs” is breaking them. What “burden?” What did they do with the more than 133 billion dollars of profits they admit making since 1994? And what about all the rest of their loot? They had the money to meet their obligations. But they moved it and cooked the books.
Decent union leaders would expose these corporate lies in public. But top UAW leaders don’t.
Nor do they provide one bit of information about contract negotiations. The company knows what’s being discussed. Only the workers, the ones who will live with the contract, are kept in the dark.
UAW president Ron Gettelfinger avoids addressing UAW workers gathered at the Detroit Labor Day parade, but just three days later addresses the bosses gathered at the Detroit Economic Club. It couldn’t be more clear whose side he is on.
All of this is a campaign to keep workers anxious, worried, paralyzed.
Well, guess what! Workers have the power to upset the whole applecart. Whatever secret deals are being struck, the workers can intervene and upset those deals.
Auto company honchos and top UAW leaders are aware of the workers’ power. Why else would they resort to this elaborate manipulation and trickery? Ford workers in 2005 nearly voted down the mid-contract wage and healthcare concessions. Past UAW president Doug Fraser later said of it, “Ford was scary.”
For the auto bosses, yes, it was “scary”! Just as it was “scary” for union leaders who tried to push it through. But for those on the workers’ side, the vote was not “scary,” it was encouraging. And it carried weight. That vote at Ford blocked Chrysler from even trying to get the same concessions.
Today, under the guns of the media campaign, workers may start to feel that concessions are coming and there’s nothing that can be done. But if workers made that Ford vote “scary,” their reaction this time can be even more scary.
It depends on how many more workers vote, how many more express themselves strongly and clearly against concessions. How many talk to each other about what they want.
Votes, by themselves, don’t change a lot. But a NO vote can at least let workers express their anger and disgust.
Sep 10, 2007
Ford and GM workers currently are losing nearly $4,000 a year from the 2005 concessions that imposed a wage cut in September 2006 and from past COLA “diversions.”
If those concessions continue for the four years of the new contract–that comes to about $16,000 on top of the $2500 lost in 2006.
Anything less than an $18,000 signing bonus would leave every worker in the hole–don’t talk about any new concessions!