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
Mar 1, 2010
“This package is not a panacea; it’s not going to solve everything”–so said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer about the “jobs bill” just passed by the Senate. Truth be told: it’s not going to solve anything. It’s not going to provide additional jobs.
It will give businesses an eleven-month break from paying Social Security taxes for any new employee they hire. Doesn’t matter if the so-called “new” employee replaces a retired worker, or a fired worker or one who quits–so long as the employee is “new”.
In other words, companies are going to do what they were going to do anyway, even in the midst of a serious recession. They are going to replace some of the workers who always leave–but they are going to get a tax break for doing it. And many, perhaps most, companies are going to game the system, finding excuses to get rid of workers, so they can hire “new” replacements.
This isn’t a jobs bill, it’s a give-the-bosses-another-tax-break bill.
Shameless! Because the politicians are using the pretext of the crisis to give yet another gift to the corporations–and pretending to do it for us.
Outrageous! Because there is something that government could do to attack the jobs crisis, and those scheming politicians know it very well.
Every locality has water and sewer lines in such a bad state that city streets collapse into sink holes. Fix them. Put new lines in. Every state has water systems no longer able to provide water that is truly drinkable. Upgrade them. Every state has bridges that rain down concrete chunks on the heads of unsuspecting motorists. Tear those crumbling bridges down. Replace them. The roads in every city, county and state are covered with potholes, when they aren’t crumbling to bits. Repair them. Every urban area is littered with garbage and trash–so much so that human health is endangered. Clean it up.
We need all those services that localities have closed or restricted–libraries, parks, recreation centers, fire protection, day care, clinics. Open them back up again. Rebuild them. Re-staff them.
We need state offices filled with enough workers to service all those workers who lose their jobs or workers injured on the job or workers who qualify for Medicaid–and to do it immediately, without long wait times or mix-ups that never get fixed.
We need schools that provide a decent education for every child. Instead we have school systems–except those in the wealthy areas–that dump more work on each teacher. We have school systems that eliminate so-called extras, like an art class, or a science or language or vocational class; like physical education, health, library hours. Hire all the teachers needed. Start those classes and activities up again. They are not “extra.” Every big city and most rural areas have decrepit schools, ones that actually endanger the health of the children. Replace them.
The politicians pretend there is no money for all this. Yes there is. The federal government gave away or loaned 12 trillion dollars to the big banks that caused this crisis. Get it back!
The banks didn’t put that money into the economy. They used it and continue to use it to speculate, preparing the next financial collapse.
Take that 12 trillion dollars back. It came and will come from our taxes anyway.
Put that 12 trillion dollars to good use, repairing, replacing, building the things, providing the services this country needs. That would create jobs, and every job created, as wages get spent, would pull more people back into the work force.
There are millions of people who need jobs and billions of hours of work that needs to be done. Take the money from the banks.
Mar 1, 2010
From late January to mid-February, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Miguel Santana, the city’s administrative officer, threatened job cuts: first 1,000, then raising the number to 1,500, then to 3,000 layoffs, and finally declaring 4,000 jobs needed to be cut by July 1.
Does all this sound like upping the ante in a poker game? Sure enough, city officials have been demanding concessions from union workers–a five% pay cut and higher contributions to the retirement fund. Santana threatened, “Any delays [in cuts] will only result in bigger cuts later.” And if they don’t get the concessions, they threatened layoffs, furloughs, hiring freezes, outsourcing and privatizations.
Only a few months ago L.A. city workers gave concessions, including pay cuts that amounted to 78 million dollars in 2009 and another 110 million in the 2010-11 fiscal year. But this didn’t stop the city from forcing 2400 workers to take early retirement, cutting those jobs.
If workers accept these extortionist demands again, city officials will only come back for more–and make job cuts as well.
The only answer extortionists can understand is one big NO.
Mar 1, 2010
“Green” electric cars, wind turbines, iPods and flat screen TVs are all touted as having a small “carbon footprint”–they use less power, saving on fossil fuels. But these and other so-called “environmental” products contain rare earth metals, the extraction of which is an environmental disaster.
The extraction of neodymium, for magnets in electric motors and hydroelectric turbines, or cerium for catalytic converters, or terbium for low watt light bulbs, is shown in its ugly reality in Baiyun Obo, a remote area of Mongolia in China.
There, the rare-earth refineries near towns, rivers and farmland have spewed out so much pollution that villagers can no longer farm nearby. This “environmentally friendly” industry has produced the world’s largest lake of tailings, seven square miles of toxic pollution. Workers in the mines and refineries receive higher wages than others living in this part of Mongolia–along with burns from the acid falling on their clothes and skin or going into their lungs. None expect to live very long.
But whether rare earth metals are extracted in poor countries like China or in richer ones like Australia, the problem is the organization of industry under capitalism. No matter what name is put on a technology, its use goes to further profit, without regard to environmental damage.
Mar 1, 2010
Detroit’s Mayor Dave Bing had this to say about the workers in AFSCME, the largest union of city workers: “either they can’t read, they can’t add, or they can’t comprehend.”
Like the pampered celebrity boss that Bing has been, since his starring days with the Detroit Pistons, Bing has no problem insulting the intelligence of the people who actually perform miracles to make his city run, in spite of city officials’ legendary corruption and incompetence.
Bing is upset that workers won’t roll over to his demands to re-open the contract and give up more concessions.
But workers cannot only add but subtract. Bing has already cut the city work force from 13,200 last May to 11,800 today. Why let him remove the protections that are needed most of all now?
Workers can also read the writing on the wall. Let Bing get a foot in the door and he will only come right back for more, just like the previous mayors.
And workers can comprehend just fine. The Mayor and his cronies aren’t suffering. They find money for whatever else they want, like tax gifts to fantastically wealthy companies like GM.
Bing is the one who doesn’t seem able to comprehend. He needs a big boot in the rear to help him.
Mar 1, 2010
The average unemployment rate in the U.S. stands just under 10%. But like everything else in a capitalist society, unemployment is not distributed equally.
According to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, unemployment for the poorest part of the population has been nothing short of catastrophic: about 30%. When underemployment is included, over half of that group are either unemployed or underemployed!
Those making more than $150,000 barely even felt unemployment, with a 3% rate, even in the midst of the crisis.
The wealthy who run this society have skated through the crisis like nothing’s changed.
Of course–they were the ones who caused it!
Mar 1, 2010
Bonuses to Wall Street executives soared for 2009, up 17% over 2008. The reason, according to the New York Times, was simple: “Wall Street firms had a great year.” That is, in the way Wall Street thinks about the world.
“This isn’t the rising tide lifting all boats,” said a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies: “This is the rising tide lifting a few yachts, while other people’s boats sink further underwater.”
Exactly.
Mar 1, 2010
Ramon Cortines, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, resigned from his second job as a director of Scholastic Inc., a leading publisher of school books–after the Los Angeles Times reported it.
Since Cortines joined L.A. Unified in April 2008, the district awarded Scholastic 5.2 million dollars in contracts. In turn, Cortines collected more than $150,000 a year from Scholastic, on top of his district salary of $250,000.
District officials said that Cortines’ additional job with a major district contractor did not violate district policy. Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, explained that such outside earnings for top officials are common, and that “many districts allow it as a way to supplement the compensation of their superintendents”!
No wonder big business has no difficulty milking the public school system for big profits.
Mar 1, 2010
The 400 richest households had an average income of 357 million dollars in 2007, according to the IRS. These parasites, who took in $945,000 a day, had an income equal to 10,000 workers!
We produce the wealth and these leeches live off it.
Mar 1, 2010
On the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games in Vancouver, a young Georgian athlete died in a trial race on the luge track. He went off course on a curve, shooting off his sled. His head hit one of the metal posts next to the track. With a speed of 87 mph and only a helmet for protection, he had no chance of avoiding a deadly blow.
The organizers of the games and the directors of the international luge federation were quick to avoid taking responsibility. The very same day, they declared that the death of the luger was due to “human error” and that “the accident wasn’t due to any fault of the track.” In this way, the Olympic Games could go on without the death of a young athlete disturbing anything, especially not the income that flows from them.
High level sports certainly include an element of risk, and falls are frequent, especially in the sport of luge.
But is it true that youth and inexperience were the only cause of the Georgian athlete’s death? All lugers agree that errors in steering are common, but they insist that going off the track isn’t normal. A track is built in principle to avoid this type of accident. Many of the lugers were worried about this track, saying it was “at the limit of what is dangerous.” As an Australian luger put it, “We aren’t crash test dummies!”
The Olympic organizers finally modified the turn on which the young man died before the opening of the event. Their actions show they were aware of the danger, although they continued to deny it. They also shortened the track, lowering the average speed by 12 mph. But hitting a post at 75 mph is just as fatal as hitting it at 87 mph. It seems absurd that posts can be found on the edge of the track, when there is no system to prevent a sled going off the track.
Due to warm weather, the organizers spent 2.5 million dollars to bring snow to the Olympic site. Their trucks and helicopters made 12,000 round trips!
The show must go on! But the safety of the athletes didn’t get the same attention.
Mar 1, 2010
Just six weeks after the earthquake, the U.S. and European governments are pulling medical support out of Haiti. The U.S. Navy’s medical ship, the USNC Comfort, has stopped accepting new patients.
Officials behind the pullout say the situation in Haiti is now entering a “second phase,” where the problem is no longer emergency medical needs, but preventing secondary public health problems.
It’s not true! Officials estimate that 25-30% of amputations done after the earthquake will have to be redone, because of infections resulting from the way the initial operations were carried out under completely unsanitary conditions. But even if it were true, vast amounts of medical help would be needed to prevent the spread of diseases like malaria and tuberculosis in the crowded tent cities, and diarrhea from the lack of unsanitary conditions. And to provide the prosthetics and therapy to people who have lost their limbs.
When everyone was looking, the governments from the wealthy countries paraded around like Haiti’s saviors. As soon as the publicity waned, they snuck out the back door.
Mar 1, 2010
The body of Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda was found in a neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, Honduras on February 4. Zepeda was a leader of the Workers Union for the Honduran Social Security Institute. She had been abducted that afternoon while leaving a union meeting and later fatally shot.
Trade unionists are among the strongest and largest factions resisting the military coup that kicked out the elected President Manuel Zelaya last June. Since the coup, a number of people have been killed, most of them by police and soldiers firing on crowds or attacking people during protests. Thousands more have been arrested.
On January 27, the military installed a supposedly elected civilian government that is nothing but a front. Since then, there have been 10 to 15 assassinations of resistance members and leaders.
The kidnapping, torture and assassination of activists like Zepeda evokes memories of the brutal right-wing death squads of the 1980s in Central America and Colombia.
This same military coup and right-wing terror has been fully supported from the beginning by the Obama administration.
Mar 1, 2010
On February 11, the heads of state of the European Union met to try to check the speculative wave against Greece’s finances before it affects other countries, threatening to harm the world financial system.
They approved the plans of the Greek government to make the population pay for the crisis; they suggested it should go further in this direction. But the European heads, especially Merkel from Germany and Sarkozy from France, didn’t propose any concrete financial measures. The Greek prime minister thanked the European Union for its “psychological” aid.
For Sarkozy, Merkel, Trichet (the head of the European Central Bank), and the rest, the Greek government is to blame for this crisis, since it “lied” about its debt. But the deficits and the debt of the French and German States are bigger in proportion to their economies than those in Greece. France and Germany show no more respect for the criterion of “good European government” than does little Greece.
Each state lies to hide the numerous gifts that all of them give to their capitalists. The supposedly virtuous leaders of the big powers point the finger at Greece for “hiding debt.” Yet the legal, that is, the pro-capitalist, operations, in Greece concerning state debt were directed by the respectable and super-rich bankers of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs invented a method permitting the Greek state to provisionally throw out a part of its budget deficit. As for the French and German states–not to mention the American state–how much do they hide?
The Greek State must strongly pressure the population to find 24 billion dollars to pay immediately on its debt and another 72 billion dollars that it needs to pay out within the year. As for the rest, the European Union leaders hope their declarations of good intentions will be enough to calm the speculation.
The managers of finance capital know very well that their maneuvers can have catastrophic consequences. Some of them have bet on the bankruptcy of Greece, not to mention the possible bankruptcy of Spain, or on the breakup of the Euro zone and a new development of the world crisis. What do they care which way economies go, so long as they make big profits?
Not only do the governments, in particular those of the most powerful countries, not wish to do anything to stop the speculation, their policies produce it. These bankers are speculating with capital that all the States gave to the banks to bail them out.
For Sarkozy, Merkel and others, to speak of “stabilizing” the financial system is to pretend to transform a pigsty into a mountain chalet without making the pigs leave.
Mar 1, 2010
The Greek government promised the other countries of the European Union to straighten out its situation, meaning it plans to make the population pay for the crisis. The plan adopted at the beginning of February involved a wage freeze, cutting bonuses by 10% on average and cutting thousands of government jobs.
The government also decided to increase the tax on gasoline and to require workers to stay on the job two more years, bringing the average retirement age to 63 by 2015. The Minister of Labor dishonestly said it’s a question of “modifying the pension system in order to keep it alive,” while also announcing the end of early retirement financed by the State.
The state announced a reform to struggle against corruption and tax avoidance. Certainly, the State loses a certain amount of revenue–a third of the economy is “underground” and undeclared. But the government quickly moved to attack taxi drivers, who went on strike on February 19, rather than attacking shipowners or financiers.
The other austerity measures planned for the Greek population: raising the value-added tax from 19% to 20%, the end of a month’s bonus for public service employees, the end of summer allocations given to retirees, cutting the stipend for large families by 30%, etc., all to save five billion dollars.
This is an unprecedented attack on retirees, six out of ten of whom get less than $810 a month and on all workers, whose purchasing power is already 20% lower than the European average.
The unions of government workers said at least 70% took part in the February 10 strike. Others plan to strike later in February.
Greek workers will have to deploy all their forces in order not to pay the cost for a situation produced by and for the capitalists.
Mar 1, 2010
Right-wing talk radio has been arguing that the Haitians don’t deserve U.S. aid, since they caused their own poverty.
In fact, the amount of aid the U.S. is giving Haiti is a tiny fraction of the wealth stolen from the country, first by ruling classes in Europe and more recently by U.S. banks and corporations.
Before the revolt of Haiti’s slaves starting in 1791, they produced incredible wealth for the French slave owners and the French state, dying by the hundreds of thousands in the process. After the slaves won their freedom and independence, the U.S. and Britain joined France in forcing the new Haitian government–at gunpoint–to pay France’s dispossessed slave owners a sum amounting to 90 million gold francs plus interest–“reparations” for their lost slave holdings. Haiti was forced to take out high-interest loans from French banks, plunging Haiti into deep foreign debt that would last for nearly 125 years!
A lot of this loan-sharking interest ended up being paid to U.S. banks, which bought up many of these lucrative loans. In 1915, the U.S. Marines invaded and occupied Haiti, seized strong boxes containing the funds of the Haitian government, and took them to New York. The commander of these troops, Major General Smedley Butler later wrote in his book War is a Racket, “I helped make Haiti a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.” Haiti became the economic captive of the New York banks.
U.S. forces occupied Haiti until 1934, running the country like a colony. Afterwards, the U.S. continued to run the finances of the Haitian government until 1947, when Haiti’s loans for “reparations” to French slave owners were finally paid off, dozens of times over counting all the interest. Since this time, Haiti has continued to be used as a source of cheap labor by U.S. corporations and their contractors.
The right-wing talk shows are blatantly lying when they say that Haitians have caused their own poverty.
It’s better to learn about history than listen to people who make false, ignorant remarks.
Mar 1, 2010
After declining for decades, black lung disease is becoming prevalent again among coal miners. “Black lung” is the common name for pneumoconiosis, which is caused by inhaling coal dust for prolonged periods of time. It is one of the most deadly of industrial diseases, causing the deaths of 10,000 miners over the last decade.
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the rates of disease had more than doubled in just seven short years from 1999 to 2006. Nine% of all miners who had put in more than 25 years showed signs of the disease.
The miners’ damaged lungs testify to the cutbacks in safety and environmental restraints in the mines. To the mine owners, mineworkers are just another piece of machinery, to be used up and tossed aside–in fact, protected less than the machinery.
But miners have a long history of militant battles they carried out to win better working conditions. Their fights forced the government to recognize black lung as an industrial disease. They imposed shorter work days and forced the mine owners to take safety measures like spraying water on the coal face to cut down on dust.
What they did before, they can do again. And it’s essential for their own health that they do it!
Mar 1, 2010
“Roads are snow-covered and slippery.” This forecast means danger for everyone who must go out and use the roads.
Layoffs of road crews make the dangers far worse.
Just a few inches of snow on February 26 made the Detroit area roads slow to a crawl. Drivers had to cope with long stretches of unsalted, unplowed roads. Spinouts and accidents were everywhere as traffic crept along at 5 or 10 mph.
Budget cuts and layoffs meant that salt trucks lacked drivers. Even in suburban Oakland County, home to many layers of corporate management, the road commission had only 44 drivers available for the second salting shift instead of last year’s 84.
Of course, less wealthy counties were in even worse shape.
Let’s be honest. The upper crust of wealthy people have taken plenty of extra money from public coffers–money that could be used to meet this public need. They are simply not about to let the public need dent their private capital gains.
Mar 1, 2010
Three different congressional committees are holding hearings and investigations into cases of sudden acceleration of Toyota cars, which have killed at least 34 people. U.S. politicians have put on a show, politely calling on the carpet Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, as well as U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
For at least nine years, corporate executives at Toyota stonewalled complaints of Toyota cars suddenly accelerating out of control, often blaming the crashes on “driver error.” The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) closed nine separate investigations, without any conclusion.
But last August, an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family were killed in the crash of a 2009 Lexus. The doomed family’s last moments were captured in a 911 emergency call, as the CHIP officer made frantic efforts to brake the car, which had reached speeds estimated at over 120 miles per hour. This made headlines. Toyota was hard-pressed to blame this crash on driver error.
Toyota soon issued a recall to fix the floor mats of five million cars, saying that they might get caught under the gas pedal. However, some cars that crashed had no floor mats. Toyota issued a second recall to fix sticky accelerator pedals on another 2.4 million cars.
Many doubt these recalls will solve the problem. They say that acceleration complaints skyrocketed after Toyota switched from mechanical to electronic throttles, which work not by direct linkage from the gas pedal, but by a system of electronic relays, sensors and software.
Toyota executives still deny in public that a glitch in this complicated, “drive-by-wire” throttle system could be the cause of these accidents. But on January 27, Toyota executives admitted as much, when they told a closed-door session of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that the causes of unintended acceleration are “very, very hard to identify.” This was later leaked to the Los Angeles Times.
One thing is certain: over the years, Toyota–which was supposed to be known for producing safe and reliable cars, at least compared to other companies–has ruthlessly cut costs in order to boost profits. According to Business Week, Toyota slashed the time it took to bring a car to production from three years down to one year, once the design of a new car was finalized. Toyota also pushed suppliers to reduce both the cost and weight of parts by 10 to 30% for each newly designed model.
As a result of this quest to increase profit, Toyota has not only reduced quality, but also cut the margin of safety in its cars.
Of course, what Toyota is doing is no different than the other car makers–especially the U.S. companies. Over the last 10 years, for example, there have been more complaints of sudden acceleration for cars made by Ford (1800) than those made by Toyota (1600). And that is not the least of it. In 2009, Ford issued a giant recall of 4.5 million vehicles over a faulty switch, which had a serious potential to cause a fire. And Chrysler issued a recall of 350,000 minivans, with airbags that might not work. This followed a recall in January for Chrysler cars with potentially faulty brakes.
As workers in all the companies’ factories could testify, there is a non-ending push for production at the expense of quality–and at the expense of worker health and safety!
If Congress and the news media are singling out Toyota, it probably has little to do with a sudden concern for safety, but more to do with competition. Mammoth companies and their financiers are fighting for market share and profits at a time of economic crisis and a shrinking auto market pie. With much lower sales, more companies are in danger of disappearing. U.S. companies are depending on the U.S. state apparatus to go after their competitors.
In all this, neither the consumers nor the workers in these speed-up-driven factories can expect help from the government, whose first and basic aim is to protect corporate profits.