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 27, 2010
On September 23, workers at a GM stamping plant in Indianapolis once again registered a resounding “NO” vote against concessions being pushed by GM, JD Norman, a prospective buyer of GM’s plant, and top UAW leaders.
Last May, workers had already voted not to let top UAW Regional officials negotiate concessions with GM. The Indianapolis Local 23 Bargaining Committee, led by Greg Clark, several times afterwards reiterated the workers’ stand. And in August, when Regional UAW leaders attempted to force a meeting and a vote, workers booed them right out of the room.
Not known for respecting workers’ wishes, the UAW top leadership threw its support behind the prospective new buyer, Justin Norman, when he announced he would not buy the plant without the concessions, and they encouraged workers to meet with him in the big Indianapolis stadium he rented to find out about his “offer.” Only 70 people–workers, spouses and children–showed up!
Still not ready to cede, the UAW International leadership came up with what they must have thought to be a foolproof plan: a mail ballot, one which Regional UAW officials would control. As everyone was well aware, a mail ballot leaves open the possibility for stuffing the ballot box and tampering with the workers’ vote.
Clark and other Local 23 leaders organized three shift meetings, which were flooded by workers outraged at this latest trick. From those meetings, the word went out: bring your mail ballots to the Local on Thursday, September 23. Everyone who wants to vote “NO” and make sure their “NO” is counted can be videotaped showing their open ballot with its “NO” just before they drop it in the letter carrier’s collection box. As people flooded the hall, all those who had a “NO” vote were handed a silver button, with numbers penned in on them with magic marker–running from #1 all the way up to the last “NO” vote, #418. Even if every other worker in the plant had voted “Yes” from this plant that has about 625 UAW workers, the “NO” vote carried the day by a 2 to 1 margin. And not everyone else voted “Yes”–some sent in their “NO” vote before they got the news about the videotaping. Many others didn’t vote.
When Clark announced the results, Regional UAW officials refused to comment, saying only that votes wouldn’t be counted until Monday. Didn’t matter–the workers had already counted theirs, and their “NO” was triumphant.
Whatever scummy trick comes next, Indianapolis workers have shown they won’t have their decisions denied by a bunch of scheming bureaucrats.
Sep 27, 2010
Eight top officials of the city of Bell were arrested last week. They are being charged with stealing millions of dollars from the treasury of this working-class city of 40,000 near Los Angeles.
County and State authorities act as if they were shocked by the corruption in Bell. Really? The super-high salaries of Bell officials were no secret. And the State pension fund granted Bell an exemption from its rules back in 2006, so that the City Manager could receive a pension worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year!
Nor is Bell alone. In several cities in L.A. County, city officials make near, sometimes over, one million dollars a year.
No, California officials aren’t shocked–they’ve been accomplices to these corrupt schemes for years.
But they are politicians–and this is an election year!
Sep 27, 2010
The Los Angeles school board just opened a new school–to be devoted to the environmental sciences.
There’s a catch, however! Just before the school opened, workers were busy replacing the soil under the school to a depth of 45 feet–because it was contaminated with toxic chemicals!
Officials say the school is safe now. But next to the school there is a gas station, whose underground storage tanks are still leaking. There is an operating oil well across the street from the school. There is a gas line running in front of the school, and a very busy freeway within 600 feet of it.
Many L.A. schools sit on contaminated land. Many have been found to contain high levels of toxic fumes and pollutants.
Exposing public school students to poison is so common in L.A. that even a school claiming to specialize in environmental studies can’t escape that fate!
Sep 27, 2010
The California elections feature two candidates competing with each other to see who can mount the biggest attack on working people.
The Republican candidate, Meg Whitman, a former CEO of eBay, has already spent a record hundred million dollars on her campaign–much of it her own money. She plastered the airwaves with promises of cutting 40,000 state jobs, drastically reducing state workers’ pensions, and brutally slashing social spending for the poor. All so she can eliminate more taxes paid by the wealthy.
Democrat Jerry Brown is also calling for huge concessions from the state workforce. He told the San Francisco Chronicle that he will demand labor leaders “put everything on the table.” On his web site, he bragged that is exactly what he did when he was governor two decades ago: “I am the only governor to veto pay raises for state employees (I did so twice).... I was also the first California governor to propose pension reforms and a two-tiered pension system.”
Two parties, but the same anti-worker politics. And Brown and Whitman have much in common with the current governor, the highly unpopular Arnold Schwarzenegger. They are, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, “Three Peas in a Pod.”
Sep 27, 2010
The Republican Plan, “A Pledge to America,” says the following about health care:
“We will enact real medical liability reform.” In other words, after you are harmed by a doctor or a hospital, you won’t get compensation for the damage.
“We will ... allow Americans to purchase health coverage across state lines.” You can buy whatever health care you want–if you can afford it.
“We will ... empower small businesses with greater purchasing power,”–which still won’t be enough to pay for skyrocketing premiums!
“We will ... create new incentives to save for future health needs.” You will soon get to pay every penny of your expensive health care costs.
Pardon us if we sneer, but it’s just more of the same expensive health care system we have now–only more so!
Sep 27, 2010
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing held a public forum to promote his scheme for “re-shaping” the city. It was promoted as a chance for ordinary citizens to be heard, but it was really just a dog and pony show.
After the meeting, the media acted like people who were skeptical of the mayor’s intentions were paranoid about it being a land grab by corporate interests. What’s paranoid about it when there’s a long history of urban “removal” programs that were just that?
The people of Detroit have every reason to mistrust Bing’s plans.
Sep 27, 2010
The news media announced with great fanfare some provisions of the Democrats’ health care plan going into effect on September 23.
Children under 19 can no longer be denied health coverage due to pre-existing conditions. But nothing in the law prevents insurance companies from raising rates, making coverage unaffordable.
Parents can add dependents under age 26 to their own plans. But nothing prevents the companies from raising rates, again making coverage unaffordable for most people.
Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime limits on what they will pay. They can, however, impose annual limits of $750,000, not an unusual amount for anyone with a serious illness like cancer.
Insurers can’t cancel a policy without proving fraud. But nothing stops them from accusing someone of fraud for leaving something off their application form.
Everyone can appeal a decision to deny a claim to the company, and, if still denied, ask for an independent review. Nothing prevents the insurers from denying a claim in order to drag a case out, nor from pressuring doctors to prevent timely treatments.
Insurance companies have pulled every trick in the book to avoid paying medical bills up until now. The new plan leaves them all the loopholes they need to do more of the same.
Sep 27, 2010
In early September, gas prices went up more than 16 cents a gallon in Metro Detroit!
The company responsible for that increase is Enbridge Energy Partners, the world’s largest crude-oil pipeline company.
Enbridge is also responsible for three major pipeline ruptures: near Battle Creek Michigan, in suburban Chicago, and in Ontario Canada. And not a single government authority moved to block the gasoline price increase.
It’s just the ordinary workings of capitalism–they screw up, we’re supposed to pay.
Forget that!
Sep 27, 2010
In August, Social Security reported that it will run a deficit this year for the first time in decades.
Politicians act as though this means Social Security must be “reformed”–benefits cut, ages of retirement raised, etc.
It’s a false issue.
Of course, with all this unemployment, there’s a shortfall, just as there was in 1983, in the midst of the last serious recession. Millions of laid off workers are not paying Social Security taxes; nor are their bosses. And every time a company squeezes one worker to do two workers’ jobs, the company escapes paying taxes on half the work.
To build up the surplus again put people back to work!
In the meantime, the bosses and their politicians should take their thieving hands out of Social Security’s pockets!
Sep 27, 2010
The World Cup marked a short truce in the wave of strikes that have been occurring in South Africa since the beginning of the year. In the first half of the year, workers had struck in electricity, construction and at Transnet, the national transport company, paralyzing the railroads and ports for three weeks.
This strike wave resumed at the beginning of August, with 30,000 workers going on strike in several auto factories. Production was paralyzed for 12 days, forcing the companies to give an additional 10% in wages, and the hiring of workers in temporary jobs under contractors, giving them the health and pension benefits of permanent workers.
The National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA) again went on the offensive at the end of August, with a strike at the tire factories, stopping all production. At the same time, the National Union of Miners (NUM) called out many miners on strike over wages.
An August 18th strike among government workers brought out 1.3 million workers of the central and provincial governments. The largest number worked in health and education.
Health care workers walked pickets in front of hospitals, facing attacks first by police and then by soldiers accompanied by tanks.
Union leaders wanted to keep the strikes within “acceptable” limits, to advance their interests among leading layers of the regime. To that end, they put pressure on South African President Jacob Zuma to support their strikes. They openly pointed out that Zuma’s political success was due to union support.
But strikers’ anger was directed not only at the worsening of their living conditions. They were also outraged by ANC politicians, whose only purpose seemed to be getting rich as fast as their positions in power would allow, while the vast majority of the poor population is squeezed into tiny hovels, sometimes worse than what they had under apartheid. For the majority, there is no government aid, there are no social protections.
In some demonstrations, strikers held up posters condemning the millionaire politicians and denouncing the waste of billions of dollars to build World Cup stadiums.
On September 7th, after three weeks on strike, the union leaders called for a return to work on the basis of an agreement which will give the strikers a 7.5% increase in pay and a $106 per month housing premium. Not all strikers agreed with these increases, as seen at the mass meetings of militant teachers in the Johannesburg province, where the union leaders were booed and had to flee.
Provincial authorities tried to end the strikes by offering to pay for part of the time workers were on strike.
Union leaders, despite all the angry workers, proposed to “suspend” the strike movement for three weeks in order to start new negotiations.
Workers gave their answer–70,000 auto parts workers joined the tire workers on strike. Several thousand gas station workers went on strike as well. New strikes broke out in the mines, increasing the number of paralyzed mines to a dozen.
Will union leaders be able to contain or maneuver around the strikers? Will the ANC politicians find a way to defuse workers’ anger?
What we can say is that rising poverty for the majority, contrasting to the greed of the black bourgeoisie in its guise as the ANC in power, will furnish all the ingredients of a social powder keg awaiting explosion.
Sep 27, 2010
On September 1, violent demonstrations broke out in the capital and elsewhere in Mozambique. Demonstrators had built barricades and looted stores, protesting the rise in the cost of living. The police killed at least 13 people, wounded another 400 and arrested 150 others.
The government announced a rise in bread prices of 25%, provoking revolt in the poor neighborhoods. This increase follows a rise in the price of rice, water, and gasoline. It was the third time prices were increased in less than six months. Electricity rates went up 13%. The situation was illustrated by a woman in Maputo who said, “Now a 25 kilogram sack of rice cost 2000 meticals, but I earn just 1500. So how am I supposed to survive?”
The Mozambican government blamed the price rise on speculators, who have driven up world grain prices. It also blamed the financial crisis that caused the Mozambican currency to decline in relationship to South Africa’s currency. The currency is worth 43% less than it was at the beginning of the year. Mozambique is dependent on South Africa, from which it imports most basic necessities.
In fact, a large majority of the 23 million Mozambicans live in extreme poverty. But it’s imperialism that is to blame. Mozambique was one of the first countries in Africa to have been colonized, exploited by Portugal for more than 500 years. Mozambique was drained of its population by the slave trade, with huge numbers forced to work in Brazil for the Portuguese colonizers there.
For about 10 years, the Mozambicans fought for their independence, declared on June 25, 1975. But imperialism and its allies did not want Frelimo, the nationalist party that came to power, to serve as an example to other Africans. Frelimo was considered too radical, and a slap in the face of the apartheid regime still in place in South Africa. The South African apartheid regime thus organized an armed rebellion in Mozambique with a group called Ranamo. A civil war lasted another 15 years, with close to a million victims.
The country came out of this war literally drained of its blood. And even though it is filled with potential riches, notably minerals and sources of energy, the majority of the population lives in miserable conditions. Even worse today it must suffer the consequences of the capitalist speculation that has hit wheat and rice–leading to the starvation of millions.
In Mozambique, the population has not finished expressing its anger.
Sep 27, 2010
Teachers demonstrated across Italy on September 13, the day school began. Four thousand of them on temporary status blocked transportation across the Straits of Messina, separating the island of Sicily from the mainland.
On the mainland side, demonstrators came from Calabria, Campagna and Apulia. Together the teachers protested the elimination of jobs by the Berlusconi government. Over the last two years, the Italian government eliminated 67,000 teacher positions and 20,000 aide positions. For all of Italy there are more than one million people employed in education, including administrators and technical people. 133,000 jobs are supposed to be eliminated in three years, mostly by eliminating those in temporary positions. In Sicily, for example, 13,000 people will lose their jobs, which is especially serious as jobs are very hard to find there.
This policy is meant to cut ten billion dollars from the public education budget. The teachers point out that the Italian government has plans to build a bridge over the Straits of Messina costing 13 billion dollars. At the same time, the education minister wants to push the increased privatization of schools, that is, charters. They dare to call this “an historic reform.”
The education minister promises new academic, technical and professional high schools, supposedly permitting a better tie between school and employment, better English and scientific teaching and a more effective education system. But if so, it is supposed to be carried out with fewer teachers, with overcrowded classrooms, depriving students of educational support under worse physical conditions.
At the present time, tens of thousands of teachers don’t have a position or are anxiously trying to get a substitute job or even work as an aide. Sometimes they have to spend years on a waiting list before obtaining a job.
The September 13 demonstrations on both sides of the Straits of Messina delayed ferry transportation. Twenty-five protestors were charged with disturbing public order. In addition, protests against the government’s policy took place across Italy, even some hunger strikes. These protests are just a beginning against this disgusting plan to eliminate 133,000 positions.
Sep 27, 2010
Eleven employees of Foxconn committed suicide early this year, most of them by leaping from the company dormitories. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company producing mainly in China. Its Longhua factory complex in Shenzhen, where the suicides happened, employs more than 300,000 workers, who are forced to live there.
Foxconn is a very large electronic parts producer collaborating with other big manufacturers, among them many U.S. companies. It produces parts for Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Sony and many others. Its precision parts make iPhones and iPads so beautiful and successful.
In response to the suicides, Foxconn put nets around its dormitories to catch jumpers! In other words, very harsh working conditions continue.
Electronic or other modern day products are supposed to provide a better, easier and more comfortable life to people. Instead, in the hands of capitalists, their manufacturing has created a hell for workers everywhere in the world.
Sep 27, 2010
“I don’t see any more concessions in this round of bargaining.” So said new UAW president, Bob King, to the Detroit Free Press about the 2011 contract.
No more concessions? The UAW leadership right now is pulling every dirty trick in the book to try to impose concessions on UAW workers at GM’s Indianapolis stamping plant: Serious concessions–cutting wages in half.
But it seems that workers are having the last word–saying “No Concessions,” right now, in 2010. And preparing to fight in 2011 to get back what they’ve lost for years!
Sep 27, 2010
The city of Sterling Heights, Michigan is losing two million dollars in tax revenues from Ford and Chrysler. So is the city of Wayne, another site of a Ford plant in Michigan. Detroit, along with most of the suburbs where auto plants are located, saw their tax payments drop precipitously.
The Michigan Tax Tribunal reduced tax liabilities on existing equipment, saving auto makers from 30 to 80% of the taxes they used to pay to local communities.
These Michigan cities will be laying off still more fire fighters and police and other city workers, cutting other services as well. But a Chrysler spokeswoman said, “We always support the communities in which we do business and where our employees live.”
Autoworkers can see very clearly how well the auto makers support their communities–and how very well the tax tribunal supports the auto makers.
Sep 27, 2010
Whatever the outcome, everyone knows that the Afghan parliamentary election of September 18 can’t be taken seriously.
Even before voting began, the Afghan government admitted it would cancel 1,000 of the polling stations–one in seven–because the areas they were in were controlled by insurgents. At least another 450 didn’t open on election day, for the same reason. Many of the polling stations that opened were attacked with bombs and rockets.
Not surprisingly, voter turnout was very low. And fraud was so common that election results in one third of the provinces will not be credible, according to the New York Times. The Times had reported already before the election that local warlords were busy buying votes. On election day, some candidates’ spies secretly captured on cell-phone videos the buying of votes, intimidation of voters, ballot-stuffing, and detention of election workers by warlords.
One such warlord, Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother who controls the southern city of Kandahar, had reportedly drawn up his list of winners already before the election began. And he is certainly not the only one.
It’s these warlords–each running his own fiefdom–who are in power in Afghanistan today. President Karzai, who apparently stole his own election last year, controls little more than his own compound in Kabul, the capital. So the U.S. military relies on other warlords to control the country–warlords who attack and rob the population.
Yes, Afghan elections are one big lie. But the biggest lie is the U.S. government pretending it’s “bringing democracy” to Afghanistan.
Most Americans know that the Afghanistan war is based on lies. Not from the media–which shamelessly continues to justify the lies–rather people know it from soldiers, who have been to Afghanistan for three, four, five tours already.
There is no end in sight to these lies, to this bloody war. Just a few days ago, an official of the Obama administration declared that the commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General Petraeus, had promised the president “signs of progress in Afghanistan” by December. Others who were in the room during President Obama’s video conference with Petraeus, however, said that the general just listed “objectives,” not “promises.” In any event, Petraeus advocates maintaining a large military presence in Afghanistan beyond the foreseeable future. And that view is obviously shared by Obama, who has been sending more and more troops to Afghanistan.
No, this war has nothing to do with “bringing democracy” to Afghanistan, or, for that matter, “fighting terrorism.” This is a war that the U.S. ruling class started nine years ago in order to control that part of the world. The war still continues today, after bringing nine years of death, suffering and destruction to the Afghan people–and to American soldiers as well.
End the lies. End the destruction. End the suffering. U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, NOW!
Sep 27, 2010
It’s now official. The committee that “dates” recessions has declared this latest one ended more than a year ago–in June 2009. Since then, according to these “experts,” the economy has been expanding!
Tell that to the unemployed. Even the government’s own figures show that unemployment continued to grow–even with an “expanding” economy. There are nearly half a million fewer workers employed today than when this supposed “recovery” began–and 8.7 million fewer than when the recession began. And in fact, the committee that declared the recession over admitted that employment won’t recover for years!
The result is growing poverty–the government says that close to 50 million people are now living below the poverty line–a jump of 10% over the last year. No wonder that one out of eight people in the entire country now depend on food pantries–that is charities–to stop from starving!
Another result is more people without medical insurance–in 2009 alone, seven million people lost employer-based coverage.
And finally, more people have lost housing. Bank repossessions were 25% higher than last year.
These rapidly degrading living conditions are the direct consequence of the capitalists’ war against the working class. The capitalists are using the disastrous levels of unemployment as a club against those still with jobs, to force people to work harder and produce more for less money and benefits, even while the politicians continue to cut vital government safety net programs.
This is why the top capitalists’ fortunes continue to grow ever bigger: they are expropriating ever more of what the working class produces.
So, the new economic “recovery” that the economists talk about is a recovery only for the capitalist class. For the working class and poor, it is nothing but a continuation of a modern-day economic depression.