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
Jan 24, 2011
Ever since the elections, Obama has been sending “signals”:
• he intends to “compromise” with the Republicans;
• he intends to make his administration “more business friendly.”
Apparently, the government wasn’t “business friendly” enough when it handed over trillions of dollars to the big banks.
Nor, apparently, was the government “business friendly” enough when it eased GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy–as the pretext for extorting big concessions from auto workers.
Nor, apparently, was Obama’s health care reform “business friendly” enough–despite the fact that it will require people to buy overpriced insurance they cannot afford from big financial companies that will make still more money from people’s illnesses.
What a crock of sweet potatoes!
Of course the government was “business friendly” during Obama’s first two years in office. It’s a joke to say otherwise.
Except it’s no joke, because all these pronouncements indicate that Obama and the government he heads are about to become still more friendly to business and the wealthy.
They’ve already started.
The “compromise” between Obama and the Republicans over taxes was only a down payment on more gifts to business and the wealthy. In exchange for a 13-month renewal of long-term unemployment benefits–which reach only a small part of the long-term unemployed–Obama agreed to give the wealthiest people in the world tax breaks amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars each. Perhaps the biggest insult was the pretense that this tax deal would benefit “everyone.” It’s true that, for most people, taxes would stay the same, not go up. But the poorest part of the population is actually going to pay more taxes–while business gained a basketful of tax cuts.
Democrats and Republicans may play politics as the 2012 presidential elections come closer. But both parties are “business friendly.”
And “business friendly” means a worsening situation for the majority of the population. The money given to big business comes out of our hide.
There’s no point for us to wait for the 2012 elections. The 2008 elections didn’t give us the change that many workers hoped for. The 2010 elections dragged in more of the same, but worse.
Forget about those con artists and their political games. Hold their feet to the fire.
Demand what we need. Jobs. Decent schools. Public services that work. Social service that protect–“worker friendly policies.”
We won’t get those by waiting.
Jan 24, 2011
The Philadelphia District Attorney charged Dr. Kermit Gosnell with the murder of one of his patients and numerous other crimes. One of Gosnell’s patients, 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, died of an overdose of anesthesia.
According to the prosecutor, Gosnell’s clinic performed abortions using unsanitary instruments, in filthy rooms, some with litter boxes and animals present during operations, and allowed unlicensed employees, including a high school student, to conduct operations and administer anesthesia. Gosnell may be a doctor, but he does not have the medical training required to perform abortions. He is not an obstetrician or gynecologist. Moreover, says the prosecutor, Gosnell’s wife, who has no medical license, performed abortions at the clinic.
Butchers who prey on women should be stopped. But if these charges are true, why did the state do nothing for two decades, during which state agencies had received complaints about dangerous practices and deaths of other women at Gosnell’s clinic?
More importantly, why has the state refused to prosecute all those whose actions drive desperate women into the arms of back-alley abortionists–all those licensed hospitals that refuse to perform abortions and all those right-wing fanatics, who harass doctors who perform abortions?
What about stopping the politicians who make abortion a political football? The Republicans, fresh off their election victories, are threatening women’s access to abortion as a way to play to a small reactionary base to keep their support. The Democrats, while pretending to support women’s right to an abortion, not only do little to defend them, but act to restrict them, as the Obama administration did last year.
Back-alley abortionists are the product of decades of restrictions on women’s right to abortion. The responsibility for women’s deaths and disfigurement in botched procedures rests on the heads of politicians who play politics with women’s lives.
Jan 24, 2011
Maryland state regulators approved the first new hospital to be built in Montgomery County in 30 years.
Will this mean “improved” access to health care for county residents?
Not if you are a woman–since this is to be a Catholic hospital. If you are a woman, you will not have access to abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. You won’t have access to a whole range of medical services: no treatment for ectopic pregnancies (which could amount to murder), no tubal ligations, no in-vitro fertilizations.
Advocacy groups objected to this private hospital to be built on public land with public funding. Since it is owned and administered under Catholic religious doctrine and directives, it will exclude reproductive health care for women. The commission chairman said: “There are no state standards that require hospitals to offer such services.”
Let’s be clear. There will be no exceptions to the policies of this hospital regardless of the religious or non-religious background of the patient. A U.S. Catholic nun was excommunicated for approving an abortion for a woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension. This mother of four children would have died without this medical procedure. But the Catholic Church reached out and smashed the nun who chose life over death.
Not providing abortions–basic health care for women–is like not treating people for heart attacks, arguing it’s God’s will if you die. This is crazy, and best summed-up by an unidentified woman who said to the commissioners after the vote for the hospital: “Thank you all for deciding women are not people.”
Jan 24, 2011
The Los Angeles Board of Education selected John Deasy as the next superintendent of schools behind closed doors. The school board made sure there was no public input–at least not from the communities that the schools are supposed to serve, or from the teachers and other employees who actually do the work.
And no wonder. Deasy is a stalking horse for the rich and powerful. He was trained by a foundation presided over by Eli Broad, a billionaire banker and real estate magnate, the same foundation which influenced Robert Bobb, the hatchet man in Detroit, and Michelle Rhee, the destroyer of D.C. public schools.
Deasy also served as a high- paid senior administrator at the foundation set up by Bill Gates, the richest man on the planet, and another proponent of privatizing public schools for the benefit of the wealthy.
Central to Deasy’s agenda is to use student test scores as a pretext to lower teachers’ pay and to fire many of them. Behind this blatant attack on teachers is a hidden attack on the students they teach.
Deasy’s justification for tying testing to teacher pay and evaluations is that it promotes accountability. But Deasy is the last person to speak about accountability. Deasy’s mentor, Robert Felner, pleaded guilty of defrauding two universities of millions of dollars, and is currently serving a 63-month sentence in federal prison. When Deasy pursued a doctoral university degree at one of those schools, Felner, who was his adviser, granted Deasy what the Los Angeles Times called “an unusual waiver that allowed Deasy to finish his doctorate course work in one semester.” Deasy then turned around and rewarded Felner a lucrative consulting contract with the Santa Monica school district–which Deasy headed at the time.
It’s just one more example of the sleazy revolving door between big corporate money and those who today have pushed themselves into top positions in school systems, to the detriment of the students, the teachers and the cities in which they live.
Jan 24, 2011
Two weeks ago there was a fatal car accident on a major commuter route in and out of Washington, D.C. The accident occurred at five o’clock in the morning in the dark when a car skidded on a patch of ice into oncoming traffic. Both people in the car that skidded were killed.
This road has had insufficient drainage for years. And during the winter the large puddles routinely freeze over.
There have been complaints for months about the water running down from nearby hills and refreezing right where the accident happened.
How many more people will die before D.C. authorities come up with the money to fix the problem?
Don’t depend on their sense of responsibility to fix it.
Jan 24, 2011
Top officials of the UAW have begun a 60-million-dollar campaign to organize workers at foreign owned auto makers–called “transplants”–into the union.
What are UAW officials proposing to achieve this goal?
They propose pickets at corporate headquarters–or at banks–or at auto dealerships. Well yes, these tactics may achieve a little publicity for the UAW and its new president, Bob King.
And they are calling on the companies to respect rules of “fair play.” And that may also draw a little publicity.
But the way to massively organize transplant auto workers was indirectly stated by UAW president Bob King himself.
In a recent statement, King wrote of the 1930s: It took “Sit-down strikes and demonstrations until 100% of the U.S. auto industry was unionized”–in other words, an adversarial approach.
That’s what it took before, and that’s what it will take again–no matter what particular tactics, the readiness to enable the workers to carry on a fight against the bosses.
The battle is over how can UAW membership become so attractive that unorganized workers will want to join despite the threat that will come from companies unwilling to “play fair.”
Workers join a union that helps them come together to improve their standard of living.
How can a union, where top leaders are not only agreeing to cut members’ wages in half but also destroying retirees’ medical care, be attractive? But that’s exactly what the top leaders of the UAW, starting with King himself, have done.
So now UAW members are in a contract bargaining year. Are UAW officials already organizing shop floor resistance inside every Ford, GM and Chrysler factory–to get back those concessions given up?
No. Implicitly, UAW officials argue that workers have to wait–until AFTER foreign-owned transplant companies unionize.
The result is that both domestic and foreign auto makers are in a race to see how close to the bottom they can take the workers. And workers at GM, Ford and Chrysler–as a result of these last concessions–are closer to the bottom than Toyota and Honda workers.
Winning a few battles in the fight to regain what has been lost could make union membership impressive enough that workers at transplants would see the obvious benefits of joining a fighting union.
Jan 24, 2011
Ten months after elections, Iraq’s government still doesn’t have all its posts filled. And terrorist bomb attacks, such as the ones against Shiites and Christians recently, prove that the specter of ethnic and religious bloodbath still hangs over Iraqi people.
Almost eight years after the U.S. invasion, and under ongoing U.S. military occupation, Iraq is a country in political disarray and social chaos. But, according to the business press, Iraq is also “wide open for business.”
Today, foreigners are allowed to own 100% of an Iraqi company–and, in exchange for a cut for themselves, Iraqi politicians are willing to sell off State assets to foreign corporations. After all, political chaos and lack of public accountability can make cheap “privatizations”–that is, plunder–easier.
Take electricity. The Iraqi government has been handing out billions of dollars to private contractors–including three billion dollars to GE alone–to rebuild the power plants that the U.S. military destroyed during the invasion. And yet, Iraqi cities are plagued by long blackouts. Local electricity “entrepreneurs”–people who own generators–sell electricity to households on the black market, charging up to 10 or 15 times the official price.
Construction projects are up for grabs–a port project on the Persian Gulf, for example, is supposed to cost 20 billion dollars. Last September the U.S. Commerce Department took representatives from GE, Boeing, American Cargo Transport and other U.S. companies on a trade mission to Iraq, to explore other contracts worth 80 billion dollars.
But Iraq’s big prize for the international “business community” is, of course, its oil. In 2009 alone, the Iraqi government awarded 12 oil contracts, worth 200 billion dollars. Oil giants such as Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Russia’s Gazprom and Lukoil, and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, all have secured contracts to extract oil from southern Iraq.
Despite political instability in Iraq, these oil companies and the big banks behind them are hoping that they will be able to produce large amounts of oil in Iraq, and take the profit from it out of there. And the billion-dollar dreams of these “investors” are certainly supported by the willingness of Iraqi officials to suppress popular opposition by any means necessary.
In particular, workers’ unions that oppose privatization of State-run companies are under attack. Following oil workers’ protests over low pay and their union’s illegal status last March, unionists were transferred hundreds of miles away from their homes. The president and general secretary of the Federation of Oil Employees of Iraq were summoned to court, and banned from traveling abroad. This union has a long history of organizing fights–including a strike in June 2007, which forced the government to announce the temporary suspension of a law that granted favorable contracts to foreign companies.
Another target of the Iraqi government has been the Electrical Utility Workers Union which, like the oil workers’ union, has publicly opposed privatizations. Last July, the Iraqi government kicked the officials of the union out of their offices in the southern city of Basra. Shortly before, the electricity workers’ union had helped organize demonstrations against electricity shortages in Basra–during which the police had opened fire, killing one protester and injuring several others.
The government and bosses have been attacking the leaders of other unions as well–especially those that have publicly opposed the government’s policies, such as the longshoremen’s and teachers’ unions. In fact, in the eight years since the fall of Saddam Hussein, all Iraqi governments, “elected” or otherwise, have kept in place–and consistently enforced–Saddam’s law banning unions in the public sector.
The war on Iraq, which the U.S. started eight years ago, is still going on, with all its consequences. Iraq today is segregated along ethnic and religious lines, and no end to ethnic attacks is in sight. Basic government services, such as electricity, water, sanitation, health care and education are severely inadequate, or simply don’t exist. Unemployment is very high, and workers’ wages are very low. And when Iraqi workers try to organize against these conditions, they face government repression.
Just like Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi governments that followed it have been vicious enemies of Iraqi workers. And that’s exactly why bosses and “investors” find Iraq so business-friendly!
Jan 24, 2011
On January 16th, Jean-Claude Duvalier, alias “Baby Doc,” returned to Haiti after 25 years in exile. No Haitian has forgotten how he took over after his father, the sinister François Duvalier, called “Papa Doc,” and continued his dictatorial regime for 15 years. He kept himself in power through the brutality and crimes of his father’s old militia, the Tontons Macoutes. A 1986 popular uprising finally drove Baby Doc from power and out of the country.
When he arrived back in the country, Baby Doc dared to say that he knew the “people were suffering.” He certainly didn’t suffer during his years of exile on the French Riviera, living in a luxury hotel and a sumptuous villa. This wealth was due to the estimated 100 million dollars the Duvaliers stole from the Haitian people!
France offered a warm reception. And the U.S. helped keep him living there in style. Even though he bled Haiti dry, no one asks him to explain where he got all those millions he spent.
No one except the Haitian people.
Jan 24, 2011
It took four weeks, from the time the residents of Sidi Bouzid first exploded in anger on December 17, for the Tunisian population to force Ben Ali, the dictator of 23 years, to leave the country.
During this time, the top layers of the state apparatus were probably deciding to get rid of the dictator, as a way to try to save the rest. Three days after Ben Ali took flight, on Monday, January 17, a transitional government was established under the leadership of former Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi. Within the new government, six members of the old government were left in place, and at key positions such as Defense, Interior, Foreign Affairs or Finance. Ghannouchi assured that they all had “clean hands” and had always acted to “preserve the national interest”! Three leaders of legal opposition parties, Naguib Chebbi of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmed Brahim of Ettajdid and Mustapha Ben Jafar of the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties (FDTL) were all asked to participate in the provisional government, as were officials associated with the UGTT, the main union.
By the next day, the UGTT had already ordered its representatives to withdraw from the government, which it refused to recognize. Then, the health minister, Mustapha Ben Jafar of the FDTL, suspended his participation. The Minister of Culture also resigned. For its part, Ettajdid, a party that was founded in 1993 out of the former Tunisian Communist Party (PCT), also threatened to withdraw its ministers from the government, saying it would participate “to fill the political vacuum that threatens national security and to preserve the achievements of the people’s revolution”–but only if the party of Ben Ali, the RCD, is removed from power, and his ministers from the government.
The same morning, the police dispersed a demonstration in Tunis of hundreds of unionists and activists who shouted that the fall of the dictator must be just the first step, and that his party, the RCD, should be excluded from all the posts it has, beginning with the ministers of the government.
The population is relieved to have chased out the clan of Ben Ali and that of his wife, Trabelsi, who were supported up to the very last minute by the leaders of the Western countries. But the population is also legitimately proud of carrying out courageous and determined daily mobilizations as they confronted the repression that left dozens dead and many injured. And they are certainly not ready to let their victory be taken from them.
Beginning on January 14, “vigilance committees” in popular neighborhoods expanded to defend against the armed gangs formed by former supporters of Ben Ali. Young men, organized around the workers or militants of the neighborhood, took charge of the security of the inhabitants, of families and their homes. They checked cars and their occupants, and acted as strong supporters of the regular army which they considered, up to this point, as an ally.
It is in this ongoing mobilization and in this organization that the Tunisian population has the first key for the change to which it aspires. The bourgeoisie–which has for 23 years been linked to Ben Ali–remains at the head of the banks, mines, textile factories, call centers, and large landed estates. With the dictator gone, the struggle of the workers, of the youth and of the unemployed for their basic demands must continue, not ceding the ground to the supporters of the regime of Ben Ali, who are trying to set up their government.
Jan 24, 2011
The following appeared in Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the newspaper of the revolutionary group of that name active in France. It is based on a report from Martinique, an island in the Caribbean with 440,000 people, which is an overseas department of France.
In February and March of 2009, workers in Martinique carried out a general strike. Months after the strike, one of its main leaders, Ghislaine Joachim-Arnaud, was accused of racism by one of the richest men on the island, Jean-Francois Hayot. He charged her with discrimination against the békés. The békés are the descendants of the original slave owners on the island, and they are still masters of Martinique’s economy.
On December 15, 2010, the French colonial justice system put Ghislaine Joachim-Arnaud on trial. She is the secretary general of the CGTM (General Confederation of Labor-Martinique), leader of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight) and member of the leadership of the KSF, the collective which led the February 2009 strike in Martinique. The complaint was that she said in a broadcast in the Creole language: “Martinique is ours. We’re going to kick out the band of profiteering and stealing békés. This fight must continue.”
On the day of the trial, starting at 7:30 in the morning, several hundred militants, sympathizers, workers, young people and retirees, rallied at the trade union headquarters in Fort-de-France. They marched toward the court, singing the February 2009 strike songs, in particular “Martinique is ours...” Almost a thousand people ended up massed in the square in front of the court house, where they confronted a large-scale police mobilization.
During the trial, Ghislaine Joachim-Arnaud, her lawyers and people who testified in her behalf accused the wealthiest men, békés and others, and their system. She said that the lawsuit against her accusing her of racism against the békés was “fallacious.” Then she used the opportunity to make an indictment of the real racism, that of the wealthiest owners, békés and others. She spoke against the discrimination and the daily violence that workers, young people and retirees suffer, saying they are condemned to live off the crumbs left by the wealthy, who are supported by the State which serves them. She cited the example of the young workers of Mr. Bricolage (like Home Depot), who have been on strike for more than a month against the scorn and greed of the big béké owner Bernard Hayot. And she added, “Yes, it’s perfectly scandalous that those who are in the ruling camp accuse of racism those who rebel and don’t accept it. These bosses think a good worker is a worker who never strikes. But that is changing.”
She explained that historically the term béké in Martinique designates the exploiters. “We aren’t designating a race or an ethnic group, but a social position.”
The defense called witnesses, the majority of whom were workers, who spoke in simple, dignified and convincing words. They spoke about their experience, what the words “doing a béké’s job” meant, even it was for a black boss. And they testified to Joachim-Arnaud’s devotion to her class, of their camaraderie with her, and also of her fight to take the side of workers everywhere in the world.
The CGT representative told the head of court, “accusing Ghislaine Joachim Arnaud of racism is ... like pretending that Elisabeth Badinter [French woman philosopher and feminist] cuts off heads.”
The longer the court session went on, the more it was evident how proud people were of the spokeswoman of their February 2009 strike movement. And the day after the trial, the newspaper France Antilles, usually supportive of the wealthy, emphasized in its article: “the session ... constituted a trial against the capitalists.”
Jan 24, 2011
The State of Maryland and the top leaders of AFSCME and the AFT negotiated a new three year contract and presented it for a mail vote. The union leaders did it without setting up meetings where workers could see and discuss what was in the contract. Instead, a publicity blurb was mailed out by the union leaders pushing the contract.
This comes after a widely publicized soap opera. In a big show, the state of Maryland threatened workers with large increases in health insurance premiums and co-pays, huge attacks on workers’ pensions and retirement including increasing service time for qualifying for retirement, and capping COLA increases.
In turn, union leaders made a big show saying no way, that’s unacceptable. In reality, the deal was already being struck in secret. By comparison to the threats it may not have looked so bad.
But–the contract between Governor O’Malley and the unions includes a whole series of take-aways that together amount to a real lowering of the standard of living for Maryland state workers.
First of all, there is a two-year pay freeze. Yes, they tried to sell the contract with a $750 bonus. But, what is $750 compared to say a four% pay raise on $35,000? That would be $1,400 year after year.
And yes, they say IN THE FUTURE, they might give some pay raises and step increases–but ONLY if state revenues don’t decline from what they are optimistically projecting today. Going by recent history, there will be no pay raise of any type.
By far the biggest economic attack is on state workers’ health care with huge increases in prescription co-pays this year, double on generics. In addition, the contract specifies that the state will come back and re-negotiate the prices on health insurance premiums and co-pays after this year–without workers being able to vote on it.
Yes, they also said no more furlough days. But, there is nothing stopping this governor or a future governor from issuing a new executive order. In fact, furlough days violated pay provisions in the previous contract, but the Governor simply issued an executive order.
The contract makes no mention of jobs and this a big issue. Not filling vacant positions has already meant state workers do more work with fewer workers. Even while this contract was being announced, the state was announcing the closure of Brandenburg Center in Western Maryland. As for pensions, the contract makes no provision. Both the governor and the state legislature still say they are coming after state workers’ pensions.
Workers were expected to vote, by mail, in short order–two weeks–on a contract they never had the possibility to discuss.
Contracts like this one will continue to erode the standard of living of state workers, until workers begin to resist.
Jan 24, 2011
Three prisoners at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Ohio carried out a hunger strike for twelve days to protest inhumane conditions in which they were held. The three ended their strike when the prison warden agreed to their demands.
Bomani Shakur, Siddique Abdullah Hasan, and Jason Robb, along with a fourth inmate, Namir Abdul Mateen who could only participate partially in the hunger strike due to diabetes, have been held in solitary confinement for 17 years.
That amounts to medieval torture in the 21st century. The four had been thrown into solitary confinement after being sentenced to death. The state decided to make an example of them after prisoners revolted at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville against conditions there that already bordered on medieval.
The Lucasville hunger strikers, as the three are known, sought and won demands as simple as the right to have human contact with their families, to be allowed to purchase winter weight clothing, and a few hours of outdoor recreation each week.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world–higher than under any repressive, dictatorial, or torturing regime anywhere in the world. It is the mark of an inhumane society, just as is the barbaric punishment carried out in prison walls.
Jan 24, 2011
Members of Congress are trying to figure out a way to make it legal for states to declare bankruptcy, to “get out from under their debt”–but the only debt they talk about is the pensions of public workers.
Right now, many state workers’ pensions are protected by law in the state constitutions–so Congress is seeking a way to legally get around that and allow the states to simply ditch those pensions.
These states are seeking a way to get out from under a promise made to every one of their workers: that if these workers gave thirty years of their lives for the state, and if the workers gave up pay raises, that money would be set aside to ensure those workers the income they would need to continue living after they retire.
The states didn’t do that! Money wasn’t set aside–it was gambled away in stock markets and given away in tax breaks to corporations–not to mention into the pockets of corrupt politicians and their friends. And now, they want to use bankruptcy as a trick to wipe out that obligation to their retirees.
This is only the latest in recent attacks on public workers–and in fact, it’s an attack on all working people in the states claiming their debt burdens are too high. States use their employees as a scapegoat, in order to cut services and raise taxes on ALL ordinary people–while continuing to offer tax cuts and give-aways to large corporations.
The ONE thing holding Congress back is: if states declare bankruptcy, the banks holding bonds on their debt couldn’t collect. It’s why they’re working so quietly behind the scenes: they want to find a way for the states to dissolve their pension obligations–without getting out of their bond obligations.
If there’s one thing that shows which class these public officials truly represent, it’s this: they think nothing of tossing out pensions, cutting services and hiking taxes on working people ... but they certainly don’t want to reduce the funds of their friends, the big banks!
Jan 24, 2011
Two Thursdays in January saw spirited protests at Cadillac Place against privatization.
The protests were against Medicaid transportation being outsourced to the for-profit company “Logisticare” in January. Logisticare did not sign up enough transportation companies to handle all the disabled patients in metro Detroit. Patients were left waiting for rides that never showed, putting some in danger of death.
These small medivan companies and the patients they serve were right to speak out. This will be the first of many attacks this year....
Jan 24, 2011
Pretending that the state’s budget deficit requires “everyone to sacrifice,” Illinois raised individual income taxes by 67%, while corporations were hit with a smaller increase, 46%.
And in fact, what corporations will pay is much less than that. They have literally thousands of loopholes to reduce or even eliminate their taxes. Caterpillar, for example, paid no state income tax, even though it had 895 million dollars in profits in 2009. Individuals have no loopholes.
Year after year, the various state legislatures and governors have given bigger and bigger gifts to the corporations. No wonder the state is short of money. But instead of making the corporations come up with some of their ill-gotten gains, the state puts its hands in our pockets.
If there was anything that proves how the politicians serve the corporations and the wealthy, this is it. And the Democrats can’t even blame the Republicans, since the Democrats control both houses of the legislature and sit in the governor’s mansion.