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
Nov 26, 2012
On November 16, Hostess Brands slammed the doors when striking workers refused to cave in to company extortion. Across the country, 33 bakeries were immediately closed, with 565 distribution centers and 570 outlet stores soon to follow. 18,500 workers found themselves without a job.
This was only the latest, but not the last, card Hostess would play in its high-stakes poker game with workers.
Since 2004, Hostess had demanded and gotten multiple rounds of concessions: once when it went into bankruptcy in 2004, and once when it came out of bankruptcy in 2009. It unilaterally imposed an enormous take back in 2011, when it stopped making payments it owed to the pension fund and to the workers compensation fund. It reduced the number of its workers from 32,000 in 2005 to 20,000 at the beginning of 2011.
Late in 2011, it demanded more concessions. When workers refused to accept them, it again went into bankruptcy in January 2012. In the spring, it demanded that workers accept a salary freeze. Workers refused to budge on that demand.
In November, Hostess upped the ante, demanding an 8% cut in wages, which would have brought the wages of a shipping clerk, for example, down to $25,000 a year, reduced by multiple concessions from the $48,000 a year the workers made in 2004. The company also insisted that workers pick up another 20% of their health care costs–on top of what they already pay. All payments for retiree health care were to be terminated, and the pension plan shut down. Finally, it refused to put in any more than 25% of what it currently owes current retirees.
Hostess pretended that it could not afford “exorbitant” wage costs–almost as big a lie as the scrumptious looking pictures Hostess put into its ads for Twinkies!
The fact is, Hostess has had financial problems throughout all these years as the result of hostile buy-outs, mergers and so-called “investments” from private equity funds and Wall Street banks. It owed no debt to these vultures in 1975, just before a data processing company with no experience in foods bought up the original Hostess company (then called Interstate Brands). But then it merged in 1995, with Continental Brands. By 2004, when JPMorgan Chase helped the company to “restructure,” it had accumulated 748 million in debt, which went up to 850 million in 2009 when Ripplewood, a “private equity” company, and two funds from GE Capital took their stake in the company. Every buyout and “restructuring” transferred more millions to the financial interests that engineered them.
Just before Hostess demanded the latest wage cuts, management awarded a 300% increase in wages, bonuses, severance pay and pensions to one CEO, who promptly left the company, and immediate raises ranging from 35 to 80% for nine other top executives!
No, it’s not the workers who bled this company dry–it’s the capitalist dinosaurs driving the company to extinction.
Faced with this reality, workers organized by the Teamsters union at Hostess voted by a very narrow 53% to 47% margin to accept the new concessions. Members of the bakery workers union refused, and instead voted 92% for a strike. When Hostess set November 16th for closing if the strike weren’t ended, the most determined workers refused to be bludgeoned and continued their strike.
In so doing, they laid out a road for the rest of the working class. Hostess workers are not the only ones to face such a bloodletting–look at Delphi, bounced back and forth between private equity companies and GM, only to be gobbled up by Romney’s old bait-and-switch company, Bain Capital. Look at Chrysler, devoured by Daimler, then Cerberus, then Fiat.
After insisting it would take nothing less than surrender, Hostess switched gears agreeing to “arbitration”–which certainly never favors the workers. But it shows that Hostess could be set back on its heels.
Whatever comes next, in standing up to capitalist extortion, Hostess workers have done the only thing that gives workers any chance to come out of the current dire situation with both some self-respect and some possibilities for the future.
Nov 26, 2012
Wall Street banks were among the biggest winners when California Proposition 30 passed in the November election. Those who pushed Prop 30, starting with Governor Jerry Brown, promised that increased taxes from working people and the poor would go to public education. Instead, much of the new tax revenue from Prop 30 that supposedly was earmarked for higher education is being gobbled up by big Wall Street banks and financial companies.
In the last four years, management at the University of California (UC) has doubled the university’s debt. Much of this debt is in complicated financial instruments–similar to subprime mortgages–that are filled with sneaky increases in interest rates and fees aimed at supercharging bank profits. As a result, the cost to finance that debt has skyrocketed.
This is hardly a surprise since the top financial positions at the University of California are staffed by former officials at the biggest banks, who had already pushed these kinds of deals on the university. The UC Chief Financial Officer, Peter Taylor, had been Managing Director of Public Finance for Lehman Brothers until it collapsed in 2008. While at Lehman, Taylor struck a deal with UCLA that will cost the university more than 170 million dollars in extra fees and interest rate charges. The UC Executive Vice President, Nathan Brostrom, had been Managing Director of Western Region Public Finance for JP Morgan, another big underwriter of UC bonds. Overseeing these officials is the governing Board of Regents filled with Wall Street bankers like Monica Lozano, who also is on the board of directors of Bank of America.
This debt has helped to finance the expansion of the university’s for profit-enterprises, like their massive university medical centers. This produces profits for companies in health insurance, drugs and medical instruments–as well as for the university hospitals themselves.
The losers are the students and the taxpayers. The universities have tripled student tuition and fees over the last decade, while slashing spending on education. As the credit agency Moody’s explained in a report that it issued in September, the UC system is a good risk to cover the increased debt load because it can leverage its “powerful student market position ... by raising tuition dramatically.”
Now, the increased taxes taken from workers and the poor from Prop 30 are providing more money for the banks to gobble up. Like pirates of another epoch, the banks plunder the education system and the working masses pay the taxes.
Nov 26, 2012
Both the federal and state governments give private companies generous grants and loans for starting charter schools–that is, schools that are funded publicly but managed privately.
Of course, that provides an opportunity for quick-buck “entrepreneurs” to make a profit by going in and out of the “education business.”
In September 2011, for example, the California College Career and Technical Center (CCCTEC), a charter school operator in Sacramento, took off with nearly one million dollars in grants and loans from the federal and state governments. It closed its doors after only one year, leaving students stranded.
But the fly-by-night scam artists are two-bit players compared to the Wall Street speculators moving in on public schools.
Federal officials recently announced huge grants to three of the biggest charter chains: 9.5 million dollars to KIPP (sponsored by Donald and Doris Fisher, co-founders of Gap, Inc.); 3.1 million dollars to Alliance for College Ready Public Schools (sponsored by Eli Broad, a billionaire real estate developer); and 1.9 million dollars to Rocketship Education (sponsored by the Waltons, owners of Wal-Mart).
After the stock market, after home mortgages, after car and student loans, the same Wall Street bankers and “venture capitalists” that brought down the whole economy now have their eyes trained on the education “market,” where they see nothing but billions of dollars of taxpayer money to be looted.
Every penny of their booty comes from public education funds. This is the real aim of “school reform.”
Nov 26, 2012
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has unveiled a plan to completely rework school financing and take control of schools out of local hands.
The proposal, written by the pro-corporate Oxford Center, would have state per-student funding “follow the student” to any school district or charter school the student attends. It would also establish a state-wide charter authorizer that would allow corporate-sponsored charters and completely online charters–whether local school districts would want them or not.
Gone would be any ability to oppose charters at the local level. Local school districts and communities couldn’t stop charters from establishing themselves right next door and sucking financing from the public schools.
This is democracy for these corporate shills in Michigan’s government: Local control and local governance are completely taken away; public education could be completely handed over to for-profit corporations, and parents and communities would be blocked from interfering locally with the corporate agenda.
It’s no accident that these announcements were made in November, when most people are sick to death of the elections, the politicians and all their maneuvers, and paying less attention.
That’s par for the course, for these con men!
Nov 26, 2012
The federal government cleared BP of all criminal charges related to the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including the explosion that killed 11 workers. In exchange, BP agreed to pay 4.5 billion dollars in fines to several government agencies.
Four and a half billion dollars may seem like a large amount. But it’s less than one fifth of the profit BP made in 2011 alone.
BP’s guilty plea on a few charges may make it easier for the courts to punish a few BP managers. But the company itself is off the hook. In fact, government officials are rewarding the company–by continuing to give BP lucrative contracts worth billions of dollars.
This deal clears the way for BP to continue to do exactly what caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the first place. This measly fine was nothing but a license for BP to neglect safety for more profit. And it’s not the first time either. In 2005, an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas killed 15 people. BP pleaded guilty, paid a fine, and moved on … to kill 11 more workers by continuing to neglect safety!
Nov 26, 2012
During the recent election, 65,800 Chicagoans voted in favor of an elected school board, while 10,200 voted against. The measure was on the ballot in 327 of Chicago’s 2500 election precincts.
This was an advisory referendum only. Nonetheless, it allowed some voters to express their anger at Rahm Emanuel’s dictatorial rule over the Chicago schools–anger felt by most working class parents and teachers in Chicago.
Today the state legislature claims the power to decide how Chicago’s school board is chosen. Since 1995, it has put that power in the hands of Chicago’s mayor. Chicago is the only school district in Illinois with an appointed rather than an elected school board–a very special kind of undemocratic treatment for the population of Chicago.
Emanuel and his friends on the city council did everything they could to prevent the referendum from getting on the ballot. He pulled an electoral maneuver preventing it from appearing on the city-wide ballot. When activists pushed aldermen to put it on their ward ballots, the Democratic Party apparatus blocked them on a technicality. Finally they had to go precinct by precinct collecting signatures–facing obstacles thrown up by the “Democratic” Party machine. Despite all the barriers, they succeeded in getting it on the ballot in 327 of Chicago’s 2500 precincts.
Of course, an elected school board wouldn’t solve the problems of education. In a city that wealth has long controlled, those elections could also become little more than a farce.
But the work carried out by a coalition of parents and teachers to let their opinion be heard, let many other Chicagoans express just how they feel about Emanuel’s school policy. Those who got the chance took it, telling Emanuel–“Take your dictatorship and shove it!”
Nov 26, 2012
After six days of bombardments that left at least 116 dead among the Palestinians, Israel announced it would temporarily give up its land offensive. Perhaps there could be a diplomatic solution–say the Israeli leaders who have constantly terrorized the Palestinian populations in Gaza and the West Bank.
The Israelis say their air attacks are “targeted” on Hamas. But who could believe such a lie? In one of the most densely populated areas in the world, smaller than Manhattan, how can their bombs distinguish between civilians and Hamas militants?
A million and a half men, women and children are under bombardment, prisoners behind the barbed wire surrounding Gaza. There’s no safe refuge, no possible escape. The wounded cannot get medical care, humanitarian aid cannot come in, the population is starving. Gaza is plunged into a murderous hell.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led this latest attack, under the pretext of making those in Hamas responsible for rockets into Israel pay. But Netanyahu started this latest round. And its timing was not just by chance. There will be an election in January in Israel, and the bombardment of Gaza is part of his electoral campaign.
All during his campaign, Netanyahu has played the military card. He escalated warmongering threats against Iran. Then he started an actual war against Hamas, hoping to solidify an Israeli majority around him. It may be an electoral show but blood has flowed, as the Israeli state dropped its bombs with impunity.
U.S. leaders, with the other great powers behind, support Israel without reservation, refusing to admit the basic fact of the situation. Israel is a state that was built by chasing the Palestinians from their own land and plundering them. Israel continues to do so up to today, building more Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory, keeping the Palestinians at the mercy of Israeli power. This Israeli state has organized a kind of apartheid and deprived an entire people of their rights.
The imperialist leaders call the Palestinians who shoot rockets into Israel “terrorists,” but they don’t say the same about the constant Israeli bombardment of the people of Gaza. In fact, there is a permanent aggression by the state of Israel and a feeble defense by some Palestinians. We shouldn’t forget the 2008-2009 offensive in which 1400 Palestinians were killed in 13 months by the Israelis.
The U.S. is not only an accomplice to the Israeli aggression, it bears responsibility under both Democrats and Republicans.
The Israeli people are themselves victims of these imperialist power games. The policies of imperialism and Zionism have made the Palestinians prisoners in their own country, but they have also pushed the Israelis into the scarcely more enviable situation of acting like jailers.
The riches of the Middle East, both its oil and its strategic position, attract the great powers like fresh meat attracts a jackal.
The Israeli leaders have accepted to be imperialism’s puppet in exchange for imperialism’s military, diplomatic and financial help. That’s what provokes hostilities against Israel on the part of its neighbors.
The imperialist powers have pushed this region of the world into a tragic impasse. Capitalism isn’t just about exploitation, low wages, misery, it’s also about war.
To end these wars means to overturn imperialism, and to end capitalism. In that battle, the lot of the exploited classes and the oppressed people are one and the same.
Nov 26, 2012
The finance ministers of the Euro zone and the director of the International Monetary Fund decided in November to continue the payments to Greece. Five billion euros had already been paid in September, another eight billion in December and more than 30 billion euros last June, to allow Greece to avoid bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, the Greek deputies voted new austerity measures, such as the layoff of 125,000 more state workers between now and 2016.
Month after month, the treatment inflicted on Greece and the Greeks has pushed their economy further into recession and the population into misery. Instead of reducing the debt and deficit of Greece, which is the official justification for the harsh measures, these plans result in the opposite. Although Greece was under pressure to reduce its deficit to 120% of its GDP by the year 2020, the debt of the Greek state has instead grown, reaching 170% of GDP this year, putting off any debt reduction so far into the future that it is an illusion to suggest that Greece can put its finances back on a sound footing.
Faced with this reality, the European Central Bank, the IMF and the states of the Euro zone are divided over what road to follow. These institutions hold 75% of the Greek debt, having paid off those banks that had held Greek debt, leaving the institutions as the main creditors. So the ball is in their court.
Christine Lagarde, of the IMF, demands that the Europeans “restructure” the Greek debt before the IMF will disburse more loans to Greece. In other words she wants to see a lessening of the debt before giving out all or part of these loans, a solution they refuse to accept. The big banks, let off the hook for the Greek debts they held, are doing fine: it’s the taxpayers who have to absorb these losses.
In Greece, as in the other states of the Euro zone, the governments impose these drastic economic measures on their populations, under the pretext of reducing state debt and restarting the economy. But it’s a lie. These continuous economic austerity measures have ended and will always end with the same results: they impoverish the states and the populations, cause unemployment to skyrocket, plunge their economies into recession, and inflate the public debt. From June of 2011 to June of 2012, the debt of Ireland and Spain went UP by 10% and the debt in Italy and France in the same period went up by 5%.
For the big banks, the debt of these states has become a main source of both revenue and profit.
Nov 26, 2012
The following article was first published on October 13 in Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), newspaper of the revolutionary workers’ group of the same name in Guadeloupe and Martinique.
On October 10th, a young comrade of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), Sony Laguerre, went on trial in Pointe-à-Pitre. This comrade was a leader of a small newspaper aimed at college and high school students called Rebelle! (Rebel).
Sony is accused of wounding a policeman last May 18th. On that day, Rebelle! called for sympathizers to accompany one of their comrades summoned to a police station for a minor matter. Some 40 young people arrived, only to have the police charge them!
Several days later, a complaint against Sony was drawn up. Another comrade, Raphaël Cécé, was also summoned by the police for “threats” he supposedly made that day.
These accusations are the latest harassment against the Rebelle! youth. Pressure, threats, intimidation take place both inside and outside school. The goal is to silence this group of young militants because their little newspaper mocks the authorities irreverently. The paper denounces the exaggerated and useless disciplinary measures against high school students; it opposes sexist and scornful comments against young women, and other humiliations.
A hundred people, including some 50 high school and college students, came to support our comrade in court at Pointe-à-Pitre. Political and union militants and students’ parents were also present. And at one high school there was a protest against the daily injustices and bullying which they suffer, and for the defense of Rebelle! and freedom of expression.
The trial prosecutor and police lawyer weren’t happy to see the mobilization, not to mention the six defense lawyers for Sony.
The trial of our comrade is pushed back to next January 18th, two days after that of Raphaël Cécé.
Those who demonstrated on October 10th promise to bring out even greater numbers for the trials on January 16th and 18th.
Nov 26, 2012
The Court of Appeals in Rome upheld the appeal by the metalworkers union FIOM, which claimed that Fiat discriminated against its members in layoffs. In response Fiat’s head announced the company would lay off one worker for every one it had to rehire.
Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of Fiat, the Italian auto company, was only pursuing its “slavemaster” logic. In 2010, at the factory near Naples in the south of Italy, he broke union contracts, promising more jobs in exchange. Instead Fiat started to lay off workers. Then he set up a U.S.-style “new company” that rehired only those workers who signed an agreement accepting all the new, more repressive rules. When presented to the unions, this agreement was not accepted by FIOM.
Two years later, out of the 5,500 workers laid off, 2,500 weren’t re-hired by the “new company,” including all FIOM members. The discrimination against the metalworkers of FIOM was so obvious, the court ruled for them. The court ordered the immediate rehiring of 19 FIOM workers, while waiting on lawsuits from the other 125 workers. In reply, Marchionne scornfully said he couldn’t be forced to take on one more worker. So Fiat laid off 19 new hires!
Obviously, Fiat management plays on divisions, trying to set those hired against those who weren’t. For Marchionne, the workers are only a manpower reserve, which he can draw upon according to his needs, but for whom he recognizes no rights.
Nov 26, 2012
The layoff of 400 Unemployment Agency workers in Michigan has been horrendous for the unemployed. They cannot reach a human being by phone at the Unemployment Agency.
An unemployed woman tried having three phones going, starting at 7:30 a.m. She got only busy signals!
Another person had to borrow gas money and drive an hour, only to wait all day to be seen.
An elderly woman left in tears. Other state workers saw her and tried to comfort her. She said she didn’t know the first thing about computers, but was told she MUST use the computer–without any human help–THEN a person could help her!
Seasoned state workers say they have NEVER seen it so bad. There are long lines and all day waits.
Said one: “THIS is NO WAY to deliver service. The only thing the unemployed are being served is injustice.”
Nov 26, 2012
Between January and August, Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago had 29 meetings with Michael Sacks, the CEO of a Chicago hedge fund and a big campaign contributor. He also had dozens of other meetings with high-flying executives: Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs; Glenn Tilton, the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase; William Brodsky, the CEO of the Chicago Board of Exchange, among others.
And what were they discussing between January and August? Undoubtedly, how to drain more money for the banks from Chicago schools and Chicago teachers. They must have been quite unhappy on September 10 when teachers went on strike and thumbed their noses at both Rahm and his friends!
Nov 26, 2012
Over the years, Washington, D.C. has cut back on paramedics. This shortage has led to forced overtime, with some paramedics working 36 hours in a row just to keep units on the streets. Paramedics who refuse department orders to work overtime, even if they are exhausted from working 24 hours straight, are put up on charges and disciplined.
What is the District’s solution to this dangerous problem? Eliminate night-shift paramedics!
D.C. fire chief Kenneth Ellerbe defended this plan stating: “What I will say is that we will have an ambulance that can respond.” That is, there will be a vehicle with perhaps an Emergency Medical Technician–but no paramedics.
Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), who make up the bulk of the first responders, cannot substitute for paramedics. Unlike EMTs, paramedics can use the most sophisticated defibrillators for patients in cardiac arrest, they can start IVs, push life-saving drugs like insulin and insert breathing tubes to help patients in respiratory distress.
They might as well be saying, “Put off that heart attack ‘til day shift!”
Nov 26, 2012
Walmart workers and other supporters demonstrated at Walmart stores across the country on “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving. They were protesting low wages and bad working conditions, including ridiculous hours requiring workers to report as early as 5 or 6 p.m. Thanksgiving evening to work all night into Friday morning, on one of the few holidays they have all year.
OUR Walmart, the group organizing the protests, expected demonstrations at up to 1000 stores nationwide. The New York Times reported that protests of varying sizes did take place at numerous stores, including one that drew 1000 people in Paramount, California. Whatever the numbers, Walmart workers certainly have reason to protest.
A Walmart spokesperson said, “The number of protests being reported ... are grossly exaggerated.” Perhaps ... but if Walmart really had no problem on their hands, they wouldn’t need to say anything!
Nov 26, 2012
Supposedly, we will face disaster if Congress doesn’t do something about government debt.
It’s true, there is a problem with the national debt. It’s enormous, more than 16 trillion dollars today. Only one other time, in World War II, did the government owe such a big proportion of debt as it does today. And that debt is rising rapidly. So, there is a problem.
If you want to solve a problem, you ought to look at what caused it. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
So look at what caused the big increase in government debt.
First, the big bailout of the banks and other big corporations added trillions of dollars to the debt.
Second, military spending added roughly ten trillion over the last ten years. The U.S. spends more money on its military than do the next 12 biggest spenders put together–more than 40% of the world’s total.
Third, a series of tax breaks to the wealthy and the corporations running back to 1950 totals many times the 16 trillion dollars of today’s debt.
If the corporations and the wealthy were to pay at just half the rate they did in 1950, the government would have enough revenue to completely pay off its debt in less than a decade–with money to spare for increasing spending on all those things cut in recent years: public services, education, social services.
If anyone wanted to get rid of the debt, they would: 1) get trillions back from the banks; 2) make the wealthy and corporations pay taxes at the rate they once did; 3) cut military spending, let’s say, in half–and that might prevent a few wars!
Does anyone believe either of the two parties would even begin to go there? Of course not. Because all their talk about “fiscal cliff” is nothing but a bluff.
They’re not aiming to fix the debt. They’re aiming to take more money from social programs, public services and education, and to put it into the hands of Wall Street and other capitalists.
We may not be able to stop their budget deal this time. But we shouldn’t fall into the trap of believing their lies.
Nov 26, 2012
According to the President, the Congress and most of the media, the “entitlements”–meaning Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid–are the main cause of the government’s budget deficit and growing debt.
That’s a ridiculous lie!
Social Security and Medicare pull in their own money through payroll taxes, and pay out benefits from the money they pull in.
Until recently, Social Security and Medicare were both pulling in more money than they paid out. Social Security in particular had huge surpluses. It’s true that during the last several years, Social Security has run a deficit–but it still has a huge “trust fund.”
In fact, Social Security ought to have a much bigger surplus than it has today. Over the past thirty years, worker productivity has more than doubled, while wages have stagnated. If wages had kept pace with productivity, workers would be making more than double what they get right now–and their payroll taxes would also be higher, meaning even more money would funnel in to the Social Security surplus.
Since 2008, Social Security has paid out more than it took in–caused by the lousy economy, pure and simple. The more workers who are out of work, the fewer workers there are paying payroll taxes to support Social Security and Medicare. It’s obvious that putting people back to work is what’s needed to address that problem–not cutting the program! In any case, the accumulated surplus is more than adequate to cover Social Security payouts during recessions like the recent period.
Social Security has not created the government debt. Just the opposite is true. The federal government has been spending the Social Security surplus on other things: all the give-aways to the wealthy and corporations that they’ve been handing out over the last chunk of years. The federal government OWES Social Security, Medicare and other trust funds about five trillion dollars–almost one third of the government’s current debt.
If Social Security ever stopped being a cash cow for the government, the government might have to cut back on some of those give-aways to the wealthy. And the wealthy who call the tune for the government and its two big parties wouldn’t be very happy with that!
That’s what all the talk about cutting Social Security and Medicare to “save” them is all about–taking even more from us to give even more to the wealthy.
Nov 26, 2012
Both parties tell us Medicare and Medicaid must be cut. These “entitlement programs” are too expensive–they say–and they are rapidly getting more expensive.
Yes, Medicare and Medicaid are expensive. Because the whole profit-driven health care system in the United States is outrageously expensive. The U.S. spends twice as much per person as other wealthy countries on medical care, without nearly as much to show for it.
This is because of the range of ways profit is taken from medical care: all the private health insurers and for-profit hospital systems jack up the cost–not to mention the big pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies, which charge hundreds of times more than the actual costs of production for their products!
Medicare and Medicaid, in fact, don’t add costs to the system–they are victimized by it, just the same way all of us are.