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
Apr 29, 2013
In Chicago, retail and fast-food workers protested their low wage situation on April 24th. Carrying signs that read “Fight for 15” in bold print, and chanting, “We can’t survive on $8.25,” workers gathered at 5:30 that Wednesday morning in downtown Chicago in front of McDonald’s and spent the day demonstrating and marching to tell their story. At least a few hundred workers actually walked off their jobs to protest. They were joined by hundreds more in a well-planned demonstration of between 500 and 1,000 protesters. This demonstration against McDonald’s, Subway, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Sears and others–almost 30 workplaces–gained the attention of the national news media and brought attention to the plight of service sector workers across the nation.
This protest followed on the heels of a similar demonstration in New York City a month ago and the Walmart employee actions of November of last year. It was organized by unions and community groups: SEIU, a community organization called Action Now and a newly organized union, Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago (WOCC). It was supported by the Chicago Teachers Union. The unions clearly view the growth of the part-time workforce by three million jobs since 2007 as an opportunity for organizing.
While the U.S. economy is supposedly in a recovery, the politicians fail to mention that the job loss of the recession period took out jobs paying $14 to $21 per hour. The recovery added jobs that in their majority (58 percent) pay $12 or less per hour.
According to MIT Living Wage Project, a single parent with one child in Chicago needs to earn $21 an hour to have a living wage and needs an average of 26 to 30 hours of work. The Chicago demonstrators, by comparison, may earn $7.25, $7.50, $8.25 or $8.60. After working for years at a company like McDonald’s, a worker may have to work other part time jobs as well, and collect food stamps to be able to survive. One demonstrator spoke out to say that her wages weren’t even enough to take advantage of her McDonald’s health care plan!
No health care, no savings plans or pensions, coping with a constant reduction of hours, many workers end up working two or three jobs. To make it worse, some are burdened with student loan debt of $20,000 to $40,000.
It took a lot of courage for those who actually walked off their jobs to protest to do so. That is a spirit that can inspire others to fight for their rights while turning the spotlight on their greedy employers. When workers are encouraged by their struggles, they can also move outside of the confined policies that current union leaderships may propose. Instead of depending on the National Labor Relations Board for protection against firings, which is risky at best, workers can mobilize their own forces in such a way as to protect each other. And instead of making a limited fight for $15, they can fight for wages beyond the limited concession contracts that unions are proposing.
Why not fight for more? Every worker deserves a living wage no matter what service they provide. When the working class fights back against the concessions, the fight of the service sector should be a part of that equation and not a special category at a lower wage.
As some of the demonstrators noted, there is more than enough money in the coffers of the wealthy of the Magnificent Mile and the Gold Coast alone to pay them a livable wage.
Apr 29, 2013
A recent report from the Pew Research Center says wealth held by the richest 7% of households rose 28% from 2009 to 2011, while the net worth of the other 93% of households dropped by 4%.
In other words, now we can put a number on what we already knew: the rich are getting richer.
Apr 29, 2013
On national TV, joined by Chelsea Clinton on NBC’s Education Nation Detroit Summit at the end of March, Detroit Public Schools “Emergency Manager” Roy Roberts announced that the DPS was improving under his leadership. He claimed it had surpassed the Michigan state average in 14 of 18 categories measured by the MEAP, the state’s student proficiency test.
Immediately, his pants caught fire.
Or at least, they should have. Dr. Thomas Pedroni, a College of Education professor at Wayne State University, did his own analysis of the MEAP results. In his words, “The actual number was somewhat lower–zero.” The DPS actually trailed the Michigan average in all 18 categories. And in fact, it has actually fallen further BEHIND the state average since an Emergency Manager was appointed in 2009!
The Emergency Manager has been a huge failure for the children of Detroit. But that didn’t stop Roberts and Clinton from saying the opposite, or all those assembled at the “Summit” from applauding the lie.
Why? Because the big figure that HAS increased has been the privatization of the public schools and their funds. Roberts has gutted the DPS, laying off scores of employees and closing schools or turning them into privately-run charters. Pedroni found that the amount of the schools’ budget that has actually gone into the classroom has dropped under Roberts by 10 percent.
THAT’S what these vultures are applauding!
Apr 29, 2013
Michigan Governor Snyder has set up a secret work group that, if successful, will dismantle public education even more than it already is. The “Skunk Works” committee’s goal is to give public school money to corporations and private schools through a voucher-like system. This is illegal under current Michigan law, but THAT will not stop them.
Records obtained by the Detroit News show they want to create what they call a “value school.” This label is accurate in only the most cynical way. They want the “value” or dollars now going to educate children to be transferred to the bank accounts of corporations.
Their goal is to slash spending down to $5000 per student from the current amount of $7000 per student. To cut costs, they will get rid of teachers and plop students in front of computers for “long-distance video conferencing.” Class sizes will be huge!
Compare this to the education Governor Snyder chose for his own daughter. She attends Greenhills, a private school in Ann Arbor. There the student-to-teacher ratio is one to eight. Greenhills’ 2009 tax return shows they spend $24,000 per student–almost five times more than Snyder’s goal for working class children!
This education reform committee includes no students, parents, teachers, school administrators or scientists who study education–just people from the world of big business.
Perhaps next, corporations can reorganize brain surgery and exclude all doctors, nurses, patients, and brain researchers!
Snyder’s group called itself a “skunk works.” It’s a perfect name–because their plan stinks beyond belief!
Apr 29, 2013
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia physician, is on trial for murder for performing illegal late-term abortions. He is also on trial for the death of a woman who died after he performed an abortion on her.
Anti-abortion politicians and religious fundamentalists have been using this case in their campaign. But the Gosnell case shows something very different.
By all accounts, Dr. Gosnell’s clinic had a reputation for substandard care for many years. It was well known that the clinic was unsanitary and unsafe. But since Gosnell charged much less for an abortion than other clinics in the area, his service was what many poor women could afford. Gosnell also charged less for women who needed a more expensive, second-trimester procedure. Often these women couldn’t get an abortion earlier because they had a hard time coming up with the money. If it took even longer for them to find the money, Gosnell allegedly performed abortions on women who were beyond the legal time limit.
Gosnell is now on trial for murder in the case of 41-year-old Bhutanese refugee, Karnmaya Mongar. This case is a tragic illustration of what lack of money and delay can mean. Starting when she was about 15 weeks pregnant, Mongar had gone to several clinics near her Virginia home. The prices for an abortion were too high for her to afford, so she was turned down at these clinics. After another month of searching, when Mongar was in her 19th week, she arrived at Gosnell’s clinic. He agreed to perform the abortion for less money. But the day after the abortion, Monger suffered a Demerol overdose and died.
The key reason Kermit Gosnell and others like him have any patients is because the U.S. government has banned federal Medicaid payment for abortions. This ban, called the Hyde Amendment, was first enacted in 1976, and has been renewed every single year since 1976, by Democrats and Republicans alike.
As a cover for this ban, the politicians claim that they are pro-life or other nonsense. This ban pushes poor women to risk their lives seeking back alley abortions, from people like Gosnell.
Apr 29, 2013
The so-called recovery in the U.S. has been great for bankers, Wall Street executive bonuses, equity fund capitalists and so forth. But statistics tell a different story for the rest of us.
Current figures show poverty has increased in New York City: In 2011, 46 percent of the city’s population was either poor or struggling to get by.
In the home of Wall Street and the mega-rich, in the city that is supposed to be the citadel of capitalism, almost half the population is struggling!
And this is the best example that capitalism has to offer.
Apr 29, 2013
An astonishing arbitrator’s decision has awarded $720,000 to an ex-CEO of Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport.
The winner, Turkia Mullin, was at the center of a 2011 scandal exposing several layers of corruption in the old-boys-network that uses Wayne County and its associated large airport as their own personal piggy banks. Mullin was hastily fired by the airport board in an attempt to limit the public exposure and damage.
Using a technicality in the law, Mullin sued for unjust discharge. The arbitrator ruled that the county board hadn’t used the proper procedure or the proper excuse when they fired her. So Mullin was awarded all the money she would have earned during her entire contract.
But, there’s more.
Mullin moved into the airport job from a top job at Wayne County and took with her a $200,000 “severance payment.” That payment ignited the 2011 scandal. It was revealed that the Wayne County Executive, Robert Ficano, the “old boy” who engineered Mullin’s original contract and gold parachute, had manipulated the Wayne County workers’ retirement fund.
Ficano had ruled that executives and other personal friends and appointees could enroll in the workers’ retirement fund. The executive contracts allowed them to retire in 20 years or even earlier, and draw huge benefits of more than $100,000 per year.
This would drain the fund before the regular workers could get in their 30 years and draw their modest retirements! So the accountants declared the fund “underfunded!”
In a brazen twist of logic and ethics, Ficano used the Mullin scandal to declare that the county budget needed to be reformed. He would “balance the budget,” as he said in a speech on March 5, by “reducing our workforce by 35%, more than 2000 positions ... implementing salary reductions and furlough days ... healthcare cost-sharing and retirement incentives.”
In short, the executives conspired to enrich themselves by first stealing the workers’ money, then using the deficit they created as an excuse to cut the workers’ jobs, pay and benefits! And, incidentally, twisting the law to make sure that even scandalous CEOs keep their ill-gotten gains.
The public workers are being robbed by the public parasites.
Apr 29, 2013
For the past few weeks, half the 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. base in Cuba, have been on a hunger strike to protest their disgusting conditions of detention. Some of these prisoners have been imprisoned–without charges–for more than 11 years.
U.S. soldiers moved to violently suppress the hunger strike on April 13. The participants in this struggle resisted with what little means they had: broomsticks and water bottles. The soldiers fired rubber bullets, wounding one of the prisoners. But this attempt to regain control failed. U.S. authorities admitted the hunger strike was continuing on April 21.
The U.S. military took these Muslim men and boys to prison during its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guantanamo prison, first opened in 2002, has housed 779 detainees from 48 different countries, accused in the media of being radical jihadists. The Bush administration invented a category for these prisoners–“unlawful enemy combatants.” They were deprived of their liberty, but with no charges and no legal recourse for an indefinite–and seemingly endless–amount of time. Even lawyer visits are restricted. In eleven years, only nine inmates have been put on trial.
Six hundred of these prisoners have been sent back to their country of origin, without convictions. Of the remaining 166, only a handful is considered to be of “important value” to U.S. authorities, and they are held in a high security area. The majority of those remaining, the other 130 prisoners, are not considered a threat to the security of the United States. And the majority–89 of them–would have been immediately released if Congress had not decided to mix into the Guantanamo affair by refusing to authorize the funds needed to send these prisoners to their home country, or to U.S. territory for trial. No wonder some despairing prisoners began this hunger strike.
The hunger strike started in an area where prisoners are allowed to live in open cells and to mingle together. These inmates feel abandoned by the world, and decided to go on hunger strike in response to continual harassment by the guards, especially incessant searches.
U.S. authorities will not resolve the impasse they have created by repression, nor by force-feeding 16 of the 84 hunger strikers–a form of torture.
In fact, it was possible to put an end to this arbitrary situation four years ago if President Barack Obama had kept his campaign promise to close this vile prison. But he went back on his promise–shamelessly continuing indefinite detention without trial. And the United States pretends to give lessons in democracy to the entire world, by using bombs and drone attacks.
It is the U.S., first and foremost, that violates all historic legal agreements, thereby resurrecting an ignominious past in which the ruler’s opponents, real or imaginary, are left in dungeons to rot forever.
Apr 29, 2013
Guadeloupe is an island of 400,000 people in the Caribbean and an overseas French department. A report from there appeared in the April 26th issue of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group active in France.
On April 17th, a court issued its verdict concerning two militants of Combat Ouvrier (Workers’ Fight) and leaders of the high school paper Rebelle (Rebel): Raphaël Cécé got a five-month suspended sentence and Sony Laguerre an eight-month one. The judges ordered them to post $10,000 bail and pay various amounts to concerned parties, that is, the police. Thirty young people in the court room greeted the verdict with protest shouts. Then they held a protest meeting in front of the court with high school and college students from Rebelle, militants of Combat Ouvrier, the General Confederation of Labor of Guadeloupe, the teachers union and the students’ parents.
The police brought charges against Sony Laguerre and Raphaël Cécé after Rebelle’s peaceful rally last May 18th of youth in front of the Pointe-à-Pitre-Abymes police station. Forty high school and college students came to support one of their comrades summoned to the police station. The police charged three times without warning and rushed at the youth seated with their banner on the station’s steps. In their haste, the police got in each other’s way. Two of them were hurt and fell. That was the reason Sony Laguerre was charged. Raphaël was charged with a death threat against the cops for saying: “If two rebels remain on the ground, there will also be two cops on the ground,” a statement he never made.
The true reason for this harassment against the Rebelle youth is that for several years now, school authorities, principals, and the local government have been doing everything possible to silence this little high school paper that mocks authority. It denounces the administration’s abuse against students, the poor condition of the schools, cafeteria food and many other problems. Further, it denounces capitalist society. Rebelle youth are regularly summoned to the principal’s office, even to the police station to remind them of the law. But the harassment they suffer only increases the sympathy of high school and college students for them. At each hearing, about forty youth have marched together to the court, the Rebelle banner raised high, and shouted protest slogans. They received many expressions of sympathy from the population, including some of their parents.
On April 19th, Rebelle together with Combat Ouvrier held a press conference in Pointe-à-Pitre to denounce the disgusting verdict. The two young men have appealed, and invited their comrades and the organizations supporting them to prepare stronger demonstrations in the months ahead.
Apr 29, 2013
On Wednesday, April 24, Rana Plaza, an eight-story retail and factory building, collapsed in a suburb of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. More than 3,000 people–mostly women employed by five clothing companies–were at work in the building. More than 1,000 of them were injured and more than 350 are known to have died, with many more bodies and survivors still being dug out of the rubble.
On the day before the collapse, workers had noticed big cracks in parts of the building and police say they ordered its evacuation. But the clothing company bosses told their workers there was nothing to worry about and ordered them to continue working–under threat of being disciplined.
This tragedy is the worst industrial calamity in the history of Bangladesh. But there have been many other bad ones. In 2005, another garment factory in the same suburb as Rana Plaza collapsed, killing 75 workers. In 2006, a factory in Dhaka collapsed, killing 18 people. In 2010, another factory building in Dhaka collapsed, killing 25. Just five months ago, a fire in a garment factory killed 112 workers and injured many others. Fire escape doors in the factory had been locked closed by management.
More than 80% of all Bangladesh exports are clothing, making the country the second-largest exporter of garments in the world. It has more than 5,000 clothing factories employing more than 3.2 million workers. Big brand name clothing companies and retailers contract with Bangladesh manufacturers to take advantage of the cheap labor available. The minimum wage is just $37 per month! Europe gets 60% of Bangladesh clothing exports, the U.S. gets 23%. Walmart and J.C. Penney (U.S.), Carrefour (France), Benetton (Italy) and Primark (U.K.) are just a few of the bigger clothing and retail companies that have garments made there. These big companies are the ones most responsible for the horrible working conditions and super low wages imposed on Bangladesh workers. Despite their indignant denials, these major western companies have blood on their hands.
On the days following the collapse of Rana Plaza, some politicians and government officials spoke out as if they wanted to do something about the horrible conditions faced by Bangladesh workers. One government spokesman even said it looked like “murder” to him. But about 10 percent of the Bangladesh Parliament or members of their families are garment factory owners. The government has never enforced building regulations or health and safety standards. And it has suppressed workers’ attempts to unionize.
Fed up with these conditions, the anger of Bangladesh garment workers and others exploded following the collapse. Hundreds of thousands of workers struck and took to the streets in both the Dhaka area and in the city of Chittagong. They demanded the arrest and execution of the Rana Plaza landlord and factory owners and the improvement of workers’ health and safety conditions across the country. They marched, blocked streets, smashed and burned cars, and set several factories on fire. They confronted the police, with hundreds being injured.
Regardless of the complaining of company and government officials both in Bangladesh and in other countries, the Bangladesh workers are right to rebel. Because this is the only way they have the chance to actually force some changes for the better in their situation.
Apr 29, 2013
We feel horror that someone could decide to set off bombs targeting civilians doing nothing more than going on about their own business–in the case of Boston, at a marathon. No matter what justification the perpetrators imagined, what happened in Boston is appalling. Just as it was appalling when a young man took a gun and decided to kill all those children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
There can be no justification for such violence. It is simply heinous.
It was equally heinous when armed gangs targeted people last week in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Hilla, Falluja, Nasirya and Tikrit in Iraq, killing at least 37 people–just as it was when armed gangs targeted people in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, killing five civilians. All of them were trying to go on about their own daily business.
There can be no justification for such terrorist violence. It is deeply criminal. What was in the minds of these terrorists? What was in the minds of the Boston Marathon bombers? Was it anything more than what was in the mind of the Sandy Hook assassin–that is, the desire to kill people? Who can know?
Police authorities tell us, and the media repeat it, that the two Boston bombers had become radical Islamists, that is, Muslim fundamentalists.
Certainly, this country has seen its share of religious fundamentalists who use terror as a weapon for advancing their cause. But in this country, most of those terrorists have been Christian fundamentalists, extreme right-wing zealots–starting with Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people, including 19 children, injuring 800 others. Or Eric Rudolph, the extreme right-wing Christian fundamentalist, who killed one person and injured 111 others by setting off a pipe-bomb at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Rudolph also set off bombs at three women’s clinics and a gay night club, killing one, severely maiming 12 more in these attacks. Then there was Scott Roeder, another right-wing Christian fundamentalist, who killed Dr. George Tiller, a doctor at a woman’s clinic in Wichita, Kansas in 2007.
Between 1977 and 2011, Christian fundamentalist killers have assassinated eight people, tried to kill 17 more, set off 41 bombs, carried out 175 arson attacks, threw acid on 100 people, sent 663 packages with anthrax or other toxins–all of these barbarous actions carried out against people working in women’s clinics by zealots aimed at preventing women from having access to abortion or birth control. This is terrorism in the pure sense of the term–violence whose purpose was to terrorize people, to prevent them from doing something. And this wave of terrorist violence has had a deadly effect, resulting in a third of the women living in counties without an abortion provider.
And let’s not forget the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, those terrorists who wreaked violence throughout the old South and many other parts of this country to keep black people “in their place.” Those Christian Knights have their own descendants today–like the white supremacist in Ohio who recently circulated a “hit list” of Jewish and black community leaders in the Detroit area.
No, Muslim fundamentalists have no corner on violence and terror in this country. So we have to ask why the authorities and the media ignore those forces who have and continue to carry out many more violent attacks against the population. What is their agenda in this gross oversight? It is hardly an accident.
This focus on terrorism by Muslims is used as an excuse to justify the state terrorism that the U.S. carries out against the peoples of entire countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. The U.S., using drones, has wiped out wedding parties in Afghanistan, or parts of a small village in Pakistan. In Pakistan, U.S. drones have killed at least 880 civilians, including 176 children. Not counting the hundreds of thousands killed by “regular” bombing.
Terrorism is terrorism–but it is made infinitely worse when it is carried out by the most powerful military force in the world, using the most technically advanced weapons of mass destruction.
Apr 29, 2013
More than 100 people were given a 30-day notice to vacate their apartments near downtown Detroit. Three apartment buildings, perfectly serviceable buildings, house many people who have lived there a good part of their lives. Overnight, they were told, get out! Too bad, if their lives are turned upside down!
A “mysterious” company bought the three buildings. The same “mysterious” company has secretly been buying buildings in the area for several years–pushing people out, leaving buildings to rot, pushing the city to tear buildings down.
No real secret–there’s been talk for months about this area. The Ilitch family wants a big block of land for a new hockey arena.
This is the same Ilitch family which extorted 57 million dollars from the city for their old hockey arena in 1977, threatening to move the team to the suburbs. It’s the same Ilitch family that got the city to pay 189 million dollars in 2000 for their new baseball stadium. That same Ilitch family is actually in default on payments it owes to the city on its old hockey arena.
No matter. “Progress” must go on. That’s what the wealthy, sucking life out of this working-class city, call it: “progress.”
We call it devastation!
Apr 29, 2013
Last March, federal judge Naomi Buchwald in the Southern District of New York dismissed a major suit against some of the biggest banks in the world, including Barclays, UBS, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Scotland. This suit had been brought by towns and cities, like Baltimore, and pension funds, like the New Britain, Connecticut, Firefighters’ and Police Benefit fund. The suit charged that by manipulating a key interest rate, called LIBOR, the banks had stolen billions of dollars from taxpayers and pension funds.
In strictly legal terms, this suit should have been a slam dunk, especially since the banks had already admitted to manipulating this interest rate and had even paid some fines to the U.S. and British governments. But the banks hired some politically-connected superstar law firms to represent them, and the judge was more than happy to comply.
The judge used a tiny technicality as the excuse to throw the entire suit out, sparing the banks the embarrassment of even having to go to trial. The judge sent a message to the banks: You ripped people off? That’s okay!
The banks aren’t just above the law ... they are the law.
Apr 29, 2013
The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are gigantic–they handled one third of all goods that entered the U.S. in 2011. That, of course, means billions of dollars in profit for big corporations involved in the trade and transportation of those goods.
But the twin ports, and the corporations that profit off them, are also gigantic air polluters. Diesel-burning ships, trains and trucks put tons of fine particles and harmful chemicals into the air every day. For residents of the area, the result is asthma, heart disease and cancer–to the degree that physicians have dubbed the twin-port area the “Diesel Death Zone.”
After years of outcry from residents, port officials announced a “Clean Air Action Plan” in 2006. But seven years later, they have not much to brag about. Trucking companies, for example, have found loopholes to skirt the ports’ “Clean Trucks Program,” which was supposed to phase out old trucks. After picking up containers at the port with new trucks, the companies transfer the containers to older, dirtier trucks to transport them inland.
In fact, trucks cause only about one fifth of the air pollution at the port. The bigger culprits–the ships and trains–continue to spew tons of pollution into the air every day, unhindered. So-called “supertankers,” for example, are free to “dirty dock”–that is, continue to run their engines while they are docked–instead of plugging in to electricity as other tankers do. And rail companies are planning a new big rail yard in the port area for their diesel trains–which of course will make pollution even worse.
In the meantime, millions of people who live near the ports continue to be poisoned every day of their lives. Hundreds of thousands of children grow up suffering from asthma–and also develop heart disease and cancer, which kill them prematurely in adulthood.
These are all workers, forced to live near the ports because they can’t afford to move elsewhere. They are the very people who work all their lives to produce the profits for the big corporations–and are killed by them, literally, in L.A.’s Diesel Death Zone.
Apr 29, 2013
Alex Wassell, a welder repairman fired by Chrysler after he protested the 10-hour day, has got his job back.
Wassell and others at the Warren, Michigan stamping and assembly plant complex spoke out against the Alternative Work Schedule (AWS) at Chrysler. Wassell was fired on March 1, after a protest outside the stamping plant.
The workers don’t want to be forced back to work weeks straight out of the 19th Century: ten hours a day and weekend work without overtime pay; one crew out of three made to rotate two day shifts and two night shifts; only one crew out of three able to have a normal weekend and family life.
Inhuman work schedules are one more sign of the times, the relentless war on workers waged by corporations intent on reducing labor costs to the absolute lowest cent.
A more hopeful sign of the times is when some workers push back and refuse to take it lying down. Wassell’s discharge was a message sent by Chrysler to try to terrorize workers into submission. Wassell’s reinstatement on April 19 was a message sent by all those workers who let the company know, and let the union know, that they were paying close attention on his behalf.
The companies have no limit on how far they will push workers – no limit, except the limits that will be set by workers themselves.
Apr 29, 2013
On April 18, the Chicago area was hit by extremely heavy floods made worse by the aging water control system. Running water blocked roads and highways. Manholes spewed sewage mixed with rainwater, three cars fell into a sinkhole when a 98-year-old underground pipe broke, and thousands of people lost power. Storm water mixed with sewage was released into Lake Michigan–where the city gets its drinking water. Not to mention all the flooded basements and other damage to buildings. More than five inches of rain fell in some areas in one day, which the inadequate water and sewer system couldn’t handle.
Back in the 1970s, engineers came up with a solution to the problem of flooding in Chicago called the Deep Tunnel. This tunnel system would divert up to 17.5 billion gallons of storm water into massive reservoirs, keeping the sewage system from backing up onto the streets and into basements. Construction began in 1975–but it’s not due to be finished until 2029–just in time to need repairs all over again! Those parts of the tunnel that are finished can only handle 2.3 billion gallons of water and were overwhelmed by the storm. That is great for construction companies but lousy for the population that depends on these tunnels.
It would be easy to hire some of the thousands of unemployed construction workers in the area and finish the Deep Tunnel quickly, supplementing it with other water control methods, along with modernizing the rest of the region’s aging water and sewer system. But that would mean making the needs of the population a priority–hardly this capitalist system’s priority!
Apr 29, 2013
On Wednesday, April 17, a fire broke out at the West Fertilizer Company in West, Texas, a working class farming town of close to 3,000 people. The explosion that erupted was so strong, it registered as an earthquake and was heard and felt for miles around. It destroyed or heavily damaged an apartment complex, three nearby schools, and a nursing home where elderly residents were pulled out and sent to hospitals. It also destroyed houses within a radius of several blocks. The explosion left a crater 93 feet wide and 10 feet deep.
Within hours, 14 people were killed, mostly firefighters and other first responders and two residents living nearby. The toll of people injured has reached 200.
The exact cause is still not certain. However, considering that the plant stores and distributes large amounts of two potentially explosive chemicals—ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia—and considering the abysmal record of West Fertilizer on health and safety issues, it is not shocking this happened.
Here is a partial list of safety violations:
And West Fertilizer is not the only company in town with a poor safety record!
Even after this horrendous explosion, federal, state and local authorities and Governor Rick Perry take a casual attitude toward inspections and regulations.
Isn’t it criminal to put business and profit first, at whatever the cost? This time they practically destroyed an entire town, killing 14 people and injuring 200 others. And that’s not criminal?!
No, in this profit-focused society, the criminal IS “par for the course.”
Apr 29, 2013
Ammonium nitrate is a well-known raw material of nitrate-based explosives. It can violently decompose when heated at temperatures as low as 410 degrees Fahrenheit. If ammonium nitrate contains impurities, it can decompose at lower temperatures.
The West Fertilizer Company, which owned the plant, did not seem to acknowledge the facts and warnings about the dangers. The company stated in the emergency response plan filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2011 that there was NO risk of fire or explosion at the facility. Their worst case scenario was the possible release of a small amount of ammonia gas into the atmosphere.
The company stored around 270 tons of ammonium nitrate in the plant in 2012, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. This was a huge amount for an explosive chemical. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh used about two tons of ammonium nitrate to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
At the same time, ammonium nitrate is a very useful synthetic fertilizer. It can provide very high levels of nitrogen to soil and is also a rather inexpensive chemical. So, farmers use it very widely as a synthetic fertilizer all over the world. And we are all dependent on what farmers produce.
But when such a useful fertilizer is handled in a profit-maximizing system, the results can be–explosive.