We have been warning for some time of the rise of fascism. In the past few years, this process of capitalist decay has been accelerating. Every aspect of life for the working class has deteriorated. Wage cuts, union busting, and strike breaking have become commonplace. Mass racist unemployment and homelessness have become permanent markers on the capitalist landscape. Factories, mills, and mines close, only to be replaced by prisons, prisons, and more prisons. Even the schools have become prisons. Every social program is being gutted, the cities are saturated with drugs, and KKKlinton is putting another 100,000 Fuhrman-style cops on the streets.
How is it that the tiny ruling class can get away with murder, against the vast majority of the people? While they have numerous weapons in their arsenal, one of the main ones is an ideology they spread like a deadly virus -- passivity.
The U.S. ruling class is the most murderous band of cutthroats ever. They have killed, and are killing, untold millions, just to maintain cheap wages and open markets. Mass murder is all part of doing business for the Fords and Rockefellers. Yet they never tire of telling us the virtues of turning the other cheek, or working within the system. Or you can't fight city hall. Or if you fight back, you'll get into more trouble. There are a million variations on the theme.
One of the main aspects of the recent "Million Man March" on Washington, DC, was the tremendous display of passivity. In face of the sharpest, most racist attacks on U.S. workers in 50 years, the Farrakhan, Jackson, Rangel leadership held a nationalist and religious revival and love-in. It was the anti-racist anger of millions that brought hundreds of thousands to the march. However, for the day, they were diverted from resistance and hate for the bosses. Vote, pray, visit your kid's teacher, hug your neighbor -- do anything, in fact everything, but fight back! Now Farrakhan is working overtime to transform this mass hatred for racist police terror into a voter registration drive, and the establishment of a new black-owned bank, run by him, of course. Passivity in the face of fascist terror is a sure loser. It only invites and encourages more fascist horror. Voting for another rotten politician won't stop the cops from gunning down even one more black or latin worker or youth.
Mis-leaders like Farrakhan & Co. conceal capitalism's class nature. They cloud the fact that at the very bottom of the system's anti-worker, anti-black, anti-woman, anti-youth attacks are bosses that rule as a class. The contradiction between these rulers and the working class cannot be settled peacefully or passively. The mis-leaders' diversions will fail. Their schemes and scams may take in a few, but they cannot solve the masses' problems of racism, police terror and unemployment. These contradictions demand struggle.
But our Party is rebuilding a new communist movement, standing on the shoulders of those giants that came before us. We have learned from their mistakes, and from their tremendous strengths. One of our main tasks is to defeat passivity in our own ranks, and within the working class.
You can't learn a language without speaking it, and you can't learn to dance without dancing. Passivity will be defeated as we respond to each and every racist police murder, and by building a mass movement for jobs. It will be defeated as we turn every union, school, church, and mass organization, into a cauldron of struggle, moving greater numbers of workers and youth into action against the class enemy. This will create the conditions for winning millions to see the need to smash the class dictatorship of the bosses, to see the need for armed, communist revolution.
The Weaver family was part of an armed right-wing movement opposing the federal government and refusing to pay federal taxes. This "militia movement" has inspired terrorist attacks such as the Oklahoma City bombing. It is racist to the core. Members even claim that the federal government is part of a "Jewish conspiracy" against "white people."
The militia movement is probably more dangerous to the working class than better-known racist groups such as the Klan and the Nazis. It wraps itself in the U.S. flag. It issues populist calls to "get the government off our backs." It circulates its fascist message through the Internet.
The militia movement has a strong presence at many gun shows sponsored by the National Rifle Association in major metropolitan areas such as St. Louis and Baltimore. It is tied to the more respectable Christian right. Several members of Congress are open militia supporters. These include Stockman of Texas and Chenowith of Idaho.
So why is the U.S. government handing over $3 million to armed terrorists who call for its destruction? When did they ever give $3 million to a black or latin person whose relatives were killed by the FBI or Migra?
Some might point the finger at the Republicans. They would note the growing influence of the Christian right within the Republican Party, especially during the current presidential primary contest. And it's true that Republicans have held up President Clinton's fascist "anti-terrorism" bill because of fears that it could be used against their militia friends.
But "free-market competition" between Democrats and Republicans is only part of the story. U.S. capitalists need to forge unity as a class in order to rule effectively over the working class and to compete internationally. They need to come to some agreement on important policy matters. They need to make sure their officials carry out this policy.
The recent Senate hearings on Ruby Ridge revealed that the main factions of the U.S. ruling class are now united around a policy concerning the militias.
Every senator who spoke out at the hearings, regardless of party, pressed FBI director Louis Freeh to be sharply self-critical about the attack on the Weavers. They insisted that he was wrong to promote his long-time friend Potts right after reprimanding him for Ruby Ridge. (Potts, the fall-guy in the affair, now faces criminal charges.) They forced Freeh to declare that FBI agents at Ruby Ridge had acted not only mistakenly but "unconstitutionally."
The message came through, loud and clear, that the U.S. ruling class has agreed to keep the militias around. These militias will be their death squads. They will be the brown-shirts, the shock troops of fascism. Many police officers, even the most racist, are little more than mercenary thugs. In contrast, members of the militia are ideologically committed to racism and capitalism. They bad-mouth the government. Still, they are more trustworthy tools of the capitalists than youth forced by poverty and unemployment into the official military.
Politicians will still have tactical differences. Which groups should they promote, and which should they infiltrate? How can they harness the militias, and when should they let them loose? But fascism is the overall policy of the US ruling class. It has to be. Capitalism cannot meet the workers' needs and is rapidly losing its ability to fool us into thinking it can.
Workers, too, must see the need to unite ourselves as a class. We, too, need a unified policy for our class--anti-racist struggle leading to communist revolution. We need to carry out that policy collectively--through the Progressive Labor Party. And we will need our own armed force of workers, especially working class youth, to bring our class to power.
Boeing Strikers Lead the Way!" was one of the messages chanted by over 100 workers from 21 locals in 14 international unions across North America as they picketed the opening of the AFL-CIO convention here today. The multi-racial group of men and women came from Los Angeles, a Ford plant in Mexico, from Chicago, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York. The demonstration was endorsed by Local 371 of AFSCME, caucuses from the DC Metro bus drivers and Chicago Teamsters as well as the Solidarity Organizing Committee, which took the lead in organizing the action. The union hacks inside were preparing to engage in the titanic (or is it the "Titanic"?) "struggle" of deciding which sellout should continue to lead the AFL-CIO. Will it be Donahue, the outgoing Kirkland's hand-picked candidate, or Sweeney, head of the SEIU and representing the "rebels?" However, all were in agreement that the rank-and-file not be allowed to have a voice, much less to present our demands. The rank-and-filers marching militantly outside exposed Sweeney as just a slightly slicker sellout than his predecessor. His big claim to fame is his union's organizing the unorganized -- 40,000 in ten years, or 4,000 a year--a drop in the bucket for a million-plus member union. His main role appears to be suppressing the militant workers like those among the newly-organized janitors in Los Angeles. When they and other forces elected a mildly opposition-type slate to lead a 24,000-member LA local, Sweeney immediately voided the election and put the local into trusteeship. So much for "rebels for union democracy." In addition to putting forward demands for "6 for 8" and organizing the 150,000 unorganized LA workers in garment sweatshops, the rank-and-file group also advocated smashing scabs and the laws, courts and judges that protect them. They called for solidarity with the 32,000 Boeing strikers who are fighting not just the Boeing bosses but the main section of the ruling class. This fact was highlighted by the group's marching from the Convention site to the nearest office of Citicorp, since three Directors of Boeing are also on the Board of Directors of Citibank. Many workers said they were inspired by the "rolling thunder" sounded by those Boeing strikers as they hammered on their work sites in unison to the chant of "Strike! Strike! Strike!" Members of PLP who are in some of the demonstrating unions participated in the demonstration and sold 52 copies of Challenge-Desafio.
Now the company has sent each striker a letter pushing their "final" offer. Printed with a touch of extravagance, it symbolized the gap between the wealth of the few (the capitalists) and the vulnerability of thousands upon thousands of us (the workers). Despite nearly an average of 12 years of seniority, most strikers will feel the absence of their first missed pay check. Almost all will feel it when our medical benefits stop at the end of the month. Such is "freedom" under capitalist wage slavery.
The IAM International acts as if workers and bosses are equals, even partners! For them, workers aren't restrained by capitalists. In fact, to the IAM bosses, classes -- like bosses and workers -- don't exist.
This is a long thought-out strategy of the International to reinvent itself as management. "We are for technology that...creates high-performance work organizations." said International IAM President Kourpias in 1992. "We used to call that the American way of doing things." He claims these high-performance work organizations will "save and create jobs." (Actually, these teamwork schemes are designed to combine and eliminate jobs, while pitting worker against worker.)
That's the very reason bosses install new technology -- to get fewer workers to produce more and create more profits for Boeing. If new technology was used to shorten the work-week with no loss in pay -- in other words, to benefit workers -- the bosses would never introduce it in the first place.
Under communism, without bosses and profits, technology would enable workers to produce enough for everyone and shorten workers' hours as well. The IAM international representatives are bragging about Kourpias' meetings with U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who is supposed to "speed" action on the union's request to declare the company is not bargaining in good faith. Even if the National Labor Relations Board rules in the union's behalf, the decision will be locked up in appeals for months -- if not years. So this is "partnership" -- relying on the bosses' laws and the bosses' hand-picked Labor Secretary! With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Under capitalism, the state apparatus -- government boards, courts, Congress, the cops, jails, injunctions -- is all used to enforce the bosses' "right" to make maximum profits. Profit is the supreme law of the land.
Under communism, the workers control, and are the government. We make the laws. We will ban bosses, profits, exploitation, racism, unemployment and all the other ills of capitalism. Under communism, workers don't wait on bosses' boards to make decisions. Workers make all the decisions that govern our lives.
If we can't organize a sit-down strike inside, let's organize all Boeing workers and tens of thousands of Seattle workers to surround the Boeing plants. We need to break the injunction in Witchita, Kan., where 30% of the workforce is scabbing. We need a general strike like the one in Seattle in 1919. Let's reach all workers with the concept of "an injury to one is an injury to all."
We are a group of workers in a beer company here in Colombia. We suffer the same problems that all workers all over the world are now facing. That is why we support your struggle. We must understand that this struggle for economic demands is a temporary one, meaning that many times we take longer getting our demands than the bosses take in taking them away from us. Workers must have a wider vision of our struggles. We have many enemies around us: the bosses' laws, scabs, sellout union leaders and the lack of class consciousness too many of us have. But in spite of all that, we must maintain high our desire to win. We must not fall for the bosses' lie that repeats day after day that it is not necessary to fight back, and that they can provide for us without any struggles on our part. This lie has us in chains. We must raise the flags of the Chicago Martyrs of 1886 (who gave their lives for the fight for a shorter work-week), the workers of the Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian, Chinese and all other workers in the past who fought for better lives for the working class. The only system that keeps us down and alienated is the one we are suffering under now. We must not believe anymore in the bosses' lies. We must organize ourselves to change the situation. We must make sure that there are no bosses left in the world to continue their wrong-doing against us. We must build a society led by workers, where we can produce for our real needs. We know that a victory for Boeing workers will serve as an example to workers all over the globe. We are with you.
Thousands of workers coming out of work, listened attentively to the speech. One that attracted the most attention was by a woman garment worker who said, "We should follow the example of the Boeing workers and strike to organize the thousands of garment workers in LA." In less than an hour all thousand leaflets we brought were distributed and 75 Challenge-Desafios were sold. The flag of workers' solidarity waved proudly this afternoon in LA.
The fare hike is not only a tax increase for all workers, it is a vicious racist attack against the poorest sections of the population -- black, latin workers and youth. It is a particularly vicious attack against youth who won't be able to get around the city. Along with the fare increase, Mayor Giuliani is increasing the use of cops to "fight quality of life crimes" (meaning arresting any youth trying to get in on the subways for free).
"One capitalist kills many to survive," said Marx over a century ago. He was describing the capitalist competition for markets. Marx was right. Today, the world auto industry is in deep crisis, with a projected growth of only 2.4% in the next 10 years. The only way for the bosses to survive is by increasing the exploitation of autoworkers.
Ford, like any true capitalist, tries to mask the nature of the crisis. It uses racism to blame the Indian rebellion in Chiapas for the deep crisis affecting capitalism in Mexico. The real cause is the crisis of overproduction -- Ford, VW, Nissan, GM,. etc., are producing many more cars than what the market can take. This leads to a sharper trade war, where Ford tries to take the market share of the competition and vice versa. Who are the victims of this war? It is workers like those of us at Ford who have already seen mass loss of jobs, wage cuts due to the peso crisis and speed-up for those still working. Eventually, the bosses' try to solve their trade war with a shooting war.
Communism is the opposite of capitalism. It is based on production for use, not for profit. Under communism workers decide how much is needed for their collective use. We plan, in a rational way, how our labor is allotted. The capitalist drive for maximum profits, leading to overproduction and constant crisis will never enter the picture. Only a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism can produce that result.
When workers at the "communication" meeting tried to turn it away from a monologue by the bosses, Ford in its usual arrogant way refused to even answer questions from the workers. When the workers began to whistle and jeer, the bosses told them to shut up.
At the meeting, attended by 650, a delegate made a motion for the UFT to support the striking Boeing workers. In order for the motion to be voted on it had to get a 2/3 vote. Feldman tried to stave off the question by talking to other union leaders on the stage, one of whom was head of the CLC, the central body for the 1.5 million unionists in NYC. She then asked the delegate to withdraw the motion. He was unwilling to, so a vote was called to see if we could discuss and vote on it. A vote by hands was called, and without counting, Feldman said the motion failed to pass.
While it was hard to tell if it got the 2/3 vote, it certainly got a majority . Some delegates were angry about the cavalier way in which Feldman had dealt with a question of striking workers, and shouted for a count. Feldman shouted that we don't act like that in our union. Then she suddenly seemed to realize the enormity of what a union leader had done and said, "We're a union. That's what we do. We support strikers." Apparently it has to be a strike Feldman has personally examined for purity.
About 500 leaflets calling for the support of the strike were given out before the meeting and some teachers are raising this issue at their schools. Just moments after throwing 35,000 striking Boeing workers into oblivion, Feldman welcomed Brian McLaughlin, the new head of the CLC who said what a wonderful democratic leader Feldman was. Later Feldman gushed, "Oh, so are you." It's hard to beat that kind of love. Meanwhile workers are beginning to see that the task ahead is to reach out to the millions of workers who understand the need for strikes.
A Philly comrade
At a teacher inservice course on Problems of Literacy, I was assigned to a workshop on teen pregnancy. I thought maybe we'd talk about how to help students juggle the responsibilities of parenting with their plans to finish their education. No way! This is 1995 and the rulers need teachers won to racist propaganda. A "licensed educational psychologist" who had done her doctoral dissertation on teen pregnancy, and was, supposedly an expert, subjected us to a barrage of fascist ideology which shows, as Challenge-Desafio stated two weeks ago, that black fascist elitists with their doctrines of "cultural inferiority" can be just as vicious as genetic theorists like Charles Murray. She trotted out a book by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing titled The Isis Papers, which claims to prove that the black family suffers from dependency deprivation, resulting in "welfarism", and "jailism." She said that the culture of black workers (and by extension all working people) is inferior, that women are on welfare because they are psychologically unable to be self-sufficient. She said that black men are in jail because they want to be taken care of, and that jail is a replacement for their mother! There were only four teachers in the workshop, including an apologist for the growth of fascist attacks on the working class, especially the growth of prisons and the attacks on welfare. I said the problem was that the system was incapable of providing decent jobs for most people, and that black workers have been disproportionately affected by this attack. I had just read the Letter in Challenge-Desafio (10/11) about Dinesh D'Souza's latest tract, and told the apologist that she was as racist as D'Souza and Moynihan with their arguments of black cultural inferiority. We have had a lot of good discussions about this topic all this week at Manual Arts H.S. Challenge-Desafio has been very useful in this discussion, especially with the article in the Oct. 18 issue about black men in prisons. I think that at this moment in history, when thousands of black men are marching in Washington against racism, and also, some feel, supposedly to "atone" for their behavior, it's up to us to put the blame squarely where it belongs, on the racist capitalist system and its apologists. Many school workers agree that the educational psychologist put the blame on black workers instead of the bosses. This justifies cutbacks and police terror. The rulers use these theorists to pave the way to concentration camps and more prisons. Fascism is a sick capitalist system going downhill fast. Many people are getting angrier at these attacks and looking for answers. They want to fight back. This is the time for PLP to broaden our work and sharpen our attack on racist, fascist ideology and the attacks these apologists justify! That's how we'll build a mass multi-racial communist movement to put an end to this system once and for all.
Red teacher
The Challenge-Desafio editorial (10/25) on the "Million Man March" was excellent! The editorial made many profound points. Perhaps, most important, was the self-critical remarks about our Party. Over the years, we have led a multitude of anti-racist activity. However, we can't rest on past or even present laurels. The recent anti-racist conference at Howard University in DC is yet another important anti-racist activity in which we were involved. But facts are facts, and we were generally passive in the face of the open admissions of massive police terror and corruption which were admitted to by Fuhrman. We failed to use these admissions to show the link between police terror and how the rulers hold state power. This passivity on our part carried over to the "Million Man March" in which we did next to nothing. The editorial makes a correct point by saying how the march was not basically an endorsement of "god's Latest Messenger," but was a clarion call that proved millions of black workers were ready to roll against racism. But the religious babble put forward at the march by Farrakhan and others threw a "balm" over the militancy and anger of black workers. Although there were almost a million people there, Farrakhan made no reform demands for jobs, better health care, or even an end to the budget cuts. The ruling class is working overtime to extol the passivity (orderliness) of those at the march. Black workers are being urged to be nice, and not militantly angry as they should be. (It is ironic that one week after the march, there have been major uprisings in federal prisons led by incarcerated black workers). The Challenge-Desafio editorial correctly points out the previous black rebellions that started in Harlem, NY in 1964. Some may recall how our Party was blamed by the F.B.I. (under J. Edgar Hoover) for being instrumental in that uprising. Surely, the ruling class dreads a repeat of these anti-racist rebellions. What they fear even more is that consistent, long term, militant anti-racist activity by us can enable the PLP to eventually fill the leadership void among black and white workers. The rulers tremble at the idea that black and white workers can unite under communist leadership for revolution. Sometimes, too many of us and others under-estimate the political potential that can actually triumph by consistent militancy within the mass movement, coupled with independent action by our Party. Louis Farrakhan threw more dirt in the eyes of the marchers. He urged that black workers emulate the Japanese and Chinese who have built strong capitalist states. These are states that are similar to the U.S. where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In other words, go home, open a candy store and don't rebel! We should urge all workers to emulate the militancy of the black rebellions of the sixties and seventies. Most importantly, we should try and win all workers to copy the heroic feats of the Russian and Chinese Revolutions.
NYC comrade
Here's a story illustrating the connection between sexism and racism. Recently, an Oberlin College housing co-operative announced a party by posting fliers stating "Tribal Sex at Harkness." The phrase "tribal sex," implying "other" people do it kinkier, weirder, more exotic, was accompanied by pornographic drawings and suggestive comments about Linda Lovelace, a woman who was kidnapped, raped, and forced to make porn movies. The makers of this poster thought this was "funny." Members of my dining co-operative (Third World Co-op, a "program" co-op) and myself made an impromptu visit to Harkness to express our anger. After initial defensiveness, we had a fairly good exchange and empowered some people there who had originally felt uncomfortable about the poster and had stayed quiet. Harkness held a meeting that night to address the issue and look towards educating themselves. Sadly, the incident was reported in the school paper as "Poster Angers TWC," not "Racist, Sexist Poster made by Harkness," thereby making protesters moral guardians at best and whiners at worst. The many forms of oppression are unique, but they don't stand alone.
A friend
Fidel Castro, as in the past, stole the show at the U.N. 50-year bash. Even though NYC Mayor Giuliani and President Clinton did not invite him to their activities, Fidel was welcomed in Harlem. He spoke in front of 1,300 people at the Abyssinian Church, the best known black church in the city. Even though Fidel took off his business suit and put on his guerrilla commander's uniform to go to Harlem, he is not the same Fidel who came to Harlem in 1960. In 1960, after Fidel and his delegation left a luxurious midtown hotel, because of a fight with the hotel's administration, they moved to the Theresa Hotel in Harlem. Founders of PLP who were still in the old Communist Party (CP) organized a mass rally in support of the Cuban revolution (in spite of the CP leadership's opposition to the rally). When Ben Davis, a famous black communist, spoke in support of the Cuban revolution, even participants in an anti-communist black nationalist rally across the street joined the rally. But today Fidel is very different from the one who came to Harlem in 1960, when workers all over the world were inspired by the Cuban workers taking over their factories, sugar mills and refineries and kicking out U.S. imperialists from the island. Fidel had dinner with David Rockefeller and 200 other capitalists (the real masters of the U.S.), willing to join the European, Canadian, Brazilian, Mexican and even Russian investors in capitalist enterprises in Cuba. Even though Giuliani did not invite him to his feasts, calling Fidel a demon, he more than welcomed mass murderers like Suharto and Mobutu. One cannot call himself revolutionary while at the same time trying to make deals with bankers like Rockefeller, the main cause of massive cutbacks and misery from Harlem to the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro.
A former Fidelista
Quite a few of my high school students were absent the day of the "Million Man March." A few days later I asked one guy (let's call him Joe) whether he had gone. He said yes, his brother had taken him on the plane. He liked being with so many other black men who were all so friendly and all seemed to have so much in common. I said that most black men were workers, and really they had a lot in common with all other workers. Joe thought that was true, too. I asked him whether he'd heard any of the speeches. He said that Farrakhan's speech was "partly good, partly bad." I said the numerology part seemed kind of crazy. Joe said that what he didn't like was the way he was "talking bad about other races." His brother's girlfriend is white, and he didn't like that part either. In fact, Joe said, his brother came away less impressed by Farrakhan than he had been before. I said I thought there was an interesting contradiction there. Probably a lot of men felt the way his brother did, but by being there they had helped to build up Farrakhan's image as a leader. Joe wanted to think more about that. I gave Joe a copy of Challenge-Desafio and asked him to let me know what he thought of it. A few days later, he said he had liked the paper. Everyone's political life starts someplace. The question is: where does it go?
Red teacher
On Oct. 24, I was just one of the millions of individuals who deal with the hypocrisy of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). What was special about this particular visit to the DMV was that while on line waiting to see one of the many racist judges at the DMV, I noticed a couple of people reading Challenge-Desafio. I spoke to them and pointed out how important it was for us to have this newspaper in our possession. I feel that we should have more copies, so that next time everyone on line would have one. We all felt pretty good about finding each other and decided to get together to discuss weekly articles. For me finding these Challenge-Desafio readers was cool. It lets me know that we will get to the point where we have readers in all hospitals, factories, unemployment offices, schools, and maybe even the subways, Get my point??
Truck drive in training
Last night as I was watching the evening news I was once again reminded of the hypocrisy that today's media uses to fool us. The Anchorwoman was discussing a meeting that President Clinton had with President Jiang Zemin of China. Aside from other issues of how both countries are trying to figure out better ways to exploit their workers, I was struck by the portrayal of China as a terrible abuser of human rights. Truthfully, I know the biggest abuser of human rights is the capitalist system, no matter the country. The news went on for about three minutes discussing how China uses execution as the punishment for seventy different crimes. And that after a public trial, prisoners who are found guilty are executed by a shot to the back of the head in a public ceremony. The news media was asking how Clinton could meet with the head a country that abuses the civil rights of its workers so blatantly. Plainly, the U.S. has the same attitudes towards its workers. Here in the U.S., did Grandell Pollard get a trial before the cop shot him four times in the back? Or what about Anthony Baez or Anthony Rosario, or Hilton Vega or countless other youth who have been fascistically shot in the back or strangled or beaten by cops in our neighborhoods even before they get into the racist judicial system? The truth that the media will never tell you is that the U.S., China, and all other capitalist countries will abuse the human rights of its workers in order to continue their state of exploitation.
A West Side, NYC, PLer
INS (Migra) agents came along with customs agents and agents of the office of Criminal Investigation. They came with guns drawn and blocked all the exits of the building. They only let those people leave who could show legal documents. Eighty undocumented men and women workers were arrested and deported.
The workers in this company made pants but they never knew the brand name of the pants. "We just make them," said a worker. This operation was carried out to stop the contractors from making clothes using famous labels like Guess and Levi's without permission.
Ten contractors were arrested in this raid. They paid fines and were set free. The workers were deported. The main attack was against the workers, not the contractors.
In the same month two other factories in LA that didn't pay minimum wages to the workers were raided. The contractors were fined. Many of the workers were deported. This is capitalist "reform". But garment workers can seize the opportunity presented by these attacks to organize fighting committees in the factories to demand decent pay and more jobs.
This year the Immigration Dept. has deported more than 5,000 undocumented workers. They have also strengthened their border patrols to reduce the number of undocumented workers who come into the country, supposedly from 800,000 to 350,000.
Some politicians are preparing laws like 187, to create a national ID card to stop undocumented workers from going to school, from getting medical care and other public benefits. This initiative would demand the verification of the documents of everyone who wants a driver's license or a Dept. of Motor Vehicle (DMV) ID card or a job. This law would affect all workers in the U.S.
Harold Ezell, racist ex-INS chief in California and the Vice President of "Americans Against Illegal Immigration", said that the U.S. people have had it with illegal immigration and that's why additional broader measures than Prop. 187 are needed.
The bosses' use undocumented workers as one of their scapegoats to divert us from fighting together for jobs and shorter hours. With the sharpening crisis of the capitalist system, they want to continue super-exploiting immigrant workers and black workers. They want citizens and legal residents to blame undocumented workers and not the bosses for the problems created by the capitalist system. That way they can exploit all workers more and create terror and fear in the streets.
The only workers actually called "illegals" are undocumented immigrants forced to come to the U.S. looking for work. But one third of young black men are in the "criminal justice" system. They are "illegal" as far as the bosses are concerned. Like immigrants, their main "crime" is looking for work.. The police and bosses treat the strikers from the Detroit News as "illegals" because they are trying to stop the scabs and are fighting for their jobs . The rulers are making more workers ":illegal." We need to fight to make the bosses illegal!
The bosses are taking giant steps toward fascism. There have been news reports in LA that the KKK and skinheads are attacking and have killed undocumented workers at the border. We need to take this racism head on! The bosses feed all workers a steady diet of racism. At the same time, cuts in health care and layoffs put workers' lives in danger regardless of legal status.
Capitalism doesn't work. It creates misery and death for workers. Only by destroying it will we smash all borders and the racism and division that borders and nationalism build. Under communism, there won't be borders or exploiting bosses. Workers will be able to live and work where we want. Under communism, any worker will be welcome in any part of the world because the more of us there are to do the work, the more we can produce to satisfy our needs and the less each one will have to work. Under communism, the fruits of our labor will be for our collective use and not to sell in the market to make a handful of rich bosses richer. Only under communism, where there won't be money, will we have complete equality.