The company called the union, who talked people into going back to work by promising a meeting with the boss. The workers demanded an additional 50cents an hour raise. The boss refused, and the strike was on. The workers added health insurance to their list of demands.
At one point, more than 200 workers, mostly women, occupied the plant. For 12 hours there was no production. For 12 hours workers discussed and debated whether the problem was this union or all unions, what difference does it make whether the contract is legal or not? and how to get other workers to support the strike.
The union said the strike was illegal, because the contract has a "no strike" clause. The police told the workers if they didn't leave the plant, they would be arrested. The boss told the workers that if they didn't return to work in the morning, they would be fired.
"What can we do?" "Let's call the press." "Let's call the workers at Juno" [another factory] "Let's ask Jesus for help." "Get your Church to come down here." "Let's call the communists, they helped us at the Juno strike." All these things were done during the 12 hours the workers sat in the plant. Jesus never showed up, but a Juno worker and the communist PLP did.
Each time the 33 year-old, Corvette-driving boss showed up, the workers jeered. Each time the cops came, the workers refused to leave.
The union boss asked him, "Who do you work for, the union or the members?"
"I work for the members."
"In that case, I accept your resignation."
"I'm not offering it."
"In that case you're fired," screamed the union hack. So a union organizer who refused to sell out, was fired by the union, but embraced by the workers.
The resolve of these workers is tremendous. After occupying the plant for 12 hours they left and returned to occupy it again the next morning. In the plant cafeteria a speaker from Progressive Labor Party told the more than 100 strikers that the fight for demands like 50cents an hour and health insurance are inspiring, but will go on forever until we replace this system that treats people like slaves with communist revolution and workers' equality. This speech received a rousing ovation. Under threat of mass arrest, the workers left the plant on the morning of the second day and spent another 12 hours in the rain and cold in front of the factory. On the third day the strikers returned to demonstrate at the plant.
This shop is a combination of two plants that were unionized last spring and summer. The company combined the plants during the contract negotiations. At JCG, workers work in the freezing cold processing room, debone four chicken breasts a minute, eight hours a day. If they can't complete four a minute, they're out. For this honor, the average wage is about $6.00 an hour with no health insurance.
During the union campaign, the company cut the workers' pay by taking away a bonus equal to about $120 per month. The new contract gave workers 45cents to 70cents an hour more, but never returned the bonus, and still no health insurance. So by "winning" the union, the workers were left in the same place as before, except now they pay $20 a month in union dues.
The union has its own interests apart from the workers. It's a business. The organizing campaigns cost UNITE about $50,000. They felt the pressure to start collecting dues. So after five months of negotiations, they pressured the workers into accepting a contract by calling for a yes vote, or else a strike the union hadn't prepared them for and had no intention of leading.
The workers at JCG got screwed by UNITE. As Mexican immigrant workers, they have been screwed by capitalists in Mexico, screwed by the boss here, and now screwed by the union they fought to bring in with the hopes of improving their lives. "You can only go up with the union," they were told during the organizing campaign; and now, five months after the union wins the election, UNITE shoves a contract down their throats.
Imagine going down a road: you don't know where it leads, but there's a great sense of hope. What you left behind looks so bad, you can't turn back. Along the way, the union yells, "You will lose." The boss yells, "You'll be fired." The cops yell, "You're under arrest." But for some reason people keep going.
It's a long way from holding the plant cafeteria for twelve hours to overthrowing the bosses. The cops still have guns, and the overwhelmingly Mexican immigrant workforce has few ties to the ten black workers in the shop, but our Party and our paper were embraced. The openness to communism was largely due to the freedom to think and act, that these workers exercised for those twelve hours. There are tens of millions more in "lousy jobs." Strikes like this give workers a chance to see life without the boss, the union, and the cops. This taste of power will tap the desire for communism, this hunger for a better life will fuel the fight for communist revolution.
The separation referendum was narrowly defeated. If it had won, the Quebec bosses would have quickly declared independence, a move which probably would have led to civil war. Quebec produces nearly a quarter of Canada's wealth, and the Ontario-based English bosses will never hand over complete control of such a huge chunk of capital, just because they lost an election.
On the other side, the Quebec bosses are not going to let a few tens of thousands of voters stop them from setting up their own state in which they keep all their profits to themselves, and not have to give a big cut to the godfathers in Ottawa. The election defeat will only delay their plans, and not by much.
Neither side has much choice in the matter -- the growing crisis of overproduction is forcing them to take bigger and bigger risks.
The Quebec and Ontario bosses were allies for a long period after WW II. During the postwar boom, both made lots of money under the umbrella of the Canadian state. Quebec was transformed from an undeveloped, raw material-producing economy to a world manufacturing power with an advanced high-tech sector. The flagship of the modernized Quebec economy is Hydro Quebec, the (Quebec) government owned power company which invested billions in the mammoth James Bay project.
The severe crisis of overproduction destroyed this cozy arrangement. Hydro Quebec lost a big contract with New York State and had to cancel the second stage of James Bay. The collapse in the market for power hit Ontario Hydro hard as well. It seems Canada's not big enough for both of them.
Not only are they now at each others throats, they have to watch their backs as well. The crisis has been disastrous for Canadian workers, especially in Ontario. Tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs have disappeared from Canada's industrial heartland. And recently the governments of Ontario and other provinces have begun to ruthlessly slash social programs. Ontario welfare checks were cut by 20%! When poverty advocates asked how people on welfare were going to avoid starving, the Ontario premier said they could "eat baloney sandwiches" and "get a job."
Sooner or later, a massive attack like this will produce massive resistance. In fact, the day the Ontario legislature passed the welfare cuts, several thousand demonstrators tried to storm the building.
So both groups are reaching for what one politician called "a magic wand": nationalism! The Quebec bosses want to use Quebec workers as battering rams (and eventually, cannon fodder) against their Ontario godfathers. They are also using racism, blaming immigrant workers from Central America, the Caribbean and southern Europe for the referendum loss. The Ontario bosses will try to mobilize workers outside Quebec in the attempt to "crush" their rebellious junior partners.
The answer is class unity, under our flag, not the fleur-de-lys, not the maple leaf, but the red flag of revolution. Never has it been clearer that workers of all nationalities and ethnic groups must unite to wipe out the bosses, whether French or English. Either we wipe them out, or they'll have us wiping out each other.
"All I know is, there are bosses and workers. You're either on one side or the other."
(Red Army Soldier defending the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution)
The election of John Sweeney as president of the AFL-CIO, is being hailed as a "new voice for American labor." He has the image of a militant labor leader, intent on "shaking up the bureaucracy." No matter how militant Sweeney may become, he cannot reverse the bosses' economic crisis. Militant reform cannot turn around the falling rate of profit and overproduction, the twin evils bedeviling capitalism.
Organizing the unorganized will come smack up against the bosses' drive to fascism. The bosses desperately need to attack wages and working conditions, in order to compete with European and Japanese bosses. The New York Times (10/26), warned the newly elected Sweeney, "...the federation needs...a more sophisticated understanding of the global economy and the changing workplace to which it must adapt."
Sweeney ran on a platform of organizing the unorganized, civil disobedience, defeating the Republicans, and supporting Clinton's re-election. Sweeney's big claim to fame is that as president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) he doubled its membership to 1.1 million. But the overwhelming majority of that increase came from the absorption and affiliation of already-organized independent government employee unions. The SEIU itself organized an average of 4,000 workers per year, over the 15-year period of Sweeney's presidency, not an overwhelming number for a million-member union.
The highlight of this organizing was the Justice For Janitors campaign in Los Angeles which brought 8,000 low-paid workers into SEIU. The key was a rank-and-file demonstration in early 1991 which was attacked by the infamous LAPD. This action, planned to be passive, got out of control as the workers fought back against the cops. But the SEIU leadership was able to use this action to pressure Century City bosses to recognize the union, and it's been a constant battle since.
Sweeney plans to hire 1,000 full-time organizers from among full-time union employees and college students, and create new boards, commissions, and institutes in Washington. This will add to the already swollen bureaucracy that uses $70 million of workers' dues per year. He also pledges to engage in civil disobedience against "aggressive, union-busting bosses." But civil disobedience -- lying down in the streets -- did not stop scabs or production in the Hormel, Staley, or Caterpillar strikes. The only tactic that can "shut it down and shut it tight" is breaking the law -- either occupying the struck facility in a sit-down strike or surrounding it with tens of thousands of rank and filers. That type of aggressive organizing is not in Sweeney's plans.
The role of unions under capitalism, is one of trying to "strike a bargain" with the bosses within the limits set by capitalist laws. However, when militant workers, often led by communists, broke those limits and laws, the biggest gains were made. But with the retreat of the old communist movement, and decades of concessions and give-backs by pro-capitalist union leaders committed to bailing out the bosses, all of the gains we made are being reversed. We are being driven back to pre-union levels.
Workers played no part in Sweeney's election. He was voted in by the very same fat cats who have been dragging down the labor movement; the very same international presidents who have sold out the Greyhound, Hormel, Staley, and Caterpillar strikes. This "is no revolt from below," one labor official told the British Financial Times (10/26).
What does Sweeney do when workers do assert themselves? The Multi-Racial Alliance, a rank-and-file slate that includes Justice for Janitors, swept 21 of 25 positions in the 24,000-member Local 399 (Los Angeles). They tried to replace the appointees of the old guard, but the president refused to swear them in or recognize their election. Sweeney put the local into trusteeship, to be run by the International. So much for "New Voices" in the AFL-CIO.
The icing on the cake is Sweeney's friend in the White House. "We firmly believe that President Clinton has done a great job." "Four more years! We want Bill!" chanted the "new voice" delegates at their convention as Clinton addressed them. This "great job" includes: the passage of NAFTA (which is killing both Mexican and U.S. workers); the passage of a racist crime bill putting 100,000 more Fuhrman/cops on the streets to break strikes and terrorize black and latin workers; failure to pass a jobs bill and an anti-scab bill, both of which died in Committee without the arm-twisting Clinton used to get NAFTA passed; Clinton's breaking of the railroad strike; and the imminent passage of a welfare reform bill backed by Clinton which will put 1.1 million children on the streets to starve. "Swiney" proposes to put five times as many campaign workers into the field to get this anti-worker, boss's servant re-elected!
As Sweeney does more organizing, it will be up to communist-led workers to go beyond his band-aid schemes. We must break the bosses' laws, and mobilize tens of thousands to do it. This will draw a counter-attack from both the bosses and "Swiney," who want to control the rank-and-file. It will also give communists the opportunity to reach thousands of workers with the idea that reforming the system, by depending on business unionists like Sweeney, can never work. It is only by overthrowing capitalism, and its lieutenants leading the AFL-CIO, that the working class can truly be liberated.
Sweeney may ask us to block bridges and lie down in the streets. But that didn't stop Hitler in Germany, and it won't stop the new Hitlers in Washington, DC. Only with communist revolution, to destroy a system built on profits and wage slavery, can we ever gain and maintain a decent life. Under communism, there will be no wages, no unemployment, no bosses, and production will be organized to serve the interests of the working class. Short of that, we will constantly be losing ground, and dying needlessly, on this treadmill of capitalism.
For three weeks there was a conspiracy of silence by the police and the media. Still, information and rumors circulated around the city and the University. The Hampton Roads Voice (a black community newspaper) finally published a fairly detailed article on Oct. 23. It revealed that:
Antwan's belt had been tied in a bowling knot, a sophisticated military knot.
Antwan Sedgwick's family and friends say that he had no reason to kill himself. They do not believe his death was a suicide.
Witnesses claim that two cops argued with Sedgwick 10 hours before his death. They report that the cops expressed racist opinions about the O.J. verdict and called him a n-----.
These two cops patrolled the Pine Chapel housing project where Antwan Sedgwick lived.
Does this sound like a suicide? Or is it a lynching?
The atmosphere in the packed chamber was electric. As the council recited the "pledge of allegiance" and dealt with trivial matters, many students raised clenched fists and chanted, "No justice! No peace!" Then Rev. Harris spoke and attacked the students by apologizing for their militancy. He groveled at the feet of the City Council. Police chief Minetti announced that he and Rev. Harris had already agreed to meet privately to go over the results of the police investigation. At that, Rev. Harris urged everyone to leave.
Many people called out in anger, and about twenty of them surrounded Chief Minetti and peppered him with questions. Rev. Harris did his best to cool off the crowd and get us to leave. He got the help of some Hampton University administrators and a delegation of Nation of Islam members. The crowd left, but many people were furious. They felt that Rev. Harris had cynically used them to make himself look important.
The next day a group of Hampton University students wrote and began distributing a leaflet headed "Outraged and Betrayed" and signed "Angry and not sorry." The leaflet said that students refuse to be misled. It demanded truth and justice. Many more students made copies of the leaflet and circulated them over the next few days. Student activists are also mobilizing for a Nov. 2 meeting at which the Hampton University community is supposed to get the results of the police investigation. All this is in direct violation of a University rule that says you can't hand out a leaflet on campus unless the administration approves it first.
But capitalism only "works" for the racist capitalist bosses themselves. It does not "work" for the working class. And most black people in the U.S. (including most Hampton students) are part of the working class.
Black youth unemployment is as high as 80% in many urban areas. Even college graduates have a tough time finding decent jobs. Why should anyone believe that "the system works" no matter what the Hampton City Council comes up with?
There is only one system that can get rid of racist politicians, cops, and rich bosses. Only one system can guarantee equality, work, and a safe and secure life for all people. Only one system can wipe out racism and the very idea of "race" forever. That system is communism. And the best way to honor the memory of Antwan Sedgwick is to fight for it.
PLP urges all Challenge-Desafío readers to support the Hampton students in their struggle. Help stop the cover-up. Bring word of Antwan Sedgwick's death to your labor, campus, and community organizations and ask them to do something about it. Organize protests linking the lynching in Hampton to cases of racist police murder and brutality in your area.
"The evening after former Los Angeles Police Officer Lawrence M. Powell, convicted in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, is to be released from a halfway house, he will be honored at a `homecoming welcome' fund-raiser hosted by an array of conservative politicians. The dinner, scheduled for Dec. 14 in a private banquet hall at the Los Angeles Police Academy, is prompting criticism from civil rights activists concerned that the lawmakers -- including county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, presidential candidate Rep. Robert K. Dornan...are supporting a convicted felon." (LA Times 10/28).
County Supervisor Mike Antonovich just finished laying off 2,800 LA County workers and cutting hospitals and clinics. He and the other Supervisors made sure they paid the yearly $500 million to First Interstate and other banks in interest payments, while the cuts they made will mean death for workers.
Powell was only convicted and imprisoned after a rebellion in Los Angeles forced the Federal Government to try him on civil rights charges.
We will demonstrate at Parker Center to demand "No Prizes for Racist Terror! All Cops are Fuhrmans! A system which cannot provide jobs should be destroyed.
Twenty-five of Grandell's friends and relatives and members of PLP refused to be intimidated, despite the cops' harassment and a heavy police presence along the route of the march.
This was business as usual for the racist cops. The capitalist bosses put their pit bulls in blue on the street to terrorize workers and keep them from fighting back. The more vicious the cops' behavior, the better they serve their brutal purpose. This became clear as the marchers' chanted, "The cops, the courts, the Ku Klux Klan -- all a part of the bosses' plan."
After the cops shot Grandell, the city's ambulance service arrived on the scene. But it was the cops who were taken to the hospital and treated for "trauma" -- leaving their victim behind for 30 minutes in a pool of blood.
Key leadership for this march came from members of Grandell's family who have attended many May Day marches organized by PLP -- an experience which helped them give leadership when it mattered. The family with PL members leafleted the neighborhood before the march, planned its route, and refused to back down when police tried to keep us from picketing the precinct. They helped lead militant chants in the face of dozens of racist cops, and sold many of the 140 Challenge-Desafíos that were bought by the overwhelmingly friendly community residents along the route.
As Grandell's father said, "Far Rockaway hadn't seen Challenge-Desafío before, but they saw it today." Communist ideas in the hands of the working class are truly powerful. When marching youths chanted, "Kick the bosses in the ass, power to the working class!" they turned the community's fear into class hatred. Their anger and class consciousness will continue to be valuable weapons in the fight for a decent life for all workers -- the fight to destroy capitalism.
NYC police can be sure that their racist terror will not go unanswered. As the demonstration ended with a speaker promising that we would return to march again, one of the youngest marchers said, "Let's do it again, right now!"
It is racist because it mostly hurts the poorest section of the population: black, latin and asian riders, 61% of all passengers. It also increases apartheid in the city. This fare hike will keep the black and latin workers, especially youth, segregated, by making it very expensive to get to work, look for jobs, go to college or even leave the neighborhood.
Large corporations, real estate interests and department stores cannot function, and would be worthless without a mass transit system, to move workers and shoppers to their factories and stores. These corporations, in the past, paid for part of the transit system's costs through taxes. In 1934, real estate interests contributed 84% of the total taxes for the treasury. By the 1960s this percentage was down to 36%, which still paid a good portion of transit costs. The fare was only a nickel.
Big companies complained that these taxes were destroying them, and pressured the city into creating the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Instead of subways and buses being paid for out of the city treasury, they now would have to be paid for directly from the fares collected. The bankers and the bosses, who created this deficit in the first place, and who benefit most from mass transit, can afford to pay for the fare hike, we can't.
There is an alternative to the constant fare hikes, cutbacks, etc. that capitalism offers. That alternative is to join PLP and fight for communism. Under communism we would make transit service free. We would make the service more dependable. We would create jobs for our youth, in construction, engineering, metalwork, and many other trades, by cleaning up the stations and expanding new lines. We don't need money bankers or the ruling class to do this; we just need working class power.
On Oct. 25, angry Salta workers protested against layoffs and demanded back pay, as hundreds of workers tried to burn city hall. The next day, cops attacked hundreds of workers when they tried to storm city hall demanding the mayor's ouster.
In Jujuy, state workers fought street battles with the cops. Some workers tried to burn down the home of the provincial Minister of the Economy. Workers stoned a local casino and a bank office.
In the city of Mendoza, 10,000 workers came out on Oct. 25 to protest the austerity measures imposed by the local government. The same day, in Córdoba, state workers marched to demand back pay.
The local governments are being refused federal aid if they don't impose anti-working class austerity measures to "balance" the federal budget.
On Oct. 29, cops attacked with tear gas hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas, who protested the inauguration of the new governor in Tucuman. Last July, Governor Bussi was elected as a candidate of the right-wing Republican Force, a local opposition party to President Menem's Peronistas. Bussi was the general in charge of Tucuman after the military coup of 1976. He was accused of being responsible for the disappearance of 350 workers and youth opposed to the military regime.
From Argentina to the U.S., the rise of massive cutbacks and fascism are the only things capitalism can offer workers. It is the job of revolutionary communists to show these workers that a system that cannot provide jobs or living wages must be destroyed.
Tens of thousands marched today in one of the largest recent protests here denouncing the Navy and its ROTHR project. Opposition to the Navy plans has united all types of forces from liberal politicians and pro-independence forces, environmentalists, farmers, workers and youth. The radar, which will cover 100 acres of a very fertile valley, is supposed to be used to track drug traffickers. But, many demonstrators do not swallow this. They know the U.S. government's war on drugs is phoney.
Workers and youth are tired of Puerto Rico becoming more militarized (antennas for ROTHR will also be set up in the island of Vieques, which is already used as a training center for the Navy). Last year, Governor Rosello sent the National Guard to patrol housing projects and working class neighborhoods under the guise of fighting drugs, but still the drug problem continues unabated.
The ruling class knows it cannot solve the drug problem or massive unemployment (the official figure is almost 20% in Puerto Rico), so it uses racism to divide workers and attack the entire working class. If the mass movement against the Navy doesn't confront racism and unemployment it will just remain an electoral tool for the liberal politicians opposing Governor Roselló.
The acceptance of radical ideas among Boeing workers has forced the International Association of Machinists (IAM) to tip its hand. Union leaders panicked and called the cops to stop distribution of rank-and-file literature and the sale of Challenge-Desafío at Saturdays' strike check distribution. Shop stewards and others who witnessed or heard about the cops, took bundles of this new literature. One hundred papers were sold in an hour and a half, while 1,000 leaflets were distributed.
Since then, another thousand flyers and 150 Challenge-Desafíos have been distributed. Thirty were sold at Franklin High School in Seattle, a school with no Challenge-Desafíos sales prior to this strike, but with plenty of strikers' children. The idea of breaking the bosses' laws -- so eloquently demonstrated the week before the strike when we took over the plants with hammering and in-plant demonstrations -- are being pushed to the front again.
IAM union hacks are responding in at least three ways. First, they have enlisted the naked power of the state and the bosses' law by calling the cops.
Second, they hope to dazzle the Boeing strikers with their legal victories. "Boeing strikers win" was the lead story on every TV station tonight. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) upheld the IAM's complaint of Boeing's bad-faith bargaining. The practical result of this ruling means Boeing must give the union more information. Some victory! Even if the NLRB ultimately rules in the union's behalf, the company will appeal. This legal dance will drag on for months.
Third, the company will exercise the power of the purse. Only a few are scabbing now -- more workers will be tempted as our financial position worsens. There are already significant numbers of scabs in Wichita, Kan., the right-to-work (for less) state. What about breaking the injunction in Wichita with mass pickets? What about mobilizing the whole working class to shut the company down tight? John Sweeney and other new leaders of the AFL-CIO will lead a "Solidarity Rally for Boeing workers" on Nov. 12 at Everett Memorial Stadium. No doubt, they will boast of a "new, more militant national labor movement." But this warmed-over rhetoric is really about wearing out a more militant working class with the smothering legalities of the bosses' state. "Don't exercise the power of the working class you felt in early October, rely on the government," is the union's message.
As this fails, they are bringing out their "trump card" -- anti-communism. They've already started a whispering campaign. Every member who fights against the flag-waving partnership with the bosses is being called a communist sympathizer. This brings the role of communists in Progressive Labor Party front and center. Communists at Boeing have insisted that this strike is a battle between two classes. We've linked the plight of the unemployed to the plight of the employed. We've reported on the super-profits of Boeing bosses. We've pushed the big picture, the class struggle, to the forefront.
The union leadership, on the other hand, plays on cynicism. They stress our situation as wage slaves. Rank-and-file workers are without powerful friends, unable to act on any beliefs beyond their next paycheck according to the international leadership. Communists emphasize our power and revolutionary potential. These aren't abstract questions. They dictate the very tactics of the strike: the courtroom or the picket line, the corridors of power or the aisles of the plants.
The best answer to the anti-communism of the union hacks is for more Boeing workers to join PLP. Two young workers have joined in the last week, while Boeing workers have attended our meetings and study groups. When we enter the halls of power in the state of Washington or Washington, DC, it will not be to make some deal with the bosses' representatives, it will be to end the capitalist rule and begin the age of the workers' power.
Two years ago, most Breyers workers thought that capitalism worked for them. At that time, the 240 workers didn't think the plant would ever close. In 1993, the Kraft Foods division of Philip Morris sold Breyers to Unilever, a Netherlands-based, multi-national conglomerate.
When Unilever took over Breyers, the Philadelphia plant's workers were bused to a meeting hall, congratulated, and given assurances. The workers believed the bosses and many bought more expensive homes. In the next two years the company increased its profits and its share of the market. Instead of the usual winter layoff last year, people worked seven days straight for weeks.
Superficially there appeared every reason for the Breyers workers to believe the Unilever bosses. But the Unilever bosses are capitalists. They understand that to survive competition with other capitalists, they must maximize profits by increasing productivity and cutting labor costs.
So last August, Unilever bosses made a six-minute announcement: Unilever was making a profit, but by closing the Philadelphia factory and moving to a newer plant in Framingham, Mass., they could make even more profits.
That six-minutes shattered the illusions that many Breyers workers had built their lives upon. Breyers workers discovered that the only "rules" that work under capitalism are those that help the bosses enforce the profit system.
"I went through my whole life. I always tried to do everything by the rules," 20-year employee Bill T. said sadly. "It doesn't work that way, does it? All these years, I've never even been on report. I always thought the good guys won. I don't know how to describe it other than abandonment. I told my friends it's like death."
The Unilever bosses understood that their need to maximize profit meant destroying the lives of 240 workers. They changed what many people in Philadelphia thought was "unchangeable."
SUPPORT BOEING STRIKERS!
The LA County Supervisors pay $500 million a year of workers tax money to the banks in interest payments -- profits. This comes off the top. They cut hospitals and jobs, but not interest. First Interstate profits off layoffs and death! Boss George Keller is on the Board of Directors of First Interstate Bank and also of the Boeing Corporation.
On Sunday Oct. 21, the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI) Local 4100 voted unanimously to approve a resolution of support for the Seattle Boeing workers.
The UPI is a union of college professors. Previously, college professors have held themselves above the fray of the class struggle. The concept of unionization is still foreign to many college professors. The reality of the declining capitalist system has forced the closure of many college campuses and the down sizing of others.
The plan of the bosses is to reduce the size of the educational system across the board. While they will still support the flagship institutions that their children will attend, they are slashing funding to working class institutions. Why educate the workers if there are no jobs for them?
The reality of the situation was brought to the House of Delegates retreat by two PL professors who circulated a letter to the membership calling for class struggle and class solidarity. While there was resistance to the use of the term "Working Class" in the resolution, the over all course of the meeting was positive to our ideas. Our only disappointment was that we didn't try to do more.
Chicago professor
The weekend after the "Million Man March" Party members attended an NAACP Illinois state conference. There were youth and workers from Decatur, Edwardsville, Springfield, Chicago, etc.
The purpose of these conferences are to push the NAACP's line of "the personal responsibility of black people," black businesses, and voting. Our small Party group has now participated in a handful of these workshops. Our role, of course, is to give a working class analysis of what is happening in the world and try to win workers and students in the NAACP to take an active role fighting back against these racist attacks. You can measure our success in centimeters. In part due to:
* Our inexperience in raising these ideas in a connected way.
* Our small base in the NAACP.
* The general passivity of workers in this period.
This weekend however, there was a measurable change in the last reason. Students did not sit passively in workshops taking the presenters deadly messages of " blame yourselves" and "dress right and racist cops won't harass you." Workers that attended the education workshop were also in opposition to "blame yourself" "vote them out of office" ideas .
As workshop leaders accused parents of not being involved enough in their children's schools, a grandparent of an Oak Park high school student jumped up to passionately tell the workshop that she indeed was involved and that she got other parents involved inside the high school. The administration didn't like the idea of parents being an organized group inside the school so the administration forced them to disband and replaced them with 25 police that now occupy the school.
The labor and affirmative action workshop demonstrated an equal amount of non passivity from workers. A worker from Joliet stood up and said he saw no way there could be any affirmative action without a serious talk about creating jobs.
The crisis of capitalism is forcing more black workers and students into the fight of their lives against racism, police terror, and unemployment. Somehow, our proposals for demonstrating at the Democratic national convention in Chicago in August, and building a fight for 6-for-8 didn't seem to be so much out in left-field for workers. We sold "Smash Racism with Communist Revolution" pamphlets and signed up 20 contacts for more information around 6 for 8.
Our actions and our leadership are crucial now. With our contacts we will improve the Party's base in the NAACP and with our base we will overcome our inexperience with practice.
Chicago comrade.
An article in The New York Times (10/21) about sexism and the plight of single mothers in Russia got me thinking. Although workers' power ended in Russia nearly 50 years ago, some serious weaknesses of the Communist Party helped undermine workers' rule.
One of those weaknesses was the low level of effort to eliminate the nuclear family unit; that is, to make child rearing and family life a collective responsibility. Also, because the wage system was kept, certain jobs, particularly those dominated by men, remained more prestigious and higher-paid than those dominated by women. Because of this, sex role stereotyping was reinforced instead of being eliminated. Men were the breadwinners, women raised the children.
Today in capitalist Russia, sexism, high divorce rates, fathers who don't pay child support, etc. are at least as bad as in the U.S. But one comment from the NYT article struck me. A single mother whose ex-husband abdicated all responsibility said, "Seventy years of Soviet rule taught men to be selfish and passive. The biggest single problem I see is the total lack of responsibility of our men."
The NYT prints this mostly as anti-communist crap. But we need to be constantly aware of whether we are training our members and friends to be collective-minded and leaders, or to be selfish and passive. Are we encouraging more people to take the most responsibility, or do we rely on a few people for leadership? Do we have "experts" on certain subjects, or do we train others to try their hand at everything? It may seem like a small thing on the surface, but our relationships with members and friends and our encouraging everyone to take more leadership today, will create the communist men and women of the future.
Red reader
On October 23 as I was on my way to teach my 9am class, I passed by a truck in front of Harold Washington Hall (HWH) at Chicago State University. On the back of the truck were two stickers with the confederate battle flag and the slogan "Keep it Flying." The Party has tried to train us to be intolerant of racism and to attack it whenever possible, and I was upset. I knew I should somehow respond. But I was supposed to give a quiz. And the students had presentations to do. I decided to say nothing.
But as I walked into the classroom and started talking to the students, I told them what I had seen. My problem became our problem. We all expressed our opinions. Students pointed out that the confederate flag symbol and the slogan "Keep it Flying" were saying that it is good to enslave and oppress black people. About fifteen of us thought it was appropriate to take some action. We decided to protest at the office of the president of the university. Most students thought the protest should be dignified, not rowdy.
We walked over, all taking a good look at the truck on the way over, and filed into the president's secretary's office. One student explained that we were there to ask for this truck to be taken off the campus. As we waited for the president we wrote a letter presenting the demand of the protest. A campus cop, looking worried, came by to say they were trying to find the owner of the truck.
Most of us left the president's office as time approached for our 10am classes. As I left, I ran into one of my 10 o'clock students who had found out about our action from a 9 o'clock student. She had written "Class to meet in front of Harold Washington Hall" on the chalkboard. So when we got there, a group of students were waiting. I went inside the building to try to get more people; then as I was coming back this punk comes out with keys in his hand, looking scared. He got in and moved the truck, as some of us yelled at him. We applauded. But as we were about to go back to class, a student noticed that he was trying to park it in the school lot. We went out to the lot, yelled at him again, and the truck left the campus.
My 9 o'clock class has been a battleground. A few vocal students are very anti-communist. One black nationalist student has attacked me for being white and not believing in Christianity. But when we acted together against racism, differences of skin tone and religion were not important. We might not agree on how militant we should be; we may disagree about whether the confederate flag is just offensive to blacks or a vicious attack on all workers. But when we fought racism together, we learned that the most outspoken black nationalist would not join the rest of us and act against the racist symbol. Unless we act against racism, we will never persuade anyone of anything.
Chicago State Comrade