To our readers
With this issue, Challenge-Desafío
begins its biweekly schedule for December. We will return to our
weekly format with the issue going to press on Jan. 4, 1996
The carving up of Bosnia between the local fascists will do little to bring stability to Yugoslavia. 60,000 NATO troops including 20,000 from the U.S. will be in the middle of the shooting gallery for at least a year. Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher are already softening us up to expect casualties. Heavy casualties could cause the U.S. to send even more troops.
Capitalism is doing miserably. The instability in Yugoslavia is only a reflection of the problems the bosses are having around the world. The day the treaty was signed, the Bosnian Serb leaders at the piece conference protested the agreement by refusing to initial 11 additional items to the agreement. This is a war, born and bred by competition. The small-time fascists in Yugoslavia are only imitating the big boys in Washington, Paris, Bonn, and London. This is a fight over who gets what in Central Europe. No matter who wins workers will get nothing from it.
The U.S. troops are not going to bring peace to Yugoslavia, they are only going to make sure the U.S. big boys have a say in how the loot gets divided up. Remember Somalia. These 'piece'-keeping missions are bound to end up as small wars because the U.S. and NATO have their own aims. At high schools, college campuses, military bases, workers must protest the war in Bosnia.
If the world's imperialists deserve nothing else, they should get a prize for double-talk. As we go to press, they're in Osaka, Japan, winding down a conference they call Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC). If you change the last word to "Cut-throat competition," you'll get the real picture.
Behind all the hot air we hear about "the world's biggest free trade zone," stretching from Japan to Chile, lie rapidly shifting sands among these gangsters. All the APEC conference did was give the U.S., Japanese, Chinese, and others a chance to jockey for position while the storm clouds gather. Among imperialists, unity and collaboration are relative. Conflict and rivalry are absolute.
Understanding the details of inter-imperialist rivalry helps our class prepare for the future. The future holds war, war, and more war. Will we be cannon-fodder for the bosses' greedy slaughters, or will we take matters into our own hands, turn the guns around, and turn the imperialist bloodbath into communist revolution?
The main development brewing in the region is the Japanese rulers' economic tilt toward Asia. While Japan, Inc. can't and won't give up its stake in the U.S. market, the U.S. is no longer the investment bonanza it was in the 1970s and 1980s. The general decline of the dollar reflects this drift. Japanese bosses can get greater profits in South Korea, China, and Southeast Asia than in the U.S. Asia has already replaced the U.S. as the biggest source of Japan's trade surplus.
As they did in the U.S., Japanese corporations are reinvesting their export loot in new Asian manufacturing plants. Among the many examples of this trend, the sharpest is the plan by Japanese auto barons. Honda has started three joint ventures to make and sell motorcycles in China. Nissan plans to introduce an "Asian truck" for sale in Southeast Asia. Toyota is also developing an "Asian car" for 1997, when it intends to double its annual automobile production to one million.
These developments spell trouble for the bosses of the U.S. auto industry. By the time Ford, GM, and Chrysler get their act together to set up shop in Southeast Asia, the Japanese may well have cornered part suppliers and distributorships. Business Week (4/10) warns: "The East Asia auto market could be Japan's."
Currently, there is a spat over maintaining 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan. The southern island of Okinawa has three-fifths of the U.S. military. The rape of a 12 year-old Okinawan girl allegedly by three U.S. sailors has sparked anti-U.S. demonstrations. U.S. imperialists obviously want to maintain a military presence in Japan, both as a threat against their Japanese rivals and as a launching pad for potential adventures elsewhere in the region.
Among Japanese bosses, opinions are divided as to the tactics and timetable for giving the U.S. occupiers the heave-ho. Various secondary forces in the Japanese ruling class (the Asahi newspaper, the trade union leaders, the small businessmen) want the U.S. out now. They cynically support the Okinawan nationalist demonstrations. Japanese big business, which views the U.S. as their main enemy now and in the future, prefers to play a waiting game. Their strategy seems to include keeping the current military arrangement with the U.S. - for the short run. They want to buy time to build up the Japanese military. When the moment arrives, in other words, when they're strong enough, they'll think about moving directly to challenge U.S. military dominance in Asia.
But U.S.-Japan rivalry isn't the only aspect of this evolving situation.
Smaller Asian bosses are learning the hard way that Japanese investment is a two-edged sword. The high yen means that debt from loans to Malaysia and Thailand has zoomed. Japanese bankers, who have problems of their own, don't want to restructure this debt. These countries also have huge trade deficits with Japan.
Such contradictions further worsen conditions for Asian workers and create fertile ground for rebellion and revolution, which is the last thing the capitalists want. Other East Asian bosses remember World War II, when Japanese fascism invaded and colonized them. They want to limit all-out Japanese militarism. Some favor maintaining U.S. bases as a way of keeping the Japanese military threat in check.
Chinese imperialists are key among these forces. They would like to see Japanese and U.S. imperialists balance each other out militarily while slugging it out with each other economically. U.S-Japanese economic rivalry gives the Chinese more strategic choices. A U.S.-Japanese military stalemate gives the Chinese an opportunity to fill a void. Meanwhile, Chinese bosses have begun to imitate the Japanese, by protecting strategic industries, like auto, from foreign competition. This spells very bad news for U.S. rulers, whose problems cracking the Japanese market will seem like a picnic in comparison.
The current maneuvering in Asia is a feeling-out period before the lines harden and the imperialists slug it out. Two things can't occupy the same place at the same time. Japanese, Chinese, and U.S. bosses all need to dominate Asia and the Pacific. U.S. bosses' decline and the logic of geography indicate that the Chinese and Japanese might ultimately opt for an alliance against the U.S.
We can't yet predict the final details, and in a sense, they don't matter much. But for workers of all countries, the main lesson is crystal-clear. A fourth Asian war, after World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, lies in the not too distant future. Imperialism leads to war and always will. But bosses' wars also create the opportunity for communist revolution. Workers are one class everywhere, and this must be our only goal.
In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of workers in Okinawa have demonstrated against the U.S. occupying force. The demonstrations were ignited by the rape of a 12 year-old Okinawan schoolgirl, to which three U.S. sailors confessed. Whatever the true particulars of the case may be, two conclusions are inescapable:
· While Okinawan workers are justifiably angry, the current anti-U.S. demonstrations are part of a reactionary movement. Okinawan workers are a super-exploited minority in Japan. They were colonized 120 years ago.
During World War II, Japanese fascists forced 100,000 to sacrifice their lives for the empire. Since then, they've been cynically exploited in turn by both the U.S. and Japanese bosses. They have many reasons to rebel, but the nationalist line they're following is pro-Japanese imperialist and will lead them to a dead-end. The Japanese liberals now pushing the anti-U.S. demonstrations in Okinawa are using nationalism to push their own agenda and divert Okinawan workers away from class struggle and revolution.
As the holiday season begins "Peace on earth" will be repeated ad nausea from the Vatican to the White House. This is another example of how the rulers of the world shout peace but make war. And war is the main trend in at least 50 regions of the world.
A Madrid daily reported about a Spanish Red Cross campaign to help victims of war: "Of the 50 wars taking place in the world today, 37 are 'not news'....according to the Red Cross. Out of every 10 victims in the wars, nine are civilians....All of a sudden, we hear about Somalia, or Rwanda or Yugoslavia. And all the media, and the entire society, turn their eyes towards that area of the world shaken by war. Later they forget them as new horrible news focal points erupt. 'The victims of Angola don't stop being victims because of what happens in Rwanda,' said the Red Cross spokespersons." (El Pais, 11/15)
These regional wars have created 17 million refugees from their countries of birth, and 20 million people have been evicted from homes as they still remain in their native countries.
The Clinton administration is on a war course against Iran. According to the Financial Times (11/17): "The U.S. administration, under pressure from an angry Congress, is preparing to intensify its boycott of Iran by taking action against non-American companies which help Tehran's oil and gas business."
The suggestion of an Iranian hand in the bomb attack in Ryhadh last week, in which several U.S. military personnel were killed, was aired by the U.S. ambassador in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the belief that Iran is probably capable of deploying biological weapons, are all pushing the White House to call for a more widespread boycott.
The problem for the U.S. is that the main forces at which the boycott are aimed - China, Japan, Germany, France - are not likely to stop making deals with Iran.
The main job of the police is to terrorize workers. The bosses use them especially against black and latin workers and youth who are oppressed most by capitalism. The cops are supposed to keep these super-oppressed workers from being the most militant fighters against the bosses. Racism goes with the uniform! But some cops qualify for the Mark Fuhrman Award because of their exceptional racism and brutality.
This week's number one award goes to the five Pittsburgh area cops who suffocated black motorist Jonny Gammage during a traffic stop in suburban Brentwood on Oct. 12. The cops admitted sitting on Gammage, a cousin of Pittsburgh Steeler Ray Seals, and beating him with flashlights. He died in police custody. Gammage's apparent "crime:" being a black driver of a Jaguar in a mostly white suburb.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched outside the Brentwood municipal building on Nov. 12. They protested the District Attorney's decision not to press charges of first or second degree homicide against the killer cops.
The second Mark Fuhrman award goes to Sgt. Ed Kirste of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office, organizer of the Association of White Male Peace Officers. The stated goal of this group is to "protect the rights of white male law enforcement officers." We wonder whether its first activity will be a legal defense fund for Fuhrer Fuhrman himself.
Do you know a racist cop who deserves a Mark Fuhrman award? Send his or her name and description to this newspaper. If there have been protests against this racist cop, let us know about that, too.
The PLP organizes for communist revolution to put the working class in charge. Under communism, red-led workers' militias and the communist red army will attack and suppress the racists and wanna-be exploiters. There will be no racist cops under communism.
Don't let the cops get away with racist murder. Organize, organize, organize!
CHICAGO, IL., Nov. 21 - JCG, Inc. poultry workers went on a wildcat strike two weeks ago to demand 50 cents an hour and health insurance. They went on this "unauthorized" strike because they were enraged at the contract signed by the boss and the union. This deal gave the union its dues. It gave the workers the shaft.
To fight for this small raise these workers faced arrests and firings. But in spite of everything against them, the JCG strikers fought on for a week. They inspired workers all over Chicago, and workers all over the world who read about this strike in Challenge-Desafío. Even when we lose the demands of a battle, as we did at JCG, we can still win.
The struggle at JCG was a victory for the workers. Why? Because hundreds, and through them, thousands were exposed to the Party's idea that, "the system does not work - it should be smashed by communist revolution." The second day of the strike, workers occupied part of the factory, holding a rally with PLP speakers. Challenge-Desafío was widely read and distributed during the strike. Communism became the main issue in the strike as the professional red-baiters, the union parasites, community "leaders," lawyers etc., descended on the strikers to woo them back to work. Since the strike, more than 50 of the 100 fired strikers have continued to get Challenge-Desafío. Half a dozen have attended PL dinners. One has joined a Party study group. The workers themselves are organizing a social to keep their fight alive and their spirits high.
UNITE (the garment union here), like all unions, is a business. Its leaders accept workers as wage slaves to the boss. They want to make a good living for themselves by negotiating the terms of workers' slavery and maybe "help" the workers a bit. At best, these reformers wring their hands at the suffering of workers. They spend all their time commiserating about the system's injustices. Their band-aid approach towards capitalism, "fix it, it's too strong to kill it," prevents workers from organizing for revolution.
A member of Progressive Labor Party who was a UNITE organizer brought in the union at JCG. He knew UNITE was no different from any other union. But he thought that he could use the job to build the Party. This was a mistake. The contradiction between the union outlook of reform and the revolutionary strategy of the Party is too great. The union focuses only on the fight to get a contract with the boss. Getting a contract, or a better contract, means accepting the bosses' rules, control, ownership. Especially in this era of capitalist decline, this doesn't leave much for the workers. Certainly not enough to make reform worth sacrificing the only real change that will improve workers' lives - communist revolution.
JCG workers organized themselves to strike. These workers broke the contract. The union told our comrade to get the workers to go back to work. When he wouldn't lie to the workers and refused, he was fired, along with all the strikers.
Last Thursday the Spanish press accused PLP of fooling workers into going on strike. The next day the union called in a priest and two lawyers to lecture the fired strikers for listening to the Party. Anti-communism has become the last resort of the compromisers with the boss. One of the phony revolutionaries, Emma Lozano, came to the meeting to scream at the union for hiring a communist from PLP. The union defended themselves by saying they didn't know he wouldn't go along with the contract.
All of them - the boss, the cops, the union, the lawyers, the priest, the press, the fake revolutionaries - they all wanted the workers to abide by the JCG-UNITE deal. Some with the bribe of possible crumbs or reforms, others with the club and intimidation.
On the first day of the strike JCG had no chickens to ship. Without the workers there was nothing. We don't need a system where our lives are run by the bosses. But we do need to learn how to build a society that will meet the needs of the working class. This can only be done by building the Party.
SEATTLE, WA., Nov. 21 - "Forty-five more! Forty-five more!" chanted Boeing workers as they showed their determination to strike another 45 days if necessary. They chanted loud and long - making it impossible for International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 751 president Bill Johnson and International negotiator Bob Gregory to announce the results of the contract vote for several minutes. In the end, 61% rejected the latest and "final" company offer.
Strikers used the burning barrels on the picket lines to set the contract on fire, while spontaneous "Vote No! rallies" occurred in front of every union hall. Boeing spokesman, Russ Young, was deeply disappointed. "The union leadership gave us a guarantee the membership would accept this contract," he complained. Boeing workers chose to fight on despite being hobbled by a trade union movement that is clearly not up to the task of defending our jobs.
Boeing workers have a right to be angry - the contract proposal was a sellout. The key language in the contact proposal said, "The union can make alternative proposals to subcontracting for which the company will give serious consideration." In other words, the company could do what they wanted to eliminate jobs. The company announced that five top execs, including CEO Frank Schrontz, qualified for $12.9 million in extra bonuses the same day we were supposed to accept this blueprint to do away with our jobs.
Meanwhile, Boeing has started secret merger talks with McDonnell Douglas. When Grumman merged with Northrop 8,600 jobs were lost and 12,000 jobs were lost when Rockwell merged with Martin Marietta. Tens of thousands will lose their jobs if these two giants of the aerospace industry merge to form one company with $35 billion in assets.
Airbus is likely to respond in kind by merging with European military aerospace firms. Thousands will also be thrown out on the streets in Europe. These new unemployed will join the ranks of the already half-a-million laid off U.S. aerospace workers. They will be forced to work in non-union, low-wage job shops.
Over 50% of the coal industry is non-union; 33% of the auto industry is non-union. Aerospace is not far behind. McDonnell Douglas has the first low-wage assembly plant in the U.S. Subcontracting to non-union, low-wage shops is becoming epidemic.
The trade union strategy of fighting only to reform capitalism is a dead-end. The whole logic of trade unionism is to negotiate the terms of exploitation or wage slavery.
Wage slavery is the system that chains us workers to the capitalists - the bosses. It's the system that robs us of our independence and makes us go 'cap-in-hand' to the capitalists for the wages we need to feed, house and clothe our families.
Some of us might have a union cap, others a non-union cap, some a black cap, some a white cap - but all of us have to go "cap-in-hand" to the bosses With this strike - starting with "rolling thunder" - things are different. We are going "fist-in-air." But our sights are still modest. In our minds, its still "cap-in-hand." We are only fighting for more humane chains - a decent contract.
To end wage slavery we must rid ourselves of the exploitation, not just negotiate the terms of exploitation. We are left with the inescapable conclusion that now is the time to give "serious consideration" to joining and building a different kind of organization. We must get serious about building the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and fighting for communism.
"But that means revolution," said one low level union officer to some angry strikers. "You'll never see it in your lifetime. I'd love to see a revolution, but I won't. Not in my lifetime. These workers haven't got the guts." Interestingly, he had just got finished saying that Bill Johnson, IAM District 751 president, didn't have the backbone to stand up to the company.
During this strike, 1,300 workers have read Challenge-Desafío. Scores of strikers have distributed over 10,000 rank-and-file newsletters despite anti-communist slander and cops. Two young workers have joined the Party and Boeing workers have become regulars at our club meetings. Thousands marched in the plants to force this strike and hundreds have become politicized. More than once, in the taverns and the union halls, groups of strikers have debated the merits of revolution.
Boeing workers are giving "serious consideration" to the revolutionary ideas of Progressive Labor Party. As more join the PLP, we will help each other find the courage and strength necessary to make communist revolution possible.
Chicago, IL., Nov. 20-- "Students don't like to be bossed around," a high school sophomore explained. "The cool thing to do is to go against the rules, like not wear your ID." Most Chicago teachers boss students around and enforce petty rules, without giving it a second thought. But now they're getting a taste of the same medicine.
Members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) at Foreman High School met last week to organize against the new discipline policy for school employees. Principals may now suspend anyone for up to five days, without pay, without a prior hearing, for a long list of offenses including "conduct unbecoming an employee of the Chicago Public Schools."
CTU president Thomas Reece invited Paul Vallas, the dictator of the Chicago Public Schools to a meeting of the CTU House of Delegates. He led most of the delegates in a standing ovation for Vallas and his call for collaboration between the union and the Board of Education. "Collaboration used to be a dirty word," an associate delegate remarked. "They used to string collaborators up by their heels."
The Foreman delegate wrote a memo attacking the new policy and the CTU's collaboration. At the school union meeting, two dozen teachers agreed to circulate an angry letter this militant delegate had written to Reese, and to send copies to friends at other schools to encourage them to do the same. The teachers also discussed going to a Board meeting to protest.
But when an associate delegate called for teachers to unite with students against the Board, the militant trade unionist delegate jumped in quickly to say that union officials should be concerned about their members, not about the students. That attitude shows that he (like most teachers) doesn't understand what's really going on in the schools - including the fascist discipline policy he's trying to fight.
One reason why the Board of Education wants the new discipline policy is to privatize the school system. Chicago schools are now supposed to contract out cafeteria, janitorial, and other work formerly done by Board employees. The bosses want to save money by smashing union wages.
This policy has already begun to hurt the students. For example, one school is short four janitors. The principal can't replace even one of them. Naturally, the school doesn't stay clean even with the help of student volunteers. The students' bathrooms are particularly disgusting.
Even teachers' and office workers' jobs may be contracted out. Sylvan Learning Centers, a private tutoring agency, has already set up shop inside a number of Chicago public schools. The new discipline policy will make it easier for principals to fire workers who fight back against union-busting, speed-up, and pay cuts.
But the main conflict in the schools is between working-class students and the school administration. The schools exist to train working-class youth as passive wage-slaves and unthinking cannon-fodder for the bosses. No wonder so many students are bored, alienated, and rebellious.
Most teachers choose this as a career because they want to help students better themselves. But they quickly discover that their main job is to enforce long lists of rules to harass and intimidate them. The new school employee discipline policy exists to make teachers be more conscientious "enforcers" of racist, anti-student rules. A teacher who has been casual about checking students' IDs might get into the "where's your ID?" routine rather than risk suspension for "violating school policy."
The main reason we have to fight the discipline policy is to win teachers away from the fascist idea of collaborating with administrators to treat students as animals or criminals.
Education professors, administrators and union leaders convince teachers that as "professionals" they are better than the students. Even well-meaning teachers say that students should follow their lead, stay in school, and trust in the system.
The truth is the opposite. Students are right to see schools as jails and the capitalist system as a cruel fraud. In the U.S. today, as in South Africa twenty years ago, militant anti-racist youth are in the forefront of the struggle against the racist system.
Chicago teachers fighting the new discipline policy will win a big victory if they learn this important lesson.
NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 22 - The denunciation of the UFT (United Federation of Teachers) contract by many teachers along with other city workers' anger at their contracts, are signals that the working class is ready to fight back.
Why doesn't the Board of Education provide a decent education for students and a decent contract for school workers? Why doesn't the UFT fight for this?
Capitalism is in a crisis. It cannot afford to pay for a decent education for working class youth, and maintain its profits. Both the local government bosses and the union leaders work "in partnership" to insure profits for Big Business at the expense of the workers and our children.
The economic needs of the ruling class, the capitalists, determine how much money is spent on education. Right now, the ruling class wants to spend little or nothing on education and all other services for workers. The UFT leadership feels that capitalism is not the problem, so it joins with the bosses in their racist attack on our children. A system that cannot provide a decent life for all working people does not deserve to exist. It must be replaced by communism, a system organized to fulfill the needs of the working class.
Public school students - mostly black and latin - are fed a racist capitalist education and are pointed towards minimum-wage jobs, unemployment or joining the military to kill other workers' children.
City workers, including teachers, are asked to agree to a wage freeze, and a pay-cut for thousands, while expenses, fares, etc., go up.
Mayor Giuliani and the City Council are demanding huge salary increases for "doing such a good job."
Public transportation riders, most of whom are working class, pay for 70% of transit operating costs with a $.25 fare increase to insure the banks get their billions.
The racist city government attacks schoolchildren, 80% of whom are black, latin or Asian, and saves money by eliminating job programs, junior varsity sports programs, and after-school centers, and increasing class size, etc.
The real purpose of public education is to preserve the capitalist system by:
The bosses, Giuliani and UFT head Feldman, all defend capitalism's educational system with this racist contract. The only way to fight them is to unite students, parents, and teachers under communist leadership to stop profits cold with a general strike of all workers in the city. In intensifying the class struggle, workers will receive the best education of all - why we must wipe out the profit system and establish a workers' system: communism.
LOS ANGELES, CA., Nov. 22 -The United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) House of Representatives passed a resolution Nov. 8 calling for solidarity among all school workers in opposing all forms of privatization. PLP fought for this resolution, supported by school hearing specialists and other school workers whose jobs are on the line.
This resolution is a step in building a united group of all school district workers and helps school workers see that we are all part of the working class, locked in battle against the bosses' class. As the crisis of capitalism intensifies, students, parents, teachers and others need to see that our class must take power from the bosses. The crisis of capitalism cannot be solved in our favor without destroying capitalism with communist revolution.
Capitalism's ever deepening crisis of overproduction is caused by its need for maximum profit. The capitalists can't resolve this crisis, which will lead to fascism and war. They have fewer crumbs with which to pacify workers.
The big corporations pay less taxes than they used to, slashing social services while paying for armies, jails, cops and debt service to the banks. Privatization is part of the attack on the living standard of the whole working class. Contracting out government services eliminates the jobs of unionized workers with benefits. It depresses the wages of all workers. It's a particularly racist attack, as a large number of the workers losing their jobs are black and latin.
The UTLA leadership is in no position to unite workers against this attack since they support capitalism, division and professionalism. They actually support contracting out as long as it doesn't immediately affect their members. But the UTLA leadership's campaign of fighting other school workers over crumbs has weakened us all, including teachers, so much so that we took a 10% pay cut in 1992, which has still not been fully restored.
UTLA boss Bernstein has won many teachers and parents to support LEARN - a so-called reform plan pushed by big business interests. As school funding diminishes, LEARN requires the local school to make its own budget cuts by contracting out jobs - first hearing specialists, nurses, etc., followed by cafeteria and custodial workers, Teaching Assistants, tutoring, Special Education, English as a Second Language, foreign language, and math labs. These cuts mean that any students with special needs will not have them met. Why should the bosses care about teaching skills to working class students when they have no jobs for them?
PLP is helping to organize a united group of all school workers to fight against privatization and cutbacks. This is part of the process of getting strong and clear enough to fight for state power - for a communist system where human need is primary - and bosses' profits are a thing of the past.
Although resolutions don't automatically mean mass struggle, the mobilization against contracting out can lead to sharper struggle. It should include the students - who will be attacked the hardest!
Teachers had better not wait until their own jobs are on the line to join the fight. Our survival depends on fighting as part of the working class, along with students and workers of all "races" here and all over the world. We can't limit ourselves to the never-ending defensive struggle to keep what little we have - less and less as the capitalist crisis intensifies.
The struggle against privatization within UTLA can help us convince those who fought with us, and many more students, parents, teachers and other school workers, to join Progressive Labor Party and fight for communist revolution.
NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 20 - Looking at the proposed contract for NYC municipal workers can tell a lot about the development of fascism in the U.S. Understanding what is happening, and why, is important so that workers can rid ourselves of the shackles of capitalist exploitation and win the fight for the only solution -- communist revolution.
Mayor Giuliani and AFSCME's District Council 37 chief Stanley Hill have agreed on a package that doesn't meet the needs of unionized workers who are finding it increasingly harder to live under capitalism. Even worse, it will push tens of thousands of mostly black and latin jobless workers into slave labor programs that will lower the living standards of the entire working class.
The settlement includes a two-year-pay freeze for all current workers followed by puny raises in the last three years of a five-year contract. Newly-hired workers would be forced to defer 5% of their pay for their first four years. The thousands who don't last five years will forfeit this money, a tremendous payroll savings for the city bosses. City workers are also expected to work harder as they double up to do the work of the 17,000 city workers who have left and have not been replaced, part of an attrition program which will continue in this latest contract.
While pay freezes, deferrals and job cuts are bad, they have been around before and by themselves are part of normal capitalist exploitation. But this settlement also:
Allows for replacement of unionized city workers with people forced to work off their welfare checks in the racist slave labor CWEP program; and,
Allows for the closing of NYC public hospitals, a loss of 14,000 jobs!
The failure to fight these attacks will guarantee future layoffs of city workers and worsened conditions for unemployed workers.
Fascism builds unevenly. Employed workers are faced with pay freezes and forced deferral of salaries, and are threatened with layoffs. Unemployed workers face the ending of the welfare system and mass slave labor workfare programs. Racist lies are used to try to convince white workers that black and latin workers "don't want to work" and are the "cause" of the declining living standards of the working class. Black and latin workers are told the lie that immigrant workers "steal their jobs" and that white workers "can't be trusted."
Capitalism can't build fascist conditions without dividing the working class. That's why fighting racism and building working-class solidarity and struggles are so important. The union honchos are ready to agree to such a racist, anti-working class contract as "the best possible, given the circumstances" because they line up with the bosses about these "circumstances" - fascism.
But workers' anger is on the rise. The N. Y. Times (11/18) reported, "As details of New York City's tentative new labor agreement with 17 of its unions began to filter down to the rank-and-file..., the immediate reaction of some workers was disbelief, followed by a simmering defiance that union leaders said could endanger ratification." We want to build on this anger.
At a meeting of AFSCME Local 371's Delegate Assembly, a PLP member spoke against the contract settlement and about the fact that capitalism is unable to meet the needs of the working class and will be attacking us even more as the Gingrich/Clinton welfare and medical care cuts take effect. A call was made for members of our Local to demonstrate at the DC 37 AFSCME meeting on Nov. 28 (when leaders of the council will vote on the settlement), advocating not only a "No" vote, but also to plan for a general strike of city workers. He explained that since capitalism doesn't work for workers, we must fight for a system that does serve our interests - communism.
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 18 - On Nov. 8, the Local 1199C Hospital Workers Union delegates from Jefferson Hospital gathered for an emergency meeting called by 1199C President Henry Nicholas to discuss the Hospital's projected $75 million budget cut over the next five years.
The probability of layoffs is the talk of the hospital. Previously, many more workers had the illusion that their jobs were safe because of Jefferson's relatively good financial position. However, this hospital, like every other capitalist business, is affected by the acute crisis of capitalism, driving the hospital bosses to increase profits. Now every worker realizes that a $75 million cut means layoffs.
After President Nicholas preached for 30 minutes about the cuts, he revealed the union's "big plans" to fight this fascist attack: every delegate will be asked to take a six-week "Leadership" course that will teach subjects like "Conflict Resolution," "How To Listen" and "Assertiveness." That's it!
This plan is so pathetic that one delegate, who formerly cherished 1199C, admitted "they have nothing to tell us."
There's nothing in the union "plan" about a strike against these layoffs. Furthermore, the union opposes these layoffs just from a narrow trade union view - only because it affects our jobs. They say nothing about these cuts continuing the capitalists' racist and fascist attack on health care for working-class patients.
An example of the difference between union politics and communist politics occurred at this very meeting. During President Nicholas' blabbering about the Jefferson cuts, he gave lip service to the need to organize the workers to fight. After Nicholas' presentation, the 1199C Business Agent for Jefferson Hospital pulled a PLP member aside and threatened to remove him from his position as union delegate. The Union Agent was angry because the Jefferson bosses phoned her to complain that a leaflet was being circulated against the bosses' latest attacks on new union delegates, and the workers were in an uproar! "I know you're behind this," she charged.
This attack prompted one of the more cynical delegates to tell the PLP member, "Nicholas always talks about organizing the workers. Here, you're actually doing it and the union attacks you!"
Yet even the most honest and militant trade union leaders could not give workers the answers we need to these attacks. All unions are committed to working within capitalism. Capitalism is in a crisis, however, that will not pass quietly. No matter who is in the White House, the U.S. bosses are committed to more fascist attacks on the working class and military combat to protect their empire. These attacks call for a revolutionary answer: communism!
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 20 - Over 50,000 workers, youth, Indian peasants and others rallied today and filled the huge Zocalo square in front of the Presidential Palace. The rally followed a march led by fired bus drivers from Ruta 100, dissident teachers and Social Security workers.
The march expressed the growing anger of workers here at the unending crisis of capitalism, caused by local and imperialist bosses and bankers speculating with the peso. The peso has lost 120% of its value in a year, 60% in its most recent nose dive. This year alone more than 2.4 million workers have lost their jobs. The GDP is down 7%.
This is the third mass workers' protest in the last week. On Nov. 17, 25,000 dissident teachers marched to the Zocalo demanding a 100% wage increase, and the release of jailed teachers for fighting government policy. They were surrounded by thousands of cops. On Nov. 16, fired bus drivers marched for their jobs. Today's marchers also opposed free market capitalism and the privatization of Ruta 100, Pemex (the state oil company), the Social Security system, etc.
At the rally several speakers called for a new movement to fight back. A message was read from Ricardo Barco Lopez, a jailed leader of the bus drivers' union, SUTAUR, which was busted by the government. He is also leader of the Independent Proletarian Movement. The message called for a new political force as "an instrument of the people...to be able to recall or replace any ruler that doesn't obey the people."
His message was a call to build a new liberal and national electoral force, like the Zapatistas want, which would beg for some crumbs from a declining capitalist system.
Workers don't need another liberal party to replace the corrupt and discredited PRI (ruling party) or the also-discredited liberal opposition of the PRD with another capitalist formation better able to rule for the bosses. We live in a period of growing fascist attacks and war (the U.S. and Mexican governments are setting up a bi-national force at the border to attack workers even more) We need to build a revolutionary communist movement to bury the system which never stops attacking us. That is what PLP is building.
SAN SALVADOR, Nov. 17 - Juan J. Huezo, leader of the National Federation of Salvadoran workers (FENASTRAS) and other Salvadoran union leaders accused the AFL-CIO and the American Institute for the Development of Free Unions (IASDL), both from the U.S., of financing groups to boycott the maquiladora textile industry in El Salvador and in the whole region.
Huezo is referring to strikes and work stoppages, such as the one in EL Mandarin. There union activists in the Democratic Workers' Central (CTD) have organized in the maquilas. They are demanding better wages and working conditions.
The accusation by Huezo is that these U.S. organizations are financing the CTD and other labor federations so that a climate of chaos and uncertainty is created. They hope this will force the U.S. garment bosses to abandon the area and go back to the U.S. or to other countries, where they can organize the workers in order to get their dues money. Is Huezo really worried about the workers, or does he just want a piece of the action?
For its part, the CTD denounced Huezo as a sellout supported by the Arena Party and by the bosses. Huezo was arrested a few months ago for "defending" the rights of the workers in the maquilas, but this was nothing but a farce. Huezo has a long history of betraying the interests of the workers. At the beginning of 1992 he betrayed the struggle of the shoe workers in the ADOC company. He used his leadership position to calm the workers' militancy, promising the help of liberal politicians and negotiating a deal with the bosses behind the workers' backs in which hundreds of workers were fired.
But the CTD also does not represent the interests of the Salvadoran workers. The leader of the CTD is an ex-deputy of the Christian Democratic Party. This is the party of fascist genocide, of ex-president Jose Napoleon Duarte. As we can see, none of these union organizations is concerned about the workers. They are taking advantage of the discontent and anger of these workers to try to enrich themselves from dues and take political control of the workers to perpetuate capitalism by keeping the workers tied to the bosses' electoral circus.
Huezo's accusations echo the bosses' constant threat. They say that if Salvadoran workers organize and fight for a living wage, the maquilas will move elsewhere. What kind of a bloodthirsty system gives workers this "free choice?" The only answer to the bosses' threats to move to a place where workers don't fight back is to build an international communist party that fights to bury all the bosses-everywhere.
The AFL-CIO (AFL-CIA) is supposedly helping the unions in other countries, only to control of the politics of these unions. This is not workers' internationalism, it is fascism with a liberal face. In the past, especially in Latin America, the unions attracted concentrations of leftists. The AFL-CIA wants to control and stop this development. The economic crisis of their imperialist friends forces them to spread their fascist tentacles through the unions to avoid any workers' rebellion. But revolutionary communists must continue to organize and put forward communism both inside and outside these organizations. We have to see these unions as places where many workers can see that the capaitalist system cannot meet the needs of the workers. Here communists can teach their co-workers that we have to destroy it with a communist revolution and build a new communist society.
The AFL-CIO, the IASDL and the CTD are not different in essence from FENASTRAS. They serve the capitalist vultures. These organizations are controlled by the bosses and have to be destroyed with revolution. Under communism we won't need unions because we won't have to sell our labor power to the capitalists. There won't be bosses. The workers will produce for our own needs and we'll be organized in a mass communist party.
NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 18 - Members of Progressive Labor Party participated in the march of 750 people for "Social Justice" held in Upper Manhattan by the Latin Coalition - a grouping of 50 different organizations, including community groups, nationalist groups, etc. The marchers are angry at the cutbacks, fare increases, and police brutality.
PLP brought communist politics to the march. Over 200 copies of Challenge-Desafíos were sold; mostly to workers and youth along the route of the march. We ran out of the 1,500 leaflets we had, titled "Capitalism and Social Justice Don't Mix." Contrary to the leaders of the march, and the speakers, who limited themselves to blaming attacks on the working class on Mayor Giuliani, Governor Pataki and Gingrich's "Contract on America," without mentioning capitalism, our leaflet put the blame where it belongs on all the bosses' politicians and their capitalist system.
NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 22 - A "Call to Unity" has been issued at Columbia. A multi-racial mass movement against racism is afoot. In the past week, over 300 students have come to two separate meetings, where many good ideas and demands have been put forward. It looks like many students are willing to fight to increase financial aid and to make the curriculum less Eurocentric. A movement based on these demands would create the broadest support.
Some students are willing to fight with campus workers whose contract is up, to fight to stop Lowenstein Foundation research (the "Violence Initiative"), and to fight for the jobs that Columbia promised to youth in Washington Heights. These students understand the importance of making demands that will benefit both workers and students.
Despite these good things, many Columbia students are making a serious political mistake. They have the illusion that somehow Columbia could be made into a "nicer" place if there was a less Eurocentric curriculum and more black and latin students were admitted. The leadership of the anti-racist movement has swallowed this illusion hook, line, and sinker. It is a deadly illusion.
The fact is, all universities, particularly Columbia, defend the murderous, barbarous system of capitalism. Columbia has a long history of being a research center for the Pentagon and the State Department: these two institutions are not exactly known as friends of the world's workers and youth. Indeed, any temporary reform won by Columbia students will only serve to give a smiling face to Columbia's unchangeable racist and imperialist role.
Columbia students should join the fight for communism. Are you in college for an education? The best course you could take is called "training for revolution." This course involves struggling to force Columbia to give more jobs to local workers and youth, fighting Columbia's role in the war machine, and fighting against the university's racism. And if we are to fight Columbia, don't we want to win a permanent victory? Don't we want a victory that can never be reversed by the administration, by the ruling class?
Yes, we do want such a victory. Armed workers fighting for communism will permanently defeat the Pentagon, the State Department, and Columbia. Join this revolutionary movement. If you join the communist Progressive Labor Party, it is a permanent victory against capitalism.
Dear Challenge:
In reading the response in Challenge-Desafío (11/22) to the article about our work in a Chicago chicken factory, I thought about an experience I used to have selling the paper in front of a steel mill. There was often one worker, but not the same one every Saturday, who would say something like, "Thanks, but I don't need it; when the time comes, I'll know what to do."
I would spend my time trying to think of a snappy come-back. You had to be fast, the workers were usually in a hurry. I tried saying things like, "you have to join our PLP army today so that we'll all be shooting in the same direction when the revolution starts," or "Yes, but we have to organize today so that we will be strong enough to win when the time comes."
Not too bad, but not the main thing. Sometimes, what you neglect to say is the most important idea to get across. I should have said something like, "No, you do need it - if you are not armed with PLP's communist ideas, you will not know how to fight or most importantly, what to fight for." Just being a worker, even a militant or class conscious worker falls short of knowing and being able to apply communist ideas. Workers who think that they will know what to do under revolutionary conditions probably have many illusions. Knowing what action to take to bring about a communist revolution comes from practice, study, self-criticism, and so forth.
This development doesn't take place automatically within the class struggle. Communist ideas are essential. This requires a Party. Historically, communist ideas are brought to the working class from the outside. So the issue with those workers who seemed militant but discounted the importance of ideology, raises the primacy of the Party. Maybe I was close, but close only counts in horseshoes or hand grenades.
In politics, revolution is not even close to reform. The main thing about unions or any reform organization is their ideology, the set of ideas that define their outlook. Whatever the case years ago, today the unions are part of capitalism. They exist to reform the system, to try to make life under capitalism bearable. Unions offer workers a way to fight the rulers without challenging the fundamentals: their class dictatorship and ownership and control over society. In that sense, unions and their reformist ideas compete with and oppose revolution.
Unions and the fight for reforms are the equivalent to "lesser evil politicians." They offer workers a way to fight the bosses' fascist attacks, however, within the confines of the system's limits, an alternative to the Party. Therefore, we are on a collision course with unions. We are out to smash what they are determined to maintain. The organization and ideas of trade unionism are not compatible with communist worker's power.
Does this mean we should wash our hands of unions and other mass organizations? No. But we must be clear: our communist job is to build the Party. Our main agitation, organizing, literature, all-embracing efforts - should be specifically communist. Building reforms - all reforms, not only interferes with building the Party, it opposes communism. Building our communist line in reform organizations cannot be easy. It takes more thought and practice to begin to master. However, no one has ever tried this before. Nor has any Party ever fought for communism like we are doing, especially in a period of decline that cries out for a revolutionary answer.
Chicago comrade
Dear Challenge:
Sometimes an article appears in Challenge-Desafío that does not fit a communist mold. "37% of UFT delegates reject racist contract," is an example of this (see Nov. 22 issue). Okay, they voted no. And we passed out a leaflet telling them to vote no. Did voting no bring any of these teachers closer to joining PLP? Did our leaflet win any of the teachers to have a clearer understanding of why we need communism?
The last paragraph of the article tells the story. "On the way we need to point out that only by smashing the system of capitalism...and building communism can we ever hope to gain a truly decent education..." On the way? No way! This is our purpose in life, not just something we do while we're fighting for a better contract.
Sandra Feldman may have been right, from her limited reformist perspective, when she said the contract was good given prevailing conditions. The capitalists need to squeeze every penny they can out of the working class. They can't afford to spend too much on education because education is not directly profitable for them. We say the fact that profits are more important to them than children shows how sick their capitalist system is. We reject the reformist approach of working within the system and trying to make it better because we know that only prolongs the misery of millions. That's our disagreement with Feldman and her ilk.
Think about it. You probably know a few kids who, due to lucky circumstances, have learned to play an instrument, program a computer, write stories, read for pleasure, figure out answers to real life problems, play a sport well, etc. In other words, to scratch the surface of their human potential. But the overwhelming majority of urban kids are lucky if they have been taught to do even one of the above. Capitalism treats these kids worse than dogs and the schools play a big part in that. When we have communism, not only will people have the essentials of food clothing and shelter, but children will be developed and taught and learned from and given all the opportunities children should be given.
Sandra Feldman has no such vision. We owe it to our fellow teachers and to our students, not just to get caught up in the details of the contract, but to expose the capitalist system and win them to communism. Just as the Boeing article in that same Challenge-Desafío described the struggle with workers over the communist idea of internationalism, the teachers article could at least have detailed the nature of racism in the New York schools. It could have described the struggle with teachers and students about this issue and sought to clarify our line. Calling the contract racist and giving a couple of sentences explanation is not sufficient.
I know that what we're trying to do is difficult and it's easy to get carried away by the reform movement. But our Party draws its strength from our rejection of reformism and our dedication to fight for communism. While individuals will certainly falter, Challenge-Desafío must be consistent on this question.
Chicago teacher
Dear Challenge:
I am an 18-year-old engineering student at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. A couple of weeks ago I discovered your Internet site as well as on-line copies of Challenge-Desafío.
As I read through the issues, I was appalled at some of the facts presented. I had believed that the excesses of repression of the capitalist system had long been abolished and were only the stuff of a dark distant past. But Challenge-Desafío has opened my eyes.
As I kept reading I began contemplating the question, "Why doesn't the government do something about this?" And then the answer dawned on me "The government does not care!" Our present system, as well as those of other countries, do nothing to help the workers.
As a member of the youth of America, I feel that it is my duty to change this situation. I believe that Progressive Labor Party can be the organ of this change and that I should do my part. Please send me any information regarding the PLP and Challenge-Desafío.
Internet reader