Last week, U.S. bosses had to change policy and spend billions to prop up the Japanese yen. After the collapse of the South Korean, Thai, and Indonesian markets, the Japanese economy is about to go belly-up. Japan may be the U.S. bosses' biggest business rival, but the free-fall of the yen is bad news for Wall Street. A cheaper yen means more Japanese goods flooding the U.S. market and adding billions to the already bloated U.S. trade deficit. Under these circumstances, a major downturn in the U.S. business cycle is only a matter of time.
All the money spent to keep the yen from floating downward, just like the billions U.S. bosses pour into the IMF to make sure bankrupt countries can keep servicing debts to U.S. banks, comes from surplus value produced by the working class. When currencies are devalued, we are the ones whose wages are cut in half or worse. When this "competitive devaluation" forces trade wars, we pay in the form of job losses. This is the nature of the worldwide profit system. Right now, the workers of Asia are bearing the brunt of the crisis. Sooner or later, the other shoe will drop in the U.S. as well.
Propping up the yen is a desperate tactic that will at best briefly postpone the inevitable. Ironically, China, which the New York Times calls "America's huge military threat" (6/21), helped force the Clinton gang into the bailout. The main wing of U.S. rulers recognizes the Chinese capitalists as a long-term strategic economic and military threat. However, greed is always number one, and many U.S. companies lust after Chinese deals, regardless of the eventual consequences. The Chinese bosses are playing their own game, which includes demanding and getting significant technology transfers from the U.S. However, the yen's collapse would eventually force a devaluation in Chinese currency as well--along with even fiercer competition between the Chinese and Japanese to drown the U.S. market in cheap exports. So the Chinese rulers blackmailed Clinton & Co. with the threat of devaluing their own money, and Clinton had no choice but to comply.
Dancing to the tune called by one of your major military rivals in order to bankroll the currency of one of your primary economic enemies isn't a sign of strength or stability. Yet this is exactly the juggling act into which the worldwide crisis of overproduction has forced "the world's only remaining superpower." In fact, about the best Clinton will be able to do in China is beg the Chinese to keep their economy from heading south along with Japan's. He is hindered not only by sharpening differences within the U.S. ruling class over how, and how much, to trade with China but also by the Chinese economy's extreme shakiness. "China today has the characteristics of every Asian country hit by the crisis--but worse," according to a World Bank official (New York Times, 6/21). Chinese banks have $270 billion worth of bad debt. Most of the skyscrapers built on speculation in Shanghai are empty. The official unemployment rate in China's industrial northeast alone is close to 30%. How many IBM computers or Jeep Wranglers will these workers buy?
Worse yet for U.S. imperialism, some of the "in the bag" deals for the Chinese purchase of U.S. goods are starting to look shaky. Last fall, the Chinese bought 50 Boeing planes. Boeing bosses figured the current summit would be good for another 50. So far, the Chinese have talked about buying another ten. This summit will be good for chump change at most--hardly the zillions Rockefeller & Co. had dreamt of before Kissinger/Nixon began their flirtation with Chinese bosses in the 1970's.
But China and Japan are far from U.S. imperialism's only weak spots. Even two-bit potentates are thumbing their noses at Clinton:
* At a European Union summit two weeks ago, Greece vetoed a $400 million aid program for U.S. ally Turkey. When Clinton called up Greek Prime Minister Simitis to ask him to change his mind, Simitis told him to shove it.
* Last week, Belarus president Lukashenko kicked the U.S. ambassador out of his official residence, so that Lukashenko could expand his own palace.
* According to the Wall Street Journal, "Lukashenko was no doubt inspired by the success of [Yugoslavia's Milosevic] in defying Bill Clinton" (6/23). Clinton had warned Milosevic not to interfere in Serbia's Kosovo province against the U.S.-backed Albanian separatists. When Milosevic declined to co-operate, Clinton then asked for help from the Russians, who are allied with Milosevic. The result is that Russian foreign minister Primakov "gave Milosevic a free pass" (WSJ 6/23), and the Russians went on to demand that Clinton hustle up another $15 billion in IMF funds to bail out their sinking economy.
* The billions U.S. imperialism spent to threaten Iraq last winter have only further isolated the U.S. and helped Saddam Hussein rehabilitate himself on the world stage. U.S. bosses' European and Russian rivals continue to insist that sanctions against Iraq end soon.
* U.S. imperialism is further away than ever from carrying out the Oslo "peace" deal it brokered between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and U.S. stooge Israel. Another war between Israel and the PLO and/or Palestinian Hamas nationalists looms as a distinct possibility.
* Both India and Pakistan recently set off nuclear tests against U.S. imperialism's wishes.
It isn't an accident that U.S. foreign policy is a flop comparable to the fiasco of the U.S. World Cup soccer team. These failures are built into the profit system and the cyclical crises it always brings forth. The current crisis will deepen, and millions of workers' lives will be devastated. More wars will break out as the bosses' desperation increases. Small wars will eventually lead to bigger ones. None of these developments, in and of itself, will spell the doom of capitalism. Only communist revolution can do that. The bosses would find a way to build a stock market on the rubble of nuclear destruction--if we let them. But each economic crash, each war provides an opportunity for workers in the U.S. and around the world to learn that the profit system will never meet our needs. Our needs can be met only when our class, led by its communist Party, Progressive Labor Party, makes revolution and rules society.
On Monday, June 22nd, at the phone offices in Guaynabo, a suburb of San Juan, cops brutally attacked strikers who were trying to stop managerial personnel from scabbing. Several strikers were seriously injured by the brutal cops. In the banking area of Hato Rey, riot cops were sent to attack strikers who were blocking scabs.
The strikers have been fighting back. They have not only harassed scab managers on the phone facilities, but even follow them to their homes. Sabotage has damaged a lot of the phone company facilities.
The strike, which began last week, has been supported by all phone workers who know that the sale of the phone company to GTE for $1.9 billion will mean mass cuts in jobs. Interestingly enough, the phone company is being privatized, not because it loses money for the government, but rather because it is very profitable. On June 23rd, 6,500 workers of the Electrical Energy Authority began a three day strike in support of the telephone workers. Other workers are planning solidarity strikes.
We in PLP support these workers fighting for their jobs. They are seeing through personal experience that the role of the cops is to protect the bosses and their scabs, that the state is not neutral in the class struggle. But workers must also understand that the fight to end privatization is not the solution to all their problems, as the union leaders say. Neither it is just getting rid of Governor "Nazi" Roselló, as many workers believe. The state-owned phone company operates as a business and during this period of capitalist crisis of overproduction, whether it is run by the government or GTE, it must attack workers much more in order to compete. In the long run, the only solution is to fight to smash capitalism in all its forms and to fight for a society run by workers (communism). That is what PLP fights for.
"They've killed one of our brothers," said a PLP comrade to his co-workers. "One of our co-workers was killed?" asked Maria.
"It wasn't someone from our factory, but it was a fellow worker. Haven't you heard about the latest killing by the Ku Klux Klan?" asked Lucio of PLP. "I heard something about this on the news. It was terrible. " said the other worker.
The working class is one class and the color of skin or country of origin doesn't matter--that's why James Byrd is one of our brothers. The bosses tell us that latin workers are completely different from black, white, and asian workers and that's why each group has to try to solve their problems according to their skin color or nationality. This line that we're so different is a big lie and we shouldn't believe it. The bosses' point is to keep us divided, because they know that if the working class unites, their interests will really be threatened.
Our goal is to unite and to fight to destroy this capitalist system that creates these KKK racists, the hated Migra and police terror. The same system that killed James Byrd killed 49 workers in Actel in Chiapas, and kills thousands of workers in El Salvador, Colombia, Russia, and Rwanda. That's why we raised the need to support the family of James Byrd--to show that we are one class, and to build class solidarity against racism. Our class must destroy this system of racist terror. Our best way to avenge the death of James and of millions of workers around the world must be to dedicate our lives to the destruction of capitalism and to building of a new communist society.
At the picket line in Flint attitudes among the workers seemed to be split. Most of the workers on the line were long-time veterans, with 15, 25 even 45 years at the plant. Many of the workers thought that GM would eventually give in to the union. But others saw that this was a huge battle.
Even though GM has been making record profits, the crisis of capitalism, the ever-increasing competition among the capitalists, is forcing the bosses to attack the workers. As one guy said this is about the company deciding that job security and $50,000 a year is too much for a worker. Tremendous overcapacity in the auto industry is driving auto companies all over the world to consolidate and slash wages. GM is planning to expand to China and Poland using the type of highly automated plants used in Brazil based on offloading (meaning using more non-union subcontractors), less workers and very cheap labor.
Several workers became interested in hearing what PLP had to say after the picket captain came over to tell us that we could not even have Challenge on the line. One young worker came right up to us and asked for a paper. Several others gave us their names and addresses to get Challenge in the mail. The tactics of the picket captain had backfired.
What was clear to almost everyone was that their children were never going to have the kind of jobs that they've had. As one woman said, "One of my daughters just got a scholarship to college, but I've still got three more, what about them?" This led to a discussion about the five billion more people beyond her own daughters who have no future under capitalism and why we had to build a revolutionary communist movement.
Even at what could possibly be its last hurrah, the union refuses to knock capitalism. When two PLP members went to the union hall to find out what the leadership was saying about the strike they got a speech about how the situation is being caused by American business speculation in Japan instead of investing in America. Though even they had to admit that GM was selling a whole lot of cars and making huge profits. And that is really the lesson we need to take to the whole working class.
As fascism spreads, even a company that is making huge profits will be squeezing the working class for every last dime. We are in a battle to the death with the capitalists. Trying to keep them in business won't spare our class from the suffering caused by the system's failure and the brutality of the ruling class.
For close to two weeks, the students, some of whom are in an organization that meets nearby, met and discussed the significance of the racist Prop. 227. In this process, some reacted with nationalism saying that "latino people had to stand up for their rights and their heritage." Others said that attacking bilingual education was part of the attack on all students. There was a struggle made by other students in PLP to broaden the walkout and to see that this racist attack is directly linked to the growing racism in this country and in the world, as the rulers need to win other workers to support their racist claims.
The students got together and wrote a leaflet that pointed to the divide and conquer tactics of the bosses and showed how workers and students have always fought back. However this leaflet fell short of questioning the capitalist system itself and calling for a communist revolution that would ultimately do away with all forms of racism. Students in PLP responded by passing out a Party leaflet in front of the school, which showed that all the attempts to fight for reforms in education have been reversed because they didn't challenge the capitalist system itself. The students planning the walkout discussed the politics of this leaflet. Their discussion turned from bilingual education to how communism would work.
The day before the walkout, the racist murdered James Byrd in Texas. There was a struggle to show that this racist murder is an attack on all workers and youth, and it points to fascism growing in the U.S.
In their meetings, the students discussed political ideas and how to organize the march. Students read Challenge and discussed the idea that even if bilingual education was allowed to stay, capitalist education in any language is no good. With or without bilingual education, racist attacks on all workers will not lessen but continue to increase. The only way to end racism is to fight for a communist society run by workers, and for workers. Most of these students have just found out about PLP and communism. But from this walkout and all the political discussions, a lot of students are closer to the Party. As one student pointed out, "I always thought that there was something wrong with having rich and poor. Now I know there are many others like me. I'm not a communist yet, but I'm a learner." Several of these students have committed themselves to taking part in this year's Summer Project.
The appearance of the BRC seemed to be radical. However, their essence is to lure angry black workers farther down the road to fascism, and away from the road to communist revolution. Our participation in the weekend involved sharp struggle, particularly over the Party's line on nationalism. The leadership openly denounced PLP and the Party's position paper which attacked revolutionary nationalism as a solution. This broke their 7th principle of unity-- "we must be democratic and inclusive in our dealings with one another, making room for constructive criticism and honest descent within our ranks." Nationalism is the other side of the same coin as racism, it seeks to confirm differences between black and white workers and persuade black workers that their salvation resides in black-only formations.
While BRC misleaders are seemingly less offensive than the reactionary nationalists like Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson, they serve the same purpose. The liberal electoral nationalists and the community black power activists historically avoid the crucial issue of the fight for state power. In 1972, black radicals (many who were at the Black Congress this weekend) put together a "Black Liberation Congress" in Gary, Indiana. Their goal is to set up a black agenda which all black leaders and followers should adopt. Black people would get 10% of judgeships, government jobs, financial allocations, and so forth. Between 1970-1987, the number of elected officials who are black increased more than five fold from 1,479 to 6,384. In 1990, there were 316 black mayors compared to 48 in 1973. Yet, the conditions for black workers have deteriorated as jobs in industry disappeared.
Many (such as the Black Panther Party) rejected the electoral strategy to focus on community control. The black power strategy (community control of police, black business in the black community, buy black, neighborhood and block associations fighting to get streets fixed or cleaned, feeding the hungry, and taking over empty housing) didn't work! They did all of these things. But, the bosses' economic crisis has only intensified. Their crisis of overproduction has sharpened and dictates world events. The racist murder/lynching of James Byrd by KKK members in Jasper, Texas, is a direct result of their inter-imperialist rivalry. Unless the working class confronts the question of the need for revolutionary violence we will lose.
The unity throughout the weekend depended on the workshop leaders keeping tight control over the discussion (two-minute time limit on responses to speeches.) The role of the Party in these formations is to win the center people to our ideas. We participated in most of the workshops and circulated a petition calling for the training of the working class for revolutionary violence. The petition called for workers to go to Jasper during the weekend of June 27th to smash the KKK rally. Many names were collected. We have signed up for many committees in the BRC. We will inject revolutionary ideology into their organizing efforts and win their base to the fight for communism. We will dare to struggle in their ranks for the leadership of the working class. Dare to struggle dare to win!
James Byrd. Jr.'s father came to two churches here last Sunday to speak and gather support for his family. The basic approach by the church was to express hatred for the racist murder of Mr. Byrd's son and to ask for support for the family. They called for unity, understanding, peace and love as the answer to racist violence.
A teacher from the high school was at the first church to present Mr. Byrd with the letter and donation. It was very emotional when Mr. Byrd and the teacher hugged each other. The news media was there. They asked the teacher her opinion of how to deal with the KKK. She replied that history has shown that the only way to stop racist terror is through workers' unity and violence. The LA Times attacked this statement. This bosses' newspaper is taking the opportunity to promote pacifism in the face of growing fascism in the U.S.
The response of the teachers at the school ranges from condemning all violence, to supporting self defense against racists, to smashing fascism with communist revolution.
This is an important struggle. We are sharpening the ideological struggle by focusing the debate around the political question of how Clinton and the Democratic Party are in the forefront of the most murderous attacks against all workers--black, latin and white--and youth in recent history: mass jailing of black and latin youth, workfare slave labor, rotten dead-end jobs and growing police terror. Self-critically we should have raised these points with teachers more sharply as we circulated the original letter. We are correcting this error.
The union, closely linked to the Rockefeller-controlled Democratic Party, has agreed to save the hospital bosses at least a quarter of a billion dollars over the life of the 40-month contract. It also guarantees the bosses the right to lay off at least 25% of the work-force! This will help these particular bosses in their fiercely competitive fight within the health care industry and also the entire ruling class as it prepares for imperialist wars in its desperate battle for markets against the European and Asian bosses.
The union give-away to the bosses is partially based on the boom of stocks invested in by the pension fund. But the history of capitalism reveals that stocks that go up inevitably come down. Then what happens to the pensions of those already retired as well as future retirees? Hitching one's fortunes to the capitalist wagon is a prescription for disaster.
Furthermore, basing an illusionary "job security" on the stock market "boom" means you're depending on other corporations to mercilessly exploit their workers so stocks--and profits--rise. That's the way capitalism works--use one set of workers against another.
The union says it has won job security for 50,000 workers. But it admits the contract does not cover those hired after September 1992, at least 25% of the 50,000, making a total of 12,500 workers. Furthermore, it also allows for layoffs of the "guaranteed" 75% whenever the bosses are in "perilous financial conditions" or decide to close a particular institution. So, as is usual under capitalism, the workers' fate is in the bosses' hands. Interestingly, the original "job security" clause in the 1994 contract covered 60,000 workers. So what happened to the "job security" of those now missing 10,000 workers?
The union claims it "won" the right for laid-off workers to fill the first job opening they're "qualified" for in the 39 institutions covered under the contract. But if the bosses are already laying off at least 25% of the work-force during this 40-month period, those "openings" sound more like closings. As the New York Times (6/22) says, the whole purpose of the contract is to "enable the hospitals to reduce employment...to become more efficient." No wonder the bosses say it is "not an overly generous" contract. No kidding!
Initial reports indicate that an early retirement clause will be financed by $150 million stolen from the workers' pension funds. (And a $25,000 lump-sum incentive will be walloped by a huge income tax hit.) The bosses will save another $100 million by being freed of any pension contribution for the contract's first ten months and lowering its contribution to 6.25% of the payroll thereafter. (The rate at one time was 7.5%.)
It should be noted that when workers first negotiated a pension, they gave up potential wage increases to get it. The pension fund is supposed to be the workers' money. Now the union and the bosses have conspired to give it back to the bosses. When the smoke clears, it all amounts to at least a $250,000,000 cut in the monies that belong to the workers.
Missing in this whole equation is the effect of the expected layoffs on patient care. In the final analysis, ailing workers will feel the full weight of reduced care from even more understaffed and cost-cutting hospitals.
This "trailblazing" contract will lead workers even more down the road to capitalist hell. Any system based on profit and exploitation of bosses over workers cannot produce any security for workers. Workers should not only reject this contract; they should join the fight for a system run by workers, the only guarantee of leading a secure life. That's a system without bosses and profits--communism. Under such a system health care for and by workers gets top priority. That goal can only be won by building for a communist revolution led by the Progressive Labor Party. Anything short of that will only produce the insecurity built into this latest capitalist scam.
(A report on workers' reaction to this contract and how that can be channeled into revolutionary activity will appear in our next issue.)
What motivated this struggle? Was it love for the well being of all the world's workers, or was it the desire to see one's "own" group win? It was nationalism. The worldwide soccer championship is a great event for capitalism. This event, every four years, brings all the workers in the world together in order to divide us. They tell us, "This is your team, this is your country, this is your flag. Defend it and support it."
Before going to the World Cup, all the soccer teams in every country are involved in the elimination rounds, waving the flags and shouting the names of every country. This helps create a deep division among workers of different countries. This division only helps the bosses and their system of exploitation.
A garment worker said, "In these moments, we forget everything. All of Mexico is one." Even though poverty is growing for the Mexican working class, and the war in Chiapas is sharpening due to the bosses' competition and thirst for profits, many workers are taken in by the idea that the bosses and workers are one united "country" against workers and bosses of another country.
At this time of economic crisis, fascism, and war preparations, nationalism is very important for the bosses and deadly for the workers. Despite the great profits that these events make, their main motive is political. The bosses' line of nationalism keeps the working class divided so the bosses can continue to exploit us and win us to fight their wars against other workers.
But we workers must not fall into the trap of nationalism. A Mexican worker or a Colombian worker have more in common with a worker from El Salvador, Italy, Nigeria, Russia, China, or the U.S. than with Mexican or Colombian bosses. We are one class. We don't have any country. The only thing we have is a pair of arms to sell to the bosses of any country. The "country" belongs to the bosses. They are the owners of the factories. stores, hospitals, mines, land and the soccer teams. Nationalism helps the bosses stay alive by creating the fake obstacle of borders.
We workers need to fight for revolutionary communist internationalism. Our future depends on joining with our class brothers and sisters and fighting for a world without borders, without racist and nationalist divisions--a communist system. Under communism, sports will really be used to unite all workers of the world so that we feel what we actually are--class brothers and sisters. This won't be expressed as a game but in a fight to the death against the capitalist system. Workers of the world are inspired by internationalism. Communism is the fulfillment of internationalism. Join the winning team, the team of the international working class, the Progressive Labor Party.
"What's the matter?" said the disgusted machinist. "You get your marching orders from [Director] Pete George?" The boss threw him a dirty look.
"...And I bet you said, `Yes sir, Mein Führer!' " the machinist shot back.
Boeing is no exception. The extreme crisis of overproduction has begun to hit Boeing with a vengeance. Last week, due to the Asian meltdown, the company increased its estimate of lost orders to 90. The bosses will cut "more than the original estimate of 12,000 jobs," while reducing production rates. Meanwhile, the bosses are harassing and speeding us up under the umbrella of "lean" management (better known as management through stress). When the Light Strutures, Fabrication and Assembly, (LSFA) management started to put lights on the machines that indicate when you leave for the bathroom, we knew it was time to call the new regime by its rightful name--fascist.
Parallels to the development of Nazi Germany are not hard to find. In 1941, Hitler began using prison labor at Daimler Aerospace to build aircraft. In 1997, Boeing started to use prison labor at the Monroe, WA., prison to do the same.
According to Neil Gregor, author of Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich, "Expanding profits, meant that misgivings, managerial or moral, never manifested themselves in serious acts of dissent by management." What Boeing worker does not recognize our management staff in that description?
"The slide into extreme inhumanity can have a beginning that, at the time, reeks of the ordinary," concluded Gregor. When all was said and done: "Jewish slave workers were used at Daimler-Benz factory because the company managers chose so."
"The bosses were so upset at the poster because it is closer to the truth than you think," said a comrade. "Fascism can develop here!"
"I thought it was already here," corrected his friend.
We saw what the company's policy of "diversity and anti-harassment" really meant--protection of the bosses and profits über alles. Writing in the 1930's, a British Indian communist, Palme Dutt, explained the difference between fascism and social democracy, although both were forms of capitalist rule. He said that social democracy equals deception plus force, while fascism equals force plus deception. If Dutt hadn't written this in the thirties, you could swear he had the Boeing bosses in mind!
"Who does that joker think he's kidding?" declared another worker. "You can't stop the wind and he can't stop us from distributing those posters. We need a poster the size of a Diego Rivera mural!"
Many workers like this one struggled with more workers to overcome their fear. Our motto was: "Sure it's dangerous to fight fascism, but it's even more dangerous not to fight fascism." To some degree we succeeded as the posters spread to other buildings in the Auburn complex.
None of this happened spontaneously. Events from Jasper to Auburn cry out for the expansion of our Party. Fascist brutality is the only way out of the crisis for these bosses. Our first priority is to develop networks of communist organizers that can function under increasing fascist repression. These networks on-the-job, in the mass organizations and in the military will allow us to carry out our historical responsibility to defeat fascism the only way possible--by arming ourselves to seize political power.-
When Boeing and McDonnell merged, CEO Condit and President Stonecipher promised no job cuts. Last month, they announced 8,500 job cuts due to the merger in addition to the 12,000 announced earlier in the year. Last week. they said the non-merger cutbacks would "exceed the original 12,000." Condit promised at a managers' meeting earlier this year that at least 35,000 jobs would be eliminated in the next few years.
Condit also announced that benefits will be cut for non-represented employees lucky enough to still have a job. Non-union new hires will not get any medical benefits when they retire, while the company reserves the right to change the medical package of present employees and retirees. Present employees and retirees will have medical benefits; they'll just amount to zero! Guaranteed company pensions will become a thing of the past as all retirement funds will be directed toward stock market speculation in personal 401(k) funds.
Boeing CEO Condit and President Stonecipher have demanded every Boeing employee understand the financial side of the business. "We have to focus on the bottom line," they command. Every worker knows this is bad news, but just how bad we are just beginning to fathom.
Pete "Little Hitler" George, head of the LSFA unit in Auburn, WA., revealed the outline of the picture these last few months. Workers are being written up for everything from taking a five-minute smoke-break to eating a candy bar at their machines. Supervisors have posted warnings threatening us if we are caught "walking around."
Herein lies the real meaning of Condit's and Stonecipher's edict to focus on the bottom line. Lest we have any doubt, look at the call for agile manufacturing in the January 23rd issue of the Boeing News. Agile is based on the military model. Under agile manufacturing, the company will maintain a small "cadre" of skilled workers. It will assemble a team when it needs to complete a project. The net effect will be a few full time workers surrounded by a large pool of contingency workers.
The company publicly declared that it intends to push for these same provisions when union contracts, covering nearly 100,000 workers, expire next year.
Lawrence Clarkson, president of Boeing Enterprises and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, runs around the world setting up dummy companies to super-exploit cheap labor. His latest coup was in Indonesia forming a facility to take advantage of the desperate Indonesian working class, enabling Boeing to cut higher-paying jobs.
Boeing's board of directors is full of war making profiteers like the recently appointed William Perry, Clinton's former Secretary of Defense. Perry is also a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Carnegie Endowment just published a thesis on America's manifest destiny in the greater Middle East (Strategic Geography and the Changing Middle East by Geoffrey Kemp and Robert Harkavy).
"How do you spell that?," asked a Boeing worker when he heard about the book. "Carnegie Endowment for P-I-E-C-E, as in the Eastern Establishment wanting a piece of the Middle East for oil?"
Clinton's present Secretary of Defense, Cohen, just traveled to Thailand to make sure it won't cancel an order of eight F/A-18 fighter jets made by Boeing. At the same time, he insisted Thailand remove government subsidies used to maintain low food and fuel prices for workers.
As I watched the news last night of how striking phone workers in Puerto Rico battled the cops and scabs, it reminded me of the time Challenge sent me to report on the 1972 phone strike in Puerto Rico. In those days, our comrades of the Socialist League distributed thousands of Desafíos-Challenges in Puerto Rico, and a woman comrade member of the League led a rank-and-file phone workers caucus that basically led the strike.
It was one of the more militant strikes I have ever seen. Phone workers then battled cops and scabs as they are today. The government sent the meanest tactical police force (riot cops) to attack the strikers, and the strikers fought back. They shot at scabs, and at helicopters carrying scabs. Phone workers knew how the company operated and did their best to sabotage equipment.
But more important was that these strikers saw Challenge as the only paper which reported their side. They wouldn't talk to reporters from El Mundo, San Juan Star, El Imparcial and even from Claridad, the paper of the fake-leftists Socialist Party. But they welcomed Challenge, understanding that our communist newspaper represented their best class interests.
Red Reporter
Every day before going to work in the factory, I put a couple of Challenges in my pockets with the thought of distributing them to my co-workers. When I was on my 15-minute break, I gave the paper to a woman from India and she put it into her lunch bag. The next day she told me that she gave the paper to her husband and I asked her if he had read it. Since she does not speak English or Spanish, she put her hands together to simulate a book and I understood from her gestures that her husband read it with much enthusiasm.
On another occasion, I was working with a white worker and we started to discuss Seinfeld. The show had reached its final episode after nine years. The interesting thing is that they announced that 80 million people all over the U.S. were anxiously watching the final episode. The episode consisted of a trial where the comedians were imprisoned because of their selfishness. As my daughter and I watched the show, I suspected that many others who saw the program agreed with my daughter and also felt terrible about how it ended. Apparently, it was in bad taste to convict the comedians for their mean spirited jokes.
Instantly, I showed this white worker an article in Challenge about the youth who was left without medical attention in front of the doors of a hospital in Chicago. The article concluded by criticizing the bosses, politicians and it extended its criticism to the very workers who refused to help. The workers used the excuse that they were "respecting the regulations of the hospital." The white worker read the article and quickly concluded: "This is what we are talking about." He put his hand in his pocket and gave me all the change that he found.
A woman whose job entails that she come to the factory every week sympathizes very much with the paper. But since she is always in a hurry to do her work, we never have time to talk. One day I asked her, "Do you really read the paper?" "Of course!" she answered and gave me $2 because she hadn't given a donation in a long time. Another worker said that his girlfriend believes that "Challenge is pure truth." Another woman who is originally from India and who understands the dangerous situation there told me in an urgent tone, that it was a "very good paper."
And so, I go around the factory taking advantage of every opportunity to salute my fellow co-workers and distribute Challenge to them.
Worker in California
My weekend at the Cadre School was great. We did a lot of exciting things. We has workshops, we went hiking, swimming, etc. I learned a whole lot from this weekend. Especially in the workshop where we talked about different problems.
In the workshop where we talked about the problems in the schools, like how the bosses try to scare you so you would be afraid to fight back. I learned about problems other people in the school faced. I think that's a good way to learn, because now I know what to do if I come across these problems. I think the Cadre School is a good thing to have. That's why I joined PLP.
Next year I'm joining a leadership class in my school. In this class I will raise many different issues concerning the school and other things. I will set the school on the right track. Then I will gain the respect that my communist ideas and people deserve!
NY High School Student
Dear Challenge:
We spent the weekend Cadre School talking about communism and how to raise it in school and work, as well as how to recruit more people to PLP. We broke up into groups and talked about communism, fascism, what fascism is, and how the bosses are using fascism to prepare the working class for war.
We also talked about how events like police brutality can be used to show its relationship to war and fascism. This weekend was very interesting because it gave you ideas of what you can do to improve on your tactics to recruit people to the PLP and to make people see how bad capitalism is.
In the Neighborhood Precinct Youth Council, when topics come up that are related to fascism, I'll use what I learnt to ask questions, so I'll know how people feel about the world situation of capitalism. Then I will find out who is more interested in defeating the capitalist bosses, so that I can give them Challenge to read and bring them closer to PLP.
Cadre School Student
Meanwhile, conditions are worsening in our community. The rulers have been charging workers for contaminated water that they are passing off as safe. They are clearly ignoring recommendation #41/96 that was made by the local Commission on Human Rights.
Workers and youth must fight back. First, we must defeat the passivity that paralyzes so many of us in the face of the growing bosses' attacks. PLP members must also must fight in mass organizations to win youth away from drugs and criminal gangs and win them to become political activists against this damn capitalist system. Racist fascist terror is the order of the day for bosses from Chiapas to Chalco, organizing for communist revolution must become the mass alternative of the working class and youth. Join the PLP!
Comrade from Mexico
The poorer and more oppressed members of the working class die younger. But the government, mass media, and intellectual prostitutes for the capitalists explain this away saying it is the result of unhealthy habits--smoking, alcohol, lack of exercise, and obesity. They don't explain why there may be more smoking, alcohol, obesity, and lack of exercise in the poorest sections of the working class. They simply assume that it shows weakness of character--they just blame the victims.
However, an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, 6/3), written by a group of sociologists, shows that unhealthy personal habits account for only 12-13% of this death rate at an early age. The authors blame the system, by pointing to such things as "chronic and acute stress in life and work, including the stress of racism, classism, and other phenomena related to the social distribution of power and resources." Furthermore they blast the Wall Street Journal and the Department of Health and Human Services for saying that the way to better the conditions of the poorest workers is by helping them to change their personal habits. And their final sentence calls for explanations which include "structural elements of inequality in our society."
They also explain that other normal responses to external oppression, such as "a lost sense of mastery, of optimism, and of sense of control, or heightened levels of anger and hostility," causes poor health and early death.
However, the Journal also includes an editorial about the article that focuses on the "anger and hostility" responses and concentrates on how to prevent these responses.
It calls for solutions which teach the children of these poorest workers not to be angry or depressed about the horrible conditions in which they live. It calls for teaching parents how to raise the expectations of their children and how to train the children in "social competence," then presumably high paying, interesting, socially useful, full-time jobs would simply materialize by the millions.
We should never underestimate the ability of capitalist spokespersons to apply bottomless illogic to any well-researched facts. While we can use such research to support our conclusions, it does not relieve us of the task of applying our communist logic in order to prevent readers from being misled. The facts simply do not speak for themselves.
Comrade Health Worker
FIFA, the international soccer federation, became a huge business covering the whole world when João Havelange got control. Adidas and the 1970's Brazilian military regime supported him. Soccer and the World Cup has grown from the $70 million FIFA made in Argentina in 1978, to an estimated $4 billion that it will earn in France 1998. Havelange retired after 20 years just before France `98 and left Sepp Battler, his Swiss friend, as head of FIFA. He plans to continue Havelange's methods of earning huge profits and using most players as slave labor.
The players are bought and sold like commodities. For example, PSV Eindhoven, a Dutch team, bought Ronaldo, the Brazilian superstar. Two years later his contract was sold to a team in Barcelona for $20 million. A year later, Inter of Milan bought his contract for $30 million. In each deal, the player got only a small percentage.
And Ronaldo is one of the few soccer stars that make good money. Most of the thousands of professional players for teams under FIFA can't make a decent living. The average professional lifetime for a player is 10 years, but many players only last two or three seasons with professional teams.
The commercialization of soccer oppresses and alienates players and fans alike, while FIFA, TV stations and companies behind teams make huge profits. This has turned the game into a boring, violent and anti-esthetical show. The pressure on a team to win to make more profits for the owners has curtailed the creativity of most players. There is so much money at play that no one wants to take a risk in the game, everyone plays it safe. The coaches are limited to placing a human wall in front of the goal post hoping that a forward can score a lucky goal. Enjoyable, graceful and beautiful games like those played by the Dutch Clockwork Orange team against Belgium, or the Zamba game of the Brazilians, are extremely rare.
Also, individualism, nationalism, racism and multiculturalism rot the games. In France '98, only a few superstars are exalted while most players are ignored. Nationalism is rampant (whether in Mexico, or the racist fascism of the English hooligans). Under communism, we will elevate the old concept of "friendship and sportsmanship above competition" which was practiced in China during the Cultural Revolution. Collective creativity will reign in every mass sport. Play soccer and win your fellow workers and students to communism.
Red Soccer Player
Here in Colombia, in the middle of a civil war, we have been treated to two simultaneous shows--the second round of the presidential elections and the World Cup. The bosses spent over $100 million in the presidential elections, money that could have been used for building hospitals, schools, etc.
I work in a beer company owned by the biggest capitalist group in Colombia. These bosses have invested over $15 million in financing the campaigns of Senators and Serpa and Pastrana, the two presidential candidates in the final round (Pastrana won). It is also the official sponsor of the Colombian team in France '98, giving it $10 million. Do they sponsor the team because they are philanthropists? No, they know well that it is good business, giving it a good image, while those of us who work for it are super-exploited.
They want us to drink beer, watch the World Cup and vote for their candidates, while the death squads continue killing workers and youth, mass unemployment worsens, etc. They want us to cheer each player of the Colombian national team, while each player gets $30,000, money that takes a worker here several years to earn.
These same bosses in the last 40 years of war and terror have killed or disappeared two million workers and youth in Colombia, want us to forget about all of that.
As a worker, a PLP member and a soccer fan, I am telling fellow workers to enjoy the games without falling for the nationalism and commercialism of the World Cup.
Finally I want to inform the world about the slave-like conditions we suffer in this beer plant. We are controlled all the time. One cannot go to the bathroom without being watched and timed. Instead of a gun, the bosses use chronometers to keep us under slave-like conditions. If they see you eating an apple, they make you throw it out. Workers who are fired or retired are not replaced. So, few of us do more work than ever.
In 1970, each production unit had 28 workers, in 1998 there are only 16. The plant itself resembles a jail, surrounded by barbed wired fences with guard dogs patrolling it.
But some of us are doing something about these fascist conditions. Slowly but surely we are winning workers to see that in the long run workers will win and build a society without death squads, beer-making zillionaires, drugs. Where workers will produce to satisfy the needs of their class. This society is communism.
A Comrade, Colombia
Recently I have noticed that many Party fliers produced in Chicago have not described communism. Communism may be mentioned as the alternative to the problem dealt with in the leaflet, but there is no discussion of how the particular contradiction would be different under communism or how workers' lives would be different. In addition, our most recent leaflet on nuclear war referred to the Party only as "PLP." Our friends of course know hat PLP is, but I believe that a mass leaflet should spell out Progressive Labor Party at least once.
For our friends especially, and also for our mass base, the discussion of communism is crucial. We have formed a group at our church call the Religious Left Caucus, in which we use Challenge as a basis for discussion. In our last few meeting and especially the one discussion nuclear war, our friends agreed with our analysis of capitalism and that society had to change even before we read the Challenge article. They did not agree, however, that change would require a revolution nor that communism was necessary and desirable. We have decided that we can raise the level of discussion with them by reading a few chapters in Maurice Cornforth's Theory of Knowledge, which we find relatively easy to understand.
Because of these experiences I believe that is a general need in the Party to talk about our vision of communism as a theory and as an historical moment. This should be put forward not only in our leaflets and newspaper, but in our bullhorn rallies, May Day speeches, and in discussions with our friends.
For example, before we distributed the nuclear war leaflet in our church, we added points from the What We Fight For section on the Challenge editorial page to the reverse side and included an invitation to people to join us for discussion afterward (three others joined us).
We also said that the term PLP refers to the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party. Revolutionary communist means that we will come to power not through coalitions, not through national liberation struggles, and not through elections, but through the armed insurrectionary overthrow of a fascist capitalist system worldwide. PLP has been n existence since 1965, and we have dedicated ourselves to the following proposition: As the world's bosses prepare for oil wars and eventually World War III, PLP organizes workers, students, and soldiers to turn these wars into a revolution for communism. This fight for a form of government called the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, requires a mass Red Army led by a mass Party, the communist PLP.
Chicago Comrade