The Detroit workers enthusiastically greeted the rally. We distributed hundreds of copies of a letter from Daimler workers in Stuttgart, building international solidarity. Hundreds of PLP fliers were distributed, warning of the threat of war in Iraq and calling on workers to join the revolutionary communist movement, to prepare for the upcoming contract fight and to lead the way in destroying the warmakers and strikebreakers. As they listened to the German worker, dozens came to shake his hand and more than 160 bought Challenge. Some gave their names and addresses to be visited.
The German comrade told one interested worker that it would mean a lot if he could return to Germany with a letter from Detroit Chrysler workers. When the German worker returned today to meet the Chrysler worker at shift change, he had a hand-written letter from the workers in his department, written on the back of the Daimler workers' letter. (A copy of this letter is reprinted below) This is a very concrete expression of the workers' desire for internationalism. Another worker e-mailed PLP saying, "Organize me!" As the international crisis intensifies and the contract draws closer, workers from Flint to Stuttgart are calling out for revolutionary communist leadership. The question is are we listening? The rally at DaimlerChrysler, the involvement of our comrade from Germany, and the response of the workers, has got our attention.
The following is the letter from a DaimlerChrysler worker in Detroit to his colleagues in Germany. This solidarity address was distributed in front of a DaimlerChrysler plant in Detroit with help of PLP activists.
Welcome brothers and sisters in Germany to our Chrysler family. We also send greetings to all of you. We produce doors, hoods, fenders and miscellaneous parts for assembly on Dodge Trucks, Jeeps, Minivans and sport utility vehicles (Durango).
We are the busiest plant in the former corporation usually working 10 hours or 12 hours 7 days all year every year. We would like to work fewer hours, but we work overtime because we need the money, We are basically a satisfied workforce, but because Daimler-Benz has acquired us, we are now afraid of losing some benefits. We are most afraid of losing our yearly profit-sharing checks, which average $8,000 per year. This year we expect to earn about $15,000.
We don't know what you all earn, nor do we know anything about Daimler's Alabama (U.S.) plant. We want to know. Are they union? Do they earn the same as the Germans? How can we match what the Germans earn? Can we get employee discounts on cars (Mercedes)?
We feel more threatened by Mexico's plants than Germany's. Our merger (as it is called in the U.S.) is pushed as partnership, but we know the truth. We are currently concerned with keeping the benefits we have. Also, we want to insure our jobs' future by limiting the amount of outside suppliers. I am planning to get involved with the union's politics and planning, so that I can have my opinions heard.
Please forgive the sloppiness of the letter, but I have worked 10 hours a day/7 days a week all year and I'm tired. We do not know what your benefits and pay are, but would like to share with you all that we can. Please keep in touch.
Thanks
R.
Another GM worker invited us into his house and asked us the difference between "our" communism and what happened in Russia. We did our best to explain PLP's goal of abolishing money, privilege, wage slavery, and organizing society, and production, to meet the needs of the international working class.
The worker pointed out how, in contrast to this, his plant was swarming with GM inspectors, trying to figure out how to get more production out of the workers to make more profits for the bosses. He asked several engaging questions that showed his interest in a communist alternative to the kind of life we live today. He said, "Evil cannot win. Something has to be done." This shows that he can be won to fighting for a communist future that puts its faith in the revolutionary potential of the working class. While he will be out of town for the holidays and unable to attend the meeting, we made plans to send him the May Day video and stop by back again. He and others we visited also took literature to bring to their co-workers.
It is very hard to maintain the fire and enthusiasm of the eight-week GM strike. It tends to be dulled by the relentless overtime, and our distance from the strikers. We need to do more to address the coming contract, and offer our strategy and tactics for leading sharp class struggle around the immediate needs of the workers. In these fights, our worldview can become clearer to the workers, and a weapon in their hands. Dialectical philosophy says that nature and society can make jumps, but not without preparation. We'll be going back to Flint to prepare workers for the upcoming contract struggle, to unite with steel and Boeing workers, to build international solidarity for the eventual seizure of power.
Editorial #1
The company's not waiting. It has just announced it would double its layoffs to 48,000 over the next two years--38,000 of them will be in 1999. Production of the 747 Jumbo jet will plummet from 42 a year to 12, because of the crisis of overproduction. At the same time, Boeing hired John Calhoun Wells, the former top federal labor mediator, who oversaw the destruction of the UAW at Caterpillar between 1993 and 1997. "By hiring Wells, the company hopes to gauge the key pressure points of the 39,000 member union and avoid a strike that could cripple the company at a time of stiffened competition from Europe' Airbus Industrie." reports the Seattle Times.
Meanwhile, IAM District President Bill Johnson announced the formation of a Boeing/Machinists Working Group, after a daylong summit with CEO Phil Condit and IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. In September, he declared, "The battle is not between the Union and Boeing. The real battle must be between Boeing and Airbus."
Covering all bases, Condit has Jesse Jackson touring the North American plants, spouting the company's mantra. "It's about what team you are on," he repeats at every plant. "Your competition is not white versus black, male versus female, it's Boeing versus Airbus."
The auto and steel contracts expire within a couple of weeks of the Boeing contract. These three unions, the UAW, the USW and the IAM, are set to merge in the year 2000. The UAW has also set up a Working Group, while the USW is collaborating with the steel companies in the "Stand Up For Steel" campaign. Could the fix be in for all of basic industry?
Prior to the last strike, PLP helped lead demonstrations against layoffs. Hundreds bombarded the union offices protesting team/lean plans. Rolling thunder--thousands of hammers banging on metal, every hour on the hour--heralded the strike. Soon, thousands were marching through the plants. We should remember that and do even better.
The dozens of proxy wars being fought around the world, will lead to more bloody confrontations between the major capitalist blocks. So when Johnson and Jackson say the battle is between "us" and Airbus, they not only sabotage the contract fight, but they goose step along with the bosses' plans for war.
Even the "best" contracts only set the limits, or terms, of wage slavery. The company and their stooges want a war contract on the cheapest possible terms. We must abolish wage slavery. This contract fight, and possible strike, should become a school for revolution, building a mass PLP as we fight against flextime, layoffs, lean, etc.
There will be a battle next September. The only question is, will we fight for our class or the U.S. bosses? To turn Johnson's remarks on their head, the real battle is Boeing and Airbus workers versus the Boeing and Airbus bosses. Let the battle be joined! Let's seize the opportunity to build our revolutionary forces at Boeing and all basic industry!
EDITORIAL #2
That's the lesson from the latest wave of international corporate takeovers. The $77 billion merger of Mobil with Exxon and the $10 billion deal, in which Germany's Deutsche Bank gobbles up Bankers Trust, are particularly instructive. They show the ruthless inter-imperialist rivalries boiling beneath the grinning façade of "globalization." The economic crisis of world capitalism is sharpening every day. The bosses are planning to get out of it off our backs and with our blood. We can't unite with any of these murderers. Our fight is for communism. It's the only way we can break out of the permanent crisis of the profit system.
In the first place, it's a cost-cutting move. Exxon-Mobil figures to save $2.5 billion by laying off thousands of workers. Many more layoffs will result from this process.
Then there's the matter of gaining a competitive advantage for Rockefeller over the increasingly unreliable Saudi oil rulers: "With per barrel costs...among the lowest in the industry...a combined Exxon-Mobil might be able to compete directly with countries that have nationalized their oil businesses... `Their competition is Saudi Arabia' said [a] Morgan Stanley analyst" (WSJ, 11/30).
The Exxon-Mobil deal also takes dead aim at the New Money Oil Patch domestic upstarts who keep pestering the Rockefeller empire. The idea is to knock some of them out altogether. "The days [of small oil companies] are numbered," an oil industry analyst told the Wall Street Journal (11/30). This is a move toward the fascist consolidation of the U.S. economy, both to discipline the working class and to impose internal self-discipline among the rulers. Like the federal lawsuit against Microsoft, the rulers are moving against all forms of internal economic threats to Rockefeller & Co.
Finally, this merger hastens the next U.S. invasion of Iraq. Iraqi oil is among the cheapest in a world drowning in crude oil. The genocidal U.S.-imposed sanctions against the Iraqi working class can't keep all Iraqi oil off the market. About $3 billion worth is due to be exported over the next six months, mainly to U.S. imperialism's rivals. The Clinton bunglers still haven't come up with a Middle East war plan that meets the Eastern Establishment's approval. No matter who wins the 2000 presidential election, Exxon-Mobil will immediately put this plan on the front burner.
The Big Oil love-fest will sharpen competition between U.S. imperialism and all its European rivals. In fact, Exxon-Mobil is in part, a response to this rivalry. Earlier this year, BP, a major Exxon rival, took over Amoco. Then, French archrival Total announced a $12.7 billion takeover of Belgian oil refiner Petrofina. There's no end in sight. All the big companies must keep getting bigger to compete with each other for the greasy profits in Africa and the Middle East.
The takeover of Bankers Trust by Deutsche Bank is a significant defeat for U.S. imperialism. It follows Daimler's takeover of Chrysler, and Siemen's purchase of Westinghouse. These were bad enough from Wall Street's viewpoint, but the penetration of U.S. financial houses by the enemy is even worse. The Japanese banks tried it in the 1970's and '80s but had to pull back because of their own crisis. On the other hand, even when French and German rulers were flat on their backs after World War II, they managed to prevent the erosion of their financial system by then-dominant U.S. banking. Now the shoe is on the other foot and U.S. rulers can't do much about it just by playing according to the rules. Led by German bosses, the European Union has a huge balance of trade surplus. European rulers have their internal contradictions, but for the moment none is as big as the growing trade deficit of U.S. imperialism. The situation has a deadly logic.
The struggle to take over more U.S. financial houses will escalate. As U.S. rulers are less and less able to defend their turf in the usual way, they'll stop playing by the rules, and go to war to stop their further decline. The plans to launch the next bloodbath for oil are already being drawn up. When it breaks out, every contradiction between U.S. imperialism and its rivals will deepen. Although it's premature to predict the timing, a Third World War is in the cards for sure.
We have a lot to say about how it will develop and how it will end. The rulers can't prepare for their wars, or fight them, without us. What we do as a class, and what our Party does to lead our class, in the immediate future as well as over the long haul, will determine the future. As long as the bosses hold power, they will continue to oppress and murder us. By advancing communist politics and building a mass PLP in the heat of class struggle, we can begin to turn the tide. The biggest oil companies, the biggest banks, and the most ruthless capitalist governments in the world can't stop millions of workers armed with revolutionary ideas, and guns, determined to rule society.
For the bosses there are two aspects to the relationship between themselves and union leaders. The union leaders must be willing to serve capitalism, and they must run their unions in a businesslike manner and have credibility amongst the workers.
As Challenge has pointed out previously, the highest levels of the banking establishment bosses are divided over how best to discipline workers in order to institute fascism. The takeover of DC37 reflects this fight. Meanwhile, Hill & Co. have lost credibility with the rank-and-file who are angry at:
* The current contract which froze wages for two years, downsized thousands and failed to prevent city bosses from replacing unionized workers with Workfare slave labor workers;
* The large numbers of temporary workers being hired by the city (14,000 per diems);
* The union's promotion of a plan to institutionalize Workfare under the guise of a "transitional" jobs' program that would pay workers $7.50 per hour, far less than prevailing union wages (Public Employee Press, 9/11);
* The 10 percent dues increase that financed exorbitant spending practices (the 24 members of the DC 37 Executive Board were paid $736,715 in 1997 for attending from one to three 2-hour lavishly-catered meetings per week during their normal work day!--N.Y. Times, 11/9).
On top of all this, Hill angered the mainly black and Latin members of DC37 with his open alliance with racist Mayor Giuliani whose administration has promoted a sharp increase in racist police violence; turned the public school system into virtual jails with cops in the schools; and closed vital city services.
How did DC37's house of cards come tumbling down? First, the turkeys who run the District were caught skimming gravy from the union coffers. Joseph Decano, the President of the highway workers' Local, pleaded guilty to stealing $50,000 as part of a kickback scheme involving years of free turkey giveaways to members of several District locals. He in turn implicated the leaders of DC37 in a vote-count scam in which the current contract was declared "passed" when the vote in the large Local 1549 was rigged by stuffed ballot boxes. After daily accusations, denials and admissions of guilt in the press, Hill and two of his top assistants stepped down. More will likely follow. One-third of the District's Executive Council has either been thrown out of office or is under investigation by Manhattan DA Morgenthau.
Is this an isolated example of corrupt unionism? No. The turkey giveaway began in DC37 under Victor Gotbaum in 1985. It was probably as corrupt then, as when it was run by Vincent Parisi who had Mob ties (NY Times, 11/22).
Why is this happening now? Hill is not much different than Gotbaum, who said, "The stipends [$736,715 paid to Executive Board members] are a good piece of change, but lots of unions do it, and you can't fault Stanley for it" (NY Times, 11/9). But there is one big difference: Gotbaum served the Rockefeller rulers much more efficiently when he orchestrated the bailout of city bankers in the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970's by investing city workers' pension funds in feeble city bonds and forced workers to accept wage freezes and wage deferrals to balance the city budget. But Hill has so lost credibility among the workers that the Eastern Establishment can no longer trust him to discipline the workers.
A long time ago they used to say, "The King is dead, long live the King." Ruling classes want us to believe their reign is eternal. Gerald McEntee has named a trustee for DC37. In the future he will likely name someone to succeed Stanley Hill as Executive Director. He will look to someone who can be trusted to do the bosses' bidding and has the confidence of the workers. PLP members in DC37, however, will be joining with our brothers and sisters in the District to fight back against the bosses and all their agents in our midst.
We can take the offensive in re-opening the contract and fighting against racist slave labor. We can organize co-workers from our jobs and delegates in our Locals to protest at DC37 headquarters. We can promote a petition drive to mobilize support for our fight. We can unite with Workfare workers at our jobs and in various organizations. At job sites, we can form committees for local action. These committees can become the backbone of a larger strike committee. The struggle will sharpen as we challenge both the city and the union bosses. And we can and will use these struggles to point to the fundamental cause of these attacks on workers--capitalism--and the solution: communism. With communist leadership, the working class can sweep Hill, McEntee & Co. and their ruling class bosses into the dustbin of history.
Bonnie is grieving a three-day suspension from last June, for distributing PLP literature to students, and encouraging them to fight back. This was part of an anti-communist scare-campaign that included FBI harassment, three articles in the Chicago Sun-Times demanding PLP teachers be fired, and a "warning resolution" passed by the Board and hand-delivered to Bonnie's house at 8:15 on a Saturday morning.
These attacks against the Party were partially successful in their goal of isolating PLP from other teachers and students. We are now reversing this by fighting on many fronts. We are figuring out new ways to distribute Challenge to teachers and students. Some teachers have asked Bonnie to help them lead student groups, despite the fact that the principal banned her from doing this. Party teachers have become more active in the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU), especially around the recent contract struggle. Bonnie ran for Associate Delegate as an open communist, getting strong encouragement from other teachers. She received about 20% of the vote. We used this campaign to get out the Party's line on unions, the contract and capitalist crisis. "You should have campaigned harder," one teacher correctly criticized.
The basis of our grievance is that the principal defied Board of Education policies and procedures. The District 1 Chief Education Officer refused to handle the appeal, and kicked it up to Labor Relations. The Labor Relations hearing officer, clearly familiar with the case, declared that there was no basis for a grievance. (Oddly, he later denied having ever received the relevant files.) He didn't even want to let the CTU delegate present our case.
The Labor Relations administrator declared that as long as the principal held a hearing with proper notification, there could be no appeal and no grievance. This would mean that any principal could discipline any teacher, at any time, on any "evidence" concocted. That has already been happening to students hauled before disciplinary deans. Few teachers have stood up to oppose this and other forms of racist terror against students and other school workers, like the police sweeps of the schools. Now they're coming for the teachers.
The union delegate and the field representative were stunned. The delegate quickly recovered. He began yelling at the hearing officer, and throwing documents across the table at him. Things were not going according to the Board's plan. Then Bonnie started grilling the hearing officer. By now the guy was backing down. He made copies of the same documents that he had initially refused to look at. The principal had to stop smirking and present his lame defense. The hearing officer, who had been ready to dismiss the grievance then and there, announced that he needed two weeks to decide on an answer. He had to go back to the big boss, CEO Paul Vallas, for new marching orders!
The CTU field rep usually functions like a lazy public defender. But she woke up and spoke in support of our position. This could cause problems for CTU president Tom Reece when we ask the union to take the grievance to arbitration. He doesn't like going to arbitration because it costs money, and he very conscientiously supports Vallas, who has taken a personal interest in this case.
As the fascist reorganization of the Chicago Public Schools proceeds, teachers are being threatened and suspended under the Employee Discipline Code. We plan to use this case to raise this issue in a mass way at our school and in the CTU House of Delegates. As the not-so-naive delegate's remark shows, even a grievance hearing can become an arena in which the fascist nature of the State is exposed, and ties amongst co-workers can be strengthened in struggle.
A group of Boston University students formed an organization called "Students Against Sweatshops" (SAS). One member of the Boston PLP college club who is a BU student is also in SAS. On November 11th, SAS hosted a forum on sweatshops. Our goal was to have a significant PLP presence at the event. The PLP member in SAS asked that another PLP member be one of the four main speakers at the event. Some of the other student organizers agreed that PLP presents a unique and important perspective on sweatshop labor. However, partly out of anti-communism and fear of being attacked, the SAS organizers eventually decided not to have a PLP speaker.
We wrote a PLP leaflet about sweatshops (titled "Smash Sweatshops") that pointed out that the increasing exploitation and oppression of working people is due to the sharpening general crisis of worldwide capitalism. This crisis force bosses to search for maximum profits to compete with other bosses. This is what is leading to war and fascism worldwide. Many college students, including many BU students, believe that their lives will remain fairly untouched by the increasing crisis of capitalism. Our leaflet pointed out that the interests of college students are united with the interests of poor Dominican factory workers. Mass layoffs and downsizing by bosses will affect college graduates.
We distributed more than 400 PLP leaflets at BU in the days before the SAS forum. At the forum itself, Party members came to support the PLP student who is organizing in SAS. About 40 people (about 15-20 were students) came to the forum, and we got our leaflet to all of them. The main speakers were reformists of various political stripes: a radical labor historian, an organizer from UNITE (the garment union), and a member of CISPES (Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador). All the speakers pushed the idea that workers with enough struggles could eventually win "fair" working conditions. The PL/SAS member gave a brief talk about the importance of student/worker unity for affecting social change. He brought up the necessity of eventually getting rid of capitalism altogether. Other PLP members spoke from the floor, connecting the growth of sweatshops to the crisis of overproduction and the drive for maximum profit. We also raised the fact that BU is itself a corporation that exploits workers.
Overall, we judged our involvement in this event to be modestly successful. We encountered no anti-communist hostility from students. The PLP member of SAS continues to struggle to turn the fight to hold BU accountable for the actions of the manufacturers of BU clothing into a broader struggle around what is happening to capitalism today and why we need to end a system based on exploitation and oppression. In the long term, we will need to continue our discussions with individual SAS members and participate in future struggles to turn our involvement with SAS into growth for PLP.
News of the Workfare program at the hospital leaked when union activists got a letter from Jefferson Personnel to all the department heads. The letter stated that 1199C Hospital Union President Henry Nicholas gave his full support and cooperation to the program, including the use of Workfare workers in union jobs. The letter even urged the department heads to use the 1199C delegates to "mentor" the Workfare workers!
A group of Jefferson union delegates immediately began organizing among the other delegates and workers. Several intense and challenging meetings have been held. The delegates leading this organizing drive are determined to structure it in a way that is not confined to the sidelines; we want this campaign to be a major drive in the union and among the workers. This means giving much more thought to politics, strategy and detail than all of us are used to.
For example, the delegates' plan to confront President Nicholas at the monthly delegate meeting about the letter had the goal of being very different from past experiences in the union. We wanted this to be more than just us shouting slogans from the floor.
Our discussion of how we might appeal to the other delegates at the meeting was much more scientifically dialectical. We considered the contradiction that while many of the mainly black delegates are strongly critical of the union for its inaction against increasing attacks, they also feel they should support Nicholas and the union because of nationalism and the historic racism of the labor movement. Our confrontation with Nicholas therefore was more political. Nicholas of course denied the letter existed and claimed that it was a bosses' lie. He then tried to end the discussion with his usual crap portraying himself as the lone champion of workers' rights. But we were able to put forward that the fight against Workfare was a fight against fascism and needed a mass militant response.
Meanwhile, ideological struggle among the delegates and workers at Jefferson has hit a new high. Arguments rage about: "Is Workfare slave labor?" "Why is the union President supporting workfare?" "How can we fight Workfare if the government is behind it?" "Can we overcome the apparent passivity of the workers?" "How is this related to war?" "Can we stop these things, or do we need revolution?" Meetings among the union delegates have already divided into a clearly defined left, center, and right.
Joe's statement about fighting the government shows that fascism can politicize more people. Workfare now brings the bigger issues of fighting the government and fascism to the center of our discussions. PLP members don't have to "reach" as hard to bring larger issues into our struggles with the workers. These larger issues give communists more opportunities to show workers the need to join PLP and fight for communism.
The value of the Party's explanations cannot be underestimated. For example, as early as 1991, PLP developed the analysis, "Bio-determinism leads to Fascism," exposed the U.S. government's "Violence Initiative," program and organized the attack on the Genetics and Crime Conference at the University of Maryland. Some scientists were getting famous in the bosses' "liberal" press when they claimed that black youth might have a "genetic tendency" toward violent behavior. Their bogus "research" was supposed to prove that genetic defects caused violent behavior in inner city youth.
Although such violence is usually tragically misdirected at friends or family, rather than at bosses and cops who deserve it, most workers can clearly see that violent behavior is a response to oppression and racism. The scientists never wanted to study the most violent people of all, the police and the generals.
Later, members of the hundreds-strong Black Caucus took up the matter of racist research (and the APHA's protection of it) at their meeting. One member pointedly asked the candidate for APHA president, who was at the Caucus meeting on a campaign visit, what her position would be on the resolution against racist research "which has been held up in committee for years." The candidate's answer revealed that there had been a sharp debate on the resolution in the Executive Board and she had taken the anti-racist position, but had lost the debate. Her answer brought applause in the Caucus, and she was later elected president of the 30,000-member association.
In addition to the struggle against fascist ideology and pseudo-science, PLP participated in, and led fights around, resolutions against imperialist war and racist police terror. We have become a little more skillful at raising aspects of the Party's line in a mass way. Still these debates are not heard by most of the 14,000 participants, so we need to develop other tactics to achieve even wider political education.
Mass organizations can be overwhelming: "So many people, so little time!" The key is having a clear idea of what task and which people are most important, and never stop thinking about what needs to be done and who can help us do it. We can make this coming year's activity in the APHA even more useful to the Party and the working class by winning health professionals to a better understanding of what "serving the people" can really mean.
No sooner had the U.S. moved to bring Chile into NAFTA and away from the European Union's Mercosur trade alliance, then Pinochet gets arrested in London. This is the essence of what happened--intense inter-imperialist rivalry. The Europeans have another goal: to implicate the U.S.'s Henry Kissinger in the coup that brought Pinochet to power, and destroy the pro-U.S. "Operation Condor" intelligence alliance in South America (See the Behind the News column). The Europeans want to aggressively move into the U.S.'s backyard and pull Britain closer as well.
All this has opened many political opportunities. People get excited. One AC Transit worker has a good friend who was jailed and tortured under Pinochet's terror. She initially thought of getting our union (ATU Local 192) to write a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno, demanding that the U.S. officially charge Pinochet with responsibility for the 1976 murder of ex-Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC. Another worker moved that a postcard campaign would involve more workers.
Our goal was to discuss the growing inter-imperialist rivalry more in depth with individuals or groups of workers and win workers to oppose U.S. imperialism, especially now, as the U.S. tries to win workers to support war in Iraq. We also wanted to expose to workers how the AFL-CIO aided U.S. bosses' in the 1973 overthrow of Pinochet's predecessor, socialist President Salvador Allende.
At the morning meeting another worker seconded the motion. We started comparing well-known workers' enemies like Newt Gingrich to Pinochet. Not only had Pinochet killed thousands of militant workers, but he also had destroyed unions and the living conditions of millions more. We told one of the worker's friend's stories. The day after Pinochet's coup, Chilean bosses told the factory union steward to leave the contract outside the door--and then increased the workers' hours from 40 to 60 per week, cutting their wages by one-third.
The motion passed 8-1. Union president Zook supported the motion but didn't agree that the AFL-CIO helped bring Pinochet to power.
At the afternoon meeting we had no one present to defend the motion. One anti-communist union official undermined support by attaching an inflated $500 potential cost for the postcard campaign. This effectively turned off the less political workers. The motion lost 7-0.
At the evening meeting other workers supported the motion. One worker told how her father had worked covertly for the U.S. army to undermine workers' struggles. But again, workers got sidetracked by the money issue and a call for "more information." After some union shenanigans, they declared the motion "defeated," 13 to 12.
Still, this hastily organized effort opened many opportunities and provided some valuable lessons. Growing out of this struggle, the worker's friend was won to give a forum on his experiences fighting Pinochet's fascism. We want to discuss how liberal democracy, even Allende style, sets up workers for fascism. Another worker agreed to draft the postcard to the Attorney General. We will go again to the December union meeting to advance this struggle. This time we will be ready for the slick tactics of the liberal anti-communist union officials. But we will point out that we do not expect justice from Janet Reno. And we will be "more informed" about the role of the "AFL-CIA" in making Chile safe for capitalism.
We must also struggle in the union to oppose war for oil profits in Iraq. Some in the union movement, like Zook, will oppose past "excesses" of U.S. capitalism (like supporting Pinochet) to persuade workers to trust the "good reformers." But we must show workers that imperialist war is on the agenda of the "good reformers," too. In fact it is a necessity of capitalism in crisis and can be stopped only by building a larger PLP fraction, a larger PLP and communist revolution.
Spain, with over 40 years of fascist terror under General Franco, isn't interested in justice. As a matter of fact in the late 1980's and early 1990's, the socialist government of Felipe González, carried out its own version of state terror against Basque nationalists. Using the excuse of investigating the fate of the tens of thousands of victims of political terror under Pinochet and during the "dirty war" carried out by the Argentinian military nazis from 1976 till 1983, judge Garzon is spearheading the European Union's plan to undermine the political and intelligence infrastructure loyal to U.S. imperialism. Spain, even though a small imperialist country, has recently invested heavily in Latin America, mainly in banking, competing in many cases against U.S. interests.
Even hurricane Mitch has not escaped the growing rivalry between the U.S. and European bosses. Emma Bonino, the EU humanitarian aid commissioner, warned that the U.S. is taking advantage of Mitch to "reestablish its political influence and military presence in Central America". (Reforma, Mexico City, 11/29). She warned the EU to oppose this.
In response to a simple grievance written on behalf of union letter carriers at the station, management went berserk. For two hours, the station manager gave speeches and walked the floor yelling at us. The message was clear: The Postal Service has a budget that must be followed. If we don't go along with the game plan, our lives will be made miserable. If we don't like it we should quit, or tell someone at home who might actually give a damn. It was an amazing spectacle. There was a 15-minute "meeting" and two written responses of three pages, to a three-line grievance, accusing them of harassment. Do you think they're scared of us, maybe just a little?
Writing the grievance was good. We exposed the true nature of the bosses and put them on the defensive. Just the week before, there had been a slightly different station meeting. Then the manager asked for our cooperation. She said she knew the job was tough, and she was on our side. Upper management only gives the station 28 overtime hours a day, so we should govern ourselves accordingly. And since "not all people were made to be letter carriers," she would be terminating new employees that are too slow. She knew the routes were overburdened, but there are procedures, and on and on. The response of the union steward: "This place is a sweatshop."
Soon a flier was circulating around the station. It said that this was Nazism. They weren't asking for our cooperation, just go along with the game plan, or else. Throwing people and their families on the street because they're "slow?" This is Nazism, and we shouldn't go along with it. Many carriers distributed it around the station. While many thought it was "great," some thought it was a little "too much" to call the supervisors "Nazis."
One of the struggles we have is over reading Challenge. We distribute a pretty large number of papers here, but we actually read it "a little" and "sometimes." Challenge offers us an understanding of the changing world, and it's present economic crisis. We could use it more. How exactly does this economic and political crisis affect the Postal Service? Why can't they give us more than 28 hours of overtime? Or for that matter, hire a lot of people and shorten the routes? The answer lies in understanding the depth of the crisis and the politically isolated position of the U.S. rulers.
One woman says, "Man, they don't even let you say anything." This is fascism. Why should they let you talk? They can't go outside the budget, fix the routes, or anything other than intimidate and harass us. They do things like hold our timecards so we can't punch out for nine hours work. We must sign a 1260 card saying we worked only eight hours. They conduct a witch hunt for "communist propaganda" and threaten to take fingerprint samples off an envelope. They do these things because they're weak, and running out of options. As we understand the situation better, and fight their attacks, we will win the day.
But Dr. Death is small time compared to the system that created him. As US imperialism limps towards the 21st Century, health care is hazardous to your health. Racism is the #1 killer, with the combination of poverty, racist police terror, fire-trap housing, and lousy low-wage, dangerous jobs leading the list. The gap between black and white life expectancy has grown, as cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes claim millions needlessly. TB and Hepatitis C are at epidemic proportions, and black infant mortality surpasses many underdeveloped countries in the segregated black communities of the US. Drugs, AIDS, and homicide add to the grisly list.
Internationally, it gets worse. Recently 18 million poor people in Bangladesh were infected by arsenic seeping into their drinking water, and the billionaires can't get clean water to them. Over 10,000 recently died in Honduras and Nicaragua, a result of capitalist poverty and Hurricane Mitch. Over 50,000 children die each day from totally curable, and preventable disease. US-imposed sanctions have killed millions of children and the elderly in Iraq, and more than 40 wars around the world are killing millions more.
This is not the result of a deranged fascist, but the profit system in crisis, lurching towards fascism and world war. It's carried out by liberal politicians and hospital administrators, who can never cure the disease of capitalism, and the many diseases it creates. Rather than a sane system that relies on disease prevention, the capitalists wait until they've killed you, and then create the illusion of trying to cure you. They close wards and hospitals to build more prisons, put 100,000 more killer cops on the streets, flood the cities with drugs, and wipe out welfare. Occupational Safety and Health has been gutted, while wages drop and productivity soars.
The same week that this execution was broadcast, the NY Times carried an article, "Working Americans Facing Steep Increases in Health Costs Next Year." It reported plans by companies and public employers, large and small, to pass on heavy health care plan premium increases to their workers. "Government economists say they expect that the upswing [in premiums] will continue over the next few years, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to national health spending."(NY Times, 11/27).
There are sharply conflicting interests at work here. The source of these increases has been the consolidation of power over most of the health care industry by a handful of HMO's. The Times reports that, "The HMO industry has benefited from rapid consolidation...Sixteen of the nation's biggest HMOs were swallowed by other managed care companies in the last three years. `There are only a few national carriers left: Aetna, Cigna, United Healthcare...they are calling the shots.'" The main shot is higher health costs to drive up profits for the HMO's.
In this period of global crisis of overproduction, the bosses dump this added cost onto workers. "With 85 percent of all insured workers now in HMOs or other types of managed care, there are few opportunities left for employers to lower costs." (NY Times, 11/27). While there will be struggles between the bosses over these costs, the losers will be the working class. We will see less care for more bucks. Enter Dr. Death and CBS.
Kevorkian doesn't want to "stop suffering," he wants to cut costs. This is the same prescription written by thousands of doctors in Nazi Germany. We must be actively engaged, especially in the health fields, in attacking the fascist notion that our lives are not worth living. We want every worker to live, fight to live, and be supported through any suffering with all the resources they need. But that can only happen when the workers have seized power, and we build a communist world. We want life with dignity - free of capitalism.
What "The Siege" is really about is the struggle between two conflicting views in the U.S. ruling class over how, not whether, to build fascism. It is one of a number of new movies (like Amistad, Saving Private Ryan and American History X) which promote the views of the most powerful Old Money capitalists. In this case, the film tacitly endorses the U.S. fight to control oil in the Mideast, and pushes the liberal bosses' road to fascism.
The Siege is set in New York City. At the beginning of the movie, an Islamic religious leader is captured by U.S. intelligence in the Mideast and shipped to a secret jail in the U.S. The "sheik" is a thinly veiled combination of the real life spiritual leader of a group convicted of the 1995 World Trade Center bombing, and Osama bin Laden. The sheik's followers first demand his release, then embark on a campaign of terror to secure it.
Hubbard (Denzel Washington), the head of the NYC FBI office, is in charge of countering the bombings. Washington is portrayed as a reasonable cop, who is gradually forced into taking more and more repressive measures by the escalating violence he cannot prevent. At one point, after he sees civilians blown up before his eyes, Hubbard exhorts his officers to round up any Arab who "talks bad" about the U.S. The FBI Hubbard leads is portrayed as a multi-cultural group of dedicated and loyal men and women whose sole concern is to protect the lives of innocent U.S. civilians.
The bombings continue. Enter Devereux (Bruce Willis) an army general who originally opposes harsh measures. However, when the FBI office in NYC is blown up, the President orders martial law in NYC, and dispatches Devereux to catch the terrorists. Devereux immediately orders the roundup of all Arab people in Brooklyn. The U.S. army sets up detention camps and throws all the Arabs they can get their hands on into them. Even the son of Haddad, the token Arab FBI agent who is Hubbard's sidekick, is tossed into the camp, unraveling the multicultural patriotism of the good guys.
Without giving away the whole movie, it is necessary to point out that the terrorist leader is part of an anti-Saddam Iraqi group which was sold out by the CIA, then brought to the U.S. by a rogue CIA officer. The Arabs are eventually released against the backdrop of the good old Stars & Stripes.
This is a racist movie. Hubbard's call for mass roundups of dissidents goes unchallenged. Although Haddad is portrayed positively, the Arab terrorists are shown as being deceptive and murderous. The terrorism is associated with certain Islamic rituals. And, of course, not a word is said about the terrorist role U.S. imperialism plays in controlling Mideast oil.
However, that is not the main point of the movie. The movie is an attack on other forces within the ruling class (New Money and possibly some Old Money forces). These forces are portrayed as having screwed up U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast (by leaving Saddam in place and grabbing the sheik), and then turning around and using the consequences of their mistakes to justify open Nazi-style fascism. The liberal forces within the government are portrayed as the saviors of U.S. democracy.
The most dangerous ideas pushed by this very slick piece of bourgeois propaganda are multi-cultural U.S. nationalism, and the message of passivity through alliance with the "good" bosses. Obviously, some of the rulers realize that they need the support of black, Latin and Arab workers to wage a successful ground war against their rivals in the Mideast. They also have a more deliberate approach to the establishment of fascism. PLP members need to expose these ideas, and mobilize workers and students to fight back while putting forward communist revolution.
We just went through the gas chamber. It was pretty crazy. If that wasn't enough to talk about, we also won a phase 1 competition for Physical Training--obstacle course, marching. The barracks were filled with conversation, but it wasn't about the gas chamber or the competition.
The captain announced there is a problem in Iraq, and the level of readiness in various forts had risen, including ours. He said there is a good chance we will be deployed in some way. For the rest of the day, the topic of conversation was, "WAR." "You really think we're going to go?" several asked. Everyone is spooked. A few were making up excuses not to go. "Why would they send a bunch of untrained soldiers to war?" "They aren't going to send me."
I talked with a lot of my platoon, but they don't give us any information. We don't have access to newspapers and radio. I don't know what's going on, but Saddam kicked out some UN inspectors and the U.S. ain't so happy. It was interesting to see many youth from 18-25 years old think about how war directly affects us.
I raised that World War III will happen over oil. Nobody gave me a straight response. The majority doesn't want to believe it, but they're still scared of it. In the back of their minds they know something is going to happen.
If you haven't noticed, this letter is chopped up in pieces. I've been writing it in sections over the past few days. My main point is that everyone is talking about war in Iraq. Everyday, a drill sergeant or captain says that a lot of us are probably going to go. It's a big thing. This week, all we did is learn to shoot our rifles. This weekend we might be able to use the phone, so stand by.
Red GI
Dear Challenge:
At drill last weekend I was driving four guys around in a Hum-V. Supposedly we were doing drivers training but of course all we were really doing was cruising around the base wasting time. As usual a lively discussion began when I mentioned the imminent bombing of Iraq.
Most of the soldiers see bombing Iraq as a sign of strength, not the sign of weakness that it really is. However, they have no interest in going over to Iraq because they make more money at their jobs at home than they do in the army. They don't see a massive land invasion as a real possibility. Soldiers in my unit understand that the U.S. is not over there for anthrax but for oil. Some of the soldiers I talk to are beginning to understand U.S. imperialism and the army's role in defending it.
One soldier who I am close to said, "I think communism is the best system. Everybody has something and nobody has nothing." I quickly agreed that I thought so too. Another soldier said, "No the U.S. is the best country in the world. I am from Jamaica and you don't know how bad the workers live there. This is the land of opportunity." I said, "Yeah, you're right. Workers in the U.S. do live a little better but only because the workers in Jamaica, Mexico and Indonesia work for like a dollar a day." The soldier said, "You are a very smart girl."
Then I asked him, as I was encouraged by his response, "Is that right? Is it morally right to profit from other workers' misery?" I was trying to get him to think about the workers in Jamaica, Iraq, Indonesia and Mexico as his class brothers and sisters. These are the questions that U.S. soldiers are going to be faced with and I know we can win them to see that it is not in the soldiers' interest to invade Iraq but that we must destroy U.S. imperialism with a communist revolution.
The soldier responded by saying, "Well communism never worked anyway. Look at Russia and China, the workers there never had anything." I said, "That's not true. In the 1930's while the U.S. was in a depression all the workers in Russia had jobs and places to live. The economy does not have to go up and down, it does so only if it is based on making money. Things are horrible in Russia now because they have unleashed the full fury of capitalism." The soldier I am close to said, "You're right the workers in Cuba lived a lot better than the workers in other countries in the Caribbean. That is why the U.S. tried to invade Cuba. They didn't want any of those countries out of their control." I tried to explain that Cuba, Russia, China weren't communist now and never made it although it was their goal. Even the taste of communism that they got was a heck of lot better then what we have here.
Now I want to take it to the next level and get the soldiers in my unit to see that U.S. imperialism is weak and that the bosses need to invade Iraq to guarantee the control of oil as markets shrink and workers can't afford to buy back what they produce. They need U.S. soldiers to carry out their plans. If we can control that then we can run the world without them. We cannot sit back and watch while Iraqi workers are killed. Communism is better for workers and capitalism is better for the bosses. My mouth dropped open when my friend said communism was the best system in the world. With the patience and perseverance of PL'ers millions of soldiers all around the world will say it too.
Red Soldier
Workers come to meetings of the Committee here to seek help with their problems at work and also with their immigration status. The leaders of the Committee have made it clear that they have no intention of seriously organizing a mass struggle. Yet some workers continue to attend the meetings because they like the discussions and struggles that take place and they stay to talk with people they've met at the meetings.
Recently, there have been several issues that have moved the workers. One was the threatened closing of several factories, to move the work to other countries. Several workers proposed a series of rallies to fight the closings and to expose the cheap tactics of the bosses and their crisis. The leaders have verbally agreed to the plan, but that's all so far. Their main emphasis has been to elect "progressive" politicians. Yet the workers continue to press for a demonstration against the threatened plant closures.
From the floor, workers have talked about the history of workers' struggles and the need for workers to confront these plant closings and other attacks by violently attacking the bosses. At one meeting, some workers who had just organized a union spoke. Many workers criticized previous unions they had been in. Another worker rose to speak about the limits of union struggles and the need for mass workers' violence against the violence of the bosses. After the last such discussion, one worker said that even though the leaders told him that they would not help him with the attacks by the boss on his job, he kept coming to the meetings because he liked the discussions.
Workers in the Committee are continuing to fight for action against the threatened plant closings, to push the fight to organize workers to act against these attacks, along with showing that developing fascism and inter-imperialist rivalry are the sources of the attacks. Passivity in the face of the bosses' attacks is dangerous! Class conscious workers are putting forward an alternative to the pacifist liberal leaders who underestimate the potential and actually fear the united strength of the working class. These workers will include workers from other organizations and factories in the struggle.
The New York media reported recently that the City's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) was being reorganized. In return for higher pay, more education would be required from child welfare workers to make them more professional and effective. Also job titles would be changed and workers and supervisors would be made more accountable to management. SSEU-Local 3717, the union representing the child welfare caseworkers and supervisors, denounced the plan, claiming it was an attack on the civil service system and the union, especially as not all incumbents would be accepted into the new job titles.
For the past several years, Mayor Giuliani and his henchman, ACS Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, have been stepping up their racist attacks on the poor, mostly black and Latin children of NYC, as well as on the workers, again mostly minority assigned to "protect" them. When abused children died, the workers, laboring under huge caseloads, were scapegoated and fired. "Instant Response Teams" of cops and caseworkers were formed to remove children and terrorize families. When there were not enough facilities to place the increasing numbers of children removed from their families, Scoppetta blamed the children for having severe problems. Immigrant grant workers were singled out with claims that they did not know English well enough to do the job.
Despite Local 371 President Ensley's constant orations, the union's response to these attacks has been weak. The union leadership has always said that it is "management's right to mismanage." They rely on the grievance procedure and the courts when they feel the contract or civil service law has been violated. Again, this is again their tactic in response to this reorganization. Ensley to date has done nothing to organize workers to fight back, despite a meeting at which hundreds of the affected workers voted unanimously to say "No!" to the reorganization. Many workers feel that the union leadership's main concern will to guarantee that Local 371 becomes the bargaining agent for the new titles.
This situation in NYC child welfare department illustrates two things. First; the bosses want public sector workers who will do their bidding--especially as their actions become more obviously fascists down the road. To that end they are prepared to bend and break civil service law and to bust any union that puts up even the feeblest resistance. Second, a union, as such, is not an organization that can effectively fight racist, fascist attacks on workers and clients. Local 371 mouths opposition to ACS reorganization and welfare reform, but does not organize its members against them outside the legal channels of the ballot box and the courtroom.
As communists in Local 371 and other unions, we in PLP must point out the limitations of unions to our fellow workers. Workers at my location have been very disturbed by the uncertainty attendant upon reorganization. I have, in a too-limited way, been trying to show that this uncertainty and feeling of powerlessness is due to the fact that workers do not control our own lives under capitalism. Unions can protect us only minimally. The only way to end the bosses' racist, fascist attacks against us and our clients is to organize for communist revolution.
Child Welfare Red
I wanted to add something to the articles in Challenge about the fascist medical experiments, which seek "biological roots of violence" among black and Latin youth. In the New York Times (11/21), there was an article exposing racism in the NYC Special Education Department. Among other startling facts, it showed how black and Latin youth are referred to special education programs at more than double the rate of whites.
The article admits that many special education students are nothing more than warehoused in segregated classrooms and are never taught much of anything of benefit to them. Most never graduated high school. These are the students the ruling class has already given up on.
But what is more important is what the article didn't say. It didn't connect this racism to fascist medical research. "Researchers" at Queens College and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine (part of the City University of New York) got names of these same special education students from the Board of Education (BOE) to convince these students to be part of their racist pseudo-scientific studies. BOE officials bragged that "the Bronx offers important groups for inclusion in the studies because its 22,000 special-ed students `are largely Hispanic (53 percent) and African-American (37 percent)' and the area is high in poverty."
Brilliant! One hand washes the other. The BOE selects students for special education based on racism, then they pass them along to these hospitals to conduct racist experiments on them; the hospitals in turn show they are "in fact defective," justifying cutting school budgets and putting more racist police in the schools to "control," jail, or kill them
This process of cooperation--the Nazis called it co-ordination--among different ruling class run institutions is a hallmark of the fascist period we are in. These "partnerships" are the ruling class's way to concentrate their forces. In the midst of their economic crisis and their need to protect their profits, this "cooperation" allows them to do two thing: force the working class to follow their fascist rules, via increase security and cops, and to create deceitful explanations to convince teachers and other workers that they Must resort to these fascist measures "for your own safety."
The fight among teachers over if we should follow these plans is intensifying. The union itself is in the middle of a campaign to "make schools sager." They are working hard to convince teachers that they must beware of "violence-prone students." They support police running school security (with a few cosmetic changes which serve their needs). The union is our enemy too! They are another ruling class institution which "cooperates" with the fascists. In this period teachers are going to be forced more and more to choose sides. Are we going to "cooperate" with the fascists, or are we going to fight them? And if we choose to fight them, what will we fight for? Fascism is right under our noses.
NYC Teacher