ANKARA, TURKEY, February 26 -— The strike of TEKEL tobacco workers is now more than 10 weeks old. The strike erupted after the government decided to close all the company warehouses, eliminating 12,000 jobs, as part of privatizing the government-run tobacco company. The strikers and their families descended on the capital and set up a tent-city to protest the job cuts.
Acording to Turkish labor law, workers who are laid off due to privatization are supposed to be placed in jobs elsewhere, with full benefits. But the only “job” the TEKEL workers have found is actually fighting for one.
The strikers and their supporters have clashed with the police, the bosses’ hired thugs. On December 16, the cops attacked a rally in front of the headquarters of the ruling AKP party. The following day in a nearby park, police erected barricades and attacked protesters with water hoses, tear gas and clubs. After that the workers moved their encampment to the headquarters of Türk-Is, the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions, who have failed to answer the bosses’
attacks with militant strikes or demonstrations.
Capitalist labor laws aren’t worth the paper they are written on, especially in the face of a worldwide financial crisis that is spreading poverty and war to everything it touches. The more workers fight back against these attacks, we create a better atmosphere to learn that a system that can’t provide jobs should be smashed. Poverty, war and racist terror are all the bosses have to offer. The only way to stop them is by building a mass international PLP and fighting for communism. That is the most important victory that we can win in the class struggle.
- Information
Greece: Angry Workers, Youth Strike vs. Bosses’ Crisis Cuts
- Information
- 03 March 2010 316 hits
ATHENS, GREECE, February 26 — More than 20,000 workers marched to this city’s center as part of the second 24-hour general strike in two weeks, closing airports, public transportation and schools. Cops fired tear gas at youth throwing stones and paint near the Parliament buildings. Workers carried banners declaring, “Tax the Rich” and “Hands off our pension funds.”
Workers are protesting the rulers’ austerity program demanded by the World Bank which will force the working class to pay the price for the crisis capitalism has created. European Union bosses are pushing the program to deal with a potential default of a national debt of $400 billion. The situation is similar to that which caused the U.S. banking crisis, and involves some of the very same U.S. banks
The bosses’ government has imposed a wage freeze and bonus cuts, and is expected to raise the value-added-tax by two percentage points, raise fuel prices and abolish a month’s additional pay received by public- and private-sector workers.
“What else are they gong to cut,” said Kiki Oikonomou, employed at a state school for disabled children, “the air we breathe? This is like a jail sentence.” (NY Times, 2/25)
“If people see the minority living a good life and their wages plummeting, they’re going to take to the streets,” predicted Haralambos Dramantis, employed by the state power board. “We haven’t seen the big uprising yet but it will come.”
These 24-hour strikes reflect the anger and militancy of the working class, but they can only produce a real “big uprising” — revolution — if workers trace the cause of the bosses’ crisis to capitalism itself. And that can only happen if communists are present and lead the working class in that direction. Unfortunately, that kind of leadership is lacking currently in Greece.
- Information
France: Immigrants’ Strike Mirrors Need to ‘Smash All Borders’
- Information
- 03 March 2010 332 hits
PARIS, February 24 — “Everyone here is a worker who has no rights,” declared Mahamadou Doucansy, among the undocumented immigrant workers who have been striking to win “legal” status. “They have been working in France for years, paying into social security, paying taxes and not one has documents,” continued Doucansy, who has been working here in construction since October, 2001, for the minimum wage. He is one of 250 strikers occupying the premises of the Job Training Insurance Fund since February 2. They are preparing for a police attack to evict them.
All told the cops have violently removed sit-downers from 50 occupied sites during the four-month strike, but the thousands of immigrant workers are holding fast. The solidarity from other workers and students here and from abroad has helped sustain them. (See letter to CHALLENGE, 3/3.)
This strike defies the bosses’ policy of super-exploiting such workers, holding them hostage to poverty wages under threat of deportation but without whose work whole industries could not function. It brings to the fore the bosses’ anti-working class and racist attacks based on borders established by national ruling classes.
Citizen-worker support for these immigrant strikers has international political significance since it helps to raise sharply the need of workers worldwide to smash the bosses’ borders. This kind of unity is essential to prepare workers to take the only road that can free our class from capitalism exploitation, the road to communist revolution.
- Information
Link French Colonialism to Attack on Immigrants’ Rights
- Information
- 03 March 2010 314 hits
PARIS, February 27 — A demonstration of 7,000 people demanded the abolition of the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity and the “legalization” of all undocumented workers. They linked France’s treatment of undocumented workers to its history as an imperialist colonial power. They chanted “Besson, Sarkozy, it’s over, the time of colonies.” Besson is the minister of immigration and “national identity”; Sarkozy is the president of France. Eighty-five organizations supported the march to the Immigration Ministry building.
The demonstration was part of the “anti-colonial week,” February 19 to 28. Patrick Farbiaz, one of the organizers, declared, “We would like to show that there is a link between the colonialism of yesterday and that of today in the way that the descendants of immigrants and undocumented immigrants are treated.”
An environmental service worker at a Brooklyn hospital, known to his coworkers as “A.D.,” passed away at the age of 54 on December 28, 2009. His life, shortened by the capitalist health care system, was spent in service to the working class. He was on the frontline of making the hospital a safe and clean environment for the working-class patients. He gave his time and energy to PLP as well, helping to distribute CHALLENGE in the hospital and cooking food for May Day celebrations.
In mid-December, he began complaining of severe pain in his knees and so took time off and visited his doctor. As a diabetic, he was concerned about his blood uric acid, high levels of which can lead to gout. The day after he visited the doctor he had a stroke and was rushed to the very same hospital he gave many years of dedicated service. In the emergency room, the care he needed was not immediately given. From the emergency room, he was admitted to a floor. Even on the floor, the care he needed was not provided. A.D. suffered another stroke; this time a code was called, summoning emergency attention from doctors and nurses, but it was too late.
At A.D.’s funeral service, a delegate from the hospital gave a passionate speech, reflecting on A.D.’s short life. He spoke of his dedication to the job and his hope that he could provide a healthy environment for the patients. He will be sorely missed by his comrades here.