NEW YORK CITY, October 16—Seventy five professors, students from CUNY, and workers from other unions were recently organized by the Progressive Labor Party and the International Committee of the Professional Staff Congress to see the documentary film, Miners Shot Down. It is a gripping depiction of the slaughter of 34 striking platinum miners on August 16, 2012 at Marikana, South Africa. We were fortunate to have the film’s director and activist, Rehad Desai, answer questions and describe the many current struggles of workers there.
As poverty and inequality grow in South Africa, workers are rapidly moving to the left, opposing the ANC government, and debating how to end capitalism. PL’ers pointed out that miners in Mexico and other countries are fighting against what’s shown in the film: company officials working hand-in-hand with the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state to stop workers fighting for a living wage. Militant strikes are powerful and necessary, and the Marikana miners set the example for workers around the world by fighting back with machetes and spears. But as long as the capitalists maintain state power, there will be more disappearances like Aytozinapa, more massacres like Marikana, and more Black Lung disease for the miners who live long enough to retire (see letter on page 6). What’s missing right now is a revolutionary party. Without a revolutionary communist party the workers will continue to struggle but also continue to suffer, never obtaining what they need – a society where they share the fruits of their labor and decide their own futures.
People who came to the event contributed money towards the work of the Marikana Support Committee, which continues to demand reparations for the families of those killed and that those responsible pay for their crimes. Audience members asked tough questions—such as “How did the African National Congress, which fought hard against apartheid, come to betray the workers in South Africa?” Part of the answer to that question is that the African National Congress was led by the South African Communist Party, which fought for reforms. While SACP members displayed tremendous courage and dedication in the struggle against apartheid, they did not have a revolutionary program.
When the ANC came to power in 1994, they were now in charge of running a capitalist economy. The need to maintain corporate profitability outweighed other considerations, and the government was soon acting on behalf of the business class, which meant imposing austerity and suppressing workers strikes, as in Marikana. Moreover, some of the ANC leaders — like Cyril Ramaphosa, the former leader of the National Miners Union—were given high-ranking corporate positions and became very wealthy. Ramaphosa is personally worth $675 million, and sits on the board of directors of Lonmin—the very company the miners at Marikana were striking against! Lonmin, one of the world’s largest platinum companies, worked closely with the police who murdered the 34 workers, many shot in the back while fleeing.
Less than two years later, 70,000 mine workers shut down all three SA platinum companies for five months, until the company agreed to pay salary increases (though less than the 12,500 rand the workers were demanding as a minimum salary). In 2013, hundreds of thousands of workers in auto, construction, airport and other industries shut down their workplaces. The working class in South Africa has refused to be cowed. Someday they will take power and build an egalitarian communist society, inspiring and aiding workers in all of Africa — and the rest of the world — to do the same.
SIDEBAR
Campus Worker-Student Alliance Needed
On October 6, professors, students and campus workers at the Universities of Johannesburg, Witwatersrand and Cape Town held demonstrations demanding no outsourcing of work to private contractors, which has cost many their jobs and lowered wages. This developing campus worker-student alliance on behalf of the lowest paid workers at the universities is also demanding free university education and ending the repression of student activists.
Here in NYC, CUNY faculty and staff have been without a contract for more than five years. The union is planning a strike authorization vote, though not for a few more months. Our leadership stresses that “we don’t want to strike” and emphasizes the penalties for striking under the Taylor Law. However, there are also penalties for not striking, namely having to accept concessionary contracts that have long lasting effects, including continuing the poverty wages of adjuncts, who teach more than half the classes at CUNY. When unions like the transit union (TWU) have struck in the past, they did so in order to avoid painful givebacks, knowing full well they would be hit with fines and the loss of dues check off. There are also 10,000 CUNY workers in DC 37 who have also been without contracts and salary increases for years. If both unions shut down all 23 campuses and organized thousands of students to demand no tuition hikes, more money for CUNY and no concessionary contracts, it would have a powerful galvanizing effect on the city, energizing workers and students to stand up and fight back, as they’ve courageously done in South Africa.
- Information
Colombia: Bosses’ Elections Tool For Resolving Disputes
- Information
- 29 October 2015 66 hits
COLOMBIA, October 18 —The capitalist class of Colombia has had a 205-year liberal-conservative dictatorship over the working class. The result is a deepening “dependency” on imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism, which robs Colombia of its natural resources. The monopolies are the ones who are really in charge. They decide and order who will govern us, and how they will govern us, with the approval of worldwide imperialism.
The working class can never take power through the ballot box. A few real life examples prove this: Nelson Mandela of South Africa who spent 27 years in prison; Lula Dasilva, a metal worker who governed Brazil for 8 years; Luís Eduardo Garzón, a union leader and ex-mayor of Bogotá and current minister of labor; Michelle Bachelet of Chile, who survived the fascist dictatorship of Pinochet; or most recently Gustavo Petro, ex-guerrilla of the M19 movement and current mayor of Bogotá. These leaders came from the working class but are now instruments of the bosses to oppress workers and maintain capitalism. These examples only reinforce the concept of a bosses’ dictatorship.
The capitalists need elections to convince workers of the fairy tale that says voting can force the profit system to respond to workers’ needs. But that’s not the only reason. They also help to find candidates who are successful at misleading and pacifying millions of workers. For the working class there will be no difference if the candidate is liberal, conservative, or leftist. It does not matter what political party is in power. We don’t need the bosses nor do we need their electoral democracy in power; we say:
Don’t vote, let’s distribute CHALLENGE!
Don’t vote, let’s fight for workers’ power!
Don’t vote, let’s make a revolution and build communism!
ANKARA, October 10 — “Workers will revenge the murderers!” Autoworkers declared from their factory in Izmir. Students and workers across Turkey have called for a two-day general strike and boycott to protest the bombing deaths of over 100 workers and students at an anti-war rally in Ankara on October 10, 2015. The protestors are denouncing the government for the murders of the protestors. Students and faculty shut down major universities, both public and private. The streets of almost all cities are filled with marches and protests.
On the day of the attack, thousands came to Ankara from throughout Turkey in response to a call to “Stand Up to War; Demand Peace Now!” The rally was called by a variety of unions, including, the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DISK), the Confederation of Public Sector Workers (KESK), the national Chamber of Architects and Engineers, and the Medical Association.
As people assembled, two bombs went off, killing over 100 people of all ages. Those killed included teachers, students, nurses, lawyers, construction workers, and at least fourteen railroad workers, members of the United Transportation Workers (BTS), who had come to protest with their children.
The slaughtered include students in the liberal Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (the acronym in Turkish is HDP), and Kurdish workers. Racism in Turkey has meant that many low-wage construction jobs go to the Kurdish men. This rally was a multi-ethnic gathering of workers and students from around Turkey protesting President Erdogan’s decision to join with the U.S. imperialist’s attack on Syria’s workers and to return to war against the Kurdish regions of Turkey itself.
Workers Reject Imperialist Blame Game
After the blasts, Ankara police attacked protestors with clubs and tear gas. Ambulances could not initially get through, leading many more to die. The government laid blame on the protesters themselves and on the small capitalist-terrorist Islamic State (ISIS). But most of the working class in Turkey this insult to injury and instead expose the long history of violent attacks by the Turkish government against protesters. They realize both ISIS and the Turkish government operate to terrorize the working class.
In addition, the U.S. press repeatedly misrepresents the Ankara protest and those who were killed. This is just part of the traditional racist effort to divide and conquer. The New York Times described the rally as a rally of Kurdish people, and has only interviewed the leaders of the HDP. The HDP has significant political clout, and garnered enough votes in the last election to prevent president Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP in Turkish) party from achieving a majority in parliament.
Turkey is an important NATO member for the U.S. imperialists. According to Chuck Hagel, the past U.S. Secretary of “Defense” (read: war), Turkey, like Israel (see page 3) is one of the Middle East’s military counterweights to Russia and China in the coming age of global war. The mass demonstrations across Turkey today show how workers have no stake in either side of any imperialist rivalry!
Strike Builds Workers’ Unity vs. Imperialism
Municipal workers in Kadiköy (the Asian section of Istanbul) have joined the strike. Doctors and hospital workers are protesting, with a large group rallying outside an Istanbul hospital and then walking in the funeral procession for a worker killed in the Ankara terrorist attack. Lawyers vowed not to appear in court during the general strike. In Izmir, lawyers protested in front of a courthouse with a banner calling on all to prevent fascism from passing through the doors; lawyers staged a sit-in at Istanbul’s Çağlayan courthouse, the largest courthouse in Europe.
Others are protesting in their factories, including those in other auto parts plants; in an Istanbul factory making cooling units for buses and trucks; in an a Epla refrigerator factory in the Corlu European Free Trade Zone; in a machine parts plant in Mersin; and at Istanbul’s airport.
Working Class Revenge Means Building PLP
As the general strike ends, workers and students will need to decide what to do next. The anti-Erdogan politicians call on workers to seek justice by voting against Erdogan in the upcoming November 1 election. Many protesters call for “peace.” But the autoworkers in Izmir have a better idea. They said, only the working class could revenge the murderers of our brothers and sisters. Capitalism can never be peaceful because it’s an inherently violent system.
The working class worldwide is suffering from the death and destruction brought by capitalism in its imperialist stage. Inter-imperialist rivalries are behind the aerial bombings of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. These same rivalries fuel terrorist attacks such as that in Ankara. We will end these attacks by smashing the capitalism with communist revolution. PLP will replace the dictatorship of the international capitalists—whether Turkish, U.S., Russian, or Chinese—with the dictatorship of a united international working class, and we invite our working class sisters and brothers fighting in Turkey to join us!
CHICAGO, October 22—When Reginald Sanson was shot dead on August 25 at age 25, he became one of 2,465 shooting victims in Chicago and one of 370 killed in this carnage this year as of September 28 (Chicago Tribune, 9/28/15). The capitalist bosses’ media constantly cries out against gun violence, whether it be a mass shooting by a single maniac or the daily trauma of an individual lost. But they rarely tell us much about the victims, especially Black or Latin victims. These are the same bosses who back their killer cops with military-grade hardware, and who are actively planning to kill millions of workers in the next imperialist war. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds!
Reggie was murdered on the 5000 block of South Dorchester Avenue, two blocks from Barack Obama’s home in Hyde Park and one block from Kenwood Academy, where Reggie earned top grades and excelled in baseball and basketball. He was a positive force and a pillar of strength, always willing to help others. His death was a shock for his community—a neighborhood that borders the wealthy University of Chicago and has borne many other tragedies.
The capitalist ruling class has no solutions to offer us. As the liberal bosses urge stricter gun laws, the right-wing bosses call for more arrests and harsher jail sentences. Both Democrats and Republicans want more cops, the leading source of racist violence against Black and Latin workers! Any new policy will only hurt the working class even more. Never do the bosses’ politicians address the real cause of worker-on-worker violence: capitalism.
Capitalism and Despair
Substandard schools and the lack of decent jobs create a culture of hopelessness. When workers cannot provide for their families, they are vulnerable to individualism, desperation, drugs and violence. Chicago has the highest official Black unemployment rate—25 percent—of the five largest U.S. cities (2013 U.S. Census). This compares to a Latin unemployment rate of 14 percent and a white jobless rate of 7 percent. Unsurprisingly, Chicago is also one of the most segregated cities; nearly 75 percent of Black Chicagoans live in a neighborhood that is at least 90 percent black.
Over the past few decades, Chicago’s working class was dealt blow after blow as thousands of manufacturing jobs left the city. Five thousand city workers have been laid off since 2009, 40 percent of them residents in predominantly Black ZIP codes. With 50 school closings last year alone, 1,691 school workers have been laid off over the same period. As the Center for Law and Social Policy has documented, people who live in areas with concentrated poverty are more likely to experience violence and to be victims of violence (http://mic.com/articles/126199).
All of these jobs were lost under two Democratic mayors, Richard M. Daley and Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. What will liberal Emmanuel do about gun violence? He plans to hire more police administrative staff, to free up 300 more mad-dog cops to put on the streets. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy wants tougher penalties for gun possession. Both of these “solutions” will lead to more police interactions, harassment, and violence against Black and Latin workers, and more incarcerated young men. Meanwhile, shootings are up and the CPD has made 25 percent more gun-related arrests this year over the same period last year.
Capitalism Needs Racism
No Chicago politicians are talking about the racist crisis in the public schools or racist mass unemployment. Their capitalist system requires racism, both to divide workers and to super-exploit Black, Latin, Asian and immigrant workers on the job. The high levels of poverty, unemployment and violence in the Black community neatly fit the rulers’ racist narrative. The ruling class says that these deaths prove that our lives don’t matter because “they’re killing each other.” But we know this is a racist lie!
Workers know that each death matters. They refuse to buy into the lie that the victims—including Reginald Sanson—are all gang-bangers. Reggie’s community knew differently. More than 200 people turned out for a vigil the day after his murder. Reggie could have contributed so much to society, but his life was cut short by the violence created by this racist, capitalist system.
Reforms Versus Revolution
While improved education and more jobs would make many individuals’ lives better, all reforms have limits under capitalism. They can never include everyone, and they last only until the bosses’ next economic crisis. To keep the working class in line, the capitalists need impoverished, unemployed workers as potential threats to the ones with jobs. Any reform that keeps the capitalist ruling class in power will continue to oppress us. The only solution to gun violence will come when we turn the guns around—when we smash the bosses with communist revolution! Join Progressive Labor Party and work toward a society where workers like Reggie can live long and productive lives.
CHICAGO, October 21— Workers at Cook County’s Stroger Hospital are continuing their uphill fight to save pediatric services. Closing these hospitals is racist, sexist murder. Working together within this hospital struggle, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends are also raising the potential for a new communist world.
The mostly Black and Latino workers we’re rallying have historically been the mass base for PLP. The response of most of them is the same: “What? Close Pediatrics at the County? They can’t do that!” Doctors, nurses and public health professionals have taken to the streets with flyers and petitions. Many who read our leaflets volunteer to help, invite us to speak at their churches or take extra literature. Despite the stream of phone calls into the office of the killer politician responsible, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, we get only hollow promises. The racist Preckwinkle has done nothing to restrain the administration as it moves ahead inexorably to grind down the department that cares for Chicago’s working-class Black and immigrant kids. Why should she? She serves the bosses, not working-class children.
Public hospitals in most cities have been closed or privatized, as the capitalist bosses lie about “better quality” and “more efficient” healthcare. In reality, this is a racist attack on workers! These changes are driven by profit, not health. As full-service hospitals shut down and are replaced by scattered urgent care centers, families must travel outside their neighborhoods to find more than basic care. Specialized teaching and children’s hospitals are not found in working-class neighborhoods. Using them forces families, especially low-income or single-parent families, to make wrenching decisions: Stay with my sick child in the hospital or keep my job? Pay for transportation or pay for food? Moreover, children treated at the big teaching hospitals are less likely to get adequate follow-up care if they’re families are insured by Medicaid.
Care Under Communism
How would medical care for children look under communism? One hint comes from examining medicine in China in the 1950s and 1960s under socialism, at the time seen as a halfway house to communism. Workers there developed a system that valued health and safety. The revolution raised the life standards of the masses. A million peasants and youth, known as barefoot doctors, were trained to provide healthcare in rural areas. Over a span of ten years, workers doubled the life expectancy in rural China and cut the infant mortality rate in half; diseases like syphilis were eliminated. Millions of workers were saved from premature and avoidable deaths from poverty, malnutrition and a lack of healthcare. This advance was possible only under a worker-run society.
Today, with the Chinese revolution reversed and market capitalism restored, workers in China—like those in Chicago—once again suffer under disastrous health conditions. That is why PLP fights directly for a communist revolution, with power resting in the masses of workers worldwide through Party leadership.
Capitalist Healthcare Makes Workers Sick
According to a report published by the Commonwealth Fund, the U.S. ranks lowest in healthcare compared to other large capitalist countries. There are two reasons: 1) the U.S. bosses’ aim to remain the world’s top imperialists limits their investments in domestic matters like healthcare, education, and infrastructure; 2) vicious U.S. racism, with its foundation in the enslavement of Black people and the genocide of indigenous people, enables the bosses to keep the working class oppressed and divided—for now.
After a recent inspection at Stroger Hospital, the Joint Commission found a number of deficiencies, especially in documentation and equipment. Now people are wondering if the administration’s ultimate goal of closing and privatizing the facility may be at hand.
The trend to cut everything in the public sector— schools, hospitals, housing — is part of the capitalist ruler’s strategy to conserve and centralize resources for the next big imperialist war.
The movement against budget cuts must be built and communists must be in the thick of it. But we will not be able to stop the imperialists from destroying millions of lives in the next war. What we can try to do is strengthen our ability to fight and develop ties with others who fight with us. Our only real victory is recruiting fellow fighters to PLP to help build a new world.
Communism will eliminate the primary source of chronic illness, the stress brought on by racism, sexism and oppressive conditions of work and life. The tension of life under capitalism increases the risk of all common chronic diseases, from high blood pressure to cancer. Under communism, the standard of health literacy and healthcare will be raised for everyone. Building a society based on cooperation and sharing instead of competition and exploitation would reduce the need for many medical treatments. But when these treatments are needed, people would get them for free, at a uniform high standard. Fighting for that new world is the only real treatment for the disease of capitalism.
