In a recent conversation, a friend asked about the life of workers in the Ukraine. In brief, workers in Ukraine, like those in U.S. cities and around the world, are suffering from massive assaults from the imperialists of the world. But given the current war over Ukraine between the interests of U.S./European imperialists and Russian imperialists, it’s important to understand that workers’ interests lie with the workers of the world, that we cannot take sides with any imperialist power. U.S. calls for “democracy” are justifications for increasing the exploitation and oppression of the world’s working class.
In 1993, a strike wave hit Europe. Airline workers in France, steel workers in Germany, civil servants in Great Britain struck against wage cuts and privatization. So did tens of thousands of coal miners in Ukraine, who were joined by workers at large factories in the industrial centers of eastern Ukraine who were facing price increases and a rapid decline in living standards as a result of Ukraine’s independence. The strikes in Ukraine were eventually settled when the government promised pay raises.
But, as with workers in the rest of the world, capitalists in Ukraine were not conceding much to the working class. Instead they instituted an attack in a new form — a banker-led devaluation of Ukrainian currency that undercut wages and increased privatization of production.
In 1993, Viktor Yushchenko (who later became president in 2004) was appointed head of the newly formed Bank of Ukraine. He was a main architect of a 1994 agreement between Ukraine and the IMF (i.e., U.S. and European capitalism). As a result of this agreement, the price of bread increased overnight by 300 percent, electricity prices went up 600 percent, and transportation prices soared by 900 percent.
Ukrainian grain production was also under assault. The World Bank imposed a first phase of trade liberalization which lifted tariffs on imported grain. As cheap (and U.S. government-subsidized) wheat flooded Ukraine, its farmers, once the major grain producers of Europe, were forced into bankruptcy.
By 2003, Ukrainian per capita income was rising, only to come under attack during the “Orange Revolution” of 2004. Funded by U.S. agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy and multi-billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Orange Revolution began another phase of the U.S. effort to reorient Ukraine under U.S. imperialism and away from Russia. The U.S. favorites in this period were Yulia Tymoschenko, who had made a fortune skimming profits from the sale of Russian natural gas in Ukraine and the U.S.-trained banker Yushchenko.
The Orange Revolution completely undermined the wages of workers who earn some of the lowest wages in the world. According to the German Economic Institute, labor costs in Ukraine are at €2.50 per hour, well below the average of €3.17 in China, €6.46 in Poland, and €21.88 in Spain. An hour of labor in Germany costs €35.66 (one euro = 1.38 U.S. dollar).
The economy and workers’ living standards were further hit with rising oil and gas prices in 2006–08, and then by the global economic crisis of 2008–10. What kept workers alive in this period were continuing (though ever smaller) subsidies of commodities such as natural gas, essential for home heating. These subsidies were paid for by government borrowing. Ukraine, like Greece among others, was in debt to the international bankers.
In 2010, voters, angry at their losses, rejected the Orange Revolution politicians for Viktor Yanukovych, a politician more closely associated with the social welfare system of pre-1993. But pressed by international finance capital to repay Ukraine’s international debt, Yanokovich, like those before him, began negotiations for closer ties to the European Union and the U.S. The deal he negotiated called for massive austerity, like that instituted in Greece. The subsidies that allowed Ukraine’s workers to heat their homes, pensions and other forms of social spending were to be eliminated. In November, 2013, fearing he could not sell this deal to his political base, Yanukovych accepted a temporary loan from Russian imperialists.
Ukraine has some of the largest reserves of coal and iron ore in Europe, and is still a major producer and exporter of iron ore (to China and India) and steel (competing with Germany, France, Russia and others). The privatization of these industries was rapidly accelerated under Yanukovych. Privatization has led to the closing down of steel plants that need modernization, and of many mines. Coal production has fallen by two thirds since 1991, as imported natural gas replaces coal in plants producing electricity. The result has been a situation in eastern Ukraine where many mine workers work in illegal mines often run by criminal networks that offer no protections to workers. That is what capitalism has wrought in the Ukraine.
Many workers believe that feminism, a militant fight by women with allies among some men for women’s rights, is the way to defeat sexism and the discrimination against women both by individual men and society at large.
Feminist movements have, indeed, fought for reforms in the workforce so that women workers would be paid more and face less gender-based discrimination and harassment on the job.
However, while these achievements are important, the majority of working-class women, especially black and Latina women, who are triply oppressed by sex, class and race, have not benefited much from these gains. For instance, in 2001, women’s median annual paychecks were only 78 cents for every $1.00 earned by men.
For black, Latina, and immigrant women, the gap is even wider. In comparison to men’s dollar, black women earn only 69 cents and Latina women, just 59 cents.
Feminism cannot defeat sexism. Like nationalism, it has been used by the ruling class to keep workers, male and female, from uniting against our common enemy — capitalism.
Like black nationalists who view white supremacy as the primary obstacle to liberation, feminists believe patriarchy is the leading cause of women’s oppression. This is due, in part, to the fact that most of the violence perpetrated against women in society is by men. Ninety to ninety-five percent of all sexual assaults and serious domestic violence cases in the U.S. are committed by men. Men make up ninety-nine percent of the people in jail for rape. Men are also the victims of violence committed by other men.
The capitalists would like us to believe that this aggressive behavior is a reflection of man’s nature. On the contrary, male violence depicts the role that masculinity plays in the society as defined by capitalist culture: telling men to be tough, invulnerable and to assert power and gain respect through violence. The capitalists use this as a way to keep working-class men fighting their brothers and sisters in order to maintain an illusion of male privilege and power, while the rulers maintain true power over the entire working class.
Frederick Engels argued in his classic work Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State that sexual inequality as we know it today did not exist before the advent of private property. In pre-class societies, although there was a division of labor, the work that women did was equally valued. At times, the jobs were even interchangeable between the men and the women, as they were in the native Iroquoian Seneca tribes in North America. The work was complementary, not hierarchical.
Conversely, in class societies, whatever became designated as women’s work was devalued. “Women’s work” was no longer seen as a special kind of work, but rather, as a certain grade of work (Charlette Perkins, The Home, Its Work and Influence). As a result, capitalists are able to pay women the lowest wages while reaping huge profits. Bosses maintain their power by indoctrinating the workers with sexist ideology through media, religion, schools and other outlets. They propagate the myth that sexism is an innate human trait, when in reality, it is a learned behavior.
The rulers use identity politics, such as nationalism and feminism to their advantage. It emphasizes the differences between us, encourages division, and keeps workers from organizing around their similarities to overthrow their oppressor. This is the case with feminism, as women work to liberate themselves from the grips of sexist oppression, while viewing other forms of oppression as separate from their own and excluding the class struggle from the diagnosis.
While there are some feminists who do consider class in their analysis, such as Gloria Jean Watkins who goes by the pen name bell hooks, the analysis is weak. It does not speak of eradicating the class system but rather ensuring that women, irrespective of class, have better lives, which they consider possible through reforms.
“All over this nation individual feminists with class power who support a revolutionary vision of social change share resources and use our power to aid reforms that will improve the lives of women irrespective of class.” (Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks).
In other words, those who make it to the top of the “ladder of success” should share with those who are at the bottom. But as Assata Shakur says in her autobiography, “Anytime you’re talking about a ladder, you’re talking about a top and a bottom, an upper class and a lower class, a rich class and a poor class.”
Feminism doesn’t want to remove the ladder; only make room for more women to climb it. Communism, on the other hand, seeks to smash it.
And, we will smash all aspects of sexism as it plays out on a systemic level as well as its appearance in our personal relationships. However, for us to root out sexism entirely from our lives and our society, we must reckon with the primary contradiction of capitalism: workers cannot be fully paid for the value of their labor.
The fight against sexism cannot be fought outside of class lines. With the abolishment of class, and with fierce struggle, sexism will slowly wither away in all of its manifestations. We struggle with ourselves, our comrades, and friends to eliminate sexist beliefs and practices on an individual level. Primarily, our fight against sexism must be at the point of ideological and material production: in schools and in all sectors of labor, including unpaid work.
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Venezuela: Nationalist Rulers Still Serve Capitalists
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- 28 March 2014 62 hits
The crisis generated by capitalism is causing division within the ruling class that sees their profits decrease because of market competition while daily living conditions worsen for workers. Bosses use individualism, racism and nationalism to divide us and win us over to defend their wars for maximum profit.
While workers participate in this struggle, they wind up defending the ruling system, representing one or another capitalist side. The end result is the same or worse than the previous condition.
Historically we see endless examples of how the working class is manipulated and deceived by false “pro-working-class” movements. This is how — in Syria, Ukraine, South Africa, Bolivia, Venezuela and Colombia, among others — workers are involved in imperialist wars. Unfortunately the working class falls prey to this deception, which does not change our pitiful political and economic situation.
This is the case in Venezuela. Its traditional government as a lackey for the U.S. bosses became a nationalist one with a somewhat socialist front but now beholden to the rulers of Russia, China and Cuba — meaning to other capitalists. So now the Western bloc led by U.S. bosses which support fascist governments, as well as the media in Colombia, Panama, Chile and elsewhere, are trying to destabilize the “democratically” elected Venezuela government and portray it as the foremost violator of human rights.
These same critics had supported the murder of more than 5,000 workers under Venezuela’s fascist government of Carlos Andres Perez. The international working class should never support any ruler who only looks to dampen the class struggle by buying political consciousness with crumbs that only maintain human misery and degradation. These modern “progressive” movements move the working class away from communism by defending private property, free trade and the investment of private capital — all of which enforces wage slavery for workers.
The imperialist power game over oil means capitalist genocide for workers. It has submerged Venezuela’s working class in a fratricidal fight that defends one group or another and results in killing each other.
What must be done? PL’ers are involved in some Bolivarian organizations and discontented sectors, reaching out with our messages of support and solidarity to build a revolutionary communist movement. We denounce “supreme saviors.” We do not worship the Chavezes, Maduros, Petros or Obamas. We put our communist program forward in the class struggles to strengthen proletarian internationalism and introduce our paper CHALLENGE to spread our revolutionary philosophy, using it as our tool of combat. Join us.
As part of Progressive Labor Party’s ongoing discussion of how to balance political activities among students and work in the unions, several teachers’ study groups in New York City have been reading Uncivil Rights: Teachers, Unions, and Race in the Battle for School Equity by Jonna Perrillo. This history of NYC’s teachers’ unions reveals a history many of us had not known before and shows us many parallels to the contradictions communist teachers and their friends find when dealing with today’s teacher unions.
Perrillo traces the developments of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the current NYC teachers’ union, with its emphasis on teacher salary and electoral politics, and its predecessors — two separate unions with sharply different politics and ideas on who to work with and what to work for.
Many of us had not been aware that teachers in the 1930s had to choose between two separate unions (or none!) — neither with collective bargaining rights. The two, Teachers Guild, influenced by socialists and the Teachers Union (TU), eventually led by members of the Communist Party — both saw their calling as improving the schools. While the Guild thought this should be done by allying with the school administration, the TU built ties with parent and community organizations. Among other tactics used to fight the racist character of schools in black neighborhoods, the TU led picket lines outside schools to defend black students abused by white principals.
The division between the two unions became more stark in the 1940s as pressure forced the Board of Education to try to repair inequities in the schools by transferring more experienced teachers to black schools. The Guild saw its role as defending the teachers “threatened” with transfer to “undesirable” situations, while the CP-led union fought for black parents to have a greater influence on the school system.
In the 1950s, the Red Scare and anti-communist hysteria took a toll on the TU; communist teachers were investigated and fired as part of a general attack on communist leadership in U.S. unions, and many others grew fearful. During that period, the Teachers Guild grew through vigorous recruitment campaigns, telling teachers they would defend their professional rights, rather than involve them in anti-racist politics. By 1963, the TU was so marginalized and demoralized that the members voted to join the UFT, which had been created by uniting the Guild and several smaller teachers groups.
By that point, the UFT had started on the path that led to what we see today: reliance on politicians and prioritizing teachers’ rights over the conditions of students. They had won the right to collectively bargain with the city, and this was their main focus.
In the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the UFT’s hypocrisy in matters of racism had become clear. While the leadership sent a small number of members to the segregated South as Freedom Riders, they did not call on members to join a community boycott of New York’s equally segregated schools. By 1968, the UFT was leading a racist walkout as a response to the efforts of black parents to exert community control over schools in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Ocean Hill-Brownsville. At this point, the union proved that it would defend teachers’ “professionalism” against any demands, including the needs of their students. Perrillo mentions that some teachers (including PL
members) opened schools in unity with students and parents.
After the Ocean Hill-Brownsville racist walkout, the UFT only deepened its role as the defenders of teacher salaries and conditions — so much so that for most of its history it would not support even such a mild pro-student request as smaller class size because it might jeopardize their demands for teacher raises. We now have a union where choosing which politician to back is more important than any concerns about student conditions.
Perrillo is not a communist, and she does not conclude that the loss of communist leadership when the TU dissolved caused the end of anti-racist struggle among NYC teachers unions, but she tells the story clearly. She also does not draw any conclusions about what teachers should do now, although she is critical of the current focus of the UFT.
As members and friends of PLP, we have been thinking more about our own role in the union and among our students and their parents. In some ways, conditions are no different now than in the history Perrillo describes: segregated, crowded, under-funded schools still keep our working-class students feeling like they are in prison. We are still supposed to teach capitalist ideas and reproduce the racist division of workers.
But knowing our history tells us that teachers have fought in unity with students and parents in the past, so we can do it again. Those of us who are active in teachers’ unions must demand more of our unions, make anti-racist, pro-student demands. The leadership tells teachers that the province of the union is limited to salary and work rules; they say that we are professionals whose interests are separate from those of our working-class students and their families who we serve.
Communist teachers owe it to our friends, colleagues, students and communities to counter these messages. The only way to really fight for better schools is through the unity of teachers, students and parents. And we must fight for more than “improved” schools — even with more money, even with any reform, these are still the schools whose role is to teach workers to accept capitalism and patriotism. The real struggle, the final victory, is when we can unite all workers to destroy capitalism through communist revolution.
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Part of War Against Capitalism: Battle Racist Schools
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- 15 March 2014 59 hits
NEWARK, NJ, February 25 — Over 500 students, parents and education workers attended the Newark Board of Education meeting ready to battle Superintendent Cami Anderson, the face of the city’s racist and fascist education reform movement. Her One Newark plan would centralize education, close schools, replace public schools with charter schools, fire teachers, bust the teachers’ union, and under the guise of “school choice,” set up a process that would make it easer to close schools in the future.
While the Superintendent refused to appear, PLP was there with our literature seeking to spread communist consciousness amongst the masses. We distributed over 400 leaflets and CHALLENGES. While waiting for the meeting to begin, many sat in their seats with CHALLENGE spread wide open, reading each article carefully. What follows is the leaflet we distributed. It’s our attempt to join with workers who are fighting to get local control (Board of Education rather than state control) and get rid of the Superintendent while also struggling with them to see that these reforms will not solve the problems of education under capitalism. After reading it, many parents came up to the PL members telling them that they liked the flyer and took extras to give to their friends:
If you talk to most parents, teachers, students and community fighters in Newark, then you’ll hear two popular demands: “Cami Must Go!” and “Bring back local control!” While members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) are committed to fight alongside workers and students to get rid of Cami Anderson and state control, we also know that the working class must prepare for the bigger war against capitalism. Schools are the main way the ruling class (the big money — from JP Morgan Chase to the Walton Family to Gates) controls how the working class thinks and behaves. Governor Christie and Cami are just carrying out the plans of these capitalists. Therefore, it will take something much bigger — communist revolution — to create an education system that will prepare future generations to become leaders in a society free of racism, sexism, imperialism and exploitation.
State Control Is Racist
The working class in Newark should be angry about state control. When Christie said he doesn’t care what the community thinks about Anderson, he was only confirming what the ruling class has been thinking for the past 20 years, that the working class, particularly black and immigrant workers, should not have a say in how their children are educated.
Anderson’s One Newark plan shows this racist attitude. Attacking students, parents and education workers in mainly black neighborhoods, she is implementing the centuries-old “divide-and-conquer” tactic. By dividing black workers from their white and immigrant working-class brothers and sisters (particularly in the East Ward), Anderson hopes to get through a large part of her plan. This does not mean other workers are safe. After she gets done with this first phase, the working class will be a lot weaker to fight her future plans, thus making it easier to attack the East Ward and other parts of the city that are “safe” for now.
Schools Get Students Ready
For Imperialist War!
Fascism and racism go hand in hand. One aspect of fascism is discplining the working class into bearing more racist and sexist attacks from the bosses. As the U.S. ruling class prepares for bigger wars, they will need the money, soldiers, and racist ideologies to win. The main criticism thrown at Anderson is that she is selling public land to private companies so that they can make a profit. Pink Hula Hoop is a company that raises money to buy public schools put on the auction block by the state-appointed school administration. This is one way that charter schools raise money from state sources. Either way, the money comes from working class pockets.
While this is true, it’s not the primary goal, which is to create a cheap education system that trains young students to be obedient workers.
When Anderson says that a school is “failing,” she means it has failed to create a workforce ready to be exploited by their bosses and die for the ruling class in its imperialist wars. That’s what’s meant by “disciplining the working class.” That’s why Anderson promotes schools like TEAM that force students to sit on floors and “earn” their desks. The bosses intend to create the kind of obedient workforce and army they need.
Anderson also has to discipline the current working class. Her attacks on unionized workers have already begun. Cafeteria and custodial workers have felt the wrath of Superintendent Anderson over the past few years. After layoffs and cutbacks, these workers are still under attack. Anderson is now planning on firing at least 700 teachers. The smashing of the unions will create cheap and loyal workers that will help carry out these plans. This is the main goal for the bosses that Christie and Anderson represent.
Their Schools Will Never Serve Us
Even if Newark workers win back local control, these schools won’t work for us. For the past 150 years, schools have always been the bosses’ tool. That’s because the education system is a part of capitalism, the same capitalist system that will always have racist unemployment, police brutality and foreclosures. The same system that engineers the mass murder of workers in the Middle East through their wars creates the conditions for gang violence here in Newark. So why would we think that they would give up their power so easily? Sure there have been times where teachers and students might have had a bigger piece of the pie, but that was only because we fought for them. In the end, the bosses will still control the state — the government, military, cops, education and prison systems.
Smash ‘One Newark’ System —
Fight for One Working Class
We must fight the school closings, mass layoffs and attacks on parents and teachers, but if we’re serious about creating a world based on equality, then the only solution is to fight for communism. PLP is building to do that. Join us as we continue to build the Party to end the attacks in education and plan for the larger war against racism and capitalism. Fight for communism!
