WASHINGTON, D.C.  March 10, 2011 — Over 150 bus drivers and other Metro workers picketed outside the bosses’ headquarters today to demand that management withdraw its appeal to federal court of the arbitration award and agree to the contract that provides a 3% annual pay raise while cutting back on benefits. 

Workers have been without a contract for three years! Anger is boiling over at the bus garages. What part of “binding arbitration” do the bosses not understand? What they do understand is that they are backed by the power of the government and can probably get away with whatever the working class lets them. 

Arbitration Is A Loser for Workers

Arbitration is a win-win situation for the bosses. Invariably, the arbitration will force workers to accept less than they demand, forcing them to take the losses. That’s why the bosses have the gall to try to renege on a contract that is already a give-back contract for the workers! That’s why smashing the bosses and their government through a revolution to establish workers’ power and communism is the only permanent way to solve our problems.  And why flexing our collective muscles in this contract dispute through mass action is the only way to have any hope of stopping the bosses’ attack today.

The union leadership has a different plan, though.  At today’s rally, after meekly moving workers away from the entrance to the building at the request of the Metro cops,  they passed out postcards to send to various politicians in the jurisdictions served by Metro to encourage them to support the union.  What nonsense! Only the threat of a strike — most likely illegal — will make them pay attention. The politicians are all in the bosses’ pocket.

PLP’ers have distributed well over 600 CHALLENGE’s to Metro workers over the last few months at special union meetings and at the garages, while Metro PLP’ers have fought hard in the garages and at union meetings for a more militant approach that would show an understanding of how capitalism works to systematically exploit workers. The ideas of anti-racist class consciousness are being debated and discussed by Metro workers more and more, which may help to win many angry workers away from cynicism.

Over the next 90 days, the court will issue a final decision, and then we shall see how robust the mass struggle can be at Metro in today’s climate. At the same time, several additional Metro workers have stepped forward to work with the PLP, so whatever happens in the coming three months, the communist presence at Metro will continue to grow. 

TRENTON, NJ, February 25 — “Workers have dignity; the rich have our wealth!” This poster expressed the outrage of 4,000 New Jersey workers rallying in solidarity with Wisconsin state workers. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, along with other governors — including NJ’s Chris Christie — is spearheading a bogus nationwide campaign, to destroy the largest remaining group of organized workers in the country: the public employee unions.

This campaign is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers through their Americans for Prosperity front group. After voting massive tax cuts for the wealthy for two decades — starving state governments of revenues and creating a false “budget crisis” — these same businessmen and their lackey politicians are now blaming public workers for their multi-billion-dollar state budget “deficits.” 

Workers at the rally weren’t buying this line, however, with some holding up posters that said, “Union-busters are the new terrorists!” PLP members from NJ state colleges organized on their local campuses to get fellow American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members and Communication Workers of America (CWA) staff to attend. One teacher, who canceled classes and urged students to attend, got five emails from students after the rally asking how it went. Another recent graduate, now a social worker who will soon be in the CWA, attends a Party study group and looks forward to helping build a worker-student alliance in New Jersey.

Forming a sea of red rain ponchos and hats in front of the State House, the 4,000 New Jersey workers — both private and public sector employees — didn’t match the turnout of the 70,000 Wisconsin workers who occupied their capital building a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, the protest was one of the largest in New Jersey and signals an upsurge in working-class solidarity.

Private sector workers, after years of layoffs, wage-cuts and disappearing benefits, see that they have a lot more in common with state workers than with the billionaire businessmen funding this nationwide campaign or the governors hypocritically fronting for them. It’s impossible to believe the rhetoric describing public employees as “privileged” with “bloated salaries and pensions” when more and more workers know that the top 1% of the population controls 43% of total national wealth and the bottom 80% has only 7% (2008, extremeinequality.org).

Unfortunately, at a time when workers need class-conscious leadership, most of the state public union leaders speaking at the rally actually endorsed the position of the politicians on givebacks. After giving lip service to the view that the banks and their speculative practices — not public workers — caused the economic crisis, virtually every union leader stated that their unions would be willing to “negotiate” wage-cuts and reductions in benefits, to “share the pain.”

Their rallying cry, “Negotiate not dictate,” however, is a losing strategy that will put the ruling class in a win-win situation. They win if they can get rid of collective bargaining for public unions AND they win even if they can’t, so long as unions bargain away the salary and benefit gains their workers struggled for decades to win. 

As the class struggle heats up, this defeatist line at the Trenton rally shows the important role that communist ideas must play if workers are to build a movement that will not be sold out by the current labor leaders. As communists, PLP members in these unions need not only to participate in class struggle but also to consolidate their personal ties with co-workers and discuss why the rules of capitalism make it a necessity to push to reduce wages and benefits in order to maximize corporate profits.

More than ever, as U.S. capitalism faces fiercer global competition with China and the European Union and must maintain a global military force to protect its interests, it needs to squeeze every penny it can from workers. 

PARIS, March 10 — Strikes have erupted across France as workers continue their long tradition of downing tools and battling to resist the bosses’ cops.

Marseilles Port Shut

The SNCM ferry company workers, on strike for 40 days, and having blocked the north and south channels of Marseilles’ port, were attacked by up to 700 cops — six companies of riot police, plus members of the national police force and maritime gendarmes. They swung riot sticks and used tear gas, arresting 14 strikers.

But the sailors fought back, throwing bottles and turning hoses on the cops from one of the ferries the strikers have occupied. “They’re the ones who want a clash,” declared one sailor. “We’re going to defend ourselves.”

Now all the maritime unions have called for sailors to launch a national strike on March 17 against deregulation, a policy the shipowners have been using to push through layoff after layoff “in the name of free and unfettered competition.”

Solidarity

The police assault brought an immediate and massive reaction as all port workers in every trade and occupation struck in support of the SNCM sailors. The port workers said they would not return to work until “all police forces have left the port area.”

On March 9, dock workers refused to allow two ferries originally bound for the then-blocked port of Marseilles to dock in the port of Toulon. “We refuse to be a back-up and we don’t want to be considered as scabs by our fellow workers in Marseilles,” said union leader Kadda Zerga. The dockers only allowed passengers to disembark from the ferries.

The sailors are striking against company plans to reduce the number of ferry voyages between mainland France and Corsica, fearing this will lead to layoffs. Further strikes include:

  • Thirty-five hundred JC Decaux workers struck on March 8 to demand a minimum 100-euro-a-month pay raise (US$136), refusing the company offer of 1.4%. JC Decaux puts advertisements on a variety of billboards, bus stops, and in public transport. In 2010, its gross profit hit 173 million euros (US$235 million).

     • Strikes have hit the hugely profitable communications satellite producer Thales Alenja Space. Workers are demanding a 5% wage hike and equal pay for women workers, plus bonuses. Four hundred strikers blocked truck access to the Cannes factory and 800 blocked trucks from the Toulouse plant, preventing nitrogen deliveries.

     • Rolling strikes hit Manitowoc-Potain, a crane manufacturer in central France where wages have been frozen for years. The CGT union agreed to a 60-euro-a-month increase (US$82) but angry workers are threatening to walk out again for a higher pay hike.

     • Steelworkers in Dunkirk and Florange have engaged in rolling strikes against the Arcelor Mittal group, demanding a 45-euro-a-month wage hike US$61), double the company’s raise. Strikers blocked the Basse-Indre plant and organized shift-end stoppages at three other mills.

     • A 3½-day strike by Peugeot auto workers won better working conditions against speed-up, creating 23 additional fitters and forklift drivers on each shift and slowing the assembly line from 46 to 44 cars an hour.

     • Over 800 factory workers, engineers and technicians have been on strike since January 13 against Cézus-Aréva, world leader in the zirconium market, a metal used to isolate nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors. They’re demanding a bonus equal to 1% of the gross annual wage plus a pay increase triple the company’s offer of 1.1%.

     • A five-day strike beginning January 26 by workers at MBF Technologies forced the company — owned by one of the main auto subcontractors making aluminum castings — to abandon layoff plans and legal proceedings to expel the workers from the plant; agree to keep the factory operating; not to end the 35-hour week; pay workers for the five days they were on strike; open wage negotiations; and not file legal action against any strikers.

     • At the Spanish-owned Europac factory which makes paper and cardboard in Saint-Etienne du Rouvray, 160 workers struck for a 4% pay hike, a 75-euro bonus and against a two-tier wage system paying lower wages to new hires.

     • Over 1,000 Thales Communications workers in the northern Paris suburb of Colombes, voted to strike on March 9 at a general assembly held on a freeway off-ramp, demanding re-opening of wage negotiations. From 5:30 A.M. demonstrators blocked access to the plant. Actions spread to Thales factories in outlying areas. The company designs and makes information and communications systems for the military market.

     • Nine hundred auto parts workers at the Valeo plant in Issoire in southern France staged a work stoppage on March 8 to back up demands for higher wages in annual contract negotiations. It turned into a one-day strike, with pickets at the plant entrance. The Issoire plant makes electrical components for automobiles and auto engines.

A union leaflet protested that, “Workers are supposed to tighten their belts and be happy with crumbs, when 1.20 euros per share are to be paid…to shareholders…of a little over 78 million shares.” The company’s 2010 gross profit was half a billon dollars.

Without communist leadership to turn workers’ fighting spirit towards revolution, the fascists plan to turn it into the dead-ends of racism and nationalism. The fascist National Front announced today it’s establishing an “association for the defense of workers.” Belying that, the fascists condemned the striking unions as “anti-democratic and repressive.”

These strike actions demonstrate that workers’ militancy remains intact here, despite defeat in last year’s fight to stop the government from upping the retirement age. The only way to get off the treadmill of fighting for wage hikes that capitalism inevitably takes away is to turn that militancy into a commitment to fight for communism. 

On March 11^th, 2011, a massive 8.9-magnitude quake hit Northeast Japan on Friday, causing thousands of deaths, hundreds of fires, and a 10-meter (33-ft) tsunami along parts of the country's coastline, predominantly in the Northeastern (Touhoku) region.  The destruction left in the wake of the earthquake is extensive, including the vanishing of entire villages, ports, and even schools that were used for evacuation sites by local residents that had been situated on the coasts.  Miyagi and Iwate prefectures were hit the hardest by the tsunami and have the highest death tolls, which in total could reach over 10,000 in total.  Aftershocks as a result of the magnitude of the quake are frequent, including a 6.0 quake that hit Shizuoka and extending the entire Kantou (Eastern) region the morning of 3/15.  Additionally, the quake disabled the cooling mechanisms of one of the main nuclear plants in the Northeast region in Fukushima prefecture (Fukushima Dai-ichi), the oldest nuclear power plant in Japan, sparking a meltdown that has forced the evacuation of thousands surrounding the area and causing widespread fear that is being spread by the mainstream media on an almost 24-hour basis.

While there has been some criticism of the warning systems that gave residents little time to evacuate, most mainstream media sources in the US and elsewhere emphasized Japan’s preparedness for such disasters and have praised the rapidity to which rescues, evacuations, and recovery efforts have taken place.  As one of the largest economies in the world, Japan has taken significant steps to safeguard its vulnerability against such disasters through the fortification in infrastructure, the training, beginning in kindergarten, on how to react to earthquakes and other disasters, which workers in all areas also practice on a weekly basis through drills.

The protection and preparedness against such disasters, however, is more evident in the capitalist centers like Tokyo or Sendai (the largest city in the Northeastern region, which suffered significant damage), but become lax as it moves to the outer regions where the damage and loss of life was the most substantial.  This is due to the fact that most of the residents of these areas, like the small village of Saito in Miyagi prefecture which was totally obliterated, are predominantly working-class families, such as factory workers, farmers, and fishermen/women, and the elderly who built homes in areas which are the most vulnerable to such catastrophic events.  This is what connects the loss of life in the recent disaster in Japan to the earthquake in Haiti, or to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which killed hundreds of thousands of local residents on the coastal regions of Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, among other areas, who are forced to live in conditions that are both unprotected by disasters.

Without overlooking the responsibility and culpability of the national governments in such catastrophes, their responsibility is inherently part of the larger continuum of capitalism’s failure to plan for social need globally, which in this case works on a number of varying levels.

Firstly, while loss of life in Japan’s recent catastrophe is horrific, it is minimal when compared to what happened in Haiti, where the death toll reached over 200,000, or in the Boxing Day tsunami, where over 300,000 died.  In other words, under capitalism, some populations are “worth” more than others, according to the hierarchy of profit: as the third largest economy in the world, Japan has a vested interest in protecting itself and its workers from such events, albeit minimally, while in “unprofitable” places like Haiti, Sri Lanka, or even the 9^th Ward of New Orleans, there is no room for such planning.  This also reveals the inherent racist dimension of capitalist planning: as a “developed” capitalist country, there is much less racism directed at Japan, which is emphasized through CNN and other mainstream outlets in their coverage of the current situation.

Additionally, most of the discussion on NHK (Nippon Housou Koukai), the largest Japanese news broadcasting system, and international news is the threat of a nuclear disaster, which is unfolding by the minute.  NHK has been broadcasting the levels of radiations that may leak, with some emphasis on the blame being directed both at the current administration under Prime Minister Naoto Kan, and at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) which owns the Fukushima plant, including the fact that the plant has been cited continuously for violations and is outdated, in terms of equipment and meltdown controlling mechanisms.  The meltdown is symbolic of how corporate interests are the priority under capitalism (TEPCO being one of he most profitable corporations, according to the Nikkei index), how planning and the running of such facilities is done poorly, and the extent to which such events could be minimized or done away with under communism, where workers would have a social and critical awareness of how to operate nuclear plants properly, for the benefit of the social need, rather than according to the logic of profitability.

Finally, the disaster is already being played out through the lens of inter-imperialist rivalry.  Obama reacted to the crisis by pledging “support” for Japan, including a significant aid package that most likely will entail the re-evaluation of Japanese-US political and economic relations.  The US interest in the region is to use Japan as a buffer against the rise of China, which means increasing the pre-existing tensions between Japan and China over control of the undeveloped gas fields in the South China Sea, as well as the power to exploit the mineral-rich islands that have sparked recent disputes, resulting in the emergence of pro-nationalist protests in both Japan and China.  Additionally, with Japan’s ongoing economic woes deepening as a result of the current crisis, there has been discussion of the “disaster capitalism” model, which would allow multinational corporations to privatize the disaster areas and rebuild according to the logic of profit, as we see occurring in New Orleans, Argentina, and elsewhere.

In summary, capitalism ALWAYS works to the detriment of workers everywhere.  Workers in Japan, who have been brainwashed by anti-communism, need to recognize that capitalism will not save them from such disasters, nor will the false hopes of the reformist parties like the Democratic Party of Japan, or fake leftists like the Japanese Communist Party, who are the most vocally critical of the recent catastrophe.  ALL workers need to recognize that a system based on profit will ultimately fail to provide the necessary means to rebuild the world, and in fact has been the systemic cause of the devastation and after-effects of environmental disasters.  The time is now to unite, to build the internationalism and solidarity to create a global community of workers who can run the world without capitalist bosses!