COLOMBIA—In response to the delay in payment of salaries, 60 angry and courageous construction workers went on strike several months ago, demanding to get back stolen pay. Members of Progressive Labor Party have been working with these workers for more than a year, distributing the paper, discussing the situation of the working class, wage slavery and dialectical materialism. One member of PLP even participated in the activities by advising the workers and trying to prevent retaliations from the bosses.
In reaction to the strike, the bosses brought workers from other sites to sabotage the strike. The bosses tried to convince workers that he wasn’t responsible for the scabs and that “other factors” brought them in. Disgusted at his lies, the workers refused to believe him. They intensified their struggle by blocking the entrance to the site, not even letting in supplies. The member of PLP involved tried to protect workers from the bosses’ retaliation. Despite best efforts, the desperate bosses fired ten workers.
Lessons from the Strike
During the evaluation after the strike, we discussed the lessons of this action with the workers. We asked them why they didn’t take into account that the bosses might retaliate and fire workers. They responded that they did not think the bosses would respond so harshly when workers were simply demanding their hard-earned salaries. In reality, the bosses don’t care about stealing from workers. Bosses already steal from workers in order to make profits. The wages any workers receive are nothing compared to the profits that workers create for the bosses. Bosses are crooks by nature, so we can’t trust them to be nice when workers fight back.
We concluded that workers cannot trust capitalist laws, which were made to justify private property, not to defend working-class needs. We also cannot trust in pacifism, because the bosses will use violence whenever they need to in order to keep workers in line. We have to learn from this valuable experience and be more organized next time. Spontaneity cannot replace leadership and organization. We are still debating with six workers and circulating CHALLENGE at this site.
Whole Damn System Has Got to Go
While workers struggle to get paid their meager wages, Colombia’s productive sector is generating multimillions in profits due to the surge in construction and mining. None of those profits go to enrich the working class. They are going straight to the thick bank accounts of the bosses and rulers. Still worse, the bosses’ filthy mines ruin working-class neighborhoods. A UN report found that mining has taken severe tolls on “access to water, health, [and the] development of agricultural activity” and “a high rate of prostitution also occurs among young people, including high school students, and drug addiction, mainly among men” in towns where mines are created.
The Colombian government also doesn’t care about the workers affected by the expanding mining industry, most of whom come from the poorest parts of the country. President Juan Manuel Santos made mining one of the “motors” of his “Prosperity for All” economic policy, code for “Prosperity for All Capitalists.” The government is on the capitalists’ side, not the workers’.
As long as the capitalist system exists, labor accidents, premature deaths, wage theft and mass firings will continue to be an everydayoccurrence. The greedy ruling class has profited off workers’ misery and low salaries. This worksite where there are 160 workers working tirelessly for 60 hours a week is just one example of how the bosses make a profit. It is the job of PLP to organize with workers and raise revolutionary consciousness. Strikes are an important stepping stone in building working class confidence, but we must not stop there. We must abolish the entire capitalist system so that we can win working-class power.
PLP must keep building with workers in all industries and all countries, from construction workers in Colombia to transit workers in Chicago, so that we can build a revolutionary outlook amongst the international working class. We must organize so all of our actions are planned, taking into account our daily experiences, the conscience level and organization of the masses, the strength of the enemy, and our own strength.We can advance with confidence. We must make our revolutionary Party massive, as a necessary step for the communist revolution that will end the vileness of this criminal, racist, capitalist
system.