LOS ANGELES, CA, November 21 — Hundreds of LAX airport workers and community supporters marched through the streets, blocking the main entrance to the airport for two hours. A community-based organization helped organize the march. They have been organizing workers at two different contract companies within the airport. They are fighting for benefits, healthcare, vacation, and better pay. Some have made multiple attempts to establish a union but have failed. During the voting the first time, contract workers were not even allowed to vote.
Airport subcontractor workers here are subject to bad or no health care, no pay raises, no sick days, no vacation, no jury duty pay, no free flights, long work hours or too few hours in the case of Ready Reserve workers. They are moving older workers out of the bag room and onto the ramp, where they have to stoop over all day. This is an obvious attempt to force older and better-paid workers to quit. They are also forced to manage entire flights without getting the higher pay of a lead.
The TSA “Totally Standing Around” agents and the airport police attack workers on a daily basis in the form of random pat-downs, check points to check ID and fingerprinting to check for explosive residue or gunpowder. They pull workers’ badges and add points to their airport records. The bosses push the idea that they are somehow protecting the “good” people from the “bad” people, but the end result is repression of the working class for the benefit of the ruling class. That is a sign of fascism.
Workers must unite and fight back against attacks from the TSA, the airport bosses and the airport police. Fight-back has been difficult, but lately the airport workers have been slowly organizing. The march that took place was only a tiny step towards true class struggle. The union will eventually let the workers down because their philosophy is to make a deal with the bosses. The result will be workers being screwed, either a little less or a little more. That is why the workers all over the world need communism, a society run by the working class in our interests, and not those of profit-hungry bosses. Our fight against the bosses is a fight we want to win.
With this in mind, PLP will be distributing leaflets and selling CHALLENGE at the airport on a monthly basis. We will continue to be involved in the fight-back organized by the union, getting to know workers, so we can bring them our revolutionary outlook. The union’s fight is a start but it’s reformist. It won’t stop capitalism and its rotten system of exploitation. The fight needs to be for communism: a world without exploitation or a profit-driven wage system. We in PLP are determined to bring that idea to the workers here and everywhere.
