AMIENS, January 14 — Facing the mass layoff of all 1,173 workers, over 200 invaded the Goodyear tire plant here on January 6 and held two senior bosses captive in an attempt to force negotiations for huge severance pay before the closing of the plant. They rolled giant farm-tractor wheels in to block the room holding the bosses. The enraged workers then set off a huge bonfire of tires at the plant and vowed to occupy it until demands were met. They are occupying the factory and blocking a warehouse containing 240,000 tires worth hundreds of millions of euros.
On the second day of the standoff cops freed the two bosses, threatening the workers with hordes of police from Paris to “whack the workers” and jail them under a law prescribing a 5-year prison term and a $102,000 fine for each worker. Last March, a protest by these workers left 15 cops injured.
There is no clearer example of the use of the state by the capitalist class to enforce the exploitation of the working class.
François Hollande, the Socialist president of France, “pushed through…labor laws…making it easier for companies to fire workers, [and] reduce their pay and work hours” while introducing $27 billion worth of tax breaks for businesses….The imminent closing of the Goodyear plant [is] the latest in a series of mass layoffs at large companies across France….For the nine months ended September 30, Goodyear had net income of $372 million” (New York Times, 1/8).
Demand $130 Million Severance Pay
The workers are demanding severance packages of $110,000 each plus $2,500 for each year worked. “It will take years for these workers to find new jobs, and the older ones will have almost no chance,” declared a French economics professor (NYT).
The workers’ main union, the CGT, which supported Hollande in the last election, has fallen to the “strategy” of looking for a new capitalist buyer to bail out the President. Throughout the year since the plant closure was announced, Goodyear ignored legal proceedings on workers’ hygiene, safety and working conditions, while accusing the workers of “vandalism” and “theft.” Of course, throughout the years it is Goodyear bosses who have stolen billions in profits from the workers’ labor. It is notable that Goodyear is a U.S.-based transnational company and that when it’s in their class interests, the bosses and their governments act together to screw the workers. Workers must show support and solidarity across borders in order to fight the bosses at the point of production.
The militancy of the workers is to be lauded, but unfortunately — as can be seen from the adjoining workers’ proclamation — under capitalism conditions are stacked against the working class. The bosses use both the former right-wing government of Sarkozy and the current Socialist government of Hollande to oppress our class, which creates everything of value in society and yet the profit system enables the bosses to steal the value of what we produce.
It is only a communist revolution that can end this horror, not the mis-leadership of unions like the CGT nor the phonies who call themselves “communist” while betraying the workers in one bosses’ election after another. This requires a communist party — which still needs to be built in France — to turn the anger and militancy of the working class to lead to the overthrow of capitalism and establish a society run by and for the workers.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Issawiyeh, December 28 — PL’ers came to show solidarity with the released Palestinian political prisoner, Samer Tariq Issawi. Issawi, a left-wing Palestinian fighter. He was first arrested in 2002 under allegations of manufacturing bombs and firing on Israeli citizens, and was convicted of membership in an illegal organization, possession of explosives, and attempted murder based on very flimsy evidence. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison. In October 2011, he was released in the deal between Israel and Hamas for the release of the Israeli POW Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas.
However, in July 2012, Issawi was arrested once more for violating the (very strict) terms of his release, sentenced to eight more months in prison and threatened with the re-activation of his old jail sentence, which would put him behind bars for almost two more decades. In response, he went on an intermittant hunger strike, between August 2012 and April 2013, demanding his release.
Massive protests sprung up around Israel-Palestine and abroad to demand his release. The protest brought results, and in April 2013 a deal was agreed upon between Issawi and the regime, ending his hunger strike and allowing for his release after his eight month jail term.
In December 2013,  he was finally released to his home village of Issawiye, after enduring the horrors of imprisonment. The real reason for his imprisonment is political; the evidence of any “crimes” committed by him are flimsy at best.
He was arrested as part of the Israeli regime’s harassment of Palestinian political fighters, especially those of working-class background and left political alignment. However, the resolute, multi-ethnic struggle against his unjust imprisonment forced even this fascist state to capitulate and grant him his freedom.
Two PL’ers visited Issawi and his family tiday. We have been very well-received by the locals, and Challenge (in English and Arabic) was enthusiastically welcomed. As communists, we stand shoulder to shoulder with all those who fight against apartheid and fascism. Only by a united, multi-ethnic struggle, can we smash the racist, capitalist Zionist system and replace it with a communist workers’ state from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean, as a stepping-stone toward a red Middle East and a red, borderless world.

NEW YORK CITY, December 26 — “How can you have people with 35 years on the job get fired, while they hire somebody off the streets? It’s not fair, it’s not right.” That’s what a woman school bus driver with 26 years on the job had to say as she and more than 100 of her co-workers picketed outside their union hall, demanding the resignation of their union president. As Mayor de Blasio starts negotiating contracts for 300,000 city workers, today’s rally is an opening shot in what can be a major antiracist struggle against this capitalist state.
The school bus drivers and matrons are members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1811. In January 2013, they led a month-long strike — the first school bus strike since the three-month 1979 wildcat — against racist billionaire Mayor Bloomberg and the bus company contractors who wanted to eliminate any seniority or job security by doing away with the Employee Protection Provision (EPP) in their contract. The EPP states that when a bus company won the bid to a particular route, the workers who had been driving that route would keep their jobs. The clause had been won by the workers during the 1979 strike. Bloomberg decided to accept bids on certain school bus routes without the EPP and the workers flexed their class power by responding with a strike.
During the five weeks of mass pickets, rallies and marches in the frigid winter, PLP organized workers and students to join the strikers. Hundreds of CHALLENGEs were circulated. Rather than have all the more than 300,000 city workers who also had no contract shut the city down with a general strike, the racist ATU leadership and the Democrats pulled the rug out from under the mostly immigrant strikers. All five Democratic mayoral candidates signed a letter telling workers to return to work without a contract, and that after becoming mayor, they would “revisit the EPP.” This exposes whom politicians and union leaders actually serve: the bosses. The ATU leadership’s class position — like all unions — support capitalist profits against workers’ need.
The strike ended and dozens of workers found they had no jobs to return to. Many were fired and replaced; some bus companies shut down and later reopened with new names and new lower paid workers. On December 17, parents and bus drivers protested the shutdown of the Atlantic Express, the fifth largest school bus operator in the U.S. and Canada. Strikebreakers who had crossed the picket lines kept their jobs. And the ATU leadership did nothing. The Democratic candidates, including de Blasio, did nothing. It was a brutal racist attack on mostly black and Latino and immigrant workers and the families they serve.
While life has gotten much harder for the remaining and former drivers and matrons, PLP is fighting alongside and strengthening our ties. A delegation of strikers attended PLP’s May Day celebration last spring, and friends were active in today’s picket at ATU headquarters and in the rally protesting the closing of Atlantic Express. The school bus drivers and matrons have let us know that they are ready to fight. We will challenge the politicians and union leaders for the political leadership of a growing number of transport workers as we continue to struggle alongside our friends to win them to communism.

SEATTLE, January 3 — Today, 30,000 Boeing workers, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Lodge 751, voted to give away pensions for new hires and to let Boeing freeze their own pension plans in 2016. The contract, not due to expire until 2016, will now be extended to 2024.
This is a major step in the growth of fascism, where the bosses rule through force and terror. Boeing used politicians of both parties and the union leaders to strip away 70 years of collective bargaining and economic gains. They do this partly because they can, but mostly to meet growing challenges from competing international imperialist powers.
Historically, these challenges have always been resolved through war. By 2024, starting pay for the bottom three pay grades will be at the state minimum wage, currently $9.19/hr, half of the current starting wage. Overall, wage increases will be four percent over eight years. Also, over the life of the contract, monthly health care premiums will increase by $3,000/year. And Boeing reserves the right to unilaterally reduce health care benefits to avoid Obamacare’s so-called “Cadillac tax” on top-shelf health coverage, fought for by auto, steel and aerospace workers.
Boeing workers voted down a similar contract by a 2-1 margin last November. These fascist cutbacks follow similar attacks in auto and steel, when those industries were losing billions to their international competitors. Many were either bankrupt or on the brink. Not so with Boeing, the world’s largest commercial airline manufacturer and the second biggest military contractor. In 2013, the company enjoyed record profits, with over $400 billion in back orders.
CEO Jim McNerney, Obama’s choice to chair the President’s Export Council, received $27.5 million in total compensation, up 20 percent. (McNerney is a former top executive of 3M and General Electric, and serves on the board of directors for Proctor and Gamble and IBM. He is a trustee of Northwestern University.) In November, Washington State politicians handed Boeing $8.7 billion in tax breaks, the largest package any state has ever given a single corporation.
Union Betrayals
Still, Boeing demanded draconian concessions and threatened to move production of the 777X jet liner to a non-union factory in South Carolina, along with thousands of jobs (and $25 million/year in union dues). IAM President Buffenbarger went to bat for the company and scheduled another vote. How else could he hold onto his $300,000-plus salary, or the nine other IAM International reps who were paid more than $265,000, or the $1 million a year needed to maintain the union’s Lear jet?
The contract passed by about 600 votes, 51-49 percent.
The turnout was much lower than in November because the IAM leadership scheduled the vote while many members were away on holiday vacations. To grease the skids, Boeing offered workers a $15,000 signing bonus.
Since the financial crash of 2008, unions have given up pensions for new hires in the auto industry, General Electric, Verizon, Honeywell and now Boeing. Jim Levitt, a 35-year veteran machinist at Boeing, described the “grim mood” of the workers to Labor Notes. “I’m astonished there wasn’t an explosion. Almost everyone just put up with it…Very few signs, no chanting, no nothing…Less than 100 people were in the room for the vote-count announcement, in stark contrast to other times we’ve voted on a contract. The few hardy souls who came to the main Seattle hall of Machinists (IAM) District Lodge 751 seemed stunned when the results were read. Only one or two shouted anything, and within a minute the room was empty. It all ended with barely a whimper.”
The loss of pensions at Boeing is another painful reminder that no victory is guaranteed, no security is possible as long as the bosses hold power. We don’t need better politicians or new union leaders. We need to take power from the bosses and build a communist world that meets the needs of the workers. We need to build a mass revolutionary PLP that can lead Boeing workers and the whole working class in an armed insurrection. This is no pipe dream. For many years, Boeing workers have read and distributed CHALLENGE and supported our movement. And many more will again.