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    D.C. Transit Workers Launch Drive vs. Fare Hikes

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    24 June 2010 359 hits

    WASHINGTON, D.C., June 21 — Even though D.C. Metro recently raised bus fares to $1.45, many riders, with drivers looking the other way in solidarity, have decided to “just pay a buck.” They are not only attacking the bosses where it hurts them the most — the pocketbook — they are also displaying a level of class consciousness that should be an inspiration. Any and every instance of workers looking out for other workers is a reason for optimism. This consciousness, and a revolutionary party to organize our class, are crucial ingredients in the recipe for communist revolution.

    Now, despite angry protests and testimony against fare increases by workers and students, the transit board here is hiking fares again, to $1.70. These represent the biggest increases in Metro’s history and is part of the bosses’ response to the crisis of capitalism — put the burden on the backs of workers –  a burden borne disproportionately by the mostly black and Latino Metro employees and riders.

    As we have seen worldwide, the racism inherent in capitalism has intensified during the economic crisis. Furthermore, disabled workers, victims of capitalism’s disregard for the health and well-being of workers, will face big increases in the cost of their transportation services.  In response, workers are mobilizing to broaden the “Just Pay a Dollar” campaign, with Metro drivers being asked to continue supporting it by accepting the lower fares.

    This resistance is a positive sign. Solidarity can be built among workers through such a campaign. But we should have no illusions that such a movement will significantly alter the bosses’ exploitation of workers and riders. Only with a communist revolution could we actually solve the problem: workers would run Metro in the interests of workers so they could get to work easily and make their contribution to society.

    Under communism, transit would be free and available, since we would all be working collectively with one another, to create a better world, not help some exploiting boss make profit from our labor. As the “Just Pay a Dollar” campaign grows, we will work to bring this idea to more workers at Metro and in the community! 

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    End Nears for Undocumented Immigrants’ Anti-Racist Strike

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    24 June 2010 338 hits

    PARIS, June 18 — The eight-month strike by over 6,000 undocumented workers appeared to be ending today — resulting in their winning some of their goals — but the workers are maintaining their occupation of various work-sites and government buildings all strikers have received their temporary residence and work permits. They are remaining vigilant regarding the application of the new measures.

    We congratulate the workers on carrying on such a long, militant, anti-racist struggle against the racist French government.

    The very fact that they struck as undocumented workers is in itself a huge victory. It shows the international working class that immigrant workers worldwide can make such a fight and should be supported by all workers. A crucial factor essential to conducting the strike was the forging of multi-racial unity, notably between workers of African and Chinese origin, which gave the workers the fighting spirit needed for the “illegal” occupations of work sites, and more recently of Bastille Square.

    PLP has consistently pointed out that as long as the bosses can divide workers by defining some as “illegal” because they have crossed capitalist-created borders — and enables the bosses to super-exploit them and use them against native-born workers — it will weaken the entire working class. That’s why PLP says workers should “Smash All Borders!” — which can only be accomplished through a communist revolution that eliminates all bosses and all borders.

    While the strikers did force the government to adopt uniform conditions for their “legalization,” the continued existence of “conditions” still differentiates these immigrants from France’s native-born workers. Like the outcome of many workers’ reform struggles under capitalism, this one is a compromise. However, with communist leadership it can become a springboard for a continued fight towards the goal of smashing capitalist borders.

    The strikers — mainly immigrants from Africa but also from China — have forced the government to admit that France’s 250 prefects abuse their arbitrary powers. The “prefects” are direct agents of the national government at the local level and have lots of police powers which they use to favor bosses who kowtowed to them. Undocumented workers could only be “legalized” if they were on “good terms” with their boss and if their boss was on good terms with the prefect. That’s why the strikers fought for uniform conditions for “legalization.” The agreement provides for uniform application of the following:

    • “Legalization” of all undocumented workers who can show they’ve worked 12 of the preceding 18 months, and six of the preceding 12 months; work for different employers counts;

     • “Legalization” of all undocumented temporary workers who can show they’ve worked 310 hours for the same temporary agency, plus a promise from the agency to employ them during 12 of the coming 18 months;

    • “Legalization” of all personal care providers, most of whom are women, under a temporary residence permit while they seek a “promise-to-employ” from an employer;

    • Recognition of all strike days as days of employment;

    • Recognition that all 30 crafts and trades in which the strikers are employed are trades where there are not enough native-born workers; and,

     • Issuance of three-month temporary work permits to all strikers.

    It is obvious that within each of these changes, the bosses retain the ability to limit such reforms and the power to reverse them with their hold on the state apparatus. The workers are still subject to having to “prove” certain past work records, dependent on agencies’ “promises” to employ them, and provide proof of five years residence in France, among other conditions.

    The strikers opposed the combination of proof of work and proof of residence. Conditions for the “legalization” of Algerian and Tunisian workers, who are subject to special laws, and of undocumented workers in the underground economy, also remain unclear.

    While some of the provisions give the workers a leg up on becoming “legal,” they still are far from being on an equal plane with native-born workers. And enforcement of the agreement will be “monitored” in quarterly meetings of representatives of the trade unions and of the Ministries of Immigration and Labor.

    Struggle on these issues continues. The strikers were scheduled to hold a June 20 meeting to decide on how to continue their movement.

    Once the agreement ended the strike, 1,000 strikers concluded their three-week occupation of Bastille Square chanting, “We work here, we live here, we’re staying here!” Xiaoqiu Zheng, a 52-year-old seamstress, explained that, “In China, I had seen very few Africans. Here [in Bastille Square], we spend a lot of time together. We have become like brothers and sisters.”

    Of course, the very idea that workers can be “illegal” is a bosses’ ploy. The “illegal” label makes possible the super-exploitation of immigrants. The bosses want their racism and nationalism to divide the working class into antagonistic groups. It’s only when the workers’ internationalism destroys the bosses’ state power through communist revolution that categories such as “legal” and “illegal” will be abolished. 

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    Strikes Spread, Players Scab While: World Cup Showcases Imperialism and Nationalism

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    24 June 2010 359 hits

    On June 11, the World Cup of Soccer began in South Africa. It is the world’s largest sporting event, watched by billions around the globe. Ideologically, the World Cup is fueled by the deadly nationalism of the imperialist epoch. Imperialism has left its mark all over the event. The biggest imperialist powers’ soccer teams are overwhelmingly filled with players from their former colonies and the African teams are all coached by Europeans.

    In South Africa one-third of all workers are unemployed and nearly 70 percent of South African children live in poverty but yet the ANC government found $107 billion to host the event. After construction workers building the stadiums went on strike, the ANC moved to ban strikes during the World Cup.

    But as soon as the games started the security guards that work the stadiums struck over low wages at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium — and were met by police firing teargas and rubber bullets. The security guards said their take-home pay was just R135 ($17.68) per match — working 12-16 hour days on average — and they had to fork over R1,200 ($157.62) for uniforms. The players have continued to play, effectively scabbing on the workers.

    Thousands of people marched in Durban on June 16th, the 34th anniversary of the Soweto uprising against apartheid (see page 8) — in solidarity with Stallon Security workers. Demonstrators also highlighted the treatment of traders who have been forcibly removed from the FIFA exclusion zones in which only licensed traders were allowed to operate. Chants of “Get out FIFA mafia” echoed through the streets.

    Other workers complained of being forced away from their normal fishing grounds near luxury hotels and the Durban seafront. Rajeen Inderjeeth held a handwritten sign saying, “We will fish against your rules.”

    Sections of Johannesburg’s bus drivers held a wildcat strike at the start of the week over unilateral route changes.

    Hundreds of people marched on the United States consulate in Johannesburg protesting cuts in international funding to prevent HIV/Aids in Africa. Activists wearing green T-shirts and carrying placards took part. Several organizations, including the Treatment Action Campaign and Cosatu, are leading the protest over cuts in HIV/Aids funding.

    Workers worldwide should shoot down the bosses’ nationalism with internationalism — the idea that workers everywhere have the same class interest in opposing the world’s bosses, no matter what their origin. Capitalism caused the poverty — now exacerbated by the World Cup — that has wrecked South Africa. The nationalism promoted in part by the World Cup fuels capitalism’s imperialist adventures all around the world and exploitation at home. The workers’ real goal worth shooting for isn’t a World Cup victory, but communism. 

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    France: Strikers Hold Boss Hostage, Demand Severance Pay for Co-Workers

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    24 June 2010 371 hits

    PONTCHATEAU, FRANCE, June 18 — Striking factory workers here held the Bobcat France chairman, four other Directors and a court bailiff hostage all day until management agreed to an extraordinary meeting of the works council.

    The 297 workers are fighting for higher layoff compensation for 130 co-workers scheduled for layoff this month. The workers are demanding $76,740 for each worker plus $3,960 for each year of seniority; the company is offering one-fourth of that. These workers, who make telescoping forklifts, have already suffered 19 months of short time.

    Bobcat France is a subsidiary of the Bobcat Company, a U.S.-based subsidiary of the South Korean conglomerate Doosan Infracore International. Doosan’s annual report boasted having “recently acquired Bobcat, which enjoys the world’s highest competitiveness in compact construction equipment.” But Doosan reported a $245.8 million net loss in fiscal 2009 so it plans to make its workers pay.

    Doosan claims its “business philosophy” is to do “our part to care for communities [and] protect life.” But it seems that such “care” and “protection” doesn’t extend to its workers. Indeed, Doosan’s strategy for Bobcat is to raise competitiveness “by constantly reducing fixed costs, raising operational efficiency, maximizing productivity, and improving business fundamentals.”

    Consequently, Bobcat France plans relocating its research and development department to the Czech Republic, where average annual income in 2004 was roughly one-third of that in France.

    The militancy and solidarity that leads workers to break the bosses’ laws and take them hostage is positive, but it takes communist leadership to break the bonds of reformism and aim for workers’ power and communist revolution — the only goal that will eliminate the bosses and these attacks for good. 

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    Iron Man II: Building Support for U.S. Imperialism

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    24 June 2010 499 hits

    Within the first five minutes of the movie “Iron Man II,” Tony Stark declares that his wonderful suit of iron has guaranteed world peace. In doing so, he pushes one of the foremost lies that form the foundation of capitalist ideology: that true peace for workers can exist alongside the profit motive. In this grotesque film, which is filled with sexism, the glorification of the U.S. military and Cold War anti-communism, this deception is perhaps the worst. Capitalism only offers ceaseless violence, from domestic abuse to nuclear war, for the world’s workers. No “Iron Man” can do what communist revolution can: consign capitalism to the dustbin of history and usher in a society based on workers’ needs and hopes.

    In the first film, Stark is kidnapped and forced to build a super weapon for terrorists, portrayed by Arab-looking actors (thus fulfilling the film industry’s role as a source of racist, imperialist ideology). Instead of developing a weapon for his captors, Stark builds a metal suit that allows him to fly, shoot and generally wreak havoc on the “bad guys.”

    The film begins with the U.S. government demanding Stark hand over the suit to the military. Defiantly invoking his “right to private property” and declaring that he has “privatized world peace,” Stark refuses. In this Libertarian fantasy Tony Stark, the super-capitalist, provides for the needs of the working class (who suffer most from the ceaseless violence of capitalism and would thus benefit most from true peace). Libertarianism is the belief that capitalist markets are completely self-regulating and that there is no need for government. Accordingly, the state in the movie, rather than being shown as an instrument of the capitalist class, is shown as a bumbling bureaucracy separate from the capitalist class.

    Through a montage of magazine covers and a brief self-congratulatory speech from Stark himself, we learn that the invention of the Iron Man suit has led to five years of “peace and prosperity.” Stark reveals the nature of this “peace” when he declares himself a modern “nuclear deterrent,” a clear allusion to the “peace” of the Cold War era. The U.S. appears to still be an imperialist power and people like Tony Stark still live in utter wealth, meaning that many more have to live in desperate poverty.

    The Iron Man is clearly being used not as a weapon of liberation but a weapon of intimidation. The Iron Man has not brought world peace, but rather world domination by U.S. imperialism. By the end of the movie, the reality that the so-called “free market” hero is in service to the U.S. war machine is apparent: Tony Stark is fighting alongside his friend and U.S. Army Colonel, James Rhodes. Stark Industries, his company, may be the hot company, but it still needs the might of the U.S. military to allow it access to markets. (Replace Stark Industries with ExxonMobil and you’d have a movie about the invasion of Iraq.)

    Along with a U.S. superhero, this film gives us the proto-typical Russian villain, Ivan Vanko or “Whiplash.” Vanko’s father was a Russian scientist who worked with Stark’s father, but was deported by the elder Stark back to the USSR because Vanko was too greedy (which is rich, coming from a Pentagon contractor).

    Vanko is a physicist (with a gym membership himself) incapable of comprehending Stark’s technological advancements. He can only mimic advancements, not develop his own, thus fulfilling the stereotype of the overly mechanical Russian scientist not privy to the “freedom” of U.S. capitalism.

    Of course belief in this myth requires forgetting that in many scientific fields the Soviet Union was far ahead of the “liberated” U.S. The specter of communism still haunts the bosses and their film industry.

    “Iron Man II” will clearly be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year (in its first two days it made over $327 million worldwide). And it is not hard to see why: good actors put in strong performances and top-of-the-line special effects highlight an action-packed script. But every aspect of capitalist media is designed to reinforce capitalist ideas and we should be critical of these underlying lessons. “Iron Man II,” at its core, is a celebration of capitalist individualism and U.S. nationalism simply wrapped in a sleek, glamorous shell. 

    1. Latin America: Local Bosses, Imperialist Masters Profit Off Workers’ Misery
    2. The Great Soweto Uprising in South Africa
    3. PL’ers Lead Multi-Racial Action Exposing Racist Tea Party
    4. Israel-Palestine: PL’er Raises Red Flag vs. Fascism

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