Vol. 19, No. 12
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
25ยข December 1, 1989
[Front page:
Defend the homeless!;
State capitalism in crisis--Upheaval in East Germany;
Filipino workers celebrate 1917 Bolshevik revolution--MLP delegation in the Philippines]
IN THIS ISSUE
| Auto Workers, Unite! |
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| Auto crisis and job security; Protest Jefferson Assembly closing; St. Louis workers oppose concessions; Ford workers against 'modern operating agreement'............... | 2 |
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| Strikes and Workplace News |
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| Boeing; Rally in Flint; Oakland students defend teachers; NYNEX sellout; AFL-CIO convention; Crucible Steel strike; Wage gap...................................................... | 3 |
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| Defend the Homeless! |
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| Sunnydale takeover; Abandoned school occupied; Watsonville march; Congress turns deaf ear to homeless... | 4 |
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| Students on the March |
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| UMass Amherst; Berkeley protests Chicago high school walkout............................ | 5 |
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| Defend the Rights of Working Class Women! |
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| November 11-12 demonstrations; Movement news................................................... | 5 |
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| The World in Struggle |
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| Haiti; Korea; Britain; Argentina................................................................................. | 6 and 7 |
| Bolivia state of siege.................................................................................................. | 8 |
| 'Miracle cure' devastated Bolivia.............................................................................. | 8 |
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| For Workers' Socialism, Not Revisionist State Capitalism |
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| West German imperialism.......................................................................................... | 9 |
| Soviet ban on strikes; Soviet miners strike................................................................. | 10 |
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| U.S. imperialism, Get Out of Central America! |
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| El Salvador explodes; U.S. demonstrations................................................................ | 12 |
State capitalism in crisis
Filipino workers celebrate 1917 Bolshevik revolution
MLP delegation in the Philippines
Economic crisis spreads in auto industry
Workers protest plans to close Jefferson Assembly
Chrysler workers in St. Louis reject new concessions
Ford workers resist 'modern operating agreement'
Strikes and workplace news
Vacant apartments seized for homeless
Quake victims in Watsonville demonstrate
Abandoned school occupied in New York
Congress turns deaf ear to the homeless
Students on the march
Step up the defense of women's rights!
Movement News
Bolivian workers confront state of siege
Bolivian 'miracle cure' was a disaster for the workers
Look what capitalism wants in Poland
WORLD IN STRUGGLE
West German imperialism--
No friend of the East German workers
U.S. imperialism, get out of Central America!
The crisis of homelessness is deepening. The cold weather always intensifies the suffering of the poor. But this winter the problems are even worse as Hurricane Hugo, the California earthquake, and the faltering economy are throwing more and more working people into the ranks of the homeless.
Despite a few liberal crocodile tears, the powers-that-be are treating homeless people like an ugly eyesore that needs to be shoved away. While Congress gives itself an enormous raise and tens of billions of dollars to bail out the banks, it offers only pennies for the homeless. Meanwhile, the police launch crackdowns against people forced to live on the streets and subways. State and local governments slash more money from the social programs for the working people. The capitalist bosses throw people out of their jobs, and then capitalist landlords evict them when they can't come up with mortgage payments or the rent.
Only the struggle of the masses can beat back these attacks. Here and there mass actions in defense of the homeless are breaking out. Vacant apartments have been seized. Empty buildings have been occupied. There have been sit-ins to resist further cuts in social programs. And marches to demand housing. Working people everywhere need to be drawn into this battle to make the capitalists pay for the housing crisis.
Reagan's "Recovery" Meant Capitalist Profits Off the Suffering of the Masses
Over the last few years, the rich have heaped mountains of praise on the Reagan "economic recovery." But while the rich got richer still, this was no recovery for the working masses. In fact, it is estimated that homelessness grew to over three million people during this period. And why? For the profits of the wealthy capitalists.
From one side, the capitalists raked in profits off the impoverishment of the masses. Social programs were slashed to the bone. A drive of wage-cutting concessions swept through the work places. Higher paying jobs were eliminated with a vengeance, and workers were forced into low-wage slaveshops. A new trend emerged where one of every five homeless people had a job but didn't make enough to cover the rent.
From the other side, profiteering in real estate speculation went wild. While the building of low-cost homes ground to a halt for lack of federal assistance, existing cheaper housing was eaten up in gentrification schemes, in "warehousing" for condos and the like. Severe housing shortages appeared in a number of cities, and rents soared sky- high everywhere. Working people were squeezed, and homelessness soared, for the sake of the capitalists' profits. Such was Reagan's "recovery."
Capitalists Want to Make Masses Pay
But now the recovery is in trouble, and the economy is teetering. The real estate boom has fizzled as housing starts fell in September to their lowest level in seven years, most of the drop being in the South. The hi-tech "miracle" has crumbled, and New England is said to be already in a recession. Meanwhile, across the country, production at the factories, mines and utilities plummeted in September and October.
And no sooner did the economy falter than the capitalists attacked the workers.
Layoffs swept through the auto, electrical, basic metals, and other industries. Some 103,000 manufacturing workers were laid off in September. Another 13,000 lost their jobs in October. Meanwhile, the growth of new jobs slowed in the other lower-paying sectors. As layoffs mount, and the laid- off find only low-paying or no jobs at all, more and more are facing evictions.
Reagan's recovery was a nightmare for the workers. Now the capitalists want to skin the workers again to save their profits in the face of the economic downturn.
The Struggle of the Homeless Is a Class Battle
That is why we say that the fight for relief for the homeless must be waged as a class struggle. It is a struggle against the capitalist exploiters. Against the government and both big parties that serve them.
This is a fight to resist evictions and to take over buildings for the homeless to stay in. It is a struggle to beat back high rents and win affordable housing. It is a battle to combat wage cuts and the slashing of social benefits and to fight for jobs and for a living wage and benefits.
The working masses have suffered through the Reagan "recovery," and now are facing the economic downturn, so that the capitalist fat cats can live like kings. The working people have suffered too much. Get organized to fight back! Make the capitalists pay for the crisis!
[Photo: Watsonville, California, October 29: workers and poor left homeless by the recent earthquake demand housing and relief.]
Erich Honecker's state-capitalist tyranny in East Germany has cracked open in the face of mass upheaval.
The revisionist bureaucrats in East Berlin had been claiming that they had built an economically dynamic socialist order based on the full allegiance of the working people. Honecker tried to posture that East Germany was the true bastion of socialism, an alternative to the capitalist reforms in Russia or Poland. Why, things were so good that no changes of any type were needed.
While it was true that the East German economy was doing better than Russia or Poland, the fact remained that East Germany, like those other revisionist countries, was no socialist society either. It too was a state-capitalist order, where the workers were wage slaves exploited by a ruling class of wealthy bureaucrats and managers. The revolutionary ideas of socialism and communism were perverted into stale dogmas justifying bureaucracy, privilege, a lying media, and the denial of democracy to the masses.
That house of cards has come tumbling down, as hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets demanding changes. For a while, the East German regime toyed with the possibility of "doing a China" and crushing the protests in blood, but eventually decided against it -- at least for now. Honecker was removed, much of the leadership resigned, and reforms were promised.
But promises weren't enough. The masses wanted deeds. Especially considering that Egon Krenz, who was made chief, had been a loyalist of Honecker.
In a dramatic move, the regime decided to allow travel rights and, in effect, did away with the Berlin wall. The wall had been created by the revisionist bureaucrats with the idea that a physical barrier could keep its citizens loyal, a sorry repressive idea which not only was an illusion but over the years gave Western imperialism a big propaganda bonanza.
The East German workers and youth have won new rights through mass struggle. And they are keeping up the pressure on the regime. Demonstrations have continued, and in the popular discussion and challenges, all sorts of facts about the ugly reality of state capitalism have come out.
No to Privileges!
While the main demands of the people have been for democracy, East Germans are also raising calls against the privileges of the ruling class.
A banner at a November 4 protest in East Berlin called out: "For communist ideals -- no privileges." At rallies where the ruling bureaucrats have come to face the people, there have also been outcries against privileges.
There has been the demand to open the government hospitals to all citizens. Although East Germany boasts of a system of health care for all, and basic medical needs are satisfied, there are still two systems of health care like any capitalist society -- one for the rich, one for the working people. The government hospitals are only meant for bureaucrats and they have all the latest equipment there.
While there is a housing shortage for the masses, the elite live in luxury housing separate from the people. One such place is the sealed-off high class suburb of Wandlitz in the north of Berlin. There have been demands to turn Wandlitz into a disabled rehabilitation center.
Other perks such as free travel rights to the well-off, access to hard currency, and specialty shops have also come under strong attack.
East Germans Are Not Fighting for Capitalism
Here in the U.S. the media tries to give the impression that the crisis of state-capitalist rule in East Germany means that the masses there are yearning for capitalism of the Western style. They make a simple equation: freedom and democracy mean capitalism.
But the mass movement in East Germany does not fit that mold. In fact, most of the activists in the streets claim to be for socialism, although there are different and vague conceptions of what they mean by socialism. It is notable however that the movement is not making calls for replacing bureaucratic state capitalism with private capitalism. Demonstrators sing the Internationale, the communist anthem. Placards have even been sighted for building a society based on workers' councils and for building a new communist party. And many people who are familiar with capitalism as it exists in West Germany have pointed out that they have strong criticisms of what they see there.
The movement is still very young. It is only just emerging from behind the shadow of a tyranny which has not allowed much political debate. Already various shades of opinion have emerged, and one can expect that in the coming months and years -- if there is no crackdown -- the stands behind different ideas and slogans will become clearer and the interests of different social classes and strata will be differentiated.
The political forces which have emerged so far range from church- based groups to New Left trends to West German-style social-democrats, to Green-type ecologists, and even ultra-right elements, such as German nationalist and nazi types.
The Elite Can't Be Allowed to Restructure Society Over the Heads of the Working People
The establishment will try to keep things under wraps as it carries out Gorbachev-style reforms. Meanwhile, West German imperialism is eager and hungry to sink its claws deeper and integrate East Germany as a source of cheap skilled labor and markets.
Power remains firmly in the hands of the revisionist elite. It is possible that under the pressure of mass protest, other parties may be brought in. But none of these forces will be for a truly socialist and communist alternative. At most, what is on the agenda from both the East and West German ruling classes is the social-democratization of East Germany, a welfare-state capitalism with a mixed economy of state and private enterprises.
The interest of the working class does not lie in such a solution. The masses are not fighting today only to have a poorer replica of capitalist West Germany tomorrow. No, their yearnings are for safeguarding their economic rights and for building a society based on the masses. But if the workers are to defend their class interests within the present upheaval, they have to build their independent class organization. Otherwise this or that faction of the elite will only use the workers as a stepping stone for their class aims.
Thus, the urgent task facing the workers is to build up working class organization out of the control of the bureaucracy. Workers must build activist organizations in the factories and a revolutionary communist party based on a thorough criticism of the revisionist trampling of the ideas of Marxism- Leninism. Such a movement is needed to fight for a working class stand on the issues of the present day as well as to chart the path for the future.
[Photo: Massive demonstration in East Berlin, November 4.]
In November, a delegation of the Marxist-Leninist Party traveled to the Philippines. There they met with comrades of the Union of Proletarian Revolutionaries of the Philippines (KPRP). A number of comrades of the KPRP were at one time in the Maoist-oriented Communist Party of the Philippines and its New Peoples Army guerrilla movement. The KPRP criticizes the revisionist outlook of the leadership of the CPP; its subservience to the middle class; and its illusions in the capitalist liberals of the Aquino type. It is working to build up a revolutionary movement rooted in the independent action and organization of the workers and poor peasants.
Our delegation talked to many workers who support the views of the KPRP.
In Metro Manila they met with workers from the Bukluran independent trade unions, men and women garment workers on the picket lines, and groups of urban poor. They also met with rice farmers, fishermen and fish pond workers in the provinces.
Below our comrades report on the celebration held in Metro Manila on November 5 to mark the 72nd anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Look for more about the struggle of the Filipino workers in future issues.
Big red banners spread across the front of the meeting hall: Celebrate the 72nd anniversary of the October Revolution, learn its lessons! and Establish a worker-peasant government! There was also the watchword of Karl Marx: The emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class itself!
Three hundred workers took part in the celebration. Most were from the textile shops, food processing plants, and other factories of Metro Manila. There were farm workers from the coconut plantations of Quezon along with workers and peasants from Eastern Rizal and other nearby provinces.
A dozen workers came to the microphone to speak about their struggles and organizations. They said that the path of the proletarian revolution blazed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks is also the path of the Filipino workers and peasants. They branded the state capitalism and revisionism in China and the Soviet Union as obstacles to socialism and enemies of the workers' Marxist-Leninist ideology.
The speakers came from independent trade unions, neighborhood groups, and other organizations of the workers. These organizations have been encouraged by the Union of Proletarian Revolutionaries of the Philippines (KPRP).
One of the first speakers was a union leader from Care Products, a big firm producing toiletries. He noted that this was also the 59th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in the Philippines, which was the first attempt to bring the lessons of the October Revolution to the Philippines, until the CPP collapsed into revisionism. He also pointed to the victories of the Care Products workers who were celebrating the 5th anniversary of their independent union. He stressed that these gains were linked to the ideas of Marxism- Leninism, concluding that "We have no desire except to establish a Marxist- Leninist party so that we can establish the power of the working class."
Another speaker was a representative of the 500 workers on strike against the Tuscan plant hear the airport. The workers walked out after three of them were fired for disloyalty to the company. The speaker pointed out: "We can't be quiet with what is going on in our country today." The workers need their independent organizations and unions to defend their genuine interests and to spread Marxism-Leninism.
A worker from Eastern Rizal noted the extreme exploitation there by the ruling class. Moreover, there is deception of rank-and-file masses by the petty bourgeois leadership of the CPP. He noted that these Maoist leaders speak of social change, but in practice they are an extension of the bourgeoisie. So the workers must rely on their own action.
A representative of a neighborhood women's group called on women not to limit themselves to the four walls of the house, but to get out of the house and work for social change. Worker and peasant women must fight for their emancipation under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism.
A spokesman for a neighborhood organization pointed out that the workers' struggle is not limited to the factory. The workers must produce their own leaders. And in this struggle they must not be cowed down by the utterly extreme poverty that the Filipino worker faces.
A 61-year-old farm worker from Quezon Province noted that the polarization between the rich and the poor in the Philippines has grown much sharper over the years and can no longer be denied. "What we need is revolution... Let us not prolong the life of the status quo," he concluded to loud cheers.
A leader of the union at the Pagasa Steel mill in Pasig spoke on the tasks of the Bukluran independent union movement. He stressed that Bukluran must be guided by scientific theory. Part of this is to clarify to workers that collective bargaining agreements alone cannot emancipate the working class. He discussed how the bourgeoisie also says that they have concluded a revolution [with the removal of Ferdinand Marcos and the setting up of the Cory Aquino government]. This is not true; it was a palace revolution. Nothing changed, and the suffering continues. There is violence on the picket lines with tear gas and water cannons and they do these things to protect their rule and property.
A comrade from the MLP,USA delegation gave a statement of greetings. This was met with shouts of international solidarity.
Then workers gave three speeches on the October Revolution in Russia and its significance for the Filipino and world revolution. This was followed by an open forum with many questions about the present struggle for Marxism-Leninism. Among other things, workers wanted to understand better the distinction between workers' socialism and the revisionist state capitalism in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China.
The meeting wrapped up with singing of the Internationale in Tagalog and with slogans against U.S. imperialism, the capitalist-landlord Aquino government, and revisionism, and for working class leadership, solidarity with the workers of the world, and Marxism-Leninism.
Solidarity message from MLP delegation to October Revolution meeting in Manila (excerpts)
We are glad to be here with you at this celebration of the October Revolution. We have traveled here to build ties of solidarity with the working class and toilers of the Philippines. We feel at home here at this meeting in Manila. Because in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities in the U.S. we also celebrate the October Revolution much as we are doing here today.
The October Revolution created the first stable workers government. The working class took the leadership of society.... The Bolshevik Party led the Soviet workers in overthrowing the capitalists and landlords; in setting up their own working class power; and in taking the first steps in the transition towards socialism.
Unfortunately this path was interrupted by the rise of revisionism in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party by the mid-1930's. State capitalism eventually triumphed over socialism in the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the lessons of this proletarian revolution are still valid for workers everywhere.
What We Learn From the October Revolution
One such lesson is that the October Revolution was not created in one day. The triumph of October was connected with the work to build the Bolshevik Party. For over 20 years Lenin and his comrades devoted themselves to building up this party. At first it was only a group not much larger than the number of comrades in this room.
Lenin and his comrades built up the Party's press so that the working class could have its own independent voice.
Lenin and his comrades built up the party groups in the factories. They helped the workers to build up their trade unions and other independent class organizations.
Lenin and his comrades trained the workers in class independence. Even when they faced a common enemy in the struggle against the Tsar, they combated all illusions in the capitalist liberals. They taught the workers to never trust the exploiters.
Lenin and his comrades waged a tireless struggle against revisionism. They drew clear lines of demarcation with the distortions of the Marxist theory of revolution and socialism. They worked to liberate the class struggle from the shackles of the petty-bourgeois reformists.
Finally, Lenin and his comrades were proletarian internationalists. They worked to unite all the races and nationalities of the country into one class organization. They fought for the liberation of the oppressed from the yoke of the Russian Empire. And they worked for the unity of the revolutionary Marxists and workers and toilers of all lands.
It was the over two decades of work along these lines that made it possible for the Bolshevik Party to lead the workers to the triumph of their soviet power -- to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Along this same direction we are striving to build up our Party in the factories and communities in the U.S.
Along this line we are working to build up internationalist links with the proletariat of all continents.
Support the Revolutionary Workers in the Philippines
Here in the Philippines our solidarity goes in the first place to the revolutionary workers. We do not accept the glorification of Cory Aquino's "people's power" -- which has been a regime of the big capitalists and landlords, a regime which cruelly exploits the workers and peasants.
Nor do we prettify the Maoist revisionist leaders of the CPP-National Democratic Front. These leaders vacillate in the class struggle. They vacillate because they have illusions in the bourgeoisie. They vacillate because they do not recognize the central place of the independent organization of the workers.
We sympathize with and support you comrades, the workers and peasants building up their own independent organization.
Because this is the force that can smash the unbearable status quo. This is the force that can break the grip of the multinationals, the U.S. military bases and U.S. imperialism. This is the force that can overthrow the capitalists and landlords. This is the force of the revolution that will bring a new world and socialism to the Philippines.
We came here to Manila with a message for you: You are not alone. There are revolutionary Marxist-Leninist workers organizing in the U.S., in Nicaragua, in Iran, and other countries. These forces are still small. But they represent the future when the working class will again take the road of the October Revolution and put an end to exploitation.
Marxismo-Leninismo, mabuhay!
[Photo: Workers' meeting in Manila celebrates anniversary of the October socialist revolution.]
[Photo: EL SALVADOR EXPLODES! See back page]
The whole auto industry is going into another crisis of capitalist overproduction. Although the "Big Three" have raked in over $8 billion in profits in the first nine months of this year alone, they are determined to make the workers pay for the current downturn.
Mounting Layoffs and Plant Closings
In September alone 33,000 auto workers were laid off. In October another 13,000 were thrown out in the streets.
As well, Chrysler has announced plans to close two plants early next year -- Jefferson Avenue Assembly in Detroit and a wire harness plant in Wisconsin. It also plans to eliminate second shift at the St. Louis No. 1 assembly plant, to cut 2,300 white collar jobs, and to close another one or two as yet unnamed plants next year.
Ford is selling off Rouge Steel at its Ford Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan. And it is temporarily shutting assembly plants in Dearborn, Louisville, and Loraine, Ohio for at least two weeks in December.
Meanwhile, GM has announced plans to permanently close three more assembly plants in Atlanta, Lordstown, and Scarborough, Ontario. It has eliminated second shift at Pontiac Truck and Bus. And several other plants are not slated for new products and will probably close, including those in Oklahoma City, Van Nuys, California, and Three Rivers, Michigan.
Overproduction Crisis of Capitalism is the Source of the Workers' Plight
The Wall Street financial parasites are praising these attacks on the workers as "good business management."
Wall Street analysts estimate that, even before the sharp downturn in sales began, the auto industry had enough plants to build two million more vehicles a year than it sells. They say that plant closings and enormous layoffs are just what's needed to cure the overproduction crisis in auto.
But what kind of ghastly system is this where the production of plenty becomes a crime; where producing more means sentencing workers to layoffs and impoverishment?
This is the capitalist system. A system where production is not aimed at fulfilling the needs of the working masses. No, production is solely to make profits for a handful of capitalists. As long as the capitalists still privately own the factories and machines, as long as the workers are reduced to being wage slaves, then unemployment and periodic disasters will remain the plight of the masses.
But the overproduction crisis also shows something else. It demonstrates that socialized production, the workers working collectively, has reached the level where the needs of the mass can be met. The cooperative labor of the workers is boundless; but the private ownership by the capitalists keeps this potential from being realized. Conditions are ripe for the workers to not only labor collectively, but also to collectively take over the ownership of the factories and workshops throughout the country through a socialist revolution. Then production can be planned and carried out to serve the working masses, instead of the handful of capitalist parasites.
UAW Leaders' Lies of Job Security Exposed
The current crisis has also exposed the lies of "job security" by the leaders of the United Auto Workers (UAW).
UAW honchos promised that workers were protected against temporary layoffs by such things as the supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB). SUB, combined with state unemployment benefits, is supposed to ensure laid-off auto workers 95% of their salary for two years. But SUB funds are going bankrupt. At Chrysler the SUB fund contains only $2.6 million, just 2.8% of full funding. And at GM the SUB fund has fallen to only 2.4% of its maximum. Benefits have already been slashed down to a year for workers with less than 20 years seniority, and many have already exhausted that. And as layoffs mount, it is expected that SUB will soon run out completely for all the laid-off.
UAW leaders also claimed that the last contract "guaranteed employment levels" at every plant. But since then at least 10 major auto and parts plants have been permanently closed, eliminating 30,000 jobs.
Now the UAW bureaucrats are whining that they were "fooled," and that the closings are a violation of the contract. But do they call an industry strike to fight the blatant attacks by the auto billionaires? Not on your life. They have done no more than put a few of the closings, such as GM's Framingham, Massachusetts Assembly, into arbitration. Still the plants remain closed, more closings are announced, and the workers are out of their jobs.
The UAW hacks can't be trusted to mount any serious fight to defend the jobs of the workers. The rank and file must organize independently from them and launch demonstrations, job actions, and strikes against the capitalists. Auto workers, unite! Make the capitalists pay for the crisis!
Shouting "Hey, Lee! Whaddaya say? How many lies have you told today?" about 500 people came out November 21 to protest Chrysler head Lee Iacocca's plan to close the Jefferson Avenue Assembly plant in Detroit. Union bureaucrats and a few workers showed up from a number of Chrysler plants around the country. They marched for a few minutes in front of Chrysler Headquarters, and then stopped for a press conference.
Rank and File Fed Up With UAW Leaders
Unfortunately, there were few Jefferson workers at the protest. Why? Because of the treachery of the UAW bureaucrats.
In the first place, many Jefferson workers boycotted the rally in disgust against the UAW hacks.
Two days before, nearly 1,000 Jefferson workers had come out to a Local 7 union meeting. Bob Lent, a regional director for the UAW, postured against the closing but then set about splitting up the 1,700 workers who are still employed from the over 2,000 workers who have already been laid off for a year. When activists tried to raise the necessity for an immediate fight to defend the laid-off who are losing their cars and homes, Bob Lent cut off their microphone. When activists started to put forward a resolution calling for a united fight to defend the employed and laid-off together, Lent refused to let it be raised before the membership. Hundreds of workers stormed out of the meeting in disgust.
The UAW leaders offered no real program to fight the shutdown. They said they would ask Chrysler for another product to keep Jefferson open. But with layoffs mounting at plants around the country, workers laughed at this stupidity. The hacks said they might launch a lawsuit against the closing. But knowing that such lawsuits have never yet stopped an auto plant closing, the workers jeered in disgust. The bureaucrats claimed that, if all else failed, they might hold "selective strikes" at one plant at a time, maybe next year. But many workers declared that only a united strike, not piecemeal token strikes, could make a difference. Most of the remaining workers walked out of the meeting. And many declared they would not come to a rally to simply rub shoulders with bureaucrats who refuse to fight for them.
In the second place, the UAW leaders actually ended the rally before workers could get to it from their jobs at the plant. The Marxist-Leninist Party mobilized a a whole section of workers to come from the plant with picket signs protesting against both Chrysler and the UAW sellouts, and demanding "Jobs or full pay for all the laid-off!" But when the rank and file arrived there was nothing left of the rally except for a few hacks posing before TV cameras.
The rank-and-file workers are fed up with the UAW leaders. Now some are beginning to discuss organizing separately. They want to launch struggles against car repossessions, evictions, and utility shutoffs. And they are talking about picketing other plants to prepare for a united strike of Chrysler workers against the layoffs.
Workers at Chrysler's St. Louis No. 2 minivan plant rejected a new concession plan the first week of November.
The plan was for a four-day, ten-hour a day schedule, with three crews on staggered shifts to keep operations going seven days a week. Some workers would never get a full weekend off. Overtime and weekend premiums would be cut from time-and-a-half to time-and- a-quarter. And speedup was to squeeze 75,000 more minivans a year out of the plant.
Top leaders of the UAW claimed that Chrysler would transfer laid-off workers from the adjoining St. Louis No. 2 plant, which produces the slow-selling Daytona and Le Baron coupes. That plant is on a one month shutdown, and second shift has been eliminated indefinitely. The UAW hacks promised jobs would be saved if the workers would just agree to a few more concessions. But workers have learned that concessions don't save jobs, they just lead to more concessions. They voted down the concession plan by a 2,340 to 300 margin.
Ford is opening a new Integrated Stamping and Assembly Plant (ISA) in Wayne, Michigan in February. There are 3,300 workers at the present Wayne Assembly plant. It will be closed for three months, beginning November 22, and then linked to the newly constructed stamping plant.
The new stamping operation is so mechanized that it requires only 35 workers on each shift to operate. And a total of 500 workers will be put into the integrated part of the operations.
UAW leaders agreed to put these 500 jobs under a new "modern operating agreement." It will establish "team concept" speedup, abolish all job classifications, allow six and seven day weeks with unlimited overtime, and ban transfers back to the Wayne Assembly plant.
UAW leaders called on workers to transfer into the new operation. But the workers have refused. Only 50 volunteered for transfer. So the UAW agreed to let Ford force 400 workers from the body shop to transfer, because their entire department is being included in the ISA. As well, 100 other lower seniority workers will be forced to transfer. The rank and file is outraged.
[Graphic.]
Boeing workers ratified a new contract on November 20, ending their seven-week strike. The new contract gives a higher wage bonus than the October 3 Boeing proposal. But in most other regards it is the same contract the workers rejected because it did not make up for concessions in past contracts, did not end mandatory overtime, and did not eliminate Boeing's system of favoritism for promotions.
Boeing's profits were seriously suffering from this strike. And, after initially declaring that it wouldn't budge from its original offer, Boeing had begun to cave in to the pressure of the strike.
But instead of continuing the struggle to win the workers' demands, the leadership of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) stopped the strike short and leaped for Boeing's piddling offer. The token concessions by Boeing were enough for the IAM hacks to posture that they had won gains for the workers and could return to their cozy collaboration with the Boeing billionaires.
The Marxist-Leninist Party called on the workers to "Vote No!'' and continue to strike to win back past concessions.
The Party distributed 3,300 "Vote It Down!'' leaflets at the union meeting at the Kingdome. A section of workers agreed with the Party's call and created a minor uproar at the meeting by demanding a "No'' vote. Nearly 20% of the workers voted against the contract. A much larger section of workers were angry with the deal, but voted yes anyway because they could not see how a strike could be won once the IAM officials deserted it. This demonstrates the importance of the Party's work to build up a movement of the workers that is independent of the union bureaucracy. Such a movement can give the workers an alternative to the constant sellouts and betrayal of the union bureaucrats.
[Photo.]
Over 2,500 workers rallied against union busting in Flint, Michigan October 28. The rally included construction workers and grocery workers from the Flint area. As well, there were five carloads of strikers from the Seamless Tube plant in South Lyon, Michigan. The Seamless Tube workers are entering their third month on strike. They are fighting against the further concessions demanded by the company. The Seamless Tube workers have not had a raise in 12 years. And now the company is trying to break the strike with the use of scabs.
For 100 days, 60,000 telephone workers have waged a bitter strike against NYNEX, the regional phone company for New York and the New England area. The workers have fought to preserve their health insurance benefits.
But the leaders of the Communication Workers (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) sold them out. While the new contract preserves health care, it does so by cutting the pay increase. Instead of the original offer of a wage increase of 5% the first year and 2% in the second and third years, workers will get only 3% the first year and 1.5% the next two years. What is more, workers retiring before 1992 will have to pay their own medical insurance premiums. As well, there is no amnesty for the 59 workers fired in the course of the strike. Instead these cases will be dealt with by a company-union committee or put to arbitration.
In mid-November, the AFL-CIO bureaucracy held its 18th convention amid cries of "Solidarity!'' The bureaucrats patted themselves on the back for the recent affiliation of the Teamsters and the United Mine Workers.
But what type of "Solidarity'' does the AFL-CIO intend? Its bureaucrats have split up industry contracts to isolate workers' struggles company by company and plant by plant. They have even shut down the industry-wide coal miners wildcat to leave Pittston miners to strike alone.
The AFL-CIO convention showed their true colors -- they unanimously approved a pay raise for Lane Kirkland, their fearless leader. Mr. Kirkland was granted a $25,000 raise -- from $150,000 per year to $175,000 per year. The only "Solidarity'' the AFL-CIO convention showed was for the fat bureaucrats. The rank and file is left hanging in the wind.
1,100 steelworkers have been on strike against Crucible Specialty Metals in central New York state since October 1. Workers have had no pay raise in seven years. In 1986, the workers took a $1.13 an hour pay cut with the promise that the money would be paid back to them by the end of the contract. The "final'' contract offer this time calls for a pay raise which, after three years, would only get workers back to the 1986 level -- and well behind inflation. The proposal also includes an increase in workers' premium for health and dental care and the elimination of dinner pay for workers who work overtime. The workers rejected this rubbish. After two months, they are still standing firm.
Chanting "Walkout! Walkout!'' more than 1,400 students stormed out of three Oakland, California high schools October 27. They protested the cut of 20 teachers from their schools. The students complain of class sizes growing to 36 students a class, as well as the elimination of most extracurricular activities. They carried signs saying, "No teachers, no school, no money,'' and set up pickets around the schools. The protest continued on the next school day. About half the teachers called in sick in support of the students' actions.
Recently the federal Census Bureau released statistics for the year 1988. The report shows that the gap between wealthy and poor is widening. The wealthiest 5% of all families grabbed some 17.2% of all money income. This is the greatest share reported for any year since 1950. The top fifth of all families got 44% of the income (up from 41.5% a decade ago). Meanwhile the poorest fifth of all families got only 4.6% of the total income (down from 5.2% a decade ago). This is the lowest share of income for the poor since 1954. Such are the realities of capitalism -- a system that thrives by the wealthy living off the impoverishment of the working masses. This man-eating system must go!
[Photo.]
Residents of the Sunnydale housing project in San Francisco took over a boarded-up apartment on November 11, and turned it over to homeless people. Word of the action spread quickly. By that evening at least 50 residents had joined in the struggle. They opened further vacant apartments. They brought food, paint and cleaning materials to fix up the rooms. And they began bringing in homeless people to occupy the suites under four rules: no harassment of women, no drugs, no alcohol, and no racist attitudes..Help also came in from various homeless organizations around the city. By Sunday night, November 12, at least 30 apartments had been taken over.
The action was sparked by concern over the growth of homelessness in the wake of the earthquake. As well, residents were upset by housing authority evictions that have been carried out in the name of Bush's "war on drugs." Sunnydale residents pointed out that since the city officials were not helping the homeless, it was up to the people to take action themselves. They formed a group calling itself "Fight the power." And they issued a leaflet declaring "All empty apartments in public housing must be opened up now for people without homes," and "No more evictions...period!" and "Stop racist brutality on the people in the name of the war on drugs!"
Police Attack the Homeless
Early Monday morning police began raiding the projects. They threw homeless families and their belongings out into the rain. At least four people were arrested.
A number of the homeless who came under attack were immigrants. After the attack, they met to decide what to do. They decided to stay and issued their own statement.
That afternoon the police again attacked, surrounding and entering an apartment looking for what they called "illegals." Some fifty people quickly gathered to oppose them. The police came out empty-handed and retreated as the crowd cheered and pelted them with food.
The police made a third raid that night. This time cops came from two stations and included a squad in riot gear. They focused on a building where they thought the immigrants were, but they were mistaken. Again a crowd gathered, throwing bottles and debris.
Eventually, the police cleared out the apartments that had been taken over. But some of the homeless are still being taken care of by project residents.
Housing Authority Defends the Evictions
The S.F. Housing Authority tried to justify the highhanded raids and convince Sunnydale residents to oppose the occupiers. It claimed that the occupiers were taking housing away from those on the official waiting list. But this is a blatant lie.
The housing authority has been keeping many units vacant for long periods. Even a January Housing and Urban Development report was embarrassed by this. And a Herald Examiner survey last February found at least 588 vacant units out of the system's 7,000 public housing apartments. It is estimated that at least 45 apartments are vacant at Sunnydale, a project with 767 units. It is criminal to keep public housing vacant when so many people are in need of homes. But as HUD and the local housing authorities turn to "privatization" and gentrification schemes, they are increasingly leaving units vacant and driving people from the projects.
What is more, the occupiers never opposed people on the waiting list from getting apartments. Their demands included getting the people on the waiting lists into apartments, finding permanent housing for all others without homes, and fixing up the apartments of all the project residents. But the housing authority has been doing nothing. So if the homeless are to find homes, they must take action themselves. That's what the Sunnydale occupiers began to do.
About 500 farm and cannery workers staged a march through Watsonville on October 29 shouting "queremos casas" (we want houses) and "casa si, carpas no" (houses yes, tents no).
Watsonville was hard hit by the earthquake. And damage was especially bad in the Mexican community where most of the cannery workers and farm workers live. Authorities estimate that some 2,000 migrant workers, low-wage earners and pensioners were left homeless.
The government set up tents for the homeless in Ramsey Park. But with National Guard stationed at the gate, spotlights on all night, and the extreme regimentation, many people denounce this as being nothing but a "concentration camp." Even though most of the homeless are Spanish-speaking, most of the official homeless relief has been carried out only in English, including the danger signs posted on damaged buildings.
Many of the homeless set up their own tent city in Calahan Park, near downtown, where the cannery workers held many of their strike rallies two years ago. But the authorities have been harassing the camp and trying to drive homeless people out of it and into official shelters.
The homeless are fed up with their bad treatment. They are demanding that the government house the poor, and not just fix up the damaged property of the wealthy.
Homeless people took over the abandoned public school P.S. 105 on New York City's lower East Side. For years, the school was the home of drug dealers and addicts. Then residents cleaned them out and set up shelter for some 30 families.
But the authorities didn't like it. On October 26, thirty carloads of police descended on the area. They barricaded off East 4th Street. And they stormed the school, to evict the families living there.
Over a dozen men and women refused to leave and closed off access from the outside. Police riot teams broke through. By this time, the homeless saw their danger and fled. The police were unable to get them, and in frustration began attacking protesters who had gathered outside. Over 42 protesters were arrested.
The homeless and their supporters have denounced this vicious assault. They are demanding that those jailed from the struggle at P.S. 105 and earlier at Tomkins Square Park be freed without penalty. And that P.S. 105 be given to the homeless, along with enough money to rehabilitate the building.
In October, about 100,000 people marched for "Housing Now!" in Washington, D.C. Their chief call was that Congress restore the cuts that the Reagan administration made in funds for housing programs. And the politicians -- liberal Democrats along with Bush's housing director Jack Kemp -- were all aglow with promises of relief for the homeless.
But as the winter cold sets in, Congress is yet to fulfill even the mild demand for restoring the Reagan cuts.
Oh yes, Congress did finally pass a spending bill for the Department of Housing and Urban Development at the end of October. But it is worth little. Reagan cut funding to build low-income housing to virtually nothing. The new spending bill won't even get the budget back to where it was before Reagan took office, much less make up for the losses during the Reagan years.
But not to worry. The Democrats are still promising to pass a sweeping overhaul of the federal housing programs. And so is Jack Kemp. But their passage has been left to some indefinite date in the far, far future.
Of course the Bush administration is so far offering only a $4.2 billion package to be spent over three years. And what is worse, Kemp has opposed passing even these piddling measures until Congress passes an internal reform of HUD. In the name of clearing up the HUD scandal, Kemp is actually holding up help to the homeless. In fact, he has threatened to not spend some of the money already allocated, saying it is for projects that may be tainted by special interests. Yet Kemp offered no alternative to the projects to ensure relief actually gets to the homeless.
The Democrats, for their part, are promising more funding in their bill, although not enough to restore the Reagan cuts. But on November 9, the House Democrats caved in to Kemp's demands and agreed to hold back new measures for the homeless and housing until the internal reform of HUD is finished.
In short, the Bush administration is following the footprints of Ronald Reagan in holding back relief for the homeless. And the Democrats, as they did throughout the Reagan years, are agreeing. And why not? These are both parties of the capitalists. They may be upset if the savings and loans banks collapse, but what do they care if poor people freeze in the cold? To hell with them!
A campus-wide strike shut down much of the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts for four days in mid-November. The action was called to protest state budget cuts which are forcing fee increases on the students.
The campus was marked by an enthusiastic spirit of activism. Picket lines snaked around buildings. People carrying banners marched through the student union. Thousands rallied each day on the steps of the student union building. The air was rent by slogans such as Education is a right! and Strike, Strike!
The strike was endorsed by professors, two of the staff unions and the graduate employees organization. Students from other area colleges in western Massachusetts came to show their solidarity.
The boycott of classes was called after the Board of Trustees voted to hike tuition fees by $350 a semester. It comes only a few weeks after a massive demonstration by 10,000 students in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston on October 18. They had come there from all 29 public colleges and universities in the state.
Since the spring of 1988, the state has cut the money to higher education five times. This has forced students to pay higher tuition and fees, eliminated classes, cut admissions statewide by an estimated 5,000, and resulted in layoffs of hundreds of faculty and staff. The latest budget crisis is leading to yet another round of big cutbacks and fee hikes.
The tuition increases have been supported by liberal Democratic governor Dukakis and the liberal Boston Globe. Raising tuition will only drive more working class and minority students out of college education.
In the movement against budget cuts, a cry has come up for more taxes. But the workers are already taxed far too much. Any demand for taxes should be limited to taxes on the rich and the corporations. And the politicians and bureaucrats must be stopped from fattening themselves at the expense of the working people.
The struggle to make the rich pay for the crisis requires a united struggle of the workers, poor, the students and others affected by the budget cuts.
[Photo: Students at U of Massachusetts protest budget cuts.]
In November, students at the Berkeley campus of the University of California organized a series of actions against the school administration and the militarism of the U.S. government.
500 Defy New Flag Law
On the 3rd, 500 students rallied on Sproul Plaza to denounce the new flag desecration law passed in Washington with the backing of Democrats and Republicans. In open defiance of the law, several flags were given the torch. Protesters denounced the flag as a symbol of racism at home and aggression abroad.
The administration had over 30 of its cops hovering about the rally. When a flag or even a crudely drawn paper replica of one was lit up, the police would charge in with fire extinguishers. Prior to the protest, the authorities had threatened to arrest all those who would violate the new law; but the size and anger of the turnout made them back off.
Kicking War Recruiters Out
On November 8, and again on November 15 and 17, several hundred students and activists rallied to kick war recruiters off campus. They also denounced the university for its role in training students for service to U.S. imperialism.
On the first day of this drive, 200 students gathered to hear speeches exposing the dirty activities of the corporations and government agencies that had scheduled recruitment interviews that day. The list included the arms merchant Rockwell International; the major oil supplier for South Africa, Shell Oil; and such government agencies as the FBI, NSA and the Navy.
After the speeches, activists marched on the building where the interviews were to take place and blockaded the main entrance. Linking arms and resisting the attempts of the police to escort the recruiters back from lunch, the protest shut down operations for several hours.
No to Intervention in El Salvador!
In the November 15 and 17 demonstrations, several hundred strong marched on the corporate recruiters. These actions focused on those connected with supporting the death-squad government in El Salvador. They raised slogans against U.S. aid to the fascist ARENA government and denounced the massive bombings being rained down on the Salvadoran people. The ranks of the demonstration swelled because of wide support for the struggle of the people of El Salvador.
Students Oppose Discrimination
In mid-month, there was also a 500-strong rally in Sproul Plaza in support of the demand for faculty diversity. A number of speeches brought out the discrimination carried out by the university in its hiring of tenured faculty. The students then marched to the administration building to make a series of demands. When the administrators refused to see a delegation, students held a spirited teach-in in front of the building.
The students are angry about the fact that the tenured faculty at UC Berkeley is 90% white male. There are 30 departments where only whites are in the faculty in any position, tenured or otherwise, and 13 more departments with no women professors at all.
[Photo: Students at UC Berkeley block recruiters from the FBI and National Security Agency.]
80 black students walked out of Harper High School on Chicago's South Side on October 26. The students carried signs declaring "Don't turn our school into a jail!" and "Fight the power!" They were protesting the prison- like conditions that have been imposed on the school since a student was recently killed there.
Cops have been posted inside the school. All doors have been chained shut except two. As the school day starts, men and women students are forced to line up at separate entrances where they are subject to police pat- down and metal detector searches. Students are allowed to carry only $2 cash. Police seize shoelaces and earrings which they claim are "gang symbols." And students complain of rough handling by the police. In fact, the brutalizing of one of the students was the immediate spark for the walkout. He got mad when he was told to remove his oversized belt buckle because "it could be used as a weapon." When he protested, five cops jumped him. He was beaten, arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
The walkout broke out only three days after Jesse Jackson visited the school to preach his "say no to dope" sermon to the students. Jackson did not complain about the racism in Chicago or the impoverishment in the South Side. Nor did he protest the police terror that has led to a series of mass protests in the last few months. Oh no, but when Jackson lectured the students against drugs he called for "maximum security" measures at the school. In short, he endorsed the police-state measures against the students.
The crackdown at Harper is just part of a crackdown spreading through Chicago and suburban schools. Other schools have begun arbitrary drug testing of students, as well as giving officials the right to search students for "reasonable cause" and using metal detectors for mass searches. It's true that drugs and gang violence are serious problems. But these measures by officials won't solve the problems; they will simply terrorize the masses of students. It's good that the students are starting to fight back.
Over 400 black and white students marched across the MacMurray College campus in Jackson, Illinois last month. They joined hands to denounce a racist campaign against black students. Four days before the march, the 40 black students and one black staff member at the college found anonymous handwritten threats and racist slurs in their mailboxes.
November 12th -- 250,000 rallied in Washington, D.C. to defend abortion rights. Tens and tens of thousands more demonstrated from coast, to coast. And throughout November activists continued to confront the Operation Rescue anti-abortion fanatics and their police protectors in struggles to keep health clinics open. The movement to defend women's rights continues to spread.
Meanwhile the conservative forces of capitalism continue to expose their anti-women nature.
The Catholic bishops have just declared fighting abortion rights their primary task. All other social issues are to be subordinated to the anti-abortion cause.
The Bush administration has vetoed legislation that would have at least enabled poor women who are victims of rape or incest to afford abortions, if they so choose.
The cops and courts, those guardians of the capitalist order, continue to treat anti-abortion crusaders with kid gloves.
Meanwhile cuts in social programs, carried out jointly by anti-choice Republicans and supposedly pro-choice Democrats, have continued to take a heavy toll on working and poor women and their families. In California, recent cuts have resulted in the closing of many family planning clinics.
The forces of capitalism are harassing women, fighting against the rights of working women. It is no wonder that "not the church, not the state, women will decide their fate'' is one of the popular rallying cries among the militant pro-choice activists.
There are, however, those who think otherwise. The Democrats spoke at many pro-choice rallies on November 12. Just so long as their pollsters tell them it is OK, they will continue to do so. And they rode pro-choice sentiment recently to electoral victories in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia.
Yet the same Democratic Party works hand in hand with the Republicans to vote cutbacks in funds for clinics and social benefits and to help drive working women into poverty and homelessness. The same Democratic Party supports the productivity drive which pushes women workers as well as men workers to the wall, the productivity drive which has made repetitive stress syndrome (tendonitis, carpal tunnel, etc.) into a painful, crippling epidemic for working women and men. And the same Democratic Party is half-hearted on abortion rights. It was the Democrats who confirmed the Supreme Court justices who are now spitting on abortion rights, and it is the House of Representatives, despite its continuing heavy Democratic majorities, which for years was the bastion of anti-abortion provisions in federal law.
NOW, the National Organization for Women, welcomed Democratic and Republican politicians to the November 12 events. As long as they said a word or two about abortion rights, NOW didn't care to look too closely at what these politicians stand for. This is because NOW stands for winning positions for elite women in the bourgeois establishment, while the working women are supposed to live on the trickle-down crumbs. So while the anti-abortion fanatics close down clinics and harass women, NOW preaches that the masses should not confront them -- the capitalists will be turned off by scenes of mass struggle. While the courts and police treat the anti-abortion bullies with kid gloves, NOW preaches all-out support for the police -- the capitalists like to see their thugs obeyed. While the Democratic and Republican parties push women to the wall, NOW preaches lining up behind one silver-tongued liar or the other -- the capitalists want to know who can rally more votes for them.
As Detroit NOW recently declared, blurting out NOW's real wishes, there must not be even "eye contact'' with the anti-abortion bullies. Instead, NOW advocates "extensive consultations'' with the police as the end-all and be-all. It is "behind the scenes'' work with the establishment that NOW stands for.
No, it is not currying favor with establishment politicians that will win women's rights. It is the masses of activists, and of working women and working men, who must be drawn into the fight for women's rights. Not the courts, not the police, the working people will win women's rights.
California devastates family planning clinics
Republican Governor George Deukmejian of California, with the help of the Democratic-controlled legislature, has slashed two-thirds of the state's former $36 million funding for family planning services in health clinics, forcing many to close. The clinics provide contraception and pregnancy counseling as well as testing for venereal disease and cancer.
These cuts are a big blow to poor women and others who depend on the clinics. But a National Right to Life Committee leader, Brian Johnson, expressed glee at the prospect of clinic closings. He claims they are "promoting abortion.'' Never mind that the cutback in contraceptive services will, according to estimates, result in thousands more abortions due to the lack of contraception. Never mind that VD and other health problems will grow.
Deukmejian and Johnson show that the anti-abortion movement should really be called the pro-disease and misery movement. Its "pro-life'' stand does not apply, to living women. Meanwhile the Democrats, who mostly claim they are pro-choice, find common ground with Deukmejian in cutting funding for social programs.
The Supreme Court's recent Webster decision upheld drastic new restrictions on abortion rights by the State of Missouri. As if that was not bad enough, judges in two cases have now cited the anti-abortion legislation to throw out criminal trespassing charges against anti-abortion demonstrators. The judges claim that since the state antiabortion law defines human life as beginning at conception, the anti-abortion criminals were innocent because they were violating trespassing laws for the "greater good'' of saving the lives of unborn fetuses. This is known as the "necessity" defense.
The judges have thus given a green light for more abuse and harassment of women at clinics by the holy hypocrites of Operation Rescue and other "right- to-life" crusaders. Judges represent the capitalist class, and they ensure that the laws fall like a ton of bricks on the people while right-wing thugs get every consideration.
The Bush administration has extended a 20-month old ban on federal funding of research that uses transplanted fetal tissue. Many medical experts and two advisory panels commissioned by the administration itself say fetal tissue is valuable in fighting some diseases and there is nothing wrong with the research. One doctor said such stifling of scientific research was "like the Middle Ages."
Bush's assistant secretary of health, Dr. Mason, justified the ban by stating that if women knew that fetal tissue could help sick people, it would encourage them to have more abortions. Mason must think women are mindless. And now the Bush administration's medieval attitude on women has led to a medieval attitude on medical research.
On November 2, a federal appeals court ruled that New York State family planning groups who provide information on abortion are no longer entitled to receive federal funds under Title 10 of the Public Health Act. This also means that they will not be allowed to provide medically accurate advice under penalty of losing funds.
The road to this travesty was paved by the White House. Last year, under then-president Reagan, it reinterpreted the Public Health Act in an attempt to ban federally-funded programs from even mentioning abortion. This is now being decided state by state by the courts.
In early November, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops called for a big campaign for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. The conference also decided to step up pressure against those Catholic politicians and other Catholics who consider themselves in favor of some abortion rights, proclaiming "no Catholic can responsibly take a 'pro-choice' stand." The bishops even toyed with the idea of excommunicating anyone who is "pro- choice." But they backed off because they would have to expel the large percentage of Catholics who are known to reject the church's stand banning abortion. Nevertheless, in the wake of the conference, a bishop in California denied Communion to a California state assemblywoman who spoke in favor of abortion rights.
This conference was the latest chapter in the shameless anti-women tradition of the Catholic Church. Not only does the church deny abortion rights, but its stands against divorce and contraception are meant to insure that women are kept "barefoot and pregnant."
The bishops, like others fighting abortion rights, disguise their anti-women views with a "pro-life" mask. The Catholic hierarchy, for instance, has for some time claimed its stand on abortion was just another facet of its concern for "life" on all questions, referring to its pious but empty statements on nuclear arms, economics, etc. It calls this its "seamless garment."
But in their zeal to stomp on women's rights, the bishops have tossed aside this ruse. The conference decided it was time to set aside the "seamless garment" in order to concentrate their efforts on the anti-abortion campaign. They declared fighting abortion rights "the fundamental human-rights issue" and their "overriding concern." In fact a proposal stating that abortion was only the most important issue "at this time" was shot down without gaining one vote from the 300 bishops. This shows how hollow are their words about peace, welfare, and human rights.
But not all efforts at deceit have been dropped. The bishops throw in a few words about "support to pregnant women for prenatal care and extended support for low-income women and their children." How kind!
But can anyone take this seriously when the bishops just announced that all their energy must be funneled into ending legal abortion? Can anyone take this seriously when the anti-abortion movement so dear to the bishops is dominated by a right-wing political agenda supporting massive cuts in social welfare? Does anyone expect these bishops are going to hold blockades to win "support for low-income women" and shout "murderer" at politicians who vote for cuts? Forget it!
Some people hope that the church would stay away from politics, and only be concerned with spiritual affairs., But the bishops' conference shows that religion and worldly political affairs are always closely connected. The bishops' stand shows the prejudice and backwardness that lurks behind the religious mask. The Catholic hierarchy, along with many protestant fundamentalist leaders and other clerics, are using religious dogma to support the oppression of women.
On November 11, activists came from across the country to defend clinics in Washington, D.C. from Operation Rescue. OR wanted to put on a big show with its "Vets for Life" as a counterweight to big pro-choice demonstrations taking place that weekend. But the events would prove once again that the real people's movement is in favor of women's rights and against the religious fanatics of OR. The "Veterans for Life'' made a dismal showing, and were vastly outnumbered by the pro- choice masses. Only the action of the police allowed them to close the main clinic being attacked at all, and even so it was open again at 11 a.m.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) also wanted to use the events to show off its strategy for fighting OR. It mobilized people who had been through its training sessions. But the actions of the police showed the fraud of NOW's strategy of all-out collaboration with the cops.
At the Clinic
Hundreds of pro-choice activists gathered at 5 a.m., waiting to find out the main target of OR's attack. The main OR attack turned out to be the Hillcrest Women's Surgi-Center.
As it turned out, about 30 pro-choice demonstrators gathered in front of the clinic door prior to OR arriving. This put them in an excellent position to prevent OR from blockading the clinic. And so it would have been, except the police intervened. According to the Washington Post, OR had informed the police ahead of time which clinic they wanted to close. And strangely enough, the police showed right up at this clinic and demanded that the pro-choice activists move or be arrested, claiming that demonstrators did not have the permission of the clinic director to be there. (The clinic director apparently was not present at the time.)
After the pro-choice demonstrators moved back to the sidewalk, the police then allowed 100 OR fanatics to take position in front of the clinic and sit down. (A somewhat smaller number stayed by the street with a sign.) Apparently the permission of the clinic director no longer mattered. Nor did the fact that a judge had issued an injunction against blocking the clinic.
Soon more and more pro-choice demonstrators arrived, reaching 500-600, far outnumbering the OR blockaders. But the police shielded OR.
NOW however wanted to leave everything to the police. It read out loud the injunction against OR, and assured one and all that this would force the police to promptly remove OR. The police had a different idea. They had cleared out pro- choice demonstrators to allow OR access to the clinic, and they were in no hurry to move OR out. They cordoned off the clinic with a row of cops protecting OR from the pro-choice masses.
Still, seeing the large number of angry pro-choice demonstrators present, the police felt it best to get around to moving out OR, but they took their time at it. The over 100 police took two or three hours to move and arrest the 100 OR "Veterans for Life." Meanwhile the police took it upon themselves to close the clinic on the grounds that there was a tense situation, even though the clinic door was in fact open. Thus the police not only protected OR, but carried out its agenda. At about 11 a.m. the clinic finally opened for business, and both OR supporters and pro-choice demonstrators began to drift away.
Confronting OR
During the action, many activists were enthusiastic to confront OR. Prevented from getting at the OR blockaders, at one point many took part in shoving away some OR troublemakers who were infiltrating the pro-choice forces with reactionary slogans and placards, and the slogan "OR, into the gutter" rang out.
The police intervened on behalf of OR several times, and tried to isolate pro-choice militants and pull them out of the demonstration for arrest. At one point later on, 10 plainclothes police intervened on behalf of one obnoxious OR infiltrator, who was actually an undercover cop himself. (So it turned out that the police not only aided OR, but this one even was OR. He carried on OR work while on duty, with the support of other plainclothes cops.) But in this and other cases the mass of pro-choice demonstrators forced the police to back off.
At one point the notorious "right-to-life" terrorist Joe Scheidler was recognized by the activists. A group of women immediately surrounded him, denouncing him and shouting slogans. He and his entourage retreated into Burger King, but the women were waiting outside and denounced him again when he reemerged. He finally ran into the street looking for police protection, but he couldn't get away from denunciations. Finally he left the area, being denounced all the way.
NOW Vs. Militancy
NOW however would have none of any militancy. When the police cordoned off the clinic and prevented the pro-choice activists from getting at the vastly outnumbered OR, NOW intervened. It organized some demonstrators into three rows, with arms linked. But these rows didn't face OR or the police, but faced against the mass of the pro- choice forces, thus protecting OR and the police.
As well, some NOW people went around the demonstration denouncing the militant pro-choice activists. They chanted "nonviolence, nonviolence" and said that the militant confrontation with OR was responsible for keeping the clinic closed. This resulted in a number of debates breaking out throughout the demonstration. There were discussions on what was keeping the clinic closed, the role of the police, and the role of militant action. The comrades of the Marxist-Leninist Party exposed NOW for covering up for the police.
Our Party was active at the demonstration, took part in confronting OR and its infiltrations, sparked slogans that were taken up by many demonstrators, such as "Vets for Life -- who're they kiddin, they're pro-war and anti-women,''"They couldn't keep it closed without police protection,'' and "O.R -- back to the gutter," and "Not the church, not the state, women must decide our fate." We also debated the NOW spokespeople who sought to quell militancy. And The Workers' Advocate was widely distributed.
There were different levels of experience among the activists. Activists from areas with a high level of confrontation against OR and where the Party had been active confronting NOW's reformism tended to be more militant and clearer on what was going on.
Activists from Washington, D.C. itself faced a situation where there had not even been organized defense of the clinics until after the April 9 march. And when later, if the police would clear a corridor to allow clients to go to health clinics under attack, OR would be allowed to harass and yell with bullhorns at the women without any organized opposition. Activists from Washington pointed out that it always takes the police a long time to move OR away from clinics. Yet these activists too were receptive to the debates with NOW over the path forward, but required more time to see what was at stake. Even many of those who were organized by NOW to form a cordon facing away from OR were new activists who took part only because they believed they were positioning themselves to confront additional OR people who might try to reinforce the clinic blockaders; this is what NOW had told them. Some marshals who had gone through NOW's nonviolence training schools and wore NOW sweatshirts would vacillate between trying to quell the activists with shouts of "nonviolence" and themselves getting into confrontations with OR.
The NOW leadership itself however was not suffering from a lack of experience, but from its elitist and conservative class stand. At a planning meeting the night before, Jill Ireland, a NOW official, had spoken. She stated that it had happened several times in the past that the pro-choice forces go to the clinics first, and then the police force them to move and let OR in, and everyone has to sit around and wait until the police remove them. This is what would happen again on November 11. But since this had not shaken her faith in the police in the past, nor led her to suggest that the pro-choice forces hold their ground in front of the clinics, why should the events of November 11 change her mind? On November 11, NOW wanted to confront, not OR, but the more militant pro-choice demonstrators.
[Photo.]
On November 12 a huge demonstration for abortion rights took place in Washington, D.C. It was a giant display of support for women's rights.
Such official sponsors as NOW, however, limited the demonstration to simply listening to politicians and big- shots give liberal appeals. Unlike even the April 9 mobilization earlier this year, there was no march. The sponsors wanted to collect voting fodder for politicians, but not to encourage independent initiative of the masses.
The Marxist-Leninist Party also attended this rally but to put forward a plan of struggle for women's rights: including confrontation with the antiabortion fanatics, mobilization of the masses of working and oppressed women and men, and opposition to the entire anti-woman offensive of the ruling class.
The MLP distributed 15,000 pieces of literature, set up a banner, had a cultural group perform, and carried out many discussions at a literature table. When the crowd began to drift away, we held a propaganda march among the masses who applauded and joined in shouting some slogans.
November 12 also saw tens of thousands of people attend events outside Washington D.C. in about 120 cities. From the North to the South, the East to the West, there is hardly an area where women aren't concerned about the ongoing threat to abortion rights and about the attempt of the anti-abortion fanatics to build up a reactionary movement. Many men also attended November 12 activities.
Unfortunately, all across the country NOW and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and other such groups wanted to convert this concern into simply an election rally for smooth-talking politicians. Kate Michaelman, executive director of the NARAL, said "This mobilization is more than a one- day event. It represents the first day in a 51-week countdown in the 1990 elections."
Los Angeles, with up to 50,000 attending, saw one of the biggest events outside Washington. It came as cutbacks in spending are closing down health clinics right and left. Yet Democrats such as Maxine Waters spoke at the rally, and attempted to hide the role of the Democratic-controlled legislature in creating these cuts. She went to the extent of calling on people to make up the cuts out of their own pockets.
The L.A. supporters of the MLP widely distributed a leaflet and a number of Workers' Advocates. A number of people came back and asked for extra leaflets.
In Seattle five to six thousand people went on a pro-choice march. The MLP distributed 1300 leaflets on women's rights and also with a call to support the Boeing workers' strike. The Revolutionary Action Group and the MLP had banners declaring "Don't rely on the politicians -- the pro-choice majority must take to the streets" and "Defend Abortion Rights, Smash Operation Rescue!"
Events were also held in Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, etc. etc. etc. As well, many events took place on other days. For example, 20,000 rallied in Columbus, Ohio on October 31, and there was another demonstration in Los Angeles on October 22. Clinic defenses and confrontations with OR have also been taking place, deflating the arrogance of the anti-abortion fanatics.
[Photo: November 12 rally in Seattle.]
On November 3rd, 200 students at Santa Clara University in California rallied in support of legalized abortion. It was a breakthrough for this campus because it is run by Jesuits who not only oppose abortion rights but do not even allow the student health center to handle contraception. Such rallies are usually banned at Catholic universities.
Michigan NOW has been denouncing the pro-choice militants who defend the abortion clinics from Operation Rescue (OR). Recently the President of Detroit NOW, Karen E. Sundberg, issued a statement endorsing Michigan NOW's stand. It demands that there be no chants against the anti-abortion fanatics of OR, no slogans, "not even eye contact." At most, it would allow escorting patients into clinics. How one is supposed to do this if OR is allowed to close the clinics is NOW's little secret.
Because of the strength of the "pro- choice" movement, NOW has been forced to take some part in actions in front of the clinics. But Ms. Sundberg's statement shows that NOW is trying to tear the heart of these actions.
Detroit NOW goes all out to defend the police. It claims that "Working with the police has been found to be the single most important factor in successful clinic defense" and "where the police have been extensively consulted ahead of time, we have been successful in overcoming OR." This is a blatant lie. In fact, the police have generally bent over backward to let OR harass clinics for hours on end, while seeking to protect OR from angry pro-choice activists.
But behind this lie is Ms. Sundberg's demand that "...we should work with and support law enforcement agencies." At times, this has led NOW to form lines of marshals which help the police hold back the pro-choice activists from getting at OR. In the case of Ms. Sundberg, she even becomes a public relations woman for the police, and calls on activists to "recognize that the police may have problems of logistics which may inhibit their ability to respond as fast as we would like...."
Detroit NOW doesn't want to see the ongoing movement in Detroit confront OR or build up enthusiasm and momentum, nor does it see much use for attracting the masses of working and poor women. Instead Ms. Sundberg boasts of NOW having "been working behind the scenes for many months contacting police, city officials, clinic providers and others." She doesn't think that the mass movement has ever accomplished much, and she attributes all victories to "years and years" of lawsuits and court action. This has even led NOW to support the use of repressive measures such as the RICO "anti-racketeering" law, which is more suited to suppressing dissent then defending women's rights.
Detroit NOW also wants to suppress all slogans, picket signs, chants and literature of which it doesn't approve. Only the literature of NOW, and NOW allies such as NARAL, are to be allowed. Ms. Sundberg claims this is "not censorship of slogans or political statements...but simply a matter of pragmatism."
Detroit NOW follows an elitist strategy. It aims at doing nothing that would harm its respectability in the eyes of the bourgeoisie. It wants to win positions in the ruling class by proving that it can shackle the masses and keep them passive. Ms. Sundberg is particularly upset at the thought that scenes of mass confrontation will appear on TV. But it is the establishment that will be turned off by scenes of militancy, while the oppressed people will be encouraged. The movement in defense of women's rights will only grow if it mobilizes the masses of working and exploited people against the very same ruling class that NOW wants to woo.
The full statement from Detroit NOW, with our analysis of it, can be found in the November 15 issue of the Workers' Advocate Supplement. An earlier statement by Michigan NOW is reproduced in the January 21 Supplement.
Working people in Bolivia have once again mobilized their forces in struggle.
The current government is headed by the social-democrat Jaime Paz Zamora. He was installed four months ago, and he pledged to uphold the austerity policies of the previous government of Paz Estenssoro. Like the right-winger Paz Estenssoro, the populist Zamora is also trying to squeeze the life out of the toilers.
But the working people refuse to go along.
In October, 80,000 teachers launched a struggle for higher, wages which soon shut the schools down. A hunger strike was also started. Teachers, joined by students, carried out frequent demonstrations. These developed into clashes with the police, who used tear gas against rock-throwing protesters.
Solidarity with the teachers grew. In early November, tens of thousands of workers marched in La Paz to support the teachers.
The teachers are demanding a bonus of $100. Their monthly wage is about $45 a month, making them one of the country's worst paid employees.
But the Paz Zamora government would not meet the teachers' meager demand. Negotiations broke down. And on November 15, Paz Zamora, fearing an escalation of the workers' movement, imposed a state of siege to last for three months. Police powers were expanded and bans placed on public gatherings.
The government sent its police force out to round up teachers and union leaders. Over 850 people were arrested. Nearly 150 of them were flown to detention camps in the remote Amazon jungle region.
But the masses did not throw in the towel with Paz Zamora's repression. The Bolivian Workers Confederation put out the call for a 24-hour general strike, demanding freedom for all the workers, union activists and students who were detained. It resulted in the shutdown of 14 state-owned mines and some factories.
After the chiefs of Polish Solidarity took over the government in Warsaw, they appointed as economic advisor Jeffrey Sachs, professor of economics at Harvard. The newspapers here in the U.S. heaped praise on this decision. Sachs was portrayed as the brilliant mind who had rescued Bolivia out of deep economic troubles in the mid-1980's. Sachs, they cried, was precisely the man who could turn the Polish economy around.
But before we get carried away, we ought to ask: what was the "miracle cure'' Sachs applied to Bolivia?
Bolivia in the mid-80's was in terrible shape. Inflation stood at 25,000%. Corrupt generals, drug barons and speculators had plundered the economy, shifting large sums abroad. World prices for tin -- upon which the state was dependent -- had collapsed, but Western bankers demanded that their loan payments be kept up.
And what was Sachs' cure? An anti-inflation program of cutbacks which has been a complete disaster for the working class and poor. Meanwhile, neither the Western bankers nor the Bolivian wealthy were adversely affected.
The government shut down most of the country's tin mines and put some 23,000 miners in the street. Other government operations were also cut back, and thousands more laid off. Wages were frozen while prices on such items as gasoline went up.
The workers tried hard to fight against this savage assault. They waged strikes and demonstrations. The government imposed a state of siege and threw hundreds into jail. In the end the workers were unable to overcome the obstacles in their path.
Today the Bolivian working people languish in poverty which is worse than ever. Large numbers are still unemployed. Malnutrition is widespread. But despite the tremendous dislocation caused by the capitalist crisis, the spirit of resistance is far from being extinguished. At this very moment, the Bolivian working people are engaged in a new round of struggle, in the teeth of still another state of siege.
But there is one more footnote to the story about the "brilliance'' of Jeffrey Sachs. When he advised laying off workers, of course he didn't say that this was the end of the road for the laid-off. No, like all the "bright'' champions of free enterprise, Sachs said that people would be re-employed by the dynamism which is supposed to be inherent in the private sector.
But there were no major new enterprises forthcoming from the private sector in Bolivia. Except for one--and that turned out to be coca farming. It is the one traditional crop grown in Bolivia that still had a large market in North America. Left with no other recourse, thousands of tin miners are reported to have gone into coca farming. (Others among the laid-off try to eke out a living as street peddlers.)
This tragedy is similar to what has gone on in the inner cities of America during the last decade. Ronald Reagan too sang the glories of private enterprise as he presided over an economic offensive of concessions and cutbacks. But the promises of "trickle down'' economics proved elusive. He only ended up in making things so desperate that many youth are forced by unemployment and low wages to join the lower rungs of the drug trade.
From Bolivia to the U.S., these are serious crimes of capitalism against the working class.
Today, the capitalists -- from Warsaw to Bonn and Wall Street -- are planning the reform of the Polish economy. Like what happened in Bolivia, they are talking about massive layoffs, plant shutdowns, price hikes and wage freezes. The workers of Poland are told these will be temporary sacrifices, as the dynamism of private enterprise comes into play to provide a new paradise of employment and Western-style consumerism.
The Polish workers are being taken for a ride. All that is certain is that they will suffer still more. And that the already privileged will become still wealthier. The rest are mere promises.
Polish workers would do well not to trust these promises. They have to remember their tradition of struggle. And they have to find their way to an economic system which truly serves their interests -- an economic system which is an alternative to both the rotting state-capitalism of yesterday and the Western-style capitalism being mapped out today. That alternative is working class socialism and communism--a society without exploiters, whether they be private capitalists or privileged state bureaucrats. A society based on cooperation and the solidarity of workers. Such a society can be far more dynamic than any society based on dog-eat-dog competition and greed.
[Cartoon.]
While Boeing workers were striking in the U.S., 6,000 workers at major aircraft plants in Britain were also striking.
The British aircraft workers' main demand is for a 35-hour workweek. With mass pickets, workers have effectively shut down two plants owned by British Aerospace. Machinists at Rolls- Royce are also on strike, and a movement is afoot to spread the strike to the entire industry.
The campaign for a reduced workweek is also spreading among British auto workers. At Vauxhall (GM) a series of one-day strikes have been held to press for this demand. Ford workers have organized local wildcat strikes supporting it. But their top union leadership issued a letter demanding the workers cease "unofficial action'' and instead cooperate with Ford management for greater efficiency and speedup.
Meanwhile, West German Ford workers have launched a ban on overtime as the first step in a renewed drive for a reduced workweek.
Two thousand workers rallied at Seoul National University on November 12 to demonstrate for trade union rights. They called for the removal of anti-union laws.
Police attacked the protest with tear gas. The workers replied with firebombs and rocks, and then split up into groups of a few hundred each who staged marches through central Seoul.
Due to the huge mass mobilizations of 1987, Korean workers won the right to organize local unions outside of the government-controlled union structure. But their gain has been under constant assault from the capitalists and their regime, the so-called "democratic government'' of President Roh Tae Woo.
An outcry against state terror has gone up in the Caribbean island nation of Haiti. Twice this month, general strikes brought business and transport to a halt in the capital Port-au-Prince -- a two-day shutdown on November 7 and a 24-hour strike on the 22nd.
The strikes protested the arrest and torture of three opposition leaders. They had been arrested after announcing a month-long campaign of civil disobedience against the military government of General Prosper Avril. A coalition of trade unions, parties and community groups planned the campaign to back up demands for Avril's resignation, an end to state terrorism, and free elections.
Avril came to power 14 months ago in a military coup. He is trying to terrorize into submission the mass organizations which emerged after the fall of the Duvalier tyranny in 1986. He is also implementing a fierce austerity drive against the masses. Avril recently signed a new pact with the International Monetary Fund and decreed new taxes and price hikes or the masses.
Argentina was paralyzed for 36 hours by a transport strike on November 14. Bus drivers in the capital started the strike, which spread to other cities. In Mar del Plata 2,000 workers marched and blocked scab buses.
This action was the first major confrontation between workers and President Carlos Menem. Menem was elected this year as the candidate of the Peronist Party, supported by the corrupt trade union bureaucracy.
Menem has launched a savage assault on the workers, which includes rapid privatization and holding down wages. Workers are demanding raises to keep up with inflation. But Menem is responding with threats of military action against the workers and more privatizations.
As state-capitalist East Germany is caught in crisis, the U.S. media has been painting West German capitalism as the paragon of democracy, freedom and prosperity. We are told that the West German ruling class is oh-so generously extending its arms to its long-lost East German people, to help bring them out of the dark days into a bright future.
But the media does not tell us that there are two West Germanies -- the West Germany of the wealthy rulers and the West Germany of the working people -- just as there are two East Germanies. And while progressive people in the Federal Republic are sincerely enthusiastic about the rights won by the East German people, the West German capitalist rulers have other interests behind their outward expressions of delight. These are the interests of money and imperialism.
The West German capitalists are offering to give economic aid to the east, but at a price -- the price is the turning of East Germany into an openly Western-style capitalist society. Chancellor Kohl has demanded market reforms in the east. And an editorial of FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeiting, voice of the bankers and businessmen, put it even more clearly. It said that if the people of East Germany vote for opposition groups whose program is to "save socialism," they "will have to pay the price." West Germany shouldn't be expected "to finance the experiment of a new variant of socialism." But if East Germans vote "against any form of socialism" then "enough private capital will be mobilized" to bring up their standard of living.
What the demand "against any form of socialism" means is the right of capital to have full supremacy over the workers. It means cuts in job security, wages and benefits. It means ending low prices in transport and housing. These are the kinds of things West German capitalism is demanding. They are looking at East Germany especially as a source of cheap skilled labor.
Already many West German companies have close relations with the East German kombinate, the huge state monopolies into which the East German economy is organized. Many West German companies use East German enterprises as subcontractors. And more such plans are in the works. In anticipation, the Bonn stock market rose with the fall of the Berlin wall. As one academic expert in West Berlin put it, "If the reforms do come and the capital becomes available, East Germany could well become an extended workbench for West German industry."
Meanwhile, greater involvement in the East will also be used to pressure for cutting wages and benefits among West German workers, just as outsourcing is used by industry here in the U.S.
There is much speculation about reunification today. But even without political reunification, it is clear that West German imperialism sees the changes to date as a golden opportunity to advance economic integration, to strengthen its profits and power. It is the workers who will pay the price.
But the greater economic integration will also bring closer ties between the workers across the two Germanies. That will bring with it the possibility of common working class solidarity -- against both the bosses in the West and their partners in the East.
To hell with the capitalist exploiters -- in both Bonn and Berlin! For the unity of the working class!
In October, the Soviet parliament passed legislation ostensibly giving workers the right to strike. But it was in truth a Western-style "right to strike" law -- one which talks loud about workers' rights but in fact hamstrings workers from being able to wage effective struggles.
The democratic promises of Gorbachev's glasnost are again showing their limits. Glasnost is inspired by a bourgeois vision of democracy -- it has seen fit to allow space to pro-Western forces and for the spouting of hot air in parliament, but it is not willing to grant workers their rights as soon as they begin to take these rights seriously.
The strike law proposal, which was originally in even harsher form, came from Gorbachev. He wanted a complete 15-month ban on strikes. A compromise was worked out in the parliament.
The final bill outright bans strikes in vital sectors of the economy -- such as communications, transport, power, and steel, "it has been charged that these provisions will outlaw 70% of strikes. The law also bans political strikes. And where it allows strikes, it sets up a complex process of conciliation, mediation and arbitration before workers can legally strike.
The strike ban was supported by all the main political forces, the supporters of glasnost as well as its opponents. Only a handful of deputies dissented. The rulers in Moscow are prettifying this bill as a law widening workers' rights. And they are patting themselves on the back for being so generous to the masses.
This is really an anti-strike bill. In reality, to the extent that Soviet workers have won the freedom to strike, they have done so with their own hands -- not because of a law bestowed from the ruling class. For several years now, as Gorbachev's economic restructuring has assaulted workers' conditions, Soviet workers have begun to take strike action on their own. The biggest workers' action came with the coal miners' strike of last summer. Hundreds of thousands of miners ignored all bureaucratic formalities, defied their trade union leaders, and sat down and occupied the mines. They nearly brought the Soviet economy to a halt.
Since then, other sections of workers have also been inspired by the miners' example. The threat of wider strikes scares the regime. The miners themselves began to discuss again going out on strike this fall, because promises made to them have remained largely unfulfilled. The threat of renewed workers' strikes is what prompted the new anti-strike law. (See adjoining article.)
The new anti-strike bill is also part of an ominous discussion taking place in the Soviet establishment over the need for a new "iron fisted" regime. This is not coming from the opponents of Gorbachev's reforms but from among his supporters. As the Washington Post describes this thinking:
"The argument of the 'iron fisters' is simple: Drastic economic reforms are needed to rescue the Soviet economy from its present crisis and dismantle the system of central planning. In the short term, they are likely to lead to a further drop in already abysmal living standards. The present 'soft' government cannot take the necessary steps because it fears a popular revolt. Solution: Have parliament grant emergency powers to an authoritarian leader for a limited period. The democratically elected dictator would break down the resistance of the Communist Party bureaucrats and force the population to make the necessary sacrifices." (National Weekly Edition, Oct. 30 - Nov. 5)
The champions of perestroika love to shout about their love for democracy. In reality, however, their basic allegiance is to the restructuring of the economy into a Western-style capitalist order at the expense of the livelihood of the masses. As soon as workers refuse to go along meekly, the pretensions of democracy are more and more cast aside.
But the Soviet workers have had some taste of their rights and power of their struggle -- they will not quietly accept the new "iron fist" regime that's being talked about.
Soviet miners have greeted the new anti-strike law in that country with scorn.
The last week of October, miners began to walk out in open defiance of Gorbachev's ban. About 20,000 miners and other workers went on a token strike in Mezhdurechensk, the West Siberian town where July's mass protest began. And they were followed by the militant miners in Vorkuta in the Arctic Circle. Miners in the Ukraine staged two-hour warning strikes on November 1.
The coal miners are demanding that Gorbachev make good on the promises made to them after July's strike upsurge. Their demands include improved living and working conditions and better supplies. They are also campaigning against the constitution guaranteeing supreme power to the CPSU, the party of the state-capitalist bureaucrats.
The miners in Vorkuta have kept up their strike despite threats of government repression. Nearly all the pits, with some 15,000 workers, are involved in the job action. Their strike has been declared illegal and fines of 1,000 rubles have been imposed on each striker.
The Soviet miners are also continuing their discussion about policy towards the official miners union, which the workers have had to oppose in the fight to defend their interests. Several of the Vorkuta pits have already voted to quit the official union. Meanwhile, delegations from strike committees gathered in Novokuznetsk in western Siberia in mid-November to plan strategy for the upcoming miners union congress.
Seventy homeless people held a sit-in at the Massachusetts State House for several hours last month. They were supported by a large demonstration outside. Massachusetts has gone into a severe financial crisis. And the government has turned its axe against the programs for the poor and working people. The protesters demanded that there be no budget-cutting against the poor.
The workers and peasants of El Salvador have suffered for years under the most brutal oppression by the savage regime backed and supplied by the Pentagon and the White House. It is a regime of rich capitalists and landlords and multinational corporations who feed like parasites off the sweat and toil of the Salvadoran people. And who guarantee their profits by killing off activists and organizers with death squads and jails and torture.
For years a civil war has raged across this land as the insurgent toilers fight to overthrow the dictatorial government. They have liberated areas in the countryside, and they fought the armed forces to a standstill. If it weren't for the American advisors and helicopters and ammunition and money the Salvadoran dictatorship would have fallen long ago.
On Sunday Nov. 12 the downtrodden Salvadoran people launched their largest military offensive ever against the reactionary government. The armed guerrillas struck the length and breadth of the country. They took over a large part of the capital, San Salvador, and other cities, setting themselves up in neighborhoods where they had the support of the local population. They caught the government by surprise, despite its American reconnaissance planes and training.
Each day the fascist regime of Salvadoran President Cristiani announced that the guerrilla offensive had failed. Why, the guerrillas were surrounded and being annihilated, the world was told, and the next day it was said that somehow they had resupplied themselves or slipped away. Right from the start, the government took to bombing and strafing vast working class sections of San Salvador and other cities. It knew that it could not regain control of these areas without slaughtering the people with heavy weapons, and it annihilated whole neighborhoods with rocket and machine gun fire from helicopter gun-ships and aircraft. This is a major atrocity against the people, and it has been applauded and justified by the American government and politicians.
As we go to press, the guerrilla offensive has wound down, and the government seems to have regained control of many areas, although the fighting still continues. But whether the offensive continues or not, it has already shown that the civil war is far from over, and the Salvadoran government rules only by bloody terror.
What type of government annihilates its own cities?
The Cristiani government of El Salvador was entrusted recently with the political power by the ruling circles. It is a government dedicated to total war without mercy upon the population, a government by the ARENA party, the notorious party of the death squads. The wealthy Salvadoran rulers turned to ARENA because they felt power slipping from their hands, and they were determined to step up total war against the people in an attempt to hold on. So it is not surprising that ARENA has also assassinated six priests, despite the normal reverence of the ruling class for the spread of religion, and although these priests are not part of the armed people's movement, because the Cristiani government can only accept unquestioning agreement.
The U.S. government is trying to pose as caught in the middle between the guerrillas and a Salvadoran right-wing which goes too far. What a lie. It is the CIA which trained and directed the death squads in the first place. It is the Pentagon which gave the planes and ammunition to the Salvadoran air force and directed it to carry out raids of annihilation over the liberated areas in the countryside, just as this same air force has now devastated working class areas of the cities. It is the White House and Congress who have financed the atrocities to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. It is the U.S. government that has created a whole military doctrine out of atrocities, and called it "low-intensity conflict".
The Bush administration has drowned its talk about a "kinder, gentler" America in a sea of blood in El Salvador. But even liberal Democrats who are supposed to be critics of the White House have made haste to send money to help massacre the Salvadoran toilers. Senator Dodd, a major spokesman for the liberal wing of the Democrats on Central America, proclaimed his support for fascist President Cristiani as he presided over the bombing of urban neighborhoods. Dodd was joined by other liberals like Senator Kerry of Massachusetts when he voted recently to send yet more millions of dollars of blood money to the Salvadoran regime. These liberal Democrats agree with the White House and the conservatives that American imperialist interests must be maintained. And so long as they stand for imperialism, their differences with Bush and Quayle and the Pentagon can only be over tactics to achieve a common aim. This is why Dodd was willing to give Cristiani a chance, and back him to the hilt, despite the bloody record of long years of dictatorial rule in El Salvador.
But Dodd and Kerry and the liberals were also among the loudest champions of the Arias "peace plan" for Central America. Their support for arming the ARENA death-squad government shows that the Arias plan is just a ruse. It is not designed to free the Salvadoran people from terror and oppression, but to hamstring the powerful movement of liberation. Under the cover of promoting peace, Congress has voted again and again to fund the war in El Salvador.
Unfortunately the leaders of the FMLN, the main armed guerrilla organization, have gone along with the Arias plan. They have called off the goal of revolution, and substituted the dream that U.S. imperialism and the Salvadoran exploiters will agree to become peaceful and humanitarian and even fund the poor. Their present offensive was not part of a plan to overthrow the dictatorial regime, but simply an effort to convince it that it had to take negotiations more seriously. It does not seem to have been timed in accordance with a new stage of upsurge in the cities, but in accordance with the needs of negotiations. This is a dangerous way to conduct a people's movement.
The new strategy of the FMLN holds that all that is required to come to terms with the U.S. government and the Salvadoran ruling class is to give up exaggerated ideas of class struggle and radical change. Yet the workers and peasants aren't giving their lives for an agreement that would leave intact the basic system that enslaves them today.
No, the hope for the Salvadoran toilers lies in overthrowing the death- squad government and the stranglehold of the wealthy landlords, big capitalists, and imperialist multinational corporations. We in the U.S. should stand with our class brothers and sisters in their time of need. We cannot help them by pretending that, yes, there is a chance that U.S. imperialism will abandon its military budget and donate it for good works abroad. We cannot close our eyes and believe that the White House and Congress are out to aid the people, and not preserve brutal exploitation and U.S. hegemony. We cannot believe that the same capitalist moneybags that are cutting wages and breaking unions here in the U.S. are going to smilingly give up $3-a-day wage-slavery in El Salvador.
Whatever the FMLN leaders believe, whatever debates take place among the revolutionaries in El Salvador, our duty is clear. We must render real assistance to the struggle in El Salvador by organizing against imperialism right here in its belly. We must raise up the workers and progressive people in protest against U.S. imperialism, and not try to persuade Congress and the White House about how enlightened imperialism would provide a more economical and durable form of U.S. hegemony in Central America. And we must certainly support self-determination for El Salvador, which means that Congress and the White House should keep their hands off El Salvador.
American workers, activists, students, and all progressive people. We cannot allow another imperialist slaughter like the Viet Nam war to continue in El Salvador. Down with U.S. government support for the Salvadoran regime! Join in the wave of protests against U.S. intervention in Central America! Solidarity with the fighting workers and peasants of El Salvador!
Fanned by the flames of the guerrilla upsurge in El Salvador, protests streaked across the U.S. last month against our government's support of the fascist ARENA government. For nearly a week demonstrations hit city after city, growing sharper as time went on.
On November 16, hundreds of demonstrators circled the Henry Jackson Federal Building in Seattle. Shouting "Stop the bombing, stop the war, U.S. out of El Salvador," 50 of the protesters slipped by police into the lobby for an hour-long sit-in. Thirty-three were arrested when they defied police orders to disperse.
The next day, hundreds blockaded McDonnell Douglas Corp. recruiting at the University of California at Berkeley. They Renounced the corporation for selling two types of gunships which the Cristiani regime is using to strafe civilian areas in San Salvador.
On Saturday, demonstrations broke out in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C.
Sunday saw 3,000 people marching in near-freezing temperatures through Boston to city hall. Numbers of people joined with the militant contingent of the Marxist-Leninist Party to shout slogans in solidarity with the Salvadoran workers and peasants. When Democratic Party Mayor Flynn claimed he opposed U.S. military aid to ARENA, the MLP people led people in booing. The Party exposed the Democrats' collaboration with Bush in continuing support for the death-squad regime.
On the same day, encouraged by the upsurge in El Salvador, some 1,000 people gathered in San Francisco to oppose Congress' continuing aid to the Nicaraguan contras. They also denounced the U.S.' arrogant interference in the Nicaraguan elections. Shouting, "Nicaragua, El Salvador, U.S. Out!" the protesters marched through the predominantly Mexican and Central American Mission District. Many activists crowded around the MLP's literature table and discussed how the solidarity movement has been undermined by the Arias regional plan and the reformist orientation of the Sandinistas and the FMLN leaders. Rallies against U.S. intervention in El Salvador were also staged in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities.
On November 20, about 300 protesters took over a Seattle freeway, blocking traffic in both directions. Over 70 demonstrators were arrested in the action. Another 136 protesters were arrested at the federal building in San Francisco.
The next day 1,000 demonstrators came out to blockade the federal building in San Francisco. Amidst continuous slogan shouting, the activists scuffled with police, virtually shut down the building, and snarled traffic for two and a half hours. Baton-wielding police repeatedly broke through the protest lines to open entrances. But the demonstrators quickly reformed human chains to block the doors. At least five protesters were beaten and 141 were arrested. The protesters shouted at the police, "Just like El Salvador!" They also shouted, "Cristiani we know you, Hitler was a fascist too!" "Not a penny, not a dime! Funding death squads is a crime!" and "Bush and Quayle should go to jail!"
Eventually, the protesters left the federal building and marched on the Salvadoran consulate. They sat down in the street, listened to speeches and continued the slogan shouting. When it was announced that Salvadoran guerrillas had stormed a luxury hotel and trapped American military advisors, the crowd roared its approval.
Similar actions broke out in other cities. While many of the protests were passive vigils, other actions took on a more militant character as many activists came out to support Salvadoran revolution. They hoped the FMLN guerrillas would smash the death-squad regime and kick U.S. imperialism out of the country. Although most held high hopes in the FMLN leadership, many listened with interest to our Party's critique of the harmful orientation of using the armed struggle as a bargaining chip for minor reforms and power sharing.
[Photo: In downtown Seattle, demonstrators block Interstate 5 to protest U.S. support for the death-squad regime in El Salvador.]
[Photo: 3,000 march in Boston, November 19.]
The workers and peasants of El Salvador have suffered for years under the most brutal oppression by the savage regime backed and supplied by the Pentagon and the White House. It is a regime of rich capitalists and landlords and multinational corporations who feed like parasites off the sweat and toil of the Salvadoran people. And who guarantee their profits by killing off activists and organizers with death squads and jails and torture.
For years a civil war has raged across this land as the insurgent toilers fight to overthrow the dictatorial government. They have liberated areas in the countryside, and they fought the armed forces to a standstill. If it weren't for the American advisors and helicopters and ammunition and money the Salvadoran dictatorship would have fallen long ago.
On Sunday Nov. 12 the downtrodden Salvadoran people launched their largest military offensive ever against the reactionary government. The armed guerrillas struck the length and breadth of the country. They took over a large part of the capital, San Salvador, and other cities, setting themselves up in neighborhoods where they had the support of the local population. They caught the government by surprise, despite its American reconnaissance planes and training.
Each day the fascist regime of Salvadoran President Cristiani announced that the guerrilla offensive had failed. Why, the guerrillas were surrounded and being annihilated, the world was told, and the next day it was said that somehow they had resupplied themselves or slipped away. Right from the start, the government took to bombing and strafing vast working class sections of San Salvador and other cities. It knew that it could not regain control of these areas without slaughtering the people with heavy weapons, and it annihilated whole neighborhoods with rocket and machine gun fire from helicopter gun-ships and aircraft. This is a major atrocity against the people, and it has been applauded and justified by the American government and politicians.
As we go to press, the guerrilla offensive has wound down, and the government seems to have regained control of many areas, although the fighting still continues. But whether the offensive continues or not, it has already shown that the civil war is far from over, and the Salvadoran government rules only by bloody terror.
What type of government annihilates its own cities?
The Cristiani government of El Salvador was entrusted recently with the political power by the ruling circles. It is a government dedicated to total war without mercy upon the population, a government by the ARENA party, the notorious party of the death squads. The wealthy Salvadoran rulers turned to ARENA because they felt power slipping from their hands, and they were determined to step up total war against the people in an attempt to hold on. So it is not surprising that ARENA has also assassinated six priests, despite the normal reverence of the ruling class for the spread of religion, and although these priests are not part of the armed people's movement, because the Cristiani government can only accept unquestioning agreement.
The U.S. government is trying to pose as caught in the middle between the guerrillas and a Salvadoran right-wing which goes too far. What a lie. It is the CIA which trained and directed the death squads in the first place. It is the Pentagon which gave the planes and ammunition to the Salvadoran air force and directed it to carry out raids of annihilation over the liberated areas in the countryside, just as this same air force has now devastated working class areas of the cities. It is the White House and Congress who have financed the atrocities to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year. It is the U.S. government that has created a whole military doctrine out of atrocities, and called it "low-intensity conflict".
The Bush administration has drowned its talk about a "kinder, gentler" America in a sea of blood in El Salvador. But even liberal Democrats who are supposed to be critics of the White House have made haste to send money to help massacre the Salvadoran toilers. Senator Dodd, a major spokesman for the liberal wing of the Democrats on Central America, proclaimed his support for fascist President Cristiani as he presided over the bombing of urban neighborhoods. Dodd was joined by other liberals like Senator Kerry of Massachusetts when he voted recently to send yet more millions of dollars of blood money to the Salvadoran regime. These liberal Democrats agree with the White House and the conservatives that American imperialist interests must be maintained. And so long as they stand for imperialism, their differences with Bush and Quayle and the Pentagon can only be over tactics to achieve a common aim. This is why Dodd was willing to give Cristiani a chance, and back him to the hilt, despite the bloody record of long years of dictatorial rule in El Salvador.
But Dodd and Kerry and the liberals were also among the loudest champions of the Arias "peace plan" for Central America. Their support for arming the ARENA death-squad government shows that the Arias plan is just a ruse. It is not designed to free the Salvadoran people from terror and oppression, but to hamstring the powerful movement of liberation. Under the cover of promoting peace, Congress has voted again and again to fund the war in El Salvador.
Unfortunately the leaders of the FMLN, the main armed guerrilla organization, have gone along with the Arias plan. They have called off the goal of revolution, and substituted the dream that U.S. imperialism and the Salvadoran exploiters will agree to become peaceful and humanitarian and even fund the poor. Their present offensive was not part of a plan to overthrow the dictatorial regime, but simply an effort to convince it that it had to take negotiations more seriously. It does not seem to have been timed in accordance with a new stage of upsurge in the cities, but in accordance with the needs of negotiations. This is a dangerous way to conduct a people's movement.
The new strategy of the FMLN holds that all that is required to come to terms with the U.S. government and the Salvadoran ruling class is to give up exaggerated ideas of class struggle and radical change. Yet the workers and peasants aren't giving their lives for an agreement that would leave intact the basic system that enslaves them today.
No, the hope for the Salvadoran toilers lies in overthrowing the death- squad government and the stranglehold of the wealthy landlords, big capitalists, and imperialist multinational corporations. We in the U.S. should stand with our class brothers and sisters in their time of need. We cannot help them by pretending that, yes, there is a chance that U.S. imperialism will abandon its military budget and donate it for good works abroad. We cannot close our eyes and believe that the White House and Congress are out to aid the people, and not preserve brutal exploitation and U.S. hegemony. We cannot believe that the same capitalist moneybags that are cutting wages and breaking unions here in the U.S. are going to smilingly give up $3-a-day wage-slavery in El Salvador.
Whatever the FMLN leaders believe, whatever debates take place among the revolutionaries in El Salvador, our duty is clear. We must render real assistance to the struggle in El Salvador by organizing against imperialism right here in its belly. We must raise up the workers and progressive people in protest against U.S. imperialism, and not try to persuade Congress and the White House about how enlightened imperialism would provide a more economical and durable form of U.S. hegemony in Central America. And we must certainly support self-determination for El Salvador, which means that Congress and the White House should keep their hands off El Salvador.
American workers, activists, students, and all progressive people. We cannot allow another imperialist slaughter like the Viet Nam war to continue in El Salvador. Down with U.S. government support for the Salvadoran regime! Join in the wave of protests against U.S. intervention in Central America! Solidarity with the fighting workers and peasants of El Salvador!
Fanned by the flames of the guerrilla upsurge in El Salvador, protests streaked across the U.S. last month against our government's support of the fascist ARENA government. For nearly a week demonstrations hit city after city, growing sharper as time went on.
On November 16, hundreds of demonstrators circled the Henry Jackson Federal Building in Seattle. Shouting "Stop the bombing, stop the war, U.S. out of El Salvador," 50 of the protesters slipped by police into the lobby for an hour-long sit-in. Thirty-three were arrested when they defied police orders to disperse.
The next day, hundreds blockaded McDonnell Douglas Corp. recruiting at the University of California at Berkeley. They Renounced the corporation for selling two types of gunships which the Cristiani regime is using to strafe civilian areas in San Salvador.
On Saturday, demonstrations broke out in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C.
Sunday saw 3,000 people marching in near-freezing temperatures through Boston to city hall. Numbers of people joined with the militant contingent of the Marxist-Leninist Party to shout slogans in solidarity with the Salvadoran workers and peasants. When Democratic Party Mayor Flynn claimed he opposed U.S. military aid to ARENA, the MLP people led people in booing. The Party exposed the Democrats' collaboration with Bush in continuing support for the death-squad regime.
On the same day, encouraged by the upsurge in El Salvador, some 1,000 people gathered in San Francisco to oppose Congress' continuing aid to the Nicaraguan contras. They also denounced the U.S.' arrogant interference in the Nicaraguan elections. Shouting, "Nicaragua, El Salvador, U.S. Out!" the protesters marched through the predominantly Mexican and Central American Mission District. Many activists crowded around the MLP's literature table and discussed how the solidarity movement has been undermined by the Arias regional plan and the reformist orientation of the Sandinistas and the FMLN leaders. Rallies against U.S. intervention in El Salvador were also staged in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities.
On November 20, about 300 protesters took over a Seattle freeway, blocking traffic in both directions. Over 70 demonstrators were arrested in the action. Another 136 protesters were arrested at the federal building in San Francisco.
The next day 1,000 demonstrators came out to blockade the federal building in San Francisco. Amidst continuous slogan shouting, the activists scuffled with police, virtually shut down the building, and snarled traffic for two and a half hours. Baton-wielding police repeatedly broke through the protest lines to open entrances. But the demonstrators quickly reformed human chains to block the doors. At least five protesters were beaten and 141 were arrested. The protesters shouted at the police, "Just like El Salvador!" They also shouted, "Cristiani we know you, Hitler was a fascist too!" "Not a penny, not a dime! Funding death squads is a crime!" and "Bush and Quayle should go to jail!"
Eventually, the protesters left the federal building and marched on the Salvadoran consulate. They sat down in the street, listened to speeches and continued the slogan shouting. When it was announced that Salvadoran guerrillas had stormed a luxury hotel and trapped American military advisors, the crowd roared its approval.
Similar actions broke out in other cities. While many of the protests were passive vigils, other actions took on a more militant character as many activists came out to support Salvadoran revolution. They hoped the FMLN guerrillas would smash the death-squad regime and kick U.S. imperialism out of the country. Although most held high hopes in the FMLN leadership, many listened with interest to our Party's critique of the harmful orientation of using the armed struggle as a bargaining chip for minor reforms and power sharing.
[Photo: In downtown Seattle, demonstrators block Interstate 5 to protest U.S. support for the death-squad regime in El Salvador.]
[Photo: 3,000 march in Boston, November 19.]