Fox newsman punched: Things getting hot in Michigan

There is no doubt, especially due to the role of the Labor officialdom that supports the bosses' "shared sacrifice" policy, that sections of the US capitalist class are a little overconfident. They are forgetting our history and the battles fought to win what we have today in the face of the most blatant violence on the part of the bosses. Michigan is the home of the great 44 day Flint sit down and the factory occupations that forced the mighty GM to accept Unions. Flint should be US labor's 4th of July.  This anger we see here is the result of years of cuts and savage attacks on workers and our living standards and rights. The auto workers especially have seen drastic cuts. Unity, defiance of the law, opposition to racism, sexism, and all efforts to divide and weakens workers is what will turn this thing around. Factory and workplace occupations are what will win, organized anger.

South African farmworker's rallies

Denia Jansen, chair of this rally, and Mercia Andrews, one of its organizers (who can be seen walking at the front with a white top, bushy hair and who puts a hat on) were arrested during the general strike on 4/12/12 with others for organizing workers and charged with incitement, intimidation, and participating in an illegal strike. They will appear in court again on January 21. Martin Legassick This rally of farmworkers in Ashton, 2/12/12 was organized by Mawubuye Land Rights Forum and the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union both of whom have been patiently and heroically organizing Western Cape farmworkers against racist and repressive bosses for years. In eighteen years the COSATU union responsible for farmworkers, the Food and Allied Workers' Union, with all its resources, has organized only 3% of farmworkers nationwide. The Trust for Community Outreach and Education was a third organizer. Martin Legassick

Workers pepper sprayed as Union rights under assault in Michigan

Michigan State Legislature toda

by Richard Mellor
"Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit.  A campaign against a Union is an assault on individuals and a war on the truth.  As such, it is a war without honor.  The only way to bust a Union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack."

Martin jay Levitt, Confessions of a Union Buster.

The heads of organized Labor will be whining about the Right to Work legislation that the Republicans just shoved through the Michigan State Legislature.  Workers were pepper sprayed by the police today and others were arrested as they protested and tried to disrupt the proceedings. "At one point, a man shouted, 'Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! That's what you people are.' ", the Associated Press reported.  "We will remember in November." others shouted.  But what can we do in November?  Vote Democrat? The bosses have a monopoly in politics, they hold a dictatorship in the political arena and they don't fear their "other" party.

The Right to Work measures passed in the House will mean that private unions will not be able to charge employees fees. The Senate also voted to impose the same requirement on most public unions, reports say.  When an employee objects to paying union dues for whatever reason, they were required to pay the equivalent to a charity or agency that in the case of my former workplace was offered as an alternative. The bosses claim this is to give workers more "freedom" to choose.   No worker believes this. They claim that if they can get rid of costly Unions they will create more jobs. Michigan officials point to Indiana which has wages and conditions of many third world countries. Caterpillar just closed a plant in Ontario to move to Indiana where wages are 50% less.  A spectre is haunting the US I would say.

There's a few lessons to be learned here.  The first is an easy one and that is that the Democratic Party is not a political party that represents workers' interests and we cannot rely on it to defend what took us decades and heroic sacrifice to win.  Even when it has a majority as it did nationally during the Carter years holding both Houses and the presidency, not one piece of legislation of major importance to Labor was passed, the same with Clinton's first two years. We must build an alternative working people's party in this country.

The other important issue is that the blame for this situation, the increasingly successful assault on workers and our organizations, lies squarely on the shoulders of the heads of organized Labor, those folks that run the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition. When he was seeking a role in the leadership of the AFL-CIO after the exit of the moribund lane Kirkland Richard Trumka, now president of that organization said:

"While we are always willing to negotiate as equals, the era of union busting, contract trashing and strike breaking is at an end.  Today, we say that when you pick a fight with any of us, you pick a fight with all of us! And that when you push us, we will push back." Oct 1996.

John Sweeney, who Trumka succeeded as head of the AFL-CIO talked of blocking bridges as a   direct action tactic in our struggle against the bosses and their offensive on Labor.  These were just election campaign rhetoric as Sweeney's "blocking bridges" became building them, not between the rank and file and the leadership of the Unions but between the bosses and the leadership of the Unions. This is done through the Team Concept on the job with the numerous Labor/management committees, Quality of Life circles and other such euphemistic terms for class collaboration and betrayal and through the Team Concept in politics with the blood bond between the Union hierarchy and the Democrats.

You can go to any Unionized workplace these days and it would be impossible not to find two sets of workers.  The older hires whose benefits, wages and conditions have been cut and the new hires, mostly younger workers whose wages, benefits, conditions and chances of retirement are ten times worse. 

Talk to grocery workers here in California. Talk to the new hires in any of these situations and they'll tell you they got a raw deal from the Union.  They pay dues yet do the same job for less money and worse benefits.  The Union officialdom with their position of damage control which means pleading with the bosses' for slightly fewer concessions than they're asking for, cast the future workers, the new hires to the wolves. It's very easy to do as not yet being hired, the new young folk can't vote on a  crappy contract that in many cases pays them 50% less.  This causes animosity on the job and animosity to "the Union" for not putting up a fight.  The greater victory for the boss, greater than the money saved even, is the weakening of solidarity on the shop floor.

Even when we had 100,000 workers in the streets of Madison Wisconsin, both Democrats and the trade Union hierarchy accepted concessions, agreed to all the cuts. Only dues check off and a seat at the table mattered.  The Democrats for the  money they get from our dues at election time and the Labor heads in order to have a job at all.

As working conditions continue to deteriorate and wages decline as Union dues go up, the anger at "the Union" increases.  Workers built and join Unions because they improve our material well being, the same with voting.  Neither are an exercise in civics.  When your dues go up and wages go down, the Union doesn't appeal so much any more.

I was talking to a young leftist the other day and like many leftists they use all sorts of excuses for not waging a struggle within their Unions.  In my experience, many of them that do attend meetings do not openly challenge the leadership and their concessionary policies and wage a campaign among the rank and file for an alternative.  They have their "private" meetings outside the workers' movement for their militant side. They often argue that you have to play the game, or that the leadership won't do anything so why place demands on them? "Why confront them when the members aren't even there?" one socialist in the movement told me. These are excuses.  It's more important to defend anyone when they are not there than when they are.  It's the harder thing to do but it also is part of building an opposition as workers hear that there's division taking place at the meetings.  They hear that someone's speaking up for them and the leadership will talk crap about them which will spark interest among the ranks who want to know what it's all about.  And it's also important for oppositionists to mark their turf whether the ranks are there or not, it helps hold our feet to the fire.

If we are active in Unions we have to wage an open campaign against the concessionary policies of the present leadership.  We are in a struggle for the consciousness of the members, of the working class as a whole.  This is part of building rank and file oppositions around a fighting program and direct action fight to win tactics.

Most workers recognize that they're better off with a Union, even a bad one.  But years of class collaboration and concessionary contracts forced on members by a bloated bureaucracy that does not have to work under them,  have made it a lot easier for the bosses and their politicians to undermine the Union and attack Union rights.

As myself and others on this blog have stated many times, this logjam will be broken at some point.  The police are getting more aggressive as the bosses are becoming overconfident. But we are suffering undue hardship due to the refusal of the leadership to fight which means we we are forced to start from a much deeper hole than necessary when these small clashes like in  Michigan today become generalized and take on a national  character.

But we have the power, this is indisputable.  We just have to use it and openly fight all the bosses' divide and rule tactics, racism, sexism,  blaming immigrants etc. aimed at weakening our unity.

South Africa: Activists arrested for supporting striking farmworkers

This article was written by Helga Jansen-Daugbjerg. She is a member of the Rita Edwards Branch of the New Women’s Movement.  Please send messages of support or inquire about donations or other solidarity actions you can take by contacting them here: ritaedwards.nwmbranch@gmail.com

Mercia Andrews and Denia Jansen are among more than twenty people arrested this week for their role in supporting striking farm workers in the countryside of the wealthy Western Cape Province. Both women are long-time activists in the land and agrarian sector and have been at the forefront of supporting the work of the farm worker strike committees.  They were arrested and charged irrationally with intimidation and incitement to violence.

Are we months away from our world-class stadiums holding those who oppose a regime bent on breaking its bond with its people? Four years ago, my words would have had a ring of the overly-dramatic. A year ago the, workings of state, albeit ineffectual, served as a placebo against the realities facing us. South Africa is a country at a cross-roads for whom destiny now calls. Change must come.

2012 will certainly be remembered as a year of revolt by the poor who have nothing left to lose, and for repression by a state more out of touch with its people than ever before. The Farm Worker revolt is no different to the Marikana miners awaiting death on the mountain, or school children left illiterate by a system that deserted them before they were even conceived.  An echo from the past rings in every burning farm, in every witnessed killing of a Marikana miner, in every child who will repeat the poverty and anger of her parents 20 years from now - unless irrefutable change happens in South Africa.




The change that must take place is beyond the tragi-comedy of Manguang and the ANC. Beyond the Animal-Farm-like characters of those who believe that leadership is a god-given place at the trough. It is even beyond the reality of those of us living this moment. Change must take place for the clichéd ‘future of South Africa’. We are the ancestors our descendants will mock and rail against for not doing what should have been done – bringing about the change.

It is no small irony that the poor work in the most economically successful industries in our country.

Twenty-two years ago descendants of slaves worked the wine and fruit farms of the Western Cape, and migrants came from all over Southern Africa to dig up the minerals. Nothing has changed in their lives except the extreme levels of poverty – and if we do not act, nothing will change.

News of the arrests of those supporting the striking farm workers were met by activists in the close-knit NGO community in Cape Town with a numbing finality. It is as if we have been expecting this - first the Marikana Massacre and now the Farm Worker Strike repression. While Mercia Andrews and Denia Jansen, and the many others arrested this week will have their day in court inJanuary 2013, having spent a night in jail, the reality of the arrests can only mean one thing – we are in the thick of a dark and hard period in our country. 

Like the struggle against the inhumanity of apartheid, the struggle against the inhuman system of inequality requires all our energies. It is being led by those for whom restitution and dignity are the first prize. For the rest of us, we must heed their struggle in the name of change. Change, like a storm, will wreak destruction and pain and loss. But this too will pass and mark the time for a change we can be proud of, for it is of our making.

The vultures gather round to scoop up a non-union Hostess Corp.

Last week, one of the 1%'s bankruptcy Judges  gave the Hostess bosses permission to liquidate the company and sell off its parts.  Along with ridding themselves of fixed stock, the coupon clippers that own it are also ridding themselves of any obligation to that other side of the capital expenditure in the labor process, some 18,000 workers.

The bosses have many ways of violating contractual agreements with workers, violence, starvation, the military (always a dodgy option), the police, and their courts which is more favorable.  Being in bankruptcy is another way the coupon clippers can relieve themselves of these obligations. They do this even when the company is not broke like Delphi, the auto parts manufacturer that was once part of GM.

Not a week ago, the general line was that the Hostess simply wasn't a viable business, "Nobody wants to have anything to do with these old plants or these union or these contracts", said Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn.  They blamed the Union for running the business down of course which is only true in the sense that US workers are too expensive on the global market with rights in the workplace the bosses can do without.  Bangladesh offers a more lucrative environment for profit taking. The real issue though is the contracts, that the workers are Unionized.  Despite years of defeats, and elimination of Union power on the job thanks to a cooperative, employer friendly leadership, the bosses would much rather have no Union at all; and why not go for it, they feel very confident after years of concessionary contracts.

Rayburn also commented last week that the only hope for a buyer would be if a, "..liquidated Hostess would be free of its collective bargaining agreements.".  The judge has opened that door for them and suddenly, "Hostess is an attractive target, with its nationwide distribution of Twinkies, Ho Ho's and Ding Dongs."  (Who on earth dreams up these names?).  We should make no bones about it; the name of the game here is close down the show and open up non Union. It is part of the ongoing war to drive US workers wages and conditions closer to those in Vietnam and India.

The front runner for scooping up the remnants of Hostess Corp is Flowers' Foods a company with a healthy 90% of its employees non-Union.  "Flowers is unlikely to rehire Hostess employees as union workers.......and isn't interested in assuming labor contracts" the Wall Street Journal reports. Despite the Union officialdom claiming there are "good" unionized employers and "bad" non Union ones, the only reason we have Unions at all is because workers fought heroic battles for the right to organize against the most violent opposition from the bosses. We have Unions because we fought and died for them.

Is this the end of the Hostess struggle? It would seem so. Back in the eighties during the Eastern Airlines strike, the boss shut the company down and the Labor officials called it a victory.  For the boss, a man named Lorenzo, it's simply shifting capital around, for workers it's a greater loss.  The thought of taking over the company doesn't enter the heads of the strategists atop organized Labor.

The attacks we have been facing for decades have definitely heated up since the bailout.  On the other hand there have been some powerful  responses to the assault of capital; the student movement of a couple of years ago, some big strikes like Verizon and the Southern California grocery strike that was lost entirely due to the UFCW leadership's capitulation to the employers. We also saw 100,000 on the streets of Madison Wisconsin that was successfully channeled in to an electoral campaign for the Democratic Party.  With the Team Concept as their primary policy and no alternative to the market, mobilizing the potential power of organized Labor and the millions of non-Union workers and our communities in to an offensive of our own can only lead to chaos as far as the Union officialdom is concerned.  The capitalists must be the job creators, profit is sacrosanct and workers' can't control our workplaces or society.

There's no escaping the fact that the bosses are becoming more aggressive and emboldened.  But we will see further challenges to this offensive as the class struggle heats up.  Too much confidence is a dangerous thing and there's no doubt the US bourgeois will make some serious blunders up ahead. 

It would also be a mistake for us to forget our history and the explosive nature of the US working class.  After the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 and by 1931 the United Mine Workers, one of the few industrial unions shrunk from 400,000 to 60,000 members and the AFL membership was declining by 7000 members a week until by 1933 it was down to a little over 2 million.  We all know what happened then.  Three general strikes followed in 1934 and then the great factory occupations and growth of industrial unionism culminating in the 44-day Flint sit down and the rise of the CIO.
I am not saying that the situation is exactly the same as at that time there were numerous left and radical forces withing the working class.  Socialists led the general strike in Minneapolis, the Communists in San Francisco and the followers of AJ Muste and the unemployed organizations the Toledo general strike, all in 1934. But it would be a mistake, one that liberals make to readily, to write off the US working class.  Even without the huge workforce in the service industries, the docks, the airlines, communication and heavy industry are still Unionized and the organized sector will be convulsed and radicalised by a generalized movement against the bosses offensive.

Walmart protests throughout the world.

These developments against Walmart are very positive and a long time coming. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the leadership of the Union most heavily involved in the drive, like the entire leadership of organized Labor, have the business view of these organizations. They see the Unions as employment organizations with them as the CEO's. To win Walmart would be a huge revenue enhancer in the form of dues.

As far as the already existing members in the retail grocery outlet, the UFCW leadership like their colleagues throughout the AFL-CIO and Change to Win federations, have presided over a never ending slide backwards through their cooperation with the employers and their Team Concept approach to the Labor/Capital struggle.  The Team Concept, the dominant ideology of the trade Union leadership holds that workers and bosses have the same economic interests.  This means that workers must take measures (concessions) to assist their own individual employers in winning "market share" at the expense of their rivals. 

This disastrous world view leads workers in one company competing with workers at a competitor for who can work the hardest, fastest and most cheaply. It has the same effect globally as workers from one country compete against workers from another.  The bosses can only win when the game is played this way.  It is a disastrous race to the bottom and makes solidarity organizing and the building of a generalized offensive of our own much harder.  Any rank and file movement from below that wants to fight back in a serious way and opposes this relationship the Union heads have built with the employers and their Democratic Party based on Labor peace is seen as hostile and suppressed with the help of an army of full time staff at their disposal.

To Unionize Walmart would be a great step forward as long as we recognize that the other struggle, the more complex battle within our organizations to change the concessionary and employer friendly policies of the leadership, and the leadership themselves is the much harder war that has to be fought.

Black Friday Protest at San Leandro Walmart

I went down to my local Walmart in San Leandro tonight on Hesperian Blvd (Thanksgiving night).  The store opened at 8 and the consumers were there in droves. There was a small but spirited protest or more accurately informational picket about the plight of the Walmart workers I shot some video and have to apologize for the bad volume at times as the I phone takes good video but the mike is not the best.

I noticed that the workers referred to themselves as "associates", which is the bosses' term for us. I recall when this term, and "team member", became prominent here in the Bay Area as a replacement for worker. There will be another protest/picket tomorrow from 4 to 6 pm. According to the Walmart workers I talked to there is a strike planned and some workers will walk out. If you are in the San Leandro East Bay area try to come down tomorrow and show support for Walmart workers. Below the video is the flier Facts For Working People put out for the protests. Check here for Walmart event locations.

Bankruptcy Judge to negotiate contract for striking Hostess workers.

Mediation paves the way for capitulation

by Richard Mellor

I see that the bankruptcy judge dealing with the Hostess case decided not to allow the company to close down the business. Instead, the judge intends to hold mediation sessions today (Tuesday) between the two sides, the Hostess bosses and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (phew!), more commonly known as the Bakers Union. The judge wants to see if he can "Broker a new contract" according to the Wall Street Journal.

The company has been claiming that the strike by the members of the Bakers Union has crippled the firm to such an extent that it cannot recover and is unable to continue producing Twinkies and Ho- Hos. (Is there something wrong with me that I have never eaten foods with names like these?).  Hostess bosses claim that the company doesn't "Have the wherewithal to continue operations amid the work stoppage" the WSJ reports.  The judge, being the kindhearted person that he is stated that "My desire to do this is prompted primarily by the potential loss of 18,000 jobs".

That said, the Union leadership and their lawyers agreed to place the lives and living standards (not theirs though) of the dues paying members in the hands of a former lawyer turned judge. The proceedings will be confidential which will no doubt mean that the members of the Union won't know what is going on behind closed doors until the deal is presented to them.  The Hostess bosses are happy with that, "We need all the help we can get" said Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn and the Union's lawyer, Jeffrey Freund made it clear that the "union" was respectful of the judges decision.  Aren't we all such gentlemen here?

The interesting part of this is that the coupon clippers that own Hostess asked for permission form the bankruptcy court to impose a concessionary contract on the workers in October. The Union, for whatever reason refused to participate in that process and the court acceded to the company's request. The imposed five year contract included an 8% pay cut along with "pension modifications" which usually mean increased costs or reduced benefits for workers.

Not long after this, the Union called a strike and the workers' walked off the job.  As I commented earlier, the Teamsters accepted the concessionary deal.  The judge said that he was a little perplexed as to why the Union never fought the imposed concessions through the courts.  As someone who is not privy to all the details of these proceedings, it would seem that the Union made the right decision, relying on the power of the strike, of withdrawing labor as opposed to relying on the courts where money and the bosses' rule.  Perhaps the leadership of the bakers' Union thought the Teamsters would join them in a much stronger show of force, it's hard to say.  But my view is it is more likely that the leadership, like most of them simply had no clue what they were doing.

At very least, on would think the Union, in conjunction with strike action, would have used the courts as well as a secondary front of attack. It appears that we are at a point where the bosses have used the scare tactic, threatening to shut down operations and eliminate the jobs altogether, so the judge steps in to negotiate a concessionary contract that the Union officialdom can sell to their members. When the choice is no job or a paycheck that you can scrape by on, the choice is an obvious one.  In fact, this is often the choice that Union officials offer to their members, layoffs or wage and benefit reductions.  Then when their members choose the latter, the leadership can blame them for refusing to fight.

As this process unfolds, vulture capitalists are circling the dying carcass. Flower Foods, a Georgia corporation is "hoping to get iconic brands on the cheap" the Wall Street Journal reports. And private equity ( a coupon clippers club) firm Sun Capital is hoping that they can buy up the remnants of the dying firm at bargain basement prices and hopefully negotiate a concessionary deal with the Union leaders so the workers can keep their jobs at half the wages.

It all depends on whether the judge can "Get Hostess to tweak its labor contract proposal in a way the union can accept."

It is most likely the good judge can although not its not guaranteed.  The Hostess bosses, like all employers are feeling very confident.  They know that the Union officials understand their point of view and that a battle to make the bosses pay is not on the Union leaderships agenda. The workers once more remain passive observers as two sides, both hostile to their interests determine their futures.

But the situation in the US is so dire, the crisis so acute and the mood so volatile, we can never be quite sure when the bursting of the logjam may occur.

For more on this dispute see:
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-trade-union-leadership-has-no.html
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2012/11/afl-cios-answer-to-hostess-bosses-hope.html
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2012/11/hostess-and-union-leaders-agree-on.html

Hostess and the Union leaders agree on mediation

This is the follow up on the earlier bog.  It seems that the leadership of the Baker's Union and Hostess corp have agreed to mediation to settle their contract dispute, the Wall Street Journal reports.  This is "a move that should allow the company to avert liquidation" it says.

So we have the same old strategy from the employers and the same old answer from the Union. A mediator is not an independent arbitrator.  A mediator is on the employers' team.  So the "hope" that I referred to in the previous blog has materialized in the form of a mediator.  The employers' threatened to shut production down permanently, just like they do when they threaten and carry out the threat of moving production abroad, the Unions struck and the employers show willingness to talk and meet them at the table of negotiation for their concessionary platter. The Union officialdom has already made it clear there will be no talk of gains. More damage control is on order.

Meanwhile corporations hoards trillions in cash, wealthy individuals stash an estimated $26 to $32 trillion or more in offshore tax havens, US capitalism's war machine continues to run wild on borrowed money that we taxpayers will have to pay back with interest, and the heads of organized Labor still live a comfortable, conflict free life.

There's a bad moon rising.

The Trade Union leadership has no answer to Hostess

Once again, a local isolated to fight global capitalism alone

I got this below from Richard Trumka and the AFL-CIO.  It is the standard stuff. Of course he's right about the coupon clippers being vultures and all that, the same vultures that support Romney, support Obama, the same class that is. The may squabble about the details, the pace of the offensive, but they are united in their war against workers and the middle class.

Delphi, the auto parts maker also declared bankruptcy in order to renege on contractual obligations.  The two political parties, the courts, the media and the police are all used against workers in their offensive to take back 150 years of gains and have us compete with our brothers and sisters who are earning $3 a day in the factories of Vietnam.

The problem is that Trumka and the Labor hierarchy have no plan to stop it.  They support the Democratic Party whose politicians are savaging workers at home as well as waging predatory wars for these vultures abroad. 

The labor leadership has the same world view as the bosses.  Capitalism is the only system of production possible and the market is god.  They use terms that the coupon clippers do, "market share" and "crony capitalism".  Crony capitalism is a term the Wall Street Journal, the major mouthpiece of the coupon clippers' uses to describe nations, capitalist economies run by autocratic regimes that don't obey the rules. Healthy capitalism, organized theft, has rules to it.

So what Trumka is saying, is that capitalism is not at fault, "Crony Capitalism" is. But the shifting of production to cheaper, more profitable climes is exactly what capitalists do; that's their right.  Responding to global competition by destroying organized Labor and Unions built by the heroism and sacrifice of generations of American workers and using the state and the weapons in its arsenal to do so is simply the norm.

Trumka and the Labor Hierarchy also blame what is happening on "bad decisions".  "Poor management".  Anything but the system.  Anything but the market. Anything but the objective truth that Labor and Capital are two opposing sides; that capital is accumulated at the expense of Labor and in to fewer and fewer hands.  He talks about the worker's offering concessions but those nasty bosses simply want more. It's all about greed in the abstract, it's a totally apolitical view of the world.

Look at our history.  We have unions and living standards that were once the envy of the world because workers fought and died for them. (There is also the extreme exploitation of workers in the former colonial countries of course)  The problem with Trumka and the rest of Labor's officialdom is that concessions don't work.  Weakness breeds aggression as they say. Look at the horrific conditions workers in dictatorships and the third world suffer working for these same US "good" capitalists. It's not about individuals, good capitalists versus the crony ones, it's about the capitalist system itself.

Never having a national political party of our own has meant that so much of our progress has come through huge industrial struggles and battles in the streets, this and the crass, arrogant and brutal nature of the US capitalist class.  The present heads of organized Labor only have a position of concessions, of damage control.  They never have to work under the contracts they force on their members and the obscene salaries that many of them earn are also factors in their decisions but secondary to their view of the world.  They have no alternative, they do not believe that there is another way to organize the production of social needs; they are wed to the market, this is the cause of their failed approach.

The solution to the bosses' threatening to move production is to take it off them; but we need a party to do that.  In Hostess' case, the workers should occupy the factory and the local and national labor movement and our communities mobilized to support them and demand more jobs, more leisure time, more control, over production.; no to austerity and an end to their predatory wars.  The coupon clippers bleed these industries dry and have no absolute right to own the means of production or the right to destroy a community and generations of families that built it simply to increase their profits. This is a right we need to deny them.

The role of the Labor leadership has delayed the formation of a new movement, a direct action mass movement like the civil rights movement of the fifties that broke the back of the apartheid regime in the south and the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930's that forced the mighty GM to accept a Union. At some point this obstacle will be breached and there will be splits and fissures opening up within organized Labor, especially as movements outside of it have an effect on its internal life.  New leaders will arise, old ones will fall like rotten apples on a tree when the slightest breeze picks up.  Rank and file caucuses fighting to win, not die a slower death will arise in the workplaces and Union halls.

The pathetic whining from Labor's leadership for the bosses to be nicer, kinder, gentler capitalists will give way to an offensive that will take us back to our traditions that built our organizations in the first place. Meanwhile, Trumka and company will continue to ask us to send an e mail to this or that big business politician and that this will bring social change,  so in  the short term we will suffer more unnecessary hardships until the tide turns and it is beginning to do so.

Here's the AFL-CIO's fighting plan of action (Yawn)

Richard, Wall street vultures are blaming workers for getting rid of your sweets-and that's just not right.

You might have heard that Hostess Brands, the company that makes Twinkies, Ding Dongs and other desserts, filed for court permission to go out of business, and that it's blaming a worker strike for the shutdown.

The Wall Street hedge fund managers who run the company have squeezed every cent out of Hostess for eight years. And they've put their friends with no experience in the baking industry in high-level management positions.

Hostess workers believe in their company, and we need to stand with them-sign our pledge to support workers, not greedy CEOs who will cut and run for a quick buck. [ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=5109 ]

What's happening here is a classic Bain Capital-style assault-blame the little guy to cover the greedy corporate policies that are gutting the middle class.

It's not just happening to the workers who make the great products Americans love. What's happening at Hostess is happening to workers all over this country. It's wrong. And it has to stop.

Crony capitalism and poor management drove Hostess into the ground, not the workers who are now paying the price. In this struggling economy, the greedy corporate executives are willing to let 18,000 people lose their jobs-just so they can pad their pockets.

Hostess' executives are now blaming workers who've offered their company multiple concessions and want it to succeed. This is what's wrecking our country.

Workers have borne the brunt of bad decision-making by executives who didn't know anything about the baking business. And they're the ones getting fired?

These brave workers need to know we stand with them-and we'll stand with everyone who will take a stand against the corporate race-to-the-bottom.

UFCW Local 5 strikes Nob Hill and Raleys

by Richard Mellor

Northern California grocery workers, members of UFCW Local 5 working at  at Raley's and Nob Hill stores are on strike.  I have been on a couple of picket lines that last few days and it appears the Union leadership's strategy and tactics have not changed.  The picketers have been instructed not to impede scabs, either shoppers or scabbing co-workers.  The strikers must be polite and not engage or "harass"them I was told.

The workers are actually on strike in the sense that they are not at work but there is no real effort on the part of the Union leadership or the local Labor movement to shut down these operations. I am not familiar with all the details but from what I gathered talking to workers the issues are wages and benefits as usual.  The bosses are determined to lower wages further and eliminate benefits altogether over time.

Readers may remember the 2004 grocery workers strike down in Southern California. It was very successful in pretty much shutting down operations and the UFCW sent a lot of workers up north to man informational pickets calling for a boycott by shoppers up here. I was on those picket lines almost every day. I wold stop there for lunch at work and also after work. Some of us were also active in a solidarity group we formed to assist the rank and file in understanding what was going on and to try to help them counter the leadership's concessionary policies.  From the beginning the leadership's position was concessions.  This is the standard position of the entire leadership of organized Labor which has contributed to the drastic reduction in living standards and Union power in the workplace over the years.

In the 2004 strike as picketers up here urged shoppers to not go in, one shopper asked me who was stocking the shelves in there. "Aren't they in the same Union?" he asked me.  "They are, but a different local" I replied, and he says, "And you're asking me not to shop when their own brothers and sisters are working behind a picket line?"  I accepted he had a point, but he still should not cross. the UFCW here would not pull their members off the job as it would have been a contract violation and the Union hierarchy, gentlemen and women that they are would not violate an agreement with the employer.

That strike was eventually defeated although the Union heads often paint defeats as victories if they can end the dispute with slightly fewer concessions than the bosses' asked for.  But the present President of UFCW Local 5, Ron Lind was also in the forefront of that sellout.  In the heat of the dispute he announces in the press that the bosses were being too greedy, too damn unfair and aggressive, that unlike them, “We want to make changes with a scalpel, not a chain saw.”

Well that was reassuring------to the bosses of course.

The heads of organized Labor have only a defensive strategy, damage control is their position. They plead as Ron Lind did eight years ago for the bosses to just be a little nicer, a little less aggressive.  Union officials like Lind can afford to be patient.  The 2004 strike lasted five months during which officials still get to take home their $150,000 (and much more for some) paycheck. During strikes, all paid officials should be earning strike pay just like the folks on the line and no paid Union official should earn more than the average wage of the workers they represent.

One worker on the line told me today that the problem is that the boss isn't afraid of the Union and they "need to be a afraid of us."  He was right about that. The officialdom, as Lind did in 2004, let the boss know that concessions are OK, just the level of them is up for discussion. 

On the line today, as people walked past (the entrance is always kept free of picketers) some strikers would ask very nicely if the scab would consider shopping somewhere else as the company was trying to take away their benefits.

We got in to a discussion about the situation in the US.  One guy said it's not like the old days that people "don't care" any more. Another was arguing that most workers today don't like Unions at all. I explained that I had a different view.  When we ask people not to cross because the boss is taking away our benefits, many workers will say,"What benefits? I don't have any benefits."  This happened numerous times when I was on the lines in 2004.  Some young workers are working three jobs with one of them the benefit job.  A lot of workers feel, with some justification, that the Unions haven't been there for them and that they care only about their own members.  In the 2004 strike, and with most contract settlements, new hires get screwed as I mentioned in previous blog.  Not being hired yet they aren't able to vote on  a contract that will give them lower pay and worse benefits.

This causes a lot of hostility on the job and toward the Union on the part of those who were sacrificed and had no say in i; it weakens the Union. All of these things don't affect the officials though, they don't have to work under the conditions of the contracts they tell their members to accept and their wages and benefits aren't affected either.

The answer to winning over other workers and workers in the communities is not to confine our demands in any dispute simply to those issues that only affect the workers on strike.  To defeat this offensive of the corporations we have to build a wider movement and go on an offensive of our own. We demand what we and all workers need to live a decent and productive life, we reject what high paid officials and the bosses tell us is not realistic. If we listened to them we'd never have won anything including the right to a Union. If a worker considering crossing a picket line sees the power of organized Labor being brought to the table and thousands of workers out there fighting for jobs, health care, increased benefits etc. it will become a pole of attraction.  Power is what attracts, not the passive pleading approach of our leaders today.

I went to Local 5's website to see what sort of inspirational stuff was up there. What were the demands of the negotiators.  I wanted to see what the Union was fighting for. This is the closest I got on the front page:

"Collective bargaining, or negotiating a contract that covers all facets of work under which the local's members are employed, is not easy business. Particularly in the worst economy since the great depression, coming to agreement with employers who want to slash wages and benefits, can only succeed with the full participation of the membership. To that end the union has set up a dedicated email address (negotiations@ufcw5.org) where members can provide ideas and proposals for contract talks."

Not very inspiring. It would appear that it's business as usual trying to come to an agreement with the boss that wants to "slash wages and benefits".  Coming to an agreement on how much to slash can only be done with the participation of the membership, says the Union.  Even better, winning higher wages and more  benefits, a shorter workweek which would create more jobs for those young people that might cross our lines is also only possible with the participation of the membership, but not the participation that the present leaders of our union want, a passive acceptance of the status quo.  We must reject the idea that there is a bad economy, this is not so, there is money everywhere. When we want to participate to fight back, this participation is frowned upon and suppressed.

Many workers I have met on picket lines in the last few years are there for the first time as due to the refusal of our leadership to organize a fightback, strikes have declined drastically.  The officialdom call workers off the job without any real preparation for winning or serious involvement in the process on their part.

We are in a struggle on two fronts really; one is against the boss which every worker understands in our gut.  The other is against the concessionary policies of our present leadership from the highest levels on down. This is more difficult as anyone that stands against these policies will be labelled a trouble maker and divisive. Going on the offensive demanding jobs, increased benefits like vacations and sick leave and such and for increased wages and an end to two tier systems bringing all up to the higher tier not to mention pensions we can live on.  This is what will inspire our own members.  reaching out to our communities and the low waged linking up their struggles with ours in a generalized movement against the corporate offensive, this is what will win.

In the general strike in Oakland last year when 30,000 occupied 14th and Broadway and then shut down the docks for three shifts, the cops refused to interfere. They didn't interfere because the crowd was working people, women with children, the disabled, black, white, Asians Latinos, everyone. Thousands of workers and our families.  This is power, not indiscriminate individual vandalism and smashing windows. This is reactionary self indulgence and is not the method of the working class. This doesn't mean the cops won''t wade in, but it reduces the chances in the beginning anyway.

The present leadership of our Unions are wedded to the Team Concept, the view that the boss and workers are on the same team and that we have to help them compete against their rivals for profits and market dominance.  This is the the basis for their betrayals and concessionary policies. Their obscene salaries and perks are secondary features. They will not take the road that will lead to victories because it brings them in to conflict with the bosses and they have built a relationship with them based on the above policies and Labor peace.

We have to build opposition caucuses and groupings in our locals that openly campaign against these policies and offer us an alternative program and strategy, a direct action fight to win strategy that built our Unions int he first place. Building oppositions along these lines that can challenge the present leadership will be a pole of attraction to thousands of rank and file workers who have given up on our Unions and be the springboard to the communities, youth and all those suffering the consequences of the market and the policies of the 1%.

After the 2004 strike Ron Lind said: ”We could have gone for a bigger wage increase, but it would have had to come out of our health-care benefits plan…….” I'm sure not "his" health care plan. This reveals the limits of Ron Lind's thinking.  For him, and all the top leaders, what is the point of going after gains.  What we gain on the one hand we'll lose on the other is his excuse for giving away hard won gains.  We'd have to rob peter to pay Paul. The idea that our gains should come from the bosses pocket doesn't enter in to it. How can it? The boss is a team member.

The boss of what was then Albertsons made his position on the 2004 strike very clear to his buddies at the top.

"[The strike] was very costly, but [the settlement] was one of the best investments our company ever made" Business Week 1-4-05.

They know what they're doing.

Note: If you are a grocery worker, trade Union member or worker that wants to influence the direction we are headed in or change your union, contact us at: we_know_whats_up@yahoo.com

More here

Capitalism's legacy of misery and insecurity. An inefficient system

by Richard Mellor

Back in 1986 when a group of coupon clippers, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, bought Safeway stores in a leveraged buyout, the New York Times wrote of these deals being all the fashion but untested as they were based on debt. At that time, KKR as the leveraged buyout firm was called, came under fire for eliminating jobs in the process.  The Union leadership vilified Safeway for selling stores to non-Union owners as it reduced its operations from 2,326 stores to 1161. 

The sale of Safeway's Dallas division stores to nonunion operators put the company in a spotlight it wanted to avoid. In a speech, the Rev. Jesse Jackson blasted the chain for eliminating 9,000 jobs.  The company realized it would be better to make some sort of deal, the deals the Union officialdom are so eager to make.  Safeway agreed to sell the remaining  stores to Union operators in return for pay cuts so they could compete with non-Union (sound familiar). The Union hierarchy is very easy to please.

This disastrous tactic of the UFCW leadership and the entire leadership of organized Labor designed to maintain dues revenue, has brought us to the point where grocery workers with 41 years of service here in California can earn the dizzying sum of $21 an hour.  New hires receive less pay and worse benefits than their co-workers creating all sorts of hostility and division within the workforce. What this collaboration with the bosses has meant for all workers is a declining standard of living and Union power in the workplace and society as a whole.

The bosses were quite pleased of course as it is profits that that matter to them,  ''The fact that Safeway is healthier is due in large part to the cooperation the unions have shown us,'' said Peter Magowan, Safeway CEO at the time.

George Roberts, a KKR partner had this to say:
''We gave them the courage and the discipline to do what needed to be done. ''When you clear away the brush, you release the growth potential of the remaining trees, that's really what happened at Safeway.'' Sounds like a scene from Being There, the Peter Sellers' last movie.

William J. Olwell, a UFCW official and director of collective bargaining added:  ''It's kind of like contracting a dread disease for which the cure is very, very painful, and you're never the same afterward, but you survive''.

Yes, we survive "brother" Olwell.  Or some of us do.  Susan Faludi wrote an excellent piece about the Safeway calamity pointing out that a few years later, KKR "...sold 10% of the company (but none of their own shares) back to the public---at a price that values their own collective stake at more than $800 million more than four times their cash investment."

Not bad, not bad at all.  But what was the consequence of this for workers?  Faludi shares some details: "Employees......have considerable less reasons to celebrate....63,000 managers and workers were cut loose from Safeway through store sales or layoffs." It's true that some were hired back by the new owners of sold stores but as she points out, "...at lower wages...".  The rest were unemployed or forced in to part time work. When you add on the stress this causes to our families and our communities, the illness, depression, domestic violence, it is economic terrorism---it is class war.

Faludi shares one of the more extreme tragedies of this class war, a story about James White, "..a Safeway trucker for nearly 30 years in Dallas."  White was still unemployed a year after the deal and "..marked the one year anniversary of his last shift at Safeway this way: First he told his wife he loved her, then he locked the bathroom door, loaded his 22-caliber hunting rifle and blew his brains out."  "Safeway was James's whole life" said his widow. * 

That's the market at work, it makes a man out of you. Makes you strong. And it's worth it isn't it? At least it is for the coupon clippers. From its start in 1976 through September 2004, KKR's profits stand at about  $34.7 billion according to CNN Money. June 2005.

Firms like KKR, Goldman Sachs, Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway or Romney's Bain Capital are composed of parasitic gangs that suck the life blood from society.  The production of human needs is the basis for life, without production, life cannot exist.  The capitalist mode of production where production occurs not for need, not for the creation of use values, but for profit, is the most brutal and the most destructive.  It destroys us as human beings and is on its way to destroying the planet making it uninhabitable along the way. It's progressive historic phase has passed. It can no longer take human society forward.

KKR along with Goldman Sachs and other bloodsuckers have their slimy little paws in all sorts of deals today.  They bought the Texas utility TXU five years ago and we can see how destructive and inefficient these activities are for humanity.  TXU produces an important social product, electricity.  The coupon clippers paid $43.2 billion for it, money borrowed from investors.  The deal is not making money for the investors as of yet due to what Business Week calls "the company's troubles".
But these private equity guys are raking it in.

For constructing the deal with this utility that should not be privately owned or managed,  the coupon clippers paid themselves $528 million in fees. Meanwhile, TXU has changed its name to Energy Future Holdings and is still massively in debt. "The company is technically insolvent" says Bloomberg with $52 billion in liabilities and $44 billion in assets.  Another group of social parasites, derivatives traders are betting that the company holding the debt will default within five years. No worries, taxpayers can always step to the plate on these matters.

Payments to the buyout firms so far include $300 million for their advice, yearly management fees of $171 million and $57 million for "consulting on debt deals".

This is an entity that produces energy for use in society.  "This is a utility, and its product is electricity that it sells to the public, but its really a debt house", says Tom Sanzillo the director for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

This sort of activity is not production, it is gambling, it is crude exploitation of Labor and of the natural world.  It is criminal.

As workers, we are taught from birth that the owners of capital, the private sector are the creators of jobs.  That they take the risks.  But as I have repeatedly pointed out, most of society's important developments have come from public, not private funds and institutions.

We are not taught to think of capital, of money in the bank as our product.  But it is.  The capital that is used to employ Labor power and put it to use has its origin in past Labor power, the life activity of previous workers.  Sure, I can go mortgage my home which I partially own in conjunction with the bankers and if I have a job that pays anything decent borrow $50,000 and open a coffee shop and work for myself and maybe purchase the Labor power of a worker or two for $7.50 an hour. If it doesn't work out I can be homeless maybe or become a wage worker myself if I'm lucky. It's not likely I'll end up like Bill Gates.

But this capital is a collective product just like the billions that are borrowed to buy major corporations like Safeway that distributes food and other household products or utilities like TXU that provide us with a necessity like electricity. 

We must transform our thinking about this stuff called capital which consists of the surplus value created by human Labor power over time. It is ours, not "the banks" or bankers or hedge fund managers and other coupon clippers to allocate and use for further production. Contrary to all the propaganda, capitalism is an inefficient and wasteful system.  In the most successful and powerful capitalist economy in history it has never been able to provide the basic necessities for all and globally it has been a disaster. It has had its day as they say.

We are conditioned by their media, their schools, and their pulpits to think that workers can't govern society; that the capitalist mode of production, that they admit is flawed, is the end of civilization, the apex of human life and that there is no alternative.  That's what the feudal aristocracy said about their system and their rule. We are collective creatures and gregarious by nature, it is what helped us survive generations, long before the capitalist mode of production dominated. A democratic socialist society is not utopian, it is possible but more than that, it is a necessity if we want our children to live on a planet that can sustain productive human life in harmony with the natural world.

Society needs new managers.

Here are Some prominent coupon clippers of  various types.

Net worth:
Henry Kravis KKR : $4 billion           Leveraged buy outs
George Roberts KKR: $3.7 billion      Leveraged buy outs
Warren Buffet   $47 billion
Ronald Pearlman $12 billion   Leveraged buy outs
Carl Icahn    $14.8 billion Leveraged buy outs
John Paulson: $11 billion     Hedge fund manager
Koch Brothers $62 billion     diversified swindlers
Walton Family (Wal Mart) $105 billion   Idlers.
Source Forbes

* The Reckoning: Safeway LBO Yields Vast Profits but Exacts A Heavy Human Toll WSJ 5-16-1990 PDF

SACP's Nzimande defends cops at Rustenburg Rally

The South African Communist Party (SACP) continues it's treacherous role in the strike wave that has hit South Africa and the shooting of workers out on strike at the Marikana mine. This report from Eyewitness News reveals the blatant collaboration between the state forces and the SACP.  This rally, an effort to intimidate the wildcats and independent workers' committees that have arisen and reclaim some lost prestige was not well attended at all.

                          *********

RUSTENBURG - South African Communist Party (SACP) secretary-general Blade Nzimande on Saturday said police had no choice but to fire at striking miners who earlier attempted to disrupt a rally by members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

Speaking to a crowd of about 600 people at the Olympia Stadium in Rustenburg, Nzimande said members of the trade union federation would have been attacked, if the police did not intervene.

He called on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to expel those who took part in today’s protest.The secretary-general said he was at the stadium when police took action to disperse striking Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) miners, using rubber bullets, water cannons, teargas and stun grenades.
“That was an extreme act of provocation that I saw today, and it was correct of police to actually disperse those people because they [wanted] to charge [at] us.”

Ten people were arrested, following the brief unrest.

The commotion started when police stormed into the Olympia Stadium to disperse miners who had gathered there since the morning.

A fight then broke out between a miner and a marching Cosatu member, to which police retaliated by firing rubber bullets - causing the miners to flee to a residential area nearby.
Cosatu members had planned to hold their rally at the stadium.

It was hoped the rally would help resolve tensions between Cosatu leaders and members, following recent tensions and claims that unions under Cosatu had neglected the needs of their members.
Amplats workers have been on illegal strike since 12 September, demanding a basic salary of at least R16 000 per month.

They embarked on a strike shortly after their counterparts at Lonmin Mine, in Marikana, ended a violent wage dispute with management.

Progressive Youth Movement on the COSATU Rally

PROGRESSIVE YOUTH MOVEMENT

Khayelitsha Training Centre, Corner Spine and Lwandle Road, Khayelitsha, Cape Town

Tel: 076 731 6157/ 083 886 1831, Fax: 021 447 5770

An affiliate of the Democratic Left Front (http://www.democraticleft.za.net)

25 October 2012

PRESS STATEMENT: A RESPONSE TO THE NUM’S PROBLEMATIC POSITIONS ON MINEWORKER STRIKES AND RESPONSE TO COMING WEEKEND’S COSATU RALLY IN RUSTENBURG

We, as the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM: a social movement which organises unemployed young people in the Khayelitsha township in Cape Town), express our full solidarity with all the mineworkers who heroically fought for a living wage against the bosses, the ANC’s capitalist state and the sellout positions of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Their struggle for a living wage is the same as our struggle for a living income for the unemployed and our campaigns for decent service delivery that meets the needs of the people. Mineworkers in South Africa are undermined by unaccountable trade union leadership, self-enrichment of union leaders, union collaboration with the bosses, and enslavement of worker issues to the priorities of the ANC-SACP-COSATU alliance. As the PYM, we have no choice but to critically engage COSATU in defence of fighting mineworkers and to stand for a revolutionary solution. We declare our class solidarity with our class brothers who work in the mines whose ongoing dismissals add to the numbers of the unemployed. Why is COSATU not taking its side unwaveringly on the side of the fighting mineworkers?

When workers are not satisfied with their union that means a split is inevitable. If labour bureaucrats sellout workers and work with the bosses, workers will find an alternative either progressive or regressive. This happened with the NUM. NUM failures and sellouts caused the formation of Association of Mineworkers Construction Union (AMCU). Instead of properly representing workers, the NUM was concerned in its shares in Unibank which it co-owns with mining companies and its other capitalist investments through the Mineworkers Investment Company. As a result, NUM lost members in the mines especially in Rustenburg. Last week, Zwelinzima Vavi’s convoy was regrettably stoned at Amplats. Vavi thought that he could soften the angry workers whom were with NUM, whom they feel that NUM betrayed them, and he wanted to revive NUM in the area. Unfortunately, things did not go well for him.

Now COSATU has plans to host a rally in Rustenburg this weekend at which they want to convince the workers that NUM is the only union that can protect the interests of workers in the mines. Yet this NUM has failed the workers. There are also extremely worrying allegations about how some NUM members may have been involved in the violence against striking mineworkers in Rustenburg. Given these NUM failures, on which basis can COSATU convince workers to sell themselves out again? COSATU’s rally will also bring the ANC and SACP to put pressure on local Rustenburg communities to continue believing the lie that the ANC is the party that serves the interests of poor communities. Precisely because Mangaung is around the corner and 2014 elections is also knocking at the door.

Doing the dirty work of the ANC, COSATU will follow the logic that if you not in the alliance, you are a counterrevolutionary. Whereas, we, the PYM know that the most real counter-revolutionaries are those in the ANC and its alliance partners who sold out workers and have become capitalists. In these 18 years of so-called ‘democracy’, they have created millionaires and billionaires while we have a jobs crisis, an education crisis, a housing crisis and many other problems. Yet every five they want our votes. Through union investment companies, COSATU unions have shares in various companies: they are benefiting from narrow Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), whilst the majority of black people are poor. 

We as the PYM are not convinced that this rally is about advancing worker interests because state brutality is still the order of the day in Marikana where decisive community and worker leaders and other comrades are arrested daily. The comrades that are supposed to give testimony to the Farlam Commission of Inquiry are arrested while the commission is proceeding. We remain to be convinced that this rally will serve any other purpose other than the political rhetoric of the ANC. COSATU must stop doing this. When workers start to realise that the ANC has failed, the NUM spokes person stand on the side of bosses and do not support illegal strikes. The PYM is very clear that the ANC is representing capitalism. The attack on workers in Marikana was approved by the ANC government at the service of mine bosses. How can COSATU stand in solidarity with that? When are they going to draw the class line?

The less said about the disastrous, Stalinist, anti-worker, pro-capitalist and compromised NUM leadership and spokespersons the better. Instead of representing workers, they pointed fingers to others: attacking workers, attacking the left which acted in solidarity with the workers, and they found counter-revolutionaries under every bed. As long as we do not have independent strong leadership of trade unions in South Africa, the problems of workers will never be resolved.

As the PYM, we also condemn NUM's press statement attacking the Democratic Left Front (DLF). We say the DLF must move forward to build a mass left and working class alternative for South Africa. The PYM calls on all movements of the unemployed to unite against capitalism through a campaign against unemployment, for the right to work to be guaranteed and for a living income for the unemployed. It is very clear now that the ANC government will never change anything, and that its partner organisations are collaborating with this agenda against those who want to build an alternative in South Africa. We


FOR COMMENTS, CONTACT PYM SPOKESPERSONS:

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