Fire horror kills workers in Bangladesh. Big corporations are murderers.

A few days ago we published an article on the 112 workers burnt to death in the garment factory in Bangladesh. More information has come out on this. It shows two things. One is that capitalism is a murderous system, or as we say it is much worse than we imagine. And the other is that the US and world corporations base themselves on this murderous system.

When the fire started the sirens went off.  The women workers ran to get out. But two managers blocked the way and told them it was only a test. Then the smoke began to rise and the women were trapped. The two managers had disappeared.

The murderous outfit in which these women were burnt to death is called Tazreen Fashions. Women work, or rather worked, at extremely high speed with all the consequent damage to their joints and bodies and minds. They were expected to stitch a hood to a jacket in 90 seconds, and do this every 90 seconds.

Who was collaborating with this murderous outfit? Some of the world's top outfitters. On the third floor where 69 bodies were found burnt to death jackets were being sewed for C and A, a European chain. On the fifth floor where workers were making Faded Glory shorts for Walmart ten bodies were found. On the sixth floor True Desire nighties were being made for Sears. Inside one office a licensee of the United States Marine Corps who made commercial apparel with the Marines logo was found.

One worker, a Mr. Rahman, rushed from his workplace and into the fire and helped save many workers. To do so he had to fight his way past a manager. The factory spent money on these thug managers. But it did not have fire sprinklers nor an outdoor fire escape.

These are some of the horrors of capitalism and the relatively cheap clothes they sell in the advanced capitalist countries and the huge profits that are made. Capitalism is a mad profit addicted system, frothing at the mouth with this addiction.

There is a huge change taking place in the workforce of the world. Half the factory workers in the world today are women. Most of these women workers are in the poor countries such as Bangladesh. The leaders of the labor movement in advanced capitalist countries such as the US are a disgrace. Not only will they not defend their own members, but they will not go out and organize the new workforces that are developing like these women workers in Bangladesh. So they are left to be burnt to death.

These trade union and labor leaders have to be removed. Their capitalist ideas have to be removed. Fighting international opposition movements must be built in the workplaces and union rank and files, in the communities, schools and colleges. These must link together to build a democratic socialist world.  Capitalism collaborates internationally on an economic, political and military basis. The working class must do the same. We have to mourn our sisters in Bangladesh. But we also have to organize internationally in their memory to end capitalism the murderous system which murdered them.

Sean.

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.

South African farmworkers resume strikes

Below is a report on the farmworkers strikes in South Africa from Lauren Paremoer of the "New Women's Movement Branch" As she explains, the strike which was put on hold pending a government investigation has continued.  Readers can contact them at ritaedwards.nwmbranch@gmail.com.

In August this year farm workers rose up in Cape Town, South Africa. Their call: R150 per day. Currently farm workers are earning between R60-R70 per day. However, there have been reports of workers, especially women, who earn less than this. Farm workers are the most marginalised workers in our economy, with very little unionisation.

Wine is one of South Africa’s biggest exports. According to the statistics released by the South African Wine Industry, wine producers earned a total income of over R3 619 million in 2011.[1]

The strike initially started in Du Doorns in the Hex River Valley in November and spread to at the very least 15 farming districts. Organisations working on farms have united under the banner the Coalition for Farm Workers Living Wage and Decent Living Conditions.

In late November, the strike was suspended to give government time to properly address the issue of decent living wages. In this case it is the South African government that sets the minimum wage and not farmers.

After being assured by the Minister of Agriculture – Tina Joemat Petterson that government would increase wages by 4 December, labour minister Mildred Olifant reneged, stating that wages can only be adjusted only in March 2013.

Strike action resumed on 4 December with mass action in every affected town. It was here that two prominent activists – Mercia Andrews and Denia Jansen – were arrested and held overnight in jail with two more people. 18 others in the Citrusdal area were also arrested and later released.

During this time the Western Cape general secretary of Cosatu, Tony Ehrenreich declared an end to the strike, saying that negotiations would be done on a farm to farm basis in an agreement with Agri-SA. Cosatu’s position is that the strike will resume on 9 Januay 2012, if negotiations failto deliver on a satisfactory solution. Despite the union’s statement and continued intimidation at the hands of the SAPS and private security companies hired by farmers, the Coalition for Farm Workers insist that the strike will continue until the workers themselves decide to call it off.

Lauren Paremoer 
Rita Edwards Branch - New Women's Movement
ritaedwards.nwmbranch@gmail.com

Fast-Food Workers Walk Off the Job

McDonald's protest, Auckland NZ

We are sharing this piece from the NYT with our readers given the importance of this walk off of fast food workers.  This is occurring as Walmart workers also take steps toward confronting their bosses which in this industry can have unpleasant consequences.  it shows how in the light of the recent crisis, workers are being forced in to action. The economic crisis is savaging the poor and low waged. (this image did not come with the original article)


NYT
November 28, 2012
In Drive to Unionize, Fast-Food Workers Walk Off the Job

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Fast-food workers at several restaurants in New York walked off the job on Thursday, firing the first salvo in what workplace experts say is the biggest effort to unionize fast-food workers ever undertaken in the United States. The effort — backed by community and civil rights groups, religious leaders and a labor union — has engaged 40 full-time organizers in recent months to enlist workers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Taco Bell and other fast-food restaurants across the city.

Leaders of the effort said that workers were walking off the job to protest what they said were low wages and retaliation against several workers who have backed the unionization campaign. They said it would be the first multi-restaurant strike by fast-food workers in American history, although it was unclear how many workers would walk off the job.

 The first walkout took place at 6:30 a.m. at a McDonald’s at Madison Avenue and 40th Street, where several dozen striking workers and supporters chanted: “Hey, hey, what do you say? We demand fair pay.” An organizer of the unionizing campaign said that 14 of the 17 employees scheduled to work the morning shift had gone on strike.

Raymond Lopez, 21, an aspiring actor who has worked at the McDonald’s for more than two years, showed up on his day off to protest. “In this job having a union would really be a dream come true,” said Mr. Lopez, who added that he makes $8.75 an hour. He said that he, and fellow fast-food workers, were under-compensated. “We don’t get paid for what we do,” he said. “It really is living in poverty.”

Over the decades there have been occasional efforts to unionize a fast-food restaurant here or there, but labor experts say there has never before been an effort to unionize dozens of such restaurants. The new campaign aims in part to raise low-end wages and reduce income inequality, and is also an uphill battle to win union recognition.

Ruth Milkman, a sociology professor at the City University of New York, said there had been so few efforts to unionize fast-food workers because it was such a daunting challenge.

“These jobs have extremely high turnover, so by the time you get around to organizing folks, they’re not on the job anymore,” she said. Nonetheless, she said the new effort might gain traction because it is taking place in New York, a city with deep union roots where many workers are sympathetic to unions.

Christine C. Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council who has struggled with various measures intended to improve wages and working conditions in the city, expressed support for fast-food workers.

"I support fast food restaurant workers’ rights to organize and fight for decent wages,’' Ms. Quinn wrote in a Twitter message on Thursday morning.

Jonathan Westin, organizing director at New York Communities for Change, a community group that is playing a central role in the effort, said hundreds of workers had already voiced support for the campaign, called Fast Food Forward.

“The fast-food industry employs tens of thousands of workers in New York and pays them poverty wages,” Mr. Westin said. “A lot of them can’t afford to get by. A lot have to rely on public assistance, and taxpayers are often footing the bill because these companies are not paying a living wage.”

Mr. Westin said the campaign was using techniques that differed from those in most unionization drives, and was still developing overall strategy. He declined to say whether it would pursue unionization through elections or by getting workers to sign a majority of cards backing a union.

McDonald’s issued a statement about the incipient unionization push. “McDonald’s values our employees and has consistently remained committed to them, so in turn they can provide quality service to our customers,” the company said.

It added that the company had an “an open dialogue with our employees” and always encouraged them to express any concerns “so we can continue to be an even better employer.” McDonald’s noted that most of its restaurants were owned and operated by franchisees “who offer pay and benefits competitive within the” industry.

But workers demonstrating outside the McDonald’s on Madison Avenue said their employer paid them wages that made it difficult to pay for basics.

“We can’t pay rent, pay bills,’' said Hector Henningham, 40, a manager, who said he had worked for McDonald’s for eight years and made $8 an hour. “We need change.’'

One customer drinking coffee inside the McDonald’s said she supported the organizing effort. “If anybody deserves to unionize, it’s fast food workers,” said the customer, Jocelyn Horner, 35, a graduate student.

Even with a union, it might be hard to obtain wages of $15 an hour, and many employers say they would most likely employ fewer workers if they had to pay that much.

Mr. Westin’s group, New York Communities for Change, has played a major role in the recent uptick in unionizing low-wage workers in New York, many of whom are immigrants. In the past year, his group, working closely with the retail, wholesale and department store union and other organizations, has helped win unionization votes at four carwashes and six supermarkets in New York.

The sponsors of the fast-food campaign also include UnitedNY.org, the Black Institute and the Service Employees International Union, a powerful union that is playing a quiet but important role behind the scenes.

Several religious leaders are backing the effort. “I’ve become involved because it is primarily a matter of justice,” said the Rev. Michael Walrond of the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem. “We seek to protect those who are the most vulnerable in our culture, and some of the most vulnerable people in the city are fast-food workers who work for poverty wages.”

According to the State Labor Department, median pay for fast-food workers in the city is around $9 an hour — or about $18,500 a year for a full-time worker.

After three years of working at a McDonald’s restaurant on 51st Street and Broadway, Alterique Hall earns $8 an hour — and is yearning for something better.

So when he heard about the unionization campaign, Mr. Hall, 23, was quick to sign on.

“It’s time for a change,” he said, “It’s time to put on the gloves.”

Linda Archer, a cashier at the McDonald’s on 42nd Street just west of Times Square, said she wished she earned that much. She earns $8 an hour after three years there and averages 24 hours a week, she said, meaning her pay totals about $10,000 a year.

“I feel I deserve $15 an hour,” said Ms. Archer, 59. “I work very hard.” She said she hoped a union would deliver affordable health insurance and paid sick days.

“My hope is we can all come together in a union without being intimidated,” she said.

TCB Management, the franchisee that operates Mr. Hall’s McDonald’s, and Lewis Foods, which runs Ms. Archer’s, did not respond to inquiries.

Tim McIntyre, a Domino’s Pizza spokesman, said the few efforts to unionize its stores and drivers had fallen flat.

“It’s a fairly high-turnover position, so there’s never been a successful union effort,” he said. “People who are doing this part time, seasonally or as they work their way through college don’t find much interest in membership.”

Richard W. Hurd, a labor relations professor at Cornell, said the organizations backing the fast-food campaign seemed intent on finding pressure points to push the restaurants to improve wages and benefits.

“But it’s going to be a lot harder for them to win union recognition,” he said. “It will be harder to unionize them than carwash workers because the parent companies will fight hard against it, because they worry if you unionize fast-food outlets in New York, that’s going to have a lot of ramifications elsewhere.”

Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

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

AFL-CIO's answer to Hostess Bosses? Hope.

By Richard Mellor

"While Hostess Brands is trying to scapegoat the workers and members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM), the real cause of the company's collapse can be traced back to its crony capitalism and consistently poor management. " AFL-CIO on Hostess dispute.

Taking an example from Barack Obama's playbook, Frank Hurt, the president of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union says that he is in a "position to be hopeful" in the wake of the Hostess Brand's attempts today to have a judge accept the company's bankruptcy plans to close 36 plants and layoff 18,000 workers.

It seems that what Mr. Hurt and the entire trade union leadership are being hopeful about is that some good capitalists will step in and buy the business; rescue workers from the "crony capitalists" that have ruined it .  The Wall Street Journal opened it's piece on the dispute today, "The Union that brought the 85 year old baker of Twinkies and Wonderbread to its knees....", this is the dominant voice of capital in the US, this is their opening salvo in a report about these events.  The capitalists know their "line of march".

Hurt is hopeful, that there is "more than a good chance"  that some of these good capitalists will "swoop in to buy the profitable parts of the company and give his members their jobs back" the WSJ adds.  It seems the hopeful Union official has misunderstood the work arrangement.  If these jobs were the workers' jobs, "his members" jobs, they would still be in them.  His members own the ability to work, their life activity, that the owners of capital simply bought and used over a period of time just like they would buy a chair or a vehicle.  The right to work does not exist in capitalist society. They do this because in the process of producing commodities with this life activity (what we call work) the owners of capital extract more value than they lay out in the process.  This is where profit comes from once they sell the finished product.  When better opportunities arise, the owner of capital, in a capitalist society has every right to employ their capital somewhere else. This is what they mean by freedom.

So the good Union leader can "hope" all he likes, the process will be played out.  We did not "hope" Unions in to existence unfortunately, our lives would have been a little easier but history a lot more boring.  As the good Union leader hopes Donald Trump might come along and out of the goodness of his heart purchase the use of his members life activity again, the bosses make their position clear.
"Nobody wants to have anything to do with these old plants or these union or these contracts", says Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn, referring to the good and the "crony" capitalists. Rayburn explains that there was some interest from a group of coupon clippers that own Pabst Blue Ribbon but their interest was based on a nice bankruptcy and that a "..liquidated Hostess would be free of its collective bargaining agreements."  Investors buying the company certainly wouldn't do so if it meant hiring back the workers who had struck. It's, "..beyond wishful thinking" says the CEO who earns some $2 million a year. They know the class lines and make sure they are on the right side of them. Their politicians, the courts, the police, the military ( a somewhat more risky element) are all used ion the battle to eliminate the workers' organizations.

Ken Hall of the Teamsters, whose union accepted the company's concessions, has no answer to the bosses either.  He supported the concessions although he will not have to work under the contract he tells his members is inevitable. Hall's three salaries totaled more than $250,000 in 2008 according to the TDU.  He doubts the bakers' Union leadership's view that someone will come in and buy the company, "Our view is that this is going to be a fire sale.", he tells the WSJ. He is right as the comments from the coupon clippers show.  As I stated in an earlier piece on the Unions, the bosses are not afraid of the Ken Hall's of this world.  Every leading labor official in the country has made it clear openly and emphatically that there will be no resistance to the bosses' efforts to drive US workers down to the levels of our brothers and sisters in India or Vietnam.  The coupon clippers are very confident after years of cooperation from the heads of organized Labor, even cooperating with them in the firing of uncooperative local leaders as the UAW leadership did in the dispute between one of their locals and the Freightliner corp in Cleveland NC.

We do not have to look far to see an alternative to the "hope" tactic.  Every dispute at the point of production must be generalized and linked to the struggles in our communities against foreclosures, or home robbery as it should be called.  Against the lack of health care, the cuts in education the crisis of youth unemployment and the growth of the prison industrial complex.  The war against public sector workers and the services we provide is the same struggle. The public sector, the most unionized sector, is being blamed for the economic crisis just like the coupon clippers at Hostess are being blamed  by the Wall Street Journal.  Factories like Hostess should be occupied and appeals be made to all workers and our communties nationally to come to the aid of these workers.

The idea that we can rely on the so called "good capitalists" or their politicians to rescue us is a proven failure.  Every freedom we have, every benefit and progressive social legislation, every right we have, has been won through the struggle of organized workers against organized capital. We can only rely on our own strength and only have to look at our history and our best traditions to see what works.  Workplace occupations, mass direct action and through that, independent political action is the road we must take.  Being prepared to violate their laws, challenge their authority through mass direct action was what broke the back of Jim Crow, General Motors and the Industrial capitalists who murdered workers with impunity in their rapacious quest for profits.

We reject that we have to compete with other workers domestically or overseas.  Workers throughout the world are fighting for their lives and futures against the very same forces that are destroying our lives here in the US; we must unite with global workers' against global capital.  If we look closely we will see that the workers who were shot in South Africa for striking the mines there, were shot by forces under direction of the very same forces that are savaging workers here.  Our first step is to reject austerity and backward motion.  But we have to recognize that we have to go further.  The wealth in society is our collective product.  How it is used in future production should be determined by those who collectively created it. If we decide we stop producing Twinkies and apply capital in a different way then we do so for the collective benefit of society.   But no one loses the right to work.
We have to control how we produce life which means we have to take it from the hands of the clique that presently owns the capital which is an essential part of the production process.  But it is only that portion of it spent on human Labor power that adds value and creates the wealth that the coupon clippers amass which makes it our distinct product.

History changes. How we produce the necessities of life changes. The only thing constant is change said Marx.  Every ruling class teachers that the system of production they govern is the only system of production and will last for all time.  Human history proves this false. Workers don't control the production of ideas in society that are taught in their schools, and especially universities, and we don't own, manage and control the means of producing the needs of society either------but we can and it's time we did.  The future of humanity is dependent on it.

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.

Support South African Farmworkers' strike: DLF press release

Democratic Left Front: press statement, 15/11/2012

SUPPORT THE FARMWORKERS STRIKE!
FOR A NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE OF R150 A DAY!
          
            With the support of the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers' Union (CSAAWU) and of Mawibuye, the Democratic Left Front rejects the declaration by COSATU yesterday of a suspension of the farmworkers' strike for two weeks, but continues to support the call for a one-day general strike in two weeks time. It is clearly evident that the farmworkers have rejected the call to suspend the strike and the call reflected inadequate consultation with the strike committees. Moreover the police have now shot and killed at least one person -- Michael Daniels, a 28 year old farm worker – and possibly three in Wolseley. This continued brutality by the police is intolerable, and only reinforces the determination of the farmworkers to prolong the strike, and to win their demand of R150 a day minimum wage and improved living and working conditions. We call on COSATU, to avoid spreading confusion, to withdraw its declaration that the strike is suspended for two weeks.

            Farm workers do backbreaking work to produce food and drink for everybody in this country and many overseas, yet they are forced to work under unsafe and unhealthy conditions, to drink dirty water, live without electricity, live with poor toilet facilities, on poverty wages, suffering threats of evictions, and violent physical and verbal abuse and intimidation at the hands of the bosses. Workers in De Doorns earn R69 a day, of which, scandalously, R30 is deducted by their bosses for electricity, etc.

            CSAAWU’s joint Speak-Out Campaign, with Mawubuye, TCOE and the DLF, aims to bring an end to the oppression and exploitation of farm workers and farm dwellers by coming together to build solidarity, strength and hope amongst the rural working class. Workers have been intimidated and threatened when they try to build organization and when they speak out against abuses. Workers are dismissed, evicted, denied electricity and water and verbally and physically abused when they want to be together. Five worker leaders have been victimized by suspension on Leeuwenkuil farm in Agter-Paarl for this.

            Now farm workers have had enough! They have said they cannot accept being treated as little more than animals, being used to enrich a small elite of farmers who live in luxury, feeding off the continued exploitation and impoverishment of the workers and the rural communities in which they live. They can no longer accept being largely ignored by the very government that is supposed to ensure all workers receive a living wage and are treated with respect and dignity. Workers have no trust in an industrial relations system which had failed them thus far, merely keeping them in continued wage slavery. Enough is enough!

            The strike, which began in De Doorns, has spread to Paarl, Riebeeck West, Malmesbury, Moorreesberg, Ceres, Prince Alfred Hamlet, Saron and Citrusdal to the west and north and to Worcester, Robertson, Ashton and Bonnievale to the east and south. The demands may vary from area to area, but a general demand is for a minimum wage of R150 a day and improved living and working conditions. Workers are showing that it is only by their own efforts and self-organisation that reforms can be won and society transformed.

            On 13 November CSSAWU, in a coalition with the De Doorns Workers Committee, COSATU, Sikhula Sonke Trade Union, the Black Agricultural, Wine and Spirits Initiative (BAWSI), the Black Agricultural workers Union of South Africa, Mawubuye Land Rights Forum, Women on Farms Project, Trust for Community Outreach and Education, Surplus People’s Project and Food Sovereignty Campaign, met with the Minister of Agriculture, Ms Tina Joemat-Petersen. We explained that the workers wanted not less than R150 a day. This was in response to Ms Joemat-Petersen's speech to farmworkers in De Doorns when she supported the farmers paltry offer of R80 -- which was an insult to the dignity of workers and their families swimming in a sea of poverty.

            In more than 18 years, the ANC in government, either nationally or provincially, has done little or nothing to alleviate poverty among farmworkers in the Western Cape. The DA is no better. It has supported the farmers. Now Zille is asking Zuma to call the army in! The workers were right to refuse her a hearing. A few days ago provincial ANC chair Marius Fransman spoke to the farmworkers -- rather than dealing with the issues he launched a political attack on DA leader Helen Zille for going to Nkandla. Playing politics again instead of attending to peoples needs. And covering up for the exorbitant spending of R248 million of public money on the personal residence of President Zuma.

            CSAAWU has called for a R4500 a month minimum wage for farmworkers. We now demand, as a start, that the government increase the minimum wage on the farms to R150 a day. We reject the farmers' position that negotiations should take place farm by farm. This is an attempt to divide and isolate workers who have come together. The coalition told the minister we would refuse to negotiate any more on behalf of the workers until this was done. The workers will continue to press for this demand. De Doorns workers, who have already struck for two weeks, will suffer most but are prepared to continue to the end. They particularly need support with donations of food and money.

            Agri-South Africa's claim that there is "no crisis" on the farms is absurd, even from their own point of view. There is a crisis of extreme poverty, sometimes starvation -- which is the responsibility of the inhumanity of Agri-SA. We reject the DA's claim that these strikes are "politically motivated". They are motivated by people's needs for an acceptable life. They are self-organised, from below, like the strike of mineworkers, of which the epicenter is Anglo Platinum in Rustenburg. This is the sense in which Marikana has come to the Western Cape.

            We call on Mildred Oliphant, Minister of Labour, to intervene and urgently declare a national minimum wage for farmworkers of R150 a day. We call on Gugile Nkwinti, the Minister for Rural Development and Land Reform, to step in also. He is responsible for rural development, yet his department sorely neglects the interests of oppressed farmworkers.
          
            Police brutality will not stop the strike. Nor will farmers' violence. Workers' lives must be respected. We call on the Minister of Police to resign because his police now have another death, that of Michael Daniels, on their hands -- following the 34 dead on August 16 in the Marikana massacre, Andries Tatane, and countless others. Police activity must be reined in by the government, with no use of live ammunition, rubber bullets etc against workers demonstrating for the means of survival.

            Should the government not respond, the Democratic Left Front will support the call by the coalition for a 1-day general strike to demand a R150 legislated national minimum wage for farmworkers, and improved working and living conditions on the farms. We call on all the farmworkers' strike committees, meanwhile, to spread the strike. We also call on the strike committees of mineworkers to support the farmworkers demands and organize for this general strike.

            Together with the strike committees, with CSAAWU, with Mawibuye and with all other coalition members willing to support it, the Democratic Left Front is calling a mass rally of farmworkers at the Sports Stadium, Nkqubela, Robertson at 11am on Saturday 24 November. We call on all progressive forces to mobilize for this rally and to make donations for transport, banners, T-shirts etc.

FORWARD TO R150 A DAY FOR FARMWORKERS!
STOP VICTIMISATION OF FARM WORKERS!
FORWARD TO R12, 500 MINIMUM WAGE FOR MINEWORKERS AND FOR ALL WORKERS!
FOR UNITY OF MINEWORKERS AND FARMWORKERS!
FORWARD TO A ONE-DAY GENERAL STRIKE!
DOWN WITH CAPITALISM!
FORWARD TO SOCIALISM!

South African farmworkers' strike

Farmworkers show what they think of the cops

As reader are aware, the strikes in South Africa are not limited to the mining industry.  Farm workers have also taken action and like the workers in the mining industry these struggles have taken place without or in opposition to the established leadership. In the case of the South African Communist Party, they have openly collaborated with the bosses and the state in the violence against workers.  We share below a report on the recent strikes of farm workers in the Western Cape.

The Farm Workers' Strike: It's Far From Over
By Anna Majavu · 15 Nov 2012    http://sacsis.org.za/s/

The mines and the farms are two enduring symbols of old white colonial theft, of the minerals and land. Because of the monopoly of the National Union of Mineworkers, whose leaders and officials have long preferred compromise and co-determination over worker control, it has been difficult for mineworkers to strike – until the Marikana massacre.

It has possibly been even harder for farm workers to strike.

Human Rights Watch estimated recently that less than 3% of South African farm workers are organized. Most farm workers earn the minimum wage or well below, with many in the Western Cape still paid partly in alcohol even though white farmers claim that the ‘dop system’ was done away with years ago. Striking farm workers often face losing their homes on farms, where they have buried family members and where their children go to school.

Yet this week, farm workers went on strike in their thousands in rural towns in the province, with the added promise by Groot Constantia workers in the city of Cape Town of an imminent strike there.

Yesterday, COSATU and acting Labour minister Angie Motshekga declared the strike suspended for two weeks. This is not the case. Much like Marikana, COSATU and the ANC have no influence over this strike, which the farm workers have vowed to continue.

When the farm workers strike began in De Doorns last week, it took the ANC, DA and Cosatu by surprise. The farm workers in this small town 140 kilometres east of Cape Town blocked the N1 highway, set fire to the vineyards, and demanded a wage of R12 500 per month. This was a clear reference to the Marikana workers’ demand for the same monthly wage, which has since spread throughout the mines.

The Zimbabwean refugee rights group, PASSOP, rushed to the scene because the De Doorns farm workers had also allegedly looted Somali-owned spaza shops in the town. PASSOP officials who lived in the town for a year after the 2009 xenophobic attacks there, pointed out that the strike appeared to be spontaneous and not organized by any union.

In the Western Cape, farm workers tend to belong to non-COSATU unions, namely Sikhula Sonke – a women led farm workers union, and the independent and more leftist Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU).

The press is now reporting the Black Association of the Wine and Spirit Industry (BAWSI) as saying farm workers have suspended their strike. BAWSI is not a farm workers union, but a pro-ANC lobbying association with workers and businesspeople in it ranks, which aims to increase the levels of Black ownership in the wine and spirit industry. BAWSI has no authority to speak for 15 000 farm workers in the region.

The COSATU farm workers union, the South African Agricultural, Plantation and Allied Worker's Union, collapsed more than ten years ago. The Food and Allied Workers Union, another COSATU affiliate, was then designated to organize the farm workers but never did.

However, the De Doorns strike presented an ideal opportunity for COSATU to strike a blow against the DA, and COSATU quickly positioned itself as the voice of the strike, downgrading the farm workers demands to a modest R150 a day, or just R3300 per month.

COSATU claimed credit when workers on other farms as far as 70 kilometres away quickly took up the call for a R150 minimum wage. And after a general meeting in Franschoek, hundreds of workers affiliated to Sikhula Sonke downed tools on 13 November in solidarity with the De Doorns strikers, spreading the strike further.

However, these solidarity strikes were not of Cosatu’s making. By November 13, thousands of farm workers in Prince Alfred Hamlet in Ceres, in Wolseley and in Robertson had set up burning barricades, were setting fire to farm equipment and were being attacked by police. The workers were also calling for an end to labour broking on farms.

COSATU and ANC leaders had by then changed tactics and insisted that farm workers suspend their strike for two weeks while the government gazettes the new minimum of R80 per day on offer from the white farmers association.

The Cape Town-based Workers International Vanguard League has had activists on the ground in the area for the past week and reported that after the farm workers refused and vowed to continue the strike, police and militias made up of farmers then invaded De Doorns on the night of 14th November, opening fire on workers.

According to the activists, farm workers have agreed to be paid R150 per day and say they will strike until president Jacob Zuma gazettes this amount.

COSATU and the ANC have clearly not learnt any lessons from the mineworkers’ strike where their bid to crush workers who attempt to self-organise and take militant action, has been a flop.

In the farm workers strike, the DA at first openly sided with the farmers after arrogantly assuming that the disorganized farm workers’ strike would not last more than a few days. Once the strike spread, as the mine workers’ strike did, Helen Zille blamed COSATU for inciting violence, declared that only president Jacob Zuma could end the farm workers strike by increasing the minimum wage on the farms and repeatedly implored Zuma via Twitter to send in the army to crush the strike.

There is no reason why the white Western Cape farmers could not raise the wages of farm workers immediately - if they wanted to. In fact, Zille has known for a long time that the white farmers in the province are reluctant to pay even the existing minimum wage of R1500 per month. She is also aware of other abuses against farm workers – they are regularly transported like cattle on the backs of open trucks, and die in well-publicised accidents.

The DA, COSATU and ANC are all aware that Sikhula Sonke camped outside parliament three years ago in protest against a white farmer who forced workers to live in pigsties, and that CSAAWU is campaigning publicly against farmer Willie Dreyer from Leeuwenkuil farm in Agter-Paarl.

Dreyer allegedly evicted farm worker Patrick Philander, his wife and four children and laid false charges of attempted murder against him and another CSAAWU activist, Amos White, after they recruited other farm workers into the union.

And the internationally-publicised Human Rights Watch report into South Africa’s fruit and wine industries last year found farms to be “ripe with abuse” – with farm workers having their water and electricity disconnected, being harassed in the middle of the night by farmers’ guards and their dogs, being exposed to pesticides and being prevented from joining unions.

The ANC has previously fostered disunity between workers in De Doorns instead of trying to improve the workers’ lot. Three years ago, ANC ward councillor Mpumelelo “Poyi” Lubisi was named in affidavits supplied to the Legal Resources Centre as being a mastermind behind a xenophobic attack, which displaced 3000 Zimbabwean farm workers.

At that time, PASSOP spokesperson Braam Hanekom described De Doorns then as a “cut-throat environment that is a recipe for tension” with farmers hiring workers through “a thousand labour brokers” who took the lump sums and paid farm workers whatever lesser amount they were desperate enough to accept on any given day.

The farm workers can expect no help from the party, which rules the province – the DA, because the DA supports labour broking and white farm ownership monopolies specifically and the free market in general. The ANC and COSATU are only using the workers to score temporary political points against the DA and now seem as eager to end the strike, as they were to end the Marikana miners strike. As in Marikana, De Doorns represents the worst of South African party politics. Like the mineworkers, South Africa’s farm workers have long lived in slavery-like conditions and deserve the support of all to continue their strike and keep blocking the highways.
Majavu is a writer concentrating on the rights of workers, oppressed people, the environment, anti-militarism and what makes a better world.

Obama's honeymoon will be short: crisis, conflict, class polarization is ahead.

by Sean O'Torrain

Obama's honeymoon? I think it will be short. I also think that it will be crisis ridden on many fronts.

He is already into trying to negotiate US capitalism's debt with the Republicans. The liberal wing of the Democrats will be pressing him to tax the rich. In the Republican Party the extreme right will try to hold their leaders to stand against this. Obama is liable to cave. This will increase tensions inside the Democratic Party maybe leading to splits.

This debate over the deficit shows the US economic system is in crisis, but also shows the political crisis of US capitalism. It is possible the Republicans could split in the next four years. This would open up a whole new political situation here where the two parties of US capitalism could begin to lose their political monopoly. This would be of world-wide significance.

This debacle of Petraeus and the top army brass who were conducting the wars in the Middle East will further discredit the US military, one of the few US capitalist institutions that was not looked upon with complete contempt. Read the descriptions of the shenanigans that were going on amongst these top brass and the so called hospitality groupies and the lavish dinners that these people held and the 20,000 to 30,000 emails that one general is reputed to have sent. Where did he get the time? No wonder US capitalism is losing the wars with its generals doing all this while the military rank and file were fighting and dying in the Middle East.

We should think of this serious crisis in the US military this way. Two Months after the Russian Revolution of 1917 formal ranks and the saluting of officers was banned. The salute is a recognition of the superiority and integrity of the officer caste, and the top ranks of all military's are from the ruling class or linked closely to it; the Bolsheviks got rid of it.  The salute is to make the soldier at every rank commit themselves to unquestionable loyalty to the chain of command.  Imagine what a soldier will think about now as he or she salutes Petraeus, or what appear to be an increasing number of others like him.  They will not be able to keep from laughing. This is a big blow to the military. And it was Petraeus remember who pushed Obama to stay longer in Afghanistan and launch a surge there against Obama's instincts.

Another area of great crisis for Obama is liable to be the Middle East. What will happen there in the next four years? It is likely that Syria will explode, it is likely that different peoples divided up  and transferred in to many different states by imperialism in the past will, as war and fragmentation sweeps the area, seek to build their own national states again breaking up the existing states further. There will even be a tendency to going back to the tribal divides again. Something will also happen in the next four years over the nuclear program of Iran and the Zionist regime in Israel and due to the Zionist regime's stupidity and arrogance the Israeli Palestinian conflict will continue. 

Then there is the world economy. I cannot see how Obama will get through his next four years without a new and much worse 2008 type collapse and a much worse recession than the one we are coming  through. I also cannot see how trade and other tensions with China will get anything but worse. In China itself it is hard to see the ruling elite there getting through the next four years without a huge increase in uprisings and instability. At some point, there will be more open conflict between the Stalinist bureaucracy and the rising Chinese capitalist class.  This will inevitably lead to splits in the ruling party and a more confident and open capitalist class making a move for total control. I cannot see the Euro crisis getting anything but worse and the movement of the working class there increasing. In Russia, stability will also be hard to maintain; the country is already extremely volatile and divided. In Africa and Latin America we are also seeing increasing movements of the working class. The Venezuelan elections which have kept Chavez at the helm was a real blow to US imperialism in the latter area.

Within this process we will see the emergence of working class women as never before. Half the factory workers in the world are now women. They will not sit back. Already in advanced capitalist countries and in countries such as Bangladesh we have seen them take action. And in the Arab Spring there is increased struggles against the sexism of the Islamic regimes and ideology.

Not the normal approach to Staten Island

And of course there is the the big one; climate change, pollution and the general environmental devastation that is the result of the capitalist system of production. What cities, what areas, will either be submerged under water or be made inhabitable through drought, pollution and nuclear catastrophe in the next four years? The storm in the NE of the US and the Caribbean that brought 6 foot walls of water down the streets of Staten Island, the tsunami and nuclear catastrophe in Japan, Katrina, the oil spill in the Gulf, and the melting of the ice caps, these are signs of  the developing catastrophe under capitalism.

Yes Obama is going to have a second term of it. The inspiring struggles that are taking place will give great opportunities to the working class. In that sense we are in a very favorable period. Here in the US we would hardly know it but there have been massive strikes in South Africa that have threatened the world production of Platinum. These have been joined by strikes of farmworkers and it comes after the murder of 40 or so workers by the state. The workers will not be cowed; not like their present leaders.  Today, in Europe, there are protests and/or general strikes in 23 countries.  There are calls in some quarters for a mass Europe-wide march on the European Parliament in Brussels. The ongoing struggles in Latin America and China and among the world's indigenous people against the destruction of their lands are ongoing.   But if these opportunities are not taken, they will turn into their opposite. As we say democratic international socialism or catastrophe and the destruction of life on earth as we know it.

Obama and capitalism is going to have their hands full, and so are the working gclass.

Unless the working class takes power and replaces the present clique that control the means of production of human life, then life on earth as we know it will be destroyed.  I believe we need to fight to build mass united front type formations, with programs that take on, confront and are able to throw back the capitalist offensive and open up the door to a worldwide working class offensive. This would put on the agenda of the mass of the working class once again the issues of capitalism and socialism. This can come quickly. After all think that it was only slightly over 20 years ago when socialism was declared dead and that history had ended.

The workers' movement world-wide has already ended this period. Within these united fronts that I speak of, whether they initially take the form of united fronts or united front type parties we have to also build revolutionary socialist currents which will be able to draw the lessons of history and  put a cutting edge on these movements, a cutting edge on these great chisels----one that can allow them to end capitalism and build a democratic socialist society.

24 hour strikes and protests throughout Europe

Europe wide strikes and protests in 23 countries. Then we have the miners strikes in South Africa that are threatening to disrupt global production of Platinum and they are being joined by striking South African farm workers. The heavily censored US mass media reports little if anything about this. After all, there's an important sex scandal to cover.

South Africa: farmworkers' strikes spread

From Martin Legassick

The South African papers today report farmworker strikes in all the areas marked on the map above. Democratic Left Front bodies such as CSAAWU and Mawubuye have formed a coalition with the De Doorns strike committee (the first to initiate, about a week ago), Western Cape COSATU and other bodies to take forward the strike movement. The DLF-COSATU link is a first and a big achievement. De Doorns workers earned R69 a day (with R30 a day deducted by the bosses for electricity etc!) and are demanding R150 a day. It is the start of the grape harvest season. In De Doorns the workers burned some vineyards. This is as important as, and no doubt inspired by, the mine strikes.

Amplats workers defiant, strike continues

Striking mineworkers at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) would not return to work, a miners' representative said in Rustenburg on Saturday. "The workers decided they won't go back to work. There are conditions that are unfavourable," Evans Ramokga said. "The strike is still on."

Hundreds of striking workers were gathered at a mass rally at the Olympia Park Stadium in Rustenburg on Saturday morning.The crowd was singing and dancing as police in Nyalas and vans kept watch over proceedings. A police helicopter was circling overhead.

On Friday Amplats management re-opened discussions on miners returning to work.
"The outcome of these discussions is that management has revised the initial offer to a once-off allowance of R4 500 [gross of tax] to be paid to each qualifying employee," it said in a statement.
"[This was] comprising a R2 000 loyalty or hardship allowance and a R2 500 safe start-up allowance to be paid two weeks after employees have returned to work and have commenced actual work."
Ramokga said the rally was also to ensure the safety and stability in Rustenburg and to stop violence.
"We are here mourning for our comrades who passed away during the strike all over the country."
He said they were also holding the rally to demand a living wage and better living conditions for all.
The workers said they would not oppose returning to work if their salary demands were met.
"We are looking for money. If they give us what we need, we can go back to work," said Simon Gqaza, an employee at Amplats for the last three years.

"I need R16 000. If they give me that money that I'm looking for I will go back to work anytime."
Amplats fired 12 000 workers after they failed to appear for a disciplinary hearing. They had been on a wildcat strike since 12 September, demanding to be paid a minimum of R16 000 a month.
The company then made the workers a re-instatement offer, which was not accepted.

Organised
During the rally the Democratic Left Front (DLF) handed out pamphlets and a spokesperson addressed the crowd offering support to the miners.

"Mineworkers are no longer prepared to accept the starvation wages offered by mine bosses, while they reap huge profits," the pamphlet read.
Spokesperson Vishwas Satgar said the DLF made a contribution because rallies have become a vocal point of solidarity.

"[We made the contribution] because we believe in the worker's cause. [The rallies] are a platform to amplify their cause, demands and struggle," Satgar said.
"We've made a modest contribution."

He could not give a specific amount, but said it was anywhere between R10 000 and R50 000. However he emphasised that the contribution was not only from them but also solidarity organisations who supported the miners.

"There's a strong feeling that the violence needs to come to an end."
He said he hoped the rally would send a strong message to mine bosses that a serious offer had to be put on the table.

The Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) also gave its support for the workers.
Spokesperson Mametlwe Sebei told workers the strike effort and strikers were becoming stronger by the day.
"We are strong because each and everyday we are becoming more organised."
He said workers were united.
"There is no compensation on the demand for a decent wage."
Spokesperson for the Marikana Support Campaign Rehad Desai also offered his support and called for miners to close down Amplats smelters.

The lawyer for the families of the killed Marikana miners and Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union in the Farlam commission into the shooting, James Nichol also addressed the crowd. He explained how he witnessed the shooting in his London home and decided to come to South Africa to assist.

"When the miner go down the mine he goes down poor and when he comes up he comes up poor."
In the meantime mine bosses continued to become richer, Nichol said.

Nob Hill and Raley's workers still on the lines

I spent some time on the picket lines again today. As I pointed out in an earlier blog, the workers may be out of the store, or most of them as there are some scabbing, but it's not a strike in the sense that there's any real effort on the part of the UFCW leadership or the leadership of the local labor movement to actually shut these places down.  Shoppers were going in and out and a number of them weren't very sympathetic. "You're lucky to have a job" was a comment I heard more than once from shoppers going in.

One Union staffer that was there, a person I've known for some time, immediately informed me that the Union's tactic with the shoppers crossing the line was to "kill them with kindness".   We have become so accustomed to a passive and non disruptive approach, the idea that we should actually prevent people from crossing picket lines.  When we go on strike we are are supposed to feel proud of the fact that we are not actually asking for anything, just to "keep what we have" as one striker put it to a shopper. The idea that we are living in hard economic times is also strong as this is what the bosses tell us and the top Union officials repeat it.  But as one worker said when this subject came up, "Our Union officials get raises and decent salaries, they seem to do alright in these difficult economic times."  What will encourage workers to honor our lines in these situations and actually join our struggles is if they see that we are fighting for them, that we are fighting for more Union jobs, more benefits and a better life for all workers and our communities.

The idea that no paid Union official should be paid no more than the average wage of the workers they represent was was a popular idea as well as all officials receiving the same strike pay as the workers when they're out on the line.

The Union leaderships argument that the customers are the key to victory (in other words this is a boycott with the workers out on the line) and that they will "agree to shop somewhere else when they are educated about our issues"  shows how disconnected they are from the public as well as the needs of their own members.  On this line and as I mentioned in the previous blog, so many workers have no benefits and if they do, work three jobs in order to earn enough to pay the rent with one of the jobs hopefully providing some benefits, that they are not so sympathetic to those who do have them.  They feel as I said, and not without some justification, that the Unions care only about their own members and do nothing for them.  This is not completely true as these days, the Union hierarchy refuses to defend the standard of living of their own members.

The goal of the UFCW hierarchy in this dispute as in all others seems to be the same, damage control.

For local readers there's a Nob Hill in Alameda, also in Walnut Creek and there's a Raley's in Pleasanton.