Red Flag Newspaper
International Communist Workers Party
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Red Flag NewspaperInternational Communist Workers Party |
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Outraged workers worldwide have taken to the streets in protests against racist police murders in the US. ICWP in Los Angeles, USA has started a summer project in which we are focusing on industrial workers like MTA and garment workers. We 're taking them the idea of organizing political strikes against racist police terror and for communism. More here
LOS ANGELES, USA--Recently about 100 women and men garment workers organized a work stoppage. The workers stopped working because the minimum wage had been raised but the miserable prices that the boss pays for each operation or piece rate has stayed the same.
Now, to make the minimum wage, the workers have to sew more pieces. For those who aren’t able to make the new minimum wage, the boss “contributes” the rest but she only allows them to work five hours.
We say she “contributes” because a US industrial worker produces $171 thousand a year, an average of $85 per hour. Therefore, in one hour a garment worker produces an 8-hour day’s minimum wage. The rest is stolen by the contractors, manufacturers and store owners.
Furthermore, the boss opened a 5-hour night shift. This shift finishes the work the day shift can’t finish. Thus the day shift has less work and is either laid off or has to wait longer for work, making it even more difficult to make the minimum wage.
“We are treated like modern slaves. They are constantly speeding us up, shouting ‘Work faster!’ We used to have two 15-minute breaks, now they are only 10 minutes. We eat in unbearable heat. The bosses eat in air conditioning,” a worker said indignantly.
Several things come to light here: The bosses are parasites who get rich off our labor. Whether we like it or not, we are their wage slaves. The struggle to raise the piece rate cannot eliminate the bosses’ exploitation or their wage slavery. Only communist revolution can do that.
By eliminating money, communism will eliminate the “modern” or wage slavery. Nothing will be bought or sold. We will all have useful and creative work, without bosses or their foremen “speeding us up” to squeeze us for more profits. We will never be fired or threatened with sending our work elsewhere. Without borders, countries, or immigration laws, we will all be welcome wherever we go.
Collectively we will produce and distribute everything according to need. We will all have adequate food and housing, medical service and education for life. We will treat each other with respect and dignity, without being the servants or the bosses of anyone.
“It sounds very nice! But how do we achieve it? “
A worker at this factory once said, “Communism and religion promise a paradise: religion in the sky; communism on earth.”
Communists fight for an earthly “paradise” because we are dialectical materialists. We know that the class struggle - between the capitalists and workers - is constant, unstoppable and is to the death. It will inevitably end in a revolution where workers led by communists will sweep the capitalists off the face of the earth.
This struggle is intensifying worldwide. These garment workers struck because they can’t live under the new conditions imposed by the bosses.
This rebelliosness is latent in thousands of other garment workers, janitors, transit workers and millions of other workers in the US. Eventually it will explode in pitched battles like those of the teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico.
These teachers should join ICWP and mobilize for communism the masses of students and workers who support them. These in turn should mobilize the soldiers and industrial workers nationally. When this happens, communist revolution and our “earthly paradise” would become a reality.
That workers will fight is undeniable. The important question is: What will they fight for and how will they fight?
Fighting for reforms -- wage or piece rate increases – will never end capitalism and its horrors. Relying on politicians and government offices like the Labor Commission is a dead-end street.
Our task is to organize communist revolution. Our demonstrations and strikes must be political. They must be against capitalism and for communism to build a massive ICWP and help mobilize the masses for communism.
The political slogans at such actions would be: “Abolish wage slavery!” “Death to capitalism-imperialism! Fight for Communism!” “Smash capitalism’s borders, nations and ‘races’!” “Only communist revolution will end racism and sexism!”
We have a long way to go. Every journey begins with a first step, small but indispensable. A first step is to join and organize collectives of ICWP to study and distribute Red Flag. The more of us who take the path to communist revolution, the sooner we will achieve our earthly paradise.
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SEATTLE, USA-- June 24— The discussions about the British vote to leave the European Union (Brexit) began at 5:15 AM, even before the first shift began to filter into the Boeing plant. Party members were asked over and over again, “What did it all mean?”
During the next week, in worksite after worksite, we argued that the main thing it meant was that communism is the only way out. That means building the party now.
Workers were not satisfied with the coverage in the bosses’ media. These reports focused on what it meant for this boss or that, this country or that and who will line up with whom.
“All I know,” said a machinist who reads Red Flag, “No matter which of these guys ends up on top, we [workers] pay.”
This general anxiety heightened when Airbus’s threats were published later on in the day. “Britain … could no longer take for granted a strategic position inside the plane maker,” cautioned CEO Tom Enders. Fifteen thousand Airbus workers were warned they would have to be more competitive.
“Uh-Oh!” said another reader after he saw the announcement in Boeing News Chips, “I know what that means: no more pensions, wage cuts for new hires and all the rest.” Boeing workers know all about this, having gone through it for the last decade.
Within a week, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (roughly equivalent to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, but with extra powers) vowed to slash corporate taxes. The UK was “still open for business” he bragged. Not so much for those in need of affordable housing or the National Health Service!
Even more important in many workers’ eyes was the racist, xenophobic propaganda used in the “Leave” campaign (doubly so after racist killings by U.S. cops in the last week). One worker who was born in Africa and lived in London was keenly aware of the way “competition for jobs” affects workers’ thinking.
Only communism will end this kind of competition by ending the wage system. Capitalist competition not only pits boss against boss and country against country, but also worker against worker.
In communism there will never be too many of us “causing” unemployment or lower wages. The material basis of racist xenophobia will be torn up by its roots.
Your place of origin will become irrelevant. Each will contribute according to their ability and commitment. We’ll all work to take care of each other.
Our social bonds will strengthen as we work for the common good. Our party is dedicated to mounting the kinds of international anti-racist campaigns necessary to solidify these bonds. We will live in a world where everyone will be welcome everywhere.
Communist History Expands Discussion
The Red Flag issue being circulated during these debates featured an article on the history of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Workers were interested so one comrade asked his workmates if they had heard of the document “Whither China?”
“Whither China?” attempted to lay out the options before Chinese workers during this period: either advance to full communism or fall prey to a new capitalist regime.
Today we need to write a new chapter in our history: “Whither the World’s Workers?”
“You got that right!” shouted a third machinist, coming into work on 2nd shift.
Surprise. Surprise.
“None of this surprises me.” added still another Red Flag distributer. “Things are just getting too tough. It can’t just stay like this.”
“Yeah, people are starting to learn,” added a fifth. He is usually pessimistic about the potential to organize for communism. This time he admitted, “There is an opening.”
“My wife and I are coming to the [ICWP] forum, for sure.”
The bosses can’t rule in the old way. Workers can’t live in the old way. What we need now is a mass party willing to mobilize for communist revolution. We aim to be that party, with your help.
