FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!International Communist Workers Party |
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PUGET SOu\UND, WA, November 16
—"Okay, what's going on?
Why'd you ask that question about
the backlog?" So began the meeting
after the first crew meeting since we
rejected the Boeing contract proposal.
The bosses wanted a "feel good"
atmosphere after last week's class
struggle. Mid-November saw the
chants of marching workers echoing
through the plants. Furious members
filled the union halls, chasing
down union leaders who dared to
bring this contract extension to a
vote. Machinists shouted, "Go back
to D.C.!" at International Association
of Machinists' International
representative Mark Johnson.
"'We' just sold a record number
of new 777X airplanes at the Dubai
air show," bragged the boss at the
start of the meeting.
"Were they sold at a discount?"
we asked.
"The company sells airplanes
based on their cost."
"No, they don't. Not any more!"
The boss tried to change the subject,
but we got back to it at our own
meeting after the crew meeting.
New hires and veterans discussed
how the company's discounted
backlog assures more attacks on us.
Commercial president Ray Conner
wants to preemptively sew up
orders for these kinds of jets with
cheap prices. The only way that can
be profitable is with cheap labor.
The attacks will continue and intensify.
These 777X planes won't be delivered
until 2020. By that time the
Chinese will join Airbus and a host
of other capitalists producing commercial
jets. Too many manufacturers
will be producing too many
goods that we workers can't afford
to buy.
"This is how capitalism has to
work," said an old-timer. "It's called
a crisis of overproduction."
These systematic crises lead to
long-term depressions as the bosses
are suddenly forced to cut production.
"A lot of people are going to lose
their jobs," figured another new
hire.
"And those that don't won't be making enough
to live on," added another.
"Eventually the bosses will have to attack their
international competition as well as us. Then
they'll send us or our kids to war to fight some
other exploited worker for the glory of profits!"
added a third.
Masses Revolt; Rulers Lose Legitimacy
Given this scenario, workers all over the world
are rebelling. For example, South Africa miners
denounced the ruling African National Congress
(ANC) as the racist exploitation of post-
Apartheid capitalism became too much to bear.
They attacked the united Mine Workers' offices
because the union "partnered" with the ANC.
Last week's demonstrations outside the IAM offices
held similar potential.
The bosses are alarmed by the masses' anger
with capitalism. Their call to next year's World
Economic Forum at Davos focuses on the rulers
"lost legitimacy."
"One of the most important issues facing the
[capitalist] world is the growing vulnerability of
political elites," warns Ian Bremmer of the u.S.
bosses' chief think-tank, the Council of Foreign
Relations.
Even more alarmingly, "The problem is not limited
to political leaders; corporate decision-makers
[i.e. bosses] face their own sets of risks."
The workers can't live in the old way; the
rulers can't rule in the old way. Even the "middle
class" is questioning their future under this system.
Communism Gains Legitimacy
The only legitimate solution is communist revolution.
Communism will put an end to capitalism's
endless overproduction crises.
We can rationally plan production based on the
needs of the working class when we eliminate
production for profit and sale. Collective mass
struggle to secure our communist future will replace
the tyranny of markets.
Even more importantly, we can change the
structure and rationale for factories themselves.
We can turn the factories into educational and
cultural centers. The factories can be in the forefront
of the struggle to erase the elitist distinction
between mental and manual labor. Changing the
nature of mass production sets the stage for the
struggle to win generations of new communist
leaders.
Capitalism is rapidly losing legitimacy. From
crew meetings to union meetings, from in-plant
marches to holiday social events: mobilizing our
friends for communism is on the agenda. Mobilizing
the masses for communism--this is our
guiding principle, now and in the future. Join us!
LOS ANGELES, November,
2013—The following is part of a
letter sent by some garment workers
from Jean Mart to Red Flag:
"In this company, the quality inspectors
and the ones who distribute
the work commit many injustices
against the workers. They humiliate,
abuse, and offend the operators,
whether or not they make
mistakes. There is a lot of discrimination.
They give preference to the
people they like.
We tell the workers not to be
afraid to report and struggle
against these abuses. When the inspectors
make a mistake that affects
up to 1000 garments, they don't say
anything, but when an operator
makes a mistake with 8 or 30 pieces,
they want to eat you alive. They
treat workers like garbage, like
we're not worth anything, as if they
themselves were perfect. They demand
that you do things that they
don't know how to do. If they don't
like a person, they give them a
'warning' about being fired."
The workers shouldn't see these
petty servants of the bosses as the
main enemy. The main enemy is
capitalism, and workers need to see
that this anti-working class behavior
reflects the social relations of the
capitalist system. The bosses want
to wash their hands, but they are the
ones responsible. This is the capitalist
mentality of the whip, which the
inspectors and those who give out
the work imitate.
The whole capitalist system is
based on us workers being forced to
sell our labor power to the boss for
a miserable wage. This gives the
bosses the power to abuse and fire
us.
The workers here produce
clothes for big companies like True
Religion, Diesel, Lucky, and others.
This puts between $12 and 24 million
in the bosses' pockets from the
hard work, all year long, of hundreds
of men and women garment
workers.
To carry out their exploitation,
the bosses manipulate a sector of
workers, using competition, individualism
and the illusion of
"power," to attack the rest of the workers. The social
relations of capitalist production mean exploiting
workers for profit; the bosses are
swimming in a sea of wealth while the workers
barely scrape by.
In this company, like all others worldwide, the
workers are exploited. When production orders
go down, they are thrown into the street in a cowardly
act, as if they were disposable. Recently
many of these workers were sent home, unemployed
on the eve of the Christmas holidays. The
stress of the capitalist commercial "holiday" of
buying, and the costs of survival are a double attack
on the workers.
In a communist world, the social relations will
be completely different. They won't be based on
exploiting masses of workers for the profit of a
few. There won't be wages, money, or bosses
who steal the value workers produce. Collectively
we will plan, produce and distribute everything
according to workers' needs.
We workers must see that, united with this
communist vision, we are strong. Instead of using
the bosses' whip to attack our class brothers and
sisters, we must unite as one fist to organize a
communist revolution to destroy the bosses
and their system.
In a communist society, communist relations
will be based on respect and comradeship
among all workers. Everyone's contribution
will be valued. Communist education will fight
to ensure that all workers see each other as
brothers and sisters, not enemies. But the working
class will take steps to punish those who
mistreat their co-workers.
The bosses and their capitalist system are
the enemies. Their state protects the individual
boss so that he can send workers to the street
without suffering any consequence. This
shows that in capitalism, wage slavery rules.
The world does not have to be this way. We
can and must destroy this murderous system
and build a communist world in which the
main thing will be to meet the workers' needs
and not fill the bosses' pockets.
We invite all the workers of Jean Mart to
continue reading our communist newspaper
Red Flag and to join the International Communist
Workers' Party, as a present to the
working class of the world, in the fight for a
world without exploitation, bosses or discrimination.