EL SALVADOR. “You have to be careful not to attack the co-worker, but instead the capitalist system,” stated a worker who came to a Party meeting for the first time.
In a place along the Pacific coast of El Salvador, the ICWP industrial collective met. Comrades from three different garment factories, teachers and students came to the meeting. In a context where the bosses’ attacks are intensifying, we need to continue with these activities for the political development of all the members of our party.
We began the meeting with an international report, analyzing the contradictions between the US capitalists, their relation with Russia, and the immigration policies of the Trump administration and how this all relates directly to the workers in El Salvador. Many maquila workers have emigrated or plan to emigrate to the US. The deportation of Salvadorans and the intensification the repression against immigrants will cause many of them to return or to enter the maquillas. These workers have felt the brutality of capitalism in their own flesh and blood. We need to organize for communism!
“How do you imagine life in Communism?” is a common question in these meetings. Each time there are new opinions and ideas about this. We talked about how transportation in Communism will be organized to avoid traffic, pollution, and loss of time. We began to come up with new ideas about how housing will be in a new communist society, with collective housing complexes where our basic needs are met, and which are near production centers.
This discussion ignited the spirits of the men and women maquila workers. Every one of them expressed their disagreement with the system. Verbal assaults, the production chart, overtime without pay, tricks in how the wages are paid, and many more things made our comrades furious.
“The supervisors say that before we worked faster and they paid us less,”
said an industrial worker. The bosses and their supervisor rats pressure the workers more each time using the excuse of a wage increase.
“I don’t let them harass me; I tell her that if she wants to put some one else in my place, to go ahead, but I’m not going to be killing myself for a dollar more,” stated a woman worker.
We continued the meeting by collectively reading an article from Red Flag. We studied the article about the distribution of communist leaflets outside the industrial complex where our club works. The comrade workers commented that most of the literature reached the hands of workers in a factory where the workers are currently being verbally mistreated and production is being managed in a tricky way to pay lower wages.
On this occasion, one of the communist leaders of the industrial club called on everyone to be attentive to these attacks and to watch their backs. Usually, it is our leaders who respond to situations like this. However, they themselves are making a call to respond collectively to the bosses’ attacks.
The situation inside the factories is difficult and requires collective work between the members of the party inside and outside the factories. The distribution of our literature is being consolidated little by little. Our next step is to create new writers for Red Flag and at the same time increase the number of readers.
We ended the meeting by planning the Communist May Day. We talked about our experiences in past years and specific points to improve this time. We plan to increase the number of workers, farmworkers, and students who march under the red flags of our Party. The men and women workers are embracing communist ideas more each time. We are certain that we are on the correct side of history.
Published 3/17/2017
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