SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, BRAZIL —Thousands of workers rallied at the site of the main Embraer aircraft factory in Brazil.
“The bosses are planning layoffs. They are going to eliminate health insurance and pensions,” said Enrique, an old friend and Red Flag reader. Now they are trying to set up a Boeing-run partnership to produce new regional jets.
Airbus bosses (with a controlling share) are partnering with the Canadian government and its Bombardier Aerospace Company to produce a regional jet that will compete with Boeing and China. They are planning to move part of their production to Alabama.
Boeing is trying to do the same thing in Brazil—to partner with the Brazilian government and its Embraer Aerospace Company to produce a low cost regional passenger jet to compete with Airbus and China—with Boeing having the controlling shares.
Boeing workers also know this drill.
“Airbus workers are pissed like we are. It’s sending work to low-wage areas like Alabama in the US. Boeing is doing the same in South Carolina and in Brazil if it gets its way,” said another long-time friend at a Seattle-area plant.
“We want a real solution” is the demand of hundreds of thousands of aerospace workers worldwide. Only communism can provide it.
Unions are powerless when faced with this mad scramble for cheap labor. Many union leaders, like Brazilian ex-president Lula, once an Embraer metal worker, end up spending their time with “bankers and rich [corporate] executives,” as Enrique put it. There is no other path open to these union leaders if they want to maintain their personal power.
That won’t happen in communism because there won’t be any banks or bankers, let alone corporations and rich executives. …Or for that matter, useless unions.
In communism, where we work will not matter. We’ll work for our class, not this or that company. There will be no corporate jockeying for competitive advantage because there will be no corporations.
There will be no need to hide technical advances behind walls built by private property laws. Production advances will serve our collective good, not the bosses’ bottom line. We’ll share innovations wherever we need them.
There will be no mad scramble to find labor at the cheapest possible wages, leading to wars and world war. We’ll eliminate wages altogether.
Everyone will contribute according to their ability and commitment. And we’ll make a special effort to use the jets we make to move workers around to build communist solidarity everywhere we can.
On the other hand, what we make will matter a great deal. Our collective work must provide the best we can for the masses. Workers in aerospace (and industrial workers generally) will play a crucial role in figuring out what we need at any time.
Sometimes, we’ll need military planes to fight back against the inevitable attacks of the remaining bosses. Eventually we can concentrate on providing free transportation around the world. Living and working with workers from all parts of the world will help break down the nationalist and racist prejudices inherited from the old capitalist system.
Profit will no longer determine what is produced. The military need to defend imperialism and to subjugate sections of the working class will no longer play any role in production decisions.
The struggle for communist production, which includes collectively deciding what our society needs, will create millions of communist industrial organizers. Most of us will get some experience working in industry.
The battle to put our collective needs above all else will produce more than just the best material goods. It will also reshape society and ourselves. Communism will succeed when the party leads masses to engage in this fight.
We start now by connecting aerospace workers, friends and families that are sympathetic to communism from around the world. We compare and test our strategies for communist mobilization in Red Flag. We are planning ICWP regional industrial conferences in the fall to widen our base.
Communist relations of production produce communist organizers above all else. Developing such organizers is our prime responsibility now —and in the future.
Workers of the World, Unite!
Front page of this issue
