FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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Greetings comrades!!! I am reading the latest issue of Red Flag and I am touched by the article on the refinery strike in the U.S. This article has similarities with what is happening with workers at Transnet, Port Elizabeth harbour.
About a week ago, I was visited by a friend of mine who works at the harbour. He wanted advice and assistance on how best they can go about in tackling problems they are confronted with at their workplace. They are working for a labour broker who is sucking their blood.
I helped them by writing a notice advertising the general meeting that was held on the 27 of February. My friend was very excited and thankful for the assistance I gave them.
The demands that they were raising are a carbon copy of those of the striking refinery workers in the US. These workers are working in excess of 275 hours in a month. The normal working hours are 180 hours in a month. They find themselves working long hours with fewer workers in a shift. They work in unsafe and dangerous working conditions. Because of the fatigue caused by the long hours of work they are subjected to, they sustain lot of injuries including those resulting in amputation of fingers.
They have lost confidence in their union and have decided to take up their demands to the employer on their own. Their goal is to work directly for Transnet, not the labour broker. This is a struggle they are pursuing.
As I am reading this article I could not help but identify similarities with the striking oil refinery workers in the US. It will take more than a strike to resolve this dispute, it will take a revolution. I am sensitizing these workers to that eventuality.
Harmony gold corporation mine
I was disgusted to learn that last week in one of the Harmony gold corporation mines, 483 miners were trapped underground because of a fire that broke out underground. They say the cause of the fire is unknown but this came as no surprise. I know the poor conditions the miners here in South Africa are made to work under by the greedy capitalist bosses. Yet the ANC government is silent on the matter. I understand why: because to them the lives of the workers are not important. What are important to them are the capitalist bosses and their profits. So I would like to call on our brothers and sisters in the mining industry to unite under our party, the ICWP, for communist revolution. It’s only communism that can bring an end to the tyranny of the capitalist bosses and their wage system.
Assistant Drivers’ Strike
I had a great time yesterday and a pretty sad one too. I was amazed by how the youth of New Brighton are so fed up with wage slavery. As I went there to visit my father. I could not help but notice that two of my friends who were supposed to be at work by that time were not working. I couldn’t help but ask why they were not at work.
One is a truck driver in a logistics company, Nampark. The other one is an assistant driver in the same company. They told me that they were on strike. In fact, it’s the assistant drivers who are on strike but the truck drivers are on strike in solidarity with their coworkers. Their dispute with the bosses is that in that company the assistant drivers are paid half of the drivers’ salary. Yet they do more work, double, than the drivers.
In South Africa there is a regulation which states that every driver on a long-distance trip must drive for 8 hours and then rest for 2 hours. But in this 2 hour rest, it’s the assistant driver that must continue driving while the driver rests. And when they reach their destination the assistant must also help with the unloading of the cargo. Yet he/she is not paid for the unloading of the truck. They are paid only for those hours they drive when the driver is resting.
I told them that that’s how the capitalist bosses operate. They exploit the working class for their profits regardless of your suffering. I told them that instead of fighting a narrow battle they should join with our party the ICWP in order to defeat capitalism because it’s a universal thing, not just here in South Africa. They were very interested in our ideas. I promised them that the next time we meet I will bring them copies of Red Flag.
Some comrades from the Seattle area recently made a trip north to Anacortes to visit with the workers on strike at the Tesoro oil refinery there. As we approached the plant, we were reminded of beauty of the area….fields of tulips and daffodils, and spectacular views of the San Juan Islands.
However, there is nothing beautiful about an oil refinery. Especially this one, where 5 workers were killed in 2010 and 6 killed in 1998 due to explosions and fires. As we walked the line with the strikers we were joined by a non-striking worker from the Shell refinery down the road. The strikers told us how they are forced to work 12 hour shifts, sometimes for 2 weeks straight. The refineries are old and they are poorly maintained and overworked. (see box below) The oil bosses push for more oil and bigger profits while government agencies look the other way. Most of these workers we met are also trained firefighters and paramedics. They take responsibility for the safety of their coworkers while the bosses take none.
We showed them the communist leaflet we have been handing out to Boeing and MTA workers and others. They thanked us for spreading the word about their strike. They were angry that while Tesoro was enjoying a huge increase in profits, they were being blamed for the recent increase in gas prices.
As they looked over the Red Flag, we talked about how these conditions mentioned above will not exist in communism. Resources like oil will not be owned by nations or corporations.
Workers will make the decisions about how resources will be used based on need, not profit.
Everyone listened and most took leaflets and copies of Red Flag. They told us to leave more literature in the picket truck, and to come back and bring our friends. One striker gave us his phone number to contact him.
On our way back to our car we met another worker who welcomed us. He told us that as a small boy he walked the same picket line when his dad was on strike. Now he works there and he is on strike, just like his dad. When he spoke, it was obvious that he was proud to carry on the good fight. This should inspire us to return soon to talk more about how fighting for a communist revolution is a better fight!
An article in Forbes Magazine (www.forbes.com) on 3/02/2015 states that “America’s refineries are old and at full capacity. In fact, refinery fires and explosions are so common that they hardly make the news.”
“After a small fire at BP’s largest refinery last August, Daniel Horowitz, the spokesman for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, said ‘operational incidents, including small fires, at refineries are reasonably common.’ So common that, if they don’t involve fatalities or offsite damage, the Chemical Safety Board doesn’t even bother to investigate.”
And later, “What’s critical is that, while we closed half our refineries over the last two decades, the productivity of the remaining refineries has almost doubled. According to the Energy Information Administration, 301 refineries processed over 6 billion barrels of oil in 1982. In 2014, only 149 refineries processed almost the same amount of oil. In 2015, these refineries will top 8 billion barrels.”