FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
	International Communist Workers Party
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Labor markets must go. The fight against racism demands it; to end the immiseration of the working class we must destroy them. Only communism can accomplish it.
Immigration reform is up front this May Day. Every proposed law and act singles out immigrant labor for more intense exploitation. Join the ICWP instead to mobilize for communism so we can end the buying and selling of our labor power altogether.
Communists know work has useful social value, but to the capitalist labor, is a commodity with a price. Labor power is the jewel amongst commodities: the only one that creates more value and profits for the bosses.
Labor’s uniqueness drives bosses to segregate the workforce in order to create easily identifiable groups ripe for more exploitation. Racist super-exploitation is the go-to option. It was used in the 19th century to amass capital to fuel emerging industries and is currently used to rebuild industrial might to meet international competitors.

Racist History of Bosses’ Labor Markets
U.S. industry was built on the bones of black slaves, intensifying exploitation to unprecedented heights for all workers.
The U.S. civil war did not end black slavery. It continued for decades after the war. A vast network of convict labor enslaved hundreds of thousands.
Steel companies exploited convict slave labor mercilessly to finance their ascent on the world stage. In particular, U.S. Steel beat, whipped, starved and murdered thousands of slaves.
The bosses literally worked convict laborers to death. They buried hundreds in unmarked graves in forests surrounding Birmingham, Alabama. Many bodies were just callously thrown into coke ovens.
Southern states enacted outlandish laws to swell the ranks of convict labor, some bearing eerie similarities to immigration reform. Alabama, North Carolina and Florida made it a criminal act for black men to change employers without permission.
The timing and scale of arrests followed the rises and dips in the need for cheap labor, not acts of crime.
Companies used both convict and “free” labor. Companies in Pittsburgh and elsewhere purposely recruited workers (Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, etc.) who spoke different languages, hoping they wouldn’t be able to communicate with each other.
The president of U.S. Steel’s Birmingham division admitted, “The chief inducement for the hiring of convicts was the certainty of a supply of coal for our manufacturing operations in the contingency of labor troubles.”
The 1908 United Mine Workers strike was on his mind. Seven thousand black and white Alabama strikers surrounded the mines that summer, threatening to free prison workers.
The company broke the strike by working convicts beyond endurance. Company labor agents prowled the countryside for more convicts, encouraging local sheriffs to arrest and sell as many men as possible.i

Sever Work From Exploitation
US immigration policy enforces today’s neo-slavery.  Immigrant workers are paid lower wages, denied paid sick time, vacations and health insurance. Deportations and detentions are terrorizing immigrant workers and families. Proposed immigration reform would chain immigrants to a company for more than a decade under threat of deportation.
The U.S. Congressional debate is about how best to exploit immigrant labor and how to, as Gates when Defense Secretary said, “expand the pool of military recruitment.”
The bosses always invent new ways to super-exploit in order to lower labor’s price. Adding insult to injury, politicians funnel immigrant youth into the army to defend the U.S. bosses’ worldwide empire of super-exploitation.
Super-exploitation and neo-slavery never stopped the working class.  Led by African-American communists, Birmingham workers fought against their oppressors for decades ¾ with arms if necessary. They could have led us to communist revolution, but, as communist leader Hosea Hudson bemoaned, “Everyone got soaked up in the union.” We won’t make that mistake again.
This time we’ll end the bosses’ labor markets altogether, separating work from exploitation. When communism severs work from the need to intensify exploitation, we can mount the kinds of campaigns that end racist divisions on the job and in society.
We’ll defeat racism, in part, by unleashing the potential and creativity of every worker. No one will do only the hardest manual labor. Rather machinists will be engineers and educators. Youth will flood the factories, mills and transportation facilities, as workplaces become learning centers.
Collective labor will replace stratified jobs and wages. Workers will donate their labor rather than be forced to sell it on the market. Our needs will be met, so the question will become, “How can I contribute?” Work will truly become “a labor of love.”

i From Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon

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