Industrial Workers Take on Coronavirus, Capitalism

ON THIS PAGE:
Aerospace in Seattle, USA ♦ Garment in El Salvador ♦ Garment in Bangladesh ♦ Transit in Los Angeles, USA ♦ Auto in Spain ♦

Boeing Factories in Turmoil: Communism: A Life or Death Question

Flash: An ICWP friend and regular Red Flag reader from Boeing’s Auburn plant died from COVID-19 Sunday night. As workers started leaving in droves Monday, the company suspended all Puget Sound operations, starting Wednesday, for 14 days.

PUGET SOUND (US), March 23—Last weekend, the first Boeing worker died of Coronavirus. He was a 27-year veteran inspector at the Everett plant.

“Boeing Everett plant… shut down!” wrote his brother on Facebook.

The Everett mayor announced a stay-at-home directive starting Monday. Similar directives followed in other cities with Boeing facilities.

Surviving Boeing workers breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, the Everett factory would close. It’s the biggest manufacturing building in the U.S., with over 36,000 workers. It’s the lynchpin of commercial jet production. Other plants would have to follow, involving 70,000 workers in this area alone.

But relief was short-lived. The mayor quoted Homeland Security guidelines to excuse Boeing from complying. Aerospace products and parts manufacturing is considered “essential.” This sounds more like a war plan than a mobilization to halt the coronavirus pandemic.

“That’s insane!” said a healthcare worker. She and her co-workers agreed that some of the most essential workers in this crisis are janitors, delivery people, truckers, etc.—the very people that capitalism disrespects.

What’s so essential about making more planes? Thousands are already parked in the desert and company parking lots. Boeing even wants to start making the MAX again and it’s not yet certified. Do we want to risk our lives (and those of everyone in the Puget Sound) for this?

For weeks, Boeing workers have demanded basic personal protection equipment and disinfectant. We still haven’t gotten them. Thousands fear bringing COVID-19 to vulnerable relatives.

This week workers had had enough. Workers, particularly those armed with communist ideas, turned crew meetings into shouting matches. They are demanding the company shut down the factories. Comrades and friends have followed up these meetings with day-long discussions about how communism and its production for need, not profits, is the only solution.

The ICWP is circulating two leaflets electronically and hand-to-hand: one written for Boeing employees, and the party’s international leaflet. Friends have posted them on social media.

Hundreds of new workers discussed the meaning of a wildcat strike. Old friends are reading Red Flag again. So are newer, younger workers who are seeing the paper for the first time. We immediately ask these new readers to circulate the paper to friends and family.

Workers have bombarded the union demanding they fight to end production. The union sent out an email asserting they have been fighting for us since the beginning of the crisis. What nerve! And they still refuse to demand that the company shut down!

By Saturday afternoon, there were 29 confirmed cases among Boeing workers, 24 of them in the Puget Sound area. The majority were in the Everett plant, but now COVID-19 has spread to most area factories. These plants pack thousands side-by-side in close quarters. Over 1200 have been sent home to self-quarantine.

Thousands more have stayed home with unpaid leave. At first, the company refused to give leave, but relented after the turmoil in the plants.

CEO Calhoun has vowed to muster all available resources—including a $60 billion dollar bailout funded with our tax dollars—to keep production going. “And profits flowing,” add workers on the shop floor. Calhoun’s plan has proved infeasible for now as more and more workers are leaving.

The pandemic has shown how we need communism, now more than ever. The time is now for Boeing workers (and everybody) to join the ICWP to turn this need into a reality.

Communist Production Will Allow Us to Make Ventilators At The Flip of a Switch

Boeing workers want to help fight the pandemic but not by making planes that will end up in parking lots.   Party comrades have discussed with small groups of workers what it would take for us to make ventilators instead.

Capitalists call this “retooling” but it takes much more than tools, machines and factory buildings. Chiefly, it requires prepared and motivated workers and clean environments. Under capitalism, you can’t just flip a switch and produce a lot of ventilators instead of planes.

Normally, we work furiously get the planes out the door. Every plane maker does the same, flooding the market. There is no time to prepare for emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic.

Communism will produce for need. A friend asked, “How do you determine need?” He knows that the need for profits is the driving force in capitalism.

In communism, what an individual thinks we need does not take precedence over the needs of the collective working class.   But how will the whole working class decide what is needed? That’s where the ICWP comes in.

The party will mobilize the masses to determine what we need most: “From the workers to the workers!”   It seems reasonable that the party will struggle for factories like ours to have reserve capacity so it can produce ventilators or whatever else is needed in an emergency.

In communism, we won’t have “companies.” So instead of ensuring the survival of “the company” we’ll ensure the survival of our global working-class family.

As we consolidate communism, we can prepare for pandemics. All ventilator designs will be shared. No need for patents to protect profits.

In communism, engineer-machinists will figure out how to make and program machines to fabricate the necessary parts. Everyone will practice assembling ventilators or making parts for them. Many factories in many areas can prepare like this.

We do this all the time with new planes. The difference is that jobs are segregated under capitalism. Engineers design the parts. Programmers make the programs to run the machines. Usually, machinists try out the programs and point out errors. Assembly workers see if it all comes together.

This process can take years before a new plane is ready. (In Boeing’s case, ready does not mean airworthy!)

In communism, we can do all this before the emergency hits. We will no longer be helpless victims of nature or of capitalists.

El Salvador: Fighting Fascist Exploitation in the Sweat Shops

Factory workers were discussing the coronavirus, which has affected humanity. They ask, “Who is responsible for all this?”

One worker said to his co-workers, “Some who are very religious said that it was God, others said that it was humans.”

“These are things that have to happen during this time,” said a worker.

But a worker who reads Red Flag said: “Its not god, nor anything supernatural. This is the product of this capitalist system.”

This conversation came before the moment that the boss of the factory refused to allow the workers to go home. The capitalist system is not interested in the health of the workers, and the bosses are interested in not stopping production. These discussions have taken place in the production modules.

The bosses did not want to send pregnant women or those over 60 home. “We need to finish the outstanding orders we have,” one of the factory bosses told the media.

Some Party comrades reacted to these statements and questioned the boss, managing to have this group of people sent home.

The emergency we have is to change this capitalist system that is in decline. Now that we have the opportunity for the women and men workers to realize that the bosses’ system cannot be sustained.

Last night the government of this country put the whole country in quarantine. Already many people have been arrested and sent to isolation centers and the Attorney General of the Republic assures them that they will be criminally prosecuted.

Fascism does not want to cure you but to lock you up so that you do not protest because there is no water. They want us to wash our hands but not a drop of water flows in many Salvadoran homes.

This crisis has unmasked this system and has made many co-workers see the need to read Red Flag and join the International Communist Workers’ Party, for the creation of a world where health is one of our main priorities.

—Comrades of the Maquilas

Bangladesh: Garment Workers Want Communist Solution

The government told the garment workers to report to the authorities or stay home if we have any signs of coronavirus.

There is a situation of panic and anger. Even before the outbreak of the coronavirus, the workers come to the factory even when they are very sick. Because not coming to work would seriously affect their family who would starve.

There are almost 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh in about 5000 factories. But these 4 million workers support 30 million family members.

We are sure that this capitalist government is not going to be able to control the pandemic. The garment workers want a real solution that can only be achieved by communist revolution. We stand in solidarity with all the workers around the world.

—Comrades in Bangladesh

Transit Workers Discuss Corona Virus; Build Communist Collective on the Job

Los Angeles, USA—Today is a day of victory for our International Communist Workers’ Party. The political work that we have been carrying out during these past years is beginning to yield qualitative changes. Just as in society you can see these changes from quantity into quality, as the current situation which many workers are in- some afraid from not knowing what is happening or if in fact it is happening — whether it is reality or it is a lie.

But we as a party have our analysis, and we are showing that more workers are opening up to our ideas. Today we recruited a new member and another comrade passed Red Flag to a new worker.

We had a meeting of 4 party members who have been consolidated and are already thinking about how we are going to make the party grow. Four members who are leaving the internal meetings that we previously had to meetings already in the houses of other workers. It is a huge step that is being noticed in the conviction and commitment of these workers to build the party.

During the meeting we had today there were several theories about what is happening with the coronavirus, all with mistrust towards the bosses, all with mistrust towards the bosses’ plans. We know that nothing good can come of this situation – except for us who can take advantage of this situation. And that was the discussion: how can we take advantage of this situation and build the party because more workers are open to our ideas and believe and respect what we have been saying for a long time.

There was talk that we must get used to this type of situation to meet because this is probably the beginning of what will deepen: this crisis and the bosses’ attacks and the growth of fascism. So there is no need to face this situation with fear, the workers said.

Far from it: let us be on the offensive and tell the working class that this day is an example that when we talk to the working class about our ideas, many are open to join us.

They all said goodbye with the idea of doing more work for the party and making a deeper analysis in the process to see what will happen with the coronavirus.

—Comrades at MTA

Auto Workers Shut Down Plant to Protect Lives – Now Need to Mobilize for Communism

Spain: Mercedes-Vitoria workers in Basque Country stop production when management refused to shut down the plant

SPAIN—We workers are furious. The capitalist system will never be able to solve our problems because they only look after super profits and their own interests. Capitalism has created many diseases and the main ones who have been harmed are us wage slaves. We are facing a crisis that cannot be controlled without the organization of the people, the unity of the people.

Workers of the Mercedes Vitoria factory, the largest in the Basque Country, halted production. More than 5,000 workers and subcontractors arrived at their jobs. The company gave them gloves and masks to protect them from the COVID-19 virus. But the workers got angry and stopped the plant because management didn’t even explain what they had to do. They didn’t know if a plan had been drawn up to prevent contagion. This factory stopped completely. The workers knew that a few days earlier one of the workers tested positive and the factory had not even disinfected the work areas. The protest started at 6 am and at 2 pm the multinational decided to stop production.

The workers at Mercedes Vitoria would probably have been exposed to death if they had not taken a stand and stopped the production facility, but the owners would not have cared as long as they had done the work.

Now we have learned that Renault is closing its four plants in Spain, IVECO is closing in Madrid, and Nissan is closing its plant in Avila.

Roque Dalton wrote a poem depicting the Salvadorans who died of malaria building the Panama Canal. We workers don’t need to die to keep the rich richer and the poor poorer. The working class needs a new system that cares for the needs of its own comrades.

We Need to Build a Communist World!

Why communist? Because we don’t need money, we don’t need borders. In a crisis like the one we are living in all over the world, the scientists, doctors, nurses, etc. will help each other without having to worry about paying the mortgage, the rent, the bank loan or electricity or water. Instead we will only focus on the fact that we should be united fighting shoulder to shoulder for the health and well-being of our comrades.

We don’t need a system that is based on the power of money that overwhelms us every day by telling us that hard times are coming and that we have to be more of a slave than before in order to get ahead! We need a world without money! A world where healthcare is for everyone!

To establish a communist system, we need a Party to lead us and that Party is the ICWP. The International Communist Workers’ Party is the only party that today really fights for communism. We work collectively so that we can objectively analyze how we can build a better world. We also work collectively to edit and produce the newspaper Red Flag so that the workers of the world can receive news and information to build this new system.

Join ICWP! That’s how we can avoid disasters like the one we are living in today.

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