Garment Workers Worldwide Say: No More Worker Deaths! The Capitalist System Must Die!
LOS ANGELES (USA)— “The boss did not close the factory, because he wanted to get more money,” said a woman garment worker at the Los Angeles Apparel factory who reads Red Flag. “And we kept going there because we need to work to live.”
Four workers from this factory have died from Covid-19. There are 300 more reported infections. The city’s health department has forced the factory to close, since its owner refused to do so.
In March the boss had announced, with great fanfare, that “his” 400 workers were going to try to produce 100,000 face masks a week, for the “protection” of the population. He began a mass campaign to recruit more than a thousand workers, whom he forced to work without needed safety measures.
This boss has blamed the workers, saying that they live in neighborhoods in South Los Angeles where infection levels are very high. He claims that this led to the contagion in the company—not the unsafe factory conditions.
A maquila worker in El Salvador described similar conditions at the factory where she works. “As the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP),” she said, “we have to fight harder to continue forward in the struggle for a communist world. To put an end to capitalism, so that we workers are no longer exploited just like workers in other maquilas around the world.”
Workers’ anger and struggle are growing worldwide against capitalism and its dangerous conditions. We need to turn that anger into a powerful force in visualizing a new communist world.
In the border cities of northern Mexico, where over 300,000 workers work in the maquilas, outbreaks of infection have multiplied. This has killed hundreds of workers.
In Ciudad Juárez, hundreds of workers went on strike. They demanded the closure of non-essential maquiladoras, following the death of over twelve workers and the infection of dozens more in one maquila.
Similar cases have occurred in Tijuana, Mexicali, Matamoros and Reynosa. Workers at Lear, Honeywell, Emerson and other large transnational companies have stopped production in response to the dangerous working conditions that have already caused thousands of infections.
KP Textile workers in San Miguel Petapa, Guatemala, protested after a Covid-19 outbreak infected over 300 workers in the maquila that produces clothing for American Eagle. Due to the outbreak, entire neighborhoods around the city were closed. 125 companies have suffered massive outbreaks, especially the Call Centers, which employ thousands of workers in Guatemala.
Workers in garment factories from Los Angeles to Mexico, Central America, India, China and elsewhere are suffering the brunt of the crises produced by capitalism. Covid-19 and recession have forced hundreds of thousands of workers to work in dangerous conditions. They are exposed to the virus that has killed over 600,000 and infected more than 15 million worldwide.
Enough! No more worker deaths! What must die is the capitalist system.
We have a world to win. We must make communist ideas mass ideas to create a new world. Hundreds of workers at Los Angeles Apparel have received Red Flag . They must take a step forward and become leader organizers, by joining ICWP.
Let’s fight for a communist world where the bosses’ profits are not the macabre source of our survival. Instead we will mobilize for a new communist society where we work for the needs of the workers — ourselves.