Racist, Nationalist Divisions Built into Capitalist Supply Chains here ♦ “You Can’t Fool Us” here ♦
Occupy the Port, Long Beach, Ca. (USA), December 2011. Sign in Spanish reads: Abolish Borders and Wage Slavery with Communist Revolution International Communist Workers’ Party
Communist Collective Production Requires International, Multi-Racial Unity
Racist, Nationalist Divisions Built into Capitalist Supply Chains
LOS ANGELES (USA), October 22— “The longshoremen are the problem, not the truckers,” says a trucker on Tik Tok. He describes how the port virtually shuts down during meal breaks. The truckers are forced to wait in long lines. “How is that efficient?” he complains.
The Los Angeles–Long Beach ports are the largest in the US. Over 100 container ships presently must anchor off these harbors. This is just one bottleneck among thousands that have caused the capitalists’ global supply chains to collapse.
Revealingly, this Tik-Toker uses McDonalds as a model of efficiency. “What if you pay for your food and everyone goes on break, and you have to wait for an hour to get your meal?” he asks. McDonalds is synonymous with super-exploited workers. Capitalist efficiency rests on efficiently exploiting the working class.
US President Biden made a deal with West Coast port bosses that he claims (falsely) will remove bottlenecks in the supply chain. Since then, social media have been flooded with videos like this.
Most truckers are Latinx, non-union and make around $50,000/year. Most dockworkers are in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and make an average of $66,000/year. The highest-paid LA longshore workers (mostly white) operate the huge cranes that unload containers. They can make over $100,000/year with overtime.
The ILWU endorsed Biden’s deal for even more overtime, but that is not their biggest betrayal. Despite the “International” in their name, the union focuses on pay and benefits only for its members. It reinforces racist and nationalist divisions between Latinx truckers and white crane operators.
Don’t Be Fooled by the Bosses’ Lies!
When truckers blame longshore workers and longshore workers blame truckers, only the bosses benefit. Racism and nationalism are bosses’ ideologies that stop the working class from realizing its power.
Manufacturing and retail supply chains are crucial to every capitalist industry. The capitalists created these networks to maximize their profits.
For example, an internal Boeing report asserted that its aerospace dominance rests on its vast global network of suppliers. The company forced suppliers to cut their prices drastically. This slashed the wages of subcontract workers who are overwhelmingly Black and Latinx or work in other countries.
As with the ports, racist and nationalist divisions undermine Boeing workers’ ability to place the blame where it belongs: on the capitalist system. Once again, the union is a co-conspirator.
Boeing’s union also has “International” in its name. The “international” officials have repeatedly said that their only concern is the jobs of their members (and dues payers). The result: more racist and nationalist divisions between the workers in Boeing factories and subcontract workers.
Today, capitalists organize the workforce. Trade unionism does not question their right to do so. Racism and nationalism lead us to blame other workers when the bosses’ manufacturing and retail networks collapse.
Only communist revolution can end the capitalists’ ownership and control of the means of production. We must defeat these divisions to be successful in making that revolution. Only a united working class led by a mass International Communist Workers’ Party can win.
Principled Communist Struggle Paves the Way
The ICWP fights for a much more resilient way of organizing the workforce: a system where communist relationships will define the connections among workers. Workers will not only move and make everything, but also collectively decide how best to do this. Mobilized masses are a powerful force leading to the best decisions.
Communism mobilizes workers to produce and deliver for our collective needs. The party will deal with emergencies and changing conditions by mobilizing the masses. Without the constraints of the profit motive, the working class can plan for future pandemics. Based on experience and science, the masses can build and create what we know we’ll need even before the next pandemic hits.
Capitalist supply chains will cease to exist. Instead, communist collectives of workers with the latest data will collaborate to make what we need and get it to where we need it. In this climate of cooperation, the ICWP will finally end racism and nationalism.
The battle to mobilize masses for communist revolution begins now! A comrade has been discussing the racist and nationalist divisions with a trucker friend. The friend now accepts that the bottleneck is not the fault of longshore workers. He sees that both truckers and longshore workers are trapped in the capitalist system. He worries that too many truckers and longshore workers have fallen for the bosses’ racist lies.
This friend, Boeing workers and subcontractors, and comrades must develop plans to promote international communist solidarity among the work force. Party collectives in LA and Seattle should help build campaigns like these. They are essential preparation for armed communist revolutionary struggle to destroy racist capitalism.
“You Can’t Fool Us, Ricky!”
I worked on a line in the cutting room of Ratner’s Men’s Suits and Slacks in 1968. About twenty women split cut cloth into bundles ready for the women on the machines to sew these expensive men’s slacks together.
The factory was halfway between San Diego and Tijuana, and the women on my line were about half and half Anglo and Mexican. Only the supervisors and one young woman (Magdalena) were bilingual.
One day the supervisor, Ricky, came over to the bench where all the white women were eating lunch and began to praise us. “It’s so embarrassing to say it, but the Mexican girls [sic] here are so lazy. I’m glad I have you American girls. You really help me to get the work out.”
Immediately, Magdalena spoke up. “You liar! You go over to where the Mexican women eat and say, ‘I’m so proud to be a Mexican. You girls work so hard for me and the gringas are so lazy.’ We’re all over here killing ourselves for $1.80 an hour, no matter how hard we work. You’re the one who gets the bonus when we go beyond our quota. You can’t fool us, Ricky!’”
—a veteran comrade