Climate Protest, Quezon City, the Philippines
USA, December 30—The Mayfield Consumer Products factory was in Kentucky, not in the “Tornado Alley” stretching north from Texas through Oklahoma. It was December, not the spring peak tornado season. But sirens had sounded a warning earlier, and now they were wailing again.
In the hours between, some workers asked and were refused permission to go home. “If you leave, you’re more than likely to be fired,” one worker overheard managers tell four workers.
“I asked to leave, and they told me I’d be fired,” another said. He had asked, “Even with the weather like this, you’re still going to fire me?” A manager responded, “Yes.”
Over 100 workers were inside this candle factory when a tornado ripped through with 190 mph (310 km/h) gusts. At least eight died. Many more were crushed under falling walls or severely burned by hot wax.
Capitalism, not the weather, killed those workers.
Some workers, desperate for the poverty-level wages, wanted to stay through the storm. Others had to stay because they were prisoners from the county jail.
Mayfield Consumer Products was never a great place to work. Mandatory overtime was common. A 2019 inspection revealed serious safety violations. These included problems with electrical equipment, exit routes, and personal protective equipment. More recently, the company said it was working “to clean up [!] the epileptic, obese, pregnant and special needs issues” – even though it had problems recruiting workers.
Mayfield: The Rule, Not the Exception
Whether you live in Kentucky or California, El Salvador or India, you probably have your own stories that expose the horrors of capitalist exploitation. It’s not one supervisor, or one company, or one industry. It’s the capitalist system.
In capitalism, the means of production (like factories) are “owned” by a small ruling class. Legal ownership – whether by private companies or by state agencies – is backed by the force of the state.
Workers must take “jobs” – that is, sell our labor power to capitalists big or small – because we depend on wages to buy what we need. Owners must maximize profits to compete in the market, putting their needs in direct opposition to the workers.
Of course, workers organize and fight back. But any small gains we win through fierce and bitter class struggle are quickly taken away. Our only way out is to mobilize a revolutionary communist struggle to destroy the capitalist state and its privatized means of production.
In communism, workers ourselves will control the means of production and our working conditions. We’ll share, not sell, the fruits of our labor: No money needed to get food, health care, shelter, or anything else. So, we’ll work to produce for the common good, not for wages.
Need Communism Now to Combat Capitalism’s Deadly Climate Change
The eight Mayfield workers who died were among seventy-seven lives lost in Kentucky. Altogether, close to one hundred (some working at an Amazon warehouse that collapsed) perished in the unseasonable five-state tornado super-cell.
Four days later, Super Typhoon Rai (or Odette) tore through the Philippines. It left over 400 people dead and hundreds of thousands hungry and homeless.
Scientists are learning how global climate change is worsening typhoons, heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires like the one that just devastated Colorado (US) suburbs.
Its impact on tornado systems is harder to study since tornadoes are more localized (mainly in the central US) and shorter in duration. But global climate seems to be creating the conditions for more severe tornado outbreaks, and in more places.
Capitalist-caused climate change is increasingly deadly for the working class. Excessive heat and cold alone cause an estimated five million deaths annually, half of them in Asia.
Climate change can be slowed, and its effects eventually reversed. But not by individual efforts, and not without destroying capitalism.
Communist workers’ power will enable us to quickly implement existing alternative energy technologies and to find new ones. The masses will figure out ways to reorganize everyday life to be more collective while reducing energy use in production of food and other needs.
Communism will empower us to take collective control, of our workplaces and our world. By joining the International Communist Workers Party, every one of us can help to bring this about— before it’s too late.
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