Responding to Layoffs here ♦ Communist Garment Workers Fight Fascism here ♦
Responding to Factory Layoffs by Mobilizing for Communism
EL SALVADOR, August 31— “Look what they are handing out, does this help the fight?” a worker asked a group of workers outside the factory.
Another worker answered, “Yes, the ones distributing it are Red Flag,” another worker answered.
“Oh, that’s good,” concluded the first.
Worker comrade P said, “Thank you, comrades, for coming to support us. The flyer demonstrates the Party’s interest in the workers’ struggles. Tomorrow, we expect to see the reactions of workers inside the factory.”
We responded quickly to the layoffs of more than 60 workers by mobilizing at the gates of one of the largest factories in the country, which operates in the free-trade zone. It employs more than 600 workers, and we have a concentration of comrade members of the International Communist Workers’ Party (ICWP) there.
We distributed 100 copies of our Red Flag newspaper and 200 copies of a communist flyer. It attacked the exploitative capitalist thieves who are firing workers and robbing them of their compensation in addition to their labor. As always, workers gladly accepted our literature.
The current wave of dismissals is a ruse to force the workers to accept theft of the compensation that they are supposed to receive. This will happen as long as capitalism exists.
Workers’ organization must defeat capitalist terror. That means reading the newspaper of the working class and joining the International Communist Workers’ Party. In a communist society, no one will be lining their pockets at the expense of the efforts of other workers. Production will be to satisfy the needs of the workers.
Currently the bosses steal what the workers produce every day. And they want the worker to thank them for the theft and exploitation of their labor. That is the wage slavery to which capitalism subjects us.
At the factory, as always, we take the opportunity to talk to all the workers that we can. We express our support at this time when the employers and their union leader allies agree to throw workers onto the streets. Some of these workers have been working for up to twenty years.
Others have chronic diseases and need medical attention. Now they are left without health insurance coverage, aggravating their health situation.
We spoke to three women whom we invited to our collective meetings. We explained that we must make a broader fight for system change, a fight for Communism.
We also acknowledged workers who are friends of the ICWP, motivating them to continue in this fight that will lead us to end wage slavery.
The factory is well guarded by the subservient police and soldiers, who protect those who exploit their own kind. But even under these conditions the communist material could be distributed.
We are coordinating to support our dismissed comrades and friends (two women and a young man, members of the ICWP). We plan to make an international collection, to provide either basic necessities or financial aid.
We are also looking at the possibilities of helping them find a new job and to continue organizing in other areas.
After the activity we met with the ICWP comrades to share details of everything that is happening inside the factory and to make new plans to maintain our communist work.
We will not give up! The fight for Communism continues!
Communist Garment Workers Fight Fascism From India to El Salvador
EL SALVADOR, August 27— “I’m shocked and angered by what’s happening in India. But I’m encouraged by the determination of the comrade worker who says she must be an active organizer. We should follow her example,” said a comrade worker.
“Things also happen here in the factory and the communities. Sometimes we turn a blind eye. We must question why all this happens. We can’t be indifferent,” said a worker, who came to the meeting with her teenagers.
About twenty workers came to the meeting from three factories where the ICWP has friends, readers, and comrades. We read the article written by comrades in India, “Garment Workers Respond to Growing Fascism by Expanding Communist Work.”
Fascism is on the rise in many parts of the world. We are in similar conditions here in El Salvador. Under the government’s regime of exception, large contingents of soldiers and police, protectors of the fascist system, arrive in the communities to intimidate the people.
We organize in a situation of great repression. When the capitalist system is incapable of creating dignified conditions for the working class, and the workers rebel, governments resort to fascism.
The answer to the intensification of fascism in India, El Salvador and other countries is more organization and struggle for Communism.
The factories, where we suffer exploitation by the thieving capitalist bosses, are also the place to spread our communist line and organize a mass party.
“Where I work, we make women’s clothes. Some of the garments we make sell for up to US $40 each. But we get paid a few cents for each. The bosses fire workers all the time, for any reason,” said a young worker, who came with his mother. She works in another factory.
We explained that the unions are allies of the bosses. The union being in a factory is no guarantee there won’t be layoffs. Only workers’ organization for communism will end wage slavery.
“We should distribute Red Flag there,” said one comrade.
“I’m starting to organize in ICWP. I’m reading the paper. That’s going to help me start building political work there. I must evaluate to whom I can pass the newspaper,” said the young worker.
“You have to start building social relations with other workers,” said another comrade.
Building communist social relations among workers opens the possibilities of sharing communist ideas that are most important to the working class.
We also share the importance of communist philosophy, dialectical materialism, for the political struggle. It helps us understand how the organized working class can make change. Organized, we will make the communist revolution for a classless society.
The work in the factory is an example of this. It shows that we are in constant conflict with the idealist philosophy of the bosses. They want the working class to think all the exploitation and poverty of capitalism is normal. We’ll continue to study the philosophy of dialectical materialism in the ICWP collectives.
At the end of the meeting there was a conversation with young people who have participated since they were children. They were listening to the discussion along with their parents. They are the future of ICWP.
The next day, one of these young people, who is now a worker, was laid off from the factory. We are collecting various forms of support, moral and economic, for him and other comrades.
We distributed chicken, rice, bread, and sodas before going to the swimming pool and the beach. The recreation is welcomed by the workers’ families. Workers produce everything and deserve all the best.