Auto workers in India organize here ♦ ICWP Expands here ♦ How to talk about communism on the job here ♦
Auto Workers in India Organize: March on May Day to End Wage Slavery and Imperialist War with Communist Revolution
CHENNAI (India), January 29— “Many workers were appalled to see the devastation in Gaza. So many of our workers must spend long hours, sometimes more than twelve, to feed the family,” said Deepak, an auto worker, at our Red Flag collective meeting. “I can’t imagine how masses of people in Gaza without homes, food, and water, and under constant bombing can feed their families.”
Nine auto worker comrades discussed how our work is affected by the Gaza genocide. “My coworker’s family was doing construction work in Saudi Arabia,” Omar reported. “He is laid off after the disruption in Yemen. Now he is looking for work in the auto industry here.” Omar ‘s friend is not alone. Thousands are returning from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq.
“This is how capitalism works,” explained an ICWP comrade who distributes Red Flag to many in his neighbourhood. “The war in Gaza appears to be between Hamas and Israel. However, imperialists are involved. The US and European rulers are directly fuelling the massacres in Gaza. The Iranian rulers, supported by Russian and Chinese imperialists, are fighting to eliminate the US presence in the area.
“Both sides are escalating wars, as we see in Yemen and Lebanon. It is an attack on the working class everywhere. We might not see immediately how it affects us. But look at the port in Chennai. There is a 30% reduction in shipping to the Suez Canal. They are diverting it to much longer routes, raising costs 40%. Now they are laying off port workers.”
The auto unions here are not even thinking about deadly imperialist wars. So, they cannot offer any solution to end it with communist revolution. There are 181 major automobile plants in a sixty kms corridor in Chennai. They employ over two million workers. How can we reach out to these industrial workers? This is a pressing question that comrades were trying to understand.
“We are wage slaves; we produce everything, and capitalists try to make maximum profit,” said an ICWP comrade. “They must constantly attack us to reduce our wages. They also must attack other capitalists to eliminate competition. The unions cannot resolve this contradiction because they want to keep wage slavery. They compromise with our class enemy.” This comrade had just attended a meeting of CITU, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. It is affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
This union meeting asked for a twelve percent pay increase. The union only represents the contract workers. Sixty percent of the workforce has no contract, and they earn less than half of what contract workers make. The non-contract workers also have no pension funds, healthcare, or housing subsidies. They are forced to live very far from the plant. Most of the noncontract workers come from other states, don’t speak the same language, and many are Dalits or Muslims.
The union settled with the owners for a seven percent pay increase for contract workers and only two percent for non-contract workers. The official inflation rate is nine percent. At this union meeting, four comrades distributed Red Flag and a leaflet. The leaflet explained that no matter how much unions fight, workers will still be wage slaves.
In communism, the working class will cease to be wage slaves. Nobody will be an autoworker all their life. Without profit and greed, the working class will only produce what is needed for society.
Under capitalism, since profit is the main drive, many useless things are produced. This creates inefficient cities choked with unwanted cars, congestion, and environmental disasters. The result is racism, sexism, and imperialist wars for more profit.
We were able to talk to many auto workers. Some know us. They were all disappointed in the union’s sell-out proposal. We engaged with them and invited them to our next meeting. Our goal is to concentrate on our close comrades, so they become active members of our party. We proposed to continue to discuss dialectics of change, and how a small party can become a mass party for communism.
The first May Day in Chennai was celebrated 101 years ago in memory of the workers’ struggle. It still inspires workers everywhere. We plan to bring to the workers in Chennai our communist vision that capitalism/imperialism are creating conditions for its own demise. The International Communist Workers’ Party will build a mass party for communist revolution.
The International Communist Workers’ Party Expands
Three comrades from the factory where we have the largest concentration of ICWP members have quit that job to look for higher wages in another factory. But they are also leaving to organize and distribute our Red Flag newspaper there.
When my comrades told me that they were quitting work in the factory, I felt like a bucket of cold water had fallen on me, since they actively participate in several ICWP collectives.
I thought it would be an important loss for the fight for Communism. But I met with other comrades recently and talked about this, and about what was happening in the factory. A comrade said “L told me, ‘I’m leaving the factory, but not leaving ICWP. I’m going to the new factory to recruit more comrades. You’ll see.’”
So, we saw it as an opportunity to expand communist ideas and the organization of more men and women workers into the International Communist Workers’ Party.
The work environment in the factory has caused layoffs and uncertainty among the remaining workers. There is less production. This suggests that they will continue with more layoffs.
That’s why many young workers are looking for new opportunities in other centers of exploitation, but these are also new places to organize for the ICWP.
From this situation comes the invitation to these comrades who are leaving, that we should meet where they live with their families. This seems to me an excellent idea to give continuity to our fight for Communism.
This represents an advance to strengthen communist relations with the families of the workers and to organize in the community, for which a meeting is planned soon.
—Comrade Worker in El Salvador
How to Talk About Communism on the Job?
I was hired at a non-profit agency over four years ago. Like every new employee, I was told that politics and religion were off-limits for discussion at work.
Ironically, we now have a new Racial & Social Justice Task Force. How do we have this task force without getting into political topics, I ask. As a participant, I often raise questions or concerns that are of a political nature, as do some co-workers.
For all I know, this policy of no political or religious topics may have changed or been “relaxed.” The task force was implemented one year ago. In its discussions, interesting topics and issues have been raised. In one session, the topic was de-colonization. We discussed the importance of de-colonizing our minds.
When we had our first company-wide mandatory training session, there was some opposition to even having such a task force. There have even been complaints over the past year, but these have been in the minority. Most employees think it’s necessary for the times we are living in. I personally don’t understand the objections considering the agency’s stated mission is “Eliminating Racism, Empowering Women”.
Besides the task force, I have spoken with a few co-workers about us being the working class and how I think it’s possible to create a better world for workers solely by Revolution. I have gotten positive feedback from a few, especially when emphasizing that Revolution is just a romanticized word for system change.
I’m currently working on a way to introduce Communism as a solution in a nuanced way since I’ve noticed the reluctance of many of my co-workers to delve into politics in what some would consider that deeply. There is definitely an openness at work to considering new systems of power other than the Democratic or Republican parties.
—Red Flag reader