Chennai Auto Workers discuss Gaza, Boeing Strike here ♦ Boeing Workers Greet Chennai Workers here ♦ Imperialists in Mexico Fight Over Auto Industry here ♦
BRUSSELS (Belgium), September 16— Angry Audi workers led a march of thousands of supporters, some from as far as the Czech Republic, on the European Parliament. They protested the layoffs of 2700 auto workers from the projected closure of an Audi EV car factory
Chennai Auto Workers, Seattle Boeing Strikers, Gaza Masses: More Workers Must Organize for Communism to Destroy Capitalism
CHENNAI (India), September 27— “Boeing does not care about its workers. It cares about profiting from wars,” said an autoworker at our Red Flag distribution. Our 500 copies of Red Flag were gone quickly, as workers were very interested in the Boeing strike. Many felt they would be next, as auto companies would need fewer workers as the bosses retool factories for electric cars.
The Gaza genocide and the emergence of a new ICWP group in Israel, around the time of the Boeing strike, created many discussions among our friends. Such discussions are never seen in the local media or trade unions. “What do the expanding wars in West Asia have to do with the Boeing workers?” This was a constant theme.
Many workers remember that the racist media blamed Boeing’s catastrophic failures on the “foreign-trained pilots.” And then on “the poor quality of engineering design performed by Boeing India.” In our weekly meeting, we explained that it was the Boeing capitalists, in fierce competition with Airbus, who compromised new accident-prone Boeing aircraft by producing more cheaply. Now, Boeing faces more competition because Russian and Chinese capitalists are beginning to make their own airplanes.
“We are manually molding and welding components in our auto factory,” Ramesh told everyone at our meeting. “But in China, they have automatic robots that perform the same task faster and require fewer workers. I am afraid this is also going to happen here.”
Machines replacing workers have been part of capitalism since its beginning. But the new machines and robots cost money.
To recover this investment, the companies employ fewer workers and discard the remaining workers like rubbish.
But since only workers create wealth, stolen by capitalists, fewer workers produce less profit on the one hand and, on the other, a mountain of cheap cars, appliances, TVs, and so forth with no one to buy them.
“Did you read in Red Flag that in El Salvador, our garment comrades are also facing layoffs?” asked a new reader, Sunil. “And while you see 46,000 workers in North India trying to get a job for 8 positions, people in Bangladesh have 40% unemployment. This is happening everywhere.” Sunil wanted to find out how to end this vicious cycle of unemployment.
Gaza is a perfect example of how capitalists murder the working class to eliminate “surplus” workers. Israeli capitalists work hand in hand with US imperialists to profit by maintaining their army to supply oil to Europe, China, and the rest of Asia. Iran, supported by Russia and China, is trying to eliminate the US competition. Iran’s proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah are willing to sacrifice the masses in this deadly competition.
Boeing and other US defense contractors are supplying and deploying weapons of mass destruction to Israel. While Boeing is losing its commercial production of airplanes, its defense production is the most important tool of US imperialism to maintain its terror and resist the rapid decline of the rate of profit.
“Only communism can resolve this problem, because no capitalists will exist to replace workers for profit,” Ramesh continued. “Machines will not dominate and replace workers. Workers will use machines to eliminate dangerous, monotonous tasks.” He knows how he is affected in his factory. “In communism, robots will require fewer people, and everyone will contribute to help each other, not compete.”
We need more comrades like Ramesh. Last year he began to attend our meetings. He did not completely grasp how communism can resolve these problems of capitalism. But he became a regular reader as the Gaza genocide unfolded. He was glued to Red Flag accounts of Gaza. From Gaza to Chennai to Boeing, we need more workers to organize to destroy capitalism and replace it with communism.
Greetings to Chennai Workers from Boeing Strikers, Retirees, Families, and Friends
Many in the Seattle (US) area have read the article in this issue from Chennai. Those of us who worked at Boeing plants in 2018 noticed especially the comment about the “racist media blaming foreign trained pilots” for the first 737 Max crash in October that year.
From the very beginning, comrades and friends of the International Communist Workers’ Party fought against this racist and xenophobic company excuse. Members and friends did not let a single comment like this go unchallenged on the shop floor.
In one building, friends warned a xenophobic racist that he had better stop saying that “there would not have been any crashes if the pilots had spoken English.” He quickly transferred to another building, where rank-and-file workers gave him the same cold shoulder.
These struggles often led to longer discussions about communism and joining the party. In communism, those who do the work will make the decisions. We will not need the parasitic capitalists who put profits and exploitation above all else. And no more racist, xenophobic, and anti-working-class excuses!
We look forward to more articles from Chennai. They help us all build the forces we need for communist revolution.
—Boeing workers and retirees in Seattle (US)
Imperialists Fight Over Auto Industry – Workers Must Dump Them All
MEXICO, October 1— “Exclude third party noise,” said Zhan Run, China’s ambassador to Mexico. He was referring to US bosses’ pressure on trade negotiations between these two countries.
“We should take concrete actions to rectify [the USA’s] wrong practices that undermine fair competition and deteriorate market-driven conditions,” wrote Zhang. He noted that China is Mexico’s second largest trading partner (after the USA).
The fight is over China manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs) in Mexico. And the US threat of high tariffs to prevent them from entering the US market. According to some analysts, Chinese EVs, with similar features as Tesla EVs, would sell for half the price.
The increasingly sharp contradictions in the world between imperialists are leading to more workers’ struggles everywhere. Growing trade wars that turn into real wars are moving toward open and direct confrontation between declining US imperialism and China, its main competitor.
Industrial workers worldwide are key to fighting for and building a new communist world where the production of necessities is only to meet workers’ needs, not to fill any bosses’ pockets.
Auto workers in Mexico, like those in India and South Africa, can and must play a leading role in the masses’ struggle for that new communist world. We must ensure, in one way or another, that the communist ideas in Red Flag reach these workers.
Electric or Gas-Powered Vehicles = Exploitation and Misery
On the one hand, the so-called de-carbonization and promotion of alternative or clean energy is empty talk. Burning coal is profitable. After the sabotage of the Nord Stream II pipeline, the capitalists of the European Union are using coal to replace Russian natural gas.
On the other hand, even with the Chinese advances in Mexico, the US cannot now exclude Mexico from the North American Region. Mexico is a major reservoir of labor, resources, and markets for the US, and US rulers will not throw it to the Chinese side.
The capitalists who extract crude oil, on whichever imperialist side (like Russia) say they have oil and gas for 20, 30 and even 50 years more (like Russia) and there is no reason to stop building refineries.
Production of the internal combustion engine will continue while Chinese capitalists lead the race for electric vehicles. In Mexico there is still little assembly of electric vehicles. What has advanced most up until now is the assembly of “hybrids.”
The pretense of some of the US oppressors to bring the plants to its territory to re-industrialize the country contradicts the need for extraction of maximum profit (surplus value): to exploit the workers’ labor power, markets, and natural resources of Mexico.
The working class should not be fooled by one group of imperialists or the other. Instead, we should organize globally against them all. The auto industry is key at this time of accelerating world war. Many of these factories will be used to build tanks or other tools of war. By building ICWP there, we can make those tanks available for communist revolution. Let’s start those collectives by helping to distribute Red Flag and building communist relations with these workers.