Communist Garment Workers Unite Their Lives with Masses here ♦
Comrade Don Juan Presente!
Our beloved comrade spent a big part of his life fighting against capitalism and fighting for communism. He worked in the garment industry in Los Angeles. His spirit and his commitment will continue to inspire our struggle. Long live communism! Sign says: Garment workers from L.A. & Bangladesh, let’s destroy wage slavery!
From India to El Salvador and Beyond– Communist Garment Workers Unite Their Lives with the Oppressed Masses
BENGALURU (India), December 13— “When I was 17, I came to Bengaluru from a small village in the north,” said Parvati. “I had never seen a city in my life. I borrowed all my parents’ money to rent a shared room in a slum. The next week, I got a job in a garment factory. For four years, I worked in a factory producing thousands of shirts. When I saw that I could not even save enough money to send a shirt to my little brother, I cried all night.”
Parvati told her story at the beginning of our recent ICWP meeting. It started a very insightful discussion about why we must build our party.
“What brought me to my first ICWP meeting was somebody was distributing Red Flag,” she continued. “Because I had cried all night, my eyes were red and swollen. I could not read anything. However, the Red Flag distributor took the time to talk to me. I was so distraught.
“The next day, I started to read Red Flag. I saw a story of garment workers in El Salvador. I thought they were talking about me! In that story, a garment worker said, ‘I have a fever, but I have to go to the factory like this. So, I take a pill, and I go inside.’ “
Parvati remembers that many of her coworkers have to go to work sick. They have left their newborn babies behind in the slums. The El Salvador article said that this is ruthless capitalism. The capitalist bosses make a profit from us. That is why we cannot send a shirt to our children. Our kids are sick and hungry, and we have to report to work when we are ill. The only thing for us to do is to destroy this ghastly system.
Building the International Communist Workers’ Party
Many workers are attracted to the idea of organizing to change the system. Parvati and other workers have joined a local garment workers union. Every contract season, the union demands more wages, better working conditions, and pension funds. Every time they settle for less. Inflation eats away at the wage increases. It is an unending cycle that takes us nowhere.
Recently, the bosses have been trying to recruit more garment workers here. They say that we need to produce more garments. According to them, workers in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are “lazy and don’t want to work. They protest every day. So, we have to work hard because Christmas season demands are heavy.”
Many of the women at our meeting know about our organizing efforts to build ICWP in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. “The lazy people are the capitalist bosses who sit in their air-conditioned rooms,” they say. “They don’t even know how to stitch. Our misery is their joy.”
We have to spread our Red Flag to many of these garment factories in Bengaluru. We distribute around five hundred copies, but there are 250,000 workers in our area.
We learned from Parvati’s example that we must listen to the workers. Their lives must become part of our lives. We oppressed people can feel the pain and suffering of the capitalist system. And when we become part of their lives, we are building for communism and spreading Red Flag.
Parvati reminded us that our numbers will grow if we do this work consistently. She said she is a different person from when she met us four years ago. Now, she is more confident in talking to other workers about communism.
From Bengaluru to San Salvador and from Dhaka (Bangladesh) to Colombo (Sri Lanka), we are spreading the Red Flag of communism.