Workers Voice

Prime Day is the retail and logistics giant, Amazon’s, biggest PR scheme; last year, the sale brought in $2.4 billion. But this year, things did not go according to plan.

Amazon workers have seized the opportunity to deal a major blow to the corporation. On May 16, Spanish Amazon workers called for an international strike on the website, amazonenlucha.wordpress.com. Major unions organized across Europe, with workers in Spain, Poland, Italy, and Germany participating in the strike. Consumers (who are mostly fellow workers) showed solidarity with a boycott, intensifying the blow.

The action is a forceful example of international coordination, demonstrating the power of the global working class; this is a power that is only beginning to be tested in our era. By any measure, the strike significantly affected Amazon’s ability to fulfill shipments because strike participation was so high. For example, an estimated 96% of the workers at the San Fernando warehouse outside Madrid participated.

The strike also comes at a time when Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, has entered into a new wealth bracket. He now has $150 billion. This wealth is generated by the thousands of Amazon workers throughout the world, who are increasingly raising their voices about the harsh working conditions they face. They report exhaustion, heavy workplace surveillance, isolation, inability to take bathroom breaks, frequent workplace injuries, and more. Despite these hardships, they are setting an example of struggle for the entire world proletariat!

In June, the Teamsters union negotiated a tentative contract for UPS workers. The contract— which covers 250,000 workers— boosts starting pay for both part-time and full-time employees. Beginning in August, 2018, starting pay for part-time package handlers will go from $10.35 an hour to $13 an hour, and is set to rise to $15.50 over four years. Drivers currently making $19 an hour will get bumped up to $20.50 later in the summer. They are set to make $34.79 an hour by 2022.

Nevertheless, workers have expressed dissatisfaction with at least one aspect of the contract as it exists now; the agreement creates a new driving position called Full-Time Combination Drivers (Combo Driver). Unlike regular drivers, Combo Drivers would work inside the building and on the road at the company’s discretion. They would work weekends, receive approximately $6 less than regular drivers, and lack certain protections.

The concessions from UPS bosses came after the workers voted to go on strike earlier in June. The strike would have been the rst for UPS since 1997, and one of the most far-reaching for the U.S. economy in decades. Although the strike did not occur, the threat indicates the growing confidence of labor in the country. The unevenness of the concessions, however, suggests that the struggle is far from over, and should dispel any illusions about the bosses’ good will.

By Malcolm Suber

Over the weekend of May 18-20, 65 delegates representing more than 20 cities and states held the first National Liberation Assembly of Black anti-capitalist and anti-racist organizers.

The Assembly was the result of years of veteran revolutionary organizers observing the upsurge in the Black mass resistance struggle exemplified by the massive response to the Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown killings at the hands of white supremacists and racist police. This upsurge revealed the necessity for a well-planned country-wide response from the most advanced sections of our movement. It was concluded that serious revolutionary organizers had a duty to try and unite so that the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) could be rebuilt along sound revolutionary lines rejecting the dead-end leadership of reformist and Black capitalist forces.

Black mass struggle has broken out against police terror and police murder; for jobs and a livable wage; against the oppression of women;  for housing for the homeless and affordable housing for working class families; for universal healthcare; for protection of the children and the elderly; against environmental racism; for community controlled quality education; for equal treatment of immigrant workers, for human rights for our LGBTQ brothers and sisters; and for the removal of all monuments to white supremacy.

These movements have lost their potency because they are localized and without the visibility and guidance that a country-wide revolutionary leadership could provide.

The National Assembly held workshops on the many fronts of struggle and discussed the central question of how can revolutionary fighters overcome their differences and establish a centralized organization centered in the black working class and unified in an anti-capitalist, anti-racist Black United Front.

There was a National Liberation Council elected with the authority to self-expand for inclusion for regional, gender balance, diversity and youth.

A proceedings committee was formed and charged with the task of gathering, assembling and publishing National Assembly papers for distribution, study and debate as part of the process leading to a 2nd National Liberation Assembly which will adopt a program for Black liberation.

by Dylan Borne

The Democrats and Republicans have joined hands to give $716 billion of our tax dollars to the military in 2019. That’s $82 billion more than this year. To buy even more warships, fighter jets, submarines, missiles, tanks and nuclear weapons, these stolen tax dollars will go to private profit-making war corporations, who then turn around and fund politicians. This money also funds the wars in the Middle East that have killed over 4 million people to date. Already, the total budget is 3 times more than China spends on its military and 10 times more than Russia—even though the US government says China and Russia are the boogeymen.

But even that $716 billion is an underestimate. In addition to the Pentagon budget, the following expenses and more add up to a real military budget of over $1 trillion:

• Department of Energy developing thousands of nuclear warheads

• State Department marketing weapons worldwide

• CIA training Latin American death squads

• Justice Department contracting out prison slave labor to make uniforms, night vision goggles, body armor, and more to arms corporations

• Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deporting or imprisoning millions of immigrants, including children, for “homeland security”

• Military grants for universities to develop new weapon technologies

• Military grants for local police to buy weapons

Who wins out from all this spending?

War corporations (like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, etc.) are raking in billions of dollars from the sales of missiles, fighter jets, and all kinds of other weapons to the military. Oil companies like Exxon and Koch Industries get a kick of it too, since wars in the Middle East always leave large oilfields open for them to steal (after killing or displacing the land’s former inhabitants). For them, more war means more money.

By the way, these corporations aren’t the ones paying for this military budget. In 2015, Koch got $156 million in tax breaks ($77 million from Louisiana!). In 2016, Boeing got $305 million. It’s ordinary workers that get the bill deducted from our paychecks, while the corporations skim the cream.

Sellout politicians (Democrats too!) and corrupt generals fuel the fire

War corporations get their way by pulling the strings at the highest levels of government.

John Bolton, the National Security Advisor, came into office fresh out of working for EMS Technologies, a company that made a fortune selling weapons to the government. Now, he’s in charge of making military recommendations, and he’s openly pushed for war on Iran “by 2019.” It wouldn’t be a surprise if war corporations hire him right back once he retires.

In the 2016 elections, war profiteers gave an average of $43,000 to every Republican in Congress, and $32,000 to every Democrat. If you think it’s only Republicans who want to buy more weapons, think twice: Democrats are cheering them on. The large majority of them support increasing military spending—after all, that’s what they’re paid for.

The military’s top generals take bribes in the hundreds. These generals sound the alarm for war, and are rewarded by arms dealers with a cushy job and a fat paycheck once they retire. Investigations reveal that over 70% of retired generals get six-figure contracts from war corporations (on top of their $250,000 tax-funded pensions).

Who loses?

The rest of us do.

While billions upon billions are being stacked onto the military budget, over 30 million workers are losing their healthcare because of federal cuts. It would only take $80 billion, a fraction of military spending, to make all public colleges and universities in the US free. Child hunger is higher than it was 50 years ago, youth unemployment plagues black neighborhoods, Puerto Rico is still without electricity, Flint still has lead in its water, and New Orleans still has an affordable housing crisis, even though it’s cheaper to fix these problems than to build more warships.

Adding up all its fuel burning, oil spills, toxic chemicals, and nuclear waste, the US military is the world’s #1 polluter.
Our environment and our communities bear the cost. Corporations that care more about money than human lives laugh their way to the bank while we workers foot their bill.

By Nathalie Clark

Paris, France.
On Saturday May 26, 50 organizations—leftist political parties, student groups, and unions—took to the streets across France to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s attacks on workers’ rights and social programs. This coalition united to protest government policy changes, show continued support for the railway workers, and communicate that workers will continue to disrupt business as usual as long as Macron persists in his attacks on their livelihoods. To voice their discontent, French workers from the SNCF—the railroad system—and from Air France, have been carrying out strikes for over two months. Energy workers, involved in a struggle to raise the minimum wage since December 2017, also joined this protest. Air France was forced to cancel 25% of flights, and train circulation around the country was disrupted. What’s more, the SCNF estimates costs of the strike at around 400 million euros since April 3. Workers have demonstrated their enormous collective strength in the face of austerity, racism, and the rise of neo-fascists.

Macron has been carrying out policies against workers across all industries. He is planning to hand over the French railway system to private companies that will attempt to squeeze the profit out of underpaid workers by threatening mass layoffs. Through struggle, railway workers in France have won benefits, such as 3 extra days paid vacation, but these workers still struggle with difficult work schedules, risks posed by the hazardous materials they handle, and health problems often incurred from their work.

In France, energy used to be a public service: the means of production were owned by the state, which gave workers more job security. But privatizing the energy industry has increased prices for individual households, and shortages for everyone. As a reminder to the bourgeoisie that energy is not private property, electric and gas workers have gone beyond merely striking– they’ve cut off power to multinational corporations that fire employees to increase profits for shareholders and have restored electricity and gas to families unable to pay their bills. As part of their support for the railway workers struggle, they also plan on cutting power at railway stations. The energy and gas workers in France are watching history repeat itself; Macron promises that the SNCF (the national railway company) will not be privatized, but the same promises were made about energy. Today, the state owns only 20% of shares, leaving employees at risk.

Attacking workers’ rights in the name of profit is more than immoral, it’s deadly: an estimated 10000 to 14000 people die per year because of unemployment in France. Workers in France and across the globe are defending more than labor laws when they take to the streets, they’re fighting for their right to exist. Workers provide the labor upon which society depends; without us, society would collapse. How would capitalists make their profits, without the work provided by electricians, tellers, secretaries, teachers, hospital staff, and all the other heroes too often forgotten? How would surgeons save lives without lights in their buildings? Capitalism constantly reinforces the idea that commodities and money matter more than people but we of the working class can use our power to put people before profits.

New groups of workers join the strikes

Remy Herrera reports from Paris that unionized fast food workers at McDonalds, at the big retail stores, and in elder care institutions have denounced low wages and speedups; the care workers have also demanded better conditions for the residents. Sanitation and sewer workers mobilized against the hardships of their jobs and demanded early retirement. In mid-June farmers blocked 14 oil refineries. Workers at the Catacombs (an underground cemetery) and museum workers have also gone on strike.

Greedy Real Estate Developers Create Affordable Housing Shortage, Inflate Rents

by Gabriel Mangano

While the super rich rattle on about how wonderful the economy is doing, for the working class there is nothing but increasing poverty, misery, and insecurity. A new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) shows that nowhere in the United States can a person working a full-time job minimum wage job afford a two-bedroom apartment.

At $7.25 an hour and with national and state data on rental prices, researchers calculated that the average worker would have to work 122 hours a week (17 + hours a day, seven days a week) at the national fair market rent. Even at the average renter’s hourly wage of $16.88, in only 11% of US counties can a renter afford a two-bedroom apartment.

In New Orleans, things are even worse. A New Orleans/Jefferson Parish worker must make $19.15 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. For minimum wage earners, the outlook is bleak. A minimum wage worker must work 92 hours, that’s 2.3 full time jobs, to afford a two bed-room apartment. In fact, a minimum wage worker has to work almost 80 hours to afford even a one-bedroom. If a minimum wage worker were to rent a two bedroom without paying more than 30% of their income as “recommended” by bourgeois economists, she would have to find an apartment that rented for $377 a month.

While short-term rentals like Airbnb get much of the blame for the housing crisis, even more significant is what kind of housing is being built. Between 2005-15, the number of homes renting for more than $2,000 increased by 97% while homes renting for less than $800 declined by 2%. Of over 6.7 million units added in that time, there were 260,000 less affordable units. Even in New Orleans, there is a 20% vacancy rate while many of the 185,000-renter families scuffle to find an affordable place to live.

The capitalists have created the affordable housing crisis as another way to exploit the workers. The tiny percentage of set asides of so-called affordable units helps only a few and often come with time limits that force long time renters into the streets when their “affordable unit” expires. And while Section 8 affords some “lottery winners” with mostly decent housing it is not available to all. There are thousands of people who qualify for Section 8 but the program is shut off to us. To make it all worse, Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD has proposed raising the rents of those in HUD housing by 20% which will mean evictions and increased hunger and deprivation.

Longstanding homeowners, especially Black and older homeowners, are being forced out of homes by soaring property taxes caused by gentrification which is supported by the city’s mayor and city council.

We need a united Tenants movement for rent control and take overs of abandoned properties for people, not profit. There is abundant housing available and plenty of abandoned units that could be rehabilitated. There are thousands of people who could do that work. While only socialism, which puts the workers in control, will bring a total end to homelessness and even rent all together, we can unite now as tenants to wage a struggle to push back against these insatiable profiteers.

By Sanashihla, an educator

Our Black children deserve more in our city and our schools. 60% of New Orleans residents are Black. The schools are made up of at least 80% Black children. Nearly 50% of children in New Orleans live in poverty. 96% of all juvenile arrests are of Black children.

New Orleans is a city where the rich ruling class acquired generational wealth on the enslavement of African people, whose descendants now fill the jails and prisons, or many of whom work low wage jobs without workers’ rights.

We cannot just accept this. We must DO SOMETHING to change these conditions!
We should make EQUITY a priority for our children, not just in words but in ACTION.

What does investment into children, of money and resources from the city and schools like now?

1. For an 180 day school year, Louisiana tax payers pay $11,000 per child, which results in an investment of $61 per day.

2. However, for 180 days in juvenile prison, Louisiana tax payers pay $50,400 per inmate, because it cost $280 PER DAY to keep kids locked up in juvenile prisons.

3. Imagine if we flipped the invest to invest $280 per day into the proactive education of children, how much of a difference it could make?

4. Out of the $647 million dollar city budget, only 1% goes to job development, and only 3% goes to children & families, while a
whopping 63% goes to cops, jails, and reactive programs.

All of the above adds up to an intentional investment in mass incarceration.

There are at least three ways the city and schools could prioritize equity for New Orleans’ children:

1. FLIP THE BUDGET so that 63% of the resources proactively go to job development, and children & families. Invest in children rather than criminalize them. Mass incarceration only impoverishes families. Yet, we can meet children’s immediate material and emotional needs, rather than hire more high paid administrators. Hire culturally competent social workers, therapists, and nurses.

2. Rather than invest in test preparation materials and programs, proactively invest in reading and math interventionists/specialists to collaborate with teachers to help children learn how to think, not merely what to think. There is not a sensible educator in any school that believes the current overabundance of testing is healthy for kids or teachers. Testing is a for-profit industry, stealing educational funds.

3. Enable and welcome parents to have a larger role in decision making. This means making extra accommodations that consider the hectic schedules of working families. A strong school parent partnership allows children to feel mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically safe & cared for in their journey to learn.

OneApp Discriminates

Realize that the idea of “choice” can either be about expanding opportunity or limiting options on the sly. Choice is a nice way of saying that every school is NOT equal. And, although the public has been conditioned to “accept” that certain schools have specializations, such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and or ART, the real question is: shouldn’t all schools invest in science, technology, engineering, math, art and other areas of education? Why can’t schools of every neighborhood offer the opportunities that the rich ruling class demands be available in their children’s schools? The answer is: THEY CAN, when our priorities are in order and child centered. The OneApp does not solve equity issues in New Orleans, it exacerbates them when a parent is responsible for selecting up to 8 schools, and gets number 6, 7, or 8. What kind of choice is that?

So how do we get equity for our children, in our schools and beyond?

We don’t get it by sitting in silence or waiting for change to happen on its own. Strategic unity is key. We cannot allow public officials to support laws, policies, or budgets that promote white supremacy and maintain exploitation and oppression. We must educate, agitate, organize! Join us in doing so!

The Black Alliance for Peace faces many challenges and attacks because of its principled stance of opposition to US imperialism. But some people may be surprised to learn that the BAP has recently come under attack from people on the left who call themselves socialists. One of the leaders of Black Alliance for Peace, Ajamu Baraka, was specifically targeted when he was a featured speaker at the annual Left Forum in New York City.

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America and the International Socialist Organization openly lent credibility to the lies and demonizations of other countries that the US uses to justify its military interventions and bloody wars across the globe. They accused Baraka of being an “Assadist”– a meaningless term borrowed from the U.S. State Department which is used to slander those who demand that the United States military withdraw from Syria. Socialists should be protesting actual enemies like the military industrial complex, not radical black leaders like Ajamu Baraka.

Quest Riggs of New Orleans’ Students and Workers Against Racism and Militarism (SWARM) writes, “we stand in solidarity with Ajamu Baraka and the Black Alliance for Peace. We know that these attacks will do nothing to deter them from their committed struggle against US imperialism.”

Learn more about the Black Alliance for Peace at www.blackallianceforpeace.com

Immigrants risk everything to come here because U.S. imperialism and Wall Street policies have destroyed their economies or installed military governments that guarantee profits for U.S. corporations. 10,000 children ripped from their families and imprisoned shows there is no limit to what U.S. capitalist rulers will do. Immigrants come here as refugees but they are not recognized as such because that would mean admitting the imperialist US government’s role in their displacement.

Take two examples: Mexico and Honduras. When the U.S. put in place the North American Free Trade Agreement, US agribusiness firms flooded Mexican markets with corn, the longtime staple economic crop of Mexico. Corporations reaped a windfall of profit while more than two million farmers lost their livelihoods and were stranded, hungry and homeless.

In 2009 the people of Honduras elected a government that wanted to enact some measures to help the people. The U.S. under Obama/Hillary Clinton financed and orchestrated a military coup against that elected government and put in place a repressive regime that has murdered and imprisoned thousands while impoverishing the masses.

Here in the U.S. workers and oppressed people are seeing low wages and all our public services gutted, while the for-profit military machine loots the treasury. Profit making prisons mean mass incarceration for immigrants and working class people, especially the Black community. The rich are getting much richer but we are not. They are taking it all and still come back for more.

To carry off this robbery of the people, the government, which represents Wall Street, is whipping up racism and homophobia, attacking women’s rights, and scapegoating immigrants. They want to divide the working class and turn our attention away from their thievery.

The reality is that whenever any group of workers, whatever their status or nationality, race or sexual identity, is unequal, it lowers the livings standards and rights of all workers.

Capital–that is, money accumulated from the sweat of our labor but owned privately by a few individual capitalists– can cross all the borders in the world to exploit people’s misery for profit. There are no laws preventing U.S. capitalist corporations from running away to other countries, no laws preventing them from hiding their profits offshore, no laws ensuring a good job or income for all. But human beings, our class sisters and brothers and children, are imprisoned.

We as workers are linked together globally. If the U.S. installs a dictatorship to pay workers $1 a day somewhere, it lowers our wages. There are no borders in the workers struggle. The government comes up with all sorts of lies to justify their wars for private profit. They can’t openly say they are trying to dominate the world to fill their bank vaults at any cost, no matter how many lives are taken.

In our fight to free the children and families we recognize that these crimes are not new to US policy but a continuation of the kidnappings that ripped apart families under slavery and that tore Native children from their homes. Every day, throughout this land of for-profit prisons, thousands of families, especially Black families, suffer under the US system of mass incarceration. Just as sheriffs originated as catchers of enslaved people, today ICE plays this role.

We must stand up for all the children, free all the families, abolish ICE, win equal political and economic rights for immigrants, and put an end to for-profit prisons and mass incarceration. These aims are in the interest of “citizen” and immigrant workers alike.

Yemen, which has a population of nearly 29 million people, is being devastated by a long and bloody war. For nearly 3 years Saudi Arabia has bombed the people of Yemen, destroying their access to essential goods. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has enforced a devastating blockade of the nation’s main air and sea ports through which Yemen imports almost 90% of its food and the majority of its medicine. This has caused a food crisis that has starved millions of Yemenis including 50,000 children in 2017. Malnourishment has resulted in the worst cholera outbreak that the world has ever seen, with a million recorded cases last year. On June 11 the Saudis stooped so low as to bomb a cholera treatment center operated by Doctors Without Borders, knowing full well the purpose of the facility.

If you’re lucky, you might have heard this much on the news. But what the corporate media never reports is that this is being done with American planes, ships, rockets and military intel. Trump and his crew are supporting the genocide with money and weapons, and they’re also giving a diplomatic shield to the Saudis as they carry it out. As much as they try to distance themselves from it, the U.S. politicians and generals are truly responsible for genocide against Yemen.

Millions of Yemeni workers and their children face starvation, disease and regular bombings. Some of them resist, some of them try to flee to other countries but the majority can do neither. Just like us, they have to go back to work every morning despite these unimaginable conditions. Workers in different countries must build the solidarity necessary to truly support each other and finally bring an end to the scourge of US bombs across the globe.

Get informed and show your solidarity with the people of Yemen!

End the U.S.-Saudi massacre of Yemen NOW!