Americas

Rank and file United Auto Workers in the USA are picketing the Delphi World Headquarters in Michigan on Monday, January 23. We are republishing their appeal for support and participation, published on Future of the Union. If you are in the area and can make it, be there!

We publish two letters commenting on the recent New York TWU strike, one from the USA and another from Venezuela. The strike has exposed once more the fact that the two main US parties, Republicans and Democrats are not enemies, but partners opposed to the working class. The strike has also highlighted the fact that in the USA there is not just the imperialist bourgeoisie, but also a might working class that is an ally of the workers of the world.

A new anti-immigration bill is being considered in the United States that would be used to criminalize and persecute mainly the millions of Latino workers. The aim of course is not to “send them back” for these workers are quite useful to the US bosses. Without legal rights they can be paid less than the other workers, and so they make bigger profits for the bosses. The aim is to actually make it even easier to exploit them.

The massive victory of the MAS in the elections was the distorted by-product of the revolutionary movement that Bolivia has witnessed for the last two years. This is why the imperialists are worried. The choice faced by the Morales government is clear: either with the workers and peasants or with the multinationals. If he attempts to please both he will please none.

Iraq was consciously destroyed by intense bombing. New Orleans was destroyed thanks to negligence on the part of the powers that be. Reconstruction is proving painfully slow, but the beneficiaries are the same companies as in Iraq, corporate giants like Halliburton and Bechtel. Whether it be the suffering of the Iraqi people or of the US working class, the same parasites at the top benefit.

ALCASA is an aluminium plant in Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela. It is being run under cogestion, formally speaking workers’ participation. But when you take a closer look what we see is that in practice the workforce is moving more and more towards genuine workers’ control. Managers are elected and do not get higher wages than those they had before becoming managers, and so on. It confirms that the Venezuelan workers are in the vanguard of the world revolution.

Class contradictions are increasing sharply in the USA, the “richest country in the world”. The recent strike of the New York Transit Workers has brought into sharp relief that there are two Americas, one for the rich and one for the poor. Although that strike was derailed by the union leadership it marks the beginning of a new era in trade union relations in the USA, one of bitter conflict.

A major attack on trade union rights is also going ahead at Delphi. If the UAW workers there are forced to take a 63 percent pay cut and severe attacks on healthcare benefits and pension rights it will not be long until the bosses begin demanding similar cuts in other industries. A victory for the Delphi autoworkers would be a victory for the whole of the US working class.

Under pressure from the rank and file, New York's Transit Workers Union (Local 100) has called a strike involving the 33,000 workers and bringing the nation's largest transit system to a halt. Pay, health, and retirement benefits are the main points of contention.

The choice for US workers is very clear. The very existence of unions as defenders of workers is in question: whether it is nobler to suffer the indignities of concessions or oppose and put an end to them. The members of TWU 100 have chosen the latter! They deserve the support and respect of all in the fight for a future. Solidarity Forever!

A group of “prominent personalities” in Québec issued a manifesto titled Pour un Québec lucide (in English, For a clear-eyed vision of Québec). Attempting to draw upon Québec’s history and using some of the strongest symbols from its past, it is nothing more than a manifesto of the bourgeoisie for the 21st century. More than that, Pour un Québec lucide is a stark warning to the working class that things are about to change.

Evo Morales has won a handsome majority in the presidential elections getting more than 50%. This massive victory can only be explained on the basis of the revolutionary movements that have shaken Bolivia in the recent period. Now Morales faces a choice: carry out the demands of the workers and peasants or bend under the pressure of the oligarchy and imperialism. The masses are waiting to see which way he goes.

Prior to the Venezuelan elections there were clear indications that elements within the oligarchy were planning a coup or even possible assassination of Chavez. The opposition parties boycotted the elections as part of this plan to destabilise the country. They failed miserably. The Bolivarian parties have now total control of the National Assembly. They could mobilise the masses while at the same setting in motion all the legal procedures to abolish capitalism once and for all. But will they do this? To vacillate now, to attempt a compromise, would mean giving the opposition a dangerous advantage.

Bolivia goes to the elections on Sunday. In the past period the masses could have taken power but at the crucial moment the workers’ leaders talked about taking power but never did. This has thrown the ball back into the court of the ruling class. The masses will be concentrating their attention on the elections. Their only option is Evo Morales and his party, the MAS, the same man who used his position to derail the movement in the past. What should the attitude of the Marxists be?