WW News Service Digest #243
1) Drug firms try to overturn South African law on generic meds
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Struggle over FTAA protest gets bizarre
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Case of the Clabecq 13, Belgian steel workers
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Bush's gift to women
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
POVERTY & AIDS:
DRUG FIRMS TRY TO OVERTURN S. AFRICAN LAW ON GENERIC MEDS
By Joyce Chediac
On March 5 U.S. and European drug companies went to court in
Pretoria, South Africa. They were attempting to stop that
country from legalizing access to generic anti-AIDS drugs
that are cheaper than those produced by the wealthy
imperialist pharmaceuticals.
The AIDS movement worldwide responded with protests,
including a demonstration of thousands outside the High
Court in Pretoria that then marched to the U.S. Embassy.
Marchers held a placard showing John Kearney, chief
executive of GlaxoSmithKline South Africa, one of the
companies fighting South Africa's law, that branded him an
"AIDS profiteer" and "deadlier than the virus."
Africa is bearing the brunt of the AIDS pandemic. Some 25
million of the 36 million people with AIDS worldwide are
Africans, yet less than 1 percent of them can afford AIDS
medicines, which can run from $10,000 to $15,000 a year.
An Indian company recently offered to sell retroviral
medications to Africa at $350 per year per person. But the
multinational drug companies, which refuse to lower their
prices, claim that those who manufacture the medications at
lower prices infringe on their patent rights.
This is just a cover for abject racism and price gouging.
In 1997, when South Africa tried to pass a law allowing the
health minister to ignore the Patents Act in health crises,
"the US lobbied hard against it. President Clinton raised
the issue with President Nelson Mandela, the Commerce
Department put South Africa on a watch list that is the
first step towards trade sanctions, and a bill went through
Congress making all American aid to South Africa contingent
on dropping the law," according to an article in the New
York Times of July 9, 2000.
"The South African pharmaceutical industry, which included
subsidiaries of American and European companies, took the
pressure much further. It closed factories, canceled
investments and took out scare ads suggesting that babies
could be hurt by counterfeit generic drugs. Its chief
lobbyist, Mirryena Deeb, threatened to cut off all new drug
discoveries to South Africa if the law passed, including
AIDS drugs, cancer drugs and antibiotics. Asked in a March
1998 interview if she was literally threatening to let
thousands of South Africans die, she reluctantly conceded:
'In so many words, yes.' "
Pharmaceuticals are the most profitable companies on the
Fortune 500 list, even above commercial banking. The
multinational pharmaceutical companies appear quite willing
to sacrifice the lives of 20 million Africans to fatten
profit margins. This is the essence of capitalism--profits
above all else.
PHARMACEUTICALS OPPOSE GENERIC DRUGS AT HOME
Access to lower-cost generic medication is a big issue in
the U.S. too, especially for seniors, many of whom can't
afford the prescription drugs they need. It's also a big
issue for the 47 million people in this country without
medical coverage at all.
The drug industry is not regulated in the U.S. In fact, the
U.S. market is the source of most of the pharmaceutical
companies' profits. So they work very hard to keep generic
medications off the market here. For example, Abbott
Laboratories manufactures a heart medication that costs $52
a month. When a rival company developed a generic version
that sold for $23 a month, Abbott paid that company more
than $2 million not to produce it. (New York Times, July 23,
2000)
AIDS CRISIS IN U.S.
The American Journal of Public Health of October 1999
pointed out that, "Those whose HIV infection rates have been
the greatest throughout the 1990s are the poor, persons of
color and women... 81 percent of women recently diagnosed
with AIDS are Black or Hispanic." And the Centers for
Disease Control, based upon studies made in metropolitan
areas, recently found that 30 percent of young gay Black men
are HIV positive. Yet, in the name of budget cuts, many
prevention programs, especially those aimed at oppressed
communities, have been discontinued.
Working people in the U.S. have every reason to show class
solidarity with the people of Africa fighting for the right
to have low-cost AIDS medication. We share a common enemy--
the U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies, the government in
Washington that fronts for them and the whole class of
capitalist profiteers.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
QUEBEC CITY BANS SCARVES:
STRUGGLE OVER FTAA PROTEST GETS BIZARRE
By Josina Dunkel
Montreal
An arbitrary ruling by the governments of Quebec City and
its surrounding suburbs has prohibited people from wearing
scarves and hats that partially or fully cover the face.
Public reaction to the law has been negative. It is clearly
illegal and discriminates especially against Muslim women.
Why make such a ridiculous law at this time, when across the
northern territories people are bundling up against the
cold?
The real targets of this law are the anti-globalization
protesters who are planning to come to Quebec City for the
upcoming Free Trade Area of the Americas Summit. The April
20-22 demonstrations are expected to attract thousands of
union workers, opponents of capitalist globalization, and
militants from environmental and other social causes.
The Quebec City government says that by wearing scarves,
individuals lose their individual identity and become more
prone to violence.
A precedent for hiding one's identity to commit violence,
however, has been established by the riot police themselves,
who have been observed many times taking off their badges
before carrying out violent actions against demonstrators.
Scarves, on the other hand, are worn for reasons other than
hiding one's face and identity. Most important, they protect
people from tear gas and pepper spray, two substances police
use to disperse protests.
The New Democratic Party, a social-democratic third party in
Canada, opposes the FTAA. Its 13 members of Parliament, who
will be protesting in April, have objected to the no-scarf
ruling.
The party leader, Alexa McDonough, demanded assurances in
Parliament that pepper spray, unlawful detainment and strip
searches will not be used against protesters in Quebec City.
She asked, "Will this government assure the public that an
appropriate balance will be struck between the
responsibility to maintain order and security and the right
of citizens to peaceful and meaningful protests throughout
the summit?"
Herb Gray, the deputy prime minister, responded, "However
sincere the protests, they cannot be allowed to stand in the
way of rational argument." In other words, the government
would make no promises that the right to protest will be
upheld.
AUTHORITIES FEARFUL OF ANOTHER SEATTLE
The protests in Quebec City are expected to be just as
militant as those in Seattle and Washington in the U.S. and
Prague in the Czech Republic.
The authorities have already raised a barbed-wire fence to
separate the inner core of the city, where the secret
negotiations will take place, from the area they have
reluctantly allotted to protesters. This no-scarf rule makes
it clear that this protest will see the same type of anti-
democratic government force as characterized the earlier
ones.
The law has raised many eyebrows across Canada. On April 2,
protests will be held in every major city just on this issue
of scarf wearing.
People are encouraged to wear scarves that day, whether they
can attend the protests or not, to raise awareness of the
arbitrary law now in place in Quebec City and the
surrounding area.
Meanwhile, the Canadian capitalist press is beginning to
sound doubtful about the summit. The Toronto Globe and Mail
of March 5 wrote, "With the Summit of the Americas less than
seven weeks away, evidence is building that negotiations
toward a hemispheric free-trade area are coming unglued."
After mentioning a trade war between Canada and Brazil, the
paper added, "There's also a growing group of protesters
opposed to a new free-trade deal--including many of the same
forces that eventually killed the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment--preparing to turn April's Summit of the Americas
in Quebec City into a replay of the 1999 World Trade
Organization meeting in Seattle.
"Those meetings degenerated into a running street battle
between protesters and police, with little of substance
being accomplished at the negotiating table."
The article concludes, "Some 3,000 to 5,000 RCMP officers--
billed as the largest police presence in Canadian history--
will be on hand for the summit, a number that will likely be
dwarfed by those committed to making sure the deal never
happens."
Demonstrators will be coming to the events from all over
Canada and the United States. There will be supporting
protests at several border-crossing sites, including San
Diego-Tijuana, Buffalo, N.Y., and Vermont. For information
in the United States, readers can contact the International
Action Center, 39 W. 14th St., New York, NY 10011, phone
(212) 633-6646, Web site www.iacenter.org.
- END -
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CASE OF THE CLABECQ 13:
BELGIAN STEEL WORKERS FIGHT COURTS, BOSSES
By Bob Roeck,
Workers Party of Belgium
[Edited by John Catalinotto]
The Belgian Movement for Renewal of the Unions has called on
all progressive forces and unionists to be ready to mobilize
this spring regarding the Clabecq 13 case. The next hearing--
on procedural matters--will be before the Supreme Court in
Brussels on April 4.
The Clabecq defendants are 13 militant trade unionists who
face charges under a reactionary 1886 law for alleged
responsibility for "inciting violence" during a mass
demonstration of laid-off steel workers in 1996.
Their case has become a symbol of the fight against cuts in
social programs and restructuring, outsourcing and layoffs
now facing tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Belgian
workers and millions of workers across Europe. Similar
drastic cutbacks have already cut the living standards of
blue-collar workers in the United States.
The Clabecq 13 are also a symbol of rank-and-file militancy
and local militant union leadership in contrast to the
national leadership of the trade unions. This top leadership
is close to the Socialist Party, which is in the government,
and has been more for compromising workers' rights than for
fighting to defend them.
Clabecq is a small town 13 miles south of Europe's capital,
Brussels. The steel plant there employed 2,500 workers until
1996. Steel barons aimed at cutting 60,000 jobs in this
sector.
Faced with a shutdown of the plant, and refused aid by the
regional government, the Clabecq unionists started weekly
general assemblies in the plant. They announced they would
fight until the end to defend the factory and their jobs.
When the answer was still no as 1996 ended, and the factory
stopped paying workers' wages and benefits, they went to the
mayor of Clabecq. Suspecting the worst when they saw police
filming them, they asked to have the film. Denied the film,
they went to the local police station where a window was
smashed, along with those of some banks on the way.
This later became the basis for the charges against the
union leaders.
Later in 1997, some 70,000 people demonstrated in Clabecq to
support the unionists, something not seen for 50 years in
Belgium.
Clashes grew as the unpaid workers defended themselves with
bulldozers against the gendarmes, or National Guard, who
attacked with tear gas and water guns. Another mass rally of
15,000 rank-and-file unionists took place in Namur.
The struggle finally forced the factory to reopen, but on
condition that the core of "terrorists"--that is, the
militants--would be laid off. The Clabecq unionists
maintained their solidarity but accepted the startup of the
factory, voting for this proposal by 95 percent.
Afterwards, 500 of the core rank-and-file unionists were
refused entrance. They founded the Movement for Renewal of
the Unions, trying to focus the unions on fighting for
workers' needs.
THE TRIAL BEGINS
In another struggle, the national union leadership--
advocating negotiations after an attempt to cut jobs at a
Renault auto plant--wound up with all jobs lost and the
factory shut down. The Renault workers saw that the Clabecq
workers had won more, but were under attack.
The National Guard then pressed charges against 11 workers
at Clabecq, one worker at Renault and one unemployed 27-year-
old member of the Workers Party of Belgium--the Clabecq 13--
under the 1886 law that bars speech but has never before
been enforced. There have been trials under this law, but
none of them were completed.
This time the trial was held behind closed doors. Every
session brought out irregularities like false testimonies or
a judge influencing witnesses or insulting a defending
lawyer. Documents proving innocence appeared and
disappeared.
Finally, in January 2000 the accused succeeded in stopping
the lawsuit on a technicality--one of the witnesses was
married to one of the judges. But the other side didn't
withdraw.
The trial restarted, but with other judges. After two months
they had to admit the trial had been constructed wrongly
since the beginning and stopped it again.
But judges in Brussels decided to resume the whole trial
from the beginning for a third time. The Movement for
Renewal of the Unions organized a rally of 1,500 workers and
unionists in the city of Clabecq on Feb. 3 of this year.
One hundred years of struggles have won social security,
pensions, education and health services for the workers in
Belgium. This standard of living is under attack by
government policies that favor greed for profit and the
power of monopolies and multinationals.
But the workers of Clabecq continue to show how to resist
when factory owners and financial groups mobilize the
institutional violence of the National Guard, the courts and
the media.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: BUSH'S GIFT TO WOMEN
nyone who has worked for some years on typewriters or
computer keyboards is well aware of the hazards. Repetitive
stress syndrome is a painful complex of diseases that come
from using the hands and arms to do the same motions over
and over again. Workers in industries that require tedious,
detailed, repetitive work--like typing, sewing, chopping up
chickens or assembling computer parts--have a high incidence
of carpal tunnel syndrome and related ergonomic illnesses,
which can lead to permanent disability.
Most of these jobs are performed by women, who, although
less than half the work force, account for 64 percent of the
1.8 million repetitive motion injuries that occur in this
country each year.
How appropriate, then, that President George W. Bush chose
March--which is generally considered International Women's
Month--to curry favor with big business and launch an attack
on government regulations that would have protected workers
from these hazards. Bush put his weight behind a law before
Congress that would roll back regulations of the
Occupational Safety and Health Agency meant to reduce
repetitive stress syndrome. The regulations had only
recently been approved by former President Bill Clinton.
OSHA said the repetitive-motion rules would have covered 102
million workers at 6.1 million work sites. The agency
estimated that the rules would have prevented 4.6 million
musculo-skeletal disorders, and predicted that they would
save businesses $9.1 billion annually over the first 10
years in health coverage and lost time.
But capitalists don't like to be told that a measure is
economical over the long run. It is built into the very
essence of the system that what counts is the bottom line
NOW. Are they making profits or not? And the regulations
would have required changes in equipment and the workplace
environment.
With Bush's pledge to immediately sign the repeal measure
into law, it passed the Senate 56 to 44 on March 6. In a
Senate that is evenly split 50-50, six Democrats crossed
over and voted with the Republicans. It is expected that the
House will quickly pass a similar bill overturning the
health and safety regulations.
"In essence, the confrontation over repeal was between those
siding with business and those siding with workers,"
admitted the New York Times on March 7. Repeal of the
regulation was a top priority for lobbyists with the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. The unions, on the other hand, had been
pressing to keep the regulations.
Union leaders complained that the move was a betrayal of
Republican promises of bipartisanship. After Democratic
Party leaders caved in to Bush over the results of the
Florida vote, despite much proof that Al Gore had in fact
won the state and therefore the presidential election, the
word was that Bush, in a weakened position, would have to
compromise with the Democrats. But this expected
bipartisanship has not materialized insofar as workers'
interests are concerned.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the Senate vote was "a
naked payoff to big business contributors who have opposed
every effort to enact a standard protecting workers.''
Presumably, the payoff was from Democrats as well as
Republicans.
For years, the union movement focused on electing Democrats
rather than on direct organizing to hold back the anti-
worker offensive of big business. The result was a series of
successful union-busting attacks and a shrinking union
population. Finally, when Sweeney replaced the more
conservative Lane Kirkland, the new AFL-CIO leadership began
a vigorous organizing effort, especially among the most
oppressed workers.
That's what is needed now to fight for workplace safety for
all workers. Those in Congress who have just voted to maim
and disable millions of workers must feel the wrath of the
working people wherever they go.
