5) Workers around the world: 3/15/2001
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6) NYU graduate workers win union rights
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7) Letter to WW on Stanley Kramer
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8) Mumia: Bubba goes to Harlem
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WORKERS AROUND THE WORLD
MEXICO PROTESTS CHALLENGE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Continuing the worldwide wave of protests against the
imperialists' leading financial bodies, thousands of people
took to the streets of Cancun on Feb. 27 against a meeting
of the World Economic Forum. The Mexican government deployed
at least 4,000 police against the protests.
On Feb. 27, representatives of people's organizations
debated WEF Director-General Jose Maria Figueres and Goldman
Sachs Vice President Guillermo de la Dehesa. Hector de la
Cueva of the Continental Social Alliance, Alberto Arroyo of
the Mexican Network Against Free Trade, Gustavo Codes of
Brazil's United Trade Union Federation (CUT) and Christophe
Aguiton of the French group Attac represented the anti-
globalization forces.
"Wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands and
poverty is on the rise," de la Cueva charged at the debate.
"Things are going well for capital and its interests, but
they are going badly for the people and their interests,"
the CUT's Codes said.
While the debate took place in the halls of power, police
attacked protesters in the streets outside the hotel where
WEF delegates were staying. Five hundred protesters,
including many members of the student General Strike Council
(CGH), clashed with police. Organizers claimed that 30
protesters were injured in the police attack. Thirty
reporters were also attacked as they tried to cover the
event.
"No to capitalism" and "Fox: Mexico is not for sale" were
some of the slogans aimed at both the WEF and the new
presidency of Vicente Fox.
Another group of protesters took off their clothes on the
beach outside the hotel. Police took the act of public
nudity as an opportunity to launch a baton attack, beating
and arresting the group.
UNAM STRIKE LEADERS EXPELLED
In a continued effort to disrupt the CGH at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the university
administration expelled six CGH leaders on Feb. 27. The
student leaders were charged with an incident during a Feb.
6 protest at which 33 strike opponents were briefly
detained.
Over 200,000 UNAM students and faculty had gone on strike in
April 1999 against attempts to change the public
university's heritage of open access for working people. In
particular, the government tried to impose tuition at the
essentially free university and restrict entry only to those
passing more restrictive exams. The UNAM was at the time one
of Latin America's premier universities.
In February 2000, the government of Ernesto Zedillo broke
the strike with a military and police assault on the campus.
Students and faculty had planned to mark the first
anniversary of the strike with one-day strikes and rallies.
Sixteen of the 36 UNAM schools staged complete strikes this
year on Feb. 6, according to the CGH. Protests and partial
strikes took place at an additional 13 schools. The protest
organizers say 60,000 people took part in the events, which
culminated in a mass march to the Zocalo in the heart of
Mexico City.
During those events, 33 anti-strike administrators,
including high-ranking officials in campus security, tried
to cross the picket lines. They were blocked by the
protesters, stripped to their underwear, and held for two
hours before being released unharmed.
While the CGH leadership did not condone this action, a Feb.
12 CGH news release charges that the events were based on a
campaign of provocation designed to weaken the group's
political strength.
After the six strike leaders were expelled, protests broke
out immediately. A group of students took over the street in
front of one of Mexico City's main streets, blocking traffic
for 40 minutes.
Combined with anti-globalization protests, these acts of
repression by the Mexican authorities ensure that campuses
will continue to be centers of resistance.
'COMMITMENT CEREMONY' PRESSES FOR GAY MARRIAGE RIGHTS
Two hundred lesbian and gay couples staged a mass
"commitment ceremony" in Mexico City on Feb. 15, according
to independent journalist Rex Wockner. The activists were
pushing for the passage of two bills pending in the city
council that would expand marriage benefits for same-sex
couples.
"We are fighting to defend human and civic rights against
reactionary, homophobic and sexist groups, and against some
leaders of the Catholic Church," said Armando Quintero of
the Democratic Revolutionary Party. "It's time that people
realize that the traditional nuclear family isn't the only
thing out there," said activist Mirka Megroni.
One of the bills being debated by the city council would
grant equal inheritance and social security rights to
lesbian and gay couples. Another would give them nearly all
the rights of straight matrimonies, Wockner reports.
INDIA Workers protest government anti-worker budget
Thousands of workers across India demonstrated against new
anti-labor legislation March 2. Union leaders warn that the
protests mark the beginning of a mass campaign to reverse
the moves.
On Feb. 28, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha unveiled the
government's budget for the coming year. The budget
contained rules that would exempt employers of 1,000 workers
or less from needing government approval for layoffs. The
current exemption applies to employers of 100 workers or
less.
The budget would also slash government spending by 10
percent over the next five years, largely through layoffs
and austerity measures.
"The budget is anti-labor and anti-working-class," Suresh
Dhopeshwarkar of the All-India Bank Employees Association
told the French Press Agency. "The fight will be long and
bitter. Our protests mark the beginning of the fight against
the budget."
The budget would "nullify all the gains made by the Indian
working class after decades of struggle," according to port
and dock workers' leader S.R. Kulkarni. "One-day strikes and
shutdowns are only token forms of protest. We will have to
get more serious."
Unions announced plans for a "long march" against the budget
scheduled to arrive in Bombay on March 15.
The budget announcement came at the same time that the
government announced its intention to privatize the state-
run Bharat Aluminum Company (Balco). Thousands of Balco
workers walked off the job March 3 in an indefinite strike
against the privatization plans.
SENEGAL AIR AFRIQUE WORKERS PROTEST LAYOFFS
Hundreds of Air Afrique workers marched and rallied in
Dakar, Senegal, on March 2 to protest plans to lay off half
the work force. The demonstration was called by the Senegal
Union of Air Transportation (SUTAS).
The protest followed a 24-hour SUTAS staged Feb. 28 against
the planned layoffs of 2,000 of the company's 4,000 workers.
Over two-thirds of Air Afrique is owned by a consortium of
11 African governments, mostly countries formerly part of
France's colonial possessions. But a big 20-percent stake is
owned by Air France and the French "state development
agency," giving the former colonial power a major stake in
Air Afrique's operations--and profits. The new director,
Jeffrey Erickson, is from the United States, according to
AFP.
Erickson has announced plans to privatize the airline within
14 months.
SUTAS Secretary General Baila Sow accused Erickson of "doing
in Africa what he wouldn't be able to do in the United
States."
COLOMBIA TEACHERS STAGE SOLIDARITY STRIKE
Some 12,000 members of the Educators District Association
walked off the job on Feb. 28 in Colombia's capital of
Bogota, according to Xinhua News Service. The strike was
prompted by Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus's announcement that
he would fire 2,800 public-sector workers.
Unemployment in Colombia reached a record high of 20.5
percent in January. The Colombian government is implementing
a pro-International Monetary Fund economic program of
privatizations and austerity in the midst of the country's
worst depression in history.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
NYU GRADUATE WORKERS WIN UNION RIGHTS
By Shelley Ettinger
New York
On March 1, in a sharp turnaround from public vows to never
acknowledge the rights of teaching assistants, the
administration at New York University agreed to recognize
the union representing graduate employees.
Graduate workers had been set to take a strike vote that
evening.
Instead, when hundreds of them gathered at the Judson
Memorial Church, it turned into a victory celebration.
United Auto Workers officials announced that, in the face of
the strike threat, NYU had agreed to begin contract
negotiations.
"We won!" exulted Kimberly Johnson, a graduate employee in
the American Studies department and one of the leaders in
the struggle. "Finally, we have our union, and a chance to
negotiate over our ideas about how we can make life better
for graduate assistants."
University officials signed a letter agreeing to abide by
National Labor Relations Board rulings establishing the UAW
as the bargaining agent for graduate employees, and to
commence collective bargaining.
The next day, L. Jay Oliva announced that he would resign as
president of NYU. Oliva's 10-year stewardship has been
marked by an anti-labor stance that mar red the university's
public-relations efforts as it tried to position itself as
an academically prestigious school while constantly raising
tuition.
Oliva's union busting repeatedly flopped in the face of
increasing worker and student organizing. Within the last
year, students forced the university bookstore to stop
selling merchandise manufactured in sweatshops, the clerical
workers' union won agency-shop status after a 20-year fight,
and adjunct instructors initiated union organizing drives.
Now that some 1,500 additional workers have won union
rights, labor is in an even stronger position at NYU. But
this victory has significance beyond the Greenwich Village
campus.
NYU is the biggest private university in the country. It had
been battling graduate-employee organizing on behalf of
schools nationwide.
At Yale, for example, graduate employees have been fighting
for union rights for years. Yale officials had been
consulting with NYU and helping to pay legal costs in its
anti-union drive.
Now graduate workers at Yale and elsewhere will be in a
stronger position as they fight for their rights.
It's no wonder graduate workers want unions. Their wages,
hours and working conditions are awful.
At NYU, for example, they typically work 30 to 40 hours a
week teaching, grading papers, administering exams, writing
and copying material, meeting with students, and so on. Yet
annual pay is as low as $7,000. They have to buy health
insurance, and family coverage costs more than one-third of
what they're paid.
Now all that is up for negotiation. NYU bosses may have more
stonewalling up their sleeves. But NYU workers are united in
their determination to improve conditions for graduate
workers.
Next up: bringing a union to adjunct instructors.
The same graduate employees who fought so hard for a union
know that for many of them, all the future holds is adjunct
status. Adjuncts are basically permanent temps.
They may have doctoral degrees, but they also have the same
low pay and no benefits that characterize temporary
employment in every industry.
Fifty-seven percent of all NYU faculty are adjuncts.
Although many of them teach every semester, NYU refuses to
hire them as regular employees. So they're organizing.
[Ettinger is a member of AFT Local 3882, the clerical
workers' union at NYU.]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: STANLEY KRAMER
Stanley Kramer
Monica Moorehead's recent article on the death of filmmaker
Stanley Kramer recalls for me how one of his films and a
mass movement changed my life.
In 1962 I was a 27-year-old, not totally backward white
worker (without a job) living in New York City. Tiring of
the rejections my job hunting was producing, I ducked into
one of the rerun movie theatres on 42nd Street where
Kramer's "Judgment at Nuremberg" was showing. Like "The
Defiant Ones" it was not a revolutionary film. In fact, as I
later learned, it had serious flaws in its history and its
politics.
But I did not know that at the time. What I did know was
that I on the one hand had grown up in an area of the Bronx
with a large Jewish community, of whom many were my
playmates and friends. Of the many jobs I had as a very
young child, one was heating up the soup and turning on the
lights for an elderly Jewish couple on each Saturday
afternoon when their Orthodox religion forbade them from
doing it on the Sabbath (I was a sabat goy). Another was
helping out at the weekly Sunday night dance at the
synagogue right across from my house.
On the other hand I was raised in a home where anti-Semitism
and anti-communism were intertwined and ever present. There
were so many pictures of the anti-Semitic Father Charles
Coughlin in our house that I thought he was a relative to me
or my six brothers and sisters.
"Judgment at Nuremberg" attacked my contradictions with a
message that the Nazis succeeded because those who opposed
them did nothing. Being ignorant I did not know that this
was not true. I made a one-to-one relationship between the
situation of Jewish people in Germany and Black people in
the United States. From this I decided that if those in
Germany who disagreed with the Nazis should have joined in
active support of the Jewish people, then those here who
disagree with the United States form of Nazism should give
active support to the struggle of Black people.
So I hitchhiked to Albany, Georgia, where I got arrested
along with Eddie Brown, a young Black man from Albany trying
to integrate the lunch counters in Crowe's drugstore. Our
action was sponsored by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee, which, along with the Southern Christian
Leadership Council, was leading the struggle. We wound up in
the same jail with Dr. King and many other fighters. The
jail of course was segregated.
Had there been no struggle going on I would not have known
what to do. But because there was a Movement there, it
allowed me to act on the message I got from the film. To act
means to fight for your beliefs. It shows that even backward
people can be drawn into the struggle and educated. That is,
if there is a Movement there when they see the need.
I give thanks to Kramer, I give many thanks to those who
built the Civil Rights Movement and gave meaning to my life,
and I really thank Workers World Party and its newspaper for
making the struggle everlasting.
Bill Massey
Chicago
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the March 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MUMIA FROM DEATH ROW: BUBBA GOES TO HARLEM
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
News Item: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, stung by
criticism stemming from the almost $600,000-a-year cost of
his offices in mid-town Manhattan, has sought offices in the
city's uptown Harlem district, where costs are expected to
be half the midtown rate.
Not since the slim, ascetic Muslim minister, Malcolm X,
strolled Harlem streets, has the chocolate colony seen such
excitement. This time, an ex-president, one both loathed and
loved, comes to Harlem to establish his base of operations,
and by so doing, has demonstrated the twin, contradictory
sides of his political persona.
Former president Clinton has, in his long eight years at the
helm of the U.S. Ship of State, presided over an explosion
in the crippling prison-industrial complex, the expansion of
the U.S. death penalty, and the related contraction of the
constitutional right to habeas corpus, all of which have had
a demonstratively injurious effect on America's Black
population. In order to obtain his office, he traded in
Black death, by overseeing the state murder of brain-damaged
death-row captive, Ricky Ray Rector; in order to retain his
office, he leapt to betray the Black bourgeoisie, by the
abandonment of high Justice Department candidate, law
professor Lani Guinier, and former Surgeon General Dr.
Joycelyn Elders.
That said, Clinton remains a genuinely beloved figure in
Black America, so much so that when he was attacked by his
political adversaries on the right, Blacks felt almost as if
they were attacked, and were, by far, the most vigorous in
his defense among American constituencies. America's perhaps
greatest living writer, Toni Morrison, went just a tad
beyond hyperbole when she affectionately dubbed the Arkansan
"America's first Black president."
Beyond his almost legendary political skills, there must be
other reasons for this weird political courtship between
African-Americans and Bill Clinton. It's not his much-
vaunted upbringing in poverty, for despite the conventional
wisdom, several U.S. presidents (for example, Garfield,
Andrew Johnson and Andrew Jackson) had an impoverished
youth.
It seems like it's not so much Clinton, the man, as it is
Clinton, the man who spent his youth on the periphery of the
Civil Rights Movement and adulthood in the proximity of the
largest generation of Black professionals in U.S. history.
It is therefore a case of interaction, and as Clinton
courted the Black bourgeoisie, he studiously ignored the
wretched suffering, imprisonment, scapegoating and cop
repression against the Black poor in the urban centers.
And the Black bourgeoisie, following their own class
interests, joined him in either ignoring or damning the so-
called "Black underclass." For what else was that so-called
Welfare Reform but more war on the poor?
Now, as the nation's former chief executive takes up digs in
Harlem, the bourgies once again preen at their new neighbor,
while for the poor, it just means more gentrification, and
therefore a harder struggle to afford rapidly rising rents.
It's about time millions of African-Americans learned who
their real friends are.
