/* Written 12:21 PM Sep 10, 1998 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in web:p.news */
/* ---------- "[PNEWS] WW STATEMENT: SOLIDARITY MU" ---------- */
From: Winston Weeks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
WW STATEMENT: SOLIDARITY MUST GO GLOBAL
By Teresa Gutierrez
The economic crisis that began in Asia more than a year
ago and has since spread even to that citadel of capitalism,
Wall Street, is proving a long-held tenet of working-class
teachings: The profits-before-people capitalist system is a
worldwide web of corporate looters who know no borders.
Yet the fact that the system is international also points
to a tremendous opportunity for the labor movement.
"Globalization," as some call it, has provided the working
class with an immeasurable strength and power. The workers
have only to seize it.
For this class, too, is international.
The recent roller-coaster ride on the stock market has
confirmed that
this is a different epoch for the working class. What
happens in Russia or Asia immediately impacts Wall Street.
This illustrates that the economic system of profits,
profits and more profits is a vast and tightly knit system.
It stretches to the very ends of the globe, making the
transcontinental corporations seem omnipotent.
But with one click of a mouse, the capitalist system has
laid the basis for worldwide class solidarity among workers.
And with global solidarity comes the next step: real,
fundamental change.
How the stock market reacts to developments in Russia or
Asia has a direct impact on a labor unionist in Buffalo,
N.Y. What the economy is doing in Venezuela directly affects
a union drive in South Carolina. Doesn't this demonstrate
that for any strategy to fight for union rights here at home
to succeed, it has to incorporate solidarity with workers
around the world? Naturally.
But any unionist knows solidarity begins at home.
As workers commemorate Labor Day 1998 and as the stock
market does its thing, it is a good time to take stock of
where the class struggle is. Since 1995, when the new
leadership of the AFL-CIO under John Sweeney took office,
most unions have made a strategic decision to launch a
serious drive to organize more workers. This is a breath of
fresh air in the wake of the attacks that began in the
Reagan period.
With nationwide union membership at only 14 percent, such
a drive is critical. The almost two decades of corporate
restructuring make it even more necessary.
The face of the work force has dramatically changed. It is
no longer made up mostly of white men. The "typical worker"
is now an immigrant from Pakistan or Mexico, an out-of-the-
closet lesbian or a Black woman from the South.
If the unions want to stay with the times, these workers
must be organized.
Now the volatility on Wall Street makes it imperative for
unionists to take another step forward. There is no crystal
ball to predict how a capitalist economic crisis will play
out. It could mean more mass layoffs at any time. It could
bring a lowering of wages, deflation, more homelessness and
poverty.
Millions may lose pension money, bringing serious
devastation. The number already living with no health
insurance--37 million--could double.
But preparation for what is inevitable could make a huge
difference in the struggle of the workers and oppressed. It
could assure that the unions' current moves toward an
offensive strategy will continue.
We have a right to take the offensive. Workers and
oppressed people did not create the crisis on Wall Street.
We should not have to pay for it.
As the Democratic Clinton administration works with a
former CIA director to carry out a witch hunt against the
Teamster leadership, isn't it past time for labor to take
matters into its own hands?
OUTREACH TO UNIONS ABROAD
Recently, John Sweeney took an unprecedented trip to
Mexico to meet with unions in that country. More and more
union leaders are not only recognizing the international
character of the union movement, they are doing something
about it.
This is a good development that can bring vital lessons.
If the current union strategy to reach out to unions in
other countries is to really succeed, it must recognize the
special oppression of two-thirds of the globe. Throughout
the super-exploited nations of the world--euphemistically
called "emerging markets" by the bosses and their media--
millions upon millions suffer extreme oppression.
Not only are their rights as workers violated, but they
are doubly and triply exploited as oppressed people. As a
result of U.S. imperialism, the wealth, labor and resources
of millions has been literally robbed.
This is globalization: not just an international web of
corporations, but the bloodthirsty drive for profits
intrinsic to the capitalist system. Nothing short of
abolishing the drive for profits can stop sweatshops, plant
closings and runaway shops.
A union movement that wants to stop this robbery of
workers' wealth has to take U.S. imperialism's drive to
dominate the world into account--from Chile to Malaysia to
Sudan to Cuba.
The triple exploitation of workers abroad inevitably leads
to a rise in class consciousness. Workers here can learn a
lot from workers abroad.
For example, the telephone workers in Puerto Rico recently
waged a splendid struggle. Called the People's Strike, the
workers and their many supporters tried to block the sell-off
of the national telephone system.
They involved the entire country, union members and non-
union members, and used militant tactics. They put fear in
the bosses' hearts. Don't the workers at Bell Atlantic, who
also just waged an important strike, have much to learn from
their Puerto Rican sisters and brothers?
Furthermore, indissoluble unity between telephone workers
in the two countries would have dramatic ramifications. It
would not only help build a stronger labor movement, it
would help lay the foundation for worldwide solidarity
against the transnational corporations that exploit them
both.
It would also advance the struggle against colonialism. If
the U.S. labor movement would demand, "Free Puerto Rico," it
would show a political advance in worker consciousness.
And how much more powerful the labor movement would be if
it looked to Korean auto workers who have been occupying
plants to stop layoffs in south Korea.
Could it be time for the labor leadership here to apply
such tactics?
The Korean workers' struggle is directly related to the
strike this past summer in Flint, Mich., against the world's
biggest company, General Motors. With its global operations,
GM shifts production around the world--to Brazil or South
Africa or Indonesia, wherever labor is cheapest and profits
highest. Workers in Flint struck to try to keep their plants
open and save their jobs.
The Flint workers want the same thing that GM workers in
other countries do--job security and a decent standard of
living. But GM, with its global assembly line, uses them
against each other.
The only real solution for GM workers here is to unite--
concretely, in action, not just in words--with GM workers
around the world.
This kind of global solidarity would push back the very
CEOs who aim to put the Wall Street crisis on the workers'
backs.
These corporate heads make obscene salaries, more than
some countries' Gross Domestic Product. And the owners make
even more. Let them pay for the crisis.
SOLIDARITY AGAINST RACISM NEEDED
Right here within the borders of the United States, African
American, Latino, Native, Asian and Arab peoples suffer a
special oppression unlike other workers. If the labor movement
is to stop the downsizing and wage cuts, if it is to move
forward and win some offensive demands like in the UPS strike,
it must raise its fist in solidarity with people of color.
If it is to prepare for a serious downturn in the economy,
it must make strong links with the struggle against racism.
In New York, where Mayor Rudolph Giuliani carried out a
fascist attack against the Black community on the Labor Day
weekend, the union movement should be in the forefront of
protesting such attacks. After all, an injury to one is an
injury to all and this is the same mayor who has tried to
beat the unions down into submission.
Racism has been a tool that the bosses have historically
used to bring down the workers' struggle. It must not
succeed in the coming period.
Solidarity with workers who are reeling from austerity
measures dictated by the International Monetary Fund around
the world is vital. Solidarity with oppressed workers here
at home who are reeling from racist policies such as police
brutality and the Work Experience Program--workfare--is
decisive.
Despite a multitude of languages that the working class and
oppressed people speak, they can become one voice when
everyone is chanting: "Solidarity, solidarity, solidarity."
- END -
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