5) No Borders in Workers' Struggle
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6) Drop the Charges!
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
7) Bush Threatens China
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
8) Union Members Swell Largest Quebec March Ever
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 26. huhtikuu 2001 14:21
Subject: [WW] No Borders in Workers' Struggle
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 3, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
NO BORDERS IN WORKERS' STRUGGLE
BRITISH COLUMBIA/WASHINGTON
Six thousand people rallied and marched at the British
Columbia/Washington border in opposition to the Free Trade
Area of the Americas on April 21.
The action was led by a large labor-community coalition
involving organizations on both sides of the border,
including the Longshore Workers union, the Canadian Auto
Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
After a long rally, labor organizers led people on a brief
march that was expected to go down to the road, through the
Peace Arch and back up to the park.
But some 500 youths and other militants broke away and
marched across the Canadian border through the customs
checkpoints. Protesters then marched toward the U.S.
checkpoints and briefly occupied them. The demonstration
eventually settled in the roadway leading from the United
States to Canada, where protesters held a sit-in.
Police arrested eight people.
Ontario/New York near Buffalo
Hundreds of labor and youth activists assembled at Front
Park near the U.S.-Canadian Peace Bridge on April 22. Police
had penned in the park with a cyclone fence fortified by
concrete barriers.
But early into the rally, anti-FTAA protesters made their
way over, under and through the fencing to the entrance
roads to the bridge. There they were met by hundreds of riot-
equipped troops. Behind the police, a line of garbage trucks
blocked bridge access.
"We don't see no riot here, take off all that riot gear,"
demonstrators chanted at the Darth-Vader-clad troops.
This protest shut down bridge traffic from the United States
to Canada for three hours. A similar action closed traffic
for a shorter period from Canada to the United States.
After police arrested one youth, activists sat down in the
road and refused to leave until he was released. Half an
hour later the crowd cheered as the youth crossed back over
police lines into the protest.
The demonstrators then marched through the streets of
Buffalo in a long, long protest that passed sites where jobs
have been lost due to the North American Free Trade
Agreement.
"Hey, hey Buffalo, where did all our jobs go?" they chanted.
Baltimore solidarity
Close to 200 activists gathered in downtown Baltimore to
protest the FTAA and demonstrate solidarity with the action
in Quebec.
The group--mostly young students from area campuses--hung a
banner from a downtown walkway denouncing the FTAA and
supporting workers' rights.
The protesters marched in front of the World Trade Center in
defiance of police and then on to the Sheraton Hotel and the
University of Maryland Medical Center. Both institutions
contract to Up-To-Date Laundry, a sweatshop where workers
are trying to win union recognition with UNITE.
The response was electric: drivers of cars, cabs and trucks
honked their horns and waved.
Contingents included members of UNITE, Towson Action Group,
All-People's Congress, Industrial Workers of the World,
Baltimore Emergency Response Network and the Student Labor
Action Coalition. The umbrella group Coalition Against
Global Exploitation called the protest.
Tijuana, Mexico/San Ysidro, Calif.
On April 21, over 1,000 protestors from around California
converged here in a rally at Larsen Park near the largest
U.S. border crossing at Tijuana, Mexico, to demonstrate
against the summit taking place in Quebec, Canada. Speakers
at the rally condemned the FTAA and pointed to what the
North America Free Trade Agreement has meant to the workers
of Mexico, Canada and the U.S.
The Mexican people have been particularly hard hit, with 8
million of them being pushed into poverty thanks to NAFTA
policies.
After the rally today several hundred protestors marched to
the border and crossed into Mexico to have another rally
with their counterparts on the other side.
[Reporting from Jim McMahan, Kaz Susat, Bev Hiestand, Sharon
Black and Bill Hackwell; edited by Leslie Feinberg.]
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 26. huhtikuu 2001 14:21
Subject: [WW] Drop the Charges!
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 3, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: DROP THE CHARGES!
Some of the bravest fighters against corporate globalization
now face heavy charges in Quebec. They put their bodies on
the line to defend workers' rights, national sovereignty and
the environment. Everyone in the progressive movement should
join the campaign for their freedom.
The tide of anger and opposition to capitalism is rising.
Pushing it forward is the polarization of wealth that has
impoverished hundreds of millions around the globe. As the
billionaire class in a few imperialist countries becomes
more and more a little island of privilege in a sea of
misery, the capitalist states defending this corrupt status
quo grow more and more repressive. More of society's
resources are spent on armies, police, prisons
and courts.
Hatred of the repressive state, especially among the young,
grows with each new outrage--whether police murders of Black
people in Cincinnati or the recent Supreme Court ruling that
it's OK for cops to handcuff and jail people for minor
traffic violations, like not wearing a seatbelt.
How can this militant struggle contribute to the building of
a multinational revolutionary movement based in the working
class that can challenge the rotten old order? What can we
learn from past movements, both those that failed and those
that won?
Right now there's a vigorous anarchist movement among the
young. Anarchism has arisen in earlier periods, too, when
many despaired of ever seeing the workers in a revolutionary
mood and decided to boldly strike out on their own against
the capitalist state. It is a healthy sign of rebellion
against the old order, but it poses many questions. . . .
CONFERENCE ON SOCIALISM
. . . Workers World Party, a Marxist party that just fought
alongside anarchists in Quebec against the imperialist trade
pact known as the FTAA, is hosting a conference in New York
City on June 2 to discuss the struggle for socialism.
Speakers and workshops will look at what kind of movement
can present a real challenge to capitalist exploitation.
This conference isn't about the milk-toast socialism of
social-democracy, which has provided a fig-leaf to most of
the imperialist governments in Europe. Those "socialists"
abandoned revolutionary Marxism long ago. So did many of the
supposed communist parties, which failed to defend the
planned economies in the USSR and Eastern Europe after U.S.
imperialism wore them down with threats of World War III.
But there are revolutionary socialists and communists in the
world, despite all the media hype to the contrary. Because
only socialism is the negation of capitalist private
property. It is the reorganization of society through
planning made possible by expropriating the expropriators.
For any planning to begin--to end poverty, save the
environment, raise up the oppressed, end sweatshops and wage
slavery--the wealth created by the workers must be taken
away from the bosses. The rulers will never peacefully give
up their privileged status. Their class dictatorship can be
broken only through the revolutionary intervention of the
masses.
And after a revolution? What happens to the state? What
needs to be done for it to "wither away," in Marx's words?
Can there be a stateless society as long as poverty, racism,
sexism and inequality still exist, as long as remnants of
the old ruling class remain?
These questions will be discussed at the conference, not
just in the abstract but by looking at the revolutionary
struggles of the modern era. We urge everyone to come to
listen, come to question, come to share experiences.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 26. huhtikuu 2001 14:21
Subject: [WW] Bush Threatens China
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 3, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: BUSH THREATENS CHINA
By making an unprecedented threat to intervene militarily in
any battle between the People's Republic of China and its
province of Taiwan, U.S. President George Bush has again
openly displayed the aggressive character of his
administration toward China. First with the arrogant spy-
plane offensive, then with the promise of modern weapons to
Taiwan, and now with an open threat Bush is trying to
intimidate Beijing.
Bush, asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" whether
Washington had an obligation to intervene on Taipai's side
against Beijing, he answered, "Yes, we do and the Chinese
must understand that." It was the first such statement by
any U.S. president that made no effort to disguise his
policy. It was an open threat.
These aggressive words followed quickly behind Bush's
aggressive deeds. He had just authorized the delivery of $4
billion in offensive weapons to the capitalist island
province. These weapons include four Kidd class destroyers,
a dozen anti-submarine P-3 '' submarine hunter aircraft and
eight diesel submarines built in Europe, plus other weapons.
That Bush hesitated to include the ultramodern "Aegis" naval
air-defense system in the arms deal has less meaning when
you consider that this weapon would in any case not be ready
for another eight years.
The weapons, especially the submarines, are so obviously
offensive weapons against the PRC that even the German
government, a U.S. ally, said it would refuse to build the
diesel submarines in the order, for fear of increasing
tensions. The Pentagon then announced it was ready to shop
around in other European countries for the diesels. The new
weapons are destabilizing because they allow the Taiwan
capitalist government the option of declaring "independence"
from China, something that had never been recognized in the
past.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing's response to the
arms threat was rightly indignant. The U.S. should
"immediately withdraw this mistaken decision and stop
selling arms to Taiwan to avoid new grave damage to China-
U.S. relations," he told U.S. Ambassador to China James
Prueher. "China reserves the right to make a further
reaction."
Li noted the eight diesel submarines were "purely offensive
weapons" and said, "The Chinese people must ask: what is the
U.S. intention in selling arms to Taiwan? Where does the
U.S. want to take China-U.S. relations?"
Each day makes it clearer that the Bush admin istration,
composed of the same team that carried out what they called
a "full-court press" of arms race and military threat
against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, is planning the same
strategy against the People's Republic. They are not
satisfied with their current ability to trade with and
invest in Chinese industry. They want to smash the Chinese
state, which is still based on the Chinese Communist Party
and on the protection of the nationalized economy.
They want to globalize China, that is, make all 1.3 billion
people subject to open and unprotected exploitation by the
multinational corporations, especially those based in the
U.S.
They aim to provoke an arms race with the goal of
bankrupting China. They are ready to risk a devastating war
in the process, even if this means killing millions of
Chinese and other Asian people and hundreds of thousands of
U.S. youths.
Bush and Company must be stopped, along with the arms deal
with Taiwan.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: torstai 26. huhtikuu 2001 14:21
Subject: [WW] Union Members Swell Largest Quebec March Ever
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 3, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
UNION MEMBERS SWELL LARGEST QUEBEC MARCH EVER
By G. Dunkel
Quebec City, Quebec
Members of the Canadian Auto Workers local from Kitchener,
Ontario, got off their buses here April 21 wearing bandanas
and checking their swim goggles. Swim goggles are not
normally issued to union members going to a demonstration,
but they are useful to protect your eyes against tear gas.
Leaders of both the CAW and Ontario Canadian Union of Public
Employees had announced that they were considering a
breakaway from the march route that the big Quebec union
leaders had picked, since it headed straight away from the
summit and the "wall of shame" surrounding it.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, an earlier version
of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, has decimated the
CAW. One member told Workers World: "The FTAA would abolish
us." CUPE members face the threat of privatization and
layoffs as cities consolidate and provinces cut back.
CAW brought 5,000 to 7,000 members to Quebec on April 21.
CUPE, which does not organize in Quebec, had 2,000 to 3,000.
The Metalos/Steel Workers union, whose members feel that the
FTAA would eliminate most of their jobs, rented a train from
Hamilton, Ontario, and filled it. The demonstration visibly
swelled when the steel workers marched in from that train.
Their presence was smaller than the CAW's.
Some of the Metalos' handmade signs raised the idea of a
hemisphere-wide general strike against the FTAA.
There was a contingent from Steel Workers District 4 from
Buffalo, N.Y. It appeared to be the only U.S. labor
contingent that came to Quebec City.
The banners that the International Action Center, a U.S.
group, brought calling for freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal in
English, French and Spanish were widely carried.
It was obvious that everyone knew what had happened here
April 20. One Metalos was overheard telling another: "You've
got to compare those kids yesterday to the Palestinian kids
taking on the Israelis. They should be an inspiration to
us." The other Metalos agreed.
Still, there wasn't a cop in sight, except for a few
directing traffic as the buses pulled in full and out empty.
A thousand members of the Federation of Quebec Workers (FTQ)
provided security and order. The FTQ includes most of the
unions in Quebec affiliated with U.S.-based internationals.
These are generally large, well-established unions.
The other large contingents were from two other labor
confederations: the Confederation of National Unions (CSN),
which includes most of the smaller unions and is closer to
the Quebec nationalist movement, and the Confederation of
Quebec Unions (CSQ), which comprises almost all the
teachers. Most CSQ slogans protested privatization.
The CSQ even turned out its affiliate from the Gaspe
Peninsula and the Madeleine Islands. These areas are an 18-
hour drive east of Quebec City. And they came from the
northern shore of the St. Lawrence, about an eight-hour
drive from the northeast.
Over two hours long
The front of the march reached the rally spot two hours
before the last groups--an environmental contingent from
Greenpeace and the Anti-Capitalist Convergence's anti-
imperialist contingent--stepped off.
Cops estimated 25,000 people in the march. Organizers say a
figure closer to 60,000 is accurate. Everyone seems to agree
that it was the biggest march ever held in Quebec.
The march reached a street called Couronne. There, marchers
were supposed to turn right, but turning left would have
brought them up the hill toward the wall surrounding the
Summit of the Americas. A series of scuffles between the FTQ
security and union members and others who wanted to split
from the march broke out.
The FTQ was able to keep any major breakaway from happening.
But groups from the CAW, CUPE and the Metalos left later and
worked their way up the hill and into the thick of the
action and tear gas.
At the Grand Theatre on Boulevard Rene-Levesque, they joined
repeated attempts to take down the fence. Union banners flew
in the midst of clouds of tear gas. The CUPE contingent even
had gas masks.
Other sizable marches took place April 21. The Confederation
of Canadian Students led students--some 4,000 according to
some reports--from the University of Laval about two
kilometers to the Plains of Abraham. There they met a
gathering of public-service unions and marched a few blocks
away from the perimeter along its length to join the main
union march.
Five to ten buses from Montreal pulled into Laval too late
for the student march, so people just formed up and marched
down Boulevard Rene-Levesque to the action at the Grand
Theatre. All the 6,500 cops and 1,200 soldiers deployed in
Quebec City were inside the perimeter guarding the 34 heads
of state and their staffs.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
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