January 19th was the deadline for state grant applications under Obama’s “Race to the Top” (RttT) program. The program’s goal is to restructure the public education system on a national scale, by bribing states to bust teachers’ unions, centralize and privatize public education. At least eleven states (including CA, NY, MA, IL, and TN) are changing their state laws to be eligible for tiny amounts of grant money ($4-5 billion to be distributed nationwide over the next four years, about  $110 per school-age student per year. This top-down policy change, which attacks the working class and centralizes the power of the ruling class, is a clear example of how fascism is developing in this country.

U.S. capitalists are in an economic crisis. As the budget shrinks, their fiscal priorities become increasingly clear. They will continue to pay for imperialist wars and to prop up falling profits, giving huge breaks to banks and other corporations. Meanwhile, they will continue to depress the standard of living of the working class, through layoffs, reduced compensation and benefits and by slashing public services. Capitalists must cut back on higher-paid, unionized public employees, such as teachers and transit workers.

The two teacher unions represent one quarter of all unionized workers in this country and are an obstacle to the massive cuts and restructuring that the ruling class needs to do at this time. Race to the Top calls for a massive expansion of charter schools, especially through takeovers or conversions of schools that are currently unionized public schools. At such schools, superintendents may “close” a school one day and “reopen” it the next, having thrown the teachers’ contract out overnight. In “underperforming” schools, all staff can be fired and forced to reapply for their old jobs, or the school can simply be given over to a charter school management company. We have seen in recent articles about schools in Chicago that schools facing “reorganization” serve primarily black and Latino students. The same is true of the nineteen New York City public schools now slated for closing.

However bad these reforms will be for teachers, working-class students have much more to lose. As U.S. capitalists restructure the economy to support imperialist wars, they don’t want to pay a lot of money for 10-12 years of public education for every student. They want to further track and segregate public education, in order to educate a small percentage of students in technical fields needed for military service and future war production. This can be done at magnet and high-performing, selective charter schools. Meanwhile, they are abandoning large numbers of inner-city working-class students to a rotten education at low-performing charters and increasingly under-funded public schools where the neediest students land by default. The racist nature of the system ensures that black and Latino students are those most victimized by the crisis in education, as they face the worst odds in finding jobs, healthcare and affordable housing outside of school.

But in this period, U.S. capitalists face more than an economic crisis; they face a political crisis. As they move into a state of permanent wars abroad and cutbacks at home, they must get the U.S. working class to support these changes. Thus, every major newspaper has been attacking teachers and teachers’ unions, blaming them for the poor quality of education in urban schools. At the same time, they claim that charter schools are “the answer” to problems in urban education. Their goal is to split students and their families from the teachers, and get them to support the “reforms” that will worsen their own education. 

RttT also calls for greater standardization of curriculum across the country, and encourages states to work together to develop new state tests. (Previous education articles have discussed how curriculum standards are used to build patriotic, pro-imperialist ideas.) Further, it calls for “linking teacher pay and teacher tenure to student performance.” RttT calls for more data collection on students and teachers which will be used as ammunition for administrators against teachers and for the government against districts. And as teachers lose the job protection the contract used to provide, they may be scared into compliance and will be far less likely to stand up for their students.

We must continue to build a militant teacher-student-parent alliance against these attacks, pointing out how this is part of developing fascism. We must show our friends that the racism which separates us is an obstacle we must conquer as we fight for a new system that will serve all students. We don’t just want reforms that might get a few more books in classrooms or save a few inner-city schools from closing. Workers have won those reforms many times, only to have them taken away as the bosses are doing now. We want communism, a system where workers will run the world, including creating schools that serve the needs of our young people. We need schools that teach all of our children to read, write, do math and know our true history so that they can contribute to a workers’ society rather than serve as cogs in the capitalist machine. J

In the factory at lunch I asked my friend “what do you think is the reason for all these recalls?” He answered: “It’s probably because the factories where the recalled parts are made run as fast and dangerous as the one we work in.”

Over the past few months Toyota has recalled over ten different models of vehicles for faulty floor mats, sticking acceleration pedals, and weak brakes totaling around nine million recalls and counting. There have been around 20 deaths and dozens of injuries from these faulty parts. Toyota started getting reports of the faulty gas pedals in March of 2007 but didn’t start recalling vehicles until late 2009.  Toyota kept quiet about the problems to protect its profits.  But now Ford, GM, and other capitalist competitors are hoping to benefit in the competition for sales.

Toyota’s recalls aren’t their first and won’t be their last. According to the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) the recent Toyota recall takes 4th place out of the top 10 biggest auto recalls in history with 5.4 million recalls for their floor mats.  GM places 3rd place with 5.8 million and 2nd place with 6.7 million recalls. Ford takes 1st place with 7.9 million recalls (MSNBC.com).

This history exposes the racist and nationalistic lie that everything “built in the U.S. is stronger and more dependable than imports.” U.S. bosses use this to get workers to support U.S imperialism. While one boss may pay more than another or have slightly better working conditions, workers can never solve the racist and sexist exploitation of capitalism by chasing higher wages or supporting the “lesser-evil” boss.

 Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, etc. have their parts made and assembled all over the world.  In the auto factory where I work you can read the labels on the boxes of parts and see that they come from all over: Kentucky, Mexico, Japan and elsewhere. Bosses go to where they can exploit workers for the cheapest parts and labor to make higher profits than their competitors.

But who is to blame for faulty parts and recalls? “Lazy” workers who don’t do quality checks correctly? The non-unionized foreign auto companies? No. The capitalist system and all the foreign and U.S bosses who defend it are to blame.

At the auto factory where I work, the bosses are continually speeding us up at work. On the factory floor quick assembly and rushed quality checks lead to a shorter life span of vehicles, faulty parts, recalls, injuries, and even deaths for both consumers and assembly workers.  Safety for the workers who make the vehicles or the safety for customers isn’t the bosses’ concern unless it gets in the way of their profits.

As workers in a foreign-owned, non-unionized, sub-contracting auto plant, my friends and I see the contradictions of safety and profit every day. The workers in our factory get hurt because of the long hours, speed and monotony of our work. Unsafe conditions hardly ever get fixed until someone gets seriously hurt or parts get damaged. Many times I’ve seen someone get hurt and no management or boss comes to help. But if a machine breaks and stops the production line, within seconds you’ll see tons of managers and bosses run out to see what’s going on.

We workers constantly confront the bosses on safety issues.  We have also discussed organizing to slow or stop the line to prevent layoffs and plant closings.  But capitalism will never allow the conditions for workers to make products, machines or the vehicles we use to be as safe and efficient as they could be because capitalism and its bosses will always put profits before people. I try to use these situations to show fellow workers that it’s the exploitation, racism and sexism of the capitalist system and the bosses that are making our lives this hell. Our factory is just like many other factories:  It’s loud, sweaty and fast paced.  But ours is also a school for communism. J

BROOKLYN, NY, February 4 —

Today a group of black female lab workers at a hospital here went on the offensive and demanded that the hospital bosses hire more workers. A meeting was arranged between the supervisor and the 1199 SEIU union delegate, who suggested that everyone should attend the meeting, since they all work in the department together. Perhaps unknowingly, the union delegate illustrated that, whatever the fight, when workers are united victory is possible. In this case, the reform fight was for more workers and not the revolutionary fight for communism. This fight also exposes the racist and sexist nature of the system. Black women are the most exploited section of the working class in the U.S., where being overworked with too little staff and paid very low wages is common. 

Under capitalism hospitals prioritize profits over the health of the working class and so departments are short-staffed.  Blood samples are left sitting for hours before they are analyzed, which leads to inaccurate test results. Other medical staff rely on these results to treat patients, resulting in potentially life-threatening errors. The lab workers look upon this matter seriously, taking into consideration that it is the health of working-class families that is at stake. Again, the racist nature of the system is laid bare: a large percentage of the patients receiving poor care at this hospital are black and Latino.

The doctors, on many occasions, blame the lab workers for the blood tests not being done in a timely fashion. This attitude is encouraged by the bosses, yet another way to divide the working class and weaken us. Most of the doctors do not see the contradiction between the hospital bosses and workers who are pushed to do more with less staff, creating unsafe conditions for patient care. We should strive to show our coworkers and friends how doctors and other hospital workers have a common interest in destroying capitalism and its rotten health care system and replacing it with communism and true workers’ health.

Surprisingly, at the end of the meeting, the bosses stated that the lab workers would get additional staffing. However, this small reform victory should not create the illusion about the racist, capitalist-run health care system. Too often in the hospital, the workers have seen the bosses hire more workers and then suddenly shut down the department. (We saw a similar example in the Stella d’Oro struggle where the workers “won” the strike only to have the factory immediately shut down and sold.) As recently as last year the laundry department was subcontracted to an outside vendor, just after the bosses had hired more workers.

Like all capitalists, the ones who run this hospital are only in business for profit.  Under capitalism, the needs of workers and patients in a racist health care system cannot be met. The workers’ vision is for a better health care system that exists to improve the quality of life, not to make profits. This can only be achieved by many workers joining the fight for a communist society and building the PLP. 

Questions have arisen over the migrant workers’ revolt in the small Italian town of Rosarno, Calabria. The NY Times (1/12) suggested that the reason for the violence  was  locals and immigrants competing for the fruit harvesting jobs, although immigrants had worked in the fields for years. Fifty people were injured, cars burned and windows smashed. The major Italian news agency claimed “racism and poor conditions fueled violence,” ignoring not only Rosarno’s anti-racism demonstration after the conflict, but also the national anti-racism demonstration of 250,000 held in Rome last October.2 Once again, the bosses’ media didn’t dig below the surface.

The Comitato Lavoratori Immigrati e Italiani Uniti (Committee of United Italian and Immigrant Workers), an immigrants’ rights organization in Rome, analyzed what happened. This report from Italy is based on that analysis.

The violence that exploded after local youths shot at three African laborers grew out of an intense class struggle that began years ago, when wholesalers increased profits by reducing the prices paid for agricultural products and local residents refused to accept  a one-euro wage-reduction for each box of fruit. To make up the cheap labor shortfall, the Calabrian Mafia, or ’Ndrangheta, began organizing “illegal” immigration. Africans were promised decent pay and living conditions, but were forced to accept much lower wages and inhuman living conditions after arriving in Italy as undocumented workers.

The Italian press reported one of the workers as saying, “I, too, was protesting... but then the situation got worse and they began shooting.... I can’t go back [to Rosarno].”

It’s not hard to read between the lines. The immigrant workers were not protesting random shootings, but rather lousy conditions and pay. To intimidate them into keeping their mouths shut and their heads low, the ’Ndrangheta began shooting at immigrants with air rifles. The gangsters’ strategy backfired, and Rosarno became the site of open class warfare.

Italy’s current government has adopted a tough stance toward “illegal” immigration. It shipped about 1,200 undocumented workers to detention centers. Others fled to nearby regions. The xenophobic Interior Minister, however, has announced that more than half will be given working papers.

The fruit rots on the trees, but that’s not the only thing rotten in Calabria. In a town of fewer than 16,000 residents, it’s not possible that almost 2,000 Africans could have been employed in the fields and not been noticed by the police. Calabria was a concrete example of the class struggle, illustrating how capitalism not only needs a reserve army of the unemployed on a global scale, but also requires its government servants and organized crime to regulate that workforce.

What happened in Calabria shows that so-called unorganized and unskilled immigrant workers possess a militant class-consciousness, and that it’s the bosses profiting from their labor — and not presumably native-born workers — who foment racist violence.

While currently modest in size and influence, PLP in Italy is helping to develop an international anti-racist movement that proposes a revolutionary solution to the oppression faced by exploited and superexploited workers alike. J

Sources:

 Donadio, Rachel. “Looking Past the Facade of Italian City After Riots.” New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/world/europe/13italy.html?scp=1&sq=Donadio&st=cse>.

  “Migrants ‘treated badly in Italy’ MSF and UN say racism and poor conditions fuelled violence.” 12 January, 16:44. <http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/collection/rubriche/english/ 2010/01/12/visualizza_new.html_1672936977.html>

 Corriere del Mezzogiorno 13 gennaio 2010 “Gli africani di Rosarno a Castel Volturno.” <http://corrieredelmezzogiorno.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/2010/13-gennaio-2010/gli-africani-rosarno-castel-volturnoe-coloniali-la-spesa-diventano-negrozi-1602281073901_print.html>

  La Repubblica. “Maroni annuncia: asilo politico per gli immigrati feriti a Rosarno.” http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2010/01/17/news/maroni_su_rosarno-1984669/