Undocumented Workers Deal Bosses Blow for Blow

Immigrant workers sit by the fire in a "jungle" encampment in Calais, France.PARIS, December 4 — The two-month strike of 5,500 undocumented workers fighting for immigrants’ rights has been a shining light in a depressed French labor movement. Consequently, the bosses and their government have concentrated their attacks on these workers, but the latter have been returning blow for blow.

In their latest action, on December 2, 80 undocumented restaurant workers occupied the tax collection office in Nice on the French Riviera to underline the fact that these workers — many of African origin — pay taxes. Later the police cleared the workers from the building.

That morning, 150 undocumented workers — dishwashers, kitchen assistants, chambermaids and office workers at some of the swankiest hotels and restaurants on the French Riviera — rallied, demanding “legalization.” Of 450 such requests over the past 18 months the Nice prefect has barely granted 40.

Four days earlier, 10,000 people, mostly striking undocumented workers, marched through Paris to the Immigration Ministry chanting, “We’re staying here, we live here! ‘Legalization’ of all undocumented immigrants!” This was in response to an immigration minister circular limiting conditions for “legalization” to less than one in five of the striking workers, and then only on a case-by-case basis.

The five trade union confederations and six associations that are organizing and supporting the undocumented workers associations rejected this as “unacceptable.” They particularly attacked the minister’s five-year residence requirement, the exclusion of Algerians and Tunisians, and of those who work as personal-care providers, many of whom are women.

A strikers’ spokesman declared: “We’ve come here to condemn this half-assed circular, which in no way responds to our demands. Our movement will continue stronger than ever. Already, 5,500 of us are on strike, manning 60 picket lines. We’re more determined than ever, and nothing will cause us to lower the intensity [of our struggle]. We also want to condemn the attacks on the right to strike, with the boss just needing to make a simple phone call to have a picket line lifted, without any court decision.”

The 11 organizations also denounced the labor minister’s new measures to punish the employers of workers in the “underground economy.” This was a ploy to play on the racist stereotype promoted by the French fascists, who say immigrant workers are “bankrupting the social security system.” Quite the contrary, undocumented workers make social security payments but cannot use social services.

Racism — The Bosses’ Tool

In a new version of “blame the victim,” on November 28 French president Nicolas Sarkozy told his UMP party that the undocumented workers’ demand for “legalization” was stirring up anti-foreigner feelings and breathing new life into the fascist National Front party!

Racism remains a weakness in the French labor movement. According to a public opinion poll published on November 30, 78% of the population recognizes that entire industries could not function without immigrant workers. Nevertheless, only 24% favor across-the-board “legalization,” while 64% back the government’s racist policy of “case-by-case ‘legalization.’”

However, some sentiment is represented by a 33-year-old youth worker,
Karima, who told an interviewer: “I feel ashamed of the way undocumented workers are treated in France.... This government is continually stigmatizing not just immigrants, but also the poor and minorities. It’s the same thing with the debate on national identity ; they’re trying to pit people against one another. Unfortunately, some French people fall into the trap.”

And a 22-year-old student, Antonin, who joined the march through Paris, said : “I support the undocumented workers.... It’s about time their demands were met. These workers have been living in France for years and are obliged to live in hiding and are subject to all the pressures of the employers.’’

The only road for the working class to answer capitalism’s attacks is to unite all these movements — undocumented workers, the unemployed, rail and auto workers, teamsters, teachers in France with the workers in Guadeloupe and Mayotte (see articles this page) — into an anti-racist groundswell. This has the potential to turn these fight-backs into schools for communism, leading to the only solution: destroy capitalism with communist revolution. 

Asan Bibi, 9, burned when a US helicopter fired into her family's tent.The U.S. rulers claim to be champions of “human rights” and throw around charges against China and other countries which they say are violating “human rights.” This is a sick joke. The “human rights” movement was created by the ruling class to divert workers’ anger away from blaming the bosses for the atrocities of capitalism.  

Eleanor Roosevelt and other prominent U.S. ruling-class figures initiated the modern “human rights” movement in the form of a U.N. resolution in 1949. It was part of the U.S. rulers’ attempts to build all-class unity — when the ruling class tries to convince workers that they have the same interest — out of fear of the growing world communist movement. The movement was based on the lie that there are “human rights” that are not based on class struggle, and people who wanted to fight for a decent life for all people didn’t have to join the communist movement to do that.

Today the bosses use the “human rights” movements to mobilize people to fight other capitalists. Whoever is the main competitor of the U.S. these days, China, Russia, Iran and a few others, are endlessly charged with “human rights” violations. While friends of the U.S. rulers, like Saudi Arabia, get a free pass.

Now after sixty years we can see where following the capitalists “human rights” movement has been selective. They plan demonstrations and mass outcry about atrocities in Darfur, where China has oil interests, while ignoring imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where U.S. interests lie. 

A glance at “life in these United States” shows any tears the U.S. rulers’ shed over the condition of the working class to be a farce:

• Racist attacks against and murders of black, Latino, Arab and south Asian workers are increasing. They are openly encouraged by “conservative” radio and TV;

• Workers have few rights to organize unions. When they do, the unions are bought off by the bosses, and end up representing the unions’ and bosses’ interests, not “their” members;

• Forty percent of the population, and the majority of the working class, have little or no health care;

• Unemployment is over 20% (when underemployed, the military “economic draft” and those no longer looking for work are counted). Loss of a job is a threat hanging over every worker’s head;

• Essential public services — such as public schools, recreation, unemployment insurance, retirement pensions, and the ability to go to college — all are being dismantled. These cuts amount to a huge DECREASE in the real wages of all workers;

• U.S. jails and prisons hold more than two million, 25% of all the prisoners in the world. Most of them were convicted of non-violent “crimes,” for possession of tiny amounts of drugs and are in jail because they’re black or Latino. (In Western Europe such people are directed to rehab programs.) The difference between jail or no jail often rests with the racist views of the cops and judges, and the ability to pay for a high-priced defense lawyer. Prisoners work for pennies a day, producing goods that, through competition, lower the wages of all other workers and make billions for bosses off this cheap labor;

• Immigrants from Latin America, South Asia, and the Mid-East are being swept up and indefinitely locked away in a growing network of immigration prisons.

Internationally the U.S. is the most murderous, aggressive power in the post-Hitler period:

• Over 2.5 million Koreans killed during the Korean War, 1950-1953, most of them by U.S. carpet bombing of North Korea;

• Between 3 to 4 million Vietnamese killed by the U.S. and allies during the Vietnam War, 1961-1975;

• A million or more civilians killed by U.S.-funded death squads, military and police to make Latin America “safe for democracy,” 1950-1990;

• One million Iraqis dead because of the U.S. blockade and sanctions, 1991-2003, including medical supplies and water-purification equipment;

• Over 1.5 million Iraqis killed as a result of the U.S. invasion and “war on terror,” against civilians, 2003-2009; four million more have been displaced and are refugees.

• More than 30,000 Afghan civilians killed (the racist U.S. media do not report these figures);

• The U.S. “renders” — kidnaps for secret torture — hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people and uses “drone” missiles to kill anybody it suspects of being hostile.

These figures do not include millions killed by U.S.-backed and –funded allies, such as the over one million Indonesians killed by the fascist regime in the 1960s to 1970s.

An even bigger holocaust is the millions — mostly children — who die of completely preventable hunger and disease throughout the world every year, preventable because the world produces enough food and medicine to stop this slaughter. But since half the world’s six billion people live in brutal poverty, they can’t pay for what they need, and these children die.

From U.S. to China, Capitalism
is the Enemy

Today the U.S. government is attacking the Chinese capitalists for what they call “violations of human rights.” Chinese bosses certainly are guilty of exploiting workers. Socialism has long been overthrown in China and replaced by a very brutal form of state capitalism. Behind this “holier-than-thou” performance are the growing economic and political contradictions between the U.S. and Chinese ruling classes.

Workers in China have few rights. Workers’ and farmers’ protests are severely repressed by the Chinese state. Right-wing, nationalist misleaders try to direct non-Han workers’ and farmers’ anger against Han workers, instead of uniting with them.

Farmers are driven off their land with little compensation to make way for industrial projects that make billions for capitalists while polluting the earth, air, and water. Education and medical care are only for those who can pay, which means most workers get far too little of either.

Sound Familiar? Workers in the U.S. Face Similar Conditions!

U.S. bosses claim that the U.S. is “democratic” while China is not. Western capitalists long ago figured out that permitting workers to “vote” is helpful in disguising the fact that the country is really a dictatorship. It is a dictatorship because the capitalists run the country in their own class interest. Workers can vote because the capitalists control everything — all the political parties, plus the mass media, plus the money needed to carry on elections.

A communist society, run by the workers, would be based on production for need rather than production for profits. Only communism can possibly provide these basic needs for the working people of the world. Only under communism will every person be a worker, contributing towards the common good. 

BERKELEY, CA, November 20 — Early today, several hundred University of California-Berkeley (UCB) students and workers fought baton-swinging cops when the former rushed to campus to support a lecture-hall occupation and to protest fee hikes and “crisis cuts.” Despite heavy police presence, there were valiant attempts to hold the line at the barricades. The alliance of workers and students was marked by 90% of the ironworkers’ union honoring the picketing lines, disrupting construction. Solidarity greetings came from Pakistan, Canada and Britain.

“Today 3,800 students were unable to attend class in Wheeler Hall,” grumbled UCB Chancellor Burgeneu in a campus-wide letter. But constructive education did occur, outside the classroom.

On the 18th, a three-day system-wide Strike and Call to Action set the militant tone, responding to mounting attacks on workers and students by the University of California Board of Regents — the UC bosses — amid the intensifying capitalist crisis.

A worker-student coalition group organized the Strike and Call to Action, timed to coincide with the UC bosses’ meeting on the 18th at UCLA (see page 3). They were set to approve a 32% tuition increase over and above an earlier 10% hike.

By this time, attacks on students and workers were already being felt — cutbacks, furloughs and layoffs. UCB custodians were overworked fol- lowing 38 layoffs. Now 900 more service workers await pink slips throughout the UC system. Staff and faculty were hit by a 4-10% pay cut. Many lecturers won’t have jobs next semester.

Students face higher tuition — a 90% rise from just six years earlier — even larger classes, slashed resources, and messed-up premises. The cauldron bubbled. The UC clerical workers’ union — unable to gain any favorable contract — supported by another campus union, the Coalition of University Employees, together with students, staff and faculty, called for the system-wide strike from November 18 to 20.

On the 18th, the strike’s first day, pickets were out and rallying on campus. When news reached the rally of the 32% tuition hike being approved, and of a tazering incident at UCLA, the nearly-400 people jeered. Energetic speeches followed. A student noted that the cuts and hikes were inherently racist, as they will hit blacks and Latinos disproportionately hard, effectively eliminating working-class students from “this great university.” Amid this anger, political contradictions surfaced, alarmingly from some UCB professors.

Prof. Ananya Roy who teaches a course on global poverty, noted growing inequality in the world, but then said that “we need not look for radical instruments of [wealth] redistribution” and promoted an approach of institutional reform-lite. She touted warhawk Obama’s awesomeness as a “community organizer, which you all now are!”

Anthropology Prof. Laura Nader (Ralph’s sister) would solve the crisis cuts by eliminating subsidies to campus athletics. The imperialist war (and war budget) and the current bloody crisis of capitalism (with slashed social services, crappy health care, growing unemployment) were not connected to State budget cuts. Instead, mismanagement, greed or incompetence were blamed, dismissing systemic faults.

All their “solutions” to the crisis tells the working class to either “adapt” to the attacks or await rescue by “heroic” politicians. This could easily open the door to fascist oppression. Prof. Lakoff says “we” have a “dysfunctional system of government.” “forgetting” that capitalist government is supposed to work for the bosses, on the backs of workers. These racist budget cuts are, in reality, U.S. capitalist cuts.

The working class must see these attacks for what they are, in order to guide our actions towards smashing capitalism with communist revolution.

The International Monetary Fund has forecast ten years of cuts for the industrialized world. U.S. imperialism has priorities and California complements them. Between 1970 and today the state budget for UC has been cut in half. In 1965, the state covered 94.4% of a UC student’s education. Last year it was 58.5%. This year, California will spend an estimated $3.3 billion to operate UC. It will spend triple that — $9.9 billion — on the state’s 33 prisons.

On the 19th more cops shut down on-campus meeting spaces and the Open-University teaching panels. The remaining custodians piled garbage bags at the Chancellor’s office doorway. UC President Mark Yudof posed “empathy” with angry students and workers now holding militant actions at UCLA, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz. “We do not have the money to...run the University of California,” he cried, implying that the attacks are “necessary” to offset capitalism’s $535 million “budget deficit.” The ruling class and its lackeys will always cover for imperialism.

By Friday, anger mounted. News of a semi-spontaneous occupation of Wheeler Hall garnered more support from students. The occupiers demanded a rollback of the 32% hike, the re-hiring of the 38 laid-off custodians and dropping of all charges against themselves. Hundreds showed up. Sure enough, cops from throughout the Bay Area were sent to guard Wheeler. Clashes erupted when police pushed to set up barricades, brutalizing students.

Chants arose. “Peacekeepers” spoke. Contradictions boiled. Rain poured. A chant about “democracy” outside Wheeler Hall revealed the nature of capitalist democracy: attacks on students and workers, illusions and promises. Students and workers realize their potential power when they unite against the common capitalist enemy, represented here by UC bosses. Then the police, fearing a riot if the occupiers were ousted and arrested, released the group of 41 students.

“Hey, Hey, UC! Education must be Free!” will not happen without more ideological and class struggle. One of the released occupiers summed it up: “What we did in there was nothing compared to what you all did out here! But it cannot end to- night! None of our demands were met! This should be the start of something bigger!” Plans to build on this newfound unity are emerging. The struggle continues.

Attiullah, 7, shot in the back by U.S. forcesThe war for oil being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan is also taking its toll in the U.S. The 13 deaths at Ft. Hood can be added to the 5,300 dead U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and over one million Iraqi and Afghanis killed since the invasions of 2003.

We shouldn’t fall for either of the bosses’ media spins on the Ft. Hood shootings: the overtly racist Fox News take that "all Muslims are evil," or the liberal Obama-New York Times slant that "embraces all religions" in pursuit of imperialist war. The profit system itself stands guilty of all the murders, from Texas to the Mid-East to Central Asia. Our Party has long held the position of "Turn the Guns Around." Unlike Hasan, who targeted rank-and-file soldiers, we advocate mass, militant, anti-racist, anti-imperialist action against top officers and the capitalists they serve. This struggle forms part of our long-term strategy to build a mass communist party that will ultimately destroy the war-making billionaires in a communist revolution.

The profit-driven U.S. war machine had already slaughtered over 700,000 non-combatants in oil-rich Iraq by 2006, according to the British medical journal Lancet. In Afghanistan, U.S.-led forces killed 345 civilians between January and August 2009, the UN reports. These figures don’t include the 90 Afghan civilians wiped out in September by NATO or the six innocent farmers and three of their children incinerated recently by a U.S. missile. CIA and U.S. Air Force drones have slain over 700 Pakistani civilians since 2006. To perpetuate this serial killing, U.S. rulers are pouncing on the Ft. Hood incident to increase anti-Islamic sentiment.

Whether Major Nidal Hasan did this on his own or was put up to it, the shootings in the military processing center were not the actions of a sane stable person. Hasan cracked under the duress of hearing the stories of atrocities in the war told to him day after day.

By the military’s own admissions, this war is taking a tremendous mental toll on soldiers. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety over deployment, suicide, and domestic violence are all at very high levels in the military. (More next issue)

Racism is also to blame. The military has always used racism to dehumanize its victims. Anti-Arab racism is tacitly approved. Derogatory names for Arabs are the norm. Racist cadence and banter by the Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and acceptance of racist comments by lower-rank enlisted soldiers drill disgustingly negative views of Arabs into the heads of soldiers.

The U.S, Chinese, Russians, and European bosses all have a stake in these wars. The Arab capitalists are maneuvering to protect their own interests by aligning with different sides. All sides are using a toxic mix of nationalism, patriotism and religion to motivate young men and women to kill for capitalism. Wars like this are how the bosses fight each other over resources and the "right" to exploit workers.

The mental toll comes from soldiers committing atrocities for a cause they don’t believe in. In the history of modern warfare, the two militaries that suffered the least mental breakdowns were the Soviet and German armies in World War II. Those armies were politically committed, the Soviets to Socialism, and the Germans to Fascism.

A big reason for the mental health problems among U.S. soldiers is because — despite the rhetoric about "protecting our country" or "helping" people in Afghanistan and Iraq — inside the military most soldiers know what this war is really about: oil. Fighting for that lie takes its toll.

Nidal Hasan is neither the first or last person to be driven crazy by a system that kills millions for profits. PLP is organizing for communist revolution and a society without bosses and profits, run by workers and for the needs of the working class all over the world. Join us!