As bosses go after workers, gov’t attacks political rights
https://themilitant.com/2021/02/13/as-bosses-go-after-workers-govt-attacks-political-rights/
BY TERRY EVANS
Vol. 85/No. 7
February 22, 2021
Thirty-five Teamster members went on strike Feb. 5 in South Whitehall
Township, Pennsylvania, demanding bosses back off raise in their health
insurance costs that would cut their wages.
THE MORNING CALL/APRIL GAMIZ
Thirty-five Teamster members went on strike Feb. 5 in South Whitehall
Township, Pennsylvania, demanding bosses back off raise in their health
insurance costs that would cut their wages.
The key political question in the U.S. today is the ongoing social and
economic crisis facing working people, as bosses and their government
shore up their profits by attacking workers’ jobs, wages, working
conditions and political rights.
At the same time, the Democrats, liberal media outlets and middle-class
radicals are driving a show-trial impeachment effort for partisan
political gain. They’re not out to convict Donald Trump, which appears
virtually impossible, but to crush him, his family and his allies. Most
importantly, they want to restrict the ability of working people who
they consider “deplorable” to ever affect politics again.
This is part and parcel of their efforts to reinvigorate the FBI — the
capitalist rulers’ political police — and attack rights workers sorely
need to defend themselves.
In the U.S., as well as worldwide, millions of workers have been thrown
out of work. Only 57.5% of working-age people in the U.S. have a job
today. At least 7 million people aren’t even counted as unemployed
because the government says they’ve been out of work too long! They
haven’t looked for work over the past four weeks. Bosses at American and
United Airlines just sent furlough warnings to 13,000 and 14,000 workers
respectively. And Heineken announced Feb. 10 it is slashing another
8,000 jobs.
The government’s response under both Trump and Joseph Biden focuses on
short-term relief measures. What workers need is jobs, to be at work, to
organize alongside fellow workers as a class to fight to defend themselves.
Biden’s $1.9 trillion package passed the Senate Feb. 5. It offers
bailouts to many bosses and to indebted state and local governments,
more one-time handouts to some of those thrown out of work, and measures
to prevent undocumented workers from getting any “stimulus” payments.
Meanwhile, millions of workers face bosses using the jobs crisis to push
wage cuts and slash hours of work, as prices for food and other
necessities are rising. Housing prices rose 8% over the past year. Many
new jobs bosses offered in January were temporary.
Under these conditions working families face growing debt. Some $53
billion is now owed by tenants for rent and utility bill arrears,
according to Moody’s Analytics. Despite a moratorium on evictions,
landlords have found ways to throw 250,000 people out of their homes.
“A road out of these conditions requires a course of working-class
struggle, not government handouts,” Willie Cotton, Socialist Workers
Party candidate for New York City public advocate, told the Militant.
Class struggle, not handouts
“Workers and our unions need to fight for a big federally funded public
works program to put millions back to work at union-scale pay to build
hospitals, houses, schools and other things we need,” he said.
Members of Teamsters Local 120 locked out by Marathon oil refinery
bosses in St. Paul Park, Minnesota, since Jan. 22, are fighting for safe
working conditions and an end to subcontracting. Local members, above,
provide food donations Jan. 30-31 in solidarity with area families.
TEAMSTERS LOCAL 120
Members of Teamsters Local 120 locked out by Marathon oil refinery
bosses in St. Paul Park, Minnesota, since Jan. 22, are fighting for safe
working conditions and an end to subcontracting. Local members, above,
provide food donations Jan. 30-31 in solidarity with area families.
When former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned that Biden’s
“stimulus” package can eat away the funds needed for substantial
government infrastructure spending to create jobs, other Democrats
turned on him. People who listen to Summers are “nuts,” Hawaii Sen.
Brian Schatz snapped.
Cotton and Socialist Workers Party candidates around the country explain
workers need to rely on our own class to force changes. They point to
the example set by workers engaged in union fights like the produce
workers in New York’s Hunts Point market that struck and won wage gains,
and Marathon refinery workers on strike in St. Paul Park, Minnesota,
fighting for safer working conditions.
Any upturn in the capitalist economy — which is likely as more workers
are vaccinated against COVID-19 and government lockdowns wind down —
will open hiring, giving workers more confidence and willingness to
fight boss attacks.
“Refusing to accept the bosses’ dictates and fighting for what we need
today requires workers and farmers defending our political rights to
discuss, debate and organize free of interference from the government,
its spy agencies and cops,” Cotton said.
The capitalist rulers, Biden administration and some Never-Trump
Republicans have seized upon the actions of a few wannabe paramilitaries
and conspiracy theorists who temporarily disrupted Congress Jan. 6 to
call for repressive legislation and new leeway for the FBI and other cop
agencies to go after “domestic terrorism.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the entire U.S. military to
“stand down” over a 60-day period as the military brass conducts a witch
hunt to ferret out those in the ranks they judge to have “extremist” views.
Democrats push assault on rights
The real aim of these moves is to target people for their political
views. The history of the class struggle teaches that when the rulers
and their political parties advance probes like this, they always turn
them into attacks on the working class and its vanguard.
Justice Department officials say they’re now considering filing charges
against those they claim conspired to disrupt Congress under RICO
racketeering laws. These laws, which carry sentences of up to 20 years
imprisonment, have often been used to target the unions.
All these moves, and the new impeachment trial of Trump, even though
he’s out of office, are really aimed at the over 140 million working
people who either voted for the former president or decided neither
capitalist candidate was worth casting a ballot for.
Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin Feb. 4 called Trump’s
supporters “a social pathology” that infects growing parts of the country.
The capitalist rulers increasingly fear the working class, as they see
the crisis of their system breeding new explosions of labor battles.
The Democrats’ decision to push their second impeachment effort is part
of their attack on the rights working people need.
They cynically pronounce plans to hold the fastest trial ever, less than
a week, without any witnesses. Their goal has nothing to do with the
Constitution. The whole operation is dangerous for working people.
GameStop, stock market frenzy shows crisis of capitalism
The rapid rise, steep fall and continuing oscillation of the stock price
of GameStop, a chain of video-game stores, is motivated by the same
greed-driven speculative mania that has gripped the stock market
periodically over decades. Initially some smaller-scale capitalist…
Workers must build our own party, a labor party
Statement by Róger Calero, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New
York City mayor, Feb. 10. In the face of deepening boss attacks,
government coronavirus lockdowns and with millions of us unemployed,
workers are finding ways to stand up and fight…
Front Page Articles
As bosses go after workers, gov’t attacks political rights
Workers need to organize to defend wages, conditions
Workers must build our own party, a labor party
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Tens of thousands defy military, protest against coup in Myanmar
Montreal meeting celebrates 62nd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution
News update: Victory over prison ban in Pennsylvania!
Feature Articles
GameStop, stock market frenzy shows crisis of capitalism
Also In This Issue
India farmers broaden fight against Modi gov’t attacks
‘Stimulus’ fund for ‘Militant’ goes over $71,000!
Socialist Workers Party files for ballot in Dallas
‘The ‘Militant’ lets me know what workers are doing’
New Zealand rally: ‘No to military takeover in Myanmar’
Ohio cop charged with murder of Andre Hill
Montreal cops brutalize Mamadi Camara
On the Picket Line
Minn. Marathon oil workers fight for safety, no subcontracting
Ohio auto-parts workers fight for union, against bosses’ disdain
Books of the Month
Why Lenin declared war on ‘Great Russian chauvinism’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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Emmett F. Fields “ Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do
not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is
an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively,
fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature.
” ― Emmett F. Fields