Workers Vanguard No 726 - 31 December 1999

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 726 - 31 December 1999

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No. 726 .... 31 December 1999

Giuliani, Democrats Strong-Arm NYC Transit UnionWe Need a WorkersParly!Break witll tile Democrats! Defend laUor's Right to Strike!

DECEMBER 21 -The 33,000 membersof New York City Transport WorkersUnion (TWU) Local 100 came up againstthe iron fist of the capitalist state lastweek as they geared up to walk out onstrike. Harking back to the sort of measures used to break strikes at the turn of thecentury, Democratic Party state attorneygeneral Eliot Spitzer and Republicanmayor Rudolph Giuliani brought downinjunctions criminalizing not only strikeaction but even advocacy of strike actionby the union or its members--or by anybody else, for that matter. Giuliani promised to destroy the union and bankruptunion members with fines of $1 millionagainst the union and $25,000 againstindividuals the first day of a strike, withthose fines doubling every day thereafter.In a frontal assault on all of labor, theseinjunctions signal the capitalist rulers'yearning to return to an era in which theunions themselves were branded " i l l ~ g a l criminal conspiracies."But while Spitzer, and Giuliani'sunion-busting moves succeeded in stopping a strike, the TWU ranks are notcowed or broken. Even in the face of 'these injunctions, thousands of transitworkers at a mass meeting on the evening of December 14 voted twice to goout on strike. In the days that followed,many expressed the sentiment widelyheard at one maintenance yard: "Weshould have struck. We had the city inthe palm of our hands. We could havecrushed Giuliani.", The power of the TWU to shut downthe center of finance capitalism-demonstrated in citywide transit strikes in1966 and 1980-is evident to all. Eventhe Wall Street Journal (16 December)acknowledged how "Wldl Street tycoonsand media bigwigs cringe in anticipationof a strike by New York City transitworkers." But, as is no less evident, astrike by transit workers and other publicsector unions immediately confronts thefull might of the capitalist government,its strikebreaking court injunctions andlaws, like New York State's Taylor Law,and the cops who enforce them.The government's union-busting ordersand the army of cops deployed to enforcethem-flooding the streets and subwaystations and surrounding bus barns andsubway maintenance yards-are a nakedexpression of what the capitalist state isall about: a machinery of repressionagainst the working class. These copenforced court orders also laid bare theclass nature and commonality of classinterests of the dual parties of capital, the

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WV PhotosDecember 8 TWU Local 100 rally outside MTA Office in Manhattan brought out at least 12,000 angry, determinedworkers. Fearing union's power to shut down NYC, government pushed through anti-strike injunctions, unleashedcops to surround TWU headquarters on December 14 as contract deadline neared.,Democrats and RepUblicans, in the face

of any challenge by the working class tothe bosses. And they revealed that theexisting leadership of the labor movementserves as labor auxiliaries of and politicalpolice for the capitalist rulers.Local 100 head Willie James and TWUInternational president Sonny Hall notonly bowed to the government's strikebreaking but literally used the policeto intimidate the union membership onbehalf of their capitalist masters. Notonly were union members instructed toobey the court diktats and warned not toeven utter the word "strike," but the TWUtops came into the December 14 unionmeeting the evening the contract expiredaccompanied by dozens of NYPD copswhose very presence was aimed at menacing the membership.To give James an out, Giuliani targeted the New Directions (ND) opposi.tion, which makes up almost half of theLocal 100 executive board, as an "out ofcontrol" faction bent on a strike. However, if anything, New Directions wasmore overtly opposed to a strike thanwas the James leadership in the weeksleading up to the contract expiration.New Directions did at leas t challenge theinjunction in court while the lawyers forthe James leadership blocked with thecity administration in its move for a

hearing to secure a permanent injunction.But at a December 15 solidarity rally,ND also loyally obeyed the injunction tothe letter, instructing the several hundredworkers who turned out riot to talk abouta strike and to abide by the court injunctions. This is hardly surprising sinceNew Directions' entire strategy has beenbased on dragging the TWU into thesame bosses' courts!For a Class-StruggleLeadership of Labor!

There is widespread anger among theunion membership and among all cityworkers at the government's strongarming tactics and the James leadership'scapitulation. When the presence of copswas made known at the December 14union meeting, a good one-third of theJ,OOO workers there started chanting,"Out! Out! Out!" or yelling, "Get 'emoutta here!" Some transit workers atthe December 15 rally carried a bannerreading, "Smash the Taylor Law! NoConfidence in the James Gang! No Confidence in New Directions! Elect StrikeCommittees!"TWU members at that rally and at transit locations around the city eagerly readand carefully studied a Spartacist Leagueleaflet (reprinted on page 8) headlined"Defend Labor's Right to Strike! Bust the

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Union-Busters! Break with the Democrats-For a Workers Party!" To preparefor the solid, unified strike drawing in allof NYC labor which is needed to smashthe government's ominous assault on theright to strike-and, ultimately, on thevery right of the unions to exist-it isnecessary to draw some serious lessonsfrom the recent events. Above all, theunions must be politically armed in suchconfrontations.Ludicrously attempting to cast a transitstrike as a communist plot,' Giulianiclaimed to know that an ND leader hadaddressed a "Marxist study group." ND'sresponse was to drape itself in the Starsand Stripes at the December 15 rally. Infact, ND is as bound to Democratic Partyelectoral pressure politics as is the Jamesleadership. It is not only ND that Giulianiis redbaiting these days. A New YorkTimes (20 December) article headlined,"Giuliani's Hunt for Red Menaces: FromTransit Union to Gardeners, Mayor SeesMarx's Shadow," reported that Giulianieven took aim at the Parks Council,"made up of prominent blue bloods,"for decrying the lack of public funding for parks in poor neighborhoods!This man is an incipient clerical fascist,albeit constrained within the frameworkof a bourgeois democracy which, as thecontinued on page 9


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Free Wen Ho Lee!On December 10, FBI agents haulednuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee from hishome in New Mexico as federal prosecutors indicted him on S9 charges of "mis

handling" classified materials. Last February, the Taiwanese-born U.S. citizenwas hounded out of his 20-year government research job at the Los AlamosNational Laboratory on charges of "spying" for the People's Republic of Chinawhich were based solely on his ancestry.While even a former federal spy catcheradmitted that the espionage case againstthe 59-year-old Lee was "built on thinair," the Feds have now charged him withviolations of the Atomic Energy Act andForeign Espionage Act. Branding Lee a"clear and present danger to the Unitedstates," the court has ordered him heldwithout bail even though he has livedunder 24-hour surveillance for monthsand has volunteered to take polygraphtests and submit to searches to clear hisname. We -demand: Free Wen Ho Lee!Drop the charges! Give him back his job!Lee's persecution-for handling documents the same way that hundreds ofnon-Asian scientists handle them-has

sparked outrage from a broad spectrum ofChinese American scientific, legal andbusiness organizations. A number ofthese groups have collected money forLee's defense. " If you look at the indictment, this looks like 59 counts of downloading," commented banker Henry Tang."He looks like a scapegoat." At Lee's bailhearing, federal agents admitted that hehad never copied data he didn' t have official access to and that there is no evidencethat any data ever left his possession ..Downloading classified data for home useis a common practice among governmentworkers and officials. Recently retiredCIA director John Deutch admitted heregularly copied "top secret" data ontohis home computer. But while Deutchmerely lost his security clearance, Leenow faces possible life in prison.While the witchhunting of Lee hasbeen led by the Republican right inleague with a wing of the DemocraticParty and the "liberal" New York Times,at the core of his victimization lies thedetermination of the entire American ruling class to foment capitalist counterrevolution in China and to overturn the

There Is No Partnership ofCapital and LaborThe class collaboration of the procapitalist AFL-CIO misleaders has led to astring of broken strikes and busted unionsover the past two decades. As seen in the1997 UPS strike, last year's walkout againstGM and the anger of New York City transitworkers in the face of government assault

and the union bureaucracy's capitulation,TROTSKY the working class is in a fighting mood. LENINWhat is needed for victory is the kind ofclass-struggle perspective laid out by Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon at the time ofa bitter maritime strike on the West Coast in 1936.A good deal is said about strike "strategy"-and that has its uses with!n certainclearly defined limits-but when you get down to cases this strike, like every otherstrike, is simply a bullheaded struggle between two forces whose interests are in constant and irreconcilable conflict. The partnership of capital and labor is a lie. Theimmediate issue in every case is decided by the relative strength of the opposing forcesat the moment. The only strike strategy worth a tinker's dam is the strategy that beginswith this conception.The problem of the strikers consists in estimating what their strength is, and thenmobilizing it in full force and pressing against the enemy until something cracks and asettlement is achieved in consonance with the relation of forces between the unionsand the organizations of the bosses. That's all there is to strike strategy. You cannotmaneuver over the head of the class struggle.... .From our point of view the workers have a perfect right to the full control of industry and all the fruits thereof: The employers on the other hand-not merely theshipowners; all bosses are alike-would like a situation where the workers aredeprived of all orgariization and all say aoout their work and are paid only enough tokeep body and soul together and raise a new generation of slaves to take their placeswhen they drop in their tracks. .Any settlement in between these two extremes is only a temporary truce and thenature of such a settlement is decided by power; "justice" has nothing to do with it. Theworkers will not have justice until they take over the world. .

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-James P. Cannon, "The Maritime Strike" (November 1936)

! . ~ ! ! ! ! . ! o r . . ~ ! ~ ! ! ~ ! ! . ! EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Alan WildePRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Mara CadizEDITORIAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jan e Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour,Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International C ommunist League (FourthInternationalist)Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, exce pt skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3week interval in December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 7327862 (Editorial), (212) 7327861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Email address: [email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. .Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is December 21.

No. 726 31 December 1999

David StrickNuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.remaining gains of the 1949 Revolution.As we wrote in "'Chinese Spy' HysteriaWhips Up Anti-Asian Racism" (WVNo. 719, 17 September): "The manufactured hysteria over Chinese espionage ispatently aimed at increasing belligerence toward the Chinese bureaucraticallydeformed workers state. Even if Leehad, with purpose or not, given military secrets to the People's Republic ofChina, this is no crime from the standpoint of the international working class."

The peasant-based Chinese Revolutionwas a historic gain for humanity, throwing out the imperialists and the domesticbourgeoisie and ushering in a plannedeconomy with jobs, food, housing andeducation for one-fourth of the world'spopulation. As Trotskyists, we give unconditional military defense to China andthe other remaining deformed workersstates-Cuba, North Korea, Vietnamagainst imperialist attack and domesticcounterrevolution. This defense includestheir right to amass and test nuclearweapons technology by whatever meansnecessary. At the same time, we recognize that the peasant-based 1949 Revolution was deformed from its inception,ruled by a nationalist bureaucracy whichexcluded the working class from political power. We call for proletarian political revolution to oust the Stalinistbureaucratic caste, which is today settingthe stage for capitalist counterrevolutionthrough stepped-up "market reforms" andmass privatizations.Lee's persecution takes place amidintensifying anti-Asian racism in the U.S.Along with the government's continuingcrackdown on desperate Chinese andother immigrants, "Yellow Peril" chau-.vinism has been stoked through the yearslong Congressional i n v ~ s t i g a t i o n into"illegal" Chinese campaig!l contributions to the Democrats. Chinese students and technical workers are having the doors slammed shut when theyapply for jobs or promotions. Addingfuel to this anti-Chinese chauvinism isthe pro-capitalist AFL-CIO bureaucracy,which on the heels of the recent pro- .tests in Seattle against the World TradeOrganization (WTO) is teaming up withthe Republican right and elements of theDemocratic Party to torpedo China'sentry into that body when it comes to avote in Congress.The brutal police crackdown on theWTO protests was an ominous warningto the entire labor movement, blacks

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and other minorities. Yet at bottom,those protests were a grotesque celebration of "democratic" American imperialism, marked by racist protectionist mobilizations against Mexican and Asianworkers and chauvinist anti-China demonstrations. Unions dumped Chinesemade steel into the Seattle harbor, whilesome youth rallied for "Free Tibet," acause created .and financed by the CIA asa battering ram against the Chinese Revolution. The trade-union misleaders workto chain American workers to their capitalist masters by pushing "Made inthe USA" protectionism, embracing thecounterrevolutionary designs of U.S.imperialism and supporting the Democratic Party of racism and war.The labor tops, environmentalists andreformist left all proclaim a "victory" inSeat!le. Now Mike Dolan, the chieforganizer of the protests, bellows, "China,we're coming atcha," while AFL-CIOspokesman Denise Mitchell trumpets that"the China vote is going to become aproxy for all of our c.oncerns about globalization" (Wall Street Journal, 6 December). Meanwhile, Washington continuesto brandish American military mightagainst the Chinese deformed workers state, including through its proposed"theater missile defense" system inEast Asia which might include capitalistTaiwan.The push for protectionist trade sanctions and increased military pressureagainst China is in no way counterposedto the policy of "engagement" with theCommunist Party regime favored by mostof American big business and symbolizedby the WTO agreement. The U,S. rulingclass is united around the goal of overturning the 1949 Revolution and regaining the "right" of untrammeled exploitation of the country's working masses.China's WTO entry would entail theelimination of what remains of the statemonopoly of foreign trade, further subjecting the economy to the pressures ofthe imperialist-dominated world market.In pushing for entry, the Beijing bureaucracy seeks to utilize the pressure of intensified foreign competition to ram throughfurther privatizations.At the same time, the imperialist bourgeoisie understands that restoring capitalist slavery in China would first requirebreaking the resistance of the Chineseworking class, which has repeatedlylaunched strikes, occupations and otheractions to defend their jobs and socialbenefits. What is urgently needed is aLeninist-Trotskyist party to direct suchstruggles toward the overthrow of thehated Stalinist regime and its replacement by a government of workers, peasants and soldiers councils.The struggle of the Chinese proletariatagainst capitalist counterrevolution mustbe linked to a perspective of socialistrevolution in the belly of he U.S. imperialist beast. It is necessary to break theAmerican proletariat from the Democratic Party of war and racism and toforge a revolutionary internationalistworkers party, one which would seek tomobilize the labor movement in struggleagainst every manifestation of racistchauvinism and every act of imperialistaggression' as part of the fight for workersrule.

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WORKERS VANGUARD


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NYC Democrats Prey on Plight of HomelessMayor Rudolph Giuliani's latest viciousattacks on the homeless have provokedwidespread disgust among working people, with 77 percent of all New Yorkers polled opposing the cops' roundups

of homeless people found sleepingon the streets. Two weeks before thepolice sweeps were launched, Giulianiannounced plans to evict homeless families from city shelters, throw them ontothe streets and rip their children awayfrom them if they don't work at slavelabor or pay extortionate "rents." Thatplan was put on hold on December 8 by astate court order.The plight of the expanding, desperatehomeless population in the financial center of the world throws into the starkestrelief the divide between the handful ofsuper-rich who rule this capitalist societyand the working and dispossessed masseson the bottom. Late-19th-century authorAnatole France remarked that underbourgeois "democracy" the rich and thepoor have equal right to sleep under abridge. The rulers ofAmerican capitalismin its death agony now deny the downtrodden even th.at "right." And then thereis the bourgeoisie's other "solution" forhomelessness: incarceration. With twomillion people rotting in prison hellholes,the U.S. now accounts for one-fourth ofthe world's entire prison population.Homelessness, like desperate poverty,is a direct product of an economic systembased on the exploitation of the J1lany forthe profit of the few. Analyzing the housing shortage, Friedrich Engels, KarlMarx's comrade in arms, wrote over 125years ago in "On the Housing Question":"It cannot fail to be present in a societyin which the great labouring masses areexclusively dependent upon wages, thatis to say, upon the quantity of means ofsubsistence necessary for their existenceand for the propagation of their kind; inwhich improvements of the machinery,etc., continually throw masses of workers out of employment; in which violentand regularly recurring industrial fluctuations determine on the one hand the existence of a large reserve army of unemployed workers, and on the o t h ~ r hand, drive the mass of the workers from timeto time on to the streets unemployed."As Engels concluded, the housing problem can only be solved with "the abolition of the capitalist mode of productionand the appropriation of all the means ofsubsistence and instruments of labour bythe working class itself."

B i p ~ r t i s a n War on the PoorGiuliani's attacks on the homelessexpress the class interests of the capital

ist rulers, represented by both the pemocrats and Republicans. Nevertheless, theDemocratic Party has, with utter duplicity, seized on the plight of the homeless inNYC to boost its electoral fortunes, particularly Hillary Clinton's Senate bid nextyear against presumed Republican contender Giuliani. Joined by former mayorDavid Dinkins and Harlem CongressmanCharles Rangel at a November 30 gathering, Clinton intoned that Giuliani's policies "punish poverty rather than helping tolift people out of poverty."Indeed! But Giuliani's policies simplycontinue those of the Clinton WhiteHouse. The bipartisan anti-welfare lawsigned by Bill Clinton in 1996 has drivenmillions of impoverished families off thewelfare rolls and, in many cases, onto thestreets, while forcing remaining welfarerecipients into slave-labor, union-busting"workfare" programs in order to maintaintheir starvation-level benefits. And in SanFrancisco under black Democratic mayorWillie Brown, as the New York Times(7 December) reported, "police sweepsand crackdowns on homeless people havebecome so well known that in October,the National Coalition for the Homelesschose the city as the site to open anational campaign for civil rights for thehomeless." .In New York City, liberal DemocratDinkins ordered the bulldozing of shan-31 DECEMBER 1999

AP WVPhotoNYCLU lawyer Norman Siegel and' Democrat AI Sharpton promoted KKK's "rights" on October 23, now posture asdefenders of the homeless against Giuliani's attacks. December 5 homeless protest was rally for Democratic Party.tytowns and even sought a federal courtorder . o ban begging when he wasmayor. And while current City Councilhead Peter Vallone denounces Giuliani's.attacks on the homeless as "somethingout of Charles Dickens," when fellowDemocrat Ed Koch w ~ s carrying out similar attacks on the homeless as mayor,Vallone could have written the script forGiuliani, ranting in 1987: "I don't carewhether you're a Harvard physicist andperfectly sane or anything else, you donot have the right to occupy the sidewalkor the street. Otherwise, we have a totalbreakdown of law and order."The cynicism of the capitalist Democrats now posturing as champions of thedowntrodden and destitute was on fulldisplay at a December Coalition for theHomeless protest, which was little morethan an election platform for the Democrats. The credentials of the three featured speakers as fighters for the poor

D'Amato, a vile bigot who describedblack housing project residents as "animals." After serving as an FBI informer,wearing a wire to help entrap black politicians, Sharpton enlisted in the racist"war on drugs" which has led to hundredsof thousands of black and Hispanic youthbeing thrown into prison. He staged vigilante raids against "crack houses," feedinginto the mass eviction of black familiesfrom housing projects for supposed drugoffenses. More recenily, posing as anopponent of racist cop terror-and as adefender of death row political prisonerMumia Abu-Jamal-Sharpton helpeddeliver the black vote for the .election lastyear of racist "law and order" death penalty proponent Charles Schumer to theU.S. Senate.Even as Sharpton masqueraded as anopponent of then-mayor Ed Koch, heworked in tandem with that racist pig.While Koch stoked the fires of racist

Herbie KnottHomeless and hungry on streets of NYC. Axing of welfare under DemocratClinton made many more homeless nationwide.badly needed mending: black DemocratAl Sharpton, state assemblyman ScottStringer and New York Civil LibertiesUnion head Norm Siegel. These are thevery people who did their utmost toensure a free ride for the KKK racist terrorists when they raised their hoodedheads on the streets of New York onOctober 23.AI Sharpton: FBI Informer,Defender of Klan's "Rights"Sharpton's bogus credentials as anopponent of racist injustice were utterlydiscredited by his defense of the "right"of the KKK to rally for racist terror. Heand his fellow Democrats were defeatedas at least 8,000 trade unionists, blackpeople and other minorities turned outfor the laborlblack mobilization initiatedby the Partisan Defense Committee androde the lynchers out of town.In fact, Sharpton's defense of the Klan_ s fully in keeping with his whole sordid history. In 1986, he endorsed the reelection of Republican U.S. Senator Al

reaction, Sharpton acted to channel blackplebeian rage away from the capitalistexploiters and at Jews, Asians and Arabs.Having ridden black anger into a placefor himself at the Democrats' table,Sharpton has now embraced Koch as "aninfluential figure," ostentatiously invitingthe former mayor to his birthday partyat Harlem's Canaan Baptist Church.In an article titled "Brothers in Arms,"Peter Noel writes in the Village Voice(19 October), "Embracing Ed Koch atCanaan was intended to reinforce recentcalls by Sharpton for black leaders andtheir supporters to forget past disputes ... .[Koch] is gaining viability as an antiGiuliani firebrand and winning back,their hearts." This is the same Kochwhose record as mayor was an unmitigated trail of racist horrors punctuated bythe names of black people killed by hiscops: artist Michael Stewart, blackgrandmother Eleanor Bumpurs, 17-yearold Edmund Perry.From channeling the protests overthe police killing of Amadou Diallo

earlier this year into the confines ofelectoral pressure politics to opposingthe laborlblack mobilization against theKlan, Sharpton's purpose as a front manfor the capitalist ruling class is to containthe anger of the ghetto masses and prevent any challenge to this system ofracist oppression. And the reformist leftassists Sharpton in this shell game.The Workers World Party (WWP)openly supported Sharpton's 1997 bidfor the Democratic mayoral nomination.The International Socialist Organization(ISO) acted as the open servants ofSharpton and Stringer in building theirdemonstration of "tolerance" for theKlan on October 23, which was aimed atdemobilizing the many thousands whowanted to stop the racist nightriders.While formally opposing electoral support to the Democratic Party, the ISOjoins the WWP in building the antiGiuliani coalition for the Democrats. Inan article on the December 5 homelessprotest, the ISO's SoCialist Worker (10December) wrote that "it's time to put anend to Giuliani's cruel attacks on thepoor" without so much as a word of criticism of the Democrats.In building the December 5 protest, thereformists teamed up with those who area part of the bourgeoisie's own cutbackmachinery. Heavily funded by the government and by corporate interests, manyhomeless "advocacy" groups have theirown stake in capitalist misery and are currently thriving as a result of Clinton'saxing of welfare. The Coalition for theHomeless boasts of its experti,se in "costeffective" solutions, stating in its 1997annual report: "We see the public outcryabout the failings of the welfare systemnot as a country turning its back on thepoor, but rather as a call for greater efficiency." Nominally "non-partisan," theCoalition praises the policies of formerDemocratic NY governor Mario Cuomoand Mayor Dinkins, while its executivedirector, Mary Brosnahan, got her startin Michael Dukakis' 1988 Democraticpresidential bid.The fight against homeless ness canonly be waged as a fight against the entirecapitalist profit system. As we wrote in"Giuliani Bashes the Homeless" (WVNo.724, 26 November), "Against the joblessness, poverty and homelessness endemicto capitalism labor must fight to: Expropriate the greedy landlords! Seize luxuryhousing and give it to the homeless! For amassive program of public works-highquality integrated housing, schools, libraries, hospitals for the working people andpoor! Unionize 'workfare' workers withfull union wages, benefits and protections! For union-run recruitment andtraining programs that will provide unionjobs for all those who have been thrownon the economic scrapheapof his system!Jobs for all-For a shorter workweekwith no.loss in pay!" To mobilize the multiracial proletariat around such a programrequires forging a workers party in irreconcilable opposition to the Democraticand Republican parties of capital andcommitted to the overthrow of this brutalsystem through socialist revolution.

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October 23 Anti-Klan Mobilization:Labor/Black Power in ActionThis year's Holiday Appeal benefitsfor class-war prisoners were energizedby the October 23 laborlblack mobilization that rode the Ku Klux Klan out ofNewYork City. Held in San Francisco andChicago on December 5 and in New Yorkon December 10, the benefits marked the14th year of the Holiday Appeal, organized by the Partisan Defense Committeeto raise extra funds during the holidayseason to support our program of regularstipends for those imprisoned for theirstruggles on behalf of the working classand the oppressed. Drawing on the example of October 23, where labor's powerwas mobilized independently of the capitalist government and political parties

and on behalf of all the oppressed, theg a t h e r i n g ~ pointed to the kind of classstruggle fight urgently needed to winfreedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and allclass-war prisoners. Mumia remains ingrave danger from the police and othergovernment forces seeking his execution.In New York, supporters of the Spartacist League, Labor Black League forSocial Defense and Spartaus Youth Clubbuilt the Holiday Appeal by bringing thelessons of the October 23 victory toworkplaces and union meetings, to thecampuses and the streets. Those lessonstook on added urgency for transit workerswhose union contract was expiring inmid-December, posing a potential strikewhich would pit them directly against thecapitalist state.At the San Francisco benefit, whichraised over $3,600, a speaker for theLabor Black League counterposed ourcall to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and abolish the racist death penalty to thereformist left's demand for a "new trial"for Mumia. The speaker continued: "Thatthe capitalist courts are an integral part ofthis racist frame-up system is amplydemonstrated by Jamal's case."The Chicago benefit, which raisedsome $3,500, drew people from severalMidwestern states and featured lively discussion over the government's role inprotecting the KKK terrorists on October23 as well as over black Democrat AlSharpton's despicable defense of theKlan's "free speech." One of those attending was Bill Hampton, the brother of FredHampton, a Black Panther Party leadergunned down 30 years ago by the Chi- .cago cops and FBI as part of the government's COINTELPRO campaign of terroragainst black and leftist militants.We print below, slightly abridged, a

speech by Spartacist League spokesmanEd Kartsen at the New York benefit.* * *Less than two months ago, 8,000 par-ticipated in an anti-Klan demonstrationwhich insured that the American Knights

of the Ku Klux Klan were driven off thestreets of downtown Manhattan. At thecore of the October 23 demonstrationwere militant, disciplined workers whoplayed a major role in staying the handof the NYPD killer cops.This was a significant victory for theworking class and all the intended victims of the Ku Klux Klan. This was avictory for the workers in their class waragainst the capitalist class. It stands as avictory for all of those who we callclass-war prisoners.This victory could not have been possible without a leadership that was classconscious. It would not have been possible without a leadership that knew thatthe courts, Republican mayor Giuliani,the cops, the Democrats, the black Democratic political establishment, the fake .left would all do their 'part to try toinsure that the KKK would get awaywith their deadly provocation.Class consciousness starts with theunderstanding that the interests of laborare fundamentally counterposed to theinterests of the capitalist class. The capitalist class constantly strives to drivedown the living standards of working people. Class consciousness meansunderstanding that the capitalist political

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parties, the courts, the police all act toenforce 'the rule of capital. It meansunderstanding that the capitalists cultivate the fascist terrorists of the Ku KluxKlan in order to unleash them on workers and the oppressed under conditionsof sharp social and economic crisis.The Republican Party bares itself withGiuliani threatening to thrash the powerful Transport Workers Union (TWU).The Republican Party represents the blatant and open rule of capital. They showwith very little deception their intentionsto attack the unions, blacks, Hispanics,immigrants, women and the poor.The Democrats present a cunning andmore deceptive image to working peopleand the oppressed. The October 23 victory showed that working people and the. oppressed can win if they are mobilizedindependent of the Democratic Party andthe government by a class-conscious,revolutionary leadership.",Break with the Democrats!

On the eve of the expiration of theTWU Local 100 contract, id s clear thatthis workforce, which has the power to'shut down Wall Street-the nerve centerof international imperialism-can win iftheir fight is led by a class-struggle leadership, the type which led the Octoberanti-Klan victory. That is, a leadershipthat would not only fight for a livingwage protected by a full cost-of-livingadjustment, but a leadership that wouldattack head-on the union-busting divideand-rule tactics of the capitalists andtheir politicians with the demand for freepublic transportation.A leadership that would rally all ofNew York City labor around the demandfor jobs and decent living conditions forall! A leadership that would unleash thepower of labor and blacks and fight forjobs at union wages for workers forcedto slave under "workfare."A leadership that would bring thesocial and economic power of labor tobear in the fight to free class-war prisoners and abolish the racist death penalty.A leadership that would mobilize thestrength of labor to protest every act ofcop terror.A leadership that would demand anend to homelessness and ' poverty andfight to establish a meaningful programof public works to build quality, integrated public housing, schools, librariesand hospitals. A leadership that wouldrip industry out of the hands of the racist,c o r r u p t ~ incompetent capitalist rulers and'rebuild society on a socialist plan.

WV PhotosHoliday Appeal benefits inChicago, December 5 (left) andNew York, December 10.In order for the unions to be effectivein the struggle to win gains, they mustbreak free of the stranglehold of the capitalist Democratic Party. Labor must getthe courts out of the unions and takeresponsibility for cleaning its own' house.The cops who are the first-lirte enforcers

of strikebreaking, who play the role of anoccupying army in the ghettos and thebarrios, who defend the KKK killers, arenot part of the labor movement. Labormust demand: Cops out of the unions!So the Democratic Party pretended tobe concerned about the Ku Klux Klancorning to downtown Manhattan on October 23. They announced a rally thatclaimed to be "anti-KKK." But the firstindication that this was a diversion wasthe fact that no one heard about thisdemonstration until the united front initiated by the Partisan Defense Committeearound the demand to stop the Klan hadgained widespread support. The secondindication was the language they used topromote their diversion. They counterposed to the call to "Stop the KKK" acall for a demonstration of "tolerance."The third indication was the collusionbetween Giuliani, the police and theDemocrats. First the city administration

changed the location of the KKK rallyfrom 100 Centre Street, where the PDChad called for an anti-Klan rally, to 60Centre Street, where the city gave theDemocrats, who publicly announced theirrally after the PDC, a permit.They then denied a sound permit tothe PDC for 60 Centre. By taking away asound permit, they had hoped to politically dissolve and destroy the disciplineof the anti-Klan protesters in a situationripe for provocation. But they failed. Theleadership of the anti-Klan mobilizationdidn't give in to the tricks and the pressures of the NYPD and lead the politicalcenter of the mobilization from 100 Centre Street into a police trap. With soundblasting from 100 Centre street, over8,000 protesters spread across severalblocks were enough to force the cops tocut the KKK rally short.Since October 23, the fascists haveshown what they organize for. In addition to cross ,burnings and racist graffiti,on November 17 a 19-year-old. blackman, Sasezley Richardson. was shotdead by members of the fascist AryanBrotherhood. This is the so-called "freespeech" that Democrats like Al Sharptonfight to defend! Al Sharpton, alongwith the black establishment AmsterdamNews, went all out to protect the Klan,continued on page 12

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Build a Workers, Party, Tribune of the People!The following is a sli15htly abridgedspeech by Xandra Baxter of he New YorkLabor Black League for Social Defenseat the December 10 Holiday Appeal forclass-war prisoners.We fight for the freedo.m of all classwar prisoners. Their fight is our fight!The laws that have imprisoned thesebrave men and women are the samelaws that the racist ruling class usesagainst striking workers, blacks, immigrants, homosexuals, the homele.ss and allthose who struggle and fight against thisbrutal system that is capitalist America.The New York Labor Black Leaguefor Social Defense was -built in 1986around the defense of black transitworker James Grimes, who faced a gunrap for defending himself on the jobagainst an assault by three muggers.The Labor Black League helped mobilizemembers of the powerful TWU to comeout in his defense during the trial-thecharges were dropped! Today we demandthe freedom of Joshua Edwards, a blackman who was c.harged with manslaughterin Pennsylvania for aefending himselfagainst two gun-toting racist thugs.We say: Gun control kills blacks! For theright of armed self-defense!We stand for mass laborlblack/Hispanic mobilizations drawing on thepower of the unions against racist terror.On October 23, the Labor BlacJ


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Down With Mexican StateRepression Against UNAM StrikerslWe print below a translation of a leaflet put out by the Grupo Espartaquistade Mexico, section of the InternationalCommunist League, and its youth group,Juventud Espartaquista on December 12.On December 11, some two hundredUNAM student strikers rallied in front ofthe U.S. embassy in Mexico City in sympathy with the Seattle demonstrationsagainst the -World Trade Organization(WTO) an4 protesting the mass arreststhere. The demonstrators were also rallying on behalf of death row political prisoner and former Black Panther MumiaAbu-Jamal. They were attacked by theMexican police, and 98 protesters werearrested. As we go to press, all of thearrested students have been released onbail, but they still face crirpinal chargesthat would leave them with a criminalrecord for life if they are convicted.On December 13, the Spartacist League/U.S. participated in a demonstration infront of the Mexican consulate in NewYork City initiated by the InternationalistGroup (IG). The IG consists of a coterie

of ex-members of the International Communist League who defected from Trotskyism in the face of the pressure fromthe collapse of the USSR and East European deformed workers states. Since theirdefections more than three years ago, theIG has moved further to the right, tailingbourgeois-nationalist forces in Mexicorepresented by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) of CuauhtemocCardenas. While correctly defending thestudent demonstrators against" the brutal cop assault, the IG says not a '%rd ofcriticism about the anti-WTO protestsin Seattle, which in the main werefilled with protectionist "Buy American"poison and anti-Communism directedagainst China (see WV No. 725, 10December).An anti-WTO protest in Mexico isnecessarily of a different character thanthe protests in Seattle. Moreover, all overthe world, including the U.S., there havebeen demonstrations denouncing the staterepression against the Seattle protesters.But what is necessary is to bring to thestudent protesters in Mexico, includingthe courageous UNAM strikers who havebeen out for nine months in defense ofthe right to higher education, the under-

standing that only the working class ledby a communist program has the powerto smash imperialism through workersrevolution. In order to do so, the proletariat must recognize that the state is itsenemy. The cops who beat the Seattleprotesters and the cops who beat protesters in Mexico are the armed thugs of theirrespective states. The capitalist state is aninstrument of repression that cannot bewielded by workers and the oppressed intheir own interests. It must be smashedthrough workers revolution.But the Seattle protests, which included a mishmash of everything fromtree-huggers to trade unionists, werebased on the premise that Americanimperialism can be a progressive force inthe world. Imperialism is not a "bad"policy that can be reformed, but thehighest stage of capitalist d e v e l < ~ p m e n t . Capitalist property can only be el;Cpropriated and replaced with a planned socialisteconomy by a workers revolution whichbrings to power a workers government.This is the unders tanding and the program that our comrades in the GEM andthe JE fight to bring to the UNAM strikers, the working class and the oppressedpeople of Mexico.

Free The ArrestedStudents Now!Drop All the Charges!Using riot police against the UNAMstudent strikers again, the PRD government in Mexico City launched massive

repression against a demonstration infront of the U.S. embassy yesterday. Thisdemonstration was called in solidaritywith the recent demonstrations in Seattleagainst the WTO meeting and in protestof the mass arrests of hundreds of demonstrators in recent days in this U.S. cityunder a state of siege. Yesterday, at theend of the demonstration in Mexico City,riot police intervened and arrested 98

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League

6

o $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewai(includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle)international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamailo $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist)o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist)Name ________________________________________________ _Address _______________ :: -_______

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726Make checks payable/mail to: Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

December 11:M e ~ d c o City riot

police attack protestopposing massarrests at SeattleWTO demonstrationsand demandingfreedom for MumiaAbu-Jamal.

:>

demonstrators. The bloody riot policebrutally went after the s t u d e n t ~ andstarted a manhunt in the area, beatingmany students hiding in stores and restaurants. At least six students who wereseverely beaten had to be taken to theRed Cross Hospital before they weretaken to the police station. This brutalrepression is reminiscent of the Cardenista government's bloody attack againsta student demonstration on the Perifericohighway on October 14. We Spartacistsdemand: Free all the arrested studentsnow! Drop all the charges!At the same time that we demand theimmediate release of all the demonstrators in Mexico and Seattle, as proletarianinternationalists we explain that therecent protests in Seattle, led by the procapitalist union bureaucracy of the AFLCIO and liberal and'reformist organizations subordinated to the DemocraticParty, were a circus-like spectacle ofnationalism and chauvinist' protectionism in solidarity with their "own" bourgeoisie. Our comrades of the SpartacistLeague/U.S. refused to participate in anyway in these protests given their antiCommunist character and their explicit support to chauvinist protectionism againsteconomies of less developed countries,like Mexico. A particular target of thisnotorious nationalist and anti-Communistcampaign was the Chinese bureaucratically deformed workers state, which weTrotskyists militarily defend against capitalist counterrevolution. For years, this

same AFL-CIO union bureaucracy hasbeen leading a chauvinist campaignagainst immigrant workers. The U.s-.working class needs to break with thesepro-capitalist union misleaders. In contrast, an example of the working classintervening in its own name was therecent united-front protest initiated bythe Partisan Defense Committee, whichbrought together thousands of workers inNewYork City on October 23 against theracist Ku Klux Klan.The repression which took place yesterday underlines the points that theGrupo Espartaquis ta. de Mexico hasinsisted on: that the PRD is a bourgeoisnationalist party dedicated to the defenseof the interest of the capitalist class andthat students must not have illusions thatthe capitalist state can be reformed in theinterests of the workers. Cops are not"workers in uniform" but the armed fistof the bourgeoisie! We call for workersdefense of the student strike and forworkers strike actions to extend the strikebeyond the campus walls. Students mustorient themselves to the proletariat, whichhas the social power to stop the privatizations and the attacks against public education. The GEM fights to build theLeninist-Trotskyist party that the Mexican working class urgently needs in orderto break with bourgeois nationalism andto rule this country with its own workersgovernment, through socialist revolution.No illusions in the bourgeois PRD! Breakwith nationalism!.

EspartacoPublication of the GrupoEspartaquista de Mexico :Til;;WeJ.... ~ D E _ MOICOMID I J J$8JNo. 13, Autumn-Winter 1999$.50 (32 pages)Subscription:$2 for 4 issues(includes Spanish-languageSpartacist)Order from/make checks payable to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPONew York, NY 10116

~ . " \ I I I I ' I I l I I I I ' I I d I S I l i _ " ' ' ' ' ' _ ' ' ' ~ IPor accioneshuelluistjcasobrerupara derrotar las prlvauzaliooes::-\Jdefender laeducaclon

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= = = = = = = = ~ = = ~ I ~ U j ~ , l ~ ~ m ~ ~ ( ~ r . ~ r r m f 8 ~ . I g ~ ! ~ I = = = = ~ = = = = = = = Gusanos, Feds Abduct SixYearOld Child

On November 25, the U.S. CoastGuard picked up Elhin Gonzalez in theFlorida Straits, two days after the 17-footaluminum boat he'd been in sank, killing his mother and ten others. Havingwatched his mother drown and survivedtwo days clinging to an inner tube, thissix-year-old child is now being forciblyseparated from his father in Cuba sothat he can be used as a political footballby the American bourgeoisie to stokethe fires of its anti-Communist crusadeagainst Cuba.Behind all the hysteria around this kidis U.S. imperialism's 40-year drive toreverse the gains of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, which led to the expropriation ofthe imperialist exploiters and their localcapitalist henchmen. The creation of acollectivized economy brought enormousgains to the Cuban people, such as freemedical care, jobs, housing and education. As Trotskyists we call for unconditional military defense of the Cubandeformed workers state-just as wedefend China, North Korea and Vietnam-against imperialist attack and capitalist counterrevolution.Elian's father, Juan Gonzalez, demandshis son's return. On December 10, overtwo million demonstrated in cities andvillages across Cuba demanding that hebe sent home. Meanwhile, the Americanrulers, who never miss an opportunity topromote the "sanctity" of the family anddecry "deadbeat" dads, have effectivelyabducted the boy. They intend to keephim here at least until a December 23Immigration and Naturalization Service(INS) hearing, supposedly to determine"his best interests." Now, the INS isdemanding that his father "demonstratehis active participation in the boy'supbringing" (Washington Post, 10 December). Obscenely, Attorney General JanetReno has been appointed Elian's "official guardian." Reno ordered the 1993Waco massacre in which at least 25 children were murdered, and her speciaity asFlorida attorney general was breaking upf a m i l i ~ s under the pretext of prosecuting "child abuse."

Let Elian Go Back to Cuba!

ReutersCuba: Over two million take to the streets on December 10 demanding returnof Elian Gonzalez, held in Miami as part of anti-Communist campaign againstCastro's Cuba.

In the forefront of the forces who wantto keep Elian in the U.S. are the counterrevolutionary Cuban gusanos (worms),who have carried on an unrelenting campaign of sadistic terrorist activities eversince they fled the Cuban Revolution.Any Cuban anti-Communist who getshere is automatically welcomed withopen arms and paraded around as a"freedom fighter." In contrast, those fleeing right-wing terror regimes are oftendenied asylum while other immigrantsare being deported at a record rate. Andwhile keeping Elian from his family, theU.S. rulers are more than happy tosend back the marielitos, criminals fromCuban prisons who the U.S. took in bythe thousands nearly 20 years ago. Asthe recent prison protest in Louisianahighlighted-before it ended with Castroagreeing to take back the prisonersmany of the marielitos remain behindbars in the "land of freedom" long after

having finished their sentences.There have been increasing signs thatthe Clinton administration may agree tosend Elian back to his father. Clinton hasmaintained, and even reinforced, the economic embargo imposed against Cubaunder Democrat John F. Kennedy in1962. We say: Down with the imperialist starvation blockade! Recently, withCanadian and European firms investingheavily in Cuba, growing sections ofthe American bourgeoisie have argued fora less belligerent line toward the Castroregime. These imperialists seek to floodthe Cuban economy with U.S. dollars andstrengthen the forces of counterrevolutionfrom within. In October, Illinois Republican governor George Ryan joined a largegroup of Chicago businessmen in a fiveday visit to Cuba. As the London Guar-dian (27 October) reported: "It is the lureof a new marketplace which has led anincreasing number of delegations to Cuba

to call for an end to sanctions."Wedded to the nationalist dogmaof "socialism in one country"-whichmeans opposition to socialist revolution internationally-the Cuban Stalinistbureaucracy under Fidel Castro conciliates the imperialist enemies of the revolution. With the end of Soviet economicassistance and the counterrevolutionarydestruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92, the Castro regime responded to intensifying economic pressures by increasingly opening the country to imperialisteconomic penetration. This has meant alarge increase in inequality, particularlytargeting the black population. We call forworkers .political revolution to oust thenationalist Stalinist bureaucracy and putpolitical power in the hands of the working class. Key to the defense of the CubanRevolution is the struggle for proletarianpower throughout Latin America andinternationally, especially in the U.S.Above all, we fight to build the revolutionary workers party necessary to leadthe. struggle for socialist revolution inthe U.S.The case of Elian Gonzalez is not thefirst time the U.S. has abducted childrento whip up anti-Communist hysteria. In1980, 12-year-old Walter Polovchak wastaken from his family, who wanted toreturn to the USSR after moving to Chicago and discovering that the "Americandream" wasn't all it was cracked up to be."Little WaIter," as he was called, becamethe poster child for Democratic presidentJimmy Carter's warmongering "humanrights" crusade against the USSR. Thebourgeoisie professed that "poor littleWalter" wanted to stay in the U.S.because he had a new bicycle! We said:"Give Walter back to his parents!L et himhave his bicycle, if he wants" (YoungSpartacus, No. 84, September 1980).Unlike the Polovchak case, about halfthe American population thinks Elianshould be sent back to Cuba. For our part,we would like to see him go back to Cubaand grow up to be a partisan in defenseof the Cuban Revolution. Let ElianGonzalez go home!.

Victory to King City Teamsters Strike!For more than five months, 750 members of International Brotherhood ofTeamsters Local 890, mainly Latinowomen and immigrants, have been onstrike against the Basic Vegetable Products garlic and onion processing plant inKing City, in the heart of California'sSalinas Valley. The strike began whenBasic threatened to slash wages andbenefits and contract out the best jobs tonon-union labor. Basic has since hiredscabs to permanently replace the strikers and continues to operate the plant atpartial capacity, while adding demandssuch as a two-tier wage scale and thedumping of the union pension plan.The Basic workers have stood solidagainst this union-busting, facing thefull brunt of the bosses and their copsand courts. Picketers have been threatened with $500 fines; company goonsand coyotes (scabherders) constantlyvideotape them on the picket lines.Strikers who leafletted a scab bus werebeaten by goons, and a dozen workersface bogus criminal charges, outrageously including trumped-Up felonycharges of making "terrorist threats."One arrested striker whose bail conditions included not engaging in further strike activities was arrested againbecause he allowed his truck to be

31 DECEMBER 1999

driven with union flags in the MexicanIndependence Day parade. Californiall)bor must take up these strikers' cause:Smash Basic's union-busting! Drop allthe charges! Victory to t h ~ Basic strike!Teamsters at UPS stopped twodecades of labor defeats through their1997 national strike victory. With12,000 members organized in Centraland Southern California, Local 890 hasthe power to win the King City strike.That power must be brought to bearthrough building mass picket lines thatscabs don't dare cross, mobilizingworkers from throughout the SalinasValley and beyond to shut down theKing City plant and extending thestrike to other Basic plants in California, Washington state and Idaho. Teamsters locals have continued workingat these other plants, playing intothe company's strategy of busting theunion one plant at a time. Shut downall Basic operations!Basic Vegetable is owned by the powerful Hume family, which epitomizesthe California agribusiness tycoonswho reap huge profits off immigrantlabor while whipping up anti-immigranthysteria the better to cow and exploitthese workers. The Hume family has)ong been a pillar of Reaganite Repub-

lican reaction and a financial backer ofthe campaigns for the racist Proposition 209, which barred state affirma-, tive action programs, and Proposition 227, banning bilingual educationin California public schools. Now thecompany is drawing scabs from amongnon-union farm workers, while manyBasic strikers are taking grueling farmjobs to support themselves during thestrike.The struggle to defend union foodprocessing workers like the strikingTeamsters must be linked to the fight toorganize the deeply exploited migrantfarm workers in California's CentralValley heartland. Central to that ismobilizing labor against the bosses'anti-immigrant attacks. Full citizenshiprights for all foreign-born workers!United Farm Workers (UFW) andTeamsters flags can be seen side by sideon the Basic picket lines, a step forwardfrom the 1970s, when the Teamstersbureaucracy organized goon squads toraid UFW locals in service to thebosses. But nationally the Teamstersbureaucracy undermines labor solidarity with immigrant workers by pushingits vile chauvinist campaign to keepMexican truckers off the U.S. highways. And anyone nostalgic for the

UFW leadership under "progressive"Cesar Chavez should remember that heorganized union border patrols to stopMexican immigrants.Some years back, the AFL-CIObureaucracy declared that bringing migrant farm workers into the labormovement was going to be its majorunion organizing drive. At a 1997 Watsonville, California rally supporting theUFW drive to organize strawberrypickers, AFL-CIO head John Sweeneyturned over the platform to DemocraticParty politicos like Jesse Jackson. Thenthe labor bureaucrats brought in Washington, D.C. investor David Gladstoneto purchase Coastal Berry, ostensiblybecause he would be "friendly" to theorganizing drive. But earlier this year,the UFW lost the election vote to acompany union supported by the Western Growers Association.The Coastal Berry fiasco is an objectlesson that the labor bureaucrats' strategy of "partnership'" with the bossesand allegiance to Democratic Party"friends of labor" is the kiss of death tolabor's cauSe. The Teamsters Local 890bureaucrats push the same strategy ofclass collaboration, turning a November 14 union rally into a platform forcontinued on page 12

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Defend labor's Right to Strike!Bust the Union-Busters!Break with the Democrats-For a Workers Party!Immediately after the capitalist courtshanded down their injunctions againstNew York's Transport Workers Union

Local 100, the Spartacist League/U.S.issued and widely distributed the follow.ing leaflet to transit workers and othersthroughout the city.DECEMBER 14-In going after Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100,the ruling class of New York City,through the agency of Mayor Giuliani,the Democratic Party state attorney general and the courts, is outlawing theright to strike. I f you don't have the rightto strike, you don't have unions! Thecourt's diktat says that any worker whowalks off the job or even talks about, orvotes for, strike action is a criminalthey'll steal whatever pittance you mighthave saved and throw you in jail! Andthey'll bankrupt the treasury of any public workers union that calls for a strike.Even before any strike, the court hasordered the TWU to shell out more thana million dollars to send out a mailing toall its members telling them not to strike.I f this anti-union decree goes down inNew York City, it can and will be usedagainst workers around the country. Butit doesn't have to go down ..The TWU andthe rest of the NYC labor movement havethe power to roll back this assault on theunions through massive strike action.Giuliani wants to turn the clock back towhen organizing for the rights of laborand the unions themselves were illegal.But it's not just the Republican Giuliani.Democratic state attorney general EliotSpitzer filed a separate lawsuit against theunion on behalf of the MTA. And EdKoch, the strikebreaking Democraticmayor during the 1980 transit strike, hasurged Giuliani to be even tougher againstthe transit workers Koch denounced as"bastards."Giuliani thinks he can treat the unionswith the same police-state vindictivenessthat he metes out to desperate homelessfamilies, the ghetto and barrio poor andanyone else he perceives as getting in hisway. But the unions, and especially thecrucial transit union, have the organizedpower to shut this city down.The TWU is directly up against thecapitalist state, its courts, its cops, andultimately its military force which wasrecently unleashed against protesters inSeattle. How do you fight to win? Theworking people's ~ t r u g g l e must not be:driven underground. Without the right to .act as a union, the plain consequence ofGiuliani's action would be to make theonly recourse ineffective guerrilla struggle. What is urgently posed is the independent industrial and political mobilization of the working class. The key isunleashing the power of the multiraciallabor movement in New York City inmass, militant action in a thought-out way,one which minimizes the damage in termsof jail sentences and other consequences.Labor's power has been shackled bythe union misleaders who tie the unionsto the capitalist class enemy, its government and political parties, particularlythe Democrats. Hospital workers Local1199 president Dennis Rivera, former cochairman of the state Democratic Party,throws hundreds of thousands of dollarsin union dues into the Democrats' coffers,including for Hillary Clinton's electioncampaign. From Bill Clinton's destruction of welfare to Democrat Spitzer'Slawsuit against the TWU, it must be clearthat the problem is not just Giuliani andthe RepUblicans. Indeed, Giuliani's slavelabor "workfare" scheme-which wieldsimpoverished and heavily minority weI:fare recipients as a club against theunions by forcing them to work in for-8

merly unionized municipal jobs to maintain their meager benefits-is simplylifted from Clinton 's anti-welfare program.The Democrats represent the interestsof the capitalists no less than the Republicans do; and in some ways they aremore dangerous, like wolves in sheep'sclothing, because they posture as "friendsof labor." Don't be fooled! Working people need their own party-not a party ofelectoralist reformism but one whichfights for the class rule of the workers.Such a party would lead workers in struggle and also serve as a tribune of theworkers in the capitalist legislature,opposing laws which attack union rights.No decisive gain of labor was everwon in a courtroom or by an act of Congress. Everything the workers movementhas won of value has been achieved bymobilizing the ranks of labor in hard-

".p,.

Iblack robes, and we would not call off thestrike." That strike won, and the CondonWadlin Act became a dead letter. Theonly illegal strike is one that loses!But current Local 100 president WillieJames has already pledged not to defy the. union-busting order against the TWU.This performance shows where his loyalties lie: with the bosses. Now Giulianihas launched a witchhunt against James'opposition, the New Directions wingof the local bureaucracy, as a ployfor going after the union as a whole.New Directions has brought the unionbusting courts into the TWU repeatedlythrough9ut its history and shares all thesame class-collaborationist policies as theJames leadership, including supportingthe presence of transit security cops in theunion. Both James and New Directionsmade clear their opposition to a strike in

TWU Local 100 members and other NYC unionists formed backbone oflabor/black mobilization which rode KKK out on October 23.fought struggle on the picket lines. Whatcounts is power. The strength of theunions lies in their numbers, their militancy, their organization and disciplineand their relation to the decisive meansof production in m


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Transit...(continued from page 1)police-state-style assault on the TWUshowed, is somewhat elastic.Giuliani rants that Marxism has "beendisgraced all over the world," vituperating against "the whole notion of classwarfare, which really comes out of theteaching of Karl Marx, trying to dividepeople into different classes." I f Marxismis so "disgraced," then why is Giulianiscreaming about it so much? The ignorantGiuliani to the contrary, Marx did notinvent the idea of class warfare. Marx'scontribution was to recognize that theclass struggle must lead to the workingclass seizing state power and through thatto the abolition of class society.

I f the working class is to fight backagainst the one-sided class war beingwaged by the bosses, some ABCs ofMarxism are very much in order. The fundamental starting point must be theunderstanding that capitalist society isindeed divided between two majorclasses: the working class which is forcedto sell its labor power in order to surviveand the property-owning capitalist classto whom its labor power is sold. As Marxstated more than 150 years ago in WageLabour and Capital: "The interests ofcapital and the interests of wage labourare diametrically bpposed to each other."The labor bureaucrats, from the AFLCI a tops on down, reject this elementaryunderstanding. They oppose the very ideaof independently mobilizing the unions-

WVPhotoTransit workers' banner at December15 Brooklyn protest opposes policyof capitulation pushed by both wingsof TWU bureaucracy.either economically or politically-in anyserious confrontation with the capitalistorder. Their entire strategy rests on aprogram of class collaborl:ltion, a purelyelectoral and legalistic strategy of lobbying for pro-labor legislation and votingDemocrat. What they see as "allies" arein fact agencies of the class enemy-thegovernment and its cops and courts. Butthe government, backed up by the military power of the state, defends the rightof private property and is hostile to theworkers. Injunctions, "cooling-off periods," anti-strike laws like the TaylorLaw-these are all expressions of asystem whose whole purpose is to preventthe unions from taking action in the interests of the working class.The political role of tbe labor bureaucracy is to enforce such reactionary lawsand bind the workers to their class enemy.This all-sided program of class collaboration is codified in the support of theunion misleaders to the capitalist Democratic Party, to which they are tied by athousand threads. These are the ties thatthe labor movement must break to free itto struggle against its class enemies.Even as the TWU was girding for apossible strike, the NYC municipal labortops were mobilizing union resources forSenate candidate Hillary Clinton, whohails the Taylor Law as a "wise law"because "public employees should notlegally be allowed to strike." The racist31 DECEMBER 1999

Ed Koch, who as mayor worked to breakthe 1980 transit strike, urged Giuliani andthe Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to "stand firm" against the"bastards" who want to "bring the cityto its knees by engaging. in an illegalstrike." And liberal Democrat Spitzerstood firm for his class, banning workersin his injunction for the MTA "from inany manner or by any means, directing,calling, causing, authorizing, instigating, conducting, continuing, encouraging,threatening, participating in, assisting in,or approving of any strike, work stoppage, sick-out, slowdown," etc., etc. Incourt, Spitzer ran point against the transitunion.With "friends" like these, who needsenemies? Many TWU members and otherNYC workers and minorities saw thereal face of the Democratic Party onOctober 23, when it acted as the mainforce against the massive mobilization ofworking-class power that rode the Klimout of town. The Democrats rally to thedefense of the "rights" of he union-hating,racist terrorists of the KKK, but theycome down hard against the right of labor.to organize and strike.In the anti-Klan mobilization initiatedby the Partisan Defense Committee,which is associated with the SpartacistLeague, workers also saw firsthand whata class-struggle workers party wouldlook like in action. As Marxists, weunderstand that the only road to victoryfor our class lies in mobilizing labor'spower independently of and in opposition to the Democratic and Republicanparties. The working people need a partythat fights for their class interests, aworkers party committed to overturningthis whole system of capitalist exploitation and racist oppression.A workers party will be built notin counterposition to the trade unions,which are organizations for economicdefense of the working class, but in thecrucible of big class battles out of whichwill emerge a new, class-struggle leadership of the unions. Such a leadership mustbe based on a program of militant struggle against the entire capitalist system,beginning with opposition to any intervention into the unions by the capitaliststate, its cops and courts.For Trade-Union Independencefrom the Capitalist State!

The extent of the police-state-stylemobilization against the TWU is itself ameasure of the potential power of thisunion. So, too, is the fact that even withthe union held for ransom in shotgun"negotiations," the MTA came up with awage package-12.5 percent over threeyears-which is being denounced by thebig business Citizens Budget Commission as too generous. This takes a lot ofnerve when Wall Street moguls have setaside $13 billion for their ChristmasbO(luses alone this year! After threeyears, the annual wage raise for all33,000 transit workers will. total barely aquarter of the $600 million the MTA currently shells out every year in interestpayments to Wall Street bondholders.The truth is this pay raise will noteven put a dent in the massive decline ofNYC transit workers' wages over 'recentyears, which average $10,000 a year lessthan those of Long Island Rail Road andMetro North rail workers employed bythe MTA. And the wage raise will largely

mbtNturlorkm-tmt5

Guess which urban menacethe mayor wants to stop now.

Bloom/NY Times

In union-busting assault on NYCtransit workers, Mayor Giuliani railsagainst "Marxists" in TWU.

Hillary SidesWith RudyMrs. Clinton Backs Anti-StrikeLawAFSCME DC 37 public workershead Lee Saunders boostsDemocratic Senate hopefulHillary Clinton, who hailsstrikebreaking Taylor Law.Pro-capitalist union tops chainworkers to class enemy.

Jones/Public Employee Pressbe paid for through concessions involving speedup and amalgamation of jobcategories.The proposed contract maintains the"workfare" provision pushed through byJames in 1996, under which welfarerecipients are forced to work as slavelabor in formerly unionized cleaners'jobs. It undermines seniority rights bycurtailing workers' job "picks," whichwill reinforce management's capacity tovictimize union militants. Other provisions will force cleaners, for example, todo maintenance and repair work. Forcingworkers to do jobs they are not trainedfor is a recipe for making the subwaysand buses more dangerous for transitworkers and riders alike.New Directions has called to votedown the James sellout. It should bevoted down. But this is all empty talksince ND is opposed to the union takingany action in defiance of the Taylor Lawand the courts. What this really means forND is going along with the next stepunder the Taylor Law, which is bindingarbitration by a government mediator,who would be as "impartial" as the courtswhich threatened massive fines againstthe union. What ND spokesman RogerToussaint proposes is working without acontract to "wait out the year until members can choose a new better union leadership" and to "join the municipal unionsin one grand negotiating coalition" (NewYork Post, 17 December). This stallingtactic dovetails with the line of the municipal union tops who, having refused tolift a finger against Giuliani/Spitzer'sunion-busting, now hope to hold off theirupcoming contract negotiations until theyget a Democrat to replace Giuliani in CityHall. Bere we can clearly see how thelabor misleaders use Democratic Party

N(.Jt)tRECT IDN5

"tl::l"

In response toGiuliani's redbaiting,ND draped itself inStars and Stripes atDecember 15 rallywhile instructingworkers to obeyunion-bustinginjunctions.

electoralism to stop the workers from acting in defense of their own class interests.It is such class collaboration whichhas set up the labor movement for decimation by the bosses and their state. Asthe U.S. geared up for World War II andthe Democratic administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented an array oflaws to hamstring the newly forgedindustrial unions of the CIa, revollJtionary leader LeQn Trotsky explained that inthis era in which capitalism is dominatedby huge trusts and monopolies, the tradeunions ."have to confront a centralized capitalistadversary, intimately bound up with statepower. Hence flows the need of the tradeunions-insofar as they remain onrefo rmist positions, i.e., on positions of adapting themselves to private property-toadapt themselves to the capitalist stateand to contend for its cooperation. In theeyes of the bureaucracy of the tradeunion movement, the chief task lies in'freeing' the state from the embrace ofcapitalism, in weakening its dependenceon trusts, in pulling it over to their side.This position is in complete harmonywith the social position of the labor aristocracy and the labor bureaucracy, whofight for a crumb in the share of thesuperprofits of imperialist capitalism ..."The trade unions of our time can eitherserve as secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordination anddisciplining of workers and for obstructing the revolution, or, on the contrary,the trade unions can become the instruments of the revolutionary movement ofthe proletariat."-"Trade Unions in the Epoch ofImperialist Decay" (1940)

Trotsky'S description of the laborbureaucracy acting to discipline theworkers could not be etched more vividlythan in the scenes of TWU membersbeing ordered by their own union officialsto obey the anti-union injunctions. Whena supporter of the SL-affiliated LaborBlack League was stopped by police fromdistributing our leaflet defending the rightto strike at a Manhattan bus depot onDecember 16, Local 100 vice presidentGil Rodriguez came out and joined forceswith the cops, urging them:' "I f he is advocating a work stoppage, he should bearrested. We've told our members that itis illegal to advocate a work stoppage"(see box, page 1 1 ) ~ It is necessary to fight for the completeand unconditional independence of thetrade unions from the bosses and theirstate! The union tops' bowing and scraping before capitalist "legality" is exemplified by their acquiescence to bindingarbitration, which is a crucial weapon of

continued on page 109


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Transit...(continuedfrom page 9)the bosses to weaken and demobilize thepower of labor. The same is true of thedues checkoff system, whereby the MTAdeducts union dues from workers' paychecks. As was seen when the Taylor Lawwas invoked in the 1980 strike to cutoff dues collection, the dues checkoff iswielded by management and the c a p i t a l ~ ist state as a weapon to control the uniontreasury and choke o ff the workers' fighting funds. Union dues should be collectedby elected union officials on the shopfloor. Moreover, this would serve to makethe leadership responsible to the membersit was elected to serve.On all the political essentials, i.e., subordinating the interests of the workers tothe class enemy, there is total agreementbetween New Directions and WillieJames, as well as the rest oftheAFL-CIOmisleaders, who have devoted considerable effort in recent years to bringingcops and prison guards into the unions.Both wings of the TWU bureaucracy support the presence of MTA security copsin the union. James invited spokesmenfor the "unions" of the NYPD killer copsonto the platform at huge TWU rallies onNovember 17 and December 8, even astheir uniformed brothers in blue weremanhandling trade unionists and imprisoning them inside cop barricades. At theDecember 15 New Directions rally, anND spokesman directly appealed to thestrikebreaking cops menacing the demonstration by demanding higher wages forthem, saying, "They're the heroes. Theydeserve more." The cops ru:e not workers;they are racist killers and armed thugsagainst the workers whose job is to serveand protect the profits and power of thecapitalists.Only weeks before the strike deadline

loomed, ND launched yet another of itscourt suits against the TWU. As we.wrote then, "I t is rank treachery to goto the class enemy under any circumstances, and particularly on the eve ofa class battle" (WV No. 724, 26 November). This "opposition" has repeatedlyresorted trganlzatlon {lSt>} The lS 0 backs NDand itself has a long history of supporting court intervention in the unions, particularly by Teamsters for a DemocraticUnion, which basically acted as theagent for the Justice Department inthe government's decades-long vendettaagainst the powerful Teamsters union.The assault on the TWU is an objectlesson in the Marxist understanding ofthe state. As the then-Trotskyist SocialistWorkers Party (SWP) explained in its1938 "Declaration of Principles":"The belief that in such a country as theUnited States we live in a free, democratic society, in which fundamental economic change can be effected by persuasion, by education, by legal and purelyparliamentary methods, is an illusion. Inthe United States, as in all capitalistnations, we live, in actuality, under acapitalist dictatorship; and the possibilities for purely legal and constitutionalchanges are therefore limited to thosewhich fall within the framework of capitalist property and social relations."

History has shown that the working classcannot simply lay hold of the existingapparatus of the capitalist state., Rather,that state must be smashed through aworkers revolution, replacing the dictatorship of capital with a dictatorship ofthe proletariat whi";-()6

AFL leadersWilliam Greenand George Meanywith Democraticpresident FranklinRoosevelt. AFL andCIO-union topsbacked anti-labor"New Deal"administration,- enforced no-strikepledge to supportU.S. imperialism inWorld War II.

on the subway, bus and trolley lines,which were then owned by a number ofprivate companies, were forced to worksplit shifts spanning 14 hours or more aday for wages which barely exceeded thepoverty level. Struggles to win a unionwere marked, as in 1895, by pitched streetbattles with thousands of cops, company

Breaking withCP amid ColdWar witchhunt,Quill (at right)organizedvicious redpurge in TWUin 1948. Cartoonput out byUnited ElectricalWorkers, one ofthe unionstargeted by

witchhunt.

agents and National Guardsmen. Theyoften meant mass arrests and firings andscabherding. During a 1918 strike, a scabmotorman crashed his train into a tunnelwall, killing 92 people, the worst accidentin New York transit history.The TWU was finally organized inthe mid-1930s by Mike Quill and othersupporters of the Communist Party andsocialist-minded Irish republicans. Itemerged amid the massive struggleswhich built the industrial unions of theCIO. That unionization drive was kickedoff by three citywide general strikes in1934-in Minneapolis, Toledo and SanFrancisco-led by avowed socialists andcommunists. The strikes of the late1930s, particularly in the auto industry,were virtual wars involving mass pickets,plant occupations and "secondary boycotts" against scab goods. The CIOorganizing drives broke down the racistbarriers of the Jim Crow system thatcharacterized the AFL craft unions, ashundreds of thousands-_of black workers-many of them former sharecroppersand tenant farmers from the South-tooktheir place as a powerful new strategiccomponent of the industrial proletariat.

Fearing the radicalization of the working class which these strikes signaled,old-line labor bureaucrats like MineWorkers leader John L. Lewis moved toprevent the reds from leading the industrial unionizing drives. The burgeoninglabor militancy reflected a broader political grounds well that could have led forthe first time to a workers party inde-

TWU Local 100 headMike Quill ripping upinjunction on eve ofJanuary 1966 strike.Strike rally near CityHall. Quill was jailed,but strike won andsmashed anti-laborCondon-Wadlin Act.

AP- -pendent of the two capitalist parties. Butthis surge toward independent politicalaction was instead channeled, mainly bythe Stalinized Communist Party, intosupport for Roosevelt's Democratic Partyand its "New Deal" coalition. The CP'ssupport to the New Deal was an expression on American terrain of the "People'sFront Against Fascism" line adopted bythe Stalinist Communist International inAugust 1935, which called for politicalsupport to a supposed "democratic" or"anti-fascist" wing of the capitalistexploiters.The class-collaborationist New Dealcoalition, which literally extended fromblack Communist labor organizers toKKK Southern sheriffs, put organizedlabor into an unholy alliance not onlywith its liberal class enemies in the.North but with the diehard Dixiecrat seg-regationists of the Deep South. Beforethe Civil War, the Democrats had beenthe party of the Southern slavocracy,resting as well on the electoral supportof, for example, Irish Catholic immigrantworkers in the North. It was under theNew Deal that they came to be falselyidentified as a friend of labor and bhickpeople.The AFL-CIO bureaucracy and its reformist tails have long pushed the myththat the New Deal was the heyday of"progressive" politics. In fact, the aim ofthe New Deal coalition was to co-opt theunions through a series of governmentregulatory agencies like the NationalLabor Relations Board (NLRB) and,

Fred WriahUUE News Service

.. I dont care what kind of communist you are ..You reds are all the same to me ....

WORKERS VANGUARD


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more broadly, to buy "class peace." The1935 Wagner Act gave the NLRB widepowers to determine which unions wouldbe recognized as bargaining agents bythe employers, and the period immediately following saw a far more rapidexpansion of company unions than realunions. Today, NLRB regulations continue to be wielded against union organizing efforts by allowing employers tostall union recognition for years.Another key aspect of the New Dealwas to ideologically mobilize the population for the impending imperialist war.It is precisely because it has. historically

had the support of a majority of workingpeople that the Democratic Party hasbeen the preferred war party of U.S.imperialism throughout the century, fromWoodrow Wilson (World War I), Roosevelt (World War II), Truman (Korea), toKennedy and Johnson (Vietnam) and onto the Clinton administration's recentwar against Serbia. During World War II,the labor misleaders (especially the Stalinists) enforced a "no-strike" pledge onbehalf of Roosevelt and the capitalistclass and called on working people to diefor U.S. business interests in the imperialist slaughter.In contrast, 18 Trotskyists, leaders ofthe SWP and the Minneapolis T e a m s t ~ r s , were imprisoned under the 1940 Smith

Act because the SWP-and the newlyfounded Fourth International of which itwas a part---called on the working class inthe U.S. and in all the imperialist powersto oppose their own bourgeoisies with aperspective of workers revolution. Inspite of Stalin and his foreign policy,the Trotskyists' policy toward the SovietUnion, a bureaucratically degeneratedworkers state still based on the workingclass property forms resulting from itsorigins in a social revolution, was unconditional military ,defense against attacksby any capitalist power. Trotskyists calledfor proletarian political revolution to oustthe Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy, whosecollaboration with the imperialists andopposition to socialist revolution internationally undermined the workers state.When, following World War II, U.S.imperialism launched its Cold Waragainst the Soviet Union, its erstwhileally against Nazi Germany, this alsomeant war against the U.S. working class.In 1946, the country was swept by thebiggest strike wave in its history. The procapitalist labor bureaucracy feared thismassive labor upsurge and joined withthe government in purging thousands ofCommunists and other militants from theunions while acquiescing to the 1947Taft-Hartley Act, which imposed anti-, Communist bans in the unions and outlawed many of the militant tactics whichhad built the CIO. That same year, NewYork State enacted the Condon-WadlinAct, which mandated the mass firing ofpublic sector workers who went on strike.

Having loyally supported the Democratic Party throughout the New Dealand World War II, QuiII was amongthose Stalinist trade-union leaders whoopportunistically broke with the CPwhen the Cold War got underway, organizing a vicious witchhunt in 1948 againstleftist militants within the TWU. It wasthen that the dues checkoff was institutedin transit by Democratic mayor WilliamO'Dwyer, with the aim of helping Quillconsolidate his position within the unionin the face of a substantial base of support for the Communists. For years,Quill worked in cahoots with the city'sDemocratic Party machine, quelling themilitancy of the membership. It IS noaccident that the first citywide transitstrike coincided with the inauguration ofliberal Republican mayor John Lindsayin January 1966.

But when it came, that 12-day strikedemonstrated the power of the transitunion to bring the city to a grinding haltand Wall Street to its knees. Served withan injunction a day before the walkout,Quill tore it to shreds. He was thrown injail after defying another injunction afew days later and died of a heart attackshortly thereafter. But the bosses werereminded that they couldn't run New31 DECEMBER 1999

Protest to TWU Local 100 LeadershipUnion V. P. Urges Cops to ArrestDefenders of Right to StrikeDecember 21, 1999Willie James, PresidentExecutive Board, Transport WorkersUnion Local 100Dear Brothers and Sisters:On the morning of December 16, atthe bus depot at 11th Avenue and 41 stStreet, a supporter of the Marxist Spartacist League and a member of its fraternal organization, the Labor BlackLeague for Social Defense, were distributing a leaflet in defense of the right to

strike:-and of the very existence-ofthe TWU and all city workers unions.Three NYPD squad cars arrived andofficers detained the LBL supporter.

York if transit didn't run. The unionreturned to work only on condition thatthere would be no reprisals against any.striker. The government was forced torevoke its threats and soon repealed theCondon-Wadlin Act.The Tay lor Law--enacted in September 1967 as a replacement for CondonWadlin, substituting massive fines formass firings---can likewise be turnedinto a scrap of paper. The 1980 strikewas not broken by the Taylor Law butbetrayed by the TWU Local 100 tops andthe opposition "dissidents"-forerunnersof New Directions-who all caved in tothe capitalists' howls when the strikereally started hurting.Those Who Labor Must Rule!

The pro-capitalist union tops who wontheir spurs purging reds from the unionswent on to serve as CIA conduits duringthe Cold War and as ardent supporters ofWashington's counterrevolutionary warin the 1960s and early '70s against theVietnamese workers and peasants. Theanti-Communism of the union tops andtheir adherence to government anti-laborlaws led to a steady weakening of thelabor movement beginning in the 1950s.So strong are the bureaucrats' tiesto the capitalist order that they haverenounced the very means by which theunions were built. The Wall Street Journal(16 December) article noting the TWU'spower was headlined, "Why LaborUnions Have Grown Reluctant To Use theoS' Word." United Auto Workers (UAW)chief Stephen Yokich told this mouthpiece for big business: "We don't have togo out there and rattle our swords .... I fyou start rattling that sword, you've gotto be prepared to do it." Former UAWhead Douglas Fraser talked of how"workers realized that their f'Ortunes weretied to the company's." It was not the"workers" who got a seat on Chrysler'sboard of directors for services renderedlike breaking wildcat strikes-but laborsellout Fraser! Now Yokich has a place onthe Chrysler board.The trade-union misleaders, who longago separated themselves from theirworking-class base, see the world throughthe same lens as the capitalists and theirgovernment. For the union tops, the"national interests" of corporate Americastand higher than the counterposed classinterests of the workers. In his 1916work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage Q/Capitalism, Bolshevik leader V. I. Leni'nexplained the material basis of the opportunism of the labor bureaucracy:"The rece

Workers Vanguard No 726 - 31 December 1999

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