Huelga en Detroit!

Europa: Resistencia contra austeridad 12

Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!

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Oct. 18, 2012

Vol. 54, No. 41

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Venezuelans a rm revolution: Chvez isnt leaving

By Berta Joubert-Ceci Chvez won! The Venezuelan people won! Latin America and socialism won! These slogans capture the worldwide sentiments expressed as Venezuelas National Electoral Council (CNE) announced Hugo Chvez victory just after 10 p.m. on Oct. 7. With nearly all votes counted the next day, Chvez led with 55.1 percent or more than 8 million votes. The U.S.backed opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, had 44.2 percent or about 6.5 million votes. The other four candidates, two men and two women, totaled less than 1 percent. No other elections in Venezuela have aroused such excitement and commitment in Venezuela and worldwide. A record high of more than 80 percent of those eligible voted, compared to 75 percent in 2006 and 70 percent in 2004. (vtv.gob.ve) Progressive forces around the world sent statements or have organized demonstrations in solidarity with Chvez Bolivarian Revolution. In Caracas, the capital, people began celebrating early on election day, confident that Chvez would prevail. After the CNE announcement, thousands converged at the Miraflores Presidential Palace for a big, cheerful, mass celebration to hear Chvez victory speech. At nearly midnight, Chvez appeared on the balcony and sang the national anthem, Gloria al Bravo Pueblo (Glory to the Brave People), together with the crowd. The president congratulated those who voted for and even against him for not having fallen into destabilizing plans. This referred to reports weeks earlier that the opposition planned to mobilize, claiming election fraud. Foreign nongovernmental organizations, particularly those from the U.S. like the U.S. Agency for International Development, Freedom House, etc., would back these phony claims. Bolivarian Revolution vs. imperialism Everyone knows Chvez, not so Capriles. During the April 2002 coup against Chvez, Capriles was mayor of the Miranda municipality and led an attack against the Cuban Embassy in Caracas. This counterrevolutionary activity led to his spending 119 days in prison. In 2008, he became governor of the Miranda state. The following year he was accused of corruption and fraud. On February 2012, he became the sole opposition candidate. He has strong ties with the business sector. All of world imperialism, especially Washington, supported him. Thus the election squared off not just two individuals, Chvez Fras versus Capriles Radonski, but independence and sovereignty versus imperialism, the Bolivarian Revolution versus neocolonialist counterrevolution. For the people in Latin America and the Caribbean, what was at stake was the future of integration of the region which the Bolivarian Revolution has propelled. It was the future of regional organizations ALBA, CELAC,
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CHVEZ NO SE VA!
UNASUR, the bank of the South and the cooperation among the countries and people to lift the masses out of poverty. At stake was the road to real liberation from imperialism and for the socialist construction of their society that millions in the region are pursuing. During an interview with Telesur after he voted, Chvez said, It is not about me; it does not depend on a man. What is at stake is independence, the answer to the Free Trade Agreements, to neoliberalism. That is what is at stake. In 13 years, there have been 14 elections and we only lost the referendum [for a reform of the Constitution]. [In Venezuela] the people have been empowered; it now belongs to her owner, the people. Capriles discourse during the elections was demagogically tailored to appeal to the masses of poor, with the message that he would improve the programs already established by Chvez. The truth is that he would destroy them, or try to. Millions of Venezuelans understood this and voted for Chvez to defend the Misiones the many programs that have benefited health, education and housing for the majority of the people funded with oil industry income. They voted to defend a revolution that has increased the support of arts and culture; extended the rights of women, children and the elderly; and increased the participation of the most excluded from society: the Continued on page 6
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STOP KILLER COPS

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Police beat Puerto Rican woman in Philly

By Berta Joubert-Ceci Philadelphia With only two days of organizing, close to 100 people rallied in front of the Philadelphia City Hall on Oct. 5 to protest police brutality against the Puerto Rican community. The attack occurred on Sept. 30, during a celebration in the community at the end of the Puerto Rican Day Parade. The parade itself was held on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, in an area near the Philadelphia Museum of Art, far from North Philadelphias Puerto Rican community, but close to a community where gentrification displaced hundreds of Puerto Rican families in the early 1980s. In a video that went viral, taken by Gisela Valentn, a cop is shown hitting Aida Guzmn in the face and in the back of her head, so hard that she fell to the ground. Several other police were surrounding the area while she was being hit, preventing anyone from getting through and allowing the attack to continue. Adding insult to injury, Guzmn, bleeding from the injury, was then handcuffed and arrested on charges of disorderly conduct. The case against her was eventually dropped. This act of police brutality against a woman has outraged many in the city and particularly Puerto Rican women, who complained about the silence from city public figures and elected officials. Only one, Puerto Rican Councilperson Mara Quiones, complained about the attack and demanded an investigation. It took several days and several views of the video (http://tinyurl.com/8eybtou), which showed that Guzmn did nothing to provoke the attack, for the police commissioner and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to issue a statement. Had it not been for the video, the attack would have been ignored completely. It wasnt until Oct.5 that Nutter offered an apology to Guzmn. But, as the Oct. 5 protesters stated, an apology will not suffice. Philadelphia has been marred by police brutality ever since the infamous Frank Rizzo headed the citys police department. This is the city where Black Panther members were ordered by police, under Rizzos leadership, to strip naked in front of TV cameras in 1970; where Mumia Abu-Jamal was sentenced through an illegitimate justice process full of lies and judicial misconduct. It is the city that bombed itself in 1985, dropping an explosive device on the home of MOVE members, an action that killed six adults and five children. Only one adult, Ramona Africa, survived. Although herself a victim of the fire, she spent several years in prison. Philadelphia police and the justice system have created a climate where a cop can commit violence with impunity. The cop that attacked Guzmn did so because others were protecting him, and he knew he could get away with it. The police are forces of the state that work on behalf of the rich, protecting their interests not the interests of the people, and particularly not the interests

WORKERS WORLD

this week ...

In the U.S.
Police beat Puerto Rican woman in Philly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Police brutality: An all-too-familiar story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 No life sentence! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Community outraged as lying killer cops are exposed . . . .3 Voter ID law delayed but not dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 On the picket line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Striking warehouse workers shut down Walmart warehouse . 5 Waste water workers score victories, end strike. . . . . . . . . . .5 Protests condemn U.S./NATO wars and wars at home . . . .7 WWP leader: It doesnt matter who wins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Mumia Abu-Jamal: From hope to fear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Around the world

Venezuelans a rm revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Liberation-era atrocities by colonialists further exposed . .6 Turkey uses false pretext to attack Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Stop drones protest in Pakistan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 South African strikes spread to public sector . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Fired GM Colombia workers update. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Haitian masses to president: Leave! Weve had enough!. .8 Protests against racism held in 14 European countries. . . .9
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With her attorney Enrique Latoison at her side, after meeting with Mayor Nutter in City Hall, Aida Guzmn accepts Puerto Rican ag from rally participant.

Vancouver activists exercise rights, defy police . . . . . . . . . . .9 Behind Canadian Auto Workers settlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Okinawa: Protest deployment of U.S. helicopters . . . . . . . 10

Editorial
Where we stand on the election . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

of people of color or even of poor whites. The officer has been dismissed for a month, and the police department claims it intends to fire him afterwards. He has not been charged with any crime, and already the infamous Fraternal Order of Police is trying to overturn his dismissal from the force. The We are all Aida protest was initiated by Puerto Rican women demanding respect for the women and the community as a whole, and that charges be brought against the individual cop and against all the other ones standing by. The outrage demonstrated by those attending the rally was evidenced by remarks like, How am I going to teach my sons and grandsons that they should not hit a woman, when they see a police officer hitting a woman for no reason? and If they do not charge the officer, there will be riots. The protest was attended by people from the Puerto Rican community along with other progressive people in the city, including other Latinas, African Americans and whites. At one point, Aida Guzmn herself passed by, accompanied by her attorney. The protesters chanted, We are all Aida! to show their support. Margarita Padn, one of the organizers, put the assault into context when she said that this incident includes a combination of police abuse, abuse against women, and imperialist abuse against second-class citizens of a colony, plus the disgrace of a capitalist system that turns people into commodities of the system, to the point that we see ourselves as commodities. For that reason we see the abuse against another human being as if it is not against us and it does not concern us, and we can then put a monetary value of individual gain on the incident, instead of uniting in solidarity against the abuse.
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Noticias En Espaol
Huelga en Detroit! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Europa: Resistencia contra austeridad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Workers World 55 West 17 Street New York, N.Y. 10011 Phone: 212.627.2994 E-mail: ww@workers.org Web: www.workers.org Vol. 54, No. 41 Oct. 18, 2012 Closing date: Oct. 9, 2012 Editor: Deirdre Griswold Technical Editor: Lal Roohk Managing Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell, Leslie Feinberg, Kris Hamel, Monica Moorehead, Gary Wilson West Coast Editor: John Parker Contributing Editors: Abayomi Azikiwe, Greg Butterfield, Jaimeson Champion, G. Dunkel, Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Larry Hales, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Cheryl LaBash, Milt Neidenberg, Betsey Piette, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Gloria Rubac Technical Staff: Sue Davis, Shelley Ettinger, Bob McCubbin, Maggie Vascassenno Mundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Michael Martnez, Carlos Vargas Supporter Program: Sue Davis, coordinator Copyright 2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of articles is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. Workers World (ISSN-1070-4205) is published weekly except the first week of January by WW Publishers, 55 W. 17 St., N.Y., N.Y. 10011. Phone: 212.627.2994. Subscriptions: One year: $30; institutions: $35. Letters to the editor may be condensed and edited. Articles can be freely reprinted, with credit to Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., New York, NY 10011. Back issues and individual articles are available on microfilm and/or photocopy from University Microfilms International, 300 Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. A searchable archive is available on the Web at www.workers.org. A headline digest is available via e-mail subscription. Subscription information is at workers.org/email.php. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to

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WW C OMMENTARY

Police brutality: An all-too-familiar story

By Monica Moorehead A 22-year-old man looking toward the future has his life taken from him in a split second by a police officers bullet. Sound familiar? This time the victim was Noel Polanco, a Dominican youth from the South Bronx in New York City. He was stopped by the police in the early morning of Oct. 4 on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens for allegedly driving in an erratic manner. In a tragic twist of irony, Polanco was hoping that his training as an Army reservist would lead to a career as a police officer. Diane Deferrari, a passenger in his car, publicly stated that at precisely the same time Polanco was told to put his hands on the steering wheel, he was fatally shot in the abdomen by detective Hassan Hamdy. Despite claims by the detective that he thought Polanco was reaching for a gun, no weapons were found in the car. On the other hand, Hamdy had been cited in two federal civil lawsuits, in 2001 and 2008, for police abuse. More than $500,000 was awarded to the plaintiffs. Deferrari blamed police road rage for the shooting, since Polanco supposedly weaved in front of two trucks belonging to the New York Police Departments Emergency Service Unit on the parkway. Polancos mother, Cecelia Reyes, wasnt notified by the police of her sons death until nine hours after he was killed. So now Noel Polancos name has been added to an already long list of victims who have lost their lives to police brutality in New York City Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham, Patrick Dorismond, Malcolm Ferguson, Anthony Baez, Michael Stewart, 66-year-old grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs and 10-year-old Clifford Glover. Most of the victims were Black. None of the police officers involved in any of these and many more senseless killings have been convicted of murder. Therefore, none of them has spent any time behind bars. There are reasons for this kind of injustice. The NYPD and the 1% Out of all the big U.S. cities, New York City stands virtually alone when it comes to police violence and abuse. The facts substantiate this claim. New York City has the countrys largest police department, with 34,000 uniformed officers and 51,000 employees. The NYPD is almost three times larger than the police force in the city behind it Chicago. With a population of 8 million, there are officially 4.18 cops for every 1,000 people in New York City. According to the New York City American Civil Liberties Union, in 2011 more than 685,000 people close to 90 percent of them Black and Latino/a were victims of stop-and-frisk, the NYPDs racial-profiling policy. These stops resulted in a very small percentage of arrests. Salon.com reported Sept. 28 that the 2013 budget for the NYPD is an outrageous $4.6 billion, which is 15 percent of the citys overall budget. The article stated, In addition to ticketing minorities for standing outside of their homes, spying on Muslims who live in New Jersey, abusing protesters, and gunning down black teens over weed, the NYPD has expanded into a massive global anti-terror operation with surveillance and military capabilities unparalleled in the history of U.S. law enforcement. There is one glaring reason why New York City is home to the most expensive, repressive apparatus in the U.S. and a lot of countries combined: The city is also the home base of Wall Street, the main artery to the lifeblood of worldwide monopoly finance capital. Simply put, the NYPD has expanded its monstrous reach in order to protect the private interests and property of the 1% in opposition to the 99%. The bottom line is that under capitalist society, which is based on the haves and have-nots, the police are not only above the law. As the profits of the 1% have expanded, so have the powers of the police to act as judge, jury and executioner. This is the norm. The lives of African-American and Latino/a youth have become expendable in the eyes of the banks and corporations and their armed protectors especially during an economic crisis, where there are no jobs and attacks on public education are aimed at working class and oppressed youth. This is precisely why so many youth like Noel Polanco join the U.S. military not to kill and or be killed in wars. As this unprecedented global capitalist economic crisis deepens, oppressed communities in New York, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and elsewhere are under police occupation to keep a tight lid on the potential for righteous rebellion against intolerable conditions. What is the answer to ending the reign of police terror and to win real justice for youth like Noel Polanco? For sure, it wont be the outcome of the November elections. It will be a united, independent struggle for peoples power organized block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood and city by city.

Judge denies post-sentence motion

No life sentence! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

Taken from an Oct. 5 press release issued by Rachel Wolkenstein, an attorney who legally represents political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Judge Pamela Dembe, president of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, affirmed her secret sentencing of Mumia Abu-Jamal to life imprisonment and dismissed Mumias postsentence motion on Oct. 1, according to the court docket records. Dembes order followed the [District Attorneys] motion to dismiss, which outrageously asserted that a life sentence was the precise relief Mumia sought over the past thirty years! The DAs motion centered on a false rendition of the prosecutions evidence against Mumia. It went way beyond the even perjured and coerced testimony that was presented at the trial. Needless to say, it ignored the federal court rulings that Mumia was unconstitutionally and illegally sentenced to death. It was Judge Dembe who deemed it irrelevant that Judge Albert Sabo, the trial judge and Post Conviction Relief Act judge from 1995-1998, admitted his bias and racism with his declaration, overheard by a court stenographer, Yes, Im going to help them fry the n-. It was Sabos instruction to the jury that the courts found to be illegal. Dembe in 2001 refused to hold an evidentiary hearing on Sabos bias as well as new evidence of Mumias innocence, including the confession of Arnold Beverly who swore he was the man who killed police officer Daniel Faulkner. On Aug. 13, Judge Dembe imposed a life sentence without parole on Mumia, without even notifying him. This was in flagrant violation of constitutional and Pa. statutory law, intended to foreclose Mumias right to challenge his sentence to slow death row life sentence without parole. Had Mumia known of the impending sentencing, he would have argued for immediate release from prison pursuant to a motion for extraordinary relief based on thirty years of solitary confinement on death row pursuant on an illegal sentence. The decade he spent in solitary confinement, while the DA tried to get the death sentence reinstated by the Federal Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court, was retaliation against Mumia for not being silenced. Mumias post-sentence motion challenged Judge Dembes secret proceeding. It also was a constitutional challenge to life imprisonment without parole as a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, the Pennsylvania Constitutions prohibition against cruel punishments, evolving standards of decency and international law. It further challenged solitary confinement and the fact that deathrow prisoners are illegally kept in solitary. Mumias challenge to a life-imprisonment sentence unified the fight of all those men and women who are fighting state torture, the death sentence, the slow death row of life imprisonment, and the debilitating and degrading conditions of incarceration. Having been defeated and denied a legal lynching, the state wants Mumia to rot away in prison. Our fight continues to be freedom for Mumia, as part of the fight for liberation of all humankind.

Community outraged as lying killer cops are exposed

By Gene Clancy An outraged community has called for the jailing of three Baltimore police officers who brutally killed Anthony Anderson Sr. in front of his horrified family and then lied about it. On Oct. 4, Todd A. Strohman, Gregg Boyd and Michael Vodarick were identified as the officers involved in the arrest which led to the horrific death of Anderson, nearly two weeks after the Sept. 21 incident took place. (Baltimore Sun, Oct. 4) The release of the officers names appears to have been prompted by tremendous community rage and publicity. In an investigation conducted by the Baltimore Peoples Assembly, witnesses described how knockers a term used by the community to identify undercover narcotics police ran up behind Anderson, grabbed him around the knees, hoisted him in the air and brutally slammed him to the ground. The police immediately claimed that Anderson choked and died after trying to swallow a bag of drugs. Community witnesses agreed that this was a lie. The lies were exposed on Oct. 2 by the release of an official autopsy which showed that Anderson died from a ruptured spleen caused by blunt force trauma that broke as many as ten ribs. The death was ruled a homicide. (Baltimore Sun, Oct. 2) The BPA, along with other community leaders, the victims family, and, indeed, the entire local community immediately demanded that the police responsible for Andersons death be jailed and charged with murder. The heinous intent of the Baltimore police was shown by their actions towards Andersons family before the autopsy results were known. Following a press conference of over 100 people called to refute the lies, the police stopped Anthony Anderson Jr., the victims 20-year-old son. As he was leaving the house, the police called out to him to drop the gun. He reportedly was not carrying anything that could be considered a weapon certainly not a gun. Fortunately, five witnesses had the presence of mind to take down the police tag number. The Rev. Cortly C.D. Witherspoon, a BPA organizer and president of the Baltimore chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said at the press conference, Obviously, police were trying to terrorize and intimidate Anthony [Jr.] or, if he had made the wrong move, kill him. Witnesses called us immediately. We wrote a public complaint to the mayor, commissioner and district major that informed them we intended to occupy the home and neighborhood if the police persisted. The events surrounding Anthony Anderson Sr.s death have led to a growing, dramatic outpouring, not only of rage and grief, but of an increased willingness of the local community to speak out, take a stand and fight back against their oppressors. Continued on page 10

BALTIMORE

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Oct. 18, 2012

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On the Picket Line

by Sue Davis
After voting to strike on Sept. 22 due to unfair labor practices, the 14,000 janitors in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, represented by Service Employees Local 615, negotiated a decent fouryear contract on Oct. 1. Heading the list of gains is that full-time work will increase 200 percent over the last contract, with all newly constructed large buildings in the Boston metro area to be staffed full time. Wages in the Boston area will increase to $17.85 by 2016, an 11.9 percent increase; in other areas raises will be 12.4 to 13 percent. Probationary periods for workers when buildings change cleaning contractors were eliminated, and for the first time a grievance process will allow janitors to stop excessive workloads. Noting that the workers were supported by their communities as well as labor and faith leaders, union negotiator Silvia Clarke said, We won this agreement by standing united and fighting for what was just. (seiu.org, Oct. 1)

New England janitors make gains

Voter ID law delayed but not dead

By Betsey Piette Philadelphia An Oct. 2 ruling by Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson that partially enjoined the states controversial voter identification (ID) law is being hailed as a victory by some opponents. Others, however, fear that the court just added more confusion for potential voters to muddle through. Under the latest legalese, full implementation of the law requiring voters to produce current photo identification in order to vote is postponed until after the November election. Simpson ruled that for now, voters can be asked to show photo ID at polling places, but if they lack the required card, their votes should still be counted. The law is not dead just delayed. Unless further challenged, the law will take full effect in 2013. Simpson refused to block the law this summer when he heard requests for injunction. That decision was appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which directed Simpson to block the law unless he could show that no one would be disenfranchised. Under the terms of the Philadelphia law, which was voted into effect in March, individuals who lacked a current photo ID had to bring proof of citizenship, including an original birth certificate, to a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDoT) office, then return later to get a photo ID, for which they could be charged a fee. Subsequent reviews of Pennsylvania registered voter lists found 758,939 instances where names were not found on PennDoTs list of current drivers licenses. In addition, more than 500,000 registered voters were found to have expired drivers licenses. As opposition mounted to this law seen by many as a Jim-Crow-era poll tax specifically engineered to disenfranchise poor and minority voters PennDoT repeatedly rewrote its requirements, creating even more confusion. One PennDoT mail campaign showed a state drivers license with the message Show it in order to vote. Millions of state voters, especially those in impoverished urban areas, do not have drivers licenses. But what was shown was not the ID issued by PennDoT to enable nondrivers to vote. Chief Counsel Jon Greenbaum of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an advocacy group opposed to voter ID laws, voiced concern that Simpsons ruling could create confusion since it lets poll workers ask for ID, but does not say what they should do if voters dont have it or wont show identification. (USA Today, Oct. 3) No matter how watered down it is, as long as the law remains on the books there is always the possibility that voters without ID could be turned away by overzealous poll watchers. Challengers of the law are pushing PennDoT to change its voter education campaign to make it clear that no photo ID is required this year. National attack on voting rights Bills similar to Pennsylvanias have been pushed by right-wing legislatures across the U.S. A Government Accountability Office report released Oct. 6 showed that 21 states passed new voter ID laws and seven tightened existing ID requirements. Six states passed new proofof-citizenship requirements; 18 states imposed new restrictions on voter registration drives over the past 10 years. While several of these bills have faced legal challenges, many are still on the books. In addition, more than 4.4 million formerly incarcerated people are permanently disenfranchised in all but two states. Intended to limit turnout from Black and Latino/a communities most likely to vote Democratic, Republican-dominated legislatures used the generally unfounded fear of voter fraud to push their disenfranchisement campaign. Ironically, the actual fraud netted by one of these bills in Florida was paid for by the Republican National Committee. The national RNC paid Strategic Allied Consulting $3 million to conduct voter-registration drives in seven battleground states. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement found 220 suspect forms filed by the company in 10 counties. Multiple forms were filled out in the same handwriting. Signatures, birthdays or addresses did not match other state records. Party registrations were changed, sometimes to Republican.

PENNSYLVANIA

After a 15-year fight for a union voice, 10,000 passenger service agents at American Airlines will finally be able to vote for a union, a court ruled Oct. 3. The airline, which filed for bankruptcy nearly a year ago, has used dirty tricks, including expensive litigation, to try to stop the agents from exercising their rights. In April, the airline even refused to give the Communication Workers union the names and addresses of employees so they could receive ballots. This [ruling is] a big step toward being able to negotiate instead of having [management] dictate terms to us, said Janet Elston, a 28-year veteran at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Its been grueling but it will be worth it once we have an election. (CWA newsletter, Oct. 4)

American Airlines agents to vote

A nationwide consumer boycott of American Crystal Sugar products was announced by the AFL-CIO on Oct. 2 to protest the 14-month lockout of 1,300 sugar beet workers in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa. The boycott is set to begin Oct. 15, but could be called off if management resumes bargaining in good faith. Though the processor has offered a 17 percent pay increase over five years, the workers, represented by Bakery union (BCTGM) Local 167G, object to steep concessions jeopardizing seniority and job security. (AP, Oct. 2)

Boycott American Crystal Sugar products

Chipotle Mexican Grill became the 11th major corporation to sign the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food agreement on Oct. 4. Enforcing a strict code of conduct to aid Floridas tomato pickers, the agreement includes health and safety guarantees, a complaint resolution system, worker-to-worker education, and a raise of a penny a pound paid by corporate tomato purchasers. That translates into an increase in workers wages from about $10,000 a year to about $17,000. Chipotle, with more than 1,000 restaurants nationwide, joins such fast food chains as McDonalds and Burger King and such grocers as Whole Foods and Trader Joes. The CIW has been waging the first farmworker-led campaign since 2001. Farmworkers are finally recognized as true partners every bit as vital as farmers, chefs, and restaurants in bringing good food to our tables, CIW spokesperson Gerardo Reyes told Ft. Myers NewsPress. (Oct. 4)

Chipotle signs Fair Food agreement

The New York branch of Restaurant Opportunities Center United, supported by 99 Pickets and other labor activists, has set up picket lines all over town: After ROC-United released a report detailing the exploitative practices of the Darden chain (the largest full-service dining company in the world), ROC-NY held yet another picket at Dardens midtown Capital Grille on Oct. 3. Not daunted when the landlord of the building at 63rd St. and Second Ave. closed the Hot and Crusty store there after a summer of intense protest by immigrant workers, ROC-NY has set up rotating protests at various Hot and Crusty locations around Manhattan. Picketers reported great support at the 78th and Broadway store on Sept. 24. Brooklyns Golden Farm market continues to be picketed to pressure owner Sonny Kim to honor a court order; he must pay workers back pay (he shorted workers minimum wage paychecks!) and let them hold a union election. Kudos to ROC-NY for its Sept. 24 victory at celebrity chef Mario Batalis pricey Del Posto restaurant. Thirty-one workers are due to receive $1.15 million in back wages as well as paid sick days and vacation time.

Food workers organize in NYC

Sept. 23 protest at Golden Farms in Brooklyn, N.Y.

WW PHOTO: ANNE PRUDEN

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Page 5

Striking warehouse workers & supporters shut down Walmart warehouse hub for day
By Dante Strobino Elwood, Ill. Bulletin: As this story went to print, the 21-day strike came to an end. The striking workers at Walmarts Elwood warehouse won their main demand: the company agreed to stop illegal retaliation against workers protesting bad conditions. The workers will return to work with full pay for all days they were on strike. Striking warehouse workers, along with 600 union members, clergy and community supporters, marched on Oct. 1 at Walmarts largest distribution center in North America located in Elwood, Ill. Seventeen people, including United Electrical Workers Director of Organizing Bob Kingsley and UE Western Region President Carl Rosen, were arrested in a civil disobedience action that blocked the road to the main truck entrance. The action scared the bosses so much that production at this central hub for Walmart distribution was completely shut down for the day. The Elwood warehouse workers went out on an unfair labor practice strike on Sept. 15. Most workers in the warehouses are temporary employees with no labor protections or stable jobs. Walmart has been passing all the responsibility for terrible working conditions onto contractors that run their warehouses. On Sept. 13, Warehouse Workers for Justice assisted workers in filing a sixth lawsuit against warehouses operated by various multinational corporations in the Wills County suburbs of Chicago, this time targeting Walmart. When workers took action the following day to deliver their demands to management, they were fired. This illegal retaliation triggered the strike. These young folks cant get a job anywhere these days. Then they come out here and get these temporary jobs that give nothing but disrespect, stolen wages. They dont even get health insurance, stated Pastor Craig Purchase of Mt. Zion Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in Joliet, Ill. [The bosses] are shredding up our New Jersey are beginning to organize. Rampant abuses Curtis Tucker, 22-year-old striker, was formerly a floor worker but got transferred to the receiving department after signing the union petition. After having worked three days in the warehouse, he went to get his paycheck only to be told that they did not know who he was and there was no paycheck for him. Tucker told Workers World, I am on strike to make this a better job for my family. I have three kids and a wife, and I just need a reasonable salary. Tucker also spoke about the dangerous working conditions, especially when workers are forced to perform duties without adequate staff and equipment. He stated, They give us boxes that say team lift, but then only allow one worker to pick it up. We get assigned to an entire truck to unpack all by ourselves. Earlier this year on International Womens Day, March 8, women leaders in WWJ organized a major public hearing to draw attention to the rampant sexual assault and discrimination against women. According to a WWJ report, 90 percent of women face sexual harassment in the workplaces at Will County warehouses. Working in these warehouses we are lucky to get $200 per week. You cant afford food, cant afford a babysitter, cant afford anything we need to live, Uylonda Dickerson told Workers World. I have been sexually assaulted. Who comes to work to have our body looked at? We dont come here to be touched. When workers complain about this harassment, it is often ignored by the mostly male supervisors. Dickerson reports they would dismiss her and say, You are just being a female. WWJ filed a lawsuit against this treatment. To support this important aspect of the campaign, you can make a contribution to the Warehouse Womens Legal Defense Fund. For updates on the WWJ organizing campaign, check out warehouseworker. org.

Warehouse Workers United join associates on strike in Pico Rivera, Calif., Oct. 4.
PHOTO: OUR WALMART ORGANIZATION UNITED FOR RESPECT

next generation. I call it the meat grinder. (UE News, Oct. 3) Purchase, who is also president of the local Rainbow PUSH Coalition, was one of the 17 people arrested. Strikes show its time to organize A WWJ press release states: The rally brought Walmarts distribution system into the public eye to protest unfair labor practices and other abuses in the nations largest inland port. Now supporters all over the country want Walmart to know they support improved working conditions in the companys warehouses. The release continued, Workers responsible for moving an estimated $1 trillion worth of goods a year through the global economy are paid low wages, often denied breaks and basic protective gear, and are employed primarily through temp agencies. Strikers and supporters also delivered more than 100,000 petition signatures supporting their concerns to the management of the Chicago West Loop Walmart Express on Oct. 5. In striking, the Elwood workers joined their striking sisters and brothers in the Los Angeles area, who conducted a two-week strike beginning Sept. 12. Those workers held a 50-mile protest march demanding that Walmart take resonsibility for their stolen wages, health and safety violations,

discrimination and sexual assault. Warehouse workers in California won their strike. They got some health and safety situations cleared up and got Walmart to agree to participate in inspections and take responsibility for the working conditions, reports striking warehouse worker Mike Compton in the same UE News article. I have been there three months, and I am considered a veteran the turnover rate is unbelievable. Warehouse Workers for Justice has recovered over $1 million in stolen wages, but lawsuits are only bandages. Now it is time to organize! stated Cindy Marble, former warehouse worker and WWJ organizer during the Oct. 1 rally. Its personal to me. I lived it; my son worked there; I have family members that worked in warehouses. I am pissed. We are making lots of money for this company, and they are treating people like slaves. Walmart sets the bar for warehouses around here, they cant keep blaming it on the contractors. Walmart needs to take responsibility for what is going on in their house, Marble concluded. Meanwhile, logistics workers from the ports to the warehouses, transportation networks and railroads are now organizing across the country. Retail workers inside Walmart stores are forming organizations, and warehouse workers in

DETROIT

Waste water workers score victories, end strike

By David Sole Detroit On Thursday, Oct. 4, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union Local 207 ended their five-day strike, claiming victories. The powerful forces arrayed against the 450 workers at the Detroit Waste Water Treatment Plant included Mayor Dave Bing, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department management, and federal Judge Sean Cox, who oversees the department under a consent decree going back 35 years. Cheering on these antiunion forces were the corporate mass media. In the end they could not defeat the workers, who had begun to garner support in the broader union and community arenas. The strike began on Sunday, Sept. 30, when 34 workers walked off the job at the largest consolidated waste water treatment facility in the U.S. For the next few days, strong picket lines bolstered by other union members, students, Occupy Detroit activists, members of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice, and other supporters kept many truckers, skilled trade contract workers and others out of the plant. Management personnel scrambled to keep the facility operating, forcing many to work 12-hour shifts and even longer. On Monday, Oct. 1, Judge Cox issued an injunction ordering the striking workers back to work. The strikers defied this injunction and stayed out. On Tuesday, Oct. 2, management escalated the conflict by announcing that the 34 workers who walked off their jobs two days earlier were to be fired, along with Local 207 President John Riehl and SecretaryTreasurer Mike Mulholland. According to Local 207, several hundred strikers returned to work on Wednesday under this tremendous pressure. Management announced the strike was over. They were joined by the leadership of AFSCME Council 25, who had never given the strike any support. A special settlement conference was called for Thursday, Oct. 4, by representatives of Mayor Bings office, Judge Cox and the water department, where they no doubt expected Local 207 to surrender. Instead, the strike leaders refused to call off the strike and informed the management side that they would never call off the strike with workers fired and other issued unresolved. Bosses cave, reach settlement with union The management side, perhaps fearing growing public support for the strike and sympathy for the fired workers, then agreed to a settlement acceptable to the local union. All fired workers were returned to work (although it is unclear what future disciplinary action may follow). The DWSD agreed to return to the bargaining table over anti-union issues imposed by Judge Cox in a November 2011 order. Included are provisions regarding seniority and union representation that Cox had gutted. If the union wins an appeal at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, scheduled to be heard on Oct. 9 in Cincinnati, then management has agreed to reopen the contract and re-bargain any areas of the contract Cox had changed, according to a bulletin issued by Local 207. The settlement also recognized the union memberships right to vote on any final settlement agreement. This struggle represents the first time in 35 years of a federal judges oversight of the DWSD that a union has had access to the proceedings which affect so many workers. Local 207, with 950 members, is the largest union among almost 2,000 water department workers. The real importance of this strike goes far beyond the concessions granted by DWSD management, the mayor and a federal judge. This struggle serves as a lesson about the power of organized and militant workers. It was a long overdue response to the many years of attacks against city workers and the entire Detroit community by the politicians, bosses and bankers who have been extorting wage and benefit concessions, threatening pensions and slashing essential city services in order to satisfy the profit needs of the banks and corporations. Sole is a longtime Detroit Water and Sewerage Department worker and past president of the Sanitary Chemists and Technicians Association, formerly United Auto Workers Local 2334.

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Kenyans allowed to pursue case in English courts for torture

Liberation-era atrocities committed by colonialists further exposed

By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire Three survivors of colonial detention centers in Kenya during the 1950s have been granted the legal right to pursue their case for damages against the British government. Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84; Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85; and Jane Muthoni Mara, 75 have made claims resulting from their arrest, confinement and torture when the imperialists attempted to crush a national rebellion to overthrow white settler rule. Beginning in 1952, the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), popularly known as the Mau Mau, set out to take back the land seized by British colonialists in the late 19th century. The assassination of white settlers and their collaborators brought about widespread repression inside the East African colony. By the end of the decade, millions of Africans had been detained and relocated. At least 11,000 were killed by agents of the colonial authorities. The system of forced labor and land exploitation became enshrined in the economic system of the country. Many of those who were victims of the detention camps and the brutal repression of the so-called Mau Mau Rebellion are no longer alive. The claimants in this case have waited for six decades to have their day in court. The British government now takes the position that justice cannot be served since so much time has passed and many of the witnesses are deceased. This attempted cover-up has been going on ever since the rebellion and is due to the sensitive nature of the claims made by Kenyans victimized by the colonial system. However, Justice McCombe of the British High Court said, The governments and military commanders seem to have been meticulous record keepers. I have reached the conclusion that a fair trial on this part of the case does remain possible and that the evidence on both sides remains significantly cogent for the Court to complete its task satisfactorily. ([British] Telegraph, Oct. 5) All the claimants want an apology from the British government as well as compensation for unjust detention and torture. Martyn Day, an attorney for the three filing suit, said in the same article that the decision to proceed with the case would reverberate around the world. Following this judgment we can but hope that our Government will at last do the honorable thing and sit down and resolve these claims. Day went on to note, There will undoubtedly be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen from Cyprus to Palestine who will be reading this judgment with great care. British imperialists seeks to avoid history Colonialism in Africa was a vicious, highly exploitative, genocidal system. Millions of Africans died during the Atlantic Slave Trade, and eventual political control exercised by European and North American powers took untold wealth from the continent. After the failure of the colonial authorities to put down the resistance on the part of the Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group in Kenya and in the KLFA, and other groups, a more thorough crackdown was ordered in 1954. Documents published at the time show clearly that the establishment of detention camps and the brutal use of force were official government policy. According to the BBC on April 24, 1954, The British authorities ordered the clampdown on the Mau Mau, a guerrilla movement opposed to white settlers in the East African colony, following a breakdown in law and order. This purported breakdown refers to the targeted assassinations and attacks on European settlers and some African members of the colonial security forces. In addressing the security issues of the colonial authorities, a full-scale war against the African population was launched. In the same article, the BBC reported, Those suspects found to be Mau Mau supporters will be sent to detention camps for further questioning. More than 4,000 British and African troops, Nairobis entire police force and African loyalists are involved in the operation. They have orders to shoot to kill if there is any armed resistance. The repressive measures were dubbed Operation Anvil and were implemented throughout Nairobi and surrounding areas. Although they targeted the Kikuyu ethnic group, the BBC pointed out that any suspects are being handed over for further screening. Despite the extreme measures taken by the British colonialists, official reports stated that only 32 white settlers were killed during the period of 1952 to 1960. The number of Africans killed was between 11,000 and 20,000, including KLFA members or sympathizers, and some additional 4,000 people who were agents of the imperialist police and security forces. One of the most well-known massacres by British colonialists took place at the Hola detention camp on March 3, 1959. Government documents reported that 85 detainees were marched out in a labor crew that morning when several of the Africans refused to work. In response the guards beat to death 11 detainees; another 23 were seriously injured. The British authorities initially claimed that the deaths were caused by contaminated water. Nonetheless, the truth eventually emerged and created a worldwide chorus of condemnation. In 1960, the British officially proclaimed the end of the emergency measures; the country was granted independence in 1963. In the aftermath of official colonial rule, the actual history of the period was concealed. A policy of national reconciliation was advanced, and successive governments have maintained a close alliance with the imperialist states. Signi cance for contemporary Africa British opposition to the continuation of this case is reflected in the governments response to Judge McCombes decision to move forward with a full trial. The government says that it will appeal the decision. Even some within the British press have posed a challenge to this announcement. The Guardian said, The government must stop procrastinating and accept responsibility for events that happened before many of its members were born. ([British] Guardian, Oct. 5) The article stresses, It was not only a question of individual failure. Abuse was sanctioned by a particular institutional attitude that has never been adequately challenged. The failure of the governments in Britain and independent Kenya to adequately address the abuses, and the overall character of colonial rule, has shaped the nature of the post-independence process. The unequal terms of relations in all spheres are still very much in evidence throughout the continent. Africans are due reparations and other forms of compensations for the atrocities committed during slavery and colonial rule. Progressive forces in the Western states should support the legitimate claims made against the imperialist countries by the oppressed peoples throughout the world.

Venezuelans a rm revolution: Chvez isnt leaving

Continued from page 1 Native and Afro-Venezuelan people.They voted for Chvez to defend participatory democracy versus bourgeois representative democracy practiced in the United States. They thus defended a revolution that in a short time had eradicated illiteracy, reduced poverty, built infrastructure, started nationalizations and increased food production. Whats still at stake in Venezuela Yet, a crucial accomplishment is at stake, too. The revolution began with very progressive reforms. Its most outstanding gain was a new Constitution that the people themselves crafted. Now that revolution has developed with the goal of building society on the basis of socialism. This is an answer to historian Francis Fukuyamas 1990s proclamation that the dismantling of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe meant the end of history, echoed by Washingtons consensus. Now small Venezuela dares to declare socialism as the revolutions goal, setting a chain reaction throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Now Cuba is not alone. However, without dismantling and repressing the old violent capitalist state and replacing it with a new armed power that can give a new start to socialist development and protect it, the road to final liberation from capitalist and imperialist oppression is precarious. Much political education with the masses must be done in order to establish and support the changes needed. That is the stage of the Bolivarian Revolution now. That is why the most advanced elements within the revolution have worked hard on this election in order to preserve the conquests and to push for deepening the revolution in a socialist direction. They defended nationalizations and all the necessary operations to transfer power to the people, to the working class, away from the countrys bourgeoisie and the corporate transnational financial interests. Venezuelas revolutionary forces All the pro-revolutionary Chavista forces and parties united in a Patriotic Pole, along with 35,000 other social and civil organizations, to organize and mobilize the vote for Chvez. This included the main left parties, the young Venezuelan Socialist Unified Party (PSUV) which is Chvez own party and the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), the latter with 70-plus years of struggle history. These and 10 other parties campaigned for Chvez, each with its own voting line. The PCV campaigned in many regions and obtained nearly half a million votes for Chvez on its line. PCV leaders said this vote clearly shows that the Venezuelan people in general are ready to continue the struggle against imperialism and at the same time shows a disposition to advance toward socialism. The PCV adds, It is necessary to promote the class struggle to defeat impostors who recompose capital in the name of socialism. (pcv-venezuela.org) Juan Contreras, deputy delegate to the National Assembly and leader of the Simon Bolivar Coordinating Group in the most militant neighborhood of Caracas, called the 23 de Enero, said: Even having victory secured, we must work hard to secure that triumph and then continue to sustain it. Here we are trying to build socialism, and there is no formula for reaching that state. We are in its search and that is this stage of transformation demonized by the major media, by imperialism and the oligarchy. (anncol.eu) All that is why the struggle underneath the elections was so fierce because what the opposition candidate represented was a turning back to neoliberalism, a victory for capital and U.S. imperialism, a return to a colonial state.

CHVEZ NO SE VA!

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Page 7

Protests condemn U.S./NATO wars and wars at home

CHICAGO
WW PHOTO: ERIC STRUCH

By Kris Hamel The 11th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was not forgotten by anti-imperialist activists inside the United States. From New York City to Los Angeles, and in dozens of cities in between, the ongoing war and occupation were denounced at actions held Oct. 5-7. Initiated by the United National Antiwar Coalition and related organizations, the series of protests demanded U.S./NATO out of Afghanistan! Hands off Syria! Dont attack Iran! No more drone attacks! and No sanctions! Following are outlines of actions in several cities. In NEW YORK CITY, protesters rallied Oct. 7 at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Building Plaza in the historic center of Harlems Black community. Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council chaired the two-and-a-half hour rally. Bailey made a strong appeal to youth in the Harlem community, emphasizing that the organizers message was opposition to wars at home and abroad. Speakers from dozens of anti-imperialist, anti-war and neighborhood organizations underlined this message. U.S. militarist policies, which were seen as expanding due to the prolonged capitalist economic crisis, were strongly condemned. Speakers equally denounced anti-Islam persecution and the latest types of intimidation from local police forces, such as stop-and-frisk and all the recent shootings by killer cops. On the same day, police arrested 25 people, mostly U.S. military veterans, as they held a vigil at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in lower Manhattan to commemorate those killed and wounded in Afghanistan and oppose the war there. In LOS ANGELES, many organizations were among those protesting at Pershing Square Park on Oct. 6. The event was emceed by the International Action Center, which initiated the action. The Southern California Immigration Coalition, Unin del Barrio, Youth Justice Coalition, Cuba Coalition, Syrian Americans for Peace, Union of Progressive Iranians, International League of Peoples Struggles, BAYAN-USA, Workers World Party, Peace and Freedom Party, and the Young Communist League were among the represented groups speaking at the rally. All of the speakers, predominantly people of color, were united in opposition to U.S. wars and aggression abroad and against working and poor people here at home. That same day there was a march by the Answer Coalition to a military recruiting station in Hollywood, also commemorating the anniversary of the war. At the Pershing Square Park rally, all organizations were invited to continue participating with UNAC, which is holding

a meeting in Los Angeles on Oct. 16. For more information about the meeting, call 323-306-6240. In SAN FRANCISCO, an action initiated by the Answer Coalition with the endorsement of UNAC and many others started with a rally at Powell and Market streets. Protesters then marched to the Grand Hyatt Hotel, in solidarity with UNITE HERE Local 2 hotel workers, who have called a boycott of the Hyatt chain. Later, an Anti-Colonial Anti-Capitalist March took place, starting with a rally at B. Manning Plaza. It was sponsored by Occupy San Francisco and supported by members of Occupy Oakland. Workers World Party activists carried a banner reading Occupy Wall Street, Not Palestine. U.S. Hands Off Iran and Syria. This march met with heavy repression by the police, including 26 arrests, with all arrestees facing multiple felony charges, and a number of demonstrators injured. Protesters marched through downtown BOSTON Oct. 6 to oppose U.S./NATO wars. After a rally at Downtown Crossing, people marched to historic Faneuil Hall for rallies. The marchers stopped en route at the Hyatt Hotel to support the UNITE HERE Local 26 boycott, and at the Boston School Department to condemn current plans to bring back the resegregationist policies of neighborhood schools. Speakers represented a broad

range of the anti-war movement: UNAC, IAC, United for Justice with Peace, Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, New England United, Committee for Peace & Human Rights, Rhode Island Mobilization Committee, Veterans for Peace, Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Womens Fightback Network, Code Pink, Greater Boston, and Occupy Boston Action for Peace Working Group. In CHICAGO, demonstrators gathered in front of the Tribune Building on Michigan Avenue, a symbol of corporate domination of the media, to protest the anniversary of the war on the Afghan people. Then they made their way to the Obama re-election headquarters on Randolph Street, where speakers condemned the administration for drone strikes on civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. The crowd chanted slogans opposing U.S. support for terrorism in Syria and war moves against Iran. Finally, the demonstrators rallied in front of the headquarters of Boeing, a manufacturer of pilotless drones, to condemn

this military contractor for its involvement with the wars. Many organizations helped build this action, including Students for a Democratic Society, the Gay Liberation Network, Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Fight Back!), Answer Coalition and Workers World Party. Activists hit the streets in front of a busy farmers market in BUFFALO, N.Y., where they distributed hundreds of informational leaflets and talked with people about the urgency of resisting the war here at home as well as U.S./NATO wars abroad. The action, co-sponsored by the Buffalo/ WNY International Action Center, Buffalo Forum and Burning Books, received coverage on three local TV stations. In downtown DETROIT, protesters assembled at Hart Plaza on Oct. 5 during evening rush hour, where their message of Stop the wars and No to anti-Islam bigotry got a good reception by passersby on busy East Jefferson Avenue. The action was initiated by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice. Internationally, demonstrations were also held in London, Glasgow, Scotland and Vancouver, Canada. Based on reports from WW reporters John Catalinotto, Ellie Dorritie, Terri Kay, John Parker, Gerry Scoppettuolo and Eric Struch.

Turkey uses false pretext to attack Syria

By John Catalinotto Mortar fire on the Turkish-Syria border likely a provocation by Syrian rebels or at most an accident has already exacerbated the crisis caused by the reactionary armed rebellion inside Syria. This event has awakened strong anti-government reaction inside Turkey. It also threatens a NATO-backed Turkish invasion of Syria and a wider war in the region. The incident setting off these events was mortar fire from Syrian territory that landed in the Turkish border town of Akakale on Oct. 3, killing five Turkish citizens. A flurry of super-patriotic bluster from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan accompanied heavy Turkish artillery fire that killed Syrian troops. The Syrian government regretted the deaths, promised an investigation and said it would not happen again. German state TV ZDFs first report was that Syrian rebels had fired the grenades and took responsibility for them. (See article by R. Teichmann at globalresearch. ca.) This scenario was gradually altered until all the corporate media and NATO regimes blamed the Syrian army for launching the mortars. NATO-member Turkey seized upon this suspicious pretext to begin daily artillery fire on Syrian army units close to the Turkish border. The U.S., German and NATO command backed Turkeys actions, charging the Syrian government without evidence with a flagrant breach of international law. Whipped up by militarist chauvinism, the Turkish Parliament voted by about 3 to 1 to authorize Turkeys army to take whatever measures it sees fit against Syria much as the U.S. Congress backed President Lyndon Johnsons Bay of Tonkin Resolution, which was the pretext for invading Vietnam in 1964. Turkish people oppose new war Turkeys population, which has opposed the governments role in arming the Syrian opposition and allowing them to stage attacks from bases in Turkey, immediately came out to protest the new war threats. Tens of thousands of people marched in Ankara, Turkeys capital, and in Istanbul on Oct. 4, according to a report in the British Telegraph. The demonstrators chanted slogans against the war and carried banners against the ruling AK Party. The Turkish slogan savasa havir (no to war) was the top trending item on Turkeys Twitter. The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) took a strong position the next day against the decision in Parliament. Here are some excerpts: The AKP Government is doing its best to lead our country into a war. AKP is primarily responsible for shooting of our town, Akakale, and thus for the death of five innocent citizens. AKP, which feeds, protects and organizes reactionary gangs which carry out armed attacks on Syria, is keeping on planting the seeds of hostility between our country and Syria for the sake of regional plans of imperialism. Imperialism must be kicked out of the region. Turkey must immediately abandon supporting the reactionary armed gangs, and the camps, which have turned into warfare headquarters, must immediately be abolished. While anti-war sentiment inside Turkey grows, the continued attacks have an immediate impact on the struggle inside Syria, whose army has pulled back 10 miles from the border to avoid new incidents. This buffer zone creates the potential for a staging area for the Syrian armed opposition which contains many non-Syrian fighters whose ideology threatens people of many different religious beliefs inside Syria. IAC warns of wider war From inside the U.S., the International Action Center released on Oct. 5 a statement, commenting that this latest aggression by NATO-backed Turkey can be the opening move to direct military intervention from the imperialist powers. This is something that NATO is looking for. The imperialists have fomented, armed and financed the armed insurgency in Syria. The IAC writes that despite all the deaths and destruction, the anti-Syria insurgency has begun to stall. The statement notes that even the Oct. 4 New York Times reports that almost no Syrian forces are defecting any longer, and that the opposition of Russia and China has prevented the U.N. Security Council from authorizing aggression against Syria. The lesson of this latest event for the anti-war movement and the people of the U.S. is clear, says the IAC. Stay alert! for new lies and new aggression from the imperialist powers in NATO.

Stop drones protest in Pakistan

Before Pakistans military stopped them from entering a Waziristan area on the border with Afghanistan, thousands of Pakistani people and a delegation of about 60 anti-war and anti-drone activists from the U.S. and Britain joined a convoy from the northern city of Dera Ismail Khan. The group had to change its goal and go to Tank, the last major city before South Waziristan, where political leader Imran Khan spoke to 10,000 people. The main goal of the U.S. delegation, which included Joe Lombardo of the United National Anti-war Coalition and a delegation of 30 people from Code Pink, was to protest the U.S. use of drone warfare in solidarity with the Pakistanis. Khans party, the PTI, is in opposition to the ruling party and wants to win more seats in the next elections. Its program includes stopping the U.S. from using drones in Pakistan. Besides Pakistan, Washington has admitted to using drones against targets in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. It is probably using drones in other parts of Africa. John Catalinotto

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workers.org

12,000 South African miners red as

Strikes spread to public sector

By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire For two months, wildcat and protected strikes have taken place in South Africa. There have been industrial actions in the platinum, gold, iron ore and transportation sectors of the economy, Africas largest industrial sectors. On Oct. 5, in response to the escalating labor unrest, Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), the worlds largest platinum producer, fired 12,000 of the 28,000 workers who had been off the job for several weeks. Management said the workers were terminated when they refused to appear at a disciplinary hearing. However, the mine workers said they are determined to continue the struggle to regain their jobs with wage increases. When police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up a strikers gathering on Oct. 4, they killed Mtshunquleni Qakamba, 48, an Amplats employee. Workers representatives have pledged to file murder charges against the police for the death of their colleague. George Tyobeka, a worker representative at Amplats in Rustenburg, said, What we want to do is open a case against the SAPS (South African Police Services). They shot against the people until they killed one of our colleagues. Employees werent fighting, they were just sitting on the hill. (iafrica.com/sa, Oct. 8) Qakambas death comes after the postponement until Oct. 22 of a governmental commission of inquiry into the August deaths of 46 striking miners at the Lonmin Platinums Marikana facility. The Marikana miners have since returned to the job, having won a 22 percent wage increase. Two other fatalities at Marikana were reported on Oct. 5 and 7. One of the dead was a union branch leader for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the largest affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). He had in order to expand the strike to the ports and railways. (S.A. Press Assoc., Oct. 8) Public sector workers represented by the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) are also threatening to strike. Tahir Sema, SAMWU spokesperson, said, The union is mobilizing towards a national protest, which would begin as soon as this week. If there is a strike, 190,000 civil servants would walk off the job, demanding market-related salaries. (Reuters, Oct. 8) The wave of wildcat and official strikes has caused problems within the South African economy. The currency, the rand, dropped to a three-year low on Oct. 8. Mohammed Nalla, an economic analyst for Nedbank Capital in Johannesburg, said, International investors are really quite concerned about South Africa. Structurally and fundamentally, the outlook on the rand is deteriorating. (Reuters, Oct. 9) The worldwide economic crisis has impacted capitalist economies throughout the globe. Bankers and industrialists are pressuring governments to impose austerity pay and benefit cuts. Workers in Europe have responded, mostly notably through general strikes in Greece, Spain and Portugal. A general strike was held in Indonesia during the first week of October. More than 100,000 workers in South Africa are currently on strike. Until their demands are met these work stoppages will continue.

Miners march to Lonmin Platinum Mine near Rustenburg, South Africa, Sept. 10.

reportedly participated in the commission of inquiry. NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said, An unemployed cousin of an NUM shop steward was shot and killed last night [Saturday] at the shop stewards house in what is reported to be a case of mistaken identity. According to the friend who was seated on a chair at the time the incident happened, gunmen appeared from nowhere at the Marikana hostel and immediately shot the stewards cousin. (iafrica.com/sa, Oct. 8) Seshoka concluded, From the manner in which the secretary of the branch was killed it is clear that the killers were ready for some time. The poor leader was reportedly shot by seven bullets. This is clearly no longer about wages but a clear attack on the NUM, COSATU, and its members. NUM leaders have accused Amplats of racism. Seshoka said that security officials directed derogatory names at a group of union representatives at the mines. He also charged that Amplats bosses have thwarted NUMs efforts to resolve the strike. A meeting between workers representatives and management there was scheduled for Oct. 8.

Strikes may spread to ports, railways, public sector A sector of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) has continued its strike. More than 20,000 truckers have refused to deliver oil, fruit and other commodities for more than two weeks. They are demanding a 12 percent pay hike. The bosses group, the Road Freight Employers Association, was scheduled to meet SATAWU representatives in court on Oct. 8. Port and railway workers have also threatened to strike. Vincent Masoga, SATAWU spokesperson, indicated that the union had applied to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration

Fired GM Colombia workers update

Hunger strike lifted, occupation continues

By Martha Grevatt For more than 14 months, members of Asotrecol the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-workers of GM Colombia have occupied the U.S. Embassy in Bogot. General Motors has fired more than 200 workers in recent years after they became incapacitated through workplace injuries. They want to be rehired for jobs they can perform with their disabilities, which were caused by speed, repetitive motion, heavy lifting and a generally unsafe work environment. Asotrecol chose to occupy the embassy because the U.S. government bailed out GM and still owns 26 percent of the company. They began their encampment with 68 workers on Aug. 1, 2011. Exactly one year later, 13 brave men, still living in tents, went on a hunger strike and sewed their lips shut. The strike was lifted once, when GM executives in Detroit agreed to participate in mediation along with the United Auto Workers and the U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. But GMs Colombian subsidiary, Colmotores, offered a sum of money that would not even cover the surgeries workers need. The workers resumed their hunger strike and again sewed their lips shut. Asotrecol President Jorge Parra, who stopped eating but did not sew his lips, arrived in Detroit on Sept. 5, hoping to meet with GM executives. On Sept. 17, an International Day of Solidarity with Asotrecol, Parra and a group of labor and community activists demonstrated outside GM World Headquarters in Detroit. Simultaneous actions were held in cities across the country at Colombian consulates, GM dealerships and the home of GM CEO Dan Akerson. Occupy Portland (Oregon) carried signs supporting Asotrecol at the Occupy Wall Street anniversary march, and strikers at Palermos pizza factory in Milwaukee dedicated their picket line that day to Asotrecol. On Sept. 22, Asotrecol lifted the second hunger strike after three weeks to demonstrate our will to talk and our hope for a prompt, just and final mediation. The group is maintaining its encampment and hoping that a settlement to resolve their intolerable situation will be reached soon. Parra has received a warm response in dozens of meetings with union activists, anti-war groups, churches, students and other organizations. Media coverage has not been extensive, but has given Parra an opportunity to reach many people who are unaware of the harsh situation in Colombia. Asotrecol states that our physical strike [that] we have maintained for over 415 days in front of the Embassy of the United States in Colombia will continue until we achieve a definitive and just solution, as will all of our actions we started in the U.S. with the goal of raising awareness about our situation and that of workers in Colombia.

Haitian masses to president:

Leave! Weve had enough!

By G. Dunkel All over Haiti from Cap-Hatien in the north to Jrmie in the southwest and Miragone in the south, in Port-auPrince, and even in the Tenth Departments New York City, with its huge Haitian community Haitians are coming into the streets to tell President Michel Martelly: Weve had enough, leave! One notable feature of the demonstrations is that teachers and their students are prominent. Teachers are demanding a decent rate of pay and that their salaries be paid promptly. Students are coming out in their support. A major plank in Martellys program was free schools. School started Oct. 1 and government figures state that 772,000 pupils are in its free school program. But 3,228,000 children are not accounted for. (Hati-Libert, Oct. 3) This is a very important promise that Martelly hasnt kept. Hand in hand with the peoples perception of waste and corruption is the issue of hunger. Most Haitians live on less than $2 a day and are used to very tight budgets. But now, with the price of food, clothing and transportation rising rapidly, people cant make ends meet. So they get out into the streets, even in small provincial towns like Miragone, and tell Martelly to solve this problem. When Martelly held a rally at Brooklyn College in New York, after giving a speech at the United Nations on Sept. 26, hundreds of Haitians marched down Brooklyns Nostrand Avenue in the rain from the studios of Radio Panou, chanting Down with Martelly! Down with corruption! Down with illegality! Haitian Sen. Mose Jean Charles told Hati-Libert, We are not only in the streets against the high cost of living, corruption, nepotism, bad governing, dictatorship, but equally to demand the departure of Martelly. (Oct. 3). The senator was a leader of the coalition that brought thousands of people into the streets of Cap-Hatien three times in two weeks. A coalition of progressive groups in New York City has called for a demonstration on Oct. 12 to protest the U.N.s renewal of a mandate for Minustah, the U.N.s military force in Haiti that keeps the protests against Martelly under control.

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Coordinated protests against racism held in 14 European countries

By G. Dunkel Responding to a call from the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement to reject the racism, discrimination and prejudice against the Romani people, protest marches expressing Roma Pride took place Oct. 7 in France, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Poland, Ukraine, England, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. In France, where a recent attack on a Roma encampment in the northern part of Marseilles was brushed off by the authorities (La Province, Sept. 28), there will be marches in Paris, Bordeaux and Rennes. While the people themselves share a common culture, language and history, the Romani people are also known as Roms, Roma, Tsiganes, Gitane and Manouche. These names vary since they are spread over so many countries, and the name used in one country is sometimes regarded as pejorative in other countries. In the United States, they are commonly called Gypsies, which is historically incorrect since their roots are in northern India, not Egypt. The European Union officially estimates that there are 10 million to 12 million Roma living in the EU. Some French academic experts put the number as high as 20 million. Historically, the Roma have suffered extreme oppression and racism. They were enslaved in eastern Europe from the 14th to 19th centuries. The Nazis set up extermination camps for them, very similar to the ones they set up for the Jews, which is why there are currently so few Roma in Germany. In reaction to the Nazi genocide, the progressive regimes set up in eastern Europe after World War II guaranteed the Roma full employment, mainly in lowskilled, industrial jobs, and education for their children. Certainly centuries of racist oppression, prejudice, exclusion and misery were not erased, but the material conditions of the Roma improved tremendously. What is called the fall of communism in 1989 meant a huge blow to the Roma. According to a 1998 Wilson Center report, unemployment in Roma communities reached 50 percent to 75 percent. Especially in Romania, where many of the Roma expelled from France have their origins, the Roma are forced to live in actual ghettos: walled communities with just one or two gates and one well for a few thousand people. The apartment houses have no door and no windows, and receive at best a few sporadic hours of electricity a week. Garbage and trash pile up for months. Only a few families can afford school fees in the ghettos, and the only jobs available are very dangerous, noxious ones in the chemical industry. (French TV channel TF1, Sept. 28) Conditions are very similar in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. In Bulgaria and Hungary, right-wing parties with neo-Nazi orientation have actually demonstrated against Roma communities, forcing them to flee to work camps set up by the government. (European Grassroots Antiracist Movement blog) The situation for the Roma in western Europe is less harsh than in eastern Europe, but they still face serious obstacles. In Sweden, Roma in traditional dress cant rent cars. (Agence France Presse, Oct. 7) Roma who are not French citizens face expulsion, even though they are citizens of an EU country, which gives them some residency rights in France. Roma who are French citizens have to confront French laws that make it difficult for them to vote; they have difficulty getting their kids into schools and getting health care. They face racism that can be quite virulent at times. According to an EGAM press release for Roma Pride Day, similar conditions hold in Spain, Italy, Germany and Denmark.

Activists exercise rights, defy police intimidation

By Cheryl LaBash Activists set up the Vancouver Committee to Defend Freedom of Expression to fight back after Transit Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police assaulted and detained three people distributing the free newspaper, Fire This Time, at a public transit SkyTrain station last Aug. 31. Just three weeks later, 20 freedom of speech defenders successfully distributed 1,000 free newspapers at the same station. They called out, Get your copy of Fire This Time Vancouvers social justice newspaper and Free, independent social justice news! Fire This Time contains articles opposing war and supporting struggles in Canada from Indigenous rights to labor organizing. Police had harassed distributors for four months leading up to the Aug. 31 assault and detention. Cops issued no citations, but kept the confiscated newspapers. A video of the arrest was erased from a detainees phone while in police hands. In an Aug. 28 note, Fire This Time Editorial Board member Thomas Davies one of the three assaulted thanked Workers World Party for its support and WW newspapers coverage. Davies wrote: We are writing to thank you for the coverage of the recent police assault on the Fire This Time newspaper in your online article, Canada rightists persecute activists. (Sept. 17) We appreciate very much this active solidarity, which comes from the very correct understanding that, An injury to one is an injury to all. This is a good example for the leftist and progressive movement. We are continuing to build the campaign to defend the rights of all poor and working people through the founding of the Vancouver Committee to Defend Freedom of Expression. You can view the website which includes all of our statements, videos, photos, and other resources at: www.stoppoliceassault.com.

VANCOUVER

Behind Canadian Auto Workers settlement

By Martha Grevatt Last year the United Auto Workers union signed four-year contracts with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. These contracts went further than any in the unions 77-year history in rolling back gains of past struggles. To win approval, UAW leaders claimed that the alternative would be a long strike at Ford or the imposition of a worse contract by an arbitrator at the other two, where workers are contractually barred from striking. A sizable percentage of workers about a third at Ford and GM and almost half at Chrysler voted no. Autoworkers on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border were hoping to see the Canadian Auto Workers union take a stronger stand and oppose concessions in this years negotiations. They hoped that a permanent two-tier pay scale would be kept out of the Canadian agreements. This would put pressure on the companies and the UAW to get rid of two-tier in the U.S. when new negotiations begin in 2015. Workers, especially at Chrysler, wanted all three companies to be held to the same pattern agreement. In the U.S, Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne cried poverty; Chrysler workers did not get inflation protection bonuses, which were smaller at GM than at Ford. These were granted in lieu of the cost of living allowance, which was suspended in the 2009 bankruptcy agreement and eliminated last year. UAW members were hoping the CAW would not give up COLA. The bosses took a hard line. From a labor cost perspective, Canadas the most expensive place in the world to assemble a vehicle, said GM Canadas head of labor relations, David Wenner. Detroit and Canadian news media repeatedly presented GMs position that labor costs in Canada were uncompetitive as fact. The impression was that Canadian autoworkers were greedy, and their greed was the cause of inflated labor costs in Canadian plants. (CBC News, Sept. 17) What did CAW members do to become so overpaid? Nothing really. In fact they gave concessions in 2009 when the Ontario provincial and Canadian governments joined the U.S. in bailing out Chrysler and GM. The CAW took a step toward permanent two-tier pay by giving the companies six years to bring new hires to top rate. It is rarely mentioned that CAW members gave up a weeks paid vacation. At Chrysler, which has the largest percentage of workers in Canada, this is like giving the company more than 8,000 weeks or 1.3 million hours free labor per year. Thats enough to build more than 45,000 vehicles! Stop team play with capitalists When in 1985 CAW broke away from the UAW and resisted concessions, labor costs were cheaper in Canada. The Canadian dollar was weaker and lower healthcare costs were an incentive to invest in Canada. The CAW negotiated more per hour based on higher taxes and living expenses. Now the exchange rate between U.S. and Canadian dollars is about even, so the hourly wage of $34 Canadian costs more than the $28 U.S. for first-tier production workers. Health-care costs for retirees who greatly outnumber UAW active members were unloaded in 2007 to a separate fund with a fixed, one-time contribution. The introduction of permanent two-tier pay in 2007, its expansion in 2009 and its continuation in 2011 have brought the average hourly U.S. wage down dramatically. None of this is the fault of Canadian autoworkers. CAWs figures showed Canadian labor costs were only 5 percent higher compared to those in the U.S. and only 4.2 percent of production costs. Yet CAW negotiators went to the table with very modest expectations, according to Secretary-Treasurer Peter Kennedy. They made very modest demands on companies that were making billions in profits, with Ford and GM breaking records. CAW did not ask for raises or for the restoration of lost vacation time. Like the UAW, CAW offered proposals to help the companies avoid fixed costs. (CBC, Sept. 17) Despite that, CAW contracts are better than the UAWs. Chrysler and GM were held to the pattern set at Ford. COLA was not eliminated and new hires still eventually get top rate. However, the agreements contain no gains. Base pay is frozen for four years, and COLA is suspended until the last quarter of the four-year pact. New hires begin at 60 percent of base pay more than any U.S autoworker hired after 2007 but need six years to reach 70 percent and 10 years to make top rate. As new hires replace workers who retire, some workers will always make less than others for the same work. Nevertheless, UAW members are seeing the Canadian contracts as reason to make progressive demands on the Detroit Three in 2015 such as abolishing twotier, restoring COLA and no special treatment for Marchionne. Both unions orientation toward a partnership with capital is the major obstacle for workers wanting a bigger share of the wealth they create. An ideological shift at the top in an anti-capitalist direction is not going to happen in the near future. Workers on the line need to develop a militant strategy to restore hard-fought gains. It is time to quit the corporate team and start talking about picket lines, in-plant resistance and even occupations. Grevatt has worked for Chrysler in the U.S. for 25 years.

Capitalism at a Dead End

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Page 10

Oct. 18, 2012

workers.org

editorial

orkers World says dont look to the capitalist elections to bring about any of the changes that workers, oppressed peoples, women, the LGBTQ community, youth, the elderly and immigrants so desperately need in this country. The U.S. presidential elections try to obliterate the fact that this is a highly stratified class society, with the widest wealth gap of any developed country. Despite all the talk of the middle class, it is the capitalist class a tiny percentage of the population that owns and controls the vast wealth. At the other pole is the working class, the great majority, whose skills and effort built the economy but who are under attack on all fronts. The election process, so dominated by ruling-class money, allows not a whisper of this monumental truth to enter the so-called debates. Discussion of capitalism is off the table with both Republicans and Democrats, even as the social disaster caused by the capitalist economic crisis grinds down the lives of tens of millions. U.S. elections are highly undemocratic even compared to those in other capitalist countries, where parties win seats in parliament on a proportional basis. Here it is winner take all, meaning progressive political parties that dont get corporate financing have no chance of getting candidates elected. With election day less than a month away, a grossly expensive and pervasive propaganda campaign is underway to convince the people that how they vote will determine the course of events for years to come. It is meant to hold the masses responsible for the attacks that are coming down the pike on every social benefit won over years of struggles. While providing no concrete answers on the vital questions of jobs, universal health care, education, mass incarceration and police brutality, and the grip of the military-industrial-financial complex on foreign policy and the budget, the candidates of both capitalist parties make it seem that everything hangs on who gets elected. They never give even the scantest mention to the central role of mass struggle movements in changing history.

Where we stand on the election

At the same time, many people genuinely believed they took a progressive step when they elected Barack Obama president in 2008. For the whites who voted for him, it was an unprecedented move of not only supporting equality in general but accepting Black leadership over the country. For African Americans, hope soared over what was seemingly the culmination of the long struggle against racism and national oppression with an historic vote for the first AfricanAmerican president this despite everpresent voting rights suppression. Unfortunately, the 2008 election accomplished none of these things. The same racist establishment continues to rule. The jails are still stuffed with 2.5 million inmates, almost entirely people of color and poor whites. Black and Latino/a youth in impoverished neighborhoods are stopped, arrested and increasingly executed on the spot by trigger-happy police. Undocumented immigrants are deported at an unprecedented level. Women lose ground as jobs in the public sector are slashed another effect of the capitalist decline and attacks on contraception and abortion rights escalate. And the war against unions becomes ever uglier, as both private corporations and government bodies shred contracts that workers and their families have depended on. It was the hope and desire for unity that propelled Obama into the White House. The Democratic Party leaders aroused this hope and then dashed it as they carried out the dictates of the big banks and corporations. But the progressive sentiment among the masses is not dead. Occupy Wall Street is a reflection of that. It can be reinvigorated with a real fightback struggle outside the electoral arena. No matter who gets elected, it will be workers building alliances with their communities the way the unions did in Wisconsin and more recently the teachers in Chicago and shutting down business as usual that will move our struggles forward. To get there, we must break with the capitalist rulers and their political parties and strive to build independent organs of peoples power.
Oct. 1 demonstration in Ginowan, Okinawa, against the deployment of U.S. Osprey military aircraft to U.S. Marines Futenma Air Base in the city.

Protest deployment of U.S. helicopters

By Kathy Durkin The spirit of resistance is alive and well in Okinawa. The deployment of 12 U.S. military helicopters to the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station there has sparked fierce opposition, shown in massive demonstrations and civil disobedience actions. Even before any MV-22 Osprey aircraft reached the base, activists from the Okinawa Peace Movement Center, labor unionists, youth, seniors and even local politicians were protesting. Organizers say that 100,000 people on Okinawa Island on Sept. 9 chanted No Ospreys! and demanded the base be shut down. Rallies were also held on other islands in the chain, while thousands encircled Japans parliament building in Tokyo. Sit-ins and civil disobedience protests took place during the week starting Sept. 27; some even blocked the gates at Futenma with vehicles, stopping military traffic. On and immediately after Oct. 1, when nine aircraft were delivered, protesters held banners and chanted outside the base. Okinawans consider the Futenma base to be the worlds most dangerous base, as it is situated within the highly populous city of Ginowan. This, combined with Futenmas high flight accident rate and the hazardous nature of Ospreys, which also have a high accident rate, propelled people into action. A labor unionist predicted, If they impose that dangerous thing on us, then all hell will break loose. Enough is enough. (New York Times, Oct. 1) Demonstrations are expected to continue. The Okinawa chapter of Rengo, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, plans to begin gathering 100,000 petition signatures on Oct. 9. Its president, Nobumasa Nakamura, emphasized, We will unleash more arrows to spread our opposition like a wildfire, reports The Asahi Shimbun of Oct. 4. The same article quoted Shutoku Sakihama, 81, a seniors organization official in Nago city, Okinawa, who insisted, We shouldnt give up. He said the helicopters shouldnt become like the 67-year burden of U.S. military bases. Protests are spreading to remote areas of Okinawa. Activists are calling for an acceleration of their movement to pressure the Tokyo government which is ignoring their opposition to act to stop the deployments and oust the U.S. facilities altogether. This struggle isnt just about the Ospreys. Its about the simmering anger at the U.S. military presence, which is opposed by the vast majority of Okinawans. After World War II, the U.S. occupied Okinawa for 27 years, building many bases there, and leading many residents to view their homeland as a virtual military colony. In 1972, the U.S. finally loosened its occupation somewhat and returned Okinawa to Japanese government administration. Okinawa is less than 1 percent of Japans land mass, yet today it houses 75 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan. Workers World reported on Aug. 15, 2010: There has been a long and militant struggle to get U.S. bases out of Okinawa. Especially key to activists is the Futenma [base], one of the largest U.S. bases in East Asia. The U.S. refuses to relocate or close this facility, as it is key to its military strategy there. Yet Washington, as well as Tokyo, is taking note of the size, number and militancy of the current protests and the anger directed at the two governments. There is concern that opposition to the aircraft will grow into a massive movement against U.S. bases very inconvenient when the U.S. is striving to increase its military presence in the region. Takeshi Onaga, the mayor of Naha, Okinawas capital, opined: Anger has been building up like hot magma beneath the surface, and the Osprey could be what finally causes an eruption. If they force the Osprey onto us, this could lead to a collapse of the U.S.-Japan alliance. (NY Times, Oct. 1) The struggle continues. Japan Today reported on Oct. 5 that a protester proclaimed, Our anger over the past 67 years since the war ended is on the verge of exploding.

OKINAWA

Baltimore community outraged as lying killer cops are exposed

Continued from page 3 It is an often hidden, but all too true reality that police killings in the poor and Black communities of Baltimore and in other cities across the United States are not at all uncommon. There have been 12 previous police killings in Baltimore in this year alone. More planned actions Since the killing of Anderson, scores of witnesses have come forward with horrific stories of police brutality toward them and their loved ones: Illegal strip searches of women, kidnapping of children and youth, racial profiling and other physical abuse are only a few of the crimes reported. Organizers in Baltimore have pledged not to rest until the killer cops who took Anthony Andersons life have been brought to justice. On Oct. 17, the BPA activists are planning to organize and confront the police department at a confirmation hearing for Anthony Batts, named the new police commissioner. Batts is a former police commissioner of Oakland, Calif., where he presided over a host of problems concerning police brutality and abuse. On Oct. 21, at 6 p.m., exactly one month to the hour after the brutal slaying of Anderson, there will be a candlelight vigil at Comfort and Village streets, the site of the killing. Participants will be encouraged not only to memorialize Anthonys life and untimely death, but also to speak out about their own personal experiences with police brutality. In this way they will push forward the struggle in a way that

they think Anthony Anderson would have approved, by exposing and defeating police repression. Speaking to WW, Sharon Black, All Peoples Congress organizer and BPA representative, puts this renewed struggle in a broader perspective: Police brutality is the only answer that the capitalist system has to prolonged joblessness, homelessness and chronic grinding poverty. They have slashed the meagre social and health care programs that existed, harassed and attacked unions and progressive organizations, and resorted to outright murder. But the people are resisting and fighting back. We will continue to resist until this whole repressive system undergoes fundamental change.

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In aftermath of Obama/Romney debate

WWP leader: It doesnt matter who wins

By Larry Holmes The following excerpts are part of opening remarks given at a Workers World Party forum entitled The 2012 Capitalist Elections: A Marxist View in New York City on Oct. 5, two days after the first presidential debate by President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney on domestic issues. Fred Goldstein, author of Low-Wage Capitalism and Capitalism at a Dead End, also spoke. Holmes, WWPs First Secretary, and Goldstein are members of the WWP Secretariat. To view both presentations go to www.youtube.com/ WWPvideo. I watched the debate. I had no expectations that there would be anything said that would be helpful to anyone in the working class. These are two tried and tested representatives of imperialism Obama in government and Romney as a capitalist. Why did Obama let this walking caricature of the bourgeoisie, this let-them-eatcake, this aristocrat of the 1%, babble on about liking the middle class, fighting for jobs and a voice of the unemployed? Why didnt Obama attack him? Why didnt he talk about the Republican program? They plan to privatize Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and public education and almost everything else that working people have fought for and won over almost a century. This was political. It was a sign of just how far the capitalist crisis not just the recent one which is the most intense and severe and permanent and unprecedented but the capitalist crisis over a period of 30 or 40 years has pushed bourgeois politics to the right. Obama cant attack Romney too much because some of the things that Romney would do Obama is going to do. Hed put himself in trouble. One of the most significant things about the text of what Romney said to the room full of millionaires and billionaires in Florida [last May] where he made his 47 percent remark there was a lot of racist, imperialist stuff in that text. It was informative how the Democratic Party didnt jump on it. Romney said about the 47 percent, Those people feel entitled to housing, to health care and to food. Of all things, imagine that food! The next thing is oxygen and water. It made me think about something that most people dont know anything about, because right after he said it, it was forgotten. It was what was said by [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt who saved capitalism by making concessions and entering into an imperialist war which put U.S. imperialism on top. In his final State of the Union address in 1944 he proposed a new economic bill of rights. And he used the question of rights like people should have a right to a job, a right to good wages, a right to a home, a right to medical care, a right to education. It would have been a tremendous aid to arouse the base, to put Romneys voice saying they think they are entitled to this and that next to what Roosevelt thought, for his own reasons, that the masses have a right to. But they are not going to do that. Obama and most of the Democrats at his level in the party have been pushed into a right-wing program, too. I think that a lot of people, even many progressives in the labor movement and ing to protect them, take them out of their trance. That would get rid of the problem that the first African-American president represents in terms of just throwing a curve at the masses. We certainly will see. It is not a done deal as much as it does appear, notwithstanding the bourgeois medias interpretation of the debates. I still think that either of them could win. No matter who wins, we are going to have to be prepared to fight both with equal vigor and militancy. Yes, we have to fight a government led by the first African-American president differently because he has support among the oppressed, especially the African-American community. So we have to talk a different way. We cant be carrying around caricatures [of Obama] and burning them and being personal. It is much easier to fight a Romney or a Bush or a Bloomberg. You can pull out all stops. Our tact and thoughtfulness in this respect should not be interpreted as support for Obama or support for the Democratic Party in some roundabout way. We are against them. The Democratic Party is a heavy chain around the neck of the working class and oppressed, and it needs to be broken. And the longer that it is not broken, especially now, the more trouble our class is going to be in. Both parties and both candidates of the bourgeois parties are engaged in a conspiracy of silence. They are both being careful about raising austerity. They are waiting until after the elections because, whatever party prevails, almost the moment the elections are resolved the bourgeois media and the whole bourgeois establishment are prepared to generate a crisis, a panic atmosphere. The most important thing not that we should wait a month until the election is over is for the working class and the oppressed, Occupy Wall Street and all the militants to be prepared to open up a tremendous classwide struggle against the capitalist crisis. A year ago today, Oct. 5, 2011, was the first day that the local labor movement actually organized a big labor march in solidarity with OWS. Remember at Foley Square, you could hardly move. It was so tremendous because what had happened is OWS, with its militancy, woke up organized labor, not just in New York City, but around the country. Flash ahead 11 months and you see this tremendous brave and relatively victorious teachers strike in Chicago where they did the work and won solidarity with the parents and the students. They took on the Democratic Party machine right on Obamas turf. At the AFLCIO international level or state level or central labor council level, when considering what to do and what not to do to manifest solidarity with this brave strike, the question that came up was the elections. [The response was] we dont want to mess up the elections, our hands are tied, so send a speaker, send some money, have a press conference or maybe do nothing because the elections take priority. That is why we prepare for opening up an unprecedented classwide struggle against the capitalist crisis with our allies and friends through the project of Peoples Power Assemblies. One of the biggest goals of the Assemblies is going to be to help break the chains that the Democratic Party has on the organized labor movement and the working class in this country, so they can fight in their own interests the way they need to.

Larry Holmes

WW PHOTO: BRENDA RYAN

elsewhere, hoped that Obama four years ago would be like an FDR. We know what FDR did. He was clever. He had to spend some time convincing the imperialist U.S. ruling class that if they did not make some concessions, they might not be around because there was a Russian Revolution, and revolutionary struggles were going on it was happening outside the White House so it is in your interest to make some concessions. So grin and bear it. The Democrats cant do that now. Obama cant do it. The capitalist crisis means they are taking all those concessions back; they are repealing it all. The New Deal, the Great Society, they are repealing a century of hard-won concessions. Obama, organized labor & struggle What Obama has that helps him although it is a double-edged sword is that he is the first African-American president. In a manner of speaking that gives him an edge in terms of deceiving or disarming, for a while, some segments of the working class. Most of the Black masses are going to give him a pass by virtue of the fact that he is the first Black president and we understand that. And a lot of other progressive people are going to feel and act the same way. I am not sure whether it is necessarily because they are so excited about the Democrats, or they see some big difference between the Democrats and Republicans. That may very well be the case when you have a lot of oppressed groups, women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer people on a nominal basis. On paper the position of the Democratic Party is different [from the position of the Republican Party]. I still think that there are a lot of young whites who may not understand racism and national oppression but see the fact that we finally have a Black president as progress. It means that it is a country, a society that they are comfortable being part of as opposed to something else that seems representative of racism, reaction and war. I think that is out there. What role it plays is arguable. It doesnt matter who wins. I have talked to some young people from all over the country, including when we were in Charlotte building for the March on Wall Street South. We had a class on the elections. More than one said, Maybe it would be better if Romney won. At least if he wins, it will wake everybody up. They wont think that someone is go-

From political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal

From hope to fear

The following article, posted Sept. 27, was reprinted from prisonradio.org. What a difference a few years make. Four years ago, the Obama presidency sent a palpable sense of relief across the country and around the world. I remember seeing a spontaneous eruption of joy in the streets of Pittsburgh near SCI-Greene, as youth took to the downtown district in sheer exultation. The only thing that came close was when the Philadelphia Flyers (a hockey team), won the Stanley Cup in 1975, and people poured into the streets in a kind of mania. Well, the mania is gone now. Even so, Obama looks increasingly like hell win re-election, especially if Mitt Romney insists on helping him by stepping on his tongue. Four years ago, hope and change were the mantra of the day, captivating millions. But history cant be made every day. Americans are terrified of the looming economic crisis gripping the nation. The rightists are afraid Obama will establish new and larger government programs. Leftists fear that Romney will scuttle so-called Obamacare aka Affordable Health Care Act and decimate other social services. But, truth is, both are essentially advocates of austerity. One wants to slap people with it; the other slaps you as well. He just says he hated to do it. Austerity is a strategy to cut off social services and privatize. Fear is the night side of democracy. It is its alter ego. And the politics of fear always result in loss, not gain. As Europe begins to tumble, the economics of fear sails across the Atlantic. And it infects U.S. politics and before long everything else.

Conversations on Black Life in America

Mumia Abu-Jamal & Marc Lamont Hill

THE CLASSROOM AND THE CELL:

This book delves into the problems of Black life in America and o ers real, concrete solutions. Available at Amazon.com

Proletarios y oprimidos de todos los paises unios!

Correspondencia sobre artculos en Workers World/Mundo Obrero pueden ser enviadas a: WW-MundoObrero@workers.org

Deuda a los bancos sangra el presupuesto

Por David Sole Detroit El autor es un trabajador veterano del Departamento del Agua y Alcantarillado (DWSD siglas en ingls), de la ciudad de Detroit y ex presidente de la Asociacin de Qumicos y Tcnicos de la Sanidad (antes United Auto Workers Local 2334). Oct. 2 Los trabajadores de la Planta de Tratamiento de Aguas de Detroit abandonaron el trabajo a las 10 am el domingo 30 de septiembre, y de inmediato establecieron fuertes lneas de piquete. Los/as miembros de la Federacin Americana de Empleados del Estado, Condado y Municipales (AFSCME por sus siglas en ingls) Local 207 con 950 miembros, el sindicato ms grande entre los/as casi 2.000 trabajadores/as del Departamento del Agua y Alcantarillado de Detroit- haban votado el 26 de septiembre para autorizar una huelga. Segn un funcionario del sindicato, los/as trabajadores/as de base se adelantaron el 30 de septiembre mientras los lderes sindicales an se encontraban haciendo planes para una huelga ms tarde en la semana. El 1 de octubre el juez federal Sean Cox, a peticin de la administracin, emiti una orden a los/as trabajadores/as para que pusieran fin a la huelga. El abogado del sindicato denunci la orden como indignante, y anunci planes de presentar una mocin para anularla. Al escribir estas lneas, los/as trabajadores/as y los/ as dirigentes sindicales locales siguen desafiantes en las lneas de piquete. La patronal, que opera en modo de pnico, segn dijo un qumico que estaba de guardia el 30 de septiembre, corri a la planta el primer da de la huelga. Todos los permisos de ausencia y de vacaciones fueron cancelados. Los/as trabajadores/ as de los otros sindicatos que no estaban en huelga recibieron la orden de trabajar turnos de 12 horas y se les dijo que no podrn ausentarse por enfermedad. Varios trabajadores que haban trabajado toda la noche el 29 de septiembre, recibieron la orden de permanecer en la planta y trabajar por ms de 20 horas. Sin embargo, ninguno de estos otros sindicatos hacen la misma labor que los/ as cientos de miembros de AFSCME 207 quienes mantienen el funcionamiento de la planta de aguas residuales. Los/as trabajadores/as de la ciudad de Detroit han sido maltratados/as por dcadas con recortes salariales, concesiones y congelacin de los salarios. Recientemente, la situacin se ha vuelto an peor. Alegando problemas financieros, el alcalde Dave Bing y el gobernador de Michigan Rick Snyder, llegaron al acuerdo de revocar la negociacin colectiva y autorizar la imposicin de viciosos recortes de salarios, prestaciones sociales y pensiones contra los/as miles de trabajadores/as de la ciudad. Algunos/as trabajadores/as del DWSD tenan esperanzas de que el fallo del juez Cox, quien supervisa el departamento del agua, les protegera de estos ataques. El DWSD es una entidad independiente cuyo presupuesto no est bajo el presupuesto general de la ciudad, sino que se basa en los ingresos obtenidos por los clientes del agua y alcantarillado. Privatizacin y planes antisindicales Qued claro sin embargo, que el DWSD iba a ir an ms lejos que otros departamentos de la ciudad en los recortes y los ataques antisindicales. El DWSD haba contratado a una empresa de consultora, el Grupo EMA, que emiti un informe en agosto pidiendo la eliminacin del 81 por ciento de la fuerza trabajadora pblica en el DWSD. Los medios de comunicacin corporativos publicaron historias ridculas donde alegaban que el DWSD tena un exceso de trabajadores/as y haca gastos innecesarios. Esto a su vez, sirvi para incitar a la opinin pblica en contra del servicio pblico, sobre todo en contra de la fuerza de trabajo que es en gran parte afro-americana. Un examen ms detenido del informe del Grupo EMA muestra que una de las principales recomendaciones es privatizar grandes sectores del DWSD. Este ha sido un objetivo a largo plazo del mundo empresarial para la ciudad de Detroit. Hace unos 10 aos, el ex director del DWSD Vctor Mercado, trajo una consultora diferente, el Grupo de Gestin de Infraestructura (Infrastructure Management Group). Y el juez federal John Feikens, quien tena la supervisin del DWSD antes del juez Cox, haba autorizado la creacin de un comit secreto predominantemente empresarial para examinar la forma de desmantelar y subcontratar el departamento. Esos esfuerzos fracasaron cuando el alcalde Kwame Kilpatrick se vio obligado a dimitir frente a acusaciones de perjurio, obstruccin de la justicia y corrupcin en 2008. Mercado est siendo sometido a un juicio, junto con Kilpatrick y otros, por cargos federales de corrupcin. El DWSD ha aprobado un contrato de $48 millones con el Grupo EMA para implementar sus propuestas antisindicales. directamente a los grandes bancos, incluyendo al JPMorgan Chase. El servicio de la deuda el pago a los bancos ahora consume ms del 40 por ciento de los ingresos del departamento del agua. Un informe reciente del propio equipo de revisin financiera del gobernador Snyder encontr que Detroit tena ms que ingresos suficientes para cubrir todos los servicios de la ciudad y pagar a los/as trabajadores/as actuales excepto por el hecho de que el pago de las deudas a los bancos recibe prioridad. Slo despus de pagar el servicio de la deuda a los bancos, es que la ciudad muestra un dficit. La deuda de Detroit se estima en 16,9 mil millones dlares!

Sindicato de la ciudad va a huelga en Detroit

Las arterias endurecidas de un sistema moribundo

Por Deirdre Griswold El dinero es la sangre vital del capitalismo. Cada vez ms los banqueros lo mantienen encerrado en sus bvedas y no saben qu hacer con l. Los banqueros ya se enfrentan con esa caracterstica tan irracional del capitalismo, la sobreproduccin, que para ellos significa que las empresas no estn expandindose porque carecen de un mercado para ms bienes y servicios, por lo que las empresas no estn pidiendo dinero prestado y los banqueros se quedan con dinero en efectivo que simplemente se queda estancado sin poder cobrar intereses. Mientras tanto, a los/as trabajadores/ as, que han producido todo lo que tiene valor, cada vez les resulta ms difcil reunir dinero suficiente para vivir. En este momento los bancos europeos, principalmente aquellos que estn avalados por capital alemn, estn tratando de superar la crisis que afecta a todos los capitalistas, prestando dinero a los pases deudores de la Unin Europea especialmente Espaa, Portugal y Grecia a la tasa de inters ms alta que puedan conseguir. Para asegurarse de que estos gobiernos puedan pagar ese inters, los banqueros han estado exigiendo recortes draconianos de cada servicio social necesario que los/as trabajadores/as han ganado a travs de generaciones de lucha: pensiones, seguro por desempleo, cuidado de salud, educacin, etc. Estos recortes estn llevando a la clase obrera, y a muchos/as de la clase media, a participar de muchas huelgas y protestas. Los banqueros ni siquiera escuchan las voces burguesas que advierten a su propia clase del peligro para esa misma clase, de no aliviar un poco las medidas drsticas. Mientras exista el capitalismo, el capital fluir hacia donde las ganancias sean mayores, creando un mundo dividido entre los/as que tienen y los/as que no tienen. Sin embargo, despus de dcadas

Piquetes son respetados La maana del 1 de octubre encontr piquetes grandes y militantes en todos los portones de la planta de aguas residuales. Coches y camiones fueron utilizados para bloquear los caminos de entrada. Comenzando a las 6:20 am, no se permiti a nadie entrar a la planta. Los/as trabajadores/as de otros sindicatos que no estaban en huelga, al ver los piquetes dieron la vuelta y regresaron a sus casas. Los/as vendedores/as y los/ as trabajadores/as contratistas se han negado a cruzar las lneas de piquete. Se ha informado ampliamente que la administracin puede despedir a todos/ as los/as trabajadores/as que se declararon en huelga. Pero esta tctica puede ser Prioridad: pagar la deuda de servicio a contraproducente. Los/as trabajadores/ los bancos as de la ciudad tanto del agua como de los A pesar de toda la propaganda anti otros servicios, estn hartos/as de llevar obrera y antisindical, el hecho es que todo el peso de la crisis econmica sobre en Detroit el dficit presupuestario del sus espaldas. Y el pueblo de Detroit est fondo y los gritos de pobreza del DWSD harto de los recortes a los servicios muestn causados en su totalidad por los nicipales esenciales. enormes pagos de intereses exigidos por Esta huelga tiene el potencial de deslos grandes bancos. encadenar una lucha ms amplia de los/ De la venta en junio de $660 millones as residentes de Detroit, los/as trabaen bonos del DWSD, $300 millones van jadores/as y los/as pobres, contra los banqueros y sus lacayos polticos que ponen las ganancias de los bancos por delante de las necesidades del pueblo.

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de revolucin cientfico-tecnolgica, lo mismo que impulsa al capitalismo a la crisis la alta productividad sienta las bases para una rpida rectificacin de estas divisiones mediante la redistribucin de los productos excedentes a donde ms se necesita. En otras palabras, cuando la clase obrera rompa las garras que los capitalistas tienen sobre la sociedad y establece un sistema socialista, los banqueros en los pases ms ricos como Alemania, no podrn sangrar a los pases ms pobres de Europa como lo hacen ahora. Adems de las luchas masivas de los/ as trabajadores/as sobre las cules hemos escrito otro artculo, unas 80.000 personas se reunieron el 30 de septiembre en Pars para protestar en contra de los recortes del gobierno y los aumentos de impuestos; y por toda Alemania el 29 de septiembre, unas 40.000 personas protestaron los recortes sociales y la creciente desigualdad social.

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