United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:57 pm

Bessemer, Alabama, community rallies for Amazon workers’ union
Jake LindahlFebruary 7, 2021 147 2 minutes read

Download PDF flyer - https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... osts/91256

In pouring rain and 40° weather, over a hundred community members, local union rank-and-file, journalists and activists from across the southeast gathered in a muddy lot between a gas station and a Waffle House to attend Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union’s Feb 6 rally in solidarity with the Amazon workers at the BHM1 fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, fighting to form the first U.S. Amazon union.

The rally was organized by RWDSU to mark the beginning of the voting period on Feb 8, when Bessemer’s Amazon workers will start to cast their votes via mail-in ballots.

Some people traveled to Bessemer from as far as New Orleans and Boston to attend the rally. Attendees were offered free pizza paid for by Senator Bernie Sanders in an act of solidarity. Organizers provided free signs and placards. Hundreds of lawn signs were placed along the road, which attendees were encouraged to place in their front yards.

Despite the unfavorable weather conditions, the spirits of the attendees remained high. Chants like “Union, Yes!” and “Black Lives Matter!” were heard throughout the event. Central to the organizers’ message was that economic justice is racial justice.

Bessemer is a majority Black and working-class city adjacent to Birmingham. Like Birmingham, the city has a long history of heavy industry and environmental racism. Today, thousands of Bessemer residents are employed at the Amazon facility, where a union struggle of major significance to the labor movement regionally and nationally is taking place.

Michael Foster, a Black poultry plant worker and RWDSU organizer better known as “Big Mike,” told the crowd, “We’re down here to fight for the people, to get them dignity, respect, and a living wage–not a minimum wage.”

Photo by Liberation News
Amazon has gone great lengths to spread misinformation and anti-union propaganda. Workers have been called off the floor to attend anti-union meetings, and similar messaging has been found on flyers taped to bathroom stalls. Some workers have said they are receiving up to five text messages a day from the company urging them to vote no.

The company even contacted the City to tamper with the traffic light leading out of the fulfillment center, and the City cooperated. Where before organizers could talk to coworkers and community members at the traffic stop about the union efforts, now the traffic light turns green seconds after detecting a car at the intersection. This insidious act by Amazon has even caused an accident that, “by the grace of God,” just missed Big Mike.

West Alabama Labor Council President James Crowder told the story of the struggle at BHM1,

“We started with a dozen workers in Bessemer, and we grew to thousands. And it happened fast, and it happened because people like you supported them. People in Bessemer came together… I can’t tell you how many times we heard, ‘My mother told me if I don’t sign this card she’s going to kick my ass.’ We heard that from uncles, grand parents and cousins. That’s the spirit of Bessemer. This is a union town. It’s always been a union town and it’s going to continue to be a union town.”

Erica Harris of the Alabama Coalition for Community Benefits said she is fighting for “the community [to] have the power to leverage, to be able to be in agreement in a conversation about what types of jobs we’re bringing to Birmingham.”

She went on to say,

“We want good jobs, yes, but we really want to make sure that our community is a part of that conversation, meaning that we have a pathway to unionization. We have to shift the narrative of the Southern worker. We cannot accept the status quo anymore. We need to encourage our community to go out and support Amazon workers because this union will be the start of shifting the narrative for Alabama workers. Let’s stand together in solidarity.”

To a cheering crowd, the organizers shouted, “It’s time for a movement! It’s time to make a change!”

Majadi Baruti, Community Engagement Director of the Dynamite Hill-Smithfield Community Land Trust, and a well respected activist and organizer in Birmingham stated to Liberation News, “The struggle of the worker continues in such a powerful way with the organizing of the folks working at Amazon in Bessemer. This is a new day for the worker in Alabama.”

https://www.liberationnews.org/bessemer ... rationnews
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 18, 2021 2:07 pm

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Outpouring of Solidarity for Alabama Amazon Workers with 40+ Actions Set for February 20

From Mississippi to Connecticut, North Carolina to California, workers, labor and community activists have resoundingly responded to the call for a National Day of Solidarity with Alabama Amazon Workers issued by the Southern Workers Assembly.
More than 40 actions (and counting!) are now planned to mobilize solidarity with the workers in Bessemer and to tell Amazon: Victory to the workers! Union-busting has got to go! The full list of actions can be found below.
Amazon is spending tens of thousands of dollars each day on the most vile union busters around - Morgan Lewis - because they know this historic struggle being waged by the workers in Bessemer is inspiring Amazon and other workers to organize on their jobs, and they know that when workers build power, that means less profit for them. What makes this struggle even more significant is that it is taking place in the right-to-work South, and of the nearly 6,000 workers at the Bessemer warehouse, more than 70% are Black.
That's why the solidarity actions on February 20 are so critical to the outcome of this struggle!

No matter their size, every action on Saturday will bolster the workers in Bessemer and help open up a broader campaign to organize Amazon and other workers. If you need help planning an action, feel free to contact us at info@supportamazonworkers.org.
We encourage you to visit the Support Alabama Amazon Workers website to find materials that may be of use to actions you're planning this weekend, including:

Placards and signs
Banner designs
Leaflets
Social media graphics
and more!

If you have a resource to contribute, please send it to info@supportamazonworkers.org so it can be added to the site and made available to others.
All out in solidarity with the BAmazon Union!

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February 20 National Day of Solidarity

Current listing of actions planned for February 20 below. Don't see an action you're planning listed? Send in your info using this form. And be sure to check the website for the most up to date information on planned demonstrations: https://supportamazonworkers.org/feb20

Alabama
HUNTSVILLE, AL
1pm Picket

Whole Foods, 2501 S Memorial Pkwy, Huntsville, AL 35801

Contact Tennessee Valley Progressive Alliance at tvprogressives@gmail.com

FB event

MONTGOMERY, AL
12pm

Whole Foods at 1450 Taylor Road, Montgomery, AL 36117

Contact Stef at stefbernalmartinez@gmail.com


California
LOS ANGELES, CA

*Friday, Feb 19* 12:30pm Rally

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius office, 300 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90071

Contact Los Angeles Workers Assembly at 323-306-6240

FB event

LOS ANGELES, CA

12:15pm Rally

Amazon Warehouse, El Segundo, CA

Contact Mark Friedman at mark.friedman@randomlengthsnews.com or 310-350-7515



MONTEREY, CA

10am – 12pm Picket

Whole Foods, Gather in front of Del Monte Shopping Center on Munras

Contact Monterey County Supporters of Bessemer Alabama at vpvhprince@gmail.com



OAKLAND, CA

12pm Speak-out and rally

Whole Foods Market, 230 Bay Place, Oakland, CA 94612

Contact Judy Greenspan at 510-813-4687 or judygreenspan1952@gmail.com



RICHMOND, CA

4pm Car caravan and rally

Gather at Walmart at Richmond Hilltop Mall Parking Lot, 1400 Hilltop Mall Rd, Richmond, CA 94806

Contact Aleta Toure at aleta@alum.mit.edu



SAN DIEGO, CA

12pm Rally & Leafletting

Whole Foods, 711 University Ave, San Diego, CA 92103

Contact Left Flank Veterans at leftflankvets@gmail.com or 619-346-2156

FB event


SAN FRANCISCO, CA

12pm Rally & Speakout

Whole Foods, 3950 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94114

Contact United Front Committee For Labor Party at committeeforlaborparty@gmail.com

FB event

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA

12pm Rally

Whole Foods, 1531 Froom Ranch Way, San Luis Obispo, CA

Contact Loni Kirk at loni.kirk@gmail.com or 805-441-3823



Connecticut
NORTH HAVEN, CT
3pm Rally

Amazon Facility, 409 Washington Ave, North Haven, CT 06473

Contact Hutch 860-967-9836 or cwcr.ct@gmail.com

FB event

Florida
ORLANDO, FL
12pm Rally

Whole Foods in Winter Park, 1030 N Orlando Ave, Orlando, FL 32789

Contact The Seeds at cammyorlando@aol.com or 407-883-9058

FB event


PENSACOLA, FL
3pm Rally

Florida Square, 602 N Palafox St., Pensacola, FL 32501

Contact Devin Cole at not.devin.cole@gmail.com



Georgia
ATLANTA, GA

12 – 1:30pm Rally

Whole Foods, 650 Ponce de Leon NE, Suite 400 (across from Ponce City Market), Atlanta, GA 30308

Contact AmazonWorkersSolidarityNetwork@gmail.com



Louisiana
ELMWOOD, LA

5:30 – 7pm Rally

5733 Citrus Blvd, Elmwood, LA

Contact Meg Maloney at 504-444-9096 or margaretskyethomasmaloney@gmail.com



NEW ORLEANS, LA

12pm Rally

Whole Foods, 300 N Broad St, New Orleans, LA

Contact New Orleans Peoples Assembly at peoplesassemblynola@gmail.com

FB event


Maryland
BALTIMORE, MD

3pm Car caravan & Socially-distanced march to Amazon, Gather at 20th & N. Charles

Contact People’s Power Assembly at 410-218-4835

MARCH/CARAVAN TO:

4:15pm – 5:30pm Rally and march to nearby overpass

DCA6 Amazon Fulfillment Center, 6001 Bethlehem Blvd, Baltimore, MD

Contact Remi Debs-Bruno at 410-501-7608 or remi.bruno@protonmail.com



Massachusetts
JAMAICA PLAIN, MA

1pm Rally

Whole Foods Market, 413 Centre St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

Contact Team Solidarity / Boston School Bus Drivers Union USW Local 8751 at info@usw8751.org



Michigan
ANN ARBOR, MI

1:30pm Leafletting

Whole Foods Market, 3135 Washtenaw Ave (close to intersection with Hurm Prkwy), Ann Arbor, MI

Contact Washtenaw Reds at washtenawreds@gmail.com



GRAND RAPIDS, MI

*Friday, Feb 19* – 5pm Vigil

Amazon Fullfillment Center, 4500 68th St SE, Grand Rapids, MI

Contact Communities and Postal Workers United at davestaiger@gmail.com or 269-548-8919

FB event


Mississippi
JACKSON, MS

12pm Rally

Whole Foods Market, 4500 I-55N, Jackson, MS

Contact Mississippi Rising Coalition at contactmsrising@gmail.com or 228-219-1548



New York
BROOKLYN, NY

1:00pm rally

Amazon Facility, 2300 Linden Blvd (corner of Linden Blvd and Essex)

Contact December 12 Movement at d12m@aol.com or 718-398-1766

NEW YORK CITY, NY

1:00pm rally

Across from Bezo-owned Whole Foods, Union Square

Initiated by Workers Assembly Against Racism – http://shutdownracism.org

Contact workersassemblyagainstracismnyc@solidaritymail.org or via Instagram at @waar.nyc



North Carolina
ASHEVILLE, NC
5:30pm – 6:30pm Rally and Leafletting

DRT4 Amazon Delivery Station, 394 Fanning Fields Rd, Mills River, NC 28759

Contact Emma Hutchens at emma@justeconomicswnc.org

Link

DURHAM

4:30pm – 5:30pm Rally and Leafletting

RDU5 Amazon Fulfillment Center at 1805 TW Alexander Dr, Durham, NC 27703

Contact Dante Strobino at 919-539-2051 or dante.strobino@ueunion.org



RALEIGH/GARNER, NC

5:15pm-6:30pm Rally and Leafletting

Amazon Distribution Center, 4851 Jones Sausage Road, Garner, NC 27529 (Meet near the North entrance at Calder St.)

Contact Lorri Nandrea at 715-303-8119 or raleighlaborwatch@gmail.com



CHARLOTTE, NC

4:00pm gather, 4:30pm rally, 5:00pm-6:00pm leafletting

Amazon Distribution Center, 10800 Old Dowd Rd, Charlotte, NC

Contact Ashley Hawkins at 704-773-9558 or aeh100clt@gmail.com



KERNERSVILLE, NC

4:30pm – 5:30pm rally

GSO1 Amazon Fulfillment Center at 1656 Old Greensboro Rd, Kernersville, NC 27284

Contact Tara Rose at 734-709-3411 or taramccomb@gmail.com


Ohio

CLEVELAND, OH

12:00pm rally

Site of future Amazon Hub, 10801 Madison, Cleveland OH 44102

Contact Martha Grevatt at 216-534-6435 or grevatt.m@gmail.com

FB event


Oregon

TROUTDALE, OR

1:00pm rally

Amazon PDX9 Fulfillment Center, 1250 NW Swigert Way, Troutdale, OR 97060

Contact amazonsolidarity@protonmail.com


Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA, PA

Rally at 2pm

Amazon Union Busting Law Firm, Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius at 1701 Market Street

Contact Scott Williams at 919-794-1429 or thescott0730@gmail.com

FB event


South Carolina
CHARLESTON, SC

1pm – 2pm Rally

Whole Foods, 1125 Savannah Hwy, Charleston, SC 29407

Contact Leonard Riley at 843-830-4471 or lrileyjr@comcast.net



COLUMBIA, SC

4:30pm Rally

Amazon Fulfillment Center – CAE1 near the airport, 4400 12 St. Ext. West, Columbia, SC 29172

Contact Lawrence Moore at 803-238-0331 or lawmoore74@gmail.com


Tennessee
NASHVILLE, TN

12pm Rally

Whole Foods on Broadway, 1202 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203

Contact Nashville Nonprofit Workers United at nwunashville@gmail.com

FB event

Texas
HOUSTON, TX

10:00am Rally and leafleting

Whole Foods, off Kirby Drive

Contact Mirinda Crissman at mirinda.crissman@gmail.com


Utah
SALT LAKE CITY, UT
2pm Picket

Whole Foods Market – Sugar House, 1131 Wilmington Ave, Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Contact Utah IWW at hello@utahiww.org



Virginia
CLEAR BROOK, VA

4:30pm – 6:00pm Rally and Leafletting

Amazon Fulfillment Center at 165 Business Blvd, Clear Brook, VA 22624

Contact Logan Davis (434) 964-7548 or lpdavis0529@gmail.com



CHESAPEAKE, VA

1PM rally

DOR1 Amazon FLEX Warehouse, 1920 Campostella Rd, Chesapeake, VA 23324

Contact Allie at experimental.allison@gmail.com



Washington
SEATTLE, WA
12pm Car caravan and bike brigade

Gather at The Amazon Spheres, 2111 7th Ave, Seattle, WA 98121

Contact Tax Amazon Coalition at danpkav@gmail.com or 816-868-0018
FB event

SEATTLE, WA
2pm Rally and march

Gather at Washington Multi-Family Housing Association, 711 Powell Ave SW, Renton, WA

Contact Solidarity with Amazon Workers Coalition at sleigh1917@gmail.com or 206-380-5823
FB event


Wisconsin
ASHLAND, WI
12pm Rally

Court House, 201 W Main St, Ashland, WI 54806

Contact Elise Kehle at ekehle1972@gmail.com
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:39 pm

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Amazon Changes Timing of Traffic Lights in Alabama Town to Derail Unionization Drive

February 18, 2021.- Online retail giant Amazon was so desperate to scuttle a unionization drive among warehouse workers in Alabama that it actually had traffic light times changed. A pro-union publication says it confirmed the rumors with the county.

Amazon actually reached out to Jefferson County to change the timing of the traffic lights near its Bessemer warehouse, the pro-worker publication More Perfect Union reported on Tuesday, citing a public official from the county who said the company had complained about “traffic delays during shift changes” in order to secure the light change.

Organizers had claimed for weeks that Amazon was deliberately messing with the timing of the lights in order to disrupt their efforts to unionize under the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), but the rumor was only confirmed this week.

Disrupting the traffic lights was particularly deadly to the organizing effort because the drive to the factory was one reliable place where union organizers could speak to workers uninhibited by US labor law, which applies once on the tech giant’s property and gives Amazon the right to forbid non-work conversations during work hours.

However, instead of a reliable red-light pause in which to engage in conversation, Amazon workers exiting the highway have been getting a green light, which not only gets them to work earlier but prevents even the most convivial worker from talking with union reps.

Even some veteran Amazon workers in Bessemer were taken aback at Amazon’s resistance to the union drive, which they characterized as unusually ferocious even for the virulently anti-union tech behemoth. Workers who spoke to More Perfect Union said that they were being “forced” into “anti-union meetings,” lied to about what could happen to employees who joined the union, and bombarded by anti-union messaging with up to five company-sent text messages a day and even flyers in the bathroom stalls.

The Bessemer employees began their seven-week voting period earlier this month on the decision of whether they will become the first American Amazon workers to join a union. Even at this early stage, their organizing efforts have come closer than any other group of Amazon workers to forming a viable union, and Amazon has appeared noticeably frazzled in its efforts to stamp them down, including questioning the integrity of the same kind of mail-in voting it had just months before championed in the US presidential election.

While the company’s endless advertising budget invariably paints it as a worker’s utopia in no need of unions, Amazon has come under fire in the public eye in recent months thanks to the record profits it has enjoyed due to the pandemic – and the reports of poor treatment of workers risking their lives to earn those profits for the company. Despite opening new warehouses and hiring hundreds of new workers on a daily basis, the profits have failed to visibly trickle down to the workers who actually pack and move the products filling the company’s ubiquitous brown boxes, and many have complained about punishing “productivity metrics” that are notoriously difficult for the company’s non-robotic employees to meet.

Other Amazon warehouses have won small victories, including very briefly forcing the megacorporation to add a $2 “hazard pay” increase to its warehouse workers’ meager pay for a few months, but should the Alabama workers win the fight to unionize, other warehouses are likely to follow in their path – an outcome Amazon clearly does not want.

Featured image: FILE PHOTO © Pixabay / WikimediaImages

https://orinocotribune.com/amazon-chang ... ion-drive/

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US Companies Using Pandemic as a Tool to Break Unions, Workers Claim
January 29, 2021

By Michael Sainato – Jan 26, 2021

Employers are alleged to be leveraging coronavirus-induced unemployment to mount an assault on collective bargaining.

Dalroy Connell has worked as a stagehand for the Portland Trailblazers since 1995 when the basketball team began playing games at the Rose Garden Arena. When the pandemic hit the US in March 2020, public events were shut down and NBA games were briefly suspended before the season moved to a “bubble” in Orlando, Florida, and the season recommenced without fans in July 2020.

Connell and his colleagues have been on unemployment ever since, but when the 2020-2021 NBA season began in December 2020, instead of bringing back several of these workers, the Portland Trailblazers replaced most of the unionized crew who work their games with non-union workers, even as their jobs running the sound and lighting equipment are required whether or not fans are in attendance.

Like many workers around the US Connell believes he has been locked out from his job by a company that has used the coronavirus pandemic as a tool to break unions.

the face,” said Connell. “They’re using positions in the house, people who already work there to do things we normally do.”

The workers’ union, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 28, has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board and held protests outside of Portland Trailblazers home games.

Connell alleged management at the Portland Trailblazers has frequently fought the union over the past several years, with the latest refusal to recall union workers an extension of this trend.

“Here we are wasting a ton of money on legal fees just to give a few guys some work. It’s a five-hour job. It’s so easy to work this out,” he added.

The Portland Trailblazers and Rip City Management did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Lockouts are work stoppages initiated by the employer in a labor dispute where the employer uses replacement workers.

Earlier in the pandemic, some employers resorted to conducting mass layoffs of workers after union organizing drives surfaced, such as at Augie’s Coffee Shop in California and Cort Furniture in New Jersey. Several workers have claimed they had been fired in retaliation due to worker organizing efforts by employers such as Amazon, Trader Joe’s and most recently Instacart. Now some employers are beginning to use lockouts as a tactic to seemingly suppress organizing efforts.

“Lockouts are an economic weapon employers use to take the initiative in collective bargaining,” said Alex Colvin, dean of the school of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. “During the pandemic, lockouts pose a greater threat to unions due to the high unemployment rate and greater availability of replacement workers.”

According to an analysis by Bloomberg Law, no employer lockouts were conducted in 2020 during the first several months of the pandemic, but after previous economic recessions in the US, lockouts rebounded as disputes over wages and benefits became more intense.

“The intent of many lockouts is to actually try to break the workers’ unions by showing that the union’s position has led to the loss of work, and the only way to restore work is through unconditional surrender,” said Moshe Z Marvit, a labor and employment lawyer and fellow at the Century Foundation.

In Los Angeles, California, dozens of workers at Valley Fruit and Produce represented by Teamsters Local 630 went on strike in May 2020 in protest of intimidation of union members and efforts to decertify the union during new contract negotiations.

Amid negotiations to end the strike and bring back workers, Valley Fruit and Produce replaced several workers with non-union members, while the union alleges workers who did return to work were coerced into signing declarations against the union.

The union is currently pursuing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board for the produce distribution company circumventing the union to directly negotiate with workers, in addition to several allegations of intimidation and harassment.

“Through their union buster lawyer, Valley Fruit talked to foremen to call workers on the picket line, using intimidation and scare tactics to get them back to work., When workers went back inside, they were forced to sign documents to say they didn’t want to be a part of the union any more,” said Carlos Santamaria, divisional representative for Teamsters Local 630.

“I’m disappointed in what Valley has done to all the workers,” said Rene Gomez, who worked at Valley Fruit and Produce for 21 years and has been locked out of his job since last year. “My family and I are having a hard time economically because of everything going on. We’ve gone to food banks. We’ve been stressed because we don’t know how we’re going to keep paying rent at the end of the month.”

Roberto Juarez, who has worked for Valley Fruit and Produce for six years before getting locked out of his job, argued the company has attempted to “destroy the union in the workplace”, through negotiating in bad faith by pushing for reduction in benefits, wage freezes, hiring union avoidance attorneys, while receiving between $2m and $5m in paycheck protection program loans from the federal government.

“When the pandemic started and hit hard, we never stopped working and we were working a lot of hours. We were exposing ourselves, coming to work, exposing our families, and they didn’t really care,” said Juarez.

Valley Fruit and Produce did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Earlier this month in Chicago, Illinois, the Chicago public schools district began locking out dozens of teachers who are being ordered to return in-person to schools, which have been conducting virtual learning since the pandemic hit the US in March 2020.

Kirstin Roberts, a preschool teacher at Brentano elementary math and science academy in Chicago, refused to return to in-person teaching due to unsafe working conditions, even as all of her students had opted to continue remote learning.

The city of Chicago remains under a stay-at-home advisory with travel restrictions in place to try to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. Chicago public schools threatened to declare teachers ordered to work in school buildings who do not show up as “absent without leave”, and docking their pay.

Teachers across Chicago and the Chicago Teachers Union held a virtual teach-in protest of a return to in-person teaching outside of the board of education president’s home on 13 January.

Roberts attended the protest and taught on Facebook live because she was locked out of her Chicago public schools Google account, banning her access to continue teaching her students remotely and shutting her out of her work email account.

“They’ve been trying to impose conditions on the workforce without input from the union,” said Roberts. “Even though we’re in the middle of a pandemic, Chicago public schools is willing to use our students, hurt our students, and deny students things they need like access to their teachers in a game to one-up the Chicago Teachers Union and that’s ridiculous.”

According to Chicago public schools, 87 teachers and staff are currently considered absent without leave, with an attendance rate of about 76% of school district employees in attendance who were expected to return to work in-person, not including employees who had an approved accommodation.

“We are grateful to the teachers and school-based staff who have returned to their classrooms, and we are continuing to meet regularly with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU),” said a spokesperson for Chicago public schools in an email.

Featured image: During the coronavirus pandemic, some employers have started to use lockouts as a tactic to suppress worker organizing efforts., Flickr

https://orinocotribune.com/us-companies ... ers-claim/

Funny how I gotta get this information from a Venezuelan site, not a peep on CNN.

Who needs government censorship when class interests does the same much less obtrusively? Small wonder the bosses prefer their bourgeois democracy...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:18 pm

7 lies Amazon tells about the union
Joyce ChediacMarch 2, 2021

Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... osts/91903

Image
Photo: Peoples Dispatch.

In a historic development, 5,800 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, are right now voting on whether to be represented by the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union. If the workers vote “yes,” it will be the first time that an Amazon facility in the U.S. is unionized.

Amazon, the world’s largest on-line retailer, recorded $386 billion in annual revenue in 2020, with net profits up 84% from the year before. Who makes these profits possible? Not Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and CEO. He doesn’t have to do a thing to fatten his net personal worth of $190 billion. It’s those who toil for Amazon in the warehouses and fulfillment centers, on the delivery routes, in the offices, that bring in the profits for Bezos and the Board of Directors.

This mega company can surely afford better salaries and benefits for these workers. Instead, Amazon is spending millions on a high-pressure anti-union campaign, assisted by a pricy union-busting law firm, Jackson Lewis.

Filthy rich, Amazon has even used its clout to get local authorities in Bessemer to shorten the time of stoplights outside of the plant so that union organizers can’t hand out pro-union literature to workers passing in their cars!

Amazon has forced workers to attend anti-union meetings, sends workers many anti-union text messages daily and even posted leaflet in bathroom stalls in a massive campaign of lies and intimidation to get workers to reject the union. Much of the company’s misinformation and outright lies can be found on its anti-union web site: doitwithoutdues.com

Here are some of Amazon’s lies about what unions are and what they do, and the truth.

Lie 1: Amazon already takes care of its workers. Amazon says “Why have a union, and pay union dues, when you already have what you need for free?

Truth: What? Workers at Bessemer, and at every Amazon warehouse and fulfillment center, complain of long work days, heavy lifting, speedup and aggressive tracking of workers so that there isn’t even enough time for lunch or for bathroom breaks in a 10-hour day. Taking time to walk down long halls to the bathroom can be held against them, and can even lead to termination. Work conditions are unsafe and unsanitary, COVID rates have been high due to lack of PPE. Workers can be fired for any reason. At Bessemer, workers have fainted due to lack of air conditioning in the hot Alabama summer.

Overtime is mandatory, and workers are told just hours before a mandatory overtime shift begins. Amazon calls itself “generous” for paying more than minimum wage. But this is still not a living wage, and not at all reflective of the amount of work done. And Amazon stopped its $2-an-hour pandemic bonus.

Lie 2: The union is an outside, third party.

Truth: Unions are not “outsiders.” They are made up of the workers at their job, coming together so they have more clout to better their lives. A union is the employees’ own organization. It is created and shaped by these workers.

Far from exploiting workers, unions are responsible for lessening their exploitation by the boss. Unions have won working people, the 40-hour work week, defining work over 40 hours as “overtime” with higher pay, paid holidays, vacations, sick days, family and medical leave, pensions, safety standards and more. During the pandemic, unions have secured PPE and negotiated safer working conditions.

Lie 3: Unions are profit-seeking businesses that exploit workers. Amazon calls a union “a business that makes money from dues collected from workers’ paychecks each month.”

Truth: The idea of unions being a for-profit businesses isn’t only false in practice, the legal definition of a union bars it from making profits. Under the law, unions are 501(c)5 non-profit organizations. Amazon is the for-profit business making billions by exploiting the workers.

Lie 4: Unions just want your dues. The first thing that happens when you join the union, says Amazon, is ‘they take almost $500 in dues, with no guarantees of any improvements!”

Truth: Monthly union dues (certainly not $500!) are not paid immediately. Union members pay dues only if the union successfully wins a contract, a contract that almost certainly would contain higher wages and better working conditions. In Alabama, even if the union is voted in, workers may decide not to join the union or pay any union dues at all. They would still benefit from a union-negotiated contract.

Dues fund union operations. Dues money is used for organizing, safety and health education, to produce informational newsletters on worker rights, for collective bargaining and grievance/arbitration representation, and to train union members and employees to better protect worker rights.

Lie 5: Union have no clout, and may make matters worse for workers. The company says, “Only Amazon can make commitments about hours, wages and benefits. With collective bargaining you may end up with more, the same, or less.”

Truth: Without a union, it’s just you and the company. By bringing workers together, unions have the strength to improve wages and conditions dramatically. Unions negotiate binding contracts with employers that spell out wages, benefits and working conditions, and hold the bosses to these agreements.

This is why, on the average, union workers earn 27 percent more than nonunion workers. Union women earn 34 percent more than nonunion women, African American union members earn 29 percent more than nonunion, Latino workers 59 percent more and Asian workers 11 percent more than their nonunion counterparts.

Union workers are 54 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions. More than 83 percent of union workers have jobs that provide health insurance benefits, while 62 percent of nonunion workers do.

Lie 6: If you vote in a union, you lose your voice. If “you have a problem, the union will decide whether to bring the issues to management,” says Amazon.

Truth: With a union you gain a voice. With or without a union, workers can always go to management by themselves with a problem. If a unionized worker feels they have been treated unfairly, they usually go to the union. Unionized workers have won a legal, contractual way to address mistreatment. A union provides workers with representation when dealing with the boss. Unions know the contract, labor laws, and what the boss can and cannot do.

Lie 7: Unions force you to go on strike, and you will not be paid by Amazon or be eligible for unemployment benefits.

Truth: Only the workers themselves can call a strike. Most union contracts require a super majority to go on strike. This means that nearly 4,000 of the 5,800 Amazon workers in Bessemer would have to vote to go on strike. Strikes can be useful when needed, but they are rare. Less than 2 percent of bargaining units go on strike. Unions have many effective and sophisticated ways of exerting pressure over issues of concern to the workers.

Graphic: RWDSU.

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https://www.liberationnews.org/7-lies-a ... rationnews

I remember when workers at the clothing manufacturing plant my father worked at attempted to organize. It was about 1966, in that plant at that time black workers were restricted to the loading dock. Men from the 'front office' went around and spoke to individual workers, explaining that if the union vote succeeded that black workers would work alongside of white workers. This was an implied affront to dignity and it worked, the organizing effort failed. Shameful. For the record this occurred in Baltimore.
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 05, 2021 1:37 pm

ORGANIZED LABOR’S 2021 AGENDA
Posted by Blair Bertaccini | Feb 28, 2021 | Featured Stories | 1

Organized Labor’s 2021 Agenda
BY BLAIR F. BERTACCINI
FEBRUARY 25, 2021

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This year presents organized labor and its allies with a very different arena of struggle compared with the last four years of the Trump administration. Biden pledged that he would institute a union agenda once in office and had a labor plank that certainly appeared to be written by the AFL-CIO. The Democratic Party now has a slim majority in the House of Representatives and a one vote majority in the Senate if all 50 Democrats vote together. That said, the labor movement should not let its agenda be driven by politics and parliamentary rules of the US Congress.

In 2020 the House passed the PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize Act) and the legislation has been reintroduced this year. For once the AFL-CIO and its allies in Congress have not been timid in presenting a legislative agenda. This legislation goes much further in advancing organized labor’s agenda than the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). If the PRO Act was to become law as presently written it would profoundly change the National Labor Relations Act and almost completely overturn the Taft-Hartley [Slave Labor] Act, as it was described by unions in 1947 when it was passed.

Among the pro labor laws it would institute are the following:

•It would codify the expanded joint employer rule implemented by regulation by the Obama DOL and then overturned by the Trump Administration

•Allow access to workplace email systems by unions for organizing and require employers to turn over contact information for all workers in the bargaining unit

•Make the ABC test* a federal requirement for determining who is an independent contractor vs an employee, which would make most workers doing work via software (Lyft, Uber, Doordash etc.) employees

•Right to work would be banned for private sector workers

•Forbid permanent replacement of striking workers -Expedited union certification election rules would be codified, reducing time between filing for an election and the election

•Frontline supervisors (ex. assistant managers) could be more easily included in bargaining units, often the true management duties of these workers are few or non-existent -End the prohibition of secondary boycotts by unions

•Give the NLRB the right to award liquidation up to twice the value of actual liquidated damages in awards to workers when employers violate the NLRB (back pay, front pay, consequential damages etc.)

These changes would give unions a much better opportunity to organize workers and expand the percentage of US workers under union contracts. One provision of the Act, making the ABC test a requirement for determining who is truly an independent contractor is more important than labor activists might realize. After California’s state legislature passed a law basically doing the same for their state, corporations using web based platforms to employ workers fought back successfully with a $200 million campaign to overturn the law through referendum with Proposition 22. Some states already give companies wide leeway in classifying workers as independent contractors. This abuse was widespread in construction, transportation, janitorial services, beauty salons, landscaping and house cleaning even before Lyft, Uber, Doordash et al. got involved in the racket. These companies are now taking their campaign to other states in order to solidify their advantage. Without federal legislation unions and workers’ rights advocate will have to fight a state by state battle.

Nationwide use of the ABC would end most of this misclassification and would make it easier for these workers to organize into unions. Opposition to the PRO Act’s passage will be massive from corporate interests and the GOP and might even include some Democrats. Because of this the only way it could achieve passage in the US Senate would be to end the filibuster otherwise 60 votes will be needed. Even if the Democrats had that many votes passage would not be assured given the corporate orientation of many Democrats. This legislation will need a lot of street action on the part of the AFL-CIO and independent unions. Traditional lobbying and “clickism” will not turn the tide in favor of workers.

When EFCA was the legislation pushed by the AFL-CIO and its allies during the Obama administration organized labor showed little ability or desire to educate its members on the necessity of organizing and expanding union density and then bringing them into the struggle in their workplaces and the streets. This will be required for passage of the PRO Act. It will be a struggle of many years to accomplish, but without upping the level of struggle now when passage in the Senate seems a mountain too high we will never reach the summit.

Currently union density is much greater in the public sector than the private sector despite many states still not allowing public sector workers the ability to bargain union contracts. To change this situation union allies in Congress are sponsoring the Public Sector Freedom to Negotiate Act (PSFNA). This legislation if passed would mandate the following in every state in the US:

•Union recognition if supported by a majority of workers

•Collective bargaining for wages, hours and terms of employment

•Access to a dispute resolution mechanism

•Voluntary payroll deduction of dues

•The right to engage in concerted activities related to collective bargaining and material aid

•End requirements of repeated recertification elections

•The ability to file suits in court to enforce labor rights

There is a companion piece of legislation entitled the Public Safety Employer & Employee Cooperation Act which provides for collective bargaining rights for firefighters and law enforcement personnel.

The legislation does not give public employees the right to strike which is denied in most states where they can organize into unions. Most unions that represent public employees are reluctant to push for this right and seem content with some type of binding arbitration process which is often stacked against unions and whose awards can be rejected by the employer but not the union. Binding arbitration and the denial of the right to strike denies workers the most effective weapon they have to defend themselves and win good contracts. The teachers’ strikes in the right to work states of West Virginia, Arizona and Oklahoma a few years ago show that the right to strike is usually won by striking not by lobbying to change the law. Rank and file action and solidarity won victories in those strikes which were all illegal.

Unions need to rebuild the ability to win victories at the work site through job actions and organizing rather than depend on grievances, unfair labor practice charges and arbitration. Those methods of challenging the boss demobilize members because the arena of struggle becomes small meetings between union staff and employer representatives with perhaps the involvement of a few members while the rest of the membership awaits a decision. Indeed they will need these abilities to get both the PSFN and PRO Acts passed. If the labor movement wants to end its slide to oblivion it must learn to truly develop the power of collective action and then get these laws passed so they can regain density and power for workers.



*ABC test establishes three criteria for determining if a worker is an employee or independent contractor for the hiring entity:

A) The worker must be free from the direction and control from the hiring entity in the performance of work
B) The work must be outside the usual course of business of the hiring entity
C) The worker must be customarily in an independent established trade, occupation or business and of the same nature of the work performed for the hiring entity
In some states in which this test is codified, usually in unemployment law, the worker must pass all three criteria otherwise they must be classified as an employee.

https://mltoday.com/organized-labors-2021-agenda/
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:44 pm

Class Struggle: How Workers in Different Countries Fight for Their Rights
03/13/2021
Chronicle of protest

“ Strikes always instill such terror in the capitalists because they begin to shake their domination. " V.I. Lenin

The systemic crisis of capitalism is intensifying. This is reflected in higher prices, cuts in social spending, lower wages and increased exploitation of workers. And while the capitalists, together with the officials of the bourgeois states, are getting richer, buying themselves more and more yachts and villas, the situation of the common working people is deteriorating. But this does not mean that workers around the world will simply watch as they are robbed. They are fighting for their rights and a decent life! Independent trade unions and strikes - these are the weapons of the proletariat! Let's take a look at the experience of the struggle of our comrades.

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Russia and the post-Soviet space. The working class wakes up from sleep
The crisis of capitalism hits everyone. And in Russia as well. Under these conditions, when the already unenviable position of the Russian workers began to deteriorate even more, the workers began to realize the community of their proletarian interests and began to defend their rights much more actively, to go on strike.

A vivid example of the struggle of the Volgograd construction workers of sewage treatment plants on Golodny Island in December 2020 is characteristic . Employees received less wages, they were not given winter overalls, which endangered the health and lives of workers. In addition to everything in the head office of JSC "Aquatic" they were called "quitters". On December 16, workers went on strike.

It is noteworthy that the very next day the prosecutor's office arrived on the island together with the company's management. The bold tone of the management, which had just called the workers "quitters", was abruptly replaced by a respectful one. Representatives of JSC "Aquatic" promised to fulfill the requirements of workers for the payment of wages and the issuance of overalls. One had only to put a little pressure on him.

Transport workers are also on strike in the city of Kholmsk on Sakhalin . The workers of the MUP Housing and Communal Services "Master" were delayed with their wages for December and they sent a collective letter to the administration of the enterprise and the city with a threat to start a strike on January 22.

The next day, the buses still went on the line on schedule. The money for December was paid to some of the workers in the evening of January 21, the rest were promised to be paid on January 22. It is not the first time that problems with the workforce have occurred. Workers have already gone on strike over wage delays and poor working conditions. It remains only to guess where and to whom the money of a transport company in one of the largest cities of Sakhalin goes.

A similar story happened in Saransk , where employees of the Gorelectrotrans enterprise went on strike several times. In the end, they got their way. The wage arrears were paid off , and an administrative case was initiated against the head of Gorelektrotrans on the fact of violation of labor legislation. It is obvious that the fear of public outcry and the possible losses from this prompted the city authorities and the prosecutor's office to take more decisive actions in relation to the management of the enterprise.

Continuing the theme of strikes of drivers, it is necessary to mention the events taking place in Kazakhstan, neighboring Russia . Drivers of the state-owned utility company Almaty Su (Vodokanal) have gone on strike to raise wages and set working hours. A similar situation occurred in Semey , where the drivers of the SemeyBus LLP vehicle fleet did not come to work, complaining about the lack of salaries.

Collage: clenched fists against the background of the flag of Kazakhstan
Kazakh miners are on strike in gold fields, as well as workers in the oil industry. For example, the workers of KMK Munai announced the beginning of a strike from January 25, demanding a 100% increase in wages . A little later, on January 29, they were supported by the employees of the AMK Munai company , making the same demands. And the owner was forced to make concessions. The management of the company agreed to fulfill the demands of the workers.

The Ukrainian proletarians also make their enormous contribution to the development of the labor movement. This is how miners' strikes have become more frequent in Ukraine lately . The Ukrainian government planned to start paying wage arrears from December 20. UAH 1.4 billion was allocated from the budget for these purposes .

But the problem was not resolved. And the miners protested. Somewhere strikes began, but somewhere they continued. To draw attention to the problem, workers at uranium mines in the Kirovograd region took a decisive step. They blocked the roads to Kiev , Krivoy Rog and Nikolaev .

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Miners of the Kirovograd region blocked the roads / Photo: Facebook.com

The three-day blocking of the routes yielded results: the miners were paid off their wage arrears and promised to resume the work of the mines after the new year. The roads have been unblocked .

This is not the first time that the organized and decisive actions of Ukrainian workers are forcing oligarchs and officials to make concessions. In Ukraine, plundered and methodically destroyed by capitalists, both under Yanukovych and under Poroshenko and Zelenskiy , the lives of ordinary workers fell almost to the level of poor Asian or South American countries. This could not but evoke a response from the working class. Now all over Ukraine there are protests for one reason or another (from the latter - protests against the increase in utility rates ). Miners and factory workers are on strike throughout the country. The state is trying to put pressure on workers through legal proceedings, trying to intimidate the protesters.But the team is difficult to break when the team is organized .

Not only industrial workers are fighting, but also social workers. The problems of Ukrainian medicine are similar to those in Russia: “optimization”, meager salaries, and dismissal of doctors. And all this in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic.

In the Lviv region of Ukraine, the staff of the KNP ENT "Rehabilitation Hospital No. 3" went on a hunger strike . For almost a year now, the institution has been in an idle state and medical workers receive only 66% of the tariff rate.

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Nurses on hunger strike / Photo from the portal lviv.24tv.ua

After almost two days, the management decided to partially withdraw the medical facility from the downtime. Although hunger strikes are not the most effective (and dangerous) method of protest, they can also be used to achieve success and draw attention to an issue.

However, workers are not always aware of how to properly defend their rights. Many still hope for the "good tsar" Putin to be able to solve their problems. Employees of the transport enterprise " Gorodishchenskoye PATP " in the Penza region thought so too . They sent a video message to the president with a request to pay off wage arrears. And they were paid. However, they immediately felt the repression from the management of the enterprise, and all workers were laid off .

What conclusion can be drawn from this? The strength of the workers lies in unity and organization. To effectively fight for their rights, employees must be clearly aware that they have common goals and interests. The only organization capable of defending the interests of workers is the trade union of these very workers. Neither the president nor the local princelings will really defend their rights. Because they are links of the same chain, gears of the same mechanism called capitalism . The owner will always seek to infringe on the rights of the workers. If the workers are disorganized, if each of them thinks only of himself, if they are not ready to defend their rights, they will always lose. The task of the entire proletariat is to change this and to rebuff the capitalists .

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Of course, not all labor conflicts can be described here. Not all of them end in victory for the workers. But the fact remains unchanged that the working people, who are fighting for their interests in an organized manner, declaring strikes, standing for each other, are a force that is hard to break. When a workers' union goes on strike, it greatly increases the chances of success and forces the capitalist to make concessions.

Nowadays, the working class of the post-Soviet space is just beginning to realize its class interests. But, since the capitalist crisis hits the working people especially hard, leaving them without work and livelihood, the wave of protest and strike is growing rapidly.

Putin's "stability" collapsed like a house of cards at the very first collapse in oil prices. This encourages workers to unite and force employers to respect the basic rights of workers to wages, work clothes and rest (you can recall the sensational strike of Delivery Club couriers in Moscow demanding payment of wages and concluding permanent employment contracts). Spontaneous, separate trade union organizations arise almost every day. And every day there are strikes.

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Delivery Club couriers strike in Moscow

The workers still have many tasks to unite with each other, but sooner or later the workers' struggle will lead to the creation of national trade unions and to defend their rights at the level of the entire country .

Labor movement of foreign countries
Workers in Europe, Asia and America are also experiencing the capitalist crisis. Moreover, the working people of Europe and the United States, who for a long time had a high standard of living and almost instantly found themselves in difficult conditions, are again raising a wave of regional and national protests and strikes. In the USA , France , Germany , Great Britain - strikes of workers in the engineering, chemical, processing industries, and transport. In Poland - protests against the government's conservative policy to abolish abortion. Across Europe as a whole - medical workers' strikes.

India , Thailand , Indonesia , Nigeria , Chile , Peru , Ecuador - the class contradictions between the proletariat and capital are growing all over the world. All conflicts cannot be listed, but let's look at the main ones.

France
This country, considered one of the standards of liberal democracy, known for its perfumery, clothes, cars, stands out brightly from the rest by another factor - a developed trade union, labor movement. Many remember the Yellow Vests protests in 2018 . Then a huge number of people went to the processions in Paris and many other cities in France. Organized and decisive action by the working class forced the Macron government to goto dialogue with the working people and, at least partially, to yield by temporarily freezing fuel prices. Even if this was not a complete victory for the workers, nevertheless, the French workers showed that they are strong and will be reckoned with. Were it not for the powerful solidarity of the working people in France, who acted as a united front and staged a national strike, the state would never have made concessions to the population.

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Procession of "yellow vests" through the streets of Paris

For a while, the situation calmed down, but then a systemic crisis broke out along with a pandemic. And under these conditions, the bourgeois government of France, unable to cope with either the epidemic or the economic recession, began to tighten the screws more strongly. New laws were passed on holding rallies and demonstrations, which curtailed the rights of the population. The state, in order to compensate for the budget deficit, began to privatize state-owned enterprises and cut spending on the social sphere. French paid medicine was not able to effectively solve the problems that had arisen, as a result of which doctors suffered, whose rallies were dispersed by the police. Private companies, in turn, losing their profits, decided to save money. Who would you think on? Workers! Mass layoffs and worsening working conditions and wage cuts began.

All this could not remain without some kind of response from the workers. In addition to street protests (including over new laws to expand police powers ), unions went on strike. At first, the strikes were of a local nature. But soon the trade union organizations cooperating with the French Communist Party , which played a significant role in organizing strikes and defending the interests of workers, announced a nationwide strike.

On February 4, 2021, a nationwide trade union strike took place in France due to increased layoffs and worsening working conditions. In many cities across the country, people demonstrated.



Nationwide strike on February 4, 2021
The struggle of the working people of France continues. Their organization, solidarity and determination can be envied. Many of our working people have a lot to learn from the French workers. After all, their experience is a positive example of the struggle against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, clearly showing that the capitalists and their state are not omnipotent. One way or another, they will have to reckon with the interests of the proletariat.

India
Now let's look at the opposite side of Eurasia - India . It is a country with a large and rapidly growing population. They like to say about India that it is one of the leading countries in terms of economic development. The rapid growth of production is carried out due to the transfer of production of large corporations to countries with cheap labor (which is India). This is true, but at the same time the problems of Indian workers, as a rule, are omitted or mentioned in passing. Meanwhile, the problems there are huge.

The Indian government provides business with favorable conditions: benefits and expansion of the rights of corporations on the territory of the state, changes in labor legislation in favor of business (for example, increasing the length of the working day and restricting the rights of trade unions, turning a blind eye to the violation of labor laws by corporations by corporations, etc.).

And Indian workers are extremely poor. Many do not even have enough funds for basic things, food and clothing. There is practically no social provision of medicine and education for the majority of the country's population. The level of religiosity is very high, both from the Hindu and Muslim sides. In society, prejudice and the use of "traditional methods" of treatment are widespread: shamanism, herbs, quackery and other "effective" methods.

Despite this, the labor movement is also widespread and strong in India. Trade unions are organized and functioning. There are national trade union organizations. In many regions, the influence of communist parties (both parliamentary and non-systemic) is strong, and some states are even ruled by communists.

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Strike under the flags of the Communist Party of India

With the onset of the crisis, the situation of Indian workers deteriorated even further. Due to the lack of medical care, the mortality rate from the coronavirus is high. Unemployment began to rise rapidly, and the far-right government of Narendra Modi began to tighten the screws. Labor laws began to change again in favor of corporations. Police powers expanded and pressure on trade unions began. This led to sporadic protests and clashes with the police. Population discontent grew. However, the final straw was a new business support bill that hit Indian peasants, as well as new plans to privatize factories and lay off workers. This caused a storm of popular anger, and the largest strike in history began .
On November 26, a nationwide strike took place in India . More than 250 million Indian workers and farmers took to the streets . This protest has already become the largest in the history of mankind. A large part of the Indian population went on strike against measures to support local businesses.
The call for a large-scale action across the country came from 10 central trade unions and dozens of independent federations. At the same time, a platform of over 300 farmers' organizations called for a two-day protest.

Indian workers and farmers went on strike to protest the anti-popular policies of the far-right government of Narendra Modi . The protests were attended by societies advocating for women's rights, student circles and other civic associations. All of them are dissatisfied with the introduced austerity regime and plans for the privatization of enterprises.

In addition, the Modi government is going to simplify the procedure for dismissing employees. And this is happening just at a time when the unemployment rate is still high due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the country's GDP has contracted by a record 23% . Workers and farmers also demanded an increase in the minimum wage, the minimum purchase price for crops, and the repeal of adopted agricultural laws.

The strike took place despite strong police pressure. Water cannons were used against the strikers, they were beaten with truncheons. To counteract the movement, the crowd blocked the roads to Delhi (the capital of India, where the protesters were heading), but the people broke through the blockade and successfully entered the city.

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Indian farmers clash with police

As the General Secretary of the Center for Indian Trade Unions ( CITU ) Tapan Sen put it : “ … Today's strike is just the beginning. It will be followed by a much more intense struggle . "

After that, the struggle did not subside. Indian workers and peasants went on strike throughout December. They were joined by Indian doctors, who are unhappy with another government bill on the "merger" of modern medicine with alternative forms of treatment (the same shamans and healers who, according to the government's decision, are now allowed to perform complex surgical operations to cut out tumors, amputations, etc.) ...

The struggle of the Indian workers with the capitalists plundering them continues. The outcome of the battle will be successful or not - time will tell. Nevertheless, the workers and peasants of India showed the whole world that they are capable of giving battle to the state with its anti-popular laws, that they are able to unite and will not remain silent. The proletariat of India will become an example of organization and conscientiousness for the working people of the whole world.

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Conclusion, conclusions

As the capitalist crisis develops, the bourgeois states will tighten the screws more strongly, accelerate the privatization of property and adopt more anti-people laws, protecting the interests of the oligarchs. Unemployment and prices will rise, wages and benefits will decline. The exploitation of workers will increase. The population will lose purchasing power, which is why many who have loans and mortgages for housing will not be able to pay them back. This will lead, and already leads, to the eviction of debtors from their place of residence. States will unleash wars and stir up interracial and ethnic strife in the interests of the oligarchs. And ordinary workers of any nationality will suffer from this.

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Poster "The goal of capitalism is always the same ..."

It is in the interests of the working people of all countries of the world to stop this. And only in their power to resist it.
“ No one will give us deliverance, neither God, nor the king, nor the hero!
We will achieve liberation with our own hand! ".
The mood of protest in the world will grow. But it is necessary that the workers realize the community of their class interests. It is necessary to unite in independent trade union organizations. History and practice have shown that the bourgeoisie is afraid of strikes like fire. The bourgeoisie is afraid of workers' self-government. The bourgeoisie is afraid of the workers' councils.

The capitalists will try with all their might to suppress the protest of the working people, they will hold on to their rule to the last. But the workers must not give up. Only by force can one win this struggle.

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Protest in Chile

Today workers around the world are actively fighting for their rights. Somewhere more successful, somewhere less. But the fact of the necessity of this struggle is only being confirmed. With the strengthening of class contradictions, the proletariat in all countries will more and more actively put forward economic and political demands, bringing closer the victory of socialism over capitalism.

The article uses materials from the following communities:
ZabastCom
Russian United Labor Front
Union of Marxists

https://www.rotfront.su/klassovaya-borb ... -raznyh-s/

Google Translator
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 19, 2021 1:58 pm

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March 20: Actions Planned Across the South in Solidarity with Bessemer Amazon Workers


Last night, Southern Workers Assembly co-coordinator Saladin Muhammad spoke alongside Hammer & Hoe author and Alabama labor historian Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley on a national webinar about the BAmazon union struggle.

The webinar focused on the central role that Black workers in the South have played throughout history in leading forward the struggles for unions, against racism, and for broader social change. You can rewatch it here.

Today, the nearly 6,000 workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who are fighting to form the first U.S. union at Amazon have stepped onto the mantle of history, building upon these historical struggles and playing a leading role in the working class movement today.

As the voting period nears a close on March 29, continued solidarity efforts will be critical, not only to what unfolds in the coming weeks, but to develop this movement that has emerged from and around the struggle in Bessemer into a broader program to deepen our work to Organize the South.

To that end, the Southern Workers Assembly is encouraging Southern worker activists to join demonstrations planned this Saturday, March 20, near you. If you are planning to attend an action, bring SWA signs and literature with you.

If there is not an activity planned, consider calling one at an Amazon-owned location - such as Whole Foods - in your area. Find a list of planned activities below or on our website here.
https://southernworker.us7.list-manage. ... e97cb486aa

If you're planning an action in your area, please email us at info@southernworker.org so we can get it listed.

You can find and print signs, leaflets and other materials to bring with you to demonstrations on our site as well.

Victory to the Bessemer workers! Organize the South!

Support the Southern Workers Assembly - make a donation here https://southernworker.us7.list-manage. ... e97cb486aa
Southern March 20 Actions


Alabama
BIRMINGHAM, AL

10am – 1pm: Community Canvass

1pm BAmazon Day of Action

2pm – 5pm: Community Canvass

RWDSU Union Hall, 1901 10th Ave South, Birmingham, AL 35205

Contact Birmingham DSA at bhamdsa@gmail.com

RSVP here


Arkansas
FAYETTEVILLE, AR

1:30pm Rally

Whole Foods, 3425 N College Ave, Fayetteville, AR 72703

Contact NWA Socialist Alternative at arkansasSA@gmail.com

FB event



Florida
PENSACOLA, FL

*March 21* 2pm Rally

Amazon Hub, 8792 Ely Rd, Pensacola, FL 32514

Contact Workers World Party – Central Gulf Coast at not.devin.cole@gmail.com

FB event


Georgia
ATLANTA, GA

12pm Rally

Gather at the intersection of N. Commerce and Camp Creek Parkway (across from Camp Creek Mall), East Point, GA

Initiated by ATL Amazon Workers Solidarity Network, Atlanta-N. Georgia Labor Council, Atlanta Coalition of Black Trade Unionists

Contact ATL Amazon Workers Solidarity Network at atlanta@supportamazonworkers.org



North Carolina
DURHAM, NC

1pm Rally

Meet at 1pm and Park at 2945 S. Miami Blvd Shopping Center, Durham, NC

1:30pm – Rally at 1805 TW Alexander Dr, Durham, NC

Contact Dante Strobino at dantestrobino@gmail.com or 919-539-2051

FB event



KERNERSVILLE, NC

5:30pm Rally

Amazon Warehouse, 1656 Old Greensboro Rd, Kernersville, NC 27284

Contact Winston-Salem DSA at taramccomb@gmail.com or 734-709-3411



South Carolina
CHARLESTON, SC

1pm – 2pm Rally

Whole Foods, 1125 Savannah Hwy, Charleston, SC 29407

Contact Leonard Riley at 843-830-4471 or lrileyjr@comcast.net



COLUMBIA, SC

4pm Rally

Whole Foods, 702 Cross Hill Road, Columbia, SC 29205

Contact Lawrence Moore at 803-238-0331 or lawmoore74@gmail.com



Texas
DALLAS, TX

1pm Rally

1301 Chalk Hill Road, Dallas, TX

Contact North Texas Socialist Alternative at socialistaltntx@gmail.com or 774-264-1364

FB event



HOUSTON, TX

1pm Rally & Picket

Amazon Delivery Station, S Lockwood and Munger St, Houston, Texas 77019

Contact Socialist Alternative Houston at socialistalternativehouston@gmail.com or 281-635-5286

FB event



HOUSTON, TX

*Sun, March 21* 12pm Picket

Whole Foods, 701 Waugh Drive, Houston, Texas 77019

Contact Workers World Party – Houston at houston@workers.org or 713-503-2633

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SAN ANTONIO, TX

12pm Picket

Whole Foods @ the Quarry, 255 E Basse Rd, San Antonio, Texas

Contact Teresa Gutierrez at teresalatejana@gmail.com
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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:42 am

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With 5 days remaining until voting for union representation in Bessemer, Alabama ends, the solidarity continues to pour in from across the globe.
The March 20 coordinated day of solidarity concluded with 53 actions in cities across the United States and Canada. See photos and videos from many of these actions posted to the front page of our website here. If you have photos from actions in your city, please be sure to send them to info@supportamazonworkers.org.
Many unions and labor federations around the world marked this international day of action by holding actions or sending solidarity messages via social media and email. They sent a critical message to the majority Black workers fighting to form the first Amazon union in the U.S.: The eyes of the world are on Bessemer and a growing movement is behind the workers there!

Two days after March 20, upwards of 30,000 Amazon workers in Italy conducted the first national strike affecting every aspect of the corporations' supply chain there. Many of the demands raised by workers in Italy center on the pandemic-related increases in orders being place through Amazon, placing inhumane workloads on warehouse and delivery drivers alike - echoing many of the same issues raised by Amazon workers in the U.S. and in other parts of the world.

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In addition to putting forward their own struggles during the 24 hour work stoppage on March 22, workers in Italy also raised solidarity with workers in Bessemer. The banner pictured below was raised in Piacenza, Italy. (Source: UNI Global Union)

While it remains to be seen what will happen after March 29, one thing is certain - the workers in Bessemer have inaugurated a new period worker struggle that is only just beginning.
If you have reports to share from your area on March 20 or other actions, worker organizing taking place among Amazon or other workers, or other ideas about how to continue to build this movement, we'd love to hear from you at info@supportamazonworkers.org.
Be on the lookout in the days and weeks ahead for more information and calls to action to continue to rally solidarity around the workers in Bessemer following the end of the voting period there.

Victory to BAmazon Union!

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Sat Mar 27, 2021 2:20 pm

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Amazon Plays Dirty in Bessemer Union Drive: Mass Solidarity Needed
ByRebecca Green -March 25, 2021447

Everyone knew that Amazon would fight the union drive in one of its fulfillment centers in Bessemer, Alabama. But the company’s union-busting tactics are drawing more scrutiny as the final days for workers to mail in ballots draw near. Vote counting starts at the end of March, and Amazon will likely use every trick in the book to challenge ballots from union supporting workers to drag the union drive into the courts and delay a final ruling until late April.

The deep south has a long history of voter suppression, one which Birmingham, and Bessemer know too well. Amazon’s tampering and voter intimidation in the union election for a majority Black workforce hits close to home. Reverend William J. Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign speaking about the union drive on March 22 said:

“The union fight and the fight for voting rights and the fight against voter suppression is the same fight. Because all of those fights are fights to bring Black, white, brown, Asian, Native, and poor, low-wealth people together in the south… segregation was a political strategy employed by the wealthy interests of the south to keep the southern masses of Black and white folk divided so that they could keep the labor cheap.”

Amazon’s Dirty Tricks
After months of workers and Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) organizers collecting cards from 1,800 employees at the warehouse to authorize a union vote, they reached the needed threshold to file with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in early January 2021. The NLRB responded saying there were actually 5,800 workers in the warehouse, which came as an enormous surprise. Amazon had expanded the pool of workers in the potential bargaining unit at the last minute by doing the unprecedented: they hired thousands of new employees in a 60-day window. Amazon’s strategy was to dilute the pool and make it harder for the union drive to reach a 51% YES vote. Showing the anger within the workplace and resolve of leading workers, the union collected the necessary cards and filed anyway, kickstarting the campaign.

Amazon then fought to delay the vote. Initially they opposed the union’s demand for a mail-in election amidst a deadly spike in the pandemic, but the NLRB rejected their appeal. As RWDSU staffers and workers stood at the warehouse gates every day, and workers began the process of agitating for a “yes” vote on the shop floor. In the meantime, Amazon hired union busting consultants from the infamous Morgan Lewis law firm to devise their plan. A February disclosure showed that Morgan Lewis was charging Amazon $3,200 per consultant per day.

Once the voting period started, Amazon ramped up a slanderous campaign against the union, urging workers to vote as early as possible in an attempt to guarantee they voted before they had a chance to hear from the union or pro-union workers. Amazon hung massive “Vote” signs in front of the facility, bought massive billboards along the highway to the warehouse, and sent texts telling workers to vote by March 1 – almost four full weeks before the last day workers actually had to mail in ballots.

In the warehouse itself, bathroom stalls and break rooms are plastered with anti-union messaging. Workers are regularly forced to attend captive audience, anti-union brainwashing meetings that employers frequently use during unions drives. In these “meetings” anti-union managers and consultants rail against the union with lies and misinformation. The company even got the city of Bessemer to change the traffic light patterns in front of the warehouse to give union organizers less time to talk to workers coming to and from shifts at the red light.

In the middle of the night, the day after voting started in February, a mailbox mysteriously appeared in the warehouse parking lot. Amazon sent a text claiming that this was installed by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), but it doesn’t have any USPS markings and the USPS refuses to answer questions or claim ownership of the box. Workers are rightly suspicious. Who has the keys? As with every inch of property Amazon owns, a camera is carefully trained on the mailbox. While many details about the mailbox remain unclear, it has peaked workers’ fear of surveillance and raised more concerns about foul play.

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Union Busting Veterans

This isn’t Amazon’s first union busting rodeo. In 2014 and 2015, a drive with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to unionize 30 facilities technicians at a warehouse in Chester, Virginia was defeated. Amazon used incessant surveillance of workers, threats, and regularly told workers that it would be futile to vote for the union. While they denied breaking any labor laws, in a settlement with federal regulators Amazon promised they would rigorously obey labor laws in the future. A leading organizer in the drive, Bill Hough, was fired six months later. Corporations like Amazon cannot be trusted to uphold the law, and too often when they do break the law, the only consequence is a slap on the wrist.

Ideally for Amazon, organizing efforts are stopped before they even get to talks about a union. Amazon threatened and retaliated against workers in Queens, New York who opposed the company’s handling of the pandemic last year. They instructed workers to not organize without first notifying the company, interrogated those involved in a walkout, and threatened to discipline anyone talking about the protests on the job.

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Workers walked out at JFK8 when Amazon decided to keep the facility open after a confirmed COVID case.

Union Drive Voter Suppression

The vote count in an NLRB union election works differently from electing a mayor. Under COVID the count will happen via Zoom. Each ballot will be held up and shown to cameras with representatives from both the union and Amazon, concealing only the actual “yes” or “no” vote. Amazon and the union both have the chance to challenge each ballot if signatures don’t look right, bubbles aren’t filled out correctly, or any number of far-fetched reasons that Amazon’s well paid lawyers will argue make the ballot unacceptable. This means that the initial count could drag out as long as two weeks.

Amazon and their anti-union consultants have kept careful track of who supports the union and who is considered “loyal” to Amazon. During anti-union meetings, dissenting workers have had their IDs scanned by the company. Managers are reportedly patrolling the warehouse with clipboards asking workers how they voted. Amazon will likely challenge the ballots of anyone they think will have voted yes using all their thorough data collection and surveillance.

The anti-union lawyers and consultants will aim to drag this process out as long as they possibly can. Amazon is well aware of the national attention and pressure that has been mounting, and the potential for a victory to rapidly rip through other warehouses across the country. Challenging ballots, voter intimidation, and blatantly illegal practices will kick the process to the NLRB. After potentially weeks of the initial count, challenged ballots will then be reassessed and accepted or rejected, which would drag out the process even further into late April.

Amazon’s goal in all of this will be to demoralize workers both in Bessemer and nationally and slow down the momentum that is gathering. We can’t let them get away with this. In the face of Amazon’s union-busting and stalling tactics, our message should be that the fight must continue.

Voter Suppression in Alabama
Alabama, and its Black residents in particular, are no strangers to voter suppression. Alabama brought the lawsuit in 2013 that gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act; Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder decided that it was unconstitutional to require states to seek clearance for changes in voting laws before adopting them, opening the floodgates for a new round of restrictive laws that specifically suppress the Black vote. Alabama is one of 11 states that does not offer early voting, and one of 11 that requires a witness or notary to sign absentee ballots. After the 2013 ruling, Alabama established restrictive voter ID requirements, closed driver’s license offices and polling locations (disproportionately in majority Black areas), and purged voter rolls.

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Residents from Alabama stand in line outside the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder

Slavery, Jim Crow Laws, segregation, and racism were always used by the white ruling class to keep Black and white workers divided and unorganized, thereby keeping labor cheap. This legacy included voter suppression, where the constitutional delegates in Alabama in the early 1900s implemented a poll tax, literacy test, and property requirements to specifically disenfranchise Black and poor white voters. Jeff Bezos and Amazon are continuing in this legacy of capitalist greed that has always seen Black and white workers uniting around shared interests as a fundamental threat to their power.

As Reverend Barber stated, “We told Jeff Clark to call off the dogs on Selma. We need you [Amazon] to call off these union-busting dogs. We need you to call off these union-busting people that you have hired that are trying to stop people from voting. If it’s an insult anywhere, it’s surely an insult in Alabama.”

What is Coming for BAmazon?

Just like the battle for voting rights in the south, winning a union at BHM1 will take a drawn out battle. Amazon was never going to give up easily. In an estimated 54% of union elections with large bargaining units in the U.S. employers are charged with violating federal law. U.S. companies spend around $340 million a year on consultants to crush union drives. Amazon is no different, and if anything, even worse than average.

The union election process itself is always stacked against workers. The same bosses that employ union busting tactics on the shop floors are in the ears of politicians who craft and amend labor law. The NLRB itself is appointed by the President, and right now three out of four members are Trump appointees with no union experience and long corporate resumes.

Trump’s NLRB delayed union elections during the early months of the COVID pandemic, told regional labor board directors to dismiss COVID-related cases, and even ruled that employers have no obligation to bargain over paid sick leave, hazard pay, or temporary pandemic closures. The board also bolstered employers’ ability to change the size of bargaining units, which was explicitly weaponized in the Bessemer Amazon union drive.

The courts, including those overseen by local and national labor boards, have never been favorable terrain for the working class. Our laws, both labor and otherwise, were not written by ordinary workers like those at the Bessemer Amazon warehouse, but by the billionaire class and the politicians they control. Worker power and deep organizing on the shop floor will be the key ingredients to overcome unfavorable laws, rebuild the labor movement, take on the bosses, and win.

The most effective strategy to bring this union drive through to a win is to deepen organizing on the shop floor in Bessemer while preparing the ground to, if necessary, go all out to oppose Amazon’s voter suppression. If it is clear when ballot counting starts that Amazon intends to arbitrarily challenge ballots of union supporters and use delay tactics, pressure should be immediately mounted. Protests should be organized at Amazon’s corporate offices first and foremost, followed by actions at fulfillment centers and other Amazon or Whole Foods locations across the country. For this to have the biggest impact on the company and the NLRB, Amazon workers, both in Bessemer and nationally, will need to play the leading role.

Around a hundred union members in LA stormed the offices of Amazon’s union busting firm Morgan Lewis on Tuesday, 3/23 chanting “union busting is disgusting.” This was after a national day of solidarity on 3/20 that saw hundreds of protesters in over 50 cities across the country. This is the type of solidarity that will need to be built on to strengthen the confidence and organization of workers in Bessemer and beyond, and guard against the demoralization Amazon hopes to instill by dragging out the process. Unions around the country should follow the lead of Los Angeles and prepare to go all out in support of Bessemer.


If Amazon is pulling out all the stops to prevent a union “yes” vote, imagine how hard they will fight a first contract if Bessemer workers win a union. Even if workers win union recognition, employers will often fight tooth-and-nail against first contracts for months if not years. They’re not just going to roll over and let union organizing happen in other warehouses, where dozens of workers facing the same horrid conditions have already expressed interest in unionizing.

If this union drive is defeated, we know it was on unfair grounds, and workers should eagerly appeal the decision and call for a new vote. If Amazon wins, we’ll know that Amazon’s bullying over powered the union drive’s reach this round. Worker to worker phone banking, conversations on the shop floor, meetings among workers to discuss strategy, and organizing committees and structures within the warehouse will need to be ramped up even further to cut through Amazon’s lies in round two. Leading workers will face retaliation, and only worker solidarity and collective action can prevent their mistreatment or wrongful termination.

Confidence and optimism from leading workers is crucial. Strong foresight is needed to anticipate and prepare for Amazon’s bullying and the twists and turns to come. The only security workers ever have is the strength of organizing together in the workplace and beyond. To launch a successful contract campaign the internal organizing needs to be matched with strong demands that workers are ready to fight for: like longer break times, $20/hour, overtime for shifts over 8 hours, and an end to “time off task,” which leading workers in the campaign have been pointing to.

If workers win in Bessemer, it will usher in a new era for the American labor movement. But either way the genie is out of the bottle: Amazon, this is just the beginning.

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Re: United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) Them and Us :

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:27 pm

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The Historical Challenges Facing the Socialist Movement
Translation of Introduction to the Latin American Edition of Beyond Capital
Posted Mar 26, 2021 by István Mészáros and John Bellamy Foster

Preface to the English Edition

On February 16, 2015, István Mészáros sent me a letter addressing the history of the Latin American Spanish edition of Beyond Capital and its reception by President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, along with a narrative of the origins of his close friendship with Chávez. In that letter, he explained that Vadell Hermanos, the publisher of the Spanish edition, had “asked me to write a special Introduction for the Latin American edition in Spanish, and I completed this special introduction—nearly 10,000 words, not published in English—in January 2000.” The entire book incorporating this special introduction was published by Vadell Hermanos in 2001, followed by the Brazilian Portuguese translation in 2002.

Mészáros clearly considered his January 2000 special introduction to Beyond Capital on “The Historical Challenges Facing the Socialist Movement” to be a major work in itself. It was originally written in English and translated into Spanish, but no English version survived, either in Mészáros’s own papers or in the papers of Eduardo Gasca, the translator of the Latin American Spanish-language edition. Due to the importance of this work, Brian M. Napoletano and Pedro Urquijo of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Morelia) took up the task of translating the Spanish-language manuscript back into English. It is presented here in the English language for the first time.

—John Bellamy Foster, March 8, 2021


Introduction to the Latin American Edition of Beyond Capital
(Translated from the Spanish by Brian M. Napoletano and Pedro Urquijo)

We are living in a time of unprecedented historical crisis, which affects all forms of the capital system, not just capitalism. It is easy to understand, then, that the only thing that could produce a viable solution to the contradictions that we have to face would be a radical socialist alternative to capital’s mode of social metabolic control. This requires a hegemonic alternative that is not confined to the constraints of the existing order by remaining dependent on the object of its negation, as has happened in the past. Although we must be alert to the immense challenges that appear on the horizon and confront them with all the means at our disposal, negations for their own sake are not enough. It is also necessary to clearly formulate the positive alternative that could be embodied in a radically reconstituted socialist movement. This is because the feasibility of success retains a vital dependence on the chosen objective of transformative action, if we are to define it as going positively beyond capital, and not simply negatively as the overthrow of capitalism. At the very least, the painful lessons of the collapse of so-called “really existing socialism” should make this clear: it was a prisoner, throughout its history, of its negative determinations.

1. The Generalized Defensiveness of Labor
The constitution, urgently needed, of the radical alternative to capital’s mode of social metabolic reproduction cannot take place without a critical reevaluation of the past. It is necessary to examine the failure of the historical left to fulfill the expectations optimistically formulated by Karl Marx when he posited, back in 1847, the labor union “association” and the consequent political development of the working class as parallel to the industrial development of the various capitalist countries. As he put it:
the degree to which combination has developed in any country clearly marks the rank it occupies in the hierarchy of the world market. England, whose industry has attained the highest degree of development, has the biggest and best organised combinations. In England they have not stopped at partial combinations…[they] went on simultaneously with the political struggles of the workers, who now constitute a large political party, under the name of Chartists.1
And Marx expected the process to continue so that: “the working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society.”2

Nevertheless, in the historical development of the working class, fragmentation and sectoralism were not limited to the “partial associations” and the various unions that emerged from them.3 Inevitably, fragmentation affected every aspect of the socialist movement, including its political dimension. So much so, in fact, that a century and a half later, it still represents an immense problem that will have to be resolved sometime in the hopefully not-too-distant future.

The labor movement could not avoid being sectoral and fragmented in its beginnings. It was not simply a matter of subjectively adopting the wrong strategy, as is often claimed, but a matter of objective determinations. This is because the “plurality of capitals” could not and cannot be overcome within the framework of the social metabolic order of capital, despite the overwhelming tendency toward monopolistic concentration and centralization—as well as transnational development, but precisely in its transnational (and not genuinely multinational) character, fragmented by necessity—of globalizing capital. At the same time, the “plurality of labor” also cannot be suppressed on the basis of the social metabolic reproduction of capital, regardless of the effort to turn labor from the structurally irreconcilable antagonist of capital into its uniformly submissive servant. Such attempts range from the mystifying and absurd propaganda of “people’s capitalism” in the form of shareholding, to the all-encompassing direct political extraction of surplus labor by the postcapitalist personifications of capital who sought to legitimize themselves through their spurious pretense of constituting the embodiment of the “true interests” of the working class.

The sectoral and fragmented character of the labor movement was combined with its defensive articulation. Primitive unionism—from which political parties later emerged—represented the centralization of the sectorality of authoritarian tendencies, and with it the transfer of decision-making power from the local “associations” to the union centers, and subsequently to the political parties. Thus, the primitive trade union movement as a whole was already inevitably sectoral and defensive. Certainly, due to the internal logic of the development of that movement, the centralization of sectoralitybrought with it the consolidation of defensiveness, if we take into account the sporadic attacks with which local associations could inflict serious injuries on local antagonistic forces of capital. (The Luddites, their distant relatives, tried to do the same in a destructive, and therefore quickly nonviable, form more generally.) The consolidation of defensiveness thus represented a paradoxical historical advance, because through its primitive unions, labor also became the interlocutor of capital, without ceasing to objectively constitute its structural antagonist.

From this new position of generalized defensiveness of labor, certain advantages could be derived, under favorable conditions, for some sectors of labor. This was possible to the extent that the corresponding constituents of capital could accede, on a national scale, in tune with the dynamics of the potential expansion and accumulation of capital, to the demands made on them by the defensively articulated labor movement—a movement that operated within the structural premises of the capital system, as a legally constituted and regulated interlocutor by the state. The development of the “Welfare State” constituted the culminating manifestation of that logic, viable in a very limited number of countries. It was limited both in terms of the favorable conditions for the problem-free expansion of capital in the countries involved, as the precondition for the emergence of the Welfare State, and in terms of its time scale, which is marked in the end by the pressure of the “radical right” for a total liquidation of the Welfare State during the last three decades, as a result of the structural crisis of the capital system as a whole.

With the constitution of the political labor parties—under the form of the separation of the “industrial arm” of labor (the unions) from its “political arm” (the social-democratic and vanguard parties)—the defensiveness of the movement was further strengthened. For both types of parties appropriated the exclusive right to any general decision-making, which was already foreshadowed in the centralized sectorality of the trade union movements themselves. That defensiveness was further worsened by the mode of operation adopted by the political parties, which obtained certain successes at the cost of derailing and diverting the socialist movement from its original objectives, because in the capitalist parliamentary framework, in exchange for the acceptance by capital of the legitimacy of the political labor parties, it became practically illegal to employ the “industrial arm” for political purposes. This represented a seriously constraining condition that the labor parties accepted, thereby condemning the immense combative potential of labor, with material roots and potentially also very effective politically, to total impotence. To act in such a way was extremely problematic since capital, thanks to its structurally assured supremacy, continued to be the extraparliamentary force par excellence that could dominate parliament at its leisure from the outside. Nor was it possible to consider that the situation was any better for labor in postcapitalist societies, for Joseph Stalin degraded the unions to the point of constituting what he called the “transmission belts” of official propaganda, simultaneously exempting the postcapitalist political form of authoritarian decision-making from any possibility of control by the working-class base. Understandably, then, in view of our unhappy historical experience with both major types of political parties, there can be no hope of a radical rearticulation of the socialist movement if there is no total combination of the “industrial arm” of labor with its “political arm”: on the one hand, conferring meaningful decision-making power to the trade unions (thus encouraging them to be directly political) and, on the other hand, making the political parties themselves defiantly active in industrial conflicts as the intransigent antagonists of capital, assuming responsibility for their struggle inside and outside of parliament.

Throughout its long history, the labor movement continued to be sectoral and defensive. In truth, these two defining characteristics constituted an authentic vicious circle. Labor, in its internally divided and often shattered plurality, could not break out of its paralyzing sectoral constraints, dependent on the plurality of capitals, because as a general movement it was defensively articulated. And vice-versa, it could not overcome the serious limitations of its necessary defensiveness toward capital, because up to the present it had continued to be sectoral in its industrial articulation and political organization. At the same time, to further close the vicious circle, the defensive role assumed by labor gave a curious form of legitimacy to capital’s mode of social metabolic control. By omission, the defensive posture of labor explicitly or tacitly permitted the established socioeconomic and political order to be treated as the necessary framework of, and the continuous prerequisite for, what could be considered “realistically feasible” in terms of the demands to be made, while at the same time demarcating the only legitimate way to resolve conflicts that would arise from the conflicting claims of the interlocutors. This amounted to a kind of self-censorship, to the delight of the avid personifications of capital. It represented a numbing self-censorship, which resulted in a strategic inactivity that continues to paralyze even the most radical remnants of the historic organized left today, not to mention its once genuinely reformist but now fully tamed and integrated constituents.

To the extent that the defensive position of the “rational partner” of capital—whose rationality was defined a priori as that which could fit within the premises and practical restrictions of the dominant order—could produce labor-related profits, the self-proclaimed legitimacy of the general political regulatory framework remained fundamentally unquestioned. However, once capital, under pressure of its structural crisis, was no longer able to concede anything meaningful to its “rational partner,” but, on the contrary, also had to withdraw its past concessions and relentlessly attack the very foundations of the Welfare State as well as labor’s protective/defensive legal safeguards through a set of “democratically enacted” authoritarian antiunion laws, the established political order had to lose its legitimacy and at the same time expose the complete unsustainability of labor’s defensive stance.

The “crisis of politics,” which cannot be denied today even by the system’s worst apologists—although, of course, they try to confine it to the sphere of political manipulation and its aberrant consensus, in the spirit of New Labour’s “Third Way”—represents a profound crisis of legitimacy of the established social metabolic mode of reproduction and its overall framework of political control. This is what has brought about the historical actuality of the socialist offensive, although the pursuit of its own “line of least resistance” by labor continues to favor for the moment the maintenance of the existing order, despite the increasingly obvious inability of that order to “deliver the goods”—even in the capitalistically more advanced countries—as the once overwhelmingly accepted foundation of its legitimacy.4 Today, “New Labour,” in all its European variants, is the facilitator of the “delivery of the goods” only for the entrenched interests of capital, be it the field of finance capital—cynically defended by the Tony Blair government even in conflict with some of its European colleagues—or some of its quasi-monopoly industrial and commercial sectors. At the same time, in order to defend the system under the conditions of the increasingly narrow margins of capital’s reproductive viability, the interests of the working class are completely ignored, facilitating also in this respect the vital interests of capital by retaining all the authoritarian antilabor legislation of the recent past, and supporting with all the power of the state the onslaught of capital toward the massive precarization of labor, as a cynically deceptive “solution” to the problem of unemployment.5 That is why the need for a socialist offensive cannot be removed from the historical agenda by any given or conceivable variant of a defensive posture of labor.

It should come as no surprise that under the present conditions of crisis, the siren song of Keynesianism is once again heard as a remedy full of good wishes, which appeals to the spirit of the old “expansionist consensus” in the service of “development.” Today, however, that song can only sound like something very muted, that emerges through a long blunt pipe from the bottom of a very deep Keynesian tomb. For the kind of consensus cultivated by the existing varieties of accommodative labor must actually make digestible the structural failure of capital expansion and accumulation, in stark contrast to the conditions that once allowed Keynesian policies to prevail during a very limited historical period. Luigi Vinci, a prominent theorist of the Italian Rifondazione movement, rightly pointed out that today the proper self-definition and autonomous organizational viability of radical socialist forces is “often strongly hampered by a vague and optimistic left Keynesianism in which the central position is occupied by the magic word ‘development.’”6 A notion of “development” that even at the height of the Keynesian expansion could not bring the socialist alternative one inch closer, because it always took for granted the necessary practical premises of capital as the guiding framework of its own strategy, firmly under the conscious restrictions of the “line of least resistance.”

It should also be noted that Keynesianism is by its very nature circumstantial. Since it operates within the structural parameters of capital, it cannot avoid being conjunctural, regardless of whether the prevailing circumstances favor a juncture of much or little extension. Keynesianism, even in its “Keynesian left” variety, is necessarily situated within, and constrained by, the “stop-and-go logic” of capital. Even in the best of cases, Keynesianism cannot represent more than the “go” phase of an expansionist cycle, which sooner or later will be stopped by the “stop” phase. In its origins, Keynesianism tried to offer an alternative to the “stop-and-go logic” by managing both phases in a “balanced” manner. However, it did not succeed, and instead became tied to the unilateral “go” phase, due to the very nature of its capitalist state-oriented regulatory framework. The unusual length of the postwar Keynesian expansion—but even this, significantly, confined to a handful of capitalistically advanced countries—was largely due to the favorable conditions of postwar reconstruction and the dominant position assumed therein by the overwhelmingly state-financed military-industrial complex.

In contrast, the fact that the corrective/countervailing “stop” phase had to acquire the exceptionally severe and insensitive form of “neoliberalism” (and “monetarism” as its pseudo-objective ideological rationalization)—already under the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which was financially/monetarily presided over by Denis Healy as Minister of Finance—was due to the unfolding of the structural crisis of capital, which encompassed a complete historical epoch. This is what explains the exceptional duration of the neoliberal “stop” phase, up to now much more prolonged than the postwar Keynesian “go” phase, still without an end in sight, perpetuated under the watchful eye of conservative and Labour governments alike. In other words, both the antilabor severity and the frightening duration of the neoliberal “stop” phase, together with the fact that neoliberalism is practiced by governments that were supposed to be on opposite sides of the parliamentary political divide, are only really understandable as manifestations of the structural crisis of capital. The fact that the brutal longevity of the neoliberal phase is ideologically rationalized by some labor theorists as “the long downward cycle” of normal capitalist development, which will most certainly be followed by another “long expansionist cycle,” only underscores the total inability of reformist “strategic thinking” to grasp the nature of the development trends at work. All the more so because the savagery of neoliberalism continues on its path, without being challenged by the accommodating workforce, and even as the years are already passing for which the advent of the fanciful notion of the “long positive cycle” was predicted, as capital’s labor apologists theorized.

Thus, given the structural crisis of the capital system, even if a turnaround could bring back, for a moment, some form of Keynesian state financial management, this could only be for an extremely limited duration, due to the absence of the material conditions that would favor its extension for a longer time even in the dominant capitalist countries. Even more importantly, this limited economic renaissance could offer nothing to the realization of a radical socialist alternative. For it would be absolutely impossible to build a viable strategic alternative to the capitalist mode of social metabolic control in a form internally articulated in the management of the system; a form that needs the expansion and healthy accumulation of capital as the necessary precondition of its own mode of operation.

2. The Necessity of Reconstituting the Unity of the Material Reproductive and Political Spheres
As we know, the sectoral limitations and defensiveness of labor could not be overcome through union centralization and movement politics. This historical failure is strongly underscored today by the transnational globalization of capital for which labor seems to have no response.

It needs to be remembered here that over the course of the last century and a half, no fewer than four Internationals have been founded in an attempt to create the required international unity of labor. However, none of the four have come close to their goals, much less to fulfilling them. It is not possible to make this comprehensible in terms simply of personal betrayals that, while correct in personal terms, continue to sidestep the issue and overlook the compelling objective determinations that we must keep in mind if we are to remedy the situation in the future. Otherwise, why circumstances actually favored such derailments and betrayals over a long historical period remains unexplained.

The fundamental problem is that the sectoral plurality of labor is closely linked to the conflicting plurality of capitals structured hierarchically, both within each particular country and on a global scale. If it were not for this, it would be much easier to conceive of the successful constitution of the international unity of labor against unified or unifiable capital. However, given the necessarily hierarchical/conflictive articulation of the capital system, with its incorrigibly inequitable internal and international order, the global unity of capital—which in principle could be easily opposed by the corresponding international unity of labor—is not feasible. The much-deplored historical fact that in great international conflicts the working classes of the various countries aligned themselves with the exploiters of the world, instead of turning their weapons against their own ruling classes, as the socialists invited them to do, finds the material foundation of its explanation in the contradictory relationship of power to which we refer here, and cannot be reduced to the question of “ideological clarity.” For the same reason, those who expect radical change in this regard on the basis of the unification of globalizing capital and its “global governance”—which would be combatively confronted by united labor on the international plane and with full class consciousness—are condemned to disappointment. Capital will not condescend and do labor that “favor,” for the simple reason that it cannot.

The hierarchical/conflictive articulation of capital continues to be the general structuring principle of the system, no matter how large, indeed how gigantic, its constituent units may be. This is due to the intrinsic nature of the system’s decision-making processes. Given the irreconcilable structural antagonism between capital and labor, the latter can be categorically excluded from all meaningful decision-making. This may be the case not only at the most inclusive level, but even in the constitutive “microcosms,” in the particular productive units. For it is not possible for capital, as alienated decision-making power, to function without making its decisions absolutely unquestionable (by the labor force in the particular workshops, or by rival production complexes at the intermediate level, in a given country, or even at the most encompassing level, by the command staff in charge of the other units in international competition). That is why the decision-making mode of capital—in all the known and feasible varieties of the capital system—must be a head-to-toe authoritarian form of management of the various enterprises. Understandably, then, everything that is said about labor “sharing power” or “participating” in the decision-making processes of capital belongs to the realm of pure fiction, if not the deliberate cynical camouflage of the real state of affairs.

This structurally determined inability to share power explains why the wide-ranging monopolistic developments in the twentieth century had to assume the form of takeovers—“hostile” or “non-hostile” (today omnipresent on a frightening scale), but invariably takeovers, in which one of the participants involved ends up victorious, even if the ideological rationalization of the process is disguised as a “happy marriage of equals.”7 The same inability explains, more significantly for our time, the important fact that the ongoing globalization of capital produced and continues to produce giant transnational corporations, but not genuine multinationals, despite the ideologically much needed convenience of the latter. No doubt in the future there will be many attempts to rectify this situation through the creation and operation of appropriate multinational companies. However, the underlying problem is doomed to remain with us even in that circumstance, because the future “shared directives” of genuine multinationals can only function in the absence of significant conflicts of interest between the particular national constituents of the multinationals in question. Once such conflicts arise, the previous “harmoniously collaborative shared directives” become untenable and the overall decision-making process must be reversed to the usual head-to-toe authoritarian variant, under the overwhelming weight of the stronger member. For this problem is inseparable from the relationship of individual national capitals to their own labor force, which always remains structurally antagonistic/conflicting. Accordingly, in a situation of major conflict, no particular national capital can afford—or allow itself—to be disadvantaged by decisions that would favor a rival labor force, and by implication its own antagonist in the rival national capital. The illusorily projected “world government” under the rule of capital would become feasible only if a viable solution to that problem could be found. But no government, much less a “world government,” is feasible without a well-established and efficiently functioning material base. The idea of a viable world government would imply as its obligatory material basis the elimination of all significant material antagonisms in the global constitution of the system, and consequently the harmonious management of social metabolic reproduction by an unchallenged global monopoly, encompassing all facets of societal reproduction with the happy collaboration of the global labor force—a real incongruence—or the totally authoritarian and, whenever necessary, extremely violent domination of the world as a whole by a hegemonic imperialist country on a permanent basis: a way of running the world order equally absurd and unsustainable. Only a genuine socialist social metabolic mode of reproduction can offer a genuine alternative to those nightmarish solutions.

Another vital determination that we have to face, as disturbing as it may be, concerns the nature of the political sphere and the parties within it. The centralization of labor’s sectorality—a sectorality that was expected to be remedied by its political parties—was largely due to the obligatory mode of operation of the political parties themselves, in their inevitable opposition to their political adversary within the capitalist state, representative of the general structure of capital’s political command. Thus, all labor’s political parties, including Leninist ones, had to make their own political dimension the all-encompassing political one, in order to reflect in their own mode of articulation the underlying political structure (the bureaucratized capitalist state) to which they were subject. What was problematic in all this was that the successful and politically obligatory reflection of the political structuring principle of the adversary could not bring about the practicable vision of an alternative way of controlling the system. Labor’s political parties could not elaborate a viable alternative because in their negating function they focused exclusively on the political dimension of the adversary, and thus continued to be totally dependent on the object of their negation.

The missing vital dimension, which political parties as such cannot provide, was capital not as the political commander (that aspect was undoubtedly addressed) but as the social metabolic regulator of the process of material reproduction, which ultimately determines the political dimension as well, but many other things besides that. This unique correlation in the capital system between the political dimension and the material reproductive dimension is what explains why, in times of great socioeconomic and political crises, we are witnessing periodic changes from the parliamentary democratic articulation of politics to its variants of extreme authoritarianism, when the social metabolic processes in turbulence require and permit such shifts, and, in due course, a return to the political framework regulated by the formal democratic rules of adversity, on the social metabolic foundation of newly reconstituted and consolidated capital.

Since capital is truly in control of all vital aspects of social metabolism, it can afford to define the sphere of separately constituted political legitimacy as a strictly formal matter, and thereby exclude a priori the possibility of being legitimately challenged in its substantive sphere of socioeconomic reproductive functioning. By conforming to these determinations, labor as an antagonist of really existing capital cannot but be condemned to permanent impotence. The postcapitalist historical experience tells us a very sad cautionary tale about this, which has to do with its misguided way of diagnosing and addressing the fundamental problems of the negated social order.

The capital system is constructed with incorrigibly centrifugal constituents, complemented as its cohesive dimension under capitalism not only by the thoughtless subjugating power of the “invisible hand”, but also by the legal and political functions of the modern state. The failure of postcapitalist societies was their attempt to address the problem of how to remedy—through internal restructuring and the institution of substantive democratic control—the adversarial character and concomitant centrifugal mode of operation of particular reproductive and distributive units. The elimination of the private capitalist personifications of capital could not therefore fulfill its role, not even as the first step on the road to the promised socialist transformation. For the adversarial and centrifugal nature of the negated system was in fact preserved by the imposition of centralized political control at the expense of labor. Indeed, the social metabolic system became more uncontrollable than ever as a result of the failure to productively replace the “invisible hand” of the old reproductive order with the voluntarist authoritarianism of the new “visible” personifications of postcapitalist capital.

In contrast to the development of “really existing socialism,” what is required as a vital condition for success is the progressive reacquisition of alienated political—and not just political—decision-making power by individuals in their transition to a genuine socialist society. Without the reacquisition of those powers, neither the new mode of political control of society as a whole by individuals nor indeed the non-adversarial, and therefore cohesive/plannable day-to-day operation of particular productive and distributive units by their autonomous associate producers, can be conceived.

The reconstitution of the unity of the material reproductive and political sphere is the essential defining characteristic of the socialist mode of social metabolic control. Creating the necessary mediations that lead in that direction is something that cannot be left to some remote future. It is here that the defensive articulation and sectoral centralization of the socialist movement in the twentieth century demonstrates its true anachronism and historical unsustainability. Limiting the encompassing dimension of the radical hegemonic alternative to capital’s mode of social metabolic control to the political sphere can never produce a successful outcome. However, as things stand today, the inability to address the vital social metabolic dimension continues to be characteristic of labor’s organized political representations. It is this that represents the greatest historical challenge for the future.

3. Four Strategic Considerations
The ability to respond to this challenge through a radically rearticulated socialist movement is indicated by four important considerations. The first is negative. It arises from the constantly aggravated contradictions of the existing order that underscore the emptiness of the apologetic projections of its absolute permanence. For the destructiveness can be carried very far, as we know perfectly well from our ever-worsening conditions of existence, but not forever. The defenders of the system acclaim the ongoing globalization as the solution to their problems. In reality, however, it mobilizes forces that highlight not only the system’s uncontrollability by rational design but also its own inability to perform its control functions as the condition of its existence and legitimacy.

The second consideration indicates the possibility—but only the possibility—of a positive change in the situation. However, this possibility is very real because the capital-labor relationship is not symmetrical. That means, in the most important aspect, that while the dependence of capital on labor is absolute—since capital is absolutely nothing without the labor it permanently exploits—the dependence of labor on capital is relative, historically created, and historically transcendable. In other words: labor is not condemned to remain permanently locked in the vicious circle of capital.

The third consideration is equally important. It concerns an important historical change in the confrontation between capital and labor, which brings with it the need to seek a very different way of asserting the vital interests of the “associated producers.” This is in total contrast to the reformist past that has led the movement into a blind alley, at the same time liquidating even the most limited concessions that were extracted from capital in the past. Thus, for the first time in history, it has become practically unsustainable to maintain the mystifying gap between immediate goals and overall strategic objectives, which made the pursuit of the reformist dead-end so dominant in the labor movement. As a result, the question of the real control of an alternative social metabolic order has appeared on the historical agenda, regardless of how unfavorable the conditions for its realization may be at the moment.

And finally, as a necessary corollary to the last point, the question of substantive equality has also surfaced, in contrast to the formal equality and the very pronounced substantive hierarchical inequality of capital’s decision-making processes, as well as the way they were reflected and reproduced in the failed postcapitalist historical experience. Because the alternative socialist way of controlling a non-adversarial and genuinely plannable social metabolic order—something absolutely essential for the future—is inconceivable without substantive equality as its structuring and regulatory principle.

4. A Radically Reconstituted Socialist Movement
In an interview with Radical Philosophy in April 1992, I expressed my conviction that:
the future of socialism will be decided in the United States, however pessimistic this may sound. I try to hint at this in the last section of The Power of Ideology where I discuss the problem of universality.8 Socialism either can assert itself universally and in such a way that it embraces all those areas, including the most developed capitalist areas of the world, or it won’t succeed.9
In the same interview, I also emphasized that the social and intellectual ferment in Latin America promises more for the future than we can find at the moment in the capitalistically advanced countries. This is understandably so, because the need for radical change is exerting much greater pressure in Latin America than in Europe and the United States, and the once-promised solutions of “modernization” and “development” have proven to be nothing more than an ever-receding light in an ever-lengthening tunnel. Thus, while it remains true that socialism must be qualified as a universally viable approach, encompassing also the most developed capitalist areas of the world, we cannot consider this problem in terms of a time sequence in which a future social revolution in the United States must take precedence over everything else. Nothing of the sort. Given the massive inertia generated by capital’s vested interests in the capitalistically advanced countries, along with the consensual complicity of reformist laborism there, a social revolt that lights the fuse is much more likely to occur in Latin America than in the United States, with far-reaching implications for the rest of the world.

The tragedy of Cuba—a country that initiated a potentially major transformation in the continent—was that its revolution remained isolated. This was due in large part to the massive intervention of the United States throughout Latin America, from Central America and Bolivia to Peru and Argentina, also working to overthrow the elected government of Brazil by a military dictatorship and installing a genocidal dictator with Augusto Pinochet in Salvador Allende’s Chile. Naturally, this could not solve any of the serious underlying problems but only postpone the moment when it will become inevitable for them to be faced. Today, potentially explosive pressures are visible throughout Latin America, from Mexico and Argentina to Brazil and Venezuela.

Brazil, as the country with the major political and economic weight, has a prominent place in this respect. We witnessed the impact of the 1998–99 Brazilian economic crisis in the United States and Europe, accompanied by frightening headlines in major capitalist newspapers. Headlines ranging from “£2.1 Billion Worth of Shares Vanished” to “Brazil Crisis Gives Frantic Europe a Jolt.”10 Even Henry Kissinger, who, as Richard Nixon’s foreign relations strategist, played a central role in the imposition of Pinochet on the Chilean people, sounded the alarm, saying that, “if Brazil is driven into deep recession, countries such as Argentina and Mexico, heretofore committed to free-market institutions, may be overwhelmed,” concluding, with extreme hypocrisy, that “the immediate challenge is to overcome the crisis in Brazil and preserve the free-market economics and democracy in Latin America. A firm and unambiguous commitment by the industrial democracies, led by the United States, is essential to buttress the necessary Brazilian reform program.”11 Naturally, Kissinger’s concerns had nothing to do with the fate of democracy in Latin America, for which, in his years in power, he abundantly demonstrated aggressive contempt, but rather with the potential repercussions of the Brazilian crisis on the global hegemonic imperialist power; a danger that arises from an area arrogantly defined as the “geopolitical backyard” of the United States.

In Brazil, the radical wing of the working-class movement, both in the unions and in the political parties, played a very important role in putting an end to the U.S.-sponsored military dictatorship. In this way, it also inspired some radical movements in many parts of Latin America, although militants continue to argue that there is still a long way to go before the inherited limitations of the historic organized left can be considered past. What is also important to note is that, despite the disconcerting successes of capital over the past decade in different parts of the world, especially in the former societies of “really existing socialism,” forces working to institutionalize a different social order have found encouraging manifestations in various parts of the U.S. “geopolitical backyard,” from the Zapatistas in Mexico to militants challenging the extremely disadvantageous conditions that now favor the established order in Colombia and other Latin American countries.

Moreover, it is also highly significant that the radical social movements in question want to shake off the organizational limitations of the historical left in order to articulate in action not only the necessary negation of the existing order, but also the positive dimension of a hegemonic alternative. Of course, we are still at a very early stage of these developments. However, to take just two examples, it is possible to point to some not-so-small successes. The first example is that of the Brazilian landless workers’ movement, that of the sem terra, which continues to assert its objectives with great rigor and courage, generating broad resonance in different parts of the world. The second example, although it goes back to 1999, has been reinforced by the overwhelming electoral victory of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and by the even more overwhelming success of the constitutional referendum the following year.12 The people involved in both examples are trying to undertake the immensely difficult task of unifying the material reproductive sphere and the political sphere, and are doing so in different but complementary ways. The first is by opening avenues of penetration into the field of material production, challenging capital’s mode of social metabolic control with the cooperative enterprise of the landless, and thus beginning to affect, indirectly, the political process in Brazil as well. The second, in Venezuela, is heading toward the same end from the opposite direction: using the political leverage of the presidency and the constituent assembly, it tries to introduce much needed changes in the field of material reproduction, as a necessary part of the conceived alternative.

The antagonism and resistance of the established order to the changes attempted by these movements and their allies in other parts of Latin America will inevitably be fierce, and backed by the most reactionary forces of global hegemonic imperialism. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the success of these radical alternative movements will depend to a great extent on international socialist solidarity as well as on their own ability to inspire the traditional organized left in their countries to join them in struggle. For only a radically reconstituted socialist mass movement can meet the great historic challenge that we have to face in the decisive century ahead.

Rochester, England, January 2000

Notes
↩ Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1976), 210.
↩ Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 212.
↩ The word used in the Spanish translation is parcialidad, but it does not refer in this context to bias or partiality. Rather, it is best understood as referring to the working class as consisting of mutually antagonistic groups. We have selected fragmentation as the best term with which to convey this meaning. —Translators
↩ See chapter 18 of István Mészáros, Beyond Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1995). The study titled “Il rinnovamento del marxismo e l’attualitá storica della offensiva socialistam” Problemi del socialismo, Anno XXIII (January–April 1982): 5–141, contains an earlier version of this article. Problemi del socialismo was a publication funded by Lelio Basso.
↩ In any case, we should not forget that the antilabor legislation in England started under Harold Wilson’s Labour government, with the legislative outburst called “In Place of Strife” (see Mészáros, Beyond Capital, 766) in the initial phase of the structural crisis of capital. It continued under the short-lived government of Edward Heath, and again under the Labour governments of Wilson and James Callaghan, ten years before it received the openly “neoliberal” go-ahead under Margaret Thatcher.
↩ Luigi Vinci, La socialdemocrazia e la sinistra antagonista in Europa (Milan: Edizioni Punto Rosso, 1999), 69. Translated by Brian M. Napoletano and Pedro S. Urquijo.
↩ In the Spanish text, takeover appears in English and it is not clear whether the emphasis was added by the translators to indicate a foreign phrase, or whether Mészáros himself placed the emphasis on the term. —Translators
↩ István Mészáros, The Power of Ideology (New York: New York University Press, 1989), 462–70. The Brazilian edition was published as O poder da ideologia (São Paulo: Editora Ensaio, 1996), 606–16.
↩ István Mészáros, “Marxism Today,” Radical Philosophy 62 (autumn 1992), reprinted in part IV of Beyond Capital. István Mészáros, Beyond Capital (London: Merlin, 1995), 985–86. The emphasis on partial associations was added either by Mészáros or the Spanish translator. —Translators
↩ John Waples, David Smith, and Dominic Rushe, “£2.1 Billion Worth of Shares Vanished,” Sunday Times, October 4, 1998, section 3 (Business), 7; Vincent Boland, “Brazilian Crisis Gives Frantic Europe a Jolt,” Financial Times, January 14, 1999, 41.
↩ Henry Kissinger, “Perils of Globalism,” Washington Post, October 9, 1998. Also available as Henry Kissinger, 144 Cong. Rec., pt. 18 (October 13, 1998), 26073. Of course, the system’s apologists always try to win at any cost, and they try to extract a propaganda victory from even the most obvious crisis. Thus, characteristically, the Daily Telegraph—the same day it published Kissinger’s article—contained an editorial entitled “How Capitalism Works,” in which it offered a transparent ideological rationalization of the crisis by declaring that “capitalism works precisely because it is unstable. A bit like an agile jet fighter that is highly maneuverable because of its instability.”
↩ Four years before Venezuela’s presidential elections, Beyond Capital clearly anticipated the great positive potential of Hugo Chávez Frías’s radical Bolivarian movement even in the electoral arena, in stark contrast to the fashionable notion that only the most moderate “broad electoral alliances” are viable today. See chapter 18, section 18.4.3 of Mészáros, Beyond Capital, 709–12.

About István Mészáros
István Mészáros (1930–2017) was a philosopher and political theorist, and a frequent contributor to Monthly Review. At the time of his death, he was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Sussex.

https://mronline.org/2021/03/26/the-his ... -movement/

Some things worth repeating:
the future of socialism will be decided in the United States, however pessimistic this may sound. I try to hint at this in the last section of The Power of Ideology where I discuss the problem of universality.8 Socialism either can assert itself universally and in such a way that it embraces all those areas, including the most developed capitalist areas of the world, or it won’t succeed.9
And of course there's this:
“I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all—you live in the belly of the beast.”

- Che Guevara
Feeling any pressure yet?

********************************************

Bit of a tangent but this paragraph puts paid to the non-materialistic defeatism which one often encounters among the various factions infected with the infantile disorder on the topic of NWO/global capitalist rule:
This structurally determined inability to share power explains why the wide-ranging monopolistic developments in the twentieth century had to assume the form of takeovers—“hostile” or “non-hostile” (today omnipresent on a frightening scale), but invariably takeovers, in which one of the participants involved ends up victorious, even if the ideological rationalization of the process is disguised as a “happy marriage of equals.”7 The same inability explains, more significantly for our time, the important fact that the ongoing globalization of capital produced and continues to produce giant transnational corporations, but not genuine multinationals, despite the ideologically much needed convenience of the latter. No doubt in the future there will be many attempts to rectify this situation through the creation and operation of appropriate multinational companies. However, the underlying problem is doomed to remain with us even in that circumstance, because the future “shared directives” of genuine multinationals can only function in the absence of significant conflicts of interest between the particular national constituents of the multinationals in question. Once such conflicts arise, the previous “harmoniously collaborative shared directives” become untenable and the overall decision-making process must be reversed to the usual head-to-toe authoritarian variant, under the overwhelming weight of the stronger member. For this problem is inseparable from the relationship of individual national capitals to their own labor force, which always remains structurally antagonistic/conflicting. Accordingly, in a situation of major conflict, no particular national capital can afford—or allow itself—to be disadvantaged by decisions that would favor a rival labor force, and by implication its own antagonist in the rival national capital. The illusorily projected “world government” under the rule of capital would become feasible only if a viable solution to that problem could be found. But no government, much less a “world government,” is feasible without a well-established and efficiently functioning material base. The idea of a viable world government would imply as its obligatory material basis the elimination of all significant material antagonisms in the global constitution of the system, and consequently the harmonious management of social metabolic reproduction by an unchallenged global monopoly, encompassing all facets of societal reproduction with the happy collaboration of the global labor force—a real incongruence—or the totally authoritarian and, whenever necessary, extremely violent domination of the world as a whole by a hegemonic imperialist country on a permanent basis: a way of running the world order equally absurd and unsustainable. Only a genuine socialist social metabolic mode of reproduction can offer a genuine alternative to those nightmarish solutions.
It is the same mistake that Keynes made, assuming that capitalists would cooperate among themselves even to their individual detriment for the common good of their class. That only happens when there is an existential threat to the entire class, with reluctance and on the brink. Even as I type they cannot form a common front here in the USA against China as a portion insists upon 'getting while the getting is good' and to hell with grand strategy.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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