Verizon Workers: Reject Politicians, Shut It All Down

NEWARK, NJ, April 27—Over one hundred Verizon workers and supporters from several local organizations participated in a Solidarity Rally here today in front of Verizon Headquarters.
Workers were in a fighting mood, and responded warmly to several militant speeches given by local fighters. Workers loudly chanted, “The bosses say cut back, we say fight back,” “Shut it down, shut it tight, the bosses can’t profit when the workers unite,” and more. Scores of cars passing on Broad Street honked their horns in solidarity with the strikers. Almost all of the Verizon workers took CHALLENGE. Several were reading it while picketing. Some workers thanked a PLP comrade who was distributing the paper for bringing it to the line.
Speakers included Newark teachers, and others from several organizations, including the War Against Poverty Coalition, which highlights the fight against mass racist unemployment and poverty, the Newark NAACP, and People’s Organization for Progress. Two union officials also spoke.
Politicos Try to Co-Opt
From the beginning of this strike, CWA and IBEW local and regional union leaders have tried to steer it towards allying with politicians who are supposedly pro-worker. A rally the first day of the strike featured five or six local politicos, including Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark. The liberal politicians blather on about how Verizon is eliminating “middle class jobs” and “destroying the American Dream.” These liberal politicians and unions offered workers momentary solutions. They are always ready to betray workers at a moment’s notice. The reality is that, under capitalism, reforms won by the working class through valiant struggle are always subject to being taken back by the capitalists, who continue to hold state power—until there is a revolution to destroy their class rule.
One fighter who spoke exposed that liberal bosses are always trying to cover up that competition and the periodic economic crises built into capitalism constantly force individual capitalists to find any number of ways to reduce costs. With Verizon, it is outsourcing call center jobs, downsizing wireline positions, and “flexibly” moving workers up and down the East Coast to meet their profit needs. All of these moves will eventually beset the working class with more low wages, unemployment, and poverty.
It is the nature of capitalism that is driving the destruction of the fewer and fewer jobs with better pay and benefits that still exist. And it is capitalist-created racism and segregation that weakens the working class response to these attacks. The unemployment rate amongst black workers is consistently double that of white workers. These high unemployment rates make it easier for the bosses to find low wage non-union contractors who bring in workers willing to work for less.
None of the politicians running for U.S. president, including social democrat Bernie Sanders, has an an interest in ending these capitalist-caused disasters for our class. They all play their role in keeping capitalism running, while trying to win workers to vote for them, spouting lies that this horrid system can be fixed. No amount of “good unions” and “good” reforms can change capitalism into a worker-run society. Workers like those in Verizon can run the world, with an organized international party like Progressive Labor Party.
Key: Working-Class Unity
PLP supports the struggle of Verizon workers. We call on Verizon workers to recognize the incredible power they hold. This strike has the potential to influence workers everywhere. While Verizon bosses have has returned to the bargaining table, they have plans in the works to use large numbers of scabs and to cut off the strikers’ health insurance in order to break the strike. But workers possess their own power: with help from other workers—such as transit workers, and education workers in public schools and City University of New York—they could use their collective strength to shut down the whole city.
This kind of action takes class-conscious leadership and a decisive break by the workers from all the politicians and the “play by the rules” rhetoric of the top union bosses. It takes organization and devotion to the cause of the working class. Only communist ideas and leadership will inspire hundreds of thousands of workers to take that type of revolutionary action.
A communist analysis shows that our labor as workers is what produces all the economic value in society. So why shouldn’t we have a system where workers, collectively, under the leadership of their communist party, PLP, decide how that value is used? We don’t need the bosses and their profit-driven system. Workers’ revolutionary fight to take the bosses down will open a new worker-run world where exploitation, economic crises and racism will become a distant memory. Verizon workers—join PLP and give leadership to the international working class!