French Elections: Heads Bosses Win, Tails Workers Lose

PARIS, June 18 — Whatever the outcome of the June 17 second round of legislative elections, the workers will be the losers based on French bosses’ plans A and B.

Plan A is a socialist government intended to disarm workers as the bosses continue to attack using austerity plans to please the finance capitalists who own France’s sovereign debt. 

The first round of legislative elections on June 10 showed that Socialist Party president François Hollande succeeded in mobilizing working-class voters with a few crumbs. By decree, he “generously” restored retirement at 60 for workers who began working before age 18 and who have worked continuously for 41 years. The head of France’s largest union, the General Confederation of Labour, hailed this mini-measure as an historic “European event.”

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Solidarity with 300,000 on 16-week Strike: Students Defy Quebec Rulers

WASHINGTON DC, June 1 — Occupy DC, including PL’ers, marched through the streets here today to the Canadian Embassy. Occupiers banged pots and pans like their brothers and sisters in Quebec, chanting “From Montreal to DC, Education Must Be Free,”  marching in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of striking Canadian students and workers in Quebec.

The Quebec student strike is in its 16th week and must become a rallying point for opposition to austerity policies around the world. Worker-student unity is key. Over the past year, the Canadian bosses’ government has repeatedly used emergency legislation to break anti-concession strikes by Air Canada, Canada Post and Canadian Pacific railway workers.

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Obama’s Democracy Mask Can’t Hide Killer Drones

Intensifying imperialist competition has saddled U.S. rulers with an impossible political mission. On the one hand, they must brutally crush their international rivals and enemies to protect their dwindling sources of profit. On the other, they must sustain their facade of law-abiding democracy to hold the ebbing loyalty of workers.

This dilemma explains why the New York Times — representing finance capital, the dominant faction of the U.S. ruling class — both praises and admonishes its presidential candidate of choice, Barack Obama. On May 30, the Times published a multi-page exposé of Obama’s assassination-by-drone campaign: “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.” The following day it printed a cautionary editorial on the same subject (“Too Much Power for a President,” 5/31). 

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Father’s Day March: We Will Not Be Silent About Ramarley’s Murder

BRONX, NEW  YORK, May 31 — The marshals stopped the march and instructed us to tighten our ranks and pump up the volume.  As we approached the 47th precinct the chants of “NYPD you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” and “Mayor Bloomberg you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” grew louder and louder.

“Haste, Haste, Haste” ”the  multi-racial crowd roared, calling for the racist killer cop who shot Ramarley Graham to death in his grandmother’s apartment on February 3 after kicking in the door.   The cops had no warrant and Ramarley had no weapon.

Led by Ramarley’s parents, supporters march every Thursday through the neighbourhood and to the precinct.  The parents and organizers of the march always make it clear that they are not only asking for justice for Ramarley but are commemorating the many other victims of police brutality and are fighting to prevent others from becoming victims.

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Capitalism Caused the Crisis

The documentary Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? is about the financial crisis that began in 2008. It continues to this day, with high unemployment, home foreclosures, and other aspects of capitalism that devastate workers’ lives. The documentary lays the blame firmly on the banks and compliant politicians for the fiasco. The format is mainly a series of interviews of people who expose the way banks have manipulated their financial control with the help of governmental rulings and deregulation. But the film tells only part of the story.

First, it shows the degree to which banks and big business owners are stealing virtually everything we produce with our labor. However, its main message is that the “heist” consists of a relatively recent move by big business, particularly banks. It traces this move to a 1971 memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by corporate lawyer Lewis Powell — shortly thereafter a Nixon-appointed Supreme Court Justice. In this memo Powell falsely claimed that there was a socialist attack on free enterprise and that big business needed to ward it off with extreme aggressiveness. It did, by mobilizing the full force of a friendly federal government to protect and magnify already swollen banking profits.

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School Strike Could Teach Bosses A Lesson

CHICAGO, May 23 — Strike was on the minds of some 6,000 teachers and paraprofessionals, joined by nearly 2,000 supporters, who took over several downtown streets here to demand that city students get better schools and to oppose the rulers’ all-out assault on students and teachers. The march followed simultaneous indoor and outdoor rallies, where, in a show of unity and solidarity, virtually every Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) member wore red CTU shirts.

The CTU contract expires June 30 and the Board of Education wants to increase class size, outsource art and music positions, increase work hours 20 percent for 2 percent more pay, introduce “merit pay,” decrease job security, and close more schools.

During the rally, members spontaneously shouted “Strike” and carried signs reading “YES,” foreshadowing a June 6 strike authorization vote (unannounced at the time of the rally). 

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Postal Worker Stamps on Racist Pro-Boss Contract

At a state convention of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), a postal worker approached National President, Cliff Guffey to challenge the recent sellout contractors. He recalled how this “leader” had signed a five-year agreement giving up the eight-hour day for thousands of workers and cutting wages of new hires in half. They would have no chance of ever reaching the higher rate of veteran workers. They contract also freezes wages for two years, in line with Obama’s wage freeze for other federal workers. Guffey who was obviously taken aback when the rank-and-filer demanded, “how could you sign a contract allowing management to bring in new workers for half of what we make?”  

“Well, at least we kept those jobs in our bargaining unit” he replied. 

“Right, and now management is trying to fire all of us to bring in low-paid workers,” the worker shot back. 

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Growing Caucus Exposes School Bosses’ Schemes

CHICAGO, May 23 — Strike was on the minds of some 6,000 teachers and paraprofessionals, joined by nearly 2,000 supporters, who took over several downtown streets here to demand that city students get better schools and to oppose the rulers’ all-out assault on students and teachers. The march followed simultaneous indoor and outdoor rallies, where, in a show of unity and solidarity, virtually every Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) member wore red CTU shirts.

The CTU contract expires June 30 and the Board of Education wants to increase class size, outsource art and music positions, increase work hours 20 percent for 2 percent more pay, introduce “merit pay,” decrease job security, and close more schools.

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Obomber’s Drones: Mass Murder

The Obama administration’s authorization of drone attacks — initiated by his Bush predecessor — has carried past U.S. murders of innocent workers to a new high. Based on a New York Times analysis (5/29), the Nation of Change (NOC) website reports that the Obama killers “are putting people on a hit list who are as young as 17.”

Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, suing the CIA on behalf of drone victims, cites “a program that has existed for eight years, picks its targets in secret, faces zero accountability and has killed almost 3,000 people in Pakistan alone whose identities are not known to their killers,” including “women and children in Waziristan…killed with Hellfire missiles.”

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Car Wash Workers Protest Drowned in Bosses’ Profits

NEW YORK CITY, June 1 — John Laje, a very rich businessman and owner of a dozen car washes in New York City, has never wanted to meet with his workers who have asked him on various occasions for a better contract including a paid vacation, paid sick days, salary raises for a year and protection against unfair layoffs.

The car wash workers face extreme exploitation that is typical of capitalism. They work 72 hours per week making $5.25 to $5.50 per hour. The workers have to put up with extreme temperatures and using dangerous chemical products without proper equipment or protection.

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