Labor

I’ve always wanted a button that reads, “Workers of the world unite, back by popular demand” — almost as long as I’ve wanted one that says, “May Day, made in the USA.”

May Day 2008 would have been a great time for both.

From the New York State Communist Party Blog

"NEW YORK - Trade unionists, housing activists, and residents of New York City public housing gathered at City Hall today to protest the Bush administration's proposed budget cuts to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)."

In this issue:

• ILWU Calls for May Day Work Stoppages Against the War
• Action Alerts: FLOC, No Colombia FTA
• Another important step towards global unionism
• Iranian TU finally released
• Loss of factory jobs=more on food stamps
• Week of action unites students, workers
• Unions challenge Bush ‘no match’ plan
• Join McCain Revealed team
• Union Jobs (still more needed!)

March 31st would have been Cesar Chavez's 81st birthday. This date also coincided with the March National Committee meeting of the Communist Party USA. Over the weekend, we had the chance to ask a few NC members what Cesar Chavez means to them:

Scott Marshall, Labor Director of the Communist Party USA, appeared on Arkansas Talk Radio, KARN 102.9. In this 15 minute segment, he spoke about the Communist Party USA, the current economic crisis, a green economy, and much more.

The United Auto Workers struck American
Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday when no deal was reached on a new labor pact. The largest proportion of American Axle parts are for GM’s pickups and SUVs. Affected are more than 3,600 workers in plants in Michigan and New York.

Getting carried away with your own rhetoric is rarely a good thing. Tom Buffenbarger, president of the Machinists' union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers), did just that in a “warm-up” speech for Hillary Clinton the night of the Wisconsin primary win by Barack Obama.

The wages and working conditions of union autoworkers have always set standards for all manufacturing. These in turn have put upward pressure on wages and benefits for all workers. But in today’s political and economic climate, major contract negotiations in the manufacturing sector are hell. Thirty years of corporate/right-wing attack on labor law and workers’ rights have taken an enormous toll. Capitalist globalization, with its frenzied export of capital and jobs, has greatly weakened union leverage. In 1979 General Motors employed over 400,000 autoworkers in the U.S.; today that number is less than 80,000 and shrinking. US autoworkers productivity is higher here than any where else in the world. Labor cost is about 10% of the cost of a vehicle. About 25% of the auto workers in the US are in unions. Thirty years ago labor was about 25% of the cost and 90% of the assembly workers were in the union. Add in the environment of corporate greed, fraud, flimflam and corruption evidenced on Wall Street in the current mortgage and financial crisis, and you have essential context for evaluating the GM/United Auto Workers settlement.

First I want to thank the Labor Commission members for their invaluable input in this report. Much of this report took shape at this year’s face-to-face Midwest regional commission meeting last May in Chicago. The National Board discussion of this report was also very helpful.

A qualitatively new form of transnational capital has clearly emerged. Its features include enormous new concentrations of finance capital, new forms of transnational monopoly, huge changes in the technology of mass production and manufacturing, a new global division of labor, and increasing poverty and decline for workers of the world in a global race to the bottom. Some individuals now own wealth greater than that of smaller countries.
En Español.

• The industry is increasingly non-union—the number of foreign transplants is growing—60,000 non-union workers at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, etc.

• Auto companies have growing ability to quickly shift production between plants in the US or their plants/partners throughout the world;

• And, as in the case with Delphi, bankruptcy courts too easily allow companies to dump their union contracts.

At the heart of this strike are issues facing all workers and their unions. The transit authority, sitting on a $1 billion surplus, is demanding cuts in health care and pensions. This comes primarily in the form of demanding a two tier pension and health care system for new hires.

This morning President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Act-Dominican Republic (CAFTA) a trade agreement between the United States, and El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. Last week the bill narrowly passed the Senate after midnight-hour wrangling, threats and bribery by the Republican Party. The Communist Party, USA denounces this agreement and believes it bodes ill for the working people of the U.S. and Central America...

Whereas, the newly adopted Program of the Party, The Road to Socialism USA, states: “in the words of the Communist Manifesto, ‘the working class is the only true revolutionary class’ because only the working class has no other interest than ending capitalism and replacing it with socialism. These qualities and experiences also make the working class fertile ground for the ideas of socialism and for Marxism and for Communist Party membership”; and, ...

The big business media has gotten the story on the AFL-CIO’s convention all wrong. Yes, four unions, SEIU, the Teamsters, Unite Here and the UFCW, decided to boycott the convention. Yes, then SEIU and the Teamsters left the federation, with the other two unions likely to follow. And yes, this is a serious blow to labor unity and to the working class.

Our take is clear: the split is a serious mistake that may haunt labor for some time to come....

Whereas, The National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1935 to guarantee workers in the United States the right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions and mandates that workers and their employers bargain in good faith about wages, benefits and other working conditions once the workers have formed a union....

The 28th National Convention of the Communist Party, USA unanimously endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 1696 and S. 842) that would help 57 million U.S. workers gain a union....

Capitalist globalization has to be met with international labor solidarity. ... This fight has many fronts. In the first place US labor has to be won to a bigger vision of its place and role in global labor. Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union said a profound thing in this regard at the steelworkers convention last month. “We cannot survive as an island of prosperity in a sea of misery.” That applies on many levels. It applies to all the unorganized workers in this country and to all those in deep poverty. It applies to workers and the poor around the world who are victims of global capitalism and imperialist war. Our vision has to be bigger, we have to see ourselves as a component of global labor that will rise only as workers and their families rise everywhere in the world.