People Before Profit blog

Urge Senators to Defeat Priscilla Owen

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 03:40:00 +0000

In another nod to the radical right, George W. Bush has nominated Priscilla Owen to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Owen has repeatedly attacked reproductive freedom, workers’ rights and consumers’ rights in her seven years on the Texas Supreme Court. If confirmed to the Fifth Circuit, Owen’s extreme views would threaten the rights and liberties of millions more Americans in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Contact your Senators urging them to REJECT the nomination of Priscilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the fifth Circuit!

Call your Senator: (202) 224-3121. (E-mail and mailing addresses can be found online at www.senate.gov)

Keep tabs on how your Senators vote – let them know you’ll remember when you vote in November.

EDITORIALS

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 02:39:00 +0000

Another reason to vote

President Bush’s July 22 decision to withhold $34 million from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is another “first.” No other country has ever pulled funding from the Fund, which promotes family planning, AIDS education and improved pregnancy and childbirth conditions in 142 countries.

U.N. sources estimate that the money – 12 percent of the Population Fund’s annual budget – would have allowed the agency to prevent two million unwanted pregnancies and more than 77,000 infant and child deaths.

Thoraya Obaid, executive director of UNFPA, said denial will “significantly affect millions of children for whom the lifesaving services provided by UNFPA will have to be discontinued. Women and children will die because of this decision.”

The decision to withhold money already approved by Congress brought a sharp rebuff from the European Union who pledged an extra $32 million dollars to help fill what it called the “decency gap” created by the Bush administration’s action.

In an effort to justify its action, the White House charged that UNFPA tacitly supports China’s one-child policy just by its involvement there, a charge hotly denied by Obaid.

A White House team dispatched to China to study the UNFPA work there also found the accusation untrue and recommended that Bush release the money while continuing to withhold money from China – a policy that has been in effect for eight years.

As one would imagine, withholding the money was greeted warmly by the Washington’s anti-abortion lobby and denounced by pro-choice groups. But the U.N. Fund has nothing to do with abortion and lots to do with the rights of poor women to refuse marriage at age 13 and to have a safe, clean place to give birth.

And it goes far in explaining why organizations like NOW and the National Abortion Rights Action League are gearing up for defeat the right wing in the November 5 elections. And we’re going to join them!

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Wall Street scrambles the 2002 elections

The AFL-CIO will demonstrate on Wall Street next week to protest the corporate fraud and abuse that threatens to push the nation into a “double-dip” recession that could leave many millions without jobs. It could not come at a better moment.

Commander-in-chief George W. Bush now looks half-pint as the financial scandals crash around his ears. He pleads, and doubtless prays, for the markets to rebound but few investors are listening. In the past two weeks $1.5 trillion was lost in the sell-off of publicly traded stocks. In the past two years, a whopping $7 trillion has vanished from the market. The bubble has popped.

Bush’s approval ratings have dropped to 65 percent in just-released polls by Newsweek and CBS News. With no sign that the Wall Street crisis will end soon, those poll number are likely to continue heading down.

The AFL-CIO and its allies are working to hold Wall Street banks and corporations accountable. But that is only half the battle. They also seek to hold accountable the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich politicians who unleashed these ravenous corporate wolves over the past twenty years.

These are the lawmakers who asked corporate America to give them a “wish-list” of regulations they wanted repealed, who dismantled the regulatory agencies and slashed their enforcement budgets. They are the same “bought-and-paid-for” federal and state lawmakers who slashed taxes on big business and the rich and busted unions to pave the way for the disaster now engulfing us. All of them, starting with House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) should be removed from office.

It looked like an uphill battle a few days ago but the situation has changed dramatically. Majority Republican control of the House can be ended. Bush’s hopes of restoring GOP control of the Senate can be blocked. But only if every voter gets active now to prevent the Bush-Cheney crew from stealing another election.

Bush nominee assailed as extremist

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 02:29:00 +0000

President Bush’s nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals touched off a stormy hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 23 as opponents challenged Owen’s record and supporters tried to dress it up. The nomination also ignited protests from labor, civil rights and women’s organizations, demanding that the committee reject the nomination.

Of particular concern to the White House supporters are criticisms leveled against her by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who criticized several dissents by Owen when both were members of the Texas court. In one instance he called her dissent in a critical abortion case an “unconscionable act of judicial activism.” On another occasion Gonzales accused her of using “arguments based on a flawed premise” in an important environmental case and, in a case concerning jury trial rights, he said Owen attempted to use “judicial sleight-of-hand” to circumvent the Texas Constitution.

Gonzales has since tried to minimize the impact of his remarks. His effort made little impression on Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), who told reporters Gonzales’ criticism “shows she [Owen] is even outside the conservative stream of the Texas Supreme Court.”

In a statement calling for the Senate to reject the Owen nomination, NARAL said, “Priscilla Owen is a dedicated conservative judicial activist whose record … gives us great concern. In almost every case concerning reproductive rights … [she] sought to restrict a woman’s right to choose.” NARAL added that the Fifth Circuit’s record on reproductive rights “would place a woman’s right to choose in serious jeopardy if Owen is confirmed.”

Others were equally sharp in their call for rejection of the Owen nomination. Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, called Owen’s record on reproductive choice and employee rights “disturbing.” He said her confirmation would be especially harmful to the citizens of the Fifth Circuit, which includes Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

“In numerous dissents as a Texas Supreme Court Justice, Owen has taken positions that would have effectively rewritten the law or disregarded the express language of the law, often to the detriment of the rights and interests of ordinary Americans,” Neas said, adding: “Owen has sought to make the law from the bench in such areas as discrimination and employee rights, reproductive rights, environmental issues and public information rights, and consumer and citizen rights.”

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women (NOW), said Owen’s penchant for judicial activism “may have earned her Bush’s nomination to the Fifth Circuit, but it should not win her a seat on the Court of Appeals.”

Gandy said in addition to disdaining women’s rights, Owen, who has close ties to Karl Rove, a senior White House staff member, “has demonstrated a commitment to money over morality.”

In 1994, Enron endorsed her and contributed $8,600 to her successful bid for election to the Texas Supreme Court. Two years later, she wrote the majority opinion that reversed a lower court decision, saving the company $250,000 in taxes. According to Texans for Public Justice, the court ruled in Enron’s favor in five out of six cases. Texans for Public Justice is in the forefront of the Texas campaign to defeat Owen

Ed Sills, communications director of the Texas AFL-CIO, said Owen “is a judge who has let her ideology seep into her opinions.” She sits on the far right of a court,” all of whose members are Republicans, and conservative Republicans at that,” Sills told the World in a telephone interview.

Sills said the Texas court “is consistently anti-worker on workers’ compensation and labor-management relations.”

Kae McLaughlin, executive director of Texas Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (TARAL) said, “Owen is a result-oriented, conservative activist whose nomination should be rejected.”

Danielle Tierney, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson, said, “If approved for a lifetime appointment to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Owen’s judicial activism could roll back rights across the state and throughout the region.”

In March public outrage and organized opposition forced the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Mississippi legislator Charles Pickering, Bush’s first nominee to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. At the time, NARAL said, “We truly hope the President will work with the Senate more closely in the future to avoid controversial nominees whose views are out of step with the majority of Americans. However, on behalf of our membership, NARAL will continue to closely monitor the records of all nominees and will continue to oppose those whose views threaten the right to choose.”

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

New York mourns and organizes

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 02:19:00 +0000

Commentary

New York City is still reeling from the tragic events of Sept. 11. Even though the last remains to be discovered from that terrorist attack have passed by our headquarters on the way to the city morgue, the massive loss of life on that terrible day is still sending shock waves throughout the city. People are very worried, they are scared and some are blindly following George W. Bush, mainly because they don’t see another way of ending terrorism.

But New York City has more than one ground zero. There are other great tragedies in this town that you won’t hear much about in the media, but are causing great suffering, fear, anger and, yes, loss of life. I’m talking about the state of the economy, the growing numbers of jobless and homeless, the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the problem of jails not jobs, the growing discrimination based on race, gender, sexual preference and whether you are a citizen or not.

There are other ground zeros that have gotten worse after the Bloomberg/Pataki cutbacks in education and health care, which includes the shameful level of infant mortality and the AIDS crisis.

Even the way they are distributing the disaster funds is biased against the working class, racially oppressed and small businesses. These ground zeros result from capitalism. And when you talk about homelessness, lack of health care, infant mortality, AIDS and the criminalization of our youth, it is just as deadly as what happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

We are happy to report that the people of New York City are not being pacified by the phony patriotism they are being fed. They are in motion. They are still fighting for their rights. Thousands of New Yorkers poured into Washington, D.C., on April 20. On May Day, 60,000 teachers marched on the Board of Education, and in early June, over 60,000 marched on City Hall against the proposed budget cuts in education. Right now, as we speak, transit workers in Queens are on strike.

Communists, like a lot of New Yorkers, mourn those who perished on Sept. 11, while we organize for peace, economic and political justice; while we fight for democracy.

And it’s important to note that our presence in this new movement is stronger and more consistent where we have active clubs.

You are here to tackle a most important question, how to strengthen our party at its base, so that we can have a stronger presence at the grassroots, which is key to building our party and the mass movements to new heights.

This is a time for action and we must organize our party so that it can better act on the critical problems before us.

When you want to build a house you call a contractor. If that contractor tells you he is going to build your house from the second floor down, you know what you have to do – immediately call another contractor!

You cannot seriously build the Party without building it at the club level. We are here to figure out what it will take to build many new clubs and transform our existing clubs into viable, active-organized units of struggle. With the right approach and spirit, we can transform our party.

Jarvis Tyner is the Executive Vice Chair of the Communist Party USA and the chair of the Harlem/Washington Heights club. This article is based on the welcoming remarks he gave to the CPUSA’s conference on building clubs and grassroots organizing.

The author can be reached at jtyner@cpusa.org

Coup-making in Venezuela: the Bush and oil factors

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 02:10:00 +0000

As efforts to overthrow Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez intensify, two facts are inescapable: the power elite in the United States has never been happy with democratically-elected Chávez, but it took the Bush administration, with its corporate oil and energy connections, to turn up the heat against him.

Matters reached a boiling point with the April coup d’etat against Chávez, which lasted only two days as millions of Venezuelan poor rose up in his defense. Many of the details about the ousting of Chávez and his 48-hour replacement by corporate mogul Pedro Carmona Estanga have yet to be sleuthed out, but evidence implicating Bush and his cohorts has already accumulated.

The primary clues are Washington’s repeated criticisms of Chávez and its immediate virtual endorsement of Carmona by failing to condemn the coup. The backdrop is Venezuela’s status as the fourth largest oil-exporting country in the world, and the third largest source of U.S. oil imports.

U.S. complaints against Chávez, who was elected in record landslide votes in 1998 and 2000, include his Bolivarian reforms to “take from the rich and give to the poor;” his refusal to allow U.S. planes to fly over Venezuela for Washington’s war in Colombia; his opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA); and his leadership in OPEC in working for a fairer deal for Venezuela and other oil-producing countries.

Also rankling the Bush administration, with its abundance of right-wing Cubans, is Chávez’s oil sales to Cuba in exchange for medical care.

About half of Venezuela’s revenues come from state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Providing more for the country’s millions of poor necessarily means maximizing the gains from oil, so Chávez sought to stanch the hemorrhaging of profits out of Venezuela into the coffers of banks and corporations largely based in the north. This entailed altering the 60-year-old agreement with foreign oil companies that charged them as little as one percent in royalties, and handed them huge tax breaks. But the giant transnational oil corporations and business interests had different plans.

“Opposition business leaders have said openly that they want to depose Chávez so they can boost oil production or even privatize the country’s cash cow [PDVSA]. ... [T]hey have been enraged ... over Chávez’s efforts to take resources from the rich to aid the poor, who represent 80 percent of the population,” Letta Tayler wrote in Newsday April 24.

During Carmona’s 48 hours in power, he moved instantaneously to reverse Chávez’s Bolivarian policies and consolidate what amounts to an “oiligarchy.” He dissolved the parliament and the supreme court, dismissed all mayors and governors, stopped the shipment of oil to Cuba, and started a wave of repression across the country.

The goal: privatization of Venezuela’s oil

A May 1 article in Mexico’s Proceso says one of the aims of the coup leaders was “the privatization of PDVSA, turning it over to a U.S. company linked to President George Bush and the Spanish company Repsol; plus the sale of CITGO, the U.S. subsidiary of PDVSA, to Gustavo Cisneros and his partners in the north, as well as an end to the Venezuelan government’s exclusive subsoil rights.”

Cisneros, a longtime friend of former President George Bush, heads up a corporate empire stretching from the U.S. to Patagonia, the British Economist reports.

PDVSA is Latin America’s largest company – a lucrative prize awaiting the eager fingers of the privatizers. The maneuvers to achieve privatization of PDVSA began in earnest after Chávez became president. Though we are told that it was the workers who reacted against Chávez’s changes, a March 2001 Wall Street Journal article disclosed a different picture, speaking of “top management and white-collar workers” at PDVSA “in open revolt against the government of President Hugo Chávez.”

The WSJ reported: “[T]hey have participated in ... noisy demonstrations and work stoppages to protest the recent appointment of three Chávez loyalists to PDVSA’s board. ... Leaders of a newly organized PDVSA ‘management union’ aren’t saying when or if they would strike. However, after holding a companywide meeting last weekend, they announced plans to carry out a series of gradual escalations of the conflict that could culminate in an indefinite strike ... The controversy quickly exploded when thousands of PDVSA executives signed full-page newspaper ads denouncing the new appointees as ‘incompetent.’“ On April 4, 2002, “PDVSA executives declared a work stoppage,” the WSJ reported. In the lexicon of U.S. labor, these “strike” actions would be considered “lockouts” by management.

The leadership of the oil workers union, which operated in close alliance with the two political parties that ran Venezuela for 40 years before Chávez, also became involved. And information continues to surface about the role played by the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) leadership, especially its president, Carlos Ortega, in the coup attempt and his ongoing role in efforts to bring down Chávez. Tayler notes that former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez, currently living in Miami, who is wanted on corruption charges in Venezuela and has been accused of involvement in the plot, is a mentor of both Ortega and Carmona.

The WSJ says conflict between top PDVSA administrators and Chávez had been building since Chávez pushed through a law doubling most production royalties on both PDVSA and international oil companies. The law also requires PDVSA to own a majority stake in all joint ventures with foreign companies. Chávez appointed a new PDVSA president, economist Gastón Parra, who was attacked by critics, the WSJ says, as “a 1960s-era big-government leftist, dispatched to PDVSA on a mission to tie the company more closely to the state.”

The previous PDVSA president is quoted as saying the company had been “efficiently run as a profit-making company that pays dividends to its shareholder, the state. It shouldn’t be delegated to the inferior status of being a mere appendage of the oil ministry, subject to the president’s interference.” But the state is not merely a “shareholder” and PDVSA is not a “mere appendage of the oil ministry.” PDVSA is owned by Venezuela, not a fiefdom of board members appointed by the previous corrupt Venezuelan oligarchy. Clearly the oil ministry has jurisdiction over the government-owned enterprise. The government has every right to appoint the board members and to “tie the company more closely to the state.”

The New York Times reported April 24, “When Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in the 1970’s, the management at the local operations of Royal Dutch/Shell and other foreign companies that eventually became Petroleos de Venezuela remained.” Chávez endeavored to wrest control of the company from these former oil company executives, who had engendered popular revulsion for corruption and high living.

Bush administration’s role

Last fall, “a stream of prominent Venezuelans opposed to Chávez’s populism...began visiting U.S. officials...to float ideas about his ouster,” Tayler reported. “In some meetings, including one this year at the U.S. Embassy that was attended by Pedro Carmona ... a coup was specifically proposed, participants in those talks said... Some Chávez opponents left the meetings believing that ‘all the United States really cared about was that it was done neatly, with a resignation letter or something to show for it,’ said a Venezuelan source familiar with some of the discussions.”

Further, Tayler wrote, “pro-Chávez Venezuelan officials have said two members of the U.S. Embassy’s military attachés were briefly inside the coup-makers’ military headquarters at Fort Tiuna on April 13 ... One of the U.S. officers held an hour-long closed-door meeting with Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco, the army commander, one Venezuelan official said.”

Bush appointees dealing with this region got their start in the dirty wars under President Reagan. One of them, Elliot Abrams, who was convicted for misleading Congress over the infamous Iran-Contra affair, is Senior Director of the National Security Council for “democracy, human rights and international operations.” He is a leading theoretician of “hemispherism,” which seeks to counter Marxism in the Americas, spawning the 1973 Chile coup and backing death squads in Argentina, El Salvador and elsewhere. Abrams “gave the nod for the coup” in Venezuela, the Observer reported.

Another key player is Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Otto Reich, a right-wing Cuban exile and former Mobil Oil lobbyist, who was Reagan’s ambassador to Venezuela. Reich received Venezuelan coup plotters, including Carmona, at the White House, the Observer said. In these meetings, “the coup was discussed ... right down to its timing and chances of success,” the Observer reported.

The London Guardian reported that American military attachés were in touch with members of the Venezuelan military in June 2001 to examine the possibility of a coup. It quoted a former naval and National Security Agency intelligence officer as saying that U.S. Navy ships “provided signals intelligence and communications jamming support” to Venezuelan military personnel participating in the coup.

“The perfect crime”

Since the aborted coup, the campaign to topple Chavez has been redoubled. Le Monde diplomatique described the likely scenario for overthrowing Chavez:

“[T]here will be a coalition of the well-to-do, bringing together the Catholic Church …, the financial oligarchy, the employers’ organizations, the bourgeoisie and corrupt trade union leaderships – all repackaged as ‘civil society.’ The owners of major media will collude ... to support the campaigns that they will each launch against the president, in the name of defending that ‘civil society.’...

“The press and TV will brandish terms ‘the people, democracy, liberty,’ etc. They will mobilize street demonstrations and any attempt by the government to criticize them will be immediately described as ‘a serious assault on freedom of expression,’ ... they will revive the insurrectional strike and encourage ideas of a coup and an assault on the presidential palace. ...

“The Venezuelan media currently uses lies and disinformation in the biggest ever destabilization campaign against a democratically elected government. Since the world hardly seems to care, the media hopes that this time it will succeed in committing the perfect crime.”

Seeing the disturbing similarities to the 1973 U.S.-instigated Chilean coup – which occurred after one failed coup attempt – the majority of Venezuelan people are remaining vigilant about further moves to oust Chávez. The people of the United States have the responsibility and the possibility to put an end to the Bush administration’s anti-democratic covert operations and military interventions in Venezuela.

The author can be reached at icpj@igc.org

Bush plan to invade Iraq meets growing opposition

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 02:03:00 +0000

George W. Bush’s plan for a preemptive attack on Iraq with as many as 250,000 American GIs is facing mounting opposition. There are warnings that it could be a long, bloody “war for oil,” in which thousands of Iraqis and American GIs will be killed or maimed.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, told the group’s 36th annual conference in Chicago, “The threatened misadventure into Iraq is being discouraged by the European Union, African Union, and the Arab states. Our unilateral isolationist and preemptive policies are not making us more secure. Instead they are increasing our vulnerability, making the region and the world less secure.”

Jackson called for a policy of engagement and negotiations with Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba and North Korea, rather than a policy of blockade and war. “Talking with your adversary is not a sign of weakness. It’s just the most effective way to reduce tensions.”

Peace Action spokesman Scott Lynch told the World that Bush is “cranked up on war,” partly to keep his poll-ratings from going the way of the stock market. “They will go too far,” he said. “The right-wing ideologues like Wolfowitz and Richard Pearl are calling the shots in this administration. We call it radical unilateralism. Worldwide, everyone is opposed to an invasion of Iraq. The world is asking: ‘Since when is it okay for the U.S. to decide who governs Iraq?’ This is unilateralism on the way to imperialism.”

Peace Action, he said, will challenge Bush’s war drive when it convenes in Chicago, July 26-28. The kickoff will be a mass picket line outside the corporate headquarters of Boeing to protest their role in producing “smart bombs,” such as those that have killed hundreds of innocent Afghans in the recent U.S. air war against Afghanistan.

Congress, too, is beginning to question Bush’s war drive, with some lawmakers demanding that the administration seek congressional authorization under the War Powers Act before commiting U.S. troops to combat overseas. The Senate is expected to convene hearings on the war plan before they adjourn for the August recess. The House, too, is expected to convene hearings in September. But the Bush administration may refuse to even testify. Bush claims he has authority to invade a country with a quarter million troops without congressional or United Nations approval.

Lynch said, “It’s good that the Senate and House are showing some signs of life. But they are not doing enough. Where is the leadership saying we should adhere to democratic principles? Where is the leadership standing up and saying no to a U.S. attack on another sovereign nation? The Bush administration has not produced any compelling evidence connecting Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. They have not produced any proof that Iraq is engaged in producing weapons of mass destruction.”

Senate Foreign Relations Chair, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), Lynch said, is demanding that Bush discuss the war against Iraq with the Senate “and then he’ll go along. That really isn’t a balanced debate on the merits of going to war.”

Some even accuse Bush of whipping up new war threats to divert attention from his close ties to Wall Street thievery. In a July 20 op-ed in The New York Times, columnist Frank Rich wrote, “Wagging the dog no longer cuts it.” He was referring to a Hollywood movie in which a presidential candidate provokes a war as a diversionary election ploy. “If the Bush administration wants to distract Americans from watching their 401(k)s go down the toilet,” Rich wrote, “it will have to unleash the entire kennel.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

AFL-CIO steps up support for West Coast dockers

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:57:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO – The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) just received a huge solidarity commitment from the national AFL-CIO as the West Coast dockers continue to face one of the most challenging contract negotiations in the union’s history. Last Tuesday, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson told the ILWU Longshore Caucus that the AFL-CIO will do “everything and anything the ILWU needs to get the contract you are entitled to.” This includes a team of AFL-CIO staff that will fly into the Bay Area to work by the ILWU’s side.

Chavez-Thompson’s solidarity words were met with a standing ovation from the 85-member caucus. James Spinosa, ILWU international president, expressed to Chavez-Thompson his deep appreciation for the AFL-CIO’s solidarity.

As we went to press, the AFL-CIO vice president was expected to repeat the solidarity message publicly at a July 24 rally here in solidarity with the ILWU. The rally, called by the California Federation of Labor, was held during that organization’s convention, with hundreds of labor delegates from throughout the state participating.

These solidarity actions are significant, since the ILWU employers, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), continue to put forth demands that would outsource jobs, violate ILWU jurisdiction and weaken the union’s health care and other benefits.

Steve Stallone, ILWU communications director, told the World that the caucus voted unanimously to reject the PMA’s package of proposals, which include refusing to give the ILWU the jobs where work is expanding off the docks.

The author can be reached at evnalarcon@aol.com

The economic crisis

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:49:00 +0000

News Analysis

The new disclosures of corporate corruption and the instability in the stock market are having an economic impact on the overall economy. The question is: will it trigger a major decline across the full length of the economy?

At the present moment, despite all the talk about an economic recovery, unemployment is near 6 percent and, according to one study, will climb to 6.5 percent by November. Wage growth this year is less than inflation, and income inequality, after a brief turnaround, is again growing. The length of time of unemployment is increasing.

Homelessness, seemingly immune to cyclical upswings, is also at unconscionable levels, while poverty rates are climbing again. And the job gains made by former welfare recipients, who are the first laid off, are now in jeopardy.

Millions of children are ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-clothed and ill-educated, with little prospect for improvement. The health care system remains in crisis, with 41 million people having no coverage at all, and millions of others ill-served. Millions are losing retirement benefits as the private pension system collapses under the weight of corporate malfeasance, plant closings and bankruptcies, and the bursting of the bubble.

As always, the deteriorating economic situation strikes broad sections of the working class, but not in the same way and not to the same degree. The heaviest weight falls on African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American and other nationally and racially oppressed communities. In every social index measuring well being, the nationally and racially oppressed are at the bottom of the ladder.

All of this begs the question – will the pace of economic activity pick up in the near term and lift all boats? Or is the weak recovery going to stall and give way to a broad decline in the economy?

The evidence suggests that a decline is more likely. The stock market is falling. In fact, some $ 1.5 trillion in investor wealth has evaporated since July 4 and the wealth effect that came with rising stock prices is working now in reverse. Profits are off for the sixth straight quarter. Corporate investment in plant and equipment, including hi-tech, is flat. Corporate and consumer indebtedness is astronomically high. The current account deficit is increasingly unsustainable. And the value of the dollar is declining relative to the euro and yen, which might improve the competitiveness of U.S. export industries, but not without straining currency and equity markets.

Moreover, all this occurs in the midst of overcapacity/overproduction in world commodity markets – a condition that world capitalism has been unable to surmount for three decades, despite having shed huge amounts of labor and productive capacity.

Thus, unlike the expansion of the 1990s, which initially surged forward on the strength of a revival in the goods sector and then was carried along in its last years by the wealth effect of rising stock prices, there appear to be no engines in the near and medium term that will jump-start the economy and sustain its growth over the longer term. More probable, in my opinion, is that the U.S. economy will double dip, as some mainstream economists call the phenomena of a brief recovery followed by another downturn.

How steep will the dip be?

We don’t know exactly. But it could be a major decline and could easily combine with downward economic pressures worldwide, in which case the repercussions here and elsewhere around the globe would be huge. In 1998 a near-worldwide economic crisis precipitated by an economic collapse in East Asia could have had catastrophic consequences had it not been for the strength of the U.S. economy. It lifted the world economic system back from the brink.

In present conditions, however, because of huge imbalances built up during the economic upturn of the 1990s, the reverse bubble effect, and a spiraling downward decline of investor and consumer confidence, the likelihood of the U.S. economy providing that lift again – let alone regaining sustained momentum – is dim.

What is more likely is that a downturn in the U.S. economy or, for that matter, any one of the three main centers of global capitalism, could easily become a reinforcing system-wide major crisis because of the new level of integration and the anarchic nature of the world capitalist economy.

If this occurs, it will add an explosive element to the struggle against the Bush administration and corporate globalization. Even if it doesn’t reach such crisis levels, the economy still will cast a long shadow over the 2002 elections and the struggles beyond.

Sam Webb is the national chairman of the Communist Party USA. He can be reached at swebb@cpusa.org

Rainbow/PUSH sets Sept. 13 march on D.C.

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:42:00 +0000

CHICAGO – The Rev. Jesse Jackson, speaking at the 36th annual conference of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, announced the beginning of a new inter-generational Civil Rights Movement with its first major action a march on the Justice Department in Washington September 13.

Jackson announced a major drive to increase voter registration and to address the disenfranchisement of individuals who have been released from jail. In light of the irregularities in the 2000 election, 40,000 minority votes were cast but not counted in Florida alone, Jackson said. The coalition will take on voting as a major civil rights issue. Jackson also touched on the fact that state and local governments will be the stage for many new civil rights battles. In addition, he called for a new effort to gain universal health care and a constitutional right to “high-quality education.”

Jackson, who is the founder and president of the coalition, told the 2,500 delegates the movement is to be broadly based and relevant to most progressive causes throughout society. The movement and the Sept. 13 march will address the need for fundamental solutions to the problems that plague our society and affect the working-class populations most strongly. The goals will be economic, political, international and cultural, highlighting issues like decent jobs with fair wages, the appointment of a balanced and impartial judiciary, a coherent and just foreign policy and the need for musical talent to control their own work.

The conference drew people from across the country, including union members and major musicians, as well as some foreign dignitaries from Nigeria.

In one major workshop, president of the NAACP Kweisi Mfume said, “We must go to the streets to fight them,” referring to the ultra-right. “They are working to destroy our civil rights.” He maintained that many academics and journalists are changing the definition of civil rights to suit their own hidden ultra-right agenda.

Mfume charged that many of these ultra-rightists are the same people who years ago were fighting against the original civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. “The current administration is made of people who in the past fought our attempts to bring about equality in society,” according to Mfume. The agenda of today’s civil rights movement is the same as it has always been, he said, “equal protection, election law reform, judicial reform and the protection of Title IX.”

National Organization of Women President Kim Gandy echoed the need for a new and reinvigorated civil rights movement. “Our children are why we fight,” said Gandy, mother of two young girls. She assailed the Bush administration scheme to slash welfare benefits to single mothers to pressure them to get married. “We must speak truth to power,” she said. “George Bush and his cronies are wrong when they say the solution to poverty among women is marriage. The solution to poverty is good jobs, decent wages and education.”

Gandy urged the crowd to join in the election struggles in 2002 and 2004. “We must vote like our lives depend on it, and our lives do,” she said. She pointed to the courts as the next great battlefield because many courts, including our nation’s highest, have been filled with the ultra-right conservatives. Gandy warned that the affirmative action victory at the University of Michigan will probably be reviewed by the Supreme Court later this year.

“The greed for capital has outstripped the greed of nations, hurting labor and threatening civil rights,” Jackson said in his address. The crisis, he said, “is caused by the extreme concentration of capital. Workers are the big losers. Workers must fight back ... collective bargaining is a human right.”

The current economic downturn is inflamed by the methods of “legalized thievery” such as off-shore accounts Jackson added.

Former President Bill Clinton also spoke at the conference, calling for an improvement in the world’s approach to the AIDS crisis in Africa.

The author can be reached at brandikishner@yahoo.com

Gephardt announces immigration bill

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:37:00 +0000

MIAMI – House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt announced a new initiative that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented workers in the United States. Gephardt made the announcement before a crowd of 3,000 people attending the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) being held here.

Gephardt said that the bill, which would be introduced “in the next few weeks,” would recognize “the hard work of immigrants” by offering them the opportunity to legalize their status in the United States. The proposal would grant legal residency to undocumented immigrants have been in the country for five years and have worked for two years.

The House Democratic leader criticized the Bush administration, saying the president “talks about immigration reform, but there has not been a lot of action.” He said that he hoped the Republicans “not make political hay” by using the so-called war on terrorism to oppose the proposal. Gephardt said the bill would help national security by “bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.” The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund issued a statement urging Republicans to support the proposal.

Gephardt said that the proposed bill would apply to all undocumented immigrants and not just to one nationality. The Bush administration has discussed proposals for amnesty and guest-worker status for Mexicans with the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, but the talks have led nowhere.

The proposal, Gephardt said, had been discussed with the “Hispanic Caucus, labor unions and other organizations.” Many delegates at the NCLR conference said that they would have to see the details before committing themselves to support the proposed bill, but nevertheless were happy that there was something new on the table.

There are an estimated 8.7 million undocumented immigrant workers in the U.S. Cecilia Muñoz, a vice-president of the NCLR, said that she estimates that up to four million immigrants would be eligible for amnesty if Gephardt’s proposal becomes law.

Gephardt also criticized the Bush administration’s proposal to “attempt to deputize local police to enforce federal laws” as dangerous and a threat to civil liberties.

The Missouri Congressman also brought up the issue of prescription drugs for elderly. He personalized the issue by speaking of his mother’s drug bill, saying that it comes to $700 a month. “She’s lucky. She has my brother and me to make up for what Medicare does not pay.” He called for a Medicare prescription benefit “not written by the pharmaceutical” industry.

The author can be reached at jacruz@attbi.com

You get what you pay for

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:31:00 +0000

The power of money, both in campaign contributions and in lobbying, made itself felt on two issues in the last few weeks as Congress “debated” providing prescription drugs under Medicare and putting some restraints on the use of stock options to mask their bottom line. In both instances success is measured more in terms of what Congress didn’t do than what it did do.

As the profits of pharmaceutical companies have soared in recent years so have the industry’s campaign contributions that stood at $26.4 million in 2000, more than eight times what they did in 1990. The industry spent more than $85 million to influence Congress in those years.

And for good reason: All of the proposals before Congress to include a prescription drug benefit in Medicare would invariably come with price controls, thus cutting into the profits of drug companies.

The lobbying expenses of just two drug companies serve as an example of the millions of dollars the industry has spent to preserve its profits that have averaged more than 18 percent of revenues for the last ten years.

So far during the 2002 election cycle, Pfizer has contributed $1.2 million to political parties and federal candidates – more than two-thirds of it going to Republicans. Pfizer is the drug industry’s second-biggest contributor so far this cycle. But Pharmacia is no slouch. The company ranks No. 4, contributing just under $1 million during 2001-02, mostly to Republicans.

The two companies have contributed a combined $11 million since 1989, with the bulk coming in the last two election cycles, when the industry has experienced not only soaring profits but soaring public outrage over increases in the cost of prescription drugs.

Although most of the contributions in the form of soft money went to the Republicans, money given directly to candidates was more or less evenly split. For example, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) were high on Pharmacia’s gift list. Montsanto, a subsidiary of Pharmacia, is based in Missouri.

Despite the Enrons, Worldcoms and Tycos, Congress brushed aside all efforts to tighten the rules on stock options and to make corporations show them as expenses in their filings with the Security and Exchange Commission.

Business interests laid out good money – $40 million in political contributions and lobbying costs in 2000 – to protect these options. After all there were hundreds of millions of dollars in the personal net worth of many high-technology executives from companies like Microsoft and Intel at stake.

Many of the defenders of stock options argue that they are now a benefit for ordinary workers and that entering them on balance sheets would hit rank-and-file workers.

But that’s a myth, as is the claim that drug companies need to charge high prices in order to defray the cost of research and development. The National Center for Employee Ownership estimates that at least 75 percent of all option value goes to very senior executives and only about 10 percent to non-management employees. These same estimates place the average value of stock options to a senior executive at $512,000 while the average value to hourly workers is $8,000.

Options for ordinary employees can work out to a new car, college tuition, a down payment on a house, a great vacation, and maybe even a more secure retirement. Options for executives can amount to enough money to fund a small nation. The option packages some executives have received would amount to tens of thousands of dollars per employee in their company.

As they say, “it costs money to buy a Congress, but you get what you pay for.” That certainly holds true when it comes to prescription drugs for seniors or accounting reform.

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

Enron hearing exposes big banks

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:25:00 +0000

Corporate corruption that has made headlines since Enron’s collapse took on a new dimension last week when the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) found that two of the nation’s largest banks were involved in accounting schemes that allowed Enron to list loans as business income in its balance sheet.

In his opening statement to a hearing, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) charged that Citigroup, ranked number seven on the Fortune 500 list, and JP Morgan Chase, ranked 21, knowingly gave “help and assistance” to Enron’s accounting deceptions resulting in the loss of millions of dollars for 401(k) retirement plans and union and private pension funds.

Levin said the schemes were a phony “prepay” arrangement that enabled Enron to “artfully disguise” loans as business income rather than debt. He added that Enron used circular three-way deals in which Enron received money upfront in exchange for delivery of natural gas at a later date. It enabled the company to show increased business activity, increasing its credit rating and stock value. However, in another accounting gimmick, Enron was simultaneously treating the prepay transactions as loans on its tax returns in order to claim the interest expense as a business transaction.

Levin, who chairs the PSI, said that committee investigators had uncovered evidence that Enron had the “help and knowing assistance” of JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup in developing accounting schemes that “pile deception upon deception.”

According to senate investigators, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase were the biggest participants in Enron’s phony prepay schemes by arranging for Enron to carry out its activities using offshore shell companies the banks controlled. Levin said Mahonia and Mahonia II, two of the most-often used fake organizations “have no employees and no offices and operate in secret jurisdictions that make it tough to uncover or understand their relationships to the banks behind them.”

Committee investigators found the record of one such transaction in which JP Morgan transferred about $350 million to Mahonia, which simultaneously transferred the same amount to Enron. In another instance, the same bank set up Mahonia II for the sole purpose of “entering into arrangements that will assist the Chase Manhattan Bank (since merged with JP Morgan) in providing finance for major U.S. oil and gas companies.”

Levin said he hoped the hearings would “cut through the darkness … Central to the issues today is evidence indicating that Chase and Citicorp knew what Enron was doing, assisted Enron in the deceptions and profited from their actions.” The banks reaped steep fees and interest payments from the loans. They also marketed the prepay model to other clients and, in the case of Citigroup, successfully pitched it to at least three other firms.

During their seven-month investigation, the committee’s staff examined a million pages of company records, including internal e-mails and telephone conversations. Robert Roach, the committee’s chief investigator, told the subcommittee hearing on July 23 that investigators had examined documents from a half dozen financial institutions, some of whom “not only knew but actively aided Enron in return for fees and favorable consideration in other business dealings.”

He added that this “see no evil” approach enabled Enron to arrange for at least $8 billion in unreported loans between 1992-2001, with JP Morgan Chase involved in a dozen questionable transactions and Citigroup involved in 14 others.

Among the e-mails uncovered by investigators was one circulated at Chase saying, “Enron loves these deals” because they enable the company to hide debt. An Arthur Andersen e-mail says, “Enron is continuing to pursue various [ways] to get cash in the door without accounting for its debt.” When Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001 it had about $5 billion in outstanding prepays – read “loans” – that were virtually unknown to the company’s creditors or investors.

Roach told the committee that Enron is not the only company obtaining loans and recording them as cash flows from operations. “Major financial institutions are knowingly assisting and even promoting such transactions, which would not be possible without their willingness s to provide the funds, the paper work and a sham offshore trading partner.”

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

AFL-CIO to Wall Street: No more business as usual

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 01:15:00 +0000

Call for Bush-Cheney probe

George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney faced sharp new questions about their role in Enron-style corporate fraud as the stock market continued to plummet and WorldCom went belly-up July 22, the largest corporate bankruptcy in history. In just the past two weeks the markets have lost $1.5 trillion. Publicly traded stocks have lost $7 trillion in value since stock prices peaked two years ago.

The AFL-CIO responded to the spreading corporate scandals by calling for a demonstration in New Britain, Conn., July 29 to protest Stanley Works “infamous” plan to move its corporate headquarters to an offshore tax haven. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and International Association of Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger will speak at the rally. The Machinists represent the Stanley Works employees who manufacture quality hand tools.

The next day, Sweeney will speak on Wall Street on the theme, “No More Business as Usual! Restore corporate accountability on Wall Street!” Sweeney will be joined by former WorldCom, Enron and Arthur Andersen workers who have lost their jobs, health care and pensions in the bankruptcy of these firms. A media advisory announcing the protest reported that the rally “is part of the AFL-CIO’s national campaign … to hold CEOs and corporations accountable, eliminate conflicts of interest among accountants and financial analysts, abolish stock options for corporate leaders, secure retirement security of all workers and demand meaningful pension reform.”

Worker retirement funds represent over 20 percent of stock ownership, the advisory reported, “and losses over the past year have been estimated at $800 billion.”

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), speaking at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition annual conference in Chicago called for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate charges that Bush engaged in “insider trading.” In 1991, Bush sold 212,000 shares of Harken Energy Corp. for $878,000 in profits just before the oil company announced $22 million in losses. Bush, a director of Harken and a member of its audit committee, has admitted he received an inside tipoff that the company was about to announce heavy losses.

Similarly, Cheney is under investigation for his role as CEO of Halliburton, the Texas-based oil equipment firm. (See story page 12)

Conyers’ proposal for a special prosecutor was the topic of the July 22 edition of CNN’s “Crossfire.” Julian Epstein, minority counsel of the House Judiciary Committee, said an investigation is needed of Bush and Cheney. “Every time they open their mouths, the stock market tanks,” said Epstein, a veteran member of Conyers’ staff. “Why is that? Part of the reason is that they have become the poster children for the corporate malfeasance that’s been occurring. Both of them presided over corporations that used Enron-style accounting.”

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the National Employment Law Project debunked Bush claims that the economy is rebounding. The two groups released a report titled “Time to Fix the Federal Extended Benefit Program.” As of June, 1.67 million workers have been unemployed more than the 26 weeks and even the minority of jobless workers who receive unemployment insurance are now exhausting their benefits, the report charged.

Matthew Walters, an EPI spokesman told the World that after the 1991 recession, “We had a jobless recovery. The current ‘recovery’ is following that pattern.” Long-term unemployment, he said, proves that workers who are laid off these days “are finding it increasingly difficult to find new jobs. Companies are downsizing. They are not hiring people back. The jobs are permanently eliminated.”

Congress he said, must further extend Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits for workers who are exhausting extended benefits and must lower the threshold to permit more jobless workers to qualify for UI. “This is a huge issue in this year’s election,” he said. “Millions of workers and their families are affected by the loss of these benefits.”

Dan Kaufman, press spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) said his union is fighting to protect pension funds hard hit by corporate bankruptcies. The best solution, he said, would be a federal law requiring disclosure and worker representation on pension funds.

In Florida, the State Employees Pension Fund, which covers thousands of AFSCME retirees, “continued to buy Enron stock even after the company was beginning to collapse,” Kaufman said. “Gov. Jeb Bush was one of the trustees and pushed for the purchase of Enron stock.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

Youth gear up for 2002 elections

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:33:00 +0000

Commentary

All across the country youth are gearing up for the November elections. They are forming broad-based coalitions on campuses and working with community, religious and labor organizations to register students and young workers to vote.

Many youth see the November elections as a possible turning point, and an opportunity to stop attacks on the right to an education. As the Bush administration shifts money to tax breaks for the rich and an increased military budget, there have been drastic cuts to federal funding of financial aid and early education outreach programs. Campuses everywhere are facing budget cuts, and, as a direct result, tuition is rising.

Youth, who are in many ways the most energetic, enthusiastic and willing to rock the boat, understand that democracy is about participation. Youth must participate in the democratic process if their needs and issues are to be addressed.

There are 64 million Americans between the age of 18 and 34 eligible to vote. Of the 32 million who are registered, nearly 25 million vote. With these numbers, youth can make a profound impact on the outcome of the November elections.

The youth vote can play a very strategic role. Youth are in a unique position to directly influence a shift in the balance of forces, a shift towards more funding for social programs like education.

One of the largest student organizations in the country, the United States Student Association (USSA) has made education and student voter turnout a priority. USSA clearly understands the relationship between access to higher education and who’s in office. USSA believes that any real democratic system relies on an educated population. And anything that keeps youth out of classrooms also undermines democracy.

Portia Pedro, director of organizing for USSA, told the World that many youth are faced with a cycle of neglect. “Most politicians don’t talk about student issues. So a lot of students don’t vote. If we do vote, though, politicians have to talk about our issues. Our vote can push them to make a change.” Pedro added that students should do more than vote. They need to “lobby as students, for student issues.”

Another youth organization prioritizing the role of students and young workers in the elections is the Young Communist League (YCL). Libero Della Piana, National Coordinator of the YCL, stressed the importance of students and young workers getting registered and voting this fall, adding that a record number of youth voted in the 2000 elections. But, Della Piana said, “Many youth felt like their voices were invalidated, thrown out in the 2000 elections. The stealing of the elections was a real shock.”

Many voices, especially youth of color, are systematically disenfranchised from the democratic process. By policy or in practice, thousands of youth, students and young workers have been denied their constitutional right to vote. On many occasions students have been turned away from the voting booth because the address on their driver’s license is different than the address they are registered under. This creates an especially difficult situation for out-of-state college students.

“Youth tend to vote more progressively,” Della Piana continued, “and a defeat for Bush and the GOP will set the tone for the next period.”

The results of the November elections, with broad-based youth participation, can lay the groundwork for a resurgent people’s movement against the rightwing. A united front of student, community, religious and labor organizations can mobilize enough votes to elect congressional and senatorial candidates that support working-class issues like education.

Tony Pecinovsky is a writer for Dynamic. He can be reached at tonpec2000@yahoo.com

This system is rotten to the core — a case in point

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:27:00 +0000

This is a time when people’s confidence in the system of capitalism is being shaken. It all started with Enron, but then other giants like Global Crossings and WorldCom joined in. People see a pattern here.

Now questions are swirling around Halliburton. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Halliburton for accounting fraud. Judicial Watch, a legal group that hounded former President Clinton, is suing Halliburton for overstating its revenue.

Seems Halliburton reported cost overruns as profits, an apparent no-no in the business world, since a customer can refuse to pay them. (Of course, with customers like the Pentagon, Halliburton and subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, probably weren’t too concerned about this. After all, the U.S. military has never seen a cost overrun that it didn’t like, or pay.)

And, adding to the Halliburton jitters, the company is in court fighting over 200,000 asbestos claims. A recent verdict went against the company to the tune of $150 million.

Halliburton, like Enron, is a huge Texas-based monopoly corporation related to the oil and gas industry. Both companies used the infamous accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, when former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney praised for their innovative skills.

Halliburton, like Enron, has high-powered executives in touch with the president. Hell, it has the vice president.

Earlier in the year, when rumors ran rampant that Halliburton was going bankrupt, Cedric Burgher, vice president of investor relations, told the press, “We’re not even close to being insolvent. We’re a healthy company.”

When the SEC announced its investigation, Burgher said, “We are very confident that we followed generally accepted accounting principals correctly.”

Then when The New York Times reported that two former executives of Dresser Industries, which merged with Halliburton in 1998, said they thought the company cooked the books to cover up large losses, Burgher disputed the claim, saying that the changes were related to an earlier policy change involving how customers were billed. (A policy change that occurred while Vice President Dick Cheney was the company’s CEO, and that was given the go-ahead by then-auditor Arthur Andersen, reports stated.)

Well, Cedric Burgher should be an expert by now. Because one more thing that Halliburton and Enron have in common is Burgher himself. Burgher was an executive at Enron Corporation from 1996 to 2001, including as vice president of investor relations. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

Halliburton is a case study in why capitalism cannot solve the crises it creates and why it is a systemic problem, not merely a matter of one or two bad apples. Halliburton, which operates in over 100 countries, has been part of the monopoly merger mania, one of the features that has brought on the crises.

The stock market is like a big gambling house. In this present stage, the stock market is really not based on creating anything of value, a key to any system of commodity exchange. It is based on speculation.

So you can just imagine? In the heady 1990s Halliburton must have seemed like a great investment, with its worldwide political and business contacts, getting contracts all over the world and knowing the Pentagon will always be there. And it had Lawrence Eagleburger, former Reagan advisor, sitting on its board to advise the company on the political situation in other countries – insider information, so to speak. Now the future of Halliburton is not so sure.

Lenin pointed out in Imperialism that state-monopoly capitalism is all about the state doing the bidding of these corporate interests. Halliburton’s 2001 annual report said, “Our customers have to find and replace the oil and gas they produce every year. They have to do it from increasingly remote and hostile locations, and they have to bring it to market at a cost that is commercially and politically acceptable.”

Well, it just so happens that right now what is considered politically acceptable is the war on terrorism. How convenient for Halliburton to have such an apparatus as the U.S. military at its service.

The author can be reached at Talbano@pww.org

Supreme Court backs OSHA scofflaw employers

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:21:00 +0000

A recent Supreme Court decision has given employers a free hand in excluding workers who may have a preexisting health condition. In this case the preexisting health condition would be one which might become worse given the chemicals that the employing company may be exposing workers to.

Or, for example, if a worker is found to be sensitized to the fumes from an industrial solvent odor, and complains that the odor causes severe breathing problems, the employer can refuse to change the solvent. It is up the worker to either put up with the chemical danger or find another job. To the unwary person this may sound rather logical. Shouldn’t the job applicant be warned, and in this case, be barred from a job that might make his or her condition worse?

The attorneys for the company, ChevronTexaco Corp., who appeared before the Supreme Court, actually said that not allowing the employer to refuse work to these workers would make the company “complicit in a suicide attempt.” Attorneys for Jackson Lewis, the most notorious anti-union law firm in the U.S., said, if the Supreme Court ruled on behalf of the worker, it “would have created a head-on collision with OSHA.” They were right, but, obviously, for the wrong reasons.

The right-wingers on the Supreme Court, and their supporters, were targeting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the law that provides economic and political equity to millions of disabled people.

Labor, political action and disability organizations have been trying to expand the scope of the ADA since its enactment. But the forces of profit and greed have also been working, trying to restrict its scope to the point of ineffectiveness, which is a form of repeal.

What the companies in this case are saying, although not openly, is that occupational health problems brought on by chemical exposures in production are not going to change. Worker and union activists were hoping that passage of the ADA would be another valuable tool in forcing scofflaw employers to fix their workplaces for already-hired workers and those who would seek employment in the future and that ADA meant that employers had to make the factories and offices of our country safe for everyone.

This does not mean, for example, if a worker is having a negative reaction to an industrial solvent, he or she has no recourse. It is not uncommon, for example, for the odor from an industrial solvent to cause headaches and other reactions in some workers.

The union and the working agreement is the first line of defense for workers. The affected worker must talk with his or her shop steward. The steward and an official of the union should approach management with the request for another solvent to be used.

But, the laws of the land, such as OSHA, were not meant to be enforceable only if you have a union to back you up. They are meant to protect everyone. Constitutional and labor advocates need to analyze this decision, pick it apart and begin the process of entering another case that limits its impact. The ChevronTexaco case cannot be left standing as is. It may require special congressional legislation to reverse this trend. A new Congress after the 2002 elections can make this possible.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Janitors win with picket

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:16:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS – The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 50 recently won another victory against Mitch Murch Maintenance Management (4M), a member of the Contract Cleaners Association (CCA). Local 50 has been in contract negotiations with CCA, an association of eight cleaning companies, since November 2001, and has targeted 4M because they are one of the largest janitorial employers in St. Louis. Local 50 represents 3,000 janitors in the St. Louis area.

On July 13 Local 50 voted to go on strike against 4M. On July 15 pickets went up at four different locations where Mitch Murch employs janitors: Alberici Construction, Shnucks Corporate Headquarters, Equitable Building and the Thomas Eagleton Federal Court House.

“Pickets went up at 10 a.m. at the Alberici building,” Charlie Hatcher, director of organizing for Local 50, told the World. “By 2 p.m., Mitch Murch had lost the contract.”

Cleaning companies bid for contracts and Local 50 hopes to create a situation where they can take contracts from 4M, directly challenging their market share and profits, and give those contracts to cleaning companies who are willing to pay a living wage and agree to the new contract.

Commenting on the recent victory at Alberici, Santios Tucker, employed by CCA member Clean Tech, said, “there is strength in solidarity! There is strength in being united!”

On July 19, payday, 4M illegally held strikers’ paychecks. “The average St. Louis janitor makes $6.50 an hour. For Mitch Murch to hold their paychecks is just barbaric,” said Hatcher. “These workers have groceries to buy, rent to pay and kids to take care of.” Local 50 filed unfair labor charges with the Wage and Hour division of the Labor Department.

At the Equitable Building, 16 of 22 janitors refused to cross the picket and at the Federal Court House seven of eight refused to cross. The Teamsters and the Elevator Operators Union have also refused to cross the picket.

When asked what he would say to 4M if he had the chance, Tucker responded: “I would tell ‘em to give up! We’ve already won! We are just waiting for them to wake up and smell the coffee. We are united and we are going to take what we want.”

The author can be reached at tonpec2000@yahoo.com

Laundry workers demand justice from BBJ

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:12:00 +0000

CHICAGO – “What’s disgusting? Union Busting! What’s outrageous? Sweatshop wages!” chanted 100 BBJ Linen workers and their supporters. The protesters were picketing at the main gate of the Lincoln Park Zoo July 12, while wealthy patrons in their finest sheepishly slipped from stretch limousines to attend the Annual Gala Ball.

The protesters were at the zoo to draw attention to sweatshop conditions at BBJ Linens in Skokie, Ill. The annual ball, hosted by the Women’s Board at the zoo, was being catered by renowned chef, Wolfgang Puck, who chose BBJ as his linen provider.

Most of the industrial laundry workers at BBJ are Mexican immigrants. The workers have been organizing with the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) for higher wages and better working conditions. BBJ is the last of the major industrial laundry facilities to be organized.

“While BBJ is making a fortune we are being paid poverty wages,” said Judith Pineda, a leader of the workers. Guests to the Gala Ball paid $375 a plate to attend. The average BBJ employee would have to work one-and-a-half weeks at the laundry to earn that amount.”

Pineda continued, “BBJ treats us like crooks. Every day they check our bags to see if we have stolen something. We think this is unjust.”

The workers described not being allowed by their bosses to bring in water during a recent hot spell. The next day one of the workers fainted on the job.

“We work under very dangerous conditions and it’s very hot,” said another worker. “Stacks of big crates are leaning over and the fire exits are blocked.”

Every time the workers have a complaint they take it to the company’s human resources department. But they get no response, so they have turned to the union for help. To date, five workers have been fired for supporting the union.

“This is just the beginning of our struggle for justice,” said another worker.

The author can be reached at jbachtell@ameritech.net

International notes

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:06:00 +0000

Ecuador: Banana workers fight for union

Though international solidarity is growing rapidly, Alvaro Noboa, Ecuador’s biggest banana tycoon, refuses to negotiate with banana workers seeking to unionize on his plantations. Last May, Noboa was forced to admit he hired armed goons to attack strikers on his Los Alamos plantations. Now, the union says Noboa seeks to block the workers’ efforts by forming a “company union” including members who don’t even work on the plantations.

Ecuador supplies a quarter of the bananas consumed in the U.S. Almost none of the country’s 300,000 banana workers are unionized. Last April, 1,400 workers at Los Alamos stopped work to demand a union, higher wages and health care (the latter two clearly within the terms of Ecuador’s labor laws). After workers struck again on May 6 to protest mass firings, 400 hooded goons attacked workers’ homes on one plantation, injuring many.

U.S. and international trade union organizations and human rights groups have mobilized delegations and protests supporting the banana workers. Readers can send a message to Alvaro Noboa, Grupo Noboa Inc., 555 W. 57th St., New York NY 10019, or e-mail banoboa@bonita.com.

Vietnam: Gov’t sets 2003 social & economic agenda

Vietnam is aiming for an economic growth rate of over 7 percent in 2003, the government announced earlier this month. Plans include intensified focus on agricultural restructuring, increasing the competitiveness of both industrial and service sectors, and alleviating poverty in disadvantaged mountainous regions.

In agriculture, scientific and technical innovations will be applied to crop cultivation and aquaculture, and investment in processing industries will be stepped up to raise quality and competitiveness. Factories and enterprises will cut production costs and make better use of local resources, and reorganization of state-owned industries will continue. Services are to be developed in rural as well as urban areas, including tourism, legal and financial services.

Burkina Faso: Thousands march vs. privatization

Thousands of striking workers marched through Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, July 18 to protest privatizations that have cost thousands of jobs, and to demand higher wages.

“Through this strike and procession we just want to demonstrate our dissatisfaction with the government’s silence on the legitimate demands of workers,” said union spokesman Liliou Jean Mathias.

Workers are demanding a 25 percent increase in salaries and retirement benefits, and a cut in income taxes. Salaries have scarcely increased since 1994, three years after the landlocked West African country started implementing programs prescribed by the International Monetary Fund. But basic services and commodities have gone up – water by 114 percent. Nearly half Burkina Faso’s 11 million people live below the poverty line.

New Zealand: Unions say overwork hurts families

The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (CTU) this week released the first installment of a research project into the impact of work hours on families. The study “clearly shows many families are under severe pressure as a result of long work hours and changing work-hour patterns,” said CTU president Ross Wilson.

“The negative effects of excessive working hours ... have become an unwelcome feature of life in New Zealand in the past decade,” Wilson added. “It is becoming increasingly clear that there is strong public support for regulation of excessive working hours, and the introduction of family-friendly workplace policies.”

Issues included excessive hours of 45 to 55 hours a week or more, unpaid and/or involuntary extra hours often in high-pressure work settings, intrusion of work into non-working hours via cell phones and other electronic communication devices, and increased workplace accidents toward the end of long shifts. Most workers also noted negative effects on family life and on ability to participate in community activities.

Cuba: Education a continuing priority

At a graduation ceremony for teachers last week, Cuban President Fidel Castro affirmed that Cuba has the best educational indices in the hemisphere, and said efforts are continuing to improve the education system.

Castro said Cuban primary school students demonstrate almost double the knowledge of their continental peers, with all children in that age group attending classes. Today, the number of university graduates and intellectuals is twice the number of those who finished sixth grade in 1959.

But, he added, one of Cuba’s greatest aims is to make the country one huge university in order to extend that level of study to the municipalities – an unparalleled and unprecedented action. The Cuban leader also cited the new class size of 20 students, to be implemented in the next academic year, to improve the quality of education.

Wo-Chi-Ca book offers glimpse of camp

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 08:37:00 +0000

Book Review

Tales of Wo-Chi-Ca: Blacks, Whites and Reds at Camp, by June Levine and Eugene Gordon, Avon Springs Press, 235 pages.

There have been a number of books published in recent years that have surveyed the role of the “Left” in the pre- and post-war periods – some in critical, anti-communist tones, and others, like Red Diapers, the collective memoir of children of Communists, in a more positive and rounded view.

The latest of this latter type is Tales of Wo-Chi-Ca, a portrait of the unique camp for workers’ children that was sponsored by the International Workers Order, a left-wing insurance plan that began in the pre-World War II period until it was forced out of existence by McCarthyite forces during the height of the Cold War.

In the twenty years that it operated in the “wilds” of New Jersey, Camp Wo-Chi-Ca, which stood for “Workers’ Children Camp,” became an ideal world of its own for the thousands of young children of all races and nationalities, most of them from the crowded, poverty stricken streets of New York, who came to cherish their time at the Camp as a high point in their lives.

The book is a compendium of personal memories, along with accounts of daily life at a camp that stressed interracial harmony and respect, and social and political consciousness, combined with cultural, sports, and varied other recreational activities.

The historical change and turmoil in the years of Wo-Chi-Ca’s existence, from 1934-54, had their reflection and repercussions at Camp Wo-Chi-Ca. Prominent, and running like a red thread throughout the book, is the role and impact of the great African American leader, artist, peace fighter and prime target of the witchhunters, Paul Robeson. Robeson first came to the Camp in 1940, and he returned every year to sing, play ball, talk to the campers and become a treasured memory to all.

“To this day,” say the authors, “more than sixty years later, when Wo-Chi-Cans reminisce about camp, their talks begin and end with the visits of Paul Robeson.”

But aside from Robeson, many other noted artists, like Charles White, Canada Lee, Kenneth Spencer, Pearl Primus, Ernest Crichlow, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Rockwell Kent, and political figures like Mother Bloor, Albert Kahn, Howard Fast and Dr. Edward Barsky, came and talked about their experiences and struggles to change the world.

All of this is presented in a lively, interesting fashion in the book, with photos, personal accounts and a great deal of humor.

Eugene Gordon is a former reporter for the Daily Worker who now lives in Northern California with his partner and co-author, June Levine, who dreamed all her life about writing a book about Camp Wo-Chi-Ca, and now has done it – and done it well.

For those who spent time at Wo-Chi-Ca, this book will awaken happy memories. For others, as Ronnie Gilbert, formerly of The Weavers, says in her introduction, “It will be a glimpse of a time and place when hundreds of youngsters every summer discovered that even as children we could think as individuals and also be part of a community, could participate in a life of ideas along with sports and games.”

– Herb Kaye (ncalview@igc.org)