T.O. Weekly 77: Rail Worker Vote – Toward the Paris IWC Conferences – Brazil Round 2 – Ayotzinapa – French FI Youth Appeal
The ORGANIZER Newsletter
Issue No. 77 – October 18, 2022
Please distribute widely, Subscribe Today!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
N THIS ISSUE:
‘We Are Not Done Yet’: Rail Workers Reject Tentative Agreement
Final Push to Support the Travel Fund for the Paris Conferences Against War and Exploitation and For Women’s Rights
October 22: International Rally Against War in Paris
October 29: International Working Women’s Conference: Interview with Christel Keiser, co-convener of the IWWC
BRAZIL: Statement on the Second Round of the Elections – On October 30: Vote Lula For a Workers’ Government!
MEXICO: Justice For the 43 of Ayotzinapa!
The Deepening Crisis of Capitalism and Why Workers and Youth Should Join the Fourth International
* * * * * * * * * *
‘We Are Not Done Yet’: Rail Workers Reject Tentative Agreement
Members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, the third-largest of the 12 unions on the railroads, voted down a national tentative agreement with the freight rail carriers. Fifty-six percent voted against the deal. The larger unions of engineers and conductors – BLET and SMART-TD, representing about half of the 115,000 union members at the Class I freight railroads – will be voting soon on the agreement.
A month earlier, railway workers rejected management’s final offer and were poised to go on strike. It was only the 11th hour intervention by President Joe Biden and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh that put a halt to the planned strike. The top union officials accepted a sub-par last-minute agreement that left out many of the workers’ central demands — particularly regarding sick leave and healthcare.
In The Organizer Newsletter no. 76 (September 29) we described the situation as follows:
“Biden, acting squarely on behalf of Big Business and Wall Street, felt that he had to intervene directly to avoid a rail strike, which would have paralyzed one-third of the nation’s commerce. On the eve of the 2022 mid-term election, this so-called ‘friend of labor’ did not want to invoke the Railway Labor Act, which would have banned the rail workers from striking. But, according to the business press, he was ready to do so, if necessary.
“The last word has not been said about the rail workers. The interim agreement still has to be put to a vote of the membership – and there is huge discontent among the ranks over the tentative settlement. One of the main demands, for example, involved seven to ten days of paid sick leave. This is standard in many union contracts. The TA called for one day of paid sick leave – yes one! In addition, the 5,000 IAM [Machinists] working in rail just voted to reject the proposed contract. The Wall Street Journal noted on September 14, ‘The threat of a strike has been delayed, but not averted’.”
In a statement, BMWE President Tony Cardwell attributed the BMWE’s rejection to members’ feeling that “management holds no regard for their quality of life, illustrated by their stubborn reluctance to provide a higher quantity of paid time off, especially for sickness.” (Bloomberg News, October 11)
BMWE Rank and File United, a caucus in the union, released a statement encouraging members to organize informational pickets and push for a stronger agreement. “We must stand together in showing the carriers, politicians, and the world that we are not done. Our demands have not been met,” read the statement.
The rail workers have every reason to be angry. During the pandemic, the profits of the rail companies soared while wages remained stagnant. Workers also are worried about their job security. Jonah Furman reports in Labor Notes on October 11:
“The ‘no’ vote partly reflects pent-up anger over the increasingly grueling conditions on the job. As the rail employers have embraced Precision Scheduled Railroading, they’ve slashed the workforce, increasing the workload and hours of the workers who remain.
“According to the Surface Transportation Board, the freight railroads have shed more than 20 percent of their maintenance-of-way jobs in the past six years, and more than 50,000 rail jobs in total since the year 2000.”
In Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon, and West Virginia, rail workers have mobilized in picket lines at their workplaces with handmade signs that read, “We Demand More” and “We Are Not Done Yet.” Other signs read, “Stop the War on Railroad Workers!”
This militant stance is what has the bosses worried. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “The threat of a strike has been delayed but not averted.” — A.B.
* * * * * * * * * *
Final Push to Support the Travel Fund for the Paris Conferences Against War and Exploitation and For Women’s Rights
Dear readers and supporters of The Organizer:
The International Conference Against War and Exploitation, For a Workers’ International (OWC) will be held in Paris in less than two weeks, together with the International Working Women’s Conference (IWWC).
To help finance the delegations from the U.S., Mexico and Haiti, The Organizer newspaper set itself the goal of raising $15,750. At this writing we have raised $14,410 — $1,860 from GoFundMe and the rest from checks sent to our P.O. box in San Francisco. [see addresses below].
But we are still $1,340 short of our goal.
In this final push, we are calling upon friends and supporters of The Organizer to help us make our goal.
We are calling on you to finance, dollar by dollar, the struggle against war and exploitation.
Please send your checks, payable to The Organizer, P.O. Box 40315, San Francisco, CA 94140 or send your contribution via GoFundMe at:
On August 26, the Wall Street Journal noted: “Risk of a third world war will double in the next six months“.
With each passing day, Biden, Putin, NATO and the European Union are pouring oil on the fire in Ukraine. At the same time, NATO military preparations are underway for war against China.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent on war budgets throughout the world, budgets that are constantly increasing — at the expense of human needs and our environment.
Prices are soaring, salaries are not keeping up with inflation, hospital beds continue to close, the environment is being destroyed by capitalist greed. … And everywhere, jobs are threatened by an impending recession.
Working people and youth do not want war. What is needed are BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS, AND WAGES — NOT FOR NATO AND WAR!
On October 22, an INTERNATIONAL RALLY AGAINST WAR will be held in Paris with speakers from all over the world. [See sidebar article below.]
It’s a rally to say: NO PUTIN, NO BIDEN, NO MACRON!
It’s a rally to demand: Russian troops Out of Ukraine! – Dismantle NATO! – French troops Out of Africa!
It’s a rally to fight against the warmongering governments, beginning with the U.S. government, which are waging wars abroad together with NATO, and war at home with their counter-reforms of retirement pensions and unemployment insurance.
It’s a rally to earmark the billions for the war and redirect them to human needs and the environment. It’s a rally to promote the fight for the confiscation of the billions of profits pocketed by the capitalists and speculators!
On October 29 and 30, a WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST WAR AND EXPLOITATION, FOR A WORKERS’ INTERNATIONAL will be held in Paris, with representatives from Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
This conference will open with an INTERNATIONAL WORKING WOMEN’S CONFERENCE – a conference committed to the common struggle against war, against the high cost of living, for equal rights and democratic rights, including the right to abortion!
We appeal to young people, to workers:
The Paris OWC and IWWC conferences are totally independent of all war-mongering governments. To finance them, we can count only on ourselves.
Please send your checks, payable to The Organizer, P.O. Box 40315, San Francisco, CA 94140 or send your contribution via GoFundMe at:
• Join us in financing the fight against war!
• Join us in financing the fight for a Workers’ International!
– – – – – – –
October 22: International Rally Against War in Paris
[1] The International Rally Against War will be held Saturday, October 22 in Paris, chaired by Daniel Gluckstein, co-coordinator of the International Workers’ Committee
Against War and Exploitation, For a Workers’ International (IWC).
The following speakers will address the rally:
AFGHANISTAN
Freshta AMIRI, activist of the Afghanistan Radical Left (LRA). She has been involved in the demonstrations of women and schoolgirls for the reopening of schools.
GERMANY
Claudius NAUMANN, internationalist activist, president of the council of staff delegates of the Free University of Berlin.
BELARUS, RUSSIA AND UKRAINE
Activists who are fighting against war and for socialism.
BURKINA FASO
Adama COULIBALY, of the Patriotic Alternative, Pan-African-Burkindi (APP-B).
UNITED STATES
Alan BENJAMIN, Socialist Organizer, one of the founding members of US Labor Against the War.
FRANCE
Christel KEISER, national secretary of the Parti ouvrier independant et democratique, Democratic Independent Workers Party (POID),
ALSO: An activist of the Federation of Young Revolutionaries (FJR).
GREAT BRITAIN
Ian HODSON, president of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU).
PALESTINE
An activist, on behalf of the association
Secular Palestine. She is a campaigner for a democratic and secular Palestine.
ALSO
Video messages from activists from IRAN, SRI LANKA and CHINA.
* * * * * * * * * *
October 29: International Working Women’s Conference
An interview with Christel Keiser, co-convener of the IWWC
Question: This international conference is both separate from and connected to the Open World Conference Against War and Exploitation, For a Workers’ International (October 29-30). Can you explain?
Christel Keiser: Yes, it is both separate and connected. It is distinct because working women have specific demands, both democratic and social, that stem from the double oppression they face as women and as workers. Let’s mention in particular the fights for equal rights in all domains, and since we are talking a lot about wages at the moment, absolute equality in terms of wages, but also the right for women to freely control their bodies, to freely choose in terms of maternity, and for the end of all the violence of which they are victims.
All these particular struggles will be discussed in our conference. But we are also convinced that the struggle against this double oppression is closely linked to the overall struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation. And in this sense, our meeting is also part of the world conference against war and exploitation.
Question: Is this a “feminist” conference?
Christel Keiser: There will be among the delegates to this conference comrades who define themselves as feminists. Personally, I don’t recognize myself in this label, because today everyone calls themselves “feminist” (government officials, bosses, etc.) and I find that this term can be a source of confusion. If we were to disconnect the fight for women’s rights from the workers’ class struggle, we would be sliding into a terrain that pits men against women, which would contribute to division.
But whatever the point of view one may have on the terms, I am convinced that all the participants in the meeting will consider that the indispensable fight against patriarchy that is to say, the domination of men over society must be closely linked to the fight against this capitalist system, which is based on exploitation and which generates and maintains all forms of oppression.
Question: Can you tell us something about the delegations that will participate?
Christel Keiser: Women activists from 16 to 21 countries are expected to participate in this international gathering (some of them are indeed waiting for their visas, which is not an easy task with the restrictions of all kinds on the workers’ movement).
Among the participants, of course, is our comrade Rubina Jamil, a trade union leader in Pakistan, a country ravaged by both war and the recent floods that have affected tens of millions of women and men. At the international rally against the war on October 22, we will welcome our comrades of Left Radical of Afghanistan who, with other women, are leading an extremely courageous struggle by organizing demonstrations of women and schoolgirls to reopen schools whose doors the Taliban have closed to them.
I remind you that the Taliban have been placed back in power by the president of the United States, Joe Biden, in August 2021. Precisely, we will also have a delegation of women from the United States. They are union activists, Black activists, all committed to the fight against the Supreme Court’s decision that calls into question the right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy.
They will certainly explain that this particularly affects the poorest workers and women of color. Our comrades from Mexico will also testify to the difficult struggle against the assassinations and disappearances of women, especially those of the maquiladora workers, the factories relocated to the border with the United States. It is also impossible not to evoke the struggle of Iranian women, who are in the vanguard of the fight against oppression.
Question: In the labor movement, the struggle of working women is obviously also the struggle against war?
Christel Keiser: Absolutely. These are the traditions of Clara Zetkin, an organizer of the International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen in 1910, which was at the origin of the International Women’s Day on March 8. It is always good to remember that the starting point for March 8 is the labor movement, and not the UN or who knows who.
We are also struck by the fact that on March 8, 1917, it was the women workers of St. Petersburg who demonstrated against rationing, overexploitation and war, and triggered the revolution in Russia. And today it is the women in Russia who, as one of them wrote on a sign, “We refuse to let our sons, brothers and husbands go and kill other sons, brothers and husbands.”
I am sure that our conference will help to revive this great tradition of the international struggle of socialist women.
– Interview conducted by Jean Alain
* * * * * * * * * *
BRAZIL: Statement on the Second Round of the Elections – On October 30: Vote Lula For a Workers’ Government!
On October 2 the first round of Brazil’s elections for president, governors, and federal and state deputies took place. With a total of 57 million votes cast (48.43%), the Workers Party (PT) candidate for president of the Republic, Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva, was ahead of the ultra-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, by 6 million votes, or 5%. Bolsonaro received 51 million votes (43.20%). The second round will be held on October 30.
Importantly, more than 32 million voters abstained, or 20.9% of the electorate. This is the highest percentage of abstention in a presidential election since 1998. Abstentions, blank and spoiled ballots, and votes cast for other candidates represented approximately 40 million votes. The vast majority of these voters are workers, young people, and middle-class sectors affected by the crisis of the capitalist system and by Bolsonaro’s policies.
Among the reasons that led a large part of these 40 million abstentionists not to vote for Lula is certainly the distrust of Lula’s stance in cozying up to sectors of the so-called “traditional” right wing (which to date have supported the regressive economic agenda of economy minister Paulo Guedes) in the name of “democracy against Bolsonaro.” Such alliances can only sow confusion in the working class and among the youth and should be discarded.
As former PT president José Genoino told Brasil de Fato newspaper after the first round:
“Electoral campaigns are not won by holding meetings with the elite; you win electoral campaigns in the street. … We need to free ourselves from defensiveness and from just looking at the rearview mirror. We have to discuss what the people’s agenda is. … The conjuncture favors us waging this struggle because we are in a very serious crisis and, facing a crisis, either you present an alternative or the people will demand it.”
All the defenders of the workers, the youth, democracy and the sovereignty of the nation against imperialism, must do everything possible to ensure that the vote for Lula carries the day in the second round. On October 30, we must vote for Lula to end the Bolsonaro government and its policies at the service of the financial markets and the IMF. We must vote Lula for a government of the workers, at the service of the workers — a government that, in our view, must be committed to past and present social demands such as:
– Put an immediate halt to the payment of the public debt that was not contracted by the Brazilian people!
– Repeal all labor, social security, healthcare and education counter-reforms imposed on us by Bolsonaro and before him by Temer! No to the administrative “reform” that destroys the rights of civil servants and public services!
– Maintain all jobs and index wages to inflation! Reduction of the workday!
– Cancel and reverse the privatization of Eletrobras and the privatization of everything that has been privatized to date!
– Prohibit the evictions! Create a plan for low-income housing!
– Decree an immediate agrarian reform: land for those who work it! For the nationalization of agribusiness lands whose owners are involved in illegal deforestation, arson, and disrespect of indigenous peoples!
– Defend and expand public and free universities!
– No to the imperialist war and yes to the international solidarity of the workers!
With a platform linked to the people’s agenda and with the mobilization of the militant base of the PT, PSOL and PCdoB, as well as the CUT and the unions and popular organizations, and also the youth (UNE, UBES, etc.), the landless, the homeless, the working women, the Black population, victory is possible.
Article by militants linked in Brazil to the Committee for the Reconstitution of the Fourth International (OCRFI)
October 4, 2022
Contacts: anisioghomem@gmail.com; pjacobs@terra.com.br; jcsantana158@gmail.com
* * * * * * * * *
MEXICO: JUSTICE FOR THE 43 OF AYOTZINAPA!
Neither Forgive nor Forget! Punish the Murderers! Stop the Militarization of the Country!
Eight years have passed since the disappearance of the 43 normalistas [teachers-in-training] of Ayotzinapa – and justice has not arrived for the parents.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) promised to solve the case and punish the culprits, but as the end of his six-year term nears, he has not fulfilled his promise.
The report of the Special Commission only reiterated what has been said since the first days: It was the State with the complicity of organized crime! Encinas’ report tries to leave the absolve the Mexican army, emphasizing that it was only a matter of a few rogue elements.
The government of the Fourth Transformation (4T), as AMLO calls his six-year term, has moved forward steadily in militarizing the country. Just a few days ago it approved the incorporation of the National Guard into the Ministry of Defense. The government also has announced that the army will remain in the streets until 2028.
During this six-year term, the army has benefited from the contracts for large infrastructure projects such as the AIFA [new Mexico City airport] and the Mayan train. The army’s budget has skyrocketed.
AMLO has given more power to the army, an institution that has been notorious for its repression of social and popular mobilizations. A government that came to power with huge popular support is now betting on the support of the armed forces.
Meanwhile, the popular demands continue to go unheeded. The very demands for which the 43 normalistas were fighting have been left unheeded, and the rural teacher-training colleges continue to be attacked, criminalized, and saddled with a reduced budget. The neoliberal educational “reform” is still in place. The trend towards the privatization of public education continues throughout the country.
It is necessary for the trade union, social and popular organizations to mobilize in large numbers to demand a halt to the militarization of the country and the fulfillment of the popular demands. It is necessary to continue demanding justice for the 43.
The government experience of these four years makes clear the urgent need for workers, women and youth to organize independently.
We invite you to discuss these and other questions with the Internationalist Communist League (OCRFI).
FB: OPT Baja California
Mail: corcimexico@gmail.com
* * * * * * * * *
DOCUMENT:
The Deepening Crisis of Capitalism and Why Workers and
Youth Should Join the Fourth International
(excerpted and adapted from a statement by the Youth Section of the Fourth International [OCRFI] in France)
With each passing day, working people – particularly the youth – are bearing the brunt of a capitalist system in its death agony.
We, youth members of the French section of the Fourth International (OCRFI), are convinced that this situation is not inevitable. It results from a system, the capitalist system, that can be overthrown and replaced with a system that meets human needs and that ensures peace and the preservation of the environment.
That is why we are issuing this statement to present our point of view on the growing world crisis of capitalism and why workers and youth should join the Fourth International.
War: The Dead-End of the Capitalist Regime
Capitalism is the economic regime based on the exploitation of the mass of workers, the only producers of wealth, by a minority that holds the means of production: the capitalists. This regime has not always existed. Today it is in crisis. Unable to conquer new markets, the capitalists have to find new ways to make a profit, apart from the exploitation of wage labor. Among these means are multiple forms of speculation and a permanent arms/war economy.
U.S. imperialism is today the most powerful imperialism in the world. Its global position allows it to dominate all other imperialisms (French, German, British, etc.), but not to resolve its own crisis.
In this context, the existence of China is intolerable for the U.S. warmongers, which is why the war organized by the imperialist powers between Russia and Ukraine is now threatening to be extended to China. The state born of the 1949 Chinese revolution controls the bulk of the country’s production. This is true despite the bureaucratic control of the economy and population by the Chinese Communist Party, which confiscated the revolution from the people in 1949.
The contradictions associated with this ruling bureaucracy allow for the existence of a sizable capitalist sector in China, but it is a sector that is still subject to the parameters established by State ownership of the means of production.
The existence of a portion of the world that is not subject to the law of profit is intolerable for an imperialism whose crisis is worsening by the day. This is why U.S. imperialism and its allies, grouped together in NATO, are multiplying their provocations against China and its allies such as Russia, whose mafia-like capitalist regime has nothing to do with the Chinese State, nor with what the Soviet Union had been.
A threshold of tension was crossed last February [2022], when Putin decided, in order to defend the Russian exploiters, to forcibly engage Russian workers and youth in a war against the Ukrainian people.
Defend Working People, Reject Chauvinism!
The workers and youth of all countries have no interest in a war that pits them against each other and that only deepens their misery. It is the war of capitalists against capitalists, for the purpose of divvying up a greater share of profits.
To preserve its interests, Capital has several weapons. Among them is patriotism, whose aim is to break down the divide between the working class and the capitalist class, so that there is unity between the bosses and the proletariat in the march to war. The aim is to promote the idea among workers that there is an interest – patriotism – superior to the allegiance to the working class.
We are urged to unite with the capitalists, in the national interest, to destroy the Russian people and, behind them, the Chinese people. The governments are at war, not the workers! And most certainly they are not at war for democracy!
The argument of the “fatherland” exists only for one thing: to divide the workers of the world and push them to kill each other in order to allow the capitalists to have a bigger share of the pie of exploitation.
That’s why we reject all forms of patriotism and chauvinism promoted by the capitalists: the workers of the world are not our enemies. The capitalist governments are.
We refuse to defend governments that every day wage an offensive against our rights and our public services – and that makes working people, especially our youth, more precarious.
In the capitalist system, it is in the interest of the bosses and the governments to make young people more precarious, to impoverish them, to lessen their qualifications in a process of de-schooling in order to better exploit them.
Youth have the right to a future with real full-time jobs at a living wage.
We, revolutionary activists, fight for the rights of young people and of all workers against this barbaric capitalist system that oppresses us.
We Demand Money for Education, Healthcare and Public Services – Not War!
Waging wars, especially on the scale we are witnessing today in Ukraine, costs a lot of money. To pay for these capitalist wars, thousands of jobs in education, hospitals and public services are being destroyed, while real wages are collapsing as a result of explosive inflation.
We are told that it is not possible to increase wages, pensions and basic safety-net protections. We are told that inflation is inevitable. Yet, there is no lack of money.
Since March 2020, the Biden administration has spent more than $40 billion in weapons and military personnel supplied to Ukraine. The true figure is likely much higher. The estimated yearly world military budget is $2.13 trillion.
Are we really to believe that funds are lacking to defend and improve our public schools, hospitals and infrastructure, when we see huge sums flowing daily into the pockets of the warmakers and speculators?
What we need is to redirect this war funding to forest protection agencies to allow us to combat properly the waves of fire that are devastating entire regions the world over and that will only get worse as a result of climate change. We need funds to increase wages now, immediately, to keep up with the rate of inflation. We need price controls.
All this money lining the pockets of a minority who live off of exploitation must be redistributed to the majority who live only from their work.
Against War, for the Defense of the Environment
The solution to protect the environment, we are told, is “temperance” and “austerity.” But can the capitalist system become more sustainable when it comes to the environment?
Since Russia declared war on Ukraine, the West has reduced its purchases of Russian gas. This has had one consequence: The power plant of Portavaya, located on the border between Russia and Finland, burns 4.3 million cubic meters of gas every day, which is equivalent to 9,000 tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere. The plant prefers to burn the gas rather than to stop production because it would be too expensive to do so.
The black soot from this combustion accelerates the melting of the ice caps and global warming. In France, a subsidiary of the company Engie regularly releases methane into the atmosphere to “gain time” when it comes to cleaning or repairing installations. Each year, 2.5 million m³ of methane are wasted and poured into the atmosphere. This illegal practice is used to increase the profits generated by this industry. Countless examples could be cited to reveal how capitalism fouls things up.
The multinational corporations are not at the service of humankind. Barbaric capitalism prefers to pollute, foster climate change, and make the earth unlivable to maintain its profits when, in fact, humankind has the technical knowhow and means to provide everyone on this planet with the means to heat (or cool) their homes and live with dignity while preserving the environment.
Saving the environment, and therefore humankind, will require overthrowing capitalism, promoter of wars and destruction.
Fighting Against the Double Oppression of Women and All Other Form of Discrimination
There are a great number of forms of discrimination and oppression in our society: the double oppression of women, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. These particular forms of discrimination and oppression are not dissociated from the question of class struggle seeing as that the capitalist system relies on these discriminations to maintain its domination.
The unity of the working class is a threat to the ruling order of the bourgeoisie. Fostering a whole range of discriminations and oppression allows the capitalist class to divide the working class. The example of British women workers in the 19th century illustrates this point: At that time, women were excluded from trade unions because their wages were lower and they were considered to be competitors of the men. This situation was a hindrance to the unity of the working class.
This is why the struggle of the working class against the capitalist class does not ignore the problem of particular divisions that exist in the working class. Quite the contrary, it acknowledges and addresses them while seeking to promote working class unity every step of the way with the overarching aim of abolishing the system that maintains and fosters these divisions.
The end of the capitalist system and the establishment of a government at the service of all workers and youth will not automatically solve all forms of discrimination, but it is a necessary step towards their abolition. There can be no real solutions to the many particular forms of discrimination so long as the domination of the capitalist class remains.
A future without discrimination is first and foremost a future without the capitalist system.
The Need for an Independent Working-Class Policy:
The Problem of the Betrayal of the Leaders of the Working Class
To maintain its domination, the capitalist class uses various strategies to divide the working class and prevent it from fighting back effectively. This, however, has not stopped the working-class majority from resisting: Week after week strikes and mobilizations take place around concrete demands (wage increases, job stability, improved working conditions, etc.)
In all these fights, the problem of the leadership – or better stated, misleadership – of the working class arises because to fight effectively, it is necessary to be organized. If the struggles are not rooted and organized in independent mass action or independent political action, they are easily derailed and defeated.
In the present context, it is useful to go back to the vote of the war credits of the First World War. At the time of this vote, while strikes were being organized everywhere across Europe against the war and the disastrous consequences that it was generating for the working class, the leaders of the workers’ movement betrayed the workers by voting for the war budgets.
This is occurring today in the United States: All the so-called “progressives” – including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – have voted in support of all the war funding requested by President Biden for the war in Ukraine. U.S. imperialism is continuing to fuel this war to fill the coffers of the warmakers, and the “progressives” – with the trade union leadership trailing dutifully behind – are embracing this war, which is not a war in the interest of working people.
To build the future, we in the Fourth International believe that we need to build independent working-class parties the world over that represent the true aspirations of workers and youth and places them at the center of their activity. We need political parties that break with capitalism and fight for the interests of the working class.
Trade unions are essential to this struggle for independent working-class action. There will be no future for working people and the oppressed if workers are not able to wield, or reclaim, their unions for struggle. Trade unions are the elementary organizations of the working class as a class. They unite workers and also create bridges to the working-class and oppressed communities, whose interests they represent. Isolated, the workers are crushed, united and in solidarity, they can then emancipate themselves.
We need unions where the demands and the means of action are decided by the rank and file in local assemblies that are open to all members. Leaders must be elected and fully accountable to the membership. This is the only way that we will be effective in our struggles.
The Need for Self-Organization
The capitalist regime in crisis is not only reversing the social gains wrested by working people in bitter struggles; it is reversing all the democratic conquests.
In the face of these injustices, our weapon is organization, or more precisely self-organization. The independence of the unions and of working-class parties is a key component of this self-organization.
The question of democracy and independence is the question of power.
To overthrow our warmongering governments that are subservient to the exploiters, we must therefore organize ourselves. This is how we can build the foundations of our own power — of socialism.
Youth have a fundamental role in the struggle for revolution, socialism, and proletarian hegemony.
Today, the youth are dispossessed of their future by the capitalist system which, every day, undermines and attacks their rights. But we are not are not without a fighting perspective. The conquest of a future for our youth requires the abolition of the capitalist system, that is, the expropriation of the means of production which are today in the hands of a tiny minority of exploiters and oppressors.
No compromise is possible with the capitalist regime, which every day is deeper in crisis.
If we are all united, we, the majority, have the capacity to overthrow the capitalist system. That’s why we invite you to join the French section of the Fourth International. Come and discuss with us. Let’s organize together, for our future!
Socialist Organizer 