Amid layoffs, workers resist attacks from bosses, gov’t
https://themilitant.com/2020/07/04/amid-layoffs-workers-resist-attacks-from-bosses-govt/
BY ROY LANDERSEN
Vol. 84/No. 27
July 13, 2020
Since June 6 hundreds of Indian women garment workers have blocked
entrance of Euro Clothing Company in Srirangapatna, demanding the
reinstatement of 1,300 sacked workers.
Since June 6 hundreds of Indian women garment workers have blocked
entrance of Euro Clothing Company in Srirangapatna, demanding the
reinstatement of 1,300 sacked workers.
The unity and fighting spirit of thousands of striking shipbuilding
workers at Bath Iron Works in Maine is an example for workers everywhere
as we seek ways to resist growing boss attacks on our jobs, wages and
conditions.
Backed by the government, bosses are pushing to reopen factories,
warehouses, retail stores and restaurants, while at the same time
seeking to pare away “excess” workers to better be able to compete with
their rivals and rebuild profits. Many are dumping workers, speeding up
work for those who remain and showing utter disdain for workers’ safety
on the job.
Workers are standing up and saying “No!” In addition to the Bath
strikers, thousands of Amazon workers in Germany struck for two days
beginning June 29 for a union contract, better pay and safer working
conditions. Hundreds of Indian women garment workers laid off by Euro
Clothing Company in Srirangapatna have been carrying out daily sit-ins
in front of the factory since June 6 demanding their jobs back.
The protests against cop brutality that have swept across the U.S. and
around the world both draw strength from, and help reinforce, workers’
determination to fight back.
Unemployment remains at levels unseen since the 1930s Great Depression.
Some 1.5 million workers in the U.S. filed for unemployment last week,
according to official figures, the 14th week in a row that figure has
topped 1 million. An additional 728,000 filed for Pandemic Unemployment
Assistance, a special federally funded program providing aid for
self-employed workers, independent contractors and others.
The government says there are 19.5 million workers collecting
unemployment and 11 million on the pandemic assistance rolls. These
figures undercount the real numbers. Many have struggled to get through
to unemployment office phone numbers and numerous others have gotten
“discouraged” and given up.
Some of the government’s payouts are on the verge of drying up. The
unemployment “stimulus” bonuses of $600 a week run out July 31. This
will be another blow for millions.
Bosses getting ‘leaner and meaner’
Airline bosses — like those in many other industries — are reorganizing,
shedding workers. Qantas management announced plans to lay off 6,000
workers and furlough another 15,000. Delta will furlough 2,558 pilots.
Bosses at American Airlines cut jobs. At the same time they intend to
redraw their flight schedule to assure every plane is “booked to
capacity” starting July 1.
Airline manufacturers are following suit. Airbus bosses announced July 1
that they aim to cut 15,000 jobs. Unions in Germany — where 900 jobs
have already been cut and 5,100 more are targeted — pledged to fight the
layoffs and local protests have broken out.
“It’s going to be a mighty battle to save jobs,” said Francoise Vallin
of the CFE-CGC, one of the unions organizing Airbus workers in France,
where bosses say 5,000 workers have to go.
Macy’s bosses announced June 25 they are slashing 3,900 more jobs, this
time largely from their white-collar staff. Smaller businesses, which
employ half the U.S. workforce, are cutting jobs at the same time as
they fight to reopen.
Competition between the bosses — and conflicts between rival capitalist
governments that represent them — is intensified by decades of falling
rates of industrial profit. The capitalist system is in decline and its
sharpening antagonisms are undermining the “global world order” put in
place after the U.S. rulers emerged as the victor from the second world
imperialist slaughter.
Government debts are soaring to new heights as capitalist rulers
everywhere try to “stimulate” their way out of the catastrophic effects
of prolonged shutdowns. Political crises among them are sharpening
worldwide as they seek partisan advantage.
Democratic Party politicians in state and city governments and their
liberal supporters in the big-business press argue for more caution in
reopening, maneuvering to pin blame for the effects of coronavirus on
their rival, President Donald Trump. Republicans push for faster
reopening, hoping an uptick in the economy will boost their chances in
the November elections. Neither has the interests of working people in
mind.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new budget June 30 that
slashes 22,000 jobs by Oct. 1 unless federal or state funds are
forthcoming. Similar cuts are being announced in city halls and
statehouses across the country.
While governments are accumulating debts, working people face threats
over credit card, home, car, college tuition and other loans that they
have no way to pay. Ditto for rents and mortgages.
The captains of industry are trying to reopen under the most favorable
conditions to resume profitable operations — at workers’ expense.
Working people need to escape the demoralizing social isolation and get
back to work under safe conditions. We need to link up in solidarity on
the job to stand up to the bosses’ profit drive, aimed to get fewer
workers to work harder for longer hours at less pay.
In face of massive unemployment, workers need to fight to build a
labor-led movement to demand a government-funded public works program to
create jobs at union pay, to build housing, hospitals, schools, child
care centers, and rebuild crumbling infrastructure — all the things that
toilers need.
Over 2,000 warehouse workers went out on a two-day strike at six Amazon
facilities in Germany June 29. The e-commerce giant employs 13,000
workers there, its largest operation outside North America. Members of
the Verdi union have been fighting for a contract to win better work
conditions, including health precautions, and higher pay.
Amazon bosses — notoriously anti-union everywhere, like bosses at
Walmart and most retail chains and the whole social media “industry” —
continue their yearslong refusal to negotiate. Measures to offer more
protection for workers, especially amid a spike in COVID-19 cases, such
as slowing the line speed and giving each worker more space, would eat
into the surge in their profits under government lockdowns.
Amazon bosses have also faced protests and job actions in France, Italy,
the U.S., and elsewhere.
Deepening crisis in Latin America
In Latin America and the Caribbean, tens of millions face a deep crisis
from the collapse of production and trade under lockdowns. A brutal
sharpening of class inequalities is underway.
The countries there are still semicolonial, despite growing
urbanization, and are heavily dependent on the export of mostly
agricultural products as well as oil and other raw materials. According
to the World Bank, they face the “worst crisis” in 120 years. The
International Monetary Fund predicts an economic contraction in South
America of 9.4% this year, sharper than projections for Africa, the
Middle East or Asia. The major grain-exporting economy of Argentina
contracted 26.4% in April, the worst monthly fall on record.
Two decades of economic growth has been lauded by defenders of
capitalism as a new flowering of “emerging markets” — and a new
investment opportunity for bankers, hedge funds and others with fat bank
accounts. But this all began to contract years before the current
crisis. For the ruling families in the region, 2015 to 2025 looms as a
“lost decade.” For working people it’s a disaster driven by capitalism.
A wave of mass demonstrations has swept the region, from Chile to
Colombia, fueled by anger at increasing government and employer attacks
on working people. Protests demanded government action to reverse
poor-quality public services, vanishing employment prospects and
declining living standards.
Across South America and the Caribbean, 40% of the gross domestic
product comes from street vendors and others in the so-called informal
sector. With the absence of street life due to government lockdowns,
many are in dire straits. No government “aid” reaches them. Among the
Caribbean nations the halt of tourism is devastating.
In Chile, protests broke out in May on the outskirts of Santiago over
inadequate food relief for the people hardest hit. In Brazil, protesters
from Sao Paulo’s favelas marched on the state governor’s mansion
demanding aid. In many cities across the region working people facing
hardship have taken to banging pots and pans from their windows in protest.
Workers and farmers from the U.S. and Europe to the semi-colonial world
have common interests and a common enemy — the bosses and their
governments, especially in Washington and other imperialist centers.
International solidarity is crucial.
Shipyard strike is a fight for all working people!
BATH, Maine — Over 4,300 members of Machinists Local S6 have entered the
second week on strike against Bath Iron Works, a subsidiary of General
Dynamics that builds destroyers and other ships for the Navy and is
Maine’s largest private…
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Richard Dawkins
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all
decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this
sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running
for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from
within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation,
thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this
very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the
natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons
and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people
are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find
any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has
precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no
purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
