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3,000 jobs go as Motorola shuts....

Shut Down Capitalism

Fight For Socialism

LEADERS FROM 34 nations from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean gathered in Quebec to establish a new free trade zone - the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which will further impoverish millions of people on the continent and throughout the world.

Jason Baines, Socialist Alternative, Canada, reports from Quebec

The prospect of this so-called free trade zone has caused much anger, creating one of the most radical movements in recent Canadian history.

Over 50,000 youth, workers, environmentalists, feminists and others gathered in Quebec city to oppose it. Most insisted that they weren't there to reform the FTAA, as some union leaders advocate, but to abolish it.

There were several different demonstrations each day, the more radical mainly led by youth. Quebec city turned into a battlefield - different sections of the city were engulfed in confrontations with the police as 400 arrests were made.

A small section of the wall of shame - a huge barricade to protect 'America's leaders - was torn down by angry youth. Tear gas floated above the city hurting residents including one pensioner who was rushed to hospital. One resident had a plastic bullet ricochet in her house.

Beyond the issue of the FTAA, was a general mood among youth and Quebec workers that capitalism was the primary enemy.

Anti-capitalist chants and a pro-socialist consciousness are clearly on the rise, mainly in Quebec among youth and workers but also spreading throughout Canada. Opportunities for the growth of socialist forces in Canada have developed recently.

New sections of youth and workers are moving against capitalism. With sufficient numbers and mass support these demonstrations can even shut down capitalist conferences, such as in Seattle in 1999.

In the two years since the 'Battle of Seattle' the world has seen a new tide of working class and youth resistance against corporate capitalism.

Each time the message of resistance is getting clearer and louder. At the same time, other very important mass uprisings of workers and the oppressed have toppled hated dictators in the Philippines, Serbia and Latin America.

The anti-capitalist movement aims to 'Shut down capitalism'. The one group in society that can and have shut down the system is the working class.

Along with the youth, the international working class provide the only means to shut down the capitalist system... permanently.

Quebec: standing up to big business

THE RECENT Summit of the Americas in Canada achieved little for the impoverished masses in the major capitalist powers of the American continent.

Only Presidents Cardoso from Brazil and Chavez from Venezuela raised criticisms of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). They have posed, based on pressure from their own working class, as opponents of the FTAA, which will inevitably be a labour and environmental exploitation zone for imperialism, concentrated in the US and to a lesser extent, Canada.

Cardoso said at the beginning of the summit that this would mean increased poverty for Brazil but succumbed to pressure. Chavez remained the lone voice of discontent.

The major powers, feeling the heat from below, have made hypocritical references to 'democracy' and environmental regulations. Bush proved his commitment to such regulations by pulling out of the already limited Kyoto accord.

Supposedly, "non-democratic" countries will be thrown out of the free trade zone. Yet, this is more likely to be applied to left-wing figures, like Chavez and Castro (who was banned from attending and gave support to the protesters) than to Haiti's Aristide and other government leaders who toe the line of US imperialism.

While there was a wide range of forces present in Quebec, there were also many varying tactics. What was referred to by the organisers as "diversity of tactics" meant creating several separate "zones", supposedly to have a space for every one.

Yet the police's turning the city into a battleground could have been stopped had the organisers and the labour leaders held a more concise policy.

The main organisers refused to challenge labour leaders over their refusal to march to the area of the summit. Instead they marched out to the suburbs of Quebec, leaving the militant youth on their own with the police.

Unfortunately, some ultra-left sectarian grouplets went along with this policy. They refused to challenge the labour leaders in both their policy of reforming the FTAA and in holding separate demonstrations.

This allowed for hundreds of arrests and the loss of a potential united action. Socialist Alternative, the Canadian section of the CWI (the international socialist organisation which the Socialist Party is affiliated to) argued that there should be one united action of all forces present marching to the summit and actively mobilised to support youth facing police repression.

However, we strongly disagreed with the policy of the main demonstration organisers, who did not have a proper stewarding system in place to protect the demonstration against police assault.

The perspective of Socialist Alternative for a new mass workers' party is clearly growing in Quebec. A recent by-election in the Montreal outskirts of Mericer saw Paul Cliche, an open Left socialist, finish third with over 24%. A new mass workers' party standing for the abolition of capitalism could provide a political home for the tens of thousands of youth marching against capitalism in Quebec.

SOME TIME ago the Canadian Labour Congress held a teach-in to educate people about the Free Trade Area of the Americas. After the meeting finished, Resisto the clown began juggling when two cops came from nowhere and nicked him. After holding him for three days, Resisto was given bail under the condition that he didn't go to any protests and didn't leave the province. Ten months later all charges were dropped and Resisto remains unbowed "I've been juggling for years and I've juggled many strange and dangerous objects but I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to juggle capitalism without dropping human, environmental and animal rights". Resisto, along with tens of thousands of other people was back in Quebec last weekend to tell corporate power where to get off.

 

DOZENS OF CWI members from North America and Europe led our intervention in to the protests. One Canadian CWI member was arrested. Over 270 names and addresses of people interested in knowing more about the CWI were collected and 90 copies of the CWI anti-globalisation pamphlet - in French and English - were sold, as well as 260 copies of Justice, the paper of the US CWI.

 

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Capitalism's destructive "logic"

Stop The Jobs Slaughter

SIGNS THAT a worldwide recession is becoming closer gathered last week when the US Federal Reserve (the "Fed") cut US interest rates for the fourth time in four months.

Kieran Roberts

This followed reports that Cisco Systems, which provides most of the hardware for the worldwide web, has seen sales collapse by 30% in the last quarter.

Cisco's problems are typical of those of the whole IT sector now the new technology bubble has burst with a rapid fall in its massively over-valued share prices.

The US ruling class knows that the world's largest economy is rapidly deteriorating. But most serious pro-capitalist economists, who are belatedly seeing the scale of the economy's problems, fear that the Fed's cut won't stave off the developing recession in the US and worldwide.

British workers will be amongst those that suffer as the giant multinationals try and offload the global economy's problems on to workers.

Thousands of workers in the telecommunications industry are threatened with losing their jobs.

Mobile phone company Motorola plans to shut its plant in Bathgate, Scotland, which would destroy 3,200 jobs. Phillips aims to cut 7,000 jobs, Marconi 3,000. Ericsson says it will shed 15,000 jobs this year.

As the Socialist Party and the CWI have long argued, the fundamental problem facing the US economy is one of over-production and over-capacity. There are too many goods being produced on the world market to retain profitability.

The capitalists' response is to cut investment, run down existing stocks and ultimately close factories and lay off workers as Motorola are doing in Scotland.

Cuts in interest rates won't deter the capitalists from this course of action - to try and overcome this fundamental contradiction in the global economy.

The Socialist Party though, will oppose every job loss. Over recent decades these multinationals have made millions of pounds profit at workers' expense, often with the help of taxpayers' money in the form of government grants.

If companies like Motorola try to close factories, these plants should be nationalised under workers' control to secure these jobs.

Capitalism cannot guarantee jobs at a decent standard of living. If we want to stop these factory closures and job losses arising from the destructive logic of the capitalist market, fight alongside the Socialist Party for a socialist society, where production is planned to meet people's needs not to build the capitalists' profits.

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So much for the free market

DRUG COMPANIES, making medicines that could save millions of lives, recently brought a court action against the South African government. They aimed to stop it buying cheaper drugs. So much for the "free market"!

Jon Dale

Now the world's most profitable major industry has been forced to back off. The court case threatened to expose its profiteering at the expense of sick and dying people.

One in nine South Africans live with HIV/Aids - more than any other country. Drugs that would keep them alive and well cost £7,000-10,000 per patient per year. Most South African workers earn less than £2,000 a year. Drug copies (generics) are available, costing as little as £130 a patient a year.

But it wasn't just bad publicity that made them retreat. 5,000 supporters of the Treatment Action Campaign marched on the South African parliament, putting pressure on the government to stand firm.

US students pressed universities to use their patent rights to stop drugs companies preventing poor countries from buying generic versions.

The drugs industry's biggest fear is that cheap generic drugs could become more widely used in their super-profitable markets - North America, Europe and Japan.

The five biggest companies' combined profits are $25.2 billion.

Their exaggerated claim for Research and Development spending is $16.7 billion. They spend much more on marketing than research.

Much research money is spent on modifying existing drugs to prolong their patents or on copying their rivals.

They spend much more on research for the developed world's "lifestyle problems" like obesity, than on illnesses in the less developed countries where money is scarce.

Having won the right to buy cheap drugs, the South African government is now under pressure to start buying generic anti-Aids drugs.

But the ANC Health Minister said: "People who want access to (these drugs) can go to the private sector."

Meanwhile, the drug companies say they'll offer cheaper drugs to the public sector but not the private.   So Aids rights groups will probably end up campaigning against the government.

Two of the biggest companies - Glaxo SmithKline and AstraZeneca - are based in London. A socialist government would nationalise them, compensating only small shareholders.

This would provide cheap drugs to the NHS and free drugs to the world's poorest peoples. It would set an example for workers in other countries to follow.

In South Africa, Aids could claim the lives of half of all 15-year olds. Socialist action around the world would save them.

 

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Tube workers

If we stick together, we can win

THE STRIKES against the government's PPP proposals for tube privatisation have been the most successful action on London Underground for years.

Bill Johnson, RMT member London Underground

Management used intimidation, the courts handed out an injunction in defiance of our massive ballot majority and twice one of the rail unions' national leaderships withdrew official backing.

But tubeworkers showed that if we stick together we can bring London to a standstill and force management and the government to take us seriously. ASLEF members supported the RMT official action on 29 March. This unity will be vital in future.

The two days of action so far show that we can defeat PPP. Safety remains the key demand, but management are trying to use privatisation and this dispute to break the power of the tube unions.

We must show Blair, Prescott and underground management that we'll never accept the transfer of our infrastructure to private sub-contractors. We also won't let 4,500 tube-workers' employment contracts with London Underground (LUL) be tossed out like old rubbish.

The tube unions' power brought London to a standstill. Big business claims the disruption cost them £100 million on each strike day. With our power as a union and with public support against privatisation, we must win this fight.

LUL have now 'offered' us a pay deal of 2.7% (equal to inflation only) but say we must tear up the framework agreement and accept draconian attacks on our conditions.

This attack on pay and conditions is all part of PPP. The government want to break the tube unions, cut wages and casualise the workforce so that private companies can make a killing out of the tube.

Tube workers must show management and the government that we'll fight PPP all the way. We should escalate our action by calling a further, two-day strike, on the Monday and Wednesday of the same week.

We should intensify our campaign to convince every tubeworker to support the action by visiting workplaces and calling mess-room meetings as we did before the first one-day strike.

Let's see how Blair fancies running his election campaign while London is shut down by tube strikes!

 

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THE MIDDLE East took another shuddering step towards war with the first ever invasion of the Palestinian Authority (PA) territory by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on Monday 15 April. KEVIN SIMPSON looks at the latest developments.

A war by any other name

EVEN THOUGH the Israeli tanks, which thundered into three areas of the Gaza strip, returned to Israel within 24 hours, this action represents a qualitative stepping up of regional tensions. An action like this carried out in any other part of the world would be regarded as a declaration of war.

The abrupt retreat of IDF tanks from their positions, however, as a result of huge US pressure has opened up big splits inside the Israeli ruling class.

Israeli generals have reacted angrily to what they see as another humiliating retreat by the army from its stated position of dealing with any attacks on Israel in the 'sharpest possible manner', this time purely to please Israel's US backers.

Following this fiasco, Sharon's position has been weakened as far as the reactionary Israeli Jewish parties - who are part of his cabinet - are concerned. The developing splits amongst the ruling class are a foretaste of much bigger splits throughout Israeli society at a later stage.

Tactical change

THESE latest events should not be seen in isolation. A number of cumulative factors make a wider conflict more possible. The increased severity of military action taken by the IDF indicates a change in tactics by the Israeli ruling class.

More extreme Palestinian groups like Hamas have responded with a stepping-up of suicide bombings inside Israel and the use of mortars on Israeli settlements and towns. This has led to a hardening of attitudes on both sides of the national divide, preparing the way for a continued spiralling of violence and tension.

It has exposed even more clearly the impossibility of any genuine solution of the aspirations of the Palestinian people for national liberation under capitalism.

Additionally, there is the growing feeling amongst the Arab masses that US imperialism, despite its rebukes of the Sharon government, in fact supports the Israeli ruling class's latest murderous campaign to smash the Intifada.

The perception that the new Bush administration has a more aggressive anti-Arab approach is building a huge subterranean reservoir of hatred towards US imperialism that could explode any time.

The Israeli ruling class now aims, through economic and military measures, to break the back of the Palestinian uprising. Even if Ehud Barak had been re-elected as prime minister he would have eventually adopted much the same policy as Sharon has implemented since coming to power.

Economic collapse

ISRAEL'S RULERS want to force a defeated PA - with perhaps a different and more pliant leadership - to the negotiating table, to accept terms of surrender thinly disguised as a new "peace agreement". This involves the creation of a cantonised and emasculated Palestinian "state" surrounded by IDF bases and sub-divided by Israeli-controlled roads, ready to be used for reoccupation at a moment's notice.

A 'Palestine' of this sort would be completely dependent on Israel for economic trade and water supply. It would not be an independent Palestinian state but will be a series of impoverished, drought-ridden prison camps, guarded by the IDF on the outside and controlled by a corrupt PA on the inside.

In fact the IDF actions mean the further subdivision of the PA into 60 smaller cantons. The vast majority of Palestinians are barred from travelling between these cantons.

This current Israeli siege has caused over $2 billion in losses to the Palestinian economy and seen unemployment levels soaring to 48% of the population - poverty levels have rocketed.

Whilst the Israeli ruling class's attempt to militarily crush the Intifada will fail, the tactics of the more extreme Palestinian groups, like Hamas of bomb attacks on Israeli civilian targets have acted to drive sections of the Israeli Jewish working class into supporting the most reactionary, right-wing parties.

Socialists oppose the use of such actions by individuals no matter how heroic these actions may be viewed as by Palestinian activists. Such tactics solidify the Israeli population behind the Israeli ruling class and its generals.

A strategic goal of the Palestinian national liberation struggle must be to split the Israeli Jewish working class from its present support for the Israeli regime's continued repression of the Palestinian masses. This can only be done by exposing the class nature of Israeli (and Palestinian) society.

This could be done by producing propaganda explaining that the only way to end the bloodshed in the region would be by answering the national aspirations of the Palestinian people and the security fears of Israeli Jewish workers, which is impossible under capitalism.

Without this being done the mass opposition of the Palestinian people would continue.

Such material should also explain that the US-sponsored, capitalist Oslo accord has not brought genuine peace because of the class interests of those who negotiated the deal on both the Israeli and Palestinian side.

During the period of the peace accords, conditions for the Israeli working class have worsened as a result of the social and economic attacks by the political representatives of Israeli big business.

For Palestinians the corruption of the PA leadership means their conditions have become far worse. The failure of Oslo to answer the national aspirations of the Palestinian people now meant that Israeli conscripts were being killed on the frontlines while the same big businessmen were making super-profits.

These ideas could be linked to the necessity to overthrow capitalism in the region and creating a socialist alternative. On this basis working-class representatives from both sides of the national divide could negotiate a genuine agreement in the interest of the masses of the entire region.

Class solution

CONTINUED USE of armed force and the increasing Israeli fatalities with no solution in sight will eventually open up sharp divisions in Israeli Jewish society, which will undermine the appearance of national unity that currently exists.

On both sides of the national divide, especially amongst Israeli Jews, there is huge social pressure to unify in the face of an outside threat. This can effect genuine activists in to relinquishing a class approach to the situation.

But, precisely in war conditions a socialist approach is necessary as the only means of resolving the issues.

A socialist approach requires the overthrow of Israeli capitalism and the PA as well as the corrupt undemocratic Arab regimes and the formation of a socialist confederation of the Middle East - involving a socialist Israel and the creation of a genuine independent socialist Palestinian state.

This is an edited version of a Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) statement. The full text can be seen on the CWI website at: www.socialistworld.net

 

We say: Withdraw IDF forces from all of the Occupied Territories. Support the right of all Israeli Jews to refuse to serve in the IDF. Build a mass, socialist working-class movement to end the drift towards war and the continued attacks on Israeli working-class living standards by the National Unity government. No imperialist intervention in the Middle East. For a mass revolutionary struggle - armed for the purposes of self defence - to end the IDF occupation of the territories. Elect popular committees for the running of all aspects of daily life in the PA. For the incorporation of all armed groups into self defence committes. Such committees to be under the democratic control of the masses to chart a commonly agreed strategy for the Intifada. For the right to freedom of expression and the right to organise in the PA. For an end to all discrimination and oppression based on national, religious and ethnic background. For an end to Israeli and Arab capitalism and the creation of a socialist Israel alongside an independent socialist Palestine. For a socialist confederation of the Middle East.

 

 

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Building international socialism

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE (SAV), the German section of the CWI, held a well-attended weekend school - Sozialismus Tage - on 13-15 April.

Sascha Stanicic and Per-ake Westerlund

Some 350 people, including international visitors from Austria, Czech Republic, Britain, Netherlands, USA, Sweden, Israel, Belgium and Spain, participated in this year's event - up from 230 last year.

This figure included people from at least 15 areas of the country where, as yet, we do not have any members.

During the weekend eleven participants joined SAV and one woman joined the Spanish section of CWI. Another 25 expressed an interest in joining SAV.

The theme of the weekend was the new worldwide anti-capitalist movement.

SAV has started a youth campaign under the name Resistance International which aims to launch youth groups to mobilise for the international protests in Gothenburg, 14-16 June, and the G7 summit in Genoa in July.

There were around 20 different political meetings on different subjects. This included a debate with AntiFascistAction and a debate with the German Socialist Workers' Party.

The mood at the meeting was excellent, representing a shift in the political situation in Germany and the progress of SAV.

German capitalism is facing an economic downturn, and the Social Democratic-Green coalition government is losing support.

Chancellor Gerhard Schršder recently attacked the unemployed for being lazy and not actively applying for jobs. Also, government ministers from the Green Party sent riot police against those who blocked the nuclear waste transportation.

At the beginning of last year SAV had 235 members. At last weekend's meeting the organisation reached 300 members (and in the week since then another two have joined).

Protests against school cuts, nuclear waste and racism were the most important questions in the election campaign of SAV in Stuttgart recently, explained the candidate, Tinette Schnatterer, a well-known student activist.

Around 25 international guests underlined the internationalist themes of the weekend.

Ariel Gottlieb of CWI Israel spoke on the deepening crisis in the Middle East and the socialist alternative of the CWI.

SAV has translated and published the book on Cuba by Peter Taaffe from the International Secretariat of the CWI. Peter was also present at the weekend.

Roger Bannister, Socialist Party member and leading socialist activist in the British public-sector union UNISON, reported on the strikes of council workers in Hackney, London, where CWI members are playing a key role.

SAV presented a new version of its women's programme to the school. In total, 1,200 Deutschmarks (£375) worth of literature was sold plus fighting fund material for 2,400 Deutschmarks (£750). And 7,400 Deutschmarks (£2,310) were donated for the special appeal. SAV website: www.sav-online.de

 

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