YCL Midwest

Son of slain Latino hero takes on clout

2009-08-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Heeeeey MIDWEST YCL? ENJOYING your SUMMER?

Rudy Lozano Jr. is a candidate for the people!

The following article, written by Laura Washington for the Sun Times, describes the political dynamic in the 23rd District in Chicago, IL. Want to get involved with the campaign?

Visit: http://www.unitedforrudylozanojr.com

"Son of slain Latino hero takes on clout"

August 2, 2009

BY LAURA WASHINGTON

Rudy Lozano Jr. vs. Daniel J. Burke. The 2010 matchup for the 23rd Legislative District on Chicago's Southwest Side is shaping up as a struggle between two storied political families.

Or peg it as the post-Obama generation taking on what's left of the Richard J. Daley Machine.

On Tuesday, Lozano will launch a petition drive to challenge longtime legislator Burke. The challenger is the son and namesake of a slain progressive hero, Rudy Lozano Sr. The incumbent, Dan Burke, is the clout-heavy brother of one of Chicago's most controversial and sartorial pols, 14th Ward Ald. Edward M. Burke, chairman of the City Council Finance Committee...

to read the whole article,

visit: http://www.suntimes.com/news/washington/1697359,CST-EDT-laura03.article

Obama reported firm in his support for EFCA

2009-07-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

From: PWW

Author: John Wojcik
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 07/13/09 17:24

A top aid to one of the union leaders present at a White House meeting with President Obama today said the president remains firmly committed to passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill that would make it easier to unionize.

“He told the leaders that his administration is firmly committed to the bill but as of now there is no formal timeline on when it would get to his desk,” the aid said.

Lawmakers have been struggling to work out a “compromise” on the bill because several Democrats have been wavering and a 60 vote majority is needed to break any Republican filibuster.

The aid also said that the labor leaders, who emerged from the meeting with the president late in the afternoon, assured him that the administration has labor’s full support on health care reform.

Union leaders present at the meeting represent unions in both labor federations, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win. The independent National Education Association was also represented.

For more information: "Union leaders meet with Obama" at pww.org/article/articleview/16353/.

2009-07-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

Poor Man's Stroll

http://www.vimeo.com/5530120t

The 2nd single from ((Stero))type's album Ultrasound. The song chronicles the "ills of capitalism and captures the sentiments of millions of americans, living poor and under appreciated." says half of ((Stero))type, Drematic.

Want more? Check out music collective Indi-Arts at indi-arts.org

STITCH in MKE!!!

2009-07-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

Interviewee: Milwaukee activist and artist, as well as Young Communist League leader, Jeanette Martín talks about a local open mic series that she and two other local activists put together.

Interviewer: Ursula Mlynarek is the National Membership Coordinator of the Young Communist League, U.S.A. and native Milwaukee-ian.

UM: What is Stitch?

JM: STITCH is the name that we, Alida Cardos Whaley, Tony Garcia & myself came up with. We we're thinking about what this open mic series entailed of, and what it meant to us. I yelled out STITCH! Since this open mic series is our own way of trying to stitch both sides of Milwaukee, and build community.

UM: What is the format of Stitch?

JM: This weekly open mic series travels from one venue to the other- bringing in youth from one side of town to the other. Youth share thoughts, ideas, poems, songs and other art forms. Each night has different featured artists. Features were chosen through word of mouth, connections and people that heard about this open mic series.

UM: Are a lot of the features political?

JM: I believe that many of the features have strong messages to send across to the audience, but I would not label all of them political.

UM: Why is Stitch unique?

Stitch is unique since it is being organized from the actual folks that are part of these communities, for a good cause. I've gotten tons of emails from other coffee shops and venues that were very excited about what we were doing-and wanted to help us in any way that they could. That was one thing that really showed me that we were doing something positive for our comunidades.

UM: You keep referring to Milwaukee's "two sides" of the city. Please describe what you mean by these different sides, and what the importance of connecting them.

JM: The north side of Milwaukee is disenfranchised and financially deprived, and most of its residents are African American. The eastside of Milwaukee, UW-Milwaukee campus area, known to be the "nice" side of town, and there is a diverse group of folks living there, but the majority being white. The east side of Milwaukee also hosts financially wealthy Milwaukee residents. The Southside of Milwaukee, that was a majority Polish neighborhood since the early 1900s has now transitioned into being a predominantly Mexican, Puerto Rican as well as Hmong community. In the deep Southside of Milwaukee is the home to mostly white working class. By having the open mics alternate weekly, people are exposed to a place they may have never been to before, or would even think about going to otherwise.

UM: Tell me about Son MUDANZA, one of the key performers tonight.

JM: Son Mudanza established itself 2 years ago through influence of Son del Centro, a Chican@ Son Jarocho group in Santa Ana, California. Son Mudanza uses dance, poetry and song to built community as well as use as a form of cultural resistance here in the United States. A lot of the poems are the struggle on both sides of the border, as well as personal realities about being a Chican@ here in the United States.

Son Mudanza believes in solidarity and supports other social movements that believe in the power of difference. We're all friends, organizers and activists in our communities.

Budget Cuts in Illinois

2009-07-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Students brace for the worst as cuts to state grants loom

By Peter Sachs
Staff Writer
June 30, 2009 @ 7:00 AM

The news that state officials have drastically cut financial aid for the coming school year has some college students thinking about taking on extra jobs to pay their tuition bills, while others say they may have to drop out.

Last week, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission cut Monetary Award Program grants to about 137,000 students in the state by more than half.

The big cut means students will get about 85 percent of their promised aid for the fall term. They will receive no aid at all in the spring unless the state legislature passes a budget with greater funding for the grant program.

Damian Wolak, the undergraduate student body president at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says he’s been the first person to tell many of his peers about the looming cuts.

“They feel as if the MAP grant is like an entitlement, that they got their letters in the mail and they think everything is coming and everything is well,” Wolak says.

But in fact, the 6,200 students at UIC slated to get the state grants this coming year will collectively receive just $10.2 million under the current state budget. That compares with $24.5 million in state funds handed out to a similar number of UIC students last year. For individual UIC students, the average grant would drop from $4,000 to about $1,600 for the year.

The pattern is similar at many other Chicago-area schools.

“It’s not just like, oh, I can find these resources in another place,” says Columbia College photography major Ann Meyer.

Meyer is among a sizeable group of students getting MAP grants who get little or no support from their parents, relying on a combination of grants, scholarships and federal subsidized student loans to pay for college.

Even small amounts can affect a student’s aid package, says Michael Johns, also a Columbia student.

“For them, $2,500 may not seem like a lot of money, but to me, that’s the difference between having to work a job … versus being able to take a few extra courses,” he says.

Some students may have to take more drastic steps if the state grants aren’t restored.

“A lot of my close friends that are going to be seniors are having the change schools,” says Roosevelt University senior Dimitra Georgouses, citing at least one friend who is transferring to Northeastern Illinois University because it costs less than Roosevelt.

Wolak says he has talked to may students who, once they realize the state grants will be shrinking so much, say, “I’ve really got to reconsider how I’m going to put myself through school.

“They don’t really have a plan of action,” Wolak says.

Daily News Staff Writer Peter Sachs covers higher education. He can be reached at 773.362.5002, ext. 18, or peter [at] chitowndailynews [dot] org.

DePaul University YVC Fights for Workers Rights!

2009-06-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

" Do you have a minute to support workers rights?"

This May Depaul Universities Youth Voter Collective was the first student group in Chicago to stand up for the Employee Free Choice Act. EFCA would make it easier for workers to form unions without employer intimidation, it would also make the process faster, and therefore more accecable to high turnover industries--like the ones young people work in! However, many young people don't know about EFCA, or about the benifits of forming labor unions. This action at Depaul a few weeks ago, should be happening at every college campus. The YVC let students know about EFCA and why they were out fighting for the right to build unions, and they were gathering signatures to let politicians know that students care about the issue at the same time. Email yvc@youthvotercollective.org for any of the materials used at Depaul to organize the event, or check out the SLAP organizing guide available at www.yclusa.org .

The fall of GM — new thinking needed

2009-06-10T14:58:00.001-07:00

From: People's Weekly World

Author: John Rummel
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 06/08/09 15:23

DETROIT — It was a little more than 30 years ago that General Motors had 395,000 United Auto Workers hourly employees. Two years from now, GM will have 38,000 union workers, a decline of over 90 percent.

How did this giant corporation, which once commanded 54 percent of the U.S. market (now under 20 percent), come to be in this situation?

* The company focused on building big gas-guzzling SUVs. While they were a source of big profits, they fell out of favor when gas prices went up.

* For several decades, GM and its fellow domestic auto companies have fought government regulations and fuel efficiency standards — even when those same kinds of regulations made them profitable in Europe and elsewhere.

* An emphasis on employer-based health care and pension plans, instead of fighting for universal plans that covered everyone, eventually caused the Big Three auto companies to be responsible for the benefits of hundreds of thousands of retirees and their dependents. The non-union “transplants” — foreign automakers like Toyota and Honda who have opened plants in the U.S. — with a much younger workforce and shorter history of operation do not have these costs.

* What once happened within the borders of the U.S., with GM either absorbing or out-competing and forcing the closure of other domestic auto manufacturers to become the country’s largest manufacturer, is now played out on a world scale. Worldwide there are multiple producers of autos for the U.S. and world market, and there has been a growth of non-union auto production in the South.

* Of course, the economic crisis has been the final nail in the coffin. But this is a worldwide contraction affecting auto producers throughout the world.

A deadly ripple effect

In announcing its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, GM said it would be closing 14 plants. Some 21,000 hourly workers will be losing their jobs. An estimated 2,100 dealerships will be closing. Seven of those shuttered plants will be here in Michigan.

Chrysler is closing eight plants —three in Detroit, and almost 900 dealerships.

The combined loss of dealerships will be approximately 3,000. With an average of 50 employees per dealership, total job loss from the dealer closings will be in the neighborhood of 150,000.

Parts suppliers will be closing and shedding employees, and white collar workers at GM and Chrysler are seeing huge job losses.

It has been said that every job at an auto assembly plant supports tens of others. That explains why Midwest states see their entire economy taking a hit.

For example, a steelworker from Pittsburgh said recently that 125,000 steel jobs have been lost in the recent period due to the crisis in auto, which is why steelworkers have been organizing rallies to protest the shutdown of auto plants. “When you don’t make cars, you don’t make steel” a steelworker told me at a recent rally.

Michigan — with seven times the auto jobs of the next highest state, Ohio — currently has a 12.9 percent unemployment rate.

Plant closures are taking place in cities like Pontiac, Flint, Ypsilanti and Grand Rapids in addition to Detroit.

The plants are often the largest or second largest taxpayer in town. For example in Pontiac, GM is the largest taxpayer and the city will lose one-fifth of its revenue for its general fund. A poor city already struggling with its finances will now see the ripple effect with more cutbacks in city services, public schools, fire, police and more.

Plunging pay, health care at risk

A question being asked is who is going to have the money to buy the new, green cars of the future? The 2007 contracts between the UAW and GM, Chrysler and Ford ushered in a two-tier wage system where new hires would be paid about one-half of the regular wage — $14 an hour instead of $28.

The bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler further deteriorated the bargaining power of autoworkers, and the new union concessions include: a no-strike pledge until 2015, work rule changes such as shorter break times and elimination of job classifications, and changes to how the union-administered Voluntary Employee Benefits Association (VEBA) that handles health care for retirees will be funded.

The VEBA was created in the 2007 contract and was to be mostly funded with cash from the company, $20 billion in the case of GM. Now it will mainly be funded with stock from the new, post-bankruptcy, reconstituted GM. The fund will have a 17.5 percent interest in GM. At Chrysler the fund will be similarly financed but will have a more than 50 percent stake in the new company.

At GM and Chrysler the UAW will appoint half of the VEBA board but an independent fiduciary, not the union, will run the fund for the benefit of the retirees. This is not union control of a company.

Back in 2007, many said the VEBA would be under-funded, considering how quickly health care costs skyrocket. Last week a commentator predicted, “Now it will fail in six years instead of 15.” Whatever the scenario, it is evident that the fight for national health care is today more critical than ever.

In exchange for its concessions the UAW was given assurances that GM will not propose terminating its pension plans. And the union was given assurances that a sub-compact originally scheduled for production in China would be made here at home.

The president’s auto task force also insisted that the new Fiat-Chrysler alliance build a new small car in a U.S. factory if they intend to sell the car in the United States.

Big political risk

Bankruptcy is a big political risk and gamble for the president and one which Republicans are waiting to pounce on.

However if Sen. McCain had won the election, there would have been no government loans, and a chapter 7 bankruptcy — a complete liquidation of GM and Chrysler — would likely have taken place. The companies would have been ripped apart, sold piecemeal, with even more job losses. Health care and pension assurances would have been non-existent.

And while you do hear acknowledgement here that the president has intervened to keep this industry going, those losing their jobs are not going to enjoy the benefits and if in the end bankruptcy does not result in a viable company, there is danger that anger will be directed at the president. Some already is.

There is also anger that money is going to GM but plants are closing here while production increases are planned for GM plants in Mexico, Korea, China and elsewhere. The UAW did press for GM to agree to build a sub-compact in the U.S. and received a commitment that may keep one plant running.

The Obama administration, wrongly I believe, is taking the view that it will not get involved in the day-to-day management and so far has not demanded that the taxpayer money received by GM be used for keeping production here (an exception being the sub-compact).

Yes, it is good the administration’s auto task force is meeting with communities that are facing job losses to assess their needs, but more — much more — needs to be done.

New thinking needed

A fundamental problem is that plants are being closed without a well-thought-out alternative plan to retool for other production, whether that is mass transit, high-speed rail cars, green products such as wind turbines and solar panels, or any number of products needed to rebuild our infrastructure.

It is an old way of thinking that has a plan for saving the corporation but not the workers and not the needs of the country as a whole, a country that needs a manufacturing base.

While the government now has a majority stake in GM, this is not socialism as the right maintains.

The “Save Jobs, Reinvest in America” rallies that have been taking place across the Midwest are being organized by the Steelworkers union. The UAW, for whatever reason, has not endorsed them. Many feel that a strong push by the UAW, that unites all of labor and the community, is needed to rally the forces necessary to keep manufacturing in Michigan and in the U.S.

Two reactions to the crisis that are gaining ground will not fundamentally alter the outcome and may prolong it. One is “Buy American” and the other is a focus on erecting trade barriers.

Both approaches take the heat off the companies for exporting jobs and lowering working standards throughout the world. GM has operations in some 30 countries as it seeks to pay the lowest wages possible, avoid union representation and pit workers in one country against those in another.

The popular Ford Fusion is made in Mexico and is just one example of American nameplates that are not “made in America.”

It is right to demand that most taxpayer money given to the companies should be used for production here, and we do need to rid ourselves of trade pacts like NAFTA that have made it easier for capital to exit the country. But it is important to remember that the loyalty of the auto companies is to profits, not to the workers.

The impact of the auto crisis in the main urban areas of Michigan and the Midwest falls heavily on African American, Latino and all racially oppressed.

The unemployment rate in these areas is 30 percent and higher. mmediate help is needed.

While Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke worries about the future effect of an increasing deficit, the real worry is who is going to feed, clothe, house, educate, train and give medical care to the millions who have no future?

And this danger far outweighs Bernanke’s concerns. We are most likely facing a prolonged downturn. In the past, manufacturing helped the country come out of a recession (every job in auto driving 10 others shows why). It will not be able to have that same effect for this downturn.

As good as President Obama’s first stimulus was, we need a second stimulus to insure that those in our urban core, and other communities devastated by this crisis, have a future at all.

jrummel @ pww.org

Specter tells labor: You're gonna like my EFCA vote

2009-06-09T16:19:00.001-07:00

From: PWW

Author: John Wojcik
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 06/08/09 13:48

Congressional backers of the Employee Free Choice Act are closer than ever to the 60 Senators they need to break a planned Republican filibuster after Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) told a crowd of trade unionists in Pittsburgh June 6, “I believe you’ll be satisfied with my vote on this issue.”

Specter made his statement to activists demonstrating outside a meeting of the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee that he attended.

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, Specter’s potential challenger in his Senate re-election contest next year, also addressed the demonstrators, pledging to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is denying reports that she had said she was opposed to the bill. Feinstein is one of a handful of Democratic senators who were quoted as saying they could not support the bill in its original form.

“She will not vote for the bill,” Jeri Shaffery, vice president of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce, told the press last week.

Reached by phone, Gil Duran, an aide to Feinstein, said, “This guy does not speak for the senator. This must be his first rodeo because the story has not changed. It has remained the same. She is looking for a compromise. And anyone who says otherwise is engaging in wishful thinking.”

The World has reported that senators are discussing at least five possible compromises on one of the bill’s key provisions, majority sign-up. The discussions were confirmed last week by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the leader of the effort to win Senate passage.

The Press Associates Union News Service told the World today that it has received confirmation from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) that a mail-in ballot is one option being considered.

If the ballot provision becomes part of the bill, workers would vote by mail to authorize a union as their representative. The cards would be mailed to the National Labor Relations Board. If the union receives a majority of the votes it would be automatically recognized.

The majority sign-up clause of the original bill says that the union must get signed cards from an absolute majority of workers at a shop. The union could then demand and get automatic recognition or it could choose to go through the NLRB elections process.

Sen. Brown has confirmed that still another compromise is on the table. This one would shorten the length of time between the submission of authorization cards and an election for representation. The argument goes that shorter campaigns would give companies less time to engage in illegal intimidation, harassment, spying, threats and firings that they now use to fight union organizing.

In addition to Specter and Feinstein, the discussions are designed to win over the two Democratic senators from Arkansas.

While some labor leaders say they could accept mail-in ballots for majority sign-up, two union presidents – Communications Workers President Larry Cohen and Steelworkers President Leo Gerard – told the World at the America’s Future Now conference in Washington last week that they are still pushing for the original provision.

Cohen noted, “The problem with courting the wavering senators is that they want to water down the bill before deciding how to vote on the filibuster. We also have to contend with the Chamber of Commerce putting a lot of pressure on them.”

Harkin said that if all the compromises fall through he has the assurances of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the majority leader, that the bill would come to the floor in its original form for a straight up or down vote that will allow voters to see where everyone really stands.

Cohen received a standing ovation at the America’s Future Now conference when he declared, “We need to say to every Democratic senator: ‘Which side are you on?’”

jwojcik @ pww.org

GM bankruptcy spurs demand to ‘reinvest in America’

2009-06-05T19:26:00.001-07:00

by John Rummel, 06/04/2009

Reprinted form the People's Weekly World

LANSING, Mich. — The General Motors bankruptcy, announced Monday, was expected, having been predicted for weeks if not months. But the enormity of how far this once mighty giant of U.S. monopoly capitalism has fallen is shocking nevertheless. For many it seems like not so long ago when GM was not only the leader of all auto producers with a commanding 54 percent of the U.S. market, it was also the undisputed dominant corporation in the country’s economy.

In filing for bankruptcy yesterday, GM said it will close 14 plants in the U.S., half of them here in Michigan. It will leave less than 40,000 GM autoworkers nationwide, a tiny fraction of the 395,000 employed by the company in its heyday in the 1970s.

Nowhere is the shock greater than Michigan, GM’s birthplace. Today, the state has an official unemployment rate of almost 13 percent, and because it has seven times the auto jobs of the next highest state, Ohio, people here fear things will only get worse as the job loss in auto ripples through the economy.

At a “Keep the Dream Alive — Reinvest in America” rally that drew several thousand here yesterday, Jim Chapman a steelworker at Great Lakes Works in Ecorse, Mich., which makes steel for auto bodies, said he is a victim of that rippling effect. This father of five has been laid off for six months. “If you’re not selling cars, you’re not making steel,” he said. “It trickles down.”
Lansing, Mich., rally demands, "Keep the Dream Alive — Reinvest in America."

Under a plan announced by President Obama on Monday, the federal government will provide up to another $30 billion to keep GM afloat while it emerges, restructured, out of bankruptcy. That is on top of $19 billion in federal money the company received earlier. The Canadian government will chip in another $9 billion as part of the deal. The downsized company will have 60 percent U.S. government ownership, with smaller portions of its stock held by the United Auto Workers union, bondholders and the Canadian government.

Ron Bloom, who heads Obama’s auto task force, told reporters the government will be a “reluctant shareholder” and will not get involved in day-to-day management. But, he said, with taxpayer money now keeping GM afloat, the government “has to demand something in return for this capital."

In exchange for the new government aid, GM agreed to go through bankruptcy to eliminate more than $27 billion in debt held by bondholders. It also agreed to build a new small car in idled UAW factories and to increase the share of U.S.-based production from 66 percent to 70 percent, the White House said. The union has agreed to a no-strike pledge until 2015.

The White House noted that "the UAW has made important concessions on compensation and retiree health care that, while difficult, will help save jobs for active employees, pensions and health care for retirees."

UAW leaders pointed out in a press statement that "the biggest sacrifices will be made by the tens of thousands of workers who will lose their jobs as a result of the numerous plant closings that GM is announcing in its restructuring plan."

Addressing yesterday’s rally here, Lansing Mayor Verg Bernero said, “D-Day for GM is a sad day.” He said he was “grateful for an administration that is grappling with a problem it did not create, but certainly inherited.”

Many at the rally were angry that GM, while receiving bailout money which may total $50 billion or more, is shutting down 14 plants at home while it increases production outside the country.

“When you offshore jobs, you export the American Dream,” said Bernero.

Bill Parker, president of UAW Local 1700 at Chrysler’s Sterling Heights, Mich., Assembly plant, which is also scheduled to close, said workers are outraged that Chrysler wants to close an additional five plants. His plant employs about 1,400 workers and produces the Sebring sedan and convertible, along with the Dodge Avenger. He asked the crowd of several thousand to join him in calling on the Obama administration to demand that Chrysler reverse its decision.

“Chrysler got the money but they did not get the message,” said Parker, referring to the more than $7 billion in federal bailout money the company has received. The intent of that government assistance was to help people, Parker said. Now, he declared, “our sons and daughters face the prospect of doing worse than we are.”

Referring to GM’s export of jobs to low-wage countries, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow told the crowd that she is “tired of talking about the race to the bottom. I have been doing it for 10 years. We have to raise others up, and not keep pushing us down.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson emphasized the effect the bankruptcy and closing of GM plants will have on communities. When you close 14 plants and hundreds of dealers, you also close auto suppliers; you cut off a town’s tax base, you close their schools, and cause their teachers, police and fire departments to also shut down, he said.

As details of the GM bankruptcy plan emerged, some 3,000 labor and progressive activists were meeting at the America’s Future Now conference in Washington.

“Loss of jobs and the economic devastation that has spread across this country results from corporate greed,” Change to Win labor federation chair Anna Burger said there. Economic recovery means “more than just companies making a profit,” she said. Echoing Lansing Mayor Bernero, Burger said, “It means good secure jobs, decent incomes and the prospect of a secure retirement — in short, the American Dream.”

Another labor leader, speaking informally, noted that the auto union was caught “between a rock and a hard place” and was able to come out of the bankruptcy negotiations with a few things including a little less pain for some active workers and retirees. But, he said, “Once again, we have workers making the sacrifices while companies close plants and ship operations overseas. Once again we are doing what the finance industry says we should be doing to make a company 'viable' even if that means more massive job loss and continued de-industrialization.” This is a continuation of an approach that “just doesn't cut it,” he said.

“The problem with doing business this way is that it leads to disaster for workers and in the end it doesn't do much for GM either — by doing it their way they ended up deep in debt,” the labor leader said.

“What we really need,” he said, “is a bold new approach that retools our old plants to build mass transit, light rail, green cars and all the things we need for the future. Globalization is here to stay. We need to make it work for the majority, not just for the few, by creating a real plan to keep good paying manufacturing jobs and green jobs here in America. Let’s use our leverage to fight for this approach.”

John Rummel is the Chair of the Michigan District of the CPUSA. jrummel @ pww.org. Joel Wendland and John Wojcik contributed to this story.

UAW: Rebuild the labor movement and rebuild America

2009-06-03T03:20:00.001-07:00

Chavez: My Next Gift For Obama Will Be Lenin Book

2009-06-02T03:08:00.000-07:00

From: The Huffington Post

In this photo released by Miraflores Press Office, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez gesture during his radio and television show "Hello President" in Maracaibo, Venezuela, Thursday, May 28, 2009. Chavez began what he says will be a marathon four-day television and radio program as he marks the 10th anniversary of his program. (AP Photo/Miraflores Press Office)

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez says he has a new book for President Barack Obama: "What is to be Done?" by communist Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Soviet state.

Chavez says he'll "give it to Obama at the next meeting."

"What is to be Done?" is Lenin's political treatise on the role of intellectuals and the proletariat in promoting revolution, written more than a decade before he led the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

Chavez gave Obama a copy of "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano at an April summit.

The book jumped the next day to the No. 2 seller on Amazon.com.

Chavez spoke Friday on a marathon, anniversary edition of his "Hello President" television show.

Anti-union bill defeated in Missouri

2009-05-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

From: PWW

Author: Tony Pecinovsky
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 05/28/09 13:12

ST. LOUIS -- The fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act recently won a victory here in Missouri. House Joint Resolution 37, better known as Save Our Secret Ballots, went down in defeat when the Missouri legislature adjourned May 15.

HRJ37 would have amended the Missouri constitution to require secret ballots for all union elections. The Missouri legislation is part of a nation-wide campaign by big business, anti-union forces designed to give the impression that workers are against the Employee Free Choice Act, organized labor's top priority.

According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, “The Save our Secret Ballot” organization is pushing similar anti-union constitutional amendments in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina and Utah. The group is based in Nevada.

Free Choice will strengthen the rights of workers to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation (often called card-check); it will also place stiffer penalties on employers who violate the law.

Current labor law allows for card check representation or a secret ballot. However, the choice is not made by the workers. It allows the employer to decide which process will be used.

According to a Cornell University study, 92 percent of private-sector employers force employees to attend closed-door, captive audience meetings where they are forced to listen to anti-union propaganda; 80 percent of employers require supervisors to attend training sessions attacking unions; and 78 percent require that supervisors give anti-union messages to workers they oversee.

Employee Free Choice would let workers, not their bosses, decide how they want the union recognized: through card check representation or through an election.

Many see state-level campaigns for bills like Save Our Secret Ballots as dangerous not only because they weaken workers' rights, but also because they help the right-wing and big business build momentum as it tries to stop Free Choice at the federal level.

Senator Robin Wright-Jones, who helped block HJR37, told the World, "HJR37, the so-called Save Our Secret Ballots initiative, would have done nothing to protect workers' rights. It would keep a broken system in place. Big business' unsolicited interest only underscores the fact that the current system by which union elections are held does not meet the needs of today's workers. So why keep it?"

Additionally, Wright-Jones asked, "Why is the Chamber of Commerce concerned about workers' rights? They've never cared about workers before."

Wright-Jones was referring to a spirited Jobs with Justice rally held earlier in May outside of the Clayton, Mo., Chamber of Commerce meeting where Karl Rove, who is staunchly anti-EFCA, was the keynote speaker.

"The Employee Free Choice Act would give workers power in the workplace -- power to fight for and win better wages, working conditions and benefits," Wright-Jones added.

HJR37 failed in Missouri because the MO AFL-CIO and Change To Win affiliates mounted a grassroots campaign that highlighted workers' struggles for a better life, while shedding light on employer misconduct. Labor's mobilization - from phone-banks to legislative visits -- showed right-wing, anti-union forces that Missouri isn't just the Show Me State. It's a union state.
tonypec@cpusa.org

Unity in the Community!

2009-05-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend students from Little Village Lawndale Highschool, North Lawndale College Prep, Farragut, and Castellanos rallied and marched against violence in the Little Village and North Lawndale Community. Gangs in Chicago are a part of the everyday life of students, whether they join or not. Neighborhoods are divided up into, often small, turfs that are dangerous, even for non affiliated students, to cross in and out of. In Little Village we struggle to designate safe passages that can get student safely to school, jobs, or events across opposing gang turf.

Gang conflict within the school is also a common problem, and these gang conflicts can quickly become racial conflicts. Chicago is highly racially segregated, and then further segregated by gangs. Schools are a meeting point crossing neighborhoods, racial, and gang lines. LVLHS is majority Latino, but also has a growing African American student body. African American students come from neighboring communities that have different gang affiliations. When gang conflict between Latino and African American gangs, or gang members, happen at or around school, larger conflict ensues. These larger conflicts turn into racially targeted violence that create huge racial tensions in the school and community.

The Unity March was called to address these issues, and bring youth in the community together against violence.

The rally was led by students, who talked about the need to end violence, read the names of the 36 Chicago Public Students murdered this year, and sang the Black National Anthem. The March went through the center of the community and through the neighborhood dividing line between the Latino community of Little Village and the African American community of North Lawndale along Ogden Ave.

This is the first of many actions neighborhood members and youth will take to curb the violence Little Village and North Lawndale students live with everyday. One of the many demands: Jobs for Youth!

Wanna get involved? Email ursula@yclusa.org to get connected up with the Chicago Club!

May First en Milwaukee!

2009-05-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

May 1st, 2009. I was confundida as to where I should go on this day. Madison, where I have implemented some roots already during this school year, or Milwaukee...where I have put my time, heart and soul? Milwaukee is where my passion & dedication is. I made my way to back at 8 in the morning, for some reason, I found myself nervous. I could not and still can not explain why I felt this rush from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. Parked on 10th & Washington, & made my way to 5th. Confusion hit me...where was the chanting? Why is there so much parking space around UCC? I made it to Voces, 100+ people were there. "VOCES DE LA FRONTERA- WORKERS CENTER", "LATINOS EN ACCION" signs were being held by 3 people. Mujeres gritaban "¡Comida! ¡Tortas! ¡Aguas!" We were there for a good 45 minutes waiting for more community members to arrive....casi nadie estaba. Familiar faces glanced back at me, I felt at home.

El programa empezo, easily, 300 miembros de la comunidad were there. As we started marching, it was a complete snowball effect. By the time we hit Veteran's park, 30,000 personas were there. It was inspiring to see abuelas y abuelas marching hand in hand. Mamás, papás, trabajadores, estudiantes, LGBTQ de la comunidad. The "popo" was there, but they were well behaved.

May 1st has been for the past 4-5 years historical for acciones de la comunidad inmigrante. Demandas de licensias, in-state tuition for estudiantes, un alto a las redadas, humane legalicasion. Nuestro movimiento seguira creciendo, y seguira demandando hasta que el ¡YA BASTA! sea entendido por tod@s, sobre todo por l@s politicos.

Las fotos que ven, son personas que drew me in, algo en los ojos, algo en la forma en la que estaban parad@s, una connecion bella que tubimos.

Jeanette Martìn, a Madison Y.C.L.er originally from Milwaukee, writes about her experiences on May 1st and shares some of her photos. Wanna get connected up with the Y.C.L. in Madison or the Y.C.L. in Milwaukee? email ursula@yclusa.org for more info.

HAPPY MAY DAY!

2009-04-30T22:38:00.001-07:00

Happy May Day to working people everywhere from the Communist Party USA!

May First is celebrated as International Workers' Day around the globe, but was born here in the United States in the struggle for the eight-hour workday. For many years, May Day was not celebrated in the country of its birth as it was internationally, but in recent years May Day has been reborn.

Larger and larger sections of the labor movement and the immigrant rights movement in the United States have embraced May Day as a day of struggle for workers rights and of celebration of the contribution of all workers: men and women, gay and straight, every race, language, religion or nationality.

We join with all struggling people around the world in celebrating May Day and continuing the fight for a better world.

Below are links to articles on the history and origins of May Day, thoughts on the workers movement today and more.

Born in the USA
Reclaiming the May Day tradition: "Through unity we find our strength"
Labor on the road to unity
Haymarket landmark finally established
Historical Interpretation: Haymarket Square, May 4,1886

Nationalize General Motors? UAW and U.S. government could own 89 percent of company under GM's plan

2009-04-28T14:46:00.002-07:00

by The Associated Press
Tuesday April 28, 2009, 8:12 AM

AP Photo General Motors says it will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year and phase out its storied Pontiac brand as part of a major restructuring effort needed to get more government aid. The struggling automaker also says it will offer 225 shares of common stock for every $1,000 in notes held by bondholders as part of debt-for-equity swap.

General Motors, once the colossus of American capitalism, will become a leaner, government-owned company if the Obama administration goes along with the automaker's plan to slash jobs, close plants and eliminate the legendary Pontiac brand.

As GM laid out the proposal Monday, new agreements fell into place between Chrysler and its unions in the United States and Canada, making it apparent that the future of both companies now rests with their creditors.

General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson said the company would offer the Treasury Department more than 50 percent of its stock to absolve GM of $10 billion in government loans.

GM has thousands of employees at several facilities in Ohio, including a major assembly complex in Lordstown, near Youngstown.

The automaker also proposed that the United Auto Workers take GM stock for at least half the $20 billion the company owes to a union-run trust that will assume retiree health care expenses starting next year.

Combined, the union and government would own 89 percent of the century-old automaker, which has been bleeding red ink and is saddled with more than $62 billion in debt.

"It is unprecedented, but it signifies the importance of the automobile industry," said David Lewis, a retired professor at the University of Michigan who taught business history for 43 years.

Although the government has loaned money to corporations in the past, including to Chrysler in the 1970s, Lewis could not recall a time when it had taken a majority stake in a company.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration does not want to own GM or any other auto company.

"This administration has no desire to run an auto company on a day-to-day basis," Gibbs said. "We strongly back an auto industry we believe can, and should, be self-reliant of government funding."

But GM's plan depends on persuading unsecured bondholders who have loaned GM $27 billion to forgive that debt in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the company.

Current GM shareholders would own only about 1 percent.

GM's announcement sent its shares up 21 percent to $2.04 Monday, meaning bondholders would get about 46 cents on the dollar. But that does not take into account dilution of GM's shares once the government and the union get their giant piece of the pie.

Analysts estimated that the value was closer to 5 cents on the dollar.

General Motors is surviving on $15.4 billion in government loans, and said Monday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it envisions getting an additional $11.6 billion.

GM Chief Financial Officer Ray Young said that's all the company will need under its new plan.
But if GM's restructuring plan cannot put all the pieces in place by June 1, the struggling company could go into bankruptcy protection.

Meanwhile, Chrysler is surviving only because of $4 billion in government aid. The company has until Thursday to adopt a partnership with Italy's Fiat Group SpA and to devise a restructuring plan that satisfies the government so it can get an additional $6 billion.

Just hours before GM gave its progress report, Chrysler announced it had a tentative concession agreement with the UAW that had been blessed by the government. United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said the union's factory-level leaders voted unanimously Monday night to recommend that members approve concessions that could give a union-run trust 55 percent ownership of a restructured Chrysler LLC.

Union leaders say ratification votes across the nation should be finished by Wednesday. The deal, designed to keep the automaker out of bankruptcy, would see workers no longer get most of their pay if they are laid off but instead receive supplemental pay from the company equal to 50 percent of their gross base pay.

The Chrysler deal almost certainly will be the template for GM, although Young said negotiations with the union had not yet resumed in earnest. In addition, both companies have deals with the Canadian Auto Workers.

If successful, the plan for the government to own a majority of GM's outstanding common shares would wipe out $44 billion of GM's $62.4 billion debt. Bondholders have until May 26 to accept the offer, which is contingent on the deals with the government and the UAW falling into place.

Young said the Treasury Department always expected some of the government debt to be exchanged for GM stock, but the government issued a statement saying it had not decided to do it.

The company still prefers restructuring outside of court, but Henderson acknowledged bankruptcy is more likely now than a few weeks ago.

"The task at hand in terms of what we need to get done is formidable," Henderson said. "But it can be done."

GM said it would speed up six factory closings announced in February and close three additional facilities in 2010. Henderson expects to identify the plants in May and said they will include assembly, engine, transmission and parts-stamping factories.

GM will also cut 21,000 hourly jobs in the U.S. by 2010 -- 7,000 more than what the company outlined just two months ago.

With the factory cuts, GM will be a mere fraction of its old self. At the end of 1991, the company had 304,000 hourly workers in the U.S.; by the end of 2010, it would have 40,000.

Also, General Motors Canada said it plans to slash its hourly work force from 10,300 to 4,400 by 2014. Young said the reduction follows previously announced plant closures.

In addition, GM plans to cut additional U.S. salaried jobs beyond the 3,400 cuts completed last week, and it plans to reduce dealerships 42 percent by 2010.

Mark LaNeve, vice president of North American sales, said many of the 450 dealers to be cut would be dropped with the elimination or sale of the Saturn, Hummer and Saab brands by the end of this year.

GM also said it will end its storied Pontiac brand no later than next year, killing a brand known for muscle cars such as the Trans Am and the GTO.

David Westcott, a Burlington, N.C., Pontiac dealer who also holds Buick, GMC and Suzuki franchises, was saddened, but not surprised.

"The bad thing is they make some great, great products," said Westcott, who has been selling Pontiacs for more than a decade. "But over the last few years, the volume has been decreasing."

Equal Pay Day: April 28

2009-04-28T14:46:00.001-07:00

From: AFL-CIO blog

by James Parks, Apr 28, 2009

April 28 is Equal Pay Day and workers across the country will commemorate the day by reaffirming their determination to make sure women are paid equally as men for the same work. Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year.

Equal Pay Day 2009 comes at an exciting time for those who support equal pay for women. President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law on Jan. 29 and established a White House Council on Women and Girls in March. Yet more than 45 years after the Equal Pay Act was signed, women in the United States still earn only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns—even with similar education, skills and experience—and African American and Hispanic women earn even less.

Members of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) will commemorate Equal Pay Day with rallies around the country in support of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Employee Free Choice Act. CLUW is urging all workers to wear red on Equal Pay Day to symbolize how far women and minorities are “in the red” with their pay!

While the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act ensures workers can seek restitution for unequal pay, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which still needs Senate approval, would update the Equal Pay Act by creating stronger incentives for employers to follow the law, empower women to negotiate for equal pay and strengthen federal outreach and enforcement efforts. It also would close a significant loophole in the Equal Pay Act to allow for full compensation for sex-based wage discrimination. Learn more about the Paycheck Fairness Act here.

Says CLUW President Marsha Zakowski:

Two bills in Congress would dramatically change the economic lives of women. Union women earn, on the average, 32 percent more than unorganized women. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow women and men workers to form unions at their work places without fear of employer intimidation and unlawful firings. The Paycheck Fairness Act would correct wage discrimination.

You can act now to help women workers gain equal pay. Urge your state’s representatives and senators to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act by calling the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

You also can download a CLUW fact sheet on The Importance of the Employee Free Choice Act to Women and other materials here.

CLUW also is calling all bloggers to sign up at www.cluw.org to Blog for Fair Pay Day 2009.

The need for the Employee Free Choice Act for women is obvious, CLUW says. Union participation benefits society as a whole because union members earn higher wages and have greater access to health care and pensions. The Employee Free Choice Act ensures that employees have the freedom to form unions and take advantage of these benefits.

A recent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that for the years 2004-2007, union women were much more likely to have health insurance (75.4 percent) and a pension (75.8 percent) than women workers who were not in unions (50.9 percent for health insurance, 43 percent for pensions).

Equal Pay Day was originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men’s and women’s wages. The day, observed on a Tuesday in April, symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year. (Tuesday is the day on which women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the previous week.)

Empty Fists

2009-04-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Empty Fists
by: Anahí Sánchez

And all she hears is the sound of empty fists
Full of empty promises of revolution and change
But all she sees is her reality
Living in a country of privileges as an
illegal immigrant isn't exactly a blessing,
but a constant reminder of her alien status
Alien in the country that she's been raised in,
The only one she knows

"Today 389 illegal aliens were arrested at Kosher meat packing company in Iowa . . . "
The man on the TV screen read
"It's chaos out there, the shortage is all over the country"

... Aliens?
....Shortage of what? .. Cheap labor?

389 men and women kicked out of the country they call home
389 families separated
Thousands of human beings every single year

We are not aliens!
... but the government has upheld that name.
No opportunity for higher education,
No health care,
No government assistance,
No dignity in this country

They have us feeling like a caged birds
That have been given the option to leave,
not making leaving any easier

And so they stay

They stay because they can't afford to leave
And no I'm not just talkin' money

They stay because they found reason enough to risk their lives
And move away from everything they knew

They stay because they dreamt of a chance at a life with real opportunity

A chance to be treated like decent human beings

But all they hear is the sound of empty fists

The Problem of Transition: Development, Socialism and Lenin's NEP

2009-04-24T14:44:00.000-07:00

From: Political Affairs Online

By C.J. Atkins

Editor's note: This article is excerpted from a larger thesis by Atkins titled, "Competing Agendas: Class Struggle, the Chinese State and the World Economy."

Socialism can be defined as a phase of social-economic development during which ever-larger numbers of people in society are increasingly empowered to collectively control the direction of their lives through the process of incrementally crafting new democratic means of ownership and institutions for running the economy and other areas of social life. It is a society in which surplus labor is shifted away from individual, private profit toward allocation based on social needs and the public good, thus moving toward the resolution of the contradictions of capitalist social relations.

But socialism is not just democracy and collectivity for their own sake; it is not simply a project for spiritual freedom or equalitarian psychological satisfaction. It is also very much about ensuring ever-rising standards of living and material security to the members of society as a whole. In other words, egalitarianism is a laudable goal, but only if society actually has the material resources to give it substance. There must exist the capability to produce a sufficient economic surplus to satisfy the ever-growing needs of society. And that surplus has to be produced in a manner that is efficient in the employment of natural resources and productive forces (means of production and labor power) and which supplies use values in accordance with the social and economically realistic need for them – a point on which too often the existing socialist countries fell short. A "socialist" system of common poverty, shared underdevelopment or wastefulness is not something to strive for.

While definitions of socialism are of course not blueprints to be drafted in advance with all the details predetermined, there are a few basic aspects that can be delineated. Socialism, as a socio-economic system succeeding capitalism, would be characterized by the social ownership and control of the decisive sectors of an economy, such as the most important industrial firms, the banks and financial institutions, the energy and natural resources industries, health care and social services, and probably much of the national distribution/transportation system. Democratization of the workplace would be central to gradually altering the exploitative relations which characterize the capitalist enterprise, making it possible to begin to develop in practice a new kind of economy in which those who create value have more meaningful collective control over their conditions of work and the disposition of that surplus value through social control of investment. As socialism becomes consolidated, services such as health care, education through university level, the ending of illiteracy, malnutrition, and unemployment would be priorities if they had not already been achieved. Social ownership would not necessarily be straight-jacketed into the two simple categories of "state property" and "collective property," as was the distinction made in Soviet political economy. Ownership could conceivably take various forms depending on the goals of planned production and social needs: public or state ownership at various levels, publicly-invested and controlled enterprises, cooperative/collective and joint ownership forms, and likely some role for private ownership in certain businesses or industries for at least some length of time. The exact forms of ownership cannot accurately be predicted beforehand. Rather, they have to be crafted in the course of political development and in line with the needs of a balanced economy and sustainability. The political system would be one in which the interests of the working class of a society are the dominant, but not necessarily the only, political force. State institutions may vary temporally and geographically and be characterized by long periods of flux as the political and economic tasks change. The governing party or coalition would be subject to regular elections and the necessity of constantly winning anew its popular mandate. As Wu Yiching reminds us, “socialism without meaningful democracy is unfeasible.”

The definition of socialism given above, prefaced as it is as a period successive to capitalism, implies the pre-existence of highly-developed productive forces and the means of common prosperity – or at the very least access to them from other countries or economies. While it may be true that high levels of human development (social, economic, and cultural) have been achieved by the socialist countries with low levels of income in the past, the reality is that in order to prevent stagnation and promote further development, a modern industrial foundation has proven a necessity.

Looking at the first attempt at building socialism in the Soviet Union after the 1917 revolution and how it came up against a wall of economic underdevelopment can provide an insight into some of the challenges which many underdeveloped countries find themselves facing today. For example, many today dismiss China’s economic reform as a return to capitalism. Lenin and the Bolsheviks, however, also faced criticism during the early years of Soviet power for the course of their economic program. Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) was often characterized, both outside and inside the Communist movement, as an abandonment of socialism and Marxist ideology. It seems to be the case that any recognition of the aforementioned fundamentals of historical materialism and practical policy which ensues from them (whether in Moscow in 1921 or Beijing in 1978) will inevitably give rise to the charge of heresy in certain sectors.

In the early years of the Russian Revolution, Lenin understood the underdeveloped position of Soviet Russia and was aware of the difficulty of constructing socialism under the kind of conditions which Marx and Engels had believed ill-suited to its success. Initially, he still believed that revolution would break out in one or more industrialized capitalist countries and that they would then assist Russia. “Soon,” he said, “after the victory of the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries, a sharp change will come about. Russia will cease to be the model and will once again become a backward country.” When such assistance ultimately failed to materialize, Lenin was forced to look for new ways to build up Russia’s productive forces in order to lay the ground for an eventual socialist transformation. He concluded that there could be no successful advance to socialist relations of production without highly-developed productive forces to sustain socialist methods of distribution and went about formulating a pragmatic response. Addressing the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party in March of 1921, on the necessity of cooperation with foreign and domestic capitalist elements, Lenin stated, “We are now in a transitional stage, and our revolution is surrounded by capitalist countries. As long as we are in this phase, we are forced to seek highly complex forms of relationships.”

A component of these “highly complex forms of relationships,” of course, was the institution of market methods of distribution in first the agricultural, and later other, sectors of the economy. In further remarks to the Congress, Lenin assured delegates that the gravest problem in the immediate period was not the policy of concessions to capitalism as some, particularly those on the left, warned. Rather, it was the very low level of productive forces that threatened the survival of the October Revolution: “We must not be afraid of the growth of the petty bourgeoisie and small capital. What we must fear is protracted starvation, want and food shortage, which create the danger that the proletariat will give way to petty-bourgeois vacillation and despair.” Many of Lenin’s writings from the early 1920s demonstrate that he gradually came to the conclusion that in a predominantly peasant country with low levels of productive forces, education, and culture there could be no leap to socialist or communist lines of production or distribution. He began to see that the rapid nationalizations and high hopes for broad planning in the economy that had characterized the early years had gone “too far, too fast.” Instead, the transition would have to take place in stages. These kinds of measures were intended to build up the material-technical foundations for socialism that Marx and Engels had envisioned being already developed by capitalism in advanced industrial societies, where they had foreseen the first socialist revolutions taking place. The proletarian revolution, as we have seen, was expected to occur in the most technologically and economically advanced capitalist countries because of the development of a large industrial working class and the acute contradictions of advanced capitalist relations of production which would serve as the catalyst for raising class consciousness.

The victory of socialist revolutions in poor, underdeveloped, and usually agrarian countries of course presented a new challenge; once working class-based parties succeeded in capturing state power, they were confronted with the task of trying to develop socialism in economies that were in no way prepared to support it. Lenin and the Soviet Communists were the first to face the real-life situation of building a socialist system on an underdeveloped base.

Shortly after the victory of the October Revolution, Soviet Russia became embroiled in a civil war and came under attack by interventionist armies from fourteen nations, among them the United States, Britain, Canada, France and Japan. Under these conditions, with food and industrial shortages plaguing the country, a harsh system of surplus extraction from the peasants was introduced and wages were leveled – the policy of "war communism." Almost all industrial enterprises were seized and production was carried on under a strict command basis. Money and markets were, for all practical purpose, eliminated in every area of the economy. Some among the Bolsheviks believed that war communism was not just a time of intense struggle and difficulty, but that it actually represented the beginnings of true socialism and communism – the fulfillment of the revolution’s purpose. Others, like Trotsky, saw such measures as an unavoidable result of the particular situation the Bolshevik government found itself in and not the preferred method of building socialism. With domestic counterrevolutionary forces attempting to make a comeback at precisely the moment of an outside military attack, the Soviet government was not in a position to go about following any preplanned theoretical models. Writing in 1920, he said:

Once having taken power, it is impossible to accept one set of consequences at will and refuse to accept others. If the capitalist bourgeoisie consciously and malignantly transforms the disorganization of production into a political struggle, with the object of restoring power to itself, the proletariat is obliged to resort to socialization, independently of whether this is beneficial or otherwise at the given moment.

After the civil war was won by the Red Army and the foreign interventionists were pushed out of the country, the Soviet economy was in ruins. The productive capacity of the nation had dwindled; agriculture was below even pre-1914 levels. The working class which the party had purported to represent was decimated, leaving only the party itself and the old state bureaucracy to pick up the pieces. Peasant farming was now an even more dominant part of the economy, but it was in need of industrial products which the state was unable to provide. There was an urgent need to raise capital and jumpstart the development of the productive forces if the country was to survive. After these few years of immense difficulty, Lenin proposed what has recently been described as a “socialist market economy in embryonic form.”

In 1921, he introduced the NEP to replace the extreme measures of war communism, “with which,” in his words, the country had been “saddled by the imperative conditions of wartime.” The NEP allowed limited denationalization, foreign-domestic joint ventures, some foreign-owned enterprises, cooperatives running on market principles, and the use of economic administrators who had been trained in capitalist management methods. Many of these administrators came from the former bureaucracy and managerial strata who had been removed from their positions shortly after the revolution but were now the only ones with the knowledge and expertise to run the national economy. The remaining state-owned enterprises, which for the most part would now only occupy the commanding heights of the economy, had to be self-reliant and operate on profit/loss principles. The commanding heights referred to the lifeline sectors of the economy, such as energy, transport, finance/banking, and steel – those sectors that effectively control or support most other areas of the economy. Under the NEP, the state still formulated an overall plan for the economy, but it was achieved primarily through market, not administrative, means. Production of individual goods and services would be based on supply and demand, not on the decree of a central planning authority. Economic competition defined relations between public and private sectors. Of primary importance in this competition was which sector would win out. Addressing the Second Congress of Political Education Departments in the fall of 1921, Lenin stated the matter bluntly:

We must face this issue squarely – who will come out on top? Either the capitalists will succeed… Or the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry, will prove capable of keeping a proper reign on these gentlemen, the capitalists… The question must be put soberly.

Lenin admitted that such an arrangement was not the kind of socialism the Bolsheviks had earlier had in mind. “Retreat is a difficult matter, especially for revolutionaries who are accustomed to advance.” He realized, however, that market relations and a commodity economy were necessary until the capacity and infrastructure of a fully socialized economy could be constructed and secured. This was a task which he foresaw encompassing years, even decades of transition. Nove has pointed out that Lenin believed “the new policy was to be carried through 'seriously and for a long time.'" Lenin spent much time trying to explain what the NEP was and why it was an absolute necessity:

What is free exchange? It is unrestricted trade, and that means turning back towards capitalism… How then can the Communist Party recognize freedom to trade and accept it? Does not the proposition contain irreconcilable contradictions? The answer is that the practical solution of the problem naturally presents exceedingly great difficulties. How this is to be done, practice will show.

And,

Since the state cannot provide the peasant with goods from socialist factories in exchange for all his surplus, freedom to trade with this surplus necessarily means freedom for the development of capitalism. Within the limits indicated, however, this is not at all dangerous for socialism as long as transport and large-scale industry remain in the hands of the proletariat.

The development of such a form of capitalism controlled and regulated by the state, which Lenin time and again referred to as "state capitalism," if directed carefully by a socialist state, would be not only advantageous, but even necessary, especially in an underdeveloped country.

The NEP, though, was effectively ended by the latter half of the 1920s, for reasons both political and economic. In the years following Lenin’s death, Joseph Stalin had positioned himself as a moderate and a centrist among the party leadership, always promoting himself as a faithful disciple of Lenin. Early on, he allied himself with Bukharin in advocating pro-peasant policies and the extension of the NEP. As long as the NEP approach seemed to be working in its efforts to revive agriculture and industry, Stalin criticized proposals by Trotsky and others for increased investments in heavy industry as well as those by E. Preobrazhensky for a "primitive socialist accumulation" of squeezing the private peasants for the sake of industry. Portraying himself as the pragmatist, he progressively undercut support for Trotsky and his other opponents. Whenever the NEP started to experience imbalances and industrial development reached a plateau, however, Stalin rapidly swung to the left, adopted those same policies he criticized when Trotsky and the others had proposed them, and dumped his erstwhile ally Bukharin. Zinoviev, the head of the Communist International, had been a critic of the NEP as well as of Stalin and Bukharin’s plan to build "socialism in one country." When Stalin decided to drop the NEP but not "socialism in one country," Zinoviev had to go as well. Within a matter of a few short years, Stalin was able to successfully move from one policy position to another in accordance with the needs of the moment while simultaneously eliminating (first politically and later physically) all other party leaders from any positions of authority.

In his power struggles with these other party leaders, Stalin began to argue that the concessionary measures of Lenin’s NEP were intended only to be of the most temporary nature, not guiding developmental policy. He accused those who wanted to continue the NEP or extend it to more areas of the economy, like Bukharin, of wanting to restore capitalism and of spreading a “most harmful, anti-Leninist interpretation of NEP.” This was one of the earliest occasions in which those who followed Lenin’s ideas were branded "anti-Leninist," a hallmark charge of the Stalin era. There was now to be only one recognized successor to the cause of "Leninism." Trotsky and other critics were denounced as a "petty bourgeois opposition" and faced either exile or execution. Trotsky himself would eventually suffer both.

Instead of continuing to build up the productive forces under the auspices of the NEP, Stalin pushed the Party to opt for forced collectivization of agriculture and complete state or cooperative ownership of all other means of production in line with rapid industrialization under the first five-year plan – the same "leftist" line he had spent much of the twenties arguing against with Bukharin by his side. The Fifteenth Soviet Party Congress was convened in December 1927, and at Stalin’s urging decided that “with respect to the elements of private capitalist economy which have increased absolutely…a policy of even more squeezing out can and must be pursued.” This marked the beginning of a particular stream of ultra-leftist thought which branded the market as eternally incompatible with socialism and christened the comprehensive plan and total public ownership as the necessary and sufficient conditions for building a socialist system.

2009-04-22T12:44:00.001-07:00

********OUR NEW BLOG: http://yclmidwest.blogspot.com/

Wanna contribute? Email articles, stories, poems, links, event advertisements, etc. msuycl@gmail.com.

********Come Celebrate Abdul's Graduation and Support Rudy Lozano Jr.'s Campaign

May 15th at 7pm in Rudy's Backyard B.B.Q and Music
Suggested Donation to United for Rudy Lozano Jr.: $20
Questions or comments: email dcelina@gmail.com

********Train the Teacher Workshop!

May 16th, 2009 9 am to 2 pm
Unity Building, Chicago, IL
Learn how to teach a class and develop a curriculum,
participate in the creation of an ideological/cultural resource guide and much more!
To R.S.V.P. email ursula@yclusa.org

(Come to Abdul's Graduation and Stay for the "Train the Teacher" Workshop! Housing available on friday and saturday night)

YCL Weekly Update

2009-04-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

I. In The News: 'Pirates' Strike a U.S. Ship Owned by a Pentagon Contractor, But Is the Media Telling the Whole Story?

II. Mass Action: Tell Congress to put Education Before Profits

III. YCL College Call

IV. Montana YCLers hold House Parties for EFCA

I. In The News: 'Pirates' Strike a U.S. Ship Owned by a Pentagon Contractor, But Is the Media Telling the Whole Story?

By Jeremy Scahill

"Coverage of the pirates is similar to the false narrative about "tribalism" being the cause of all of Africa's problems. Of course, there are straight-up gangsters and criminals engaged in these hijackings. Perhaps the pirates who hijacked the Alabama on Wednesday fall into that category. We do not yet know. But that is hardly the whole "pirate" story."

To read the whole story visit Alternet's website.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Do you think the pirates were justified in taking over the ship?

2. Do you think the pirates that took over the ship were interested in addressing the larger issues of unregulated fishing and the dumping of toxic waste?

3. What actions could Obama take to address the issue of piracy off the coast of Somalia?

II. Mass Action: Tell Congress to put Education Before Profits

Over a month ago President Obama addressed the nation and proposed some of the firmest commitments to education we've seen in a generations. His bold plan promised all of us that the government would permanently fund the Pell Grant programs so that anyone who wanted to go to college and needed help paying for it would be able to get the support they needed without taking out bad loans that would put them into decades of debt.

Today the private loan companies came out of the shadows to tell Congress they must choose between investing in America's future or funding the private loan companies.

Our country shouldn't be forced to choose between the Pell Grant and funding the private loan companies- WE NEED TO INVEST IN EDUCATION in order to rebuild America's economy and our future.

Sign the petition from the United States Student Association (USSA) and Studetnt Labor Action Project (SLAP) telling your Congressperson and Senators to invest to put our education before the profits of private loan companies.

III. YCL College Call

Our next YCL College Call will be next Thursday April 23rd. Get updates from the Unites States Student Association (USSA) on upcoming legislative and national actions impacting students, discuss what is happening on campuses across the country with other YCLers, and get new ideas to build a club on your campus.

If you are interested in attending the call, email Ursula at ursula@yclusa.org

IV. Montana YCLers hold House Parties for EFCA

The YCL in Butte, Montana held an EFCA letter-writing house party (complete with red-frosted communist sugar cookies with hammer and sickles, and course, Lenin-lime punch!) this week that brought youth and students together to urge their Senators to support EFCA. After writing personal letters at the party, they drafted an open letter and spent the day tabling at Montana Tech and gather over 40 signatures from students on campus.

At 4 o'clock they took their packets of letters to the Senators' local offices. The United Students Against Sweatshops club at the University of Montana in Missoula coordinated with them and took theirs in at the same time. The Senators weren't in but their staff at the offices were really stoked to see and hear from young people getting active for the Employee Free Choice Act.

"I'm really excited about how things turned out. It seemed like just about everyone we approached was really cool with what we were doing, and we made a few new friends that are down with the what our YCL Club is doing. I don't know if they'll turn out to be YCLers, but I know I can count on them to help us out and come to our future events. I'm still really stoked, I feel like we might have really made an impact and at the same time got our YCL club into the public and made some new connections," said club member Jesse Jack.

Wowza, New CEO Pay Numbers‏

2009-04-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

Do Something
About It

Just as passing the Employee Free Choice Act is central to securing the economic future of America's working families, so is ensuring that our financial markets are regulated.

Take action today and tell Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairs of the House Finance Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, that we're counting on them to draft legislation that truly strengthens our financial regulations and begins curing the disease that has infected our economic system.

In 2008, CEOs and other executives responsible for our current financial crisis pocketed millions of dollars from bonuses and golden parachutes, while our government spent billions of our dollars bailing out their companies.

Vikram S. Pandit, CEO of Citigroup Inc., received more than $38 million in total compensation in 2008, the same year his company took $50 billion in U.S. taxpayer money.

To shed light on executive pay, the AFL-CIO released Executive PayWatch 2009 earlier today. In this report, we learn that CEO perks alone grew in 2008 to an average of $336,248—or nine times the median salary of a full-time worker.

This comprehensive report includes much more information, including:

Detailed CEO compensation data for some of the country's largest companies.
Tools that allow you to compare your pay to the CEOs.
Close-up case studies focusing on 10 executive compensation practices that define a broken system that leaves the American taxpayer holding the bag.
The anatomy of a double standard: Executives enjoy job and retirement security while fighting the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers to form unions and bargain for basic security.
Action for you to take to put balance back into our economy.
Boot the CEO, a satisfying online game.

Outrageous executive pay is a symptom of a disease that has infected our entire economic system. It is a disease of greed and corruption made worse by the Bush administration’s obsession with further deregulating Wall Street and ideological aversion to oversight and accountability in our financial system.

Check out Executive PayWatch 2009 today and pass it around to your family and friends. It’s time to shed light on outrageous executive compensation, particularly while America’s working families are bearing the brunt of the worst economic crisis in our country since the Great Depression.

In Solidarity,

Marc Laitin
AFL-CIO Online Mobilization Coordinator

P.S. Mad about overpaid CEOs? So are we. The most important thing to do right now to curb executive pay is to fix our broken financial system by regulating our financial markets. Tell your representatives to draft legislation that truly strengthens our financial regulations and begins curing the disease that has infected our economic system.

Michigan PWW Update

2009-04-15T02:45:00.000-07:00

Detroit: Keeping families together highlights need for immigration reform

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/15199/

Where your tax dollars go

In Detroit, for example, the median-income family paid $1,306 in federal income taxes for 2008. Of that, $487 went to military spending including military interest on debt, while a puny $50 went to housing and community programs, $50 to veteran’s needs, and $39 to education. Read more:

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/15178/

African American leaders: employee free choice is the civil rights issue of the century

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/15201/

A Michigan PWW Editorial: A Way Forward

As Governor Granholm said last week, Michigan is facing a Katrina like disaster - but on an even greater scale. Unlike the botched job the Bush administration did in the days after the hurricane struck, we can prepare in advance to lesson the impact of the economic tsunami bearing down on Detroit and Michigan.

In the past “restructuring” has usually meant shutting down production in the U.S., laying off workers and squeezing those remaining for more concessions. That can no longer be the case. Their purchasing power is fundamental to stimulating the economy. Union wages, not a Wal-mart economy, are the way to end the depression.

There is a way forward for the auto industry and Michigan.

Cities throughout the country have multi-year waiting lists for mass transit vehicles — because so few are domestically built. The auto task force should mandate the retooling of any plant scheduled to close to build such vehicles along with wind turbines, solar panels, and other energy saving products needed to reduce climate change.

Retooled plants could produce the many products needed to rebuild our infrastructure. But if necessary, it is the responsibility of government to run them to insure workers have jobs and that an economic and social catastrophe does not take place.

As opposed to our previous president, we now have a president who sincerely wants to help working people. But President Obama by himself cannot bring progressive change.

For that help to become reality, we “the people” need to voice our support and fight for a recovery and restructuring program that benefits main street, not Wall Street.

We need to demand that our plants stay open and that national health care become a reality. And we must see that the Employee Free Choice Act is passed. This act will both democratize our nation and restructure our economy by insuring that working people are no longer left out of the decision making process.

To donate to the PWW: http://pww.org/support

Poll: Many Americans prefer socialism over capitalism

2009-04-14T01:48:00.000-07:00

From: PWW

Author: Teresa Albano
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 04/09/09 14:54

This poll made our day.

According to a recent Rasmussen Report, only 53 percent of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.

Not a very good spread for the profits-before-people, greed-is-good crowd. Ayn Rand must be rolling in her grave.

These numbers of course reflect the deep, transformative moment we are living in. An economic depression is a powerful force for people to experience, leading them to question the system that got us here.

Then there is the 20 percent that say socialism is better than capitalism, according to Rasmussen. Another wow! Twenty-seven percent are not sure which is better.
As the population gets further away from the Cold War years, the more they are open to socialism. The under 30 population is essentially divided: 37 percent prefer capitalism, 33 percent socialism and 30 percent are undecided.

Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the current system with 49 percent for capitalism and 26 percent for socialism.

But the ones over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13 percent of those believe socialism is better. What happened to the radical baby boomers?!

As you may imagine, those who have money to invest chose capitalism by a 5-to-1 margin. But for the rest of us who have no money to invest – a quarter of us say socialism would be o.k. Only 40 percent of non-investors think capitalism is better.

These are amazing statistics considering Rasmussen did not define either capitalism or socialism in their questions.

In an earlier survey by the polling firm they found, 70 percent of Americans prefer a free-market economy. When using the term “free market economy,” Rasmussen asserts, it attracts more support than using the term “capitalism.”

“Other survey data supports that notion. Rather than seeing large corporations as committed to free markets, two-out-of-three Americans believe that big government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors,” the poll summary stated.

Imagine how Americans would react if truly a national conversation was had on the benefits of socialism. Right now most Americans see it as a “government-managed” economy and they aren’t convinced the government could do any better than the corporate royalty, according to further poll findings.

Not included in the current popular view of socialism is democratization of the economy – where representatives of all communities, unions, schools, etc., would actually be involved in steering economic policy and decision making on all levels – micro and macro.

Recently, a colleague of mine, Sam Webb, the chair of the Communist Party said of the current economic and political situation:

“Is there any reason to think that millions in motion can't transform this country and world into the just, green, sustainable and peaceful "Promised Land" that Martin Luther King dreamed of?

“It would be a profound mistake to underestimate the progressive and socialist potential of this era. The American people have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity within their reach.”

While polls are just a snapshot of a very fluid and dynamic process of what people think, the more long term forces of the economy are already having this profound effect.

YCL Weekly Update

2009-04-08T23:11:00.001-07:00

I. In the News: In America, Labor has an Unusually Long Fuse

II. Tell Rite Aid: Stop the union busting and sign a first contract

III. NC Registration Deadline: Friday April 10th

I. In the News: In American, Labor has an Unusually Long Fuse

by Steven Greenhouse

"When General Moters recently announced huge job cuts worldwide, 15,000 workers demonstrated at the company's German headquarters.

But in the United States, where G.M. plans its biggest layoffs, union members have seemed passive in comparison. They may yell at the television news, but that's about all. Unlike their European counterparts, American workers have largely stayed off the streets, even as unemployment soars and companies cut wages and benefits."

For the whole article, go to the NY Times Website.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What do you think of the different reasons the article uses to explain why the working class in the U.S. seems to have a "long fuse"?

2. Why do you think that trade unionists and workers in the U.S. have not taken to the streets in the same way that trade unionists in Europe have?

3. Do you think the tactics used by workers in France and elsewhere are appropriate for the political situation here? Do you think the French and German demonstrations have stopped companies from firing workers?

4. What do you think of the quote from Professor Kennedy at the end of the article saying, "This generation, he said, has "found more effective ways to change the world. It's signed up for political campaigns, and it's not waiting for things to get so desperate that they feel forced to take the streets"?

II. Tell Rite Aid: Stop union busting and sign a first contract

Companies aren't supposed to attack workers who want a union, but Rite Aid and other employers are doing it every day. When 650 workers at Rite Aid's distribution center in Lancaster, CA wanted to join a union to address problems like sweltering heat in the warehouse, the company threatened and fired them.

Sign the petition from Jobs with Justice (JwJ) and tell Rite Aid stop the union busting now!

III. National Council Registration Ends on April 10th!

Make sure that you sign up for the YCL's NC meeting by extended deadline April 10th! At the meeting April 25th and 26th in Chicago we will be assessing our role in the fight back over the economic crisis, building the YCL and making plans for our Convention in 2010. Sign the online registration form and make sure you are part of this important event!

In the News: Auto workers left with no bailout

2009-04-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

by John Wojcik

President Barack Obama said March 30 that the government will withhold additional long-term federal loans for General Moters and Chrysler unless the company, its creditors and the unions make more concessions. He also raised the possibility of "controlled bankruptcy" for one or both of the companies.

Read the rest of the story at the People's Weekly World Website.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What action do you think the government should take in regards to the auto industry? Should they let them fail? Nationalize? Give them billions in more bailouts with commitments for viability?

2. Should the UAW make any more concessions? If so, what do you think they should be? If not, how can the union work to help make the company viable?

COMMENTARY: What’s so sacred about a contract?

2009-04-06T03:08:00.001-07:00

From: PWW

Author: John Wojcik
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 03/24/09 14:26

GM’s CEO says he wants his workers, including those at this Arlington, Texas, assembly plant, to make even more concessions than they already made in their 2007 contract.

Two of the nation’s “big three” auto companies, General Motors and Chrysler, both on the verge of bankruptcy, are asking the government for loans to keep them afloat.

Unlike the insurance giant AIG and the big banks, they are asking for loans, not direct taxpayer handouts that have amounted, thus far, to hundreds of billions of dollars.

In exchange for the loans, the GM and Chrysler execs have, unlike most of their counterparts in the world of finance capital, agreed to reduce their own salaries to one dollar a year.

It’s there, however, that their self-sacrifice stops. After all, they have contracts to uphold.

The CEO’s at the auto companies have not agreed to give up “bonuses.” Even though bonuses far outpace what normal people would consider a hefty salary, bonuses must be preserved, the CEOs say, because they are part of their contracts.

“Contracts are only sacred, these days, if you’re talking about the contracts that CEOs and corporate executives have,” William Alford, president of UAW Local 235 in Hamtramck, Mich., told the World March 23.

“The government has made one of the conditions of those loans that the companies renegotiate the UAW contracts. This says that contracts with workers are not at all sacred. This says to the companies that they will get their loans as a reward for cutting the pay of the workers and forcing the union to pay the costs of health care coverage.”

“Don’t forget,” Alford said, “that when former President Bush offered the first $17 billion in loans to the auto companies, he demanded that the workers’ pay be cut in half. My workers had already been cut from $28 to $14. If you cut their pay in half again, they’d be making less than the minimum wage.”

UAW members, March 9, ratified a new cost cutting agreement with Ford Motor Company, the only one of the big three that has not yet asked for a government loan.

The big fight in the Ford talks was over how the company would pay the union what it owes so that the union can administer health care. The 2007 contract said the company would pay in cash. Ford wanted to change that to paying with stock. The end result was a 50-50 split.

Ford assembly line workers ratified the new pact by 59-41 percent margin and skilled trades workers voted for it by a 58-42 percent margin.

UAW Ford Vice President Bob King said, “the voting shows our members are prepared to make painful sacrifices in order to be part of the solution to the problems facing Ford and the U.S. auto industry.”

GM CEO Rick Wagoner has rejected that line of reasoning, however, and is saying in interviews with a variety of newspapers and magazines that the Ford deal won’t cut it with his company. He wants deeper cuts, he says, and he insists that the union health care fund be funded entirely with company stock, rather than with cash. GM’s stock, like most other stock, is on a downward spiral.

The auto workers have done more than their part in rescuing the nation’s domestic auto industry.

They signed new contracts in 2007 for lower starting pay and smaller health benefits for new hires.

They agreed that the union would take over responsibility for paying out health care benefits.

“It is a damned disgrace,” Alford said, “that when my members at American Axle gave up half their salaries, Dick Dauch, our CEO, paid himself an $8.5 million bonus. And now they want my members to sacrifice even more.”

The conventional wisdom was that union contracts were unbreakable deals. A union contract was supposed to be as good as gold — something that would withstand anything except, perhaps, bankruptcy.

What we have seen since the 2007 give-back contracts in auto is that, as far as corporate executives are concerned, contracts with workers are made to be broken, disregarded, renegotiated or scrapped altogether. Auto companies, airlines, steel companies and many others want to use the current economic crisis to scrap as many contracts as they can.

“In case after case,” Alford said, “We see corporate executives defending their own contracts and their own bonuses. In case after case we see workers, in order to save their companies and their jobs, stepping forward to renegotiate and to make more sacrifices.” Executive contracts, golden parachutes, and bonuses are rarely re-negotiated or given up.

There is a limit to working-class patience, however. Millions are realizing that many corporate executives are doing a bad job. Many believe that without those executives workers might do as well, or better. In short, many are realizing that capitalism sucks.

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The Group of 20 Summit: Climate change solutions may be answer to economic woes

2009-04-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

From: PWW

Author: World Combined Sources
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 04/02/09 16:49

All eyes are on London this week for the G20 summit. Will it come up with a plan to save the world economy? It won’t, say UN climate negotiators in Germany — where this week’s real business is happening — unless there is a plan in place to save the planet first.

“The financial crisis is the result of our living beyond our financial means. The climate crisis is a result of our living beyond our planet’s needs,” said the UN’s chief climate negotiator, Yvo de Boer, en route to Bonn.

The London Summit includes climate change in its discussions of the financial crisis. However, it is not expected to produce more than a statement of environmental intent, perhaps including a promise to create “green jobs” as part of a package of measures to stimulate the global economy.

But meaningful promises on climate would happen in Bonn if anywhere, said civil servants negotiating the London text.

The 10-day UN climate meeting that began in Bonn on March 30 is the latest round of negotiations intended to reach a global agreement replacing the Kyoto protocol, to be concluded in Copenhagen in December.

On March 30, the Bonn meeting heard President Obama’s chief climate negotiator Todd Stern declare the U.S.’s re-engagement with climate diplomacy: “We do not doubt the science, we do not doubt the urgency, and we do not doubt the enormity of the challenge before us. The facts on the ground are outstripping the worst case scenarios. The costs of inaction — or inadequate actions — are unacceptable.”

Environmentalists in Bonn said that governments of industrial countries should “show their cards” in the coming days by declaring what cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases they were prepared to make. But the indications were that few governments were yet ready to do that.

At the same time, senior legislators from the G20, chaired by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), launched an International Commission on Capitol Hill to help the major economies create the political conditions for a global deal on climate change at the Copenhagen meeting.

This will be the first time since Obama’s inauguration that legislators from countries including Brazil and China will meet the U.S. legislators who will be drafting a climate change bill.

The Global Legislators Organization (GLOBE) has established the International Commission on Climate Change and Energy Security to bolster the formal negotiations and to provide G20 heads of government with an informal political track to test the latest thinking and address the hard political trade-offs that will be needed if there is any hope of reaching an ambitious post-2012 agreement later this year.

Climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes than recently thought. The Washington Post reported that “the pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said.”

Many argue that the economic crisis is wrapped up with the environmental and climate crisis with the carbon-based energy system at its root. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes, “ While I’m convinced that our current financial crisis is the product of both The Market and Mother Nature hitting the wall at once — telling us we need to grow in more sustainable ways — some might ask this: We know when the market hits a wall. It shows up in red numbers on the Dow. But Mother Nature doesn’t have a Dow. What makes you think she’s hitting a wall, too? And even if she is: Who cares? When my 401(k) is collapsing, it’s hard to worry about my sea level rising.”

Friedman urges a restructuring of the economy based on conservation and renewable energy saying it “would pay long-term dividends, because they would foster massive U.S. innovation in new clean technologies that would stimulate the real Dow and much lower emissions that would stimulate the Climate Dow.”

YCL Midwest

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Obama reported firm in his support for EFCA

STITCH in MKE!!!

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Students brace for the worst as cuts to state grants loom

DePaul University YVC Fights for Workers Rights!

The fall of GM — new thinking needed

Specter tells labor: You're gonna like my EFCA vote

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Chavez: My Next Gift For Obama Will Be Lenin Book

Anti-union bill defeated in Missouri

Unity in the Community!

May First en Milwaukee!

HAPPY MAY DAY!

Nationalize General Motors? UAW and U.S. government could own 89 percent of company under GM's plan

by The Associated Press Tuesday April 28, 2009, 8:12 AM

Equal Pay Day: April 28

Empty Fists

The Problem of Transition: Development, Socialism and Lenin's NEP

YCL Weekly Update

Wowza, New CEO Pay Numbers‏

Michigan PWW Update

Poll: Many Americans prefer socialism over capitalism

YCL Weekly Update

In the News: Auto workers left with no bailout

COMMENTARY: What’s so sacred about a contract?

The Group of 20 Summit: Climate change solutions may be answer to economic woes

by The Associated Press
Tuesday April 28, 2009, 8:12 AM