The internationalists

At a time when global food prices are rising anyway, due to the short-term effects of freak weather conditions1 in key crop-growing areas like Australia, Canada and the Ukraine, and the long-term effects of the increased demand for meat and dairy products (which require far more grain for animal feed than would be needed to provide the same amount of energy if humans directly consumed the grain) by better-off sections of the populations of China, and, to a lesser extent, India, the competition for land for biofuels can only exacerbate the rise. All this, as the declining value of the dollar, the currency of international trade, pushes up food production costs and “farm gate” prices while speculative activity shifts from the subprime and associated sectors to the food sector.

Even though we knew that it was something more devastating than a mere soap bubble, when the subprime crisis first broke out we could not have envisaged how much worse it would get in such a short time.

Unprecedented State Aid …For the Bankers

A few weeks ago the US monetary authorities took the unprecedented decision to lend Morgan Chase a stack of dollars at an almost zero rate of interest so that it could purchase Bear Stearns — one of the biggest investment banks in the USA but now on the edge of bankruptcy — at a knock-down price. Given that this is a commercial bank which is listed on the stock exchange and whose shares are held by the major institutional investors (pension funds, other big investment banks, municipal investment funds, etc.), there was in fact a risk that the collapse of Bear Stearns would unleash a chain reaction that could have drawn in the entire American financial system and with it a good part of the rest of the world.

A long-time correspondent recently wrote to us asking us if we intended to send any delegates to a meeting in London at the end of June organised by the “Campaign for a New Workers Party”. We had received no invitation to the meeting but we have been aware for some time of this initiative. One of the great needs of our time is for workers to create a political instrument which can give organisational form to an anti-capitalist consciousness. As an affiliate to the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party the CWO is obviously duty-bound to comment on such an initiative.

Love Labour’s Lost

However, it does not take much of a glance to see that this so-called “New Workers’ Party” already has an ancient and sorry history. In the first place it is the initiative of the Socialist Party. Older readers will know that this was the label the old Trotskyist Militant Tendency took when it was expelled from the Labour Party in Neil Kinnock’s spell as leader.

Last April 28^th, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) announced that they had just signed an agreement in principle with Ford, renewing the collective agreement for three years, five months before the current one was to expire. This agreement provides for a three year wage freeze, a freeze of the cost of living allowance for four years, the loss of 40 hours of vacation per year, a reduction in pensions, cuts to drug insurance and other health programs. Perhaps worst of all, it puts in place a two tier system by which new employees will start working at seventy percent of the base salary and will only receive the base salary after three years of work. Also, certain clauses open the door to new layoffs, which is a bad omen in an industrial sector where layoffs are the order of the day and are splashed regularly over the economic pages of the major media.

Education Strikes

More than a Pay Dispute

On the 24^th April approximately 400,000 public sector workers came out on strike, mainly teachers, lecturers, civil and public servants, angry at the government’s pay policy which everyone knows is way below the real rate of inflation and therefore represents pay cuts. For schoolteachers it was the first strike in over twenty years.

No doubt the barrage of bad news for the economy is eroding the capacity of the government to maintain the confidence of the working class in the system and inevitably there will be further episodes of class struggle. There may even be an escalation of this strike movement as the unions are finding it harder to contain the anger of their members. These strikes, as well as that of the oil refinery workers at Grangemouth a week later, show that the capacity for determined workers to halt the economy remains intact.

Another May Day surrounded by conflict — imperialist wars between capitalist rivals, and class war, with the world’s rulers united against the working class, and the poorest people on the planet.

Peace, prosperity and freedom — heavy sacrifices are demanded for these objectives in the form of blood, sweat, and a reduced quality of life. Not only are these ideals more distant with every passing year, but time reveals them for what they are: a cynical deception. However things cannot be any different as what we see is a result of the crisis of the cycle of capital accumulation which, for more than thirty years has not gone away.

…the focus of the class organisation of the proletariat lies in the International…

Rosa Luxemburg

Billions are being pumped into the swirling financial markets to prop up stricken banking houses and to stem the effects of the crisis. On the other hand, across the world, new programmes of cuts are always being developed, social benefits are being cut, wages lowered and jobs phased out. Now, as before, the world situation is marked by growing polarisation and increasing instability. The crisis in the financial markets, hunger revolts in Haiti, Africa and Asia, global warming, the terrifying implications of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — there can be no talk of the “end of history” (F. Fukuyama). Even the most eloquent apologists of the “markets’ powers of regeneration” are expressing themselves in an increasingly restrained fashion.

In February this year the comrades of the German group, Gruppe Internationaler Sozialistinnen (GIS), and representatives of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party met in Berlin. After two days of discussion the GIS agreed to become the German affiliate of the Bureau. This important step was as inevitable as it was welcome as we have all been working together for a number of years and in the course of that time the GIS has come to be a defined force in German revolutionary politics. Groups do not join the Bureau, they help build it, and in so doing help to forge nuclei of a future revolutionary world proletarian party. We are confident that the GIS will bring another new element with clear ideas on how to strengthen and deepen the Bureau as a specific international and internationalist tendency within the proletarian political camp. The GIS was formally welcomed into the Bureau at the meeting of its European members in Parma in May.

1. The Right might change its clothes but it can’t change its habits. No sooner had it returned to power that the Berlusconi government launched an unbelievable campaign of repression against the Roma population in Naples, Milan, Florence and in many other places throughout Italy.

Dossier on the Strike at FIAT Pomigliano d’Arco (Campania, Italy)

CWO Introduction

We are presenting here some of the documents issued by the Naples section of our Italian sister organisation, Battaglia Comunista who were involved with the strike of workers who were fighting their transfer to a new facility at Nola. The fact that FIAT had just invested massively (via structural money from the EU regional fund) in new plant at Pomigliano meant that they had to increase productivity by cutting the workforce. The trick the management came up with was to send 316 (among them many known to be either politically active or for their class militancy) for “re-training” on a course at the FIAT transport (logistics) centre at Nola under the auspices of “World Class Logistics”. The course was all about security and discipline in the factory but its aim became clear. It was to get them out of the plant and subsequently to lay them off.

Since the Great Depression there have been eleven small to medium recessions, the most severe one lasting roughly from 1979 to 1982. Unlike these relatively small cyclical recessions the current foundations of the US economy are far less stable. Mortgage debt now exceeds home equity for the first time since 1945. Housing prices dropped 10 percent nationwide over the last year. So while the real economy is staggering, Wall Street finance houses are now pleased with Washington’s intervention through the Federal Reserve.

Correspondingly the US dollar denominated share of world currency reserves has shrunk from 80 percent in the 1970s to its present level at 65 percent. The economic growth figures have for years been fuelled by debt paid for in credit or the sale of assets.

In the US left capitalism is using the rabidly militaristic Bush regime as a rallying cry to mobilize massive layers of the population behind a more articulate voice for American imperialism. Barack Obama, who is nothing more than a replacement hood ornament on the machine of American capitalism. One that is far more polished and palatable to the capitalist class than the current occupant of the White House, whose sole claim to enter into political life was based on the fact that he owned a baseball team and was well connected to his fellow capitalists.

The Democratic Party’s pro-war record is undeniable. As is Obama’s record in support of the war, through his votes in favor of massive war appropriations, for both the war in Iraq and the more nebulous “War on Terror”. By giving his yes vote to Senate Congressional Resolution 70, House Resolution 4156, House Resolution 1591 and, House Resolution 4297, he has voted in favor of some $3.8 trillion dollars in war spending. [1]

Statement of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party May 1^st 2008 — This English language version is produced by the Communist Workers’ Organisation, the British affiliate of the IBRP

Another May Day surrounded by conflict: imperialist wars between capitalist rivals and class war, with the world’s rulers united against the working class and the poorest people on the planet.

Peace, prosperity and freedom — heavy sacrifices are demanded for these objectives in the form of blood, sweat, and a reduced quality of life. Not only are these ideals more distant with every passing year, but time reveals them for what they are: a cynical deception. However, things cannot be otherwise since we are witnessing the effect of the crisis in the cycle of capital accumulation which has been with us now for more than thirty years. In fact the crisis is tightening its grip.

Against All Imperialisms and All Racial, Religious and Nationalist Traps

The recent violent explosions in Tibet have to be understood on different levels. This demands a deeper analysis than the clichés we have been offered, which either talk about the repression of popular demands for religious liberty and a return of an idyllic society based on the peaceful precepts of Buddhism, or about foreign manoeuvres aimed at one of the principal bulwarks of anti-imperialism.

It is no secret that the protests, which began on the 49^th anniversary of the 1959 revolt [1] had been prepared a long time before. According to the http://pahyul.com website, a conference of the “Friends of Tibet”, held in June last year in New Delhi, with US diplomats participating, discussed how the Olympics might provide the only chance for Tibetans to come out and protest for independence. The march of monks and exiled Tibetans from India to Tibet was proposed at the same conference.

TV, mass media and newspapers are saying nothing, because of FIAT opposition. Help us diffusing news to other workers. Publish on blogs, lists, forums. Let’s break this wall of silence!

Communique from the Internationalists of Battaglia Comunista

Since 10.00 p.m. Thursday April 10^th the Fiat Factory of Pomigliano has been forced to halt production

A workers committee formed independently of the trades union apparatus organised the mobilisation.

Until Sunday the workers’ pickets had ensured that the strike was supported by 99% of the workforce

It was only decided on Monday April 14^th to block the passage of goods which would force the factory to shut down.

The dispute is about 316 workers claimed to be “awkward” by the firm which has decided to farm them out to the logistical centre at Nola which everyone knows is just a waiting room to redundancy.