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Letters to the editor

Published Sep 16, 2010 8:06 PM

Open letter to AFL-CIO head Rich Trumka

Wall Street, during the current economic depression, has thrown millions of workers out of their jobs. Public worker unions and the jobs and services they provide are now coming under attack. Wall Street is demanding that unions give up hard-won contract benefits, from health benefits to pensions. Wall Street banks are bailed out with our tax monies, while workers’ homes are being foreclosed on by those very same banks. At the same time, corporate purchased politicians in the U.S. Congress are threatening to attack worker benefits such as Social Security and Medicare and threatening to privatize public services such as education.

Working people, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, represent the overwhelming majority of the U.S. population. The only way for Wall Street to continue to succeed in criminally stealing workers’ jobs and benefits is by getting workers to fight each other by broadcasting racist propaganda over the big business media, meant to prevent workers from uniting to defend their common interests.

Wall Street is funding the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim racist hysteria because they understand that they must divide the workers against each other, in order to succeed in their criminal plot. Under these circumstances, the only way that the union movement can progress is by openly defending immigrants and Muslims against these racist attacks. If we do not fight this racist propaganda then we will find our members divided against each other and that will deny labor the unity needed so as to defend our interests.

It means that every union should have thrown their political weight behind the 9/11 counter-demonstration to the Wall Street-sponsored 9/11 hate rally against the Islamic community center two blocks from the World Trade Center location. The official trade union movement failed to mobilize to oppose a vicious hate rally that was meant to divide worker against worker. Since the official labor movement did not show up and do what was necessary, we need to begin a serious discussion about how to make sure that this never happens again.

Racism must not be allowed to infect the labor movement. The Tea Party bigots and haters are not “populists.” They are funded with millions of dollars from Wall Street and with lots of free propaganda from the big business media.

We must properly respond during this critical moment in our history. The labor movement’s strength is in our numbers and our unity. Take away that unity and there will be no numbers. We must proclaim, loudly and clearly: An injury to one is an injury to all!

The labor movement needs to speak loudly against anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim racist attacks or we’ll face the consequences of a destroyed labor movement that is divided against itself. On 9/11 we should have been front and center in opposition to the Tea Party hate rally. Our labor movement needs to show its unity against these bigots and haters. If we show our unity against these bigots, we will be victorious.

Si, se puede!

— Mike Gimbel, retired Executive Board member and Central Labor Council delegate of Local 375, AFSCME

Mott’s strike a key test case

I am very glad to see you highlighting the strike at Mott’s in Williamson on the front page of your newspaper.

While I agree completely that the Mott’s workers are “defending the rights of all working people,” I think it is justified to go one step further in this characterization: The Mott’s struggle is one of the key struggles being waged over the future of the U.S. working class. The strike is being used as a test case by corporations, who want to see whether worker solidarity will hold firm. If support for the striking workers crumbles, it will be a clear signal to other employers that they can proceed apace with direct attacks on wages.

A broad-scale movement towards wage-cutting is virtually assured by the latest economic data. Second quarter productivity figures from the BLS released in August showed a sharp decline of 1.8 percent. This is widely taken by the business class to mean that we have reached the limits of profit growth attainable by speedups. A second avenue of profit growth — capital investment in technology — is also ruled out by the current “slackness of demand,” that is, we are already over-producing more than people can afford to buy. This leaves only one clear avenue for growing profits: a direct attack on wages, bolstered by maintaining high unemployment.

What does this mean for workers? We must aggressively assert class-wide solidarity with the Mott’s workers. The three most important ways we can do this are: Organize support for the Mott’s picket line, contribute to the Mott’s hardship fund, and build the boycott of Mott’s products. Even small contributions make a great difference in this key struggle!

You can learn more about these actions at www.mottsworkers.com .

— Sam, New York

Since this letter was received, a settlement in the Mott’s strike has been announced.