Crisis Grinds on Workers As Europe Production Declines
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AUSTRALIA $1.50 · CANADA $1.00 · FRANCE 1.00 EURO · NEW ZEALAND $1.50 · UK £.50 · U.S. $1.00 INSIDE Cuba’s internationalist mission in Angola discussed at Havana book fair — PAGE 7 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE Vol. 77/no. 8 MarcH 4 , 2013 New readers Crisis grinds on workers as ‘State of Union’: help win more Europe production declines Obama offers no subscribers to Gov’t ‘austerity’ hits hardest in Greece, Spain plan to alleviate ‘Militant’ unemployment BY LOUIS MARTIN BY JOHN STUDER “I love that paper. It’s for people President Barack Obama’s Feb. 12 without a voice,” said subscriber State of the Union speech, a follow Chaba Doye when visited by Militant up to his Jan. 21 second Inaugural supporters Tamar Rosenfeld and Address, proposed nothing to address Bernie Senter Feb. 17 in the Harlem workers’ concerns about jobless- neighborhood of New York City. ness and other grinding effects of the worldwide crisis of capitalism. EXPANDING READERSHIP DOOR TO DOOR COMMENTARY Doye said a friend of hers comes by Among the most striking things in each week to borrow the paper when face of persistently high unemploy- it arrives, asking “Did you get the pa- ment is the lack of any consideration per yet?” on the part of the Obama adminis- “I’ll have to get her to subscribe tration, or any other politician, of a too, so I can get my papers back,” Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty government-funded public works pro- said Doye, who bought three books Seamen at Greece’s Piraeus port Feb. 6, day that riot police forced end to strike. Workers in gram to put millions back to work, or on special for subscribers. (See ad on Greece are among hardest hit as propertied rulers in Europe make workers pay for their crisis. any other measures to alleviate the page 3 for the eight books on special BY BRIAN WIllIAMS currency and trade bloc. burdens workers face. with a Militant subscription.) Manufacturing output is declin- World trade slowed last year with In sharp contrast, presidents In the first 10 days of a five-week ing throughout Europe, making any major export-driven economies like Franklin D. Roosevelt in the second international campaign to sell at least economic recovery or improvement Japan and Germany shipping less half of the 1930s and Harry Truman Continued on page 3 in the conditions of working people than in 2011. Imports to many coun- after the end of World War II pro- there very unlikely in the near term. tries of Europe from the U.S. also fell jected significant jobs programs as Winter ‘Militant’ In the last quarter of 2012, gross Continued on page 7 Continued on page 6 domestic product, a measure of goods subscription campaign and services, declined throughout the Feb. 9 - March 18 (week 1) eurozone at its fastest pace in four years, affecting all 17 nations in the Omaha: Socialist Workers Party files Country quota sold % 1,950 UNITED STATES for ballot in mayor, city council races Miami 60 21 35% NYC school bus San Francisco 120 37 31% Houston 100 25 25% union officials Washington 65 15 23% suspend strike Chicago 130 29 22% BY SETH GALINSKY Des Moines 100 22 22% NEW YORK—One month after Omaha 50 11 22% it began, officials of Amalgamated New York 300 63 21% Transit Union Local 1181 on Feb. 15 Lincoln 15 3 20% called off the strike here by 8,800 Los Angeles 120 24 20% school bus drivers, attendants and mechanics. Twin Cities 100 20 20% Union members voted to strike Atlanta 115 21 18% after city officials announced that Seattle 115 16 14% Employee Protection Provisions that Philadelphia 85 11 13% Militant/Candace Wagner Boston 65 8 12% SOLIDARITY WITH Fox 42’s Curtis Casper interviews Maura DeLuca, SWP candidate for Omaha mayor, Feb. 19. Total U.S. 1540 326 21% SCHOOL BUS WORKERS! BY SARA LOBMAN Prisoners 15 4 27% —editorial, p. 9 OMAHA, Neb.—“It’s about build- ing a movement of working people. Also Inside: UNITED KINGDOM were won in a hard-fought strike 34 We need to organize independently London 100 19 19% Should years ago were now “illegal.” The of the Democrats and Republicans,” Asia: Working class grows with Manchester 50 17 34% be strike ended with Mayor Michael Maura DeLuca, Socialist Workers spread of capitalist production 2 UK Total 150 36 24% Bloomberg, whose term expires in the Party candidate for mayor here, told fall, refusing to budge an inch. Curtis Casper, who interviewed her ‘LA Times’ interviews NEW ZEALAND 60 13 22% 408 Under the provisions, private com- for Fox 42-TV Feb. 19 as she filed SWP candidate for mayor 4 panies the city hires to run all the more than 2,200 signatures to be CANADA 70 15 21% school bus routes have to hire laid- placed on the ballot. Thousands of coal miners strike in Colombia 5 AUSTRALIA 55 14 25% off workers with seniority and wages “It’s the only way workers have intact before hiring off the street, re- won anything in the past—from the Total 1890 408 21% gardless of which company workers Civil Rights movement to the fight for US rulers debate drone assassination program 6 Should be 1950 507 26% were laid off from. Without the provi- the 40-hour week,” she said. Continued on page 9 Continued on page 4 Asia: Working class grows with spread of capitalist production BY emma JOHnsoN Four Seasons Fashions Ltd. is look- In recent decades, the development of ing to move elsewhere after 20 years capitalism in Asia has drawn hundreds in China. “In Bangladesh the average of millions into the industrial working monthly salary for garment workers is class, bringing with it new social contra- only around $70 to $100. If I produce dictions, sharpening class antagonisms here, price is much more competitive,” and a growth of the potential gravedig- owner Rosa Dada told the BBC Aug. 29. gers of capitalism. She said wages in her factory in China This accelerated process began have now reached $400 to $500. more than three decades ago with gar- In 1977 there were eight garment fac- ment and other light industry in China, tories in Bangladesh. Today there are spurred by the expanded use of market 4,500, employing 3.6 million workers, methods and foreign capital investment. most of whom are women. The growth More recently some of these indus- of the industry is at the center of capi- tries have been shifting to a number of talist development in Bangladesh, today other Asian countries, where capital is comprising 80 percent of its exports, being drawn to cheaper sources of labor. second only to China. Reuters/Chor Sokunthea The trends have been given some impe- After large protests in 2010, the mini- Workers on strike at Pine Great Garment plant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sept. 15, 2010. tus by rising wages in China as a result mum wage was raised from $20 to $37. of workers’ struggles there. At the same In June 2012 workers demonstrated for villages, uprooted from life in the coun- Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s biggest time, the class struggle has followed a further increase of 50 percent. For tryside and thrown into large produc- economy and has grown rapidly over wherever capital creates new industrial five days they clashed with police who tion centers primarily around the capital the last decade. During 2012 there were centers. used tear gas, rubber bullets and water Phnom Penh and along the Thai border. dozens of major strikes, centered mainly U.S. menswear retailer Jos. A Banks cannons. All 300 factories in the indus- Remittances to their families sustain an on demands for higher wages and a ban Clothiers Inc. has moved some manu- trial zone of Ashulia, on the outskirts of estimated 20 percent of the country’s 14 on hiring temporary workers. Hundreds facturing from China to cheaper loca- Dhaka, the capital, were shut down. million people. of thousands of workers participated tions in Asia, such as Indonesia. “The Over the past three years a number in a national strike Oct. 3, the first garment business always moves around Cambodia: Garment workers strike of strikes have taken place. The govern- such action in nearly half a century. In the developing world,” CEO Neal Black Cambodia had no garment industry ment raised the minimum wage from November thousands of workers rallied told the Wall Street Journal March 13. until the mid-1990s. In 2010 it made up $50 to $61 a month in July 2010. Two outside parliament protesting a new so- “It brings jobs, those people become 70 to 80 percent of the country’s manu- months later 200,000 workers went on cial security law that will require them skilled and then move on to products facturing exports and employs 50 per- strike demanding $93. to pay for health services. like electronics.” cent of the manufacturing workforce, In May last year 5,000 workers Factory workers earn an average ba- “So many foreign companies are com- with 327,000 workers. at Singapore-owned SL Garment sic salary of $120 a month. Following peting for workers we wish the popula- Social changes developing in the Processing Ltd. walked out of its Phnom protests, the new governor of Jakarta, tion would double,” Larry Kao, general wake of capitalist expansion include an Penh factory demanding a raise of the capital, agreed in November to raise manager of MedTecs, a Taiwanese com- uprooting of the material basis for tradi- monthly wages to $91, an increase of the minimum wage from $158 to $228.