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AUSTRALIA $1.50 · CANADA $1.50 · FRANCE 1.00 EURO · NEW ZEALAND $1.50 · UK £.50 · U.S. $1.00 INSIDE Capitalist rulers’ for-profit health system is disaster for workers — PAGE 7 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE Vol. 84/no. 50 DeceMber 21, 2020 NY Remington Organize to fight for India farmers: workers march jobs, wages and health! ‘End the gov’t for severance attack on our pay, new jobs livelihoods!’ BY VED DooKHUN BY ROY LANDersEN ILION, N.Y. — Some 30 people A monthslong rebellion by Indian participated in an informational farmers, which has drawn solidarity ac- picket here Dec. 5 to show support tions from the Indian diaspora around for United Mine Workers Local 717 the world, continues to intensify, shak- members demanding Remington Out- ing the government of Prime Minister door Co. honor their union contract. Narendra Modi. Hundreds of thousands Remington bosses filed for bankrupt- of family farmers converged on the cap- cy in July, terminated 585 workers in ital, New Delhi, at the end of November, October, and cut off their health care demanding repeal of new agriculture and access to other benefits. They also laws that threaten their livelihoods. refused to give severance and accrued Many more joined a nationwide strike vacation pay. Local 717 has held ral- Dec. 8, blocking highways, rail lines and lies twice a week here since the lay- food markets for Delhi and Mumbai, offs, and plans to continue. home to more than 50 million people. The company has run the plant Modi says the new measures are to since 1828. In bankruptcy it sold off Militant/Ved Dookhun “modernize” Indian agriculture by giv- its brands of shotguns, rifles and am- Remington arms workers march Dec. 5 in Ilion, New York, to demand severance pay, vacation ing farmers greater market “flexibility,” pay, after bosses declared bankruptcy. Albany nurses fighting for contract joined in solidarity. munition to seven different buyers. but millions of toilers on the land know It sold the plant to Roundhill Group, Demand jobs, gov’t-funded New gov’t lockdowns make they will be the ones to lose out. whose boss says he wants to refit it The laws are a product of growing to build guns sometime in the future. lifelong health care for all workers’ jobs crisis worse pressure from the country’s billionaire The union says it wants jobs and a From farmers in India to workers BY BRIAN WIllIAms ruling families to extract greater profits union contract when the plant re- fighting Remington bosses in Ilion, While the government claims un- from the massive agricultural workforce opens. There are few other industrial New York, working people are find- employment is going down, tens of by ending decades-old state subsidies. employers in Ilion, a village of 8,000. millions of working people have been Imperialist governments, including the “We will not back down,” Jac- out of work for many months and U.S., Australia, Canada and Japan, all quie Sweeney, recording secretary EDITORIAL thousands more job cuts have been rival agricultural exporters, have at- of UMW Local 717, said as she wel- announced. And bosses are demand- tacked India’s price support programs. comed people to the march. ing ways to stand up to the deter- ing bigger wage and benefit cuts and “Our already meager profits are in She announced that members of mined moves by the bosses to use imposing unsafe conditions for those danger if the government lets big busi- the New York State United Teachers government-imposed lockdowns to who remain in a job. nesses control prices,” Kishan Kushwa- Continued on page 9 Continued on page 9 Nothing is more important than for ha, one protesting farmer from Haryana workers to be on the job so we can state, told CBS News. unite to stand up to boss attacks on After the laws passed in September, Socialist Workers Party brings Continued on page 6 Continued on page 2 action program to working people Shift in Middle East can lead to BY JANIce LYNN AND SAM MANUel CARROLLTON, Ga. new opening for working people —“I’m 100% for that,” BY TerrY evANS tic missiles, which it used in destruc- Dylan Tapia told Rach- The most significant developments tive strikes against Saudi Arabia’s oil ele Fruit, the Socialist in the Middle East in years are the fields and has shared with its allies. Workers Party candidate agreements reached by the rulers The Iranian rulers fear any exten- for U.S. Senate, when in Israel, the United Arab Emirates sion of opposition among working she said working people and Bahrain for mutual recognition, Continued on page 9 need to break from the facilitated by the administration Democrats and Republi- of President Donald Trump. These cans and build their own Sunni Arab rulers, and others in the party, a labor party. Fruit region, are also increasing military Inside was campaigning at the and economic connections with the Cuba exposes ‘San Isidro’ smear, Walmart parking lot here Israeli government. defends record on art, culture 4 Dec. 5, ahead of the up- This developing shift is grounded coming Jan. 5 special in efforts to build a common front Alabama Amazon warehouse election. against the capitalist rulers in Iran. workers fight for union 4 Fruit’s campaign is They have entrenched their armed part of the SWP’s ongo- forces and allied militias in Iraq, Thai protests continue fight ing effort to bring the Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, as wars for political rights 7 Militant and the party’s Militant/Janice Lynn and civil strife shake the region, and fighting action program Walmart worker Kywaun Lewis talks with Rachele Fruit, continue to threaten the existence of SWP candidate for US Senate, in Carrollton, Georgia, Dec. 5. –On the picket line, p. 5– to workers and farmers Israel. New York nurses strike for across the country. nology company. Since the Trump administration safety, patient care, better wages “I’ve been talking to people where Fruit showed Tapia Tribunes of the pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal I work about the need for a union, People and the Trade Unions, which with Tehran, the regime there has re- Airport workers challenge boss but many are afraid,” said Tapia, who includes articles by revolutionary sumed amassing enriched uranium demands for 25% wage cut works for a medical information tech- Continued on page 3 and developed high-precision ballis- India farmers: ‘End attacks!’ Continued from front page Little Punjab — British Sikhs chanted, protests began uniting farmer organiza- “Long live unity between farmers and tions and agricultural laborers’ unions. laborers” and “Save farmers.” The bills would end not only minimum Hundreds have also taken to the price supports for working farmers but streets in major cities across the U.S., also prohibitions on hoarding, cheap Canada and Australia, protesting New government loans and subsidy pay- Delhi’s attack on the farmers. ments when crops are destroyed by natural disasters. Farmers and workers solidarity The laws would remove government- Over half of India’s 480-million regulated prices for crops such as rice, strong workforce of farmers and farm wheat and beans. Big corporate buyers laborers toil on 146 million farms passed could drive down prices of farm pro- down through generations. Half the to- duce. Meanwhile, costs of farm inputs tal population of 1.35 billion depends on like machinery, seed and fertilizer con- agriculture for a living. tinue to rise, crushing family farmers. India’s capitalist economy, partly due Despite police use of water cannons to drastic pandemic shutdowns, is in the and barriers, some 300,000 farmers worst recession since independence in Indian Express/Harmeet Sodhi; inset, Militant/Katy LeRougetel Protesting farmers in India occupy rail bridge Nov. 27, part of “March on Delhi” against laws from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh 1947. But agricultural production grew ending government price supports. Inset, part of solidarity demonstration in Montreal Dec. 6. and other states set up camps for miles by 3.4% in the past six months. along five main roads to the capital, Tens of millions of workers, from both The All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordi- for farmers. But they wouldn’t give up. blocking traffic. Stocked with months of the private and public sector unions, nation Committee, a united front of over They want to scrap all the laws, drawn food, fuel and other supplies, the make- held a general strike Nov. 26 against 250 farmers’ organizations, announced up without consulting them. shift camps have a festive atmosphere. the Modi government’s new anti-union their support for the strikers. “Future generations will remember Small farmers from Punjab, many of laws, which give bosses greater room to Under the pressure of the protests, the us for the revolution we are leading,” whom are Sikh, have led the way. Pun- fire workers. The strike also extended government offered Dec. 5 to amend the Binod Kumar, a protesting farmer from jab is called the nation’s “breadbasket.” support to the farmers’ march on Delhi. law and keep the price support scheme Uttar Pradesh, told the media. Mass protests and strikes spread to the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka as well as the northeast state of Assam and sugar farmers in Uttar Pradesh. Farmworkers in Peru defeat gov’t anti-labor law Family farmers, some 86% of the to- BY setH GalinsKY blocks kept hundreds of trucks from with all workers given permanent jobs. tal in India, till plots of five acres or less. Thousands of farmworkers fighting making it to Lima, the capital.