Vol. 52, No. 2, Jan. 21, 2010
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• ataque a la base de la CIa • Solidaridad con Palestina 12 Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite! jan. 21, 2010 vol. 52 no. 2 50¢ Unemployment, cutbacks deepen Fight needed for jobs, housing, services By Fred Goldstein workers who are officially unemployed or ger hours. they have sent jobs abroad, underemployed! instituted technological speed-ups, and the latest job reports for december the racism in capitalist society shows in general found ways to keep profits up should convince workers that all the talk up dramatically in the underemployment by shedding workers and/or intensifying about economic recovery coming from statistics. one in four african-american their exploitation. the media pundits is just hot air. the only and latino/a workers is underemployed. the trend of destroying permanent jobs recovery is the bankers’ bonuses and the White underemployment is 14.6 percent, and putting temporary jobs in their place corporations’ profits. and the time to but the figure for african americans is — a trend that has been in force for sev- fight back against layoffs, foreclosures 25.1 percent and for latino/a workers eral decades — has intensified during the and cutbacks is now. 24.3 percent. crisis. a major study by Business Week HONOR MLK’S LEGACY in december 85,000 more jobs were as far as young workers are concerned, magazine (Jan. 18), a mouthpiece of the Resist racism, poverty, war 7 lost, bringing the total in the last two years they are suffering greatly from this crisis. bosses, practically gloats that 26 percent to 8 million. the total official unemploy- one in four workers between the ages of of the work force is now in the temporary ment rate remained at 10 percent, but that 16 and 24 is without any job — 25.7 per- category. the capitalists can hire workers, is only because 661,000 workers stopped cent. Students and youth have no future with no health care, no pension, no vaca- looking for jobs and were not counted. if in this latest phase of capitalist economic tion, no protection whatsoever, and then they had been counted, unemployment crisis. their only path can be one of rebel- discard them at a moment’s notice. CATALINOTTO _ would have jumped to 10.4 percent. lion and struggle for education and jobs. this trend fits in with shrinking the jOHN a number which gives a truer picture in fact, things are even worse than workforce in order to bolster profits. How _ of the dire situation for the workers is the these numbers indicate. the work force is this possible? Corporations have down- PHOTO: so-called official “underemployment” fig- _ lost a net total of 810,000 workers be- sized and squeezed more labor out of few- WW ure. this includes the 15.3 million workers cause of dropouts in the last two years. er workers. that is the very source of their who have looked for a job in the last four But it should have increased by 2.8 million increased profits. weeks and are officially out of a job; the 2.5 since the downturn started in december For example, Ford Motor Co has laid off million workers who are “marginally at- 2007 because of population growth and 53,000 workers and shut 15 plants since tached” to the work force; and 9.2 million related factors. So there are 3.6 million 2006. Yet Ford made $1 billion in profit in workers who are forced to work part-time “missing”workers who either dropped out the third quarter of 2009. Microsoft laid even though they need a full-time job. or came of working age and never entered off 5,000 workers and made $14.6 billion together these figures add up to 27 the labor force because there were no in profit in 2009. iBM’s profits grew 18 million workers — or almost one in five prospects of getting a job. percent last year to $12.3 billion, but the company laid off 10,000 workers. aetna U.S. OUT OF MIDDLE EAST! Higher profits made $1.38 billion and laid off 1,240 with fewer workers workers. Verizon, Monsanto, Phillip Mor- • viva Palestina victory So much for the ris, Wal-Mart and other giants all had lay- talk of recovery. offs and boosted profit. (epi.org) • Blackwater strikes again during the entire crisis the bosses a deep and growing crisis • Tale of two armies have been laying Communities are suffering from this off workers and crisis as the bankers and bosses try to get making those who the people to foot the bill for the multi- remain work hard- trillion-dollar bail out of the banks and er and/or work the trillion-dollar-plus cost of the afghan- • Mumia on fewer hours or lon- Continued on page 6 imperialism 8-9 Protest on Wall St. on Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birthday In Italy sign reads: ‘We are people like you, don’t let them kill. 6 are dead.’ Bail Out the People In n.Y., arizona, Italy WHO’S THE Save Free Student TERRORIST? 4 Not Wall St. IMMIGRANTS FIGHT BACK Metro Cards! 10 Fri•jan 15 Editorial 3:30 p.m.– 6 p.m. Subscribe to Workers World newspaper Wall Street & Broad Eight weeks trial $4 One year $25 workers.org (NY Stock Exchange) DEATH PENALTY Name_______________________________________ Phone________________ JOBS NOT WAR! Pushing it back 2 A real jobs program Address___________________________________________________________ now at a living wage STOp evictions City/State/Zip _ ____________________________________________________ & foreclosures STOp THE WAR ON THE pOOR HONDURAS Email _ ___________________________________________________________ & workers, immigrants & youths New phase in struggle 11 Workers World 55 W 17th St. #5C NY, NY 10011 212-627-2994 EMpOWER communities not banks Page_2_jan._21,_2010_ workers.org WORKERS WORLD Death penalty changes this week ... In the U.S. spur optimism Unemployment, cutbacks deepen ..........................1 Death penalty changes spur optimism......................2 By Gloria Rubac and health care. Every cost study in the U.S. shows that Family, community defend police brutality survivors . .3 the death penalty is far more costly than life in prison. Jones, witness in case of Mumia Abu-Jamal ................. 3 dozens of people arrived in a long car caravan with almost all recent executions have been in just one re- an escort of police cars, red and blue lights whirling. a gion of the country — the South — and most of those have Rally and march to oppose racism, immigrant bashing . .4 bus had been reserved. Whole families celebrated, while been in one state — texas. the death penalty without ex- Arrests to protest Haitian community leader’s detention .... 4 cameras flashed to capture the historic moment. ecution is a very expensive form of life without parole. Defend Victor Toro ......................................... 4 the scene could have been photographed a century in october, the american law institute, made up of 140 arrested to demand hotel workers’ contract.............5 ago at a lynching in the old South. But it took place on 4,000 judges, lawyers and law professors, made a de- Detroit activists challenge ‘jobless recovery’ at auto show....5 Jan. 7, as the state of texas executed Kenneth Mosley cision that New York times writer adam liptak said On the picket line ..........................................5 at the Walls Unit in Huntsville. this legal lynching of a “represents a tectonic shift in legal theory.” (Jan. 4) the Black man was the first texas execution of 2010 and the ali had created the intellectual framework for the death Financial crisis hits the states hard .......................... 6 state’s 448th since 1982. penalty in 1962 to make the death penalty less arbitrary. The enduring legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ...........7 Earlier in the day, ohio also executed an african- the Supreme Court adopted their legal framework when Mumia: ‘Obama: Post imperial?’.............................9 american man, Vernon lamont Smith. then just 20 it reinstituted capital punishment in 1976. Now the in- minutes after texas pronounced Mosley’s death, loui- stitute has abandoned the structure it created because it around the world siana State Penitentiary Warden Burl Cain announced states the capital justice system in the U.S. is irretriev- African migrants in Italy rebel against racist attacks ......... 4 that Gerald Bordelon, a man who had given up his ap- ably broken. as ali member and rutgers law professor Viva Palestina convoy breaks the siege of Gaza..............8 peals, was dead. this was louisiana’s first execution roger S. Clark put it, “What this does is pull the whole Dennis Brutus, anti-apartheid fighter ....................... 8 since 2002; no others are scheduled. intellectual underpinnings for the death penalty.” U.S. mercenaries charged with long list of crimes ...........9 as a new year begins, it is important to know that, even A tale of two armies ........................................ 9 though the executions continue, there are many changes Some important anti-death penalty developments in the U.S. use of the death penalty. innocence and the use of life without parole sentences U.S. keeps Cuba in imperialism’s crosshairs ................10 “the annual number of death sentences in the U.S. has are two reasons that death sentences are down. Socialist Korea poised for economic growth................10 dropped for seven straight years and is 60 percent less according to the innocence Project, a legal clinic af- A new phase in the struggle in Honduras ..................11 than in the 1990s,” said richard dieter, the death Penal- filiated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of law at ty information Center’s executive director, in a press re- Yeshiva University in New York, 249 people in 34 states editorial lease.