FILE COpy Colonialism goes SpecIal Sl4'Plemmt: "humanitarian" "New world order" in Somalia and Haiti sets globe ablaze Editorial page 10 PageS Freedom 5 ialist Dec. 1993 -Feb. 1994 Volume 14, Number 4 ($1.00 outside U.S.) 75f/. UNEMPLOYMENT Your pain is corporate gain BY LINDA AVERILL roductivity is up. More than • The low productivity of U.S. workers is a myth. Since 1947, factory output in ever, U.S. labor is generating in­ the U.S. has soared 400% - with only a 17% Increase in the workforce. creased bang for the buck. That's • From 1973 to 1992, real wages feil19%. the good news. P • During the 1980s, annual incomes fOi the richest 20% of The bad news is that living standards and wages are falling; good jobs are disap­ Americans rose 14.7%, while for the poorest 20% they pearing. dropped 3.6%. An American Management Assodation • A survey of 35,242 companies in 1990 and 1991 showed that survey showed that 47 percent of major even when openings for whites increased, African Americans lost a businesses axed staff from mid-1992 to 59,479 jobs. mid-1993; cuts averaged 10.4 percent. net One-third of U.S. workers now have • 900,000 factory jobs have disappeared since January 1991. only part-time or temporary jobs. By the year ZOOO, that fraction is ~pected to • In ~."'!.~,~ s~ ~ ofJ!.t~~~-~ j~.,~e!4,t.~-time. grow"toniilL . Sources - Federal Reserve Board; AFt-C/O News; House Ways and Means Downsizing, rightsizing, re-engineer­ Committee; EEOC; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Economic Policy Institute. ing. These are the newly coined euphe­ misms that corporate spin doctors are enon is global. A 1993 survey found that becomes the workers' enemy. Owners using for today's sweeping layoffs. And more than half of Europe's biggest compa­ take for themselves the extra value created while President Clinton is promising more nies intend to send workers packing in the and use the greater efficiency to cut back jobs, his top advisers aren't so confident. next two years, in eVen greater numbers on labor. Laura Tyson, head of the President's than has occurred so far in the U.S. Marx' understanding of this fundamen­ Council of Economic Advisers, acknowl­ Karl Marx - not a presidential adviser tal feature of the profit system led him to edged that a rise in Gross Domestic Prod­ - explained this high-anxiety trend sci­ fight for its replacement with sodalism, uct in 1992 did not translate into a rise in entifically. He meticulously proved that where the means of production are owned jobs - although it did boost profits. the private enterprise system increasingly and controlled by workers. Only then will "Nobody is safe" is how Labor Secretary impoverishes workers with each techno­ all members of society enjoy the expand­ Robert Reich bluntly summarized the situ­ logical advance - that, under capitalism, ing wealth they produce. ation for workers. productivity The phenom- For all but a few, a lose-lose proposition. It's not just corporations in trouble that are sloughing off employ­ ees. Huge, stable profit-makers like Procter Dateline CaDa~a & Gamble and Anheuser-Bush are slash­ ing jobs. In Hungary, the CEO of GE Lighting Europe and Tungsram put it this way: Proof positive that "Speed and productivity are key factors," said Charles Peiper in a March 1993 Wall Street Journal. "If you can't go faster and take the cost down, there's no future." His NAFTA kills lobs company plans to shed 4S percent of its warfare. Faced with global recessio~ workforce over three years. BY MARcEL HATCH d hrtnking or impoverished mar Capitalist competition is cutthroat. AND I)n.AN I(ENDRICil ~ts ~odaY'smultinatiOnalsarescr:n­ Factories that can produce millions of one workers and getting blm'g to save their profits. Degra :.~ product in a millisecond have glutted more out of each, or by paying them less. ctober S 1987 was a fateful labour is their only solution, a~ d d world markets. Thus survival depends on And a worker paid less today, or a day for' Canadians. Th~t and NAYf A are means to thIS ~n . producing goods ever more cheaply. worker in the unemployment line, is a was the day that Cana~a s ~international workingclass unIted But this scenario has rock-bottom con­ penniless consumer tomorrow. Tory Prime Minister, Bnan front is the only force capable of up- tradictions. Marxists call this the crisis of over­ OMulron handed the country over to setting their plans. Businesses must expand or die, so their production. U S mul~ational corporations. That expenses for raw materials and capital im­ This syndrome led to the Great Depres­ w~~ the day he signed th~:~ rr::!~ FIA's violent impact. The ~A provements must also expand. Only labor sion in the 1930s, and it took world war to Agreement (FIA) between .. s created a mine field of calamtties costs can be reduced, either by hiring fewer 10 page.J ha people Canada. di dti- for poor and worki ng . h FIA TheFIAbindseveryCana an . • Mulroney pledged th~t t ~ New Freewav Hall zen to it. It can strike do~ dome:~ would bring "jobs, jobs: lO~s'19~~t 5018 Rainier Ave. S. BULK RATE I ws that protect health, lobs, a~d . FINs implementation III , U.S. POSTAGE a . nment It gives U.S. bUSIllesses s~~~ than 1.6 million jobshave gone, Seattle, WA 98118 enVlIO '. bo minerals be­ PAID access to the au aye, h Na- m Permanent unemploy- SEATTLE, WA low, and water runrung throug ~:~t ~::~rs above. 14 per~e~~~ ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED PERMIT NO. 1003 tive lands. Canada's manufactunng secto And the FIA experience leaves no shrunk 28 percent, the r~ult of co:~ sed North Ameri- . vi g operatlOnS to doubtthatthe propo ment (NAFIA) panthles mUoS nor Mexico, where labour can Free Trade Agree . sou ern ., 1 and among t h e U ..,S Canada , and MeXICOk f is cheaper, regulations more ax, would be a disaster for the wor ers 0 environmental standards lower. .J to page all three countries. weapons of class These pacts are 2 Freedom SOcialist December 1993-February 1994 In This Issue Letters Vol. 14, No.4 Dec. 1993-Feb. 1994 Palestine The "Voices of Color" column observers affirmed the legitimacy public cynicism is turning into on Palestinian expellees [V14#3] of elections in February ... As a burning outrage. And that's La causa after Chavez 11 was very good, and badly needed. participan t in this year's May Day where rebellion and revolution I'm curious, though, ifthecol­ celebrations in Havana, I could - our constitutional right - The Chicana/o movement: umn ordinarily refers to writers feel the people's love for Fidel... come from. How can it regain its grass­ of color, or simply articles about Barnes' assertion that the Cu­ Monica Hill, Organizer roots grounding, fiery people of color. If the former, ban government needed to chal­ Freedom Socialist Party spirit, and inspirational why is an Israeli-American Jew lenge the embargo is mystifying... Los Angeles, California impact? Activist, analyst, considered a person of color? He should have mentioned the Phyllis Bennis United Nations vote in Nov. 1992, and author Yolanda Alaniz Brooklyn, New York wherein the world made clear its ADL spying offers some penetrating disapproval of that blockade. It has recently come to light answers. Despite these Criticisms, I was thatthe Anti-Defamation League, "Voices of Color" is a regular a longtime Jewish civil rights or­ column coordinated and usually glad to read Barnes' article, espe­ cially his mention of the Pastors ganization, has been spying on authored by the National Comrades the labor unions, Left, and anti­ of Color Caucus of the Freedom for Peace caravans. My subscrip­ tion is enclosed. Venceremos! Nazi activists, and selling/shar­ Socialist Party and Radical Women, ing the information with police Talking about a revolution 4 whose members are all people of MauraBaird Santa Cruz, California and the FBI in 20 Cities. Freedom Socialist Party color. The caucus at times invites As if this weren't bad enough, conventioneers took an Jewish writers to address issues be­ ADL "factfinder" Roy Bullock sold unsparing look at the cause of the close links between L.A. show trial intelligence about U.S. activists world and the party. racism and anti-Semitism. -Ed. to the Israeli and South African Despite war and hard backfires governments. times, they reached pro­ No solutions In the LA Four+ trial, the pros­ Bullock spied on the Freedom ecution tried to scapegoat two Socialist, Radical Women, United foundly optimistic The article [on Palestine and young Black men for the explo­ conclusions. Israel] tells half of the story ... Front Against FaScism and the Whether of the extreme right or sion of rage in L.A. in April 1992. FSP along with almost 900 other of the far left - extremism is a Because of non-stop, broad-based organizations. He subsequently place of intellectual and spiritual community organizing led by the peddled this information to a San uncenteredness ... Each side defendants' mothers, which Radi­ Francisco policeman and former Intematlonal Special supplement knows the solutions to the world's cal Women and the Freedom So­ Central American CIA agent. Dateline Canada: "Careening toward problems. There are no solutions cialist Party were a part of, they Bullock launched his spy ca­ "Free trade" 1 the new world" didn't get away with it. reer turning people - mostly 5 - just life as it continues. The trial was never about FSP Convention 4 MB radical Jews - over to HUAC whether Damian Williams and during the McCarthy era.