Socialist Alternative Issue 82 – April 2022

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INSIDE p.4 STARBUCKS’ UNION BUSTING p.5 NO TO NATO’S IMPERIALISM p.8-9 MINNEAPOLIS TEACHERS

WHAT WE STAND FOR No to Imperialist Wars!

• Socialist Alternative sends our full solidarity to the working people of Ukraine who already suffer exploitation, oppression, corruption, and growing poverty. conditions, and now face the horror of war and bloodshed.

• No to war in Ukraine! Ukrainians should have the right to decide their own future, including the right of self-determination for minority groups.

• Workers in the U.S. can have no confidence in warmonger Biden who cares nothing for the Ukrainian people but whose democratic rhetoric is a cover for corporate interests.

• De-escalating the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine requires the return of Russian troops to the barracks in Russia and the withdrawal of all NATO troops from eastern Europe.

• Build a massive anti-war and anti-imperialist movement linking up workers and youth across borders • Only socialist internationalism can end war and destruction and win long lasting peace and stability for the working-class masses around the world.

Expand the Social Safety Net! • Biden has recently announced there’s “no money to pay for everyone’s fourth COVID vaccine.” This comes in a long line of broken promises from the Biden administration to invest in the needs of working people.

• With inflation eating away at our paychecks, we need a movement from below to push back against the corporate interests that dominate establishment politics.

• Tax the rich and big business to fund permanently affordable, high-quality public housing. Raise the corporate tax rate to at least 35%!

• Make the child tax credit permanent and fully fund high-quality, universal childcare. Cancel all student debt! Make public college tuition-free.

• Enact a $15 federal minimum wage scaled to inflation with built in cost-of-living-adjustments.

• We need an immediate transition to Medicare for All. Take for-profit hospital chains into public ownership and retool them to provide free, state-of-the-art healthcare to every American.

• Fully fund public education! End school privatization. We need a national hiring program to bring on board hundreds of thousands of new educators and support staff to accommodate a permanent reduction in class size.

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Rebuild a Fighting Labor Movement • Building off the momentum of the Starbucks organizing drive, we need mass campaigns to unionize the millions of nonunion workers in the U.S. • We need to build and rebuild radical fighting unions that are fully democratic and driven by the active participation of rank and file workers.

• Especially as prices for energy, food, housing and new cars are skyrocketing, we need a united struggle across industries for wage increases that are above the rate of inflation, an end to forced overtime, and an end to two-tier wage structures.

• We need accountable leadership in the labor movement. Union leaders should accept the average wage of a worker in their industry and should answer first and foremost to their membership and the broader working class. This means being willing to use every tool at our disposal, including militant strikes, to win our demands.

• Unions should take up the broader issues facing the working class and mount a struggle against evictions, poverty, racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression.

Fight Attacks on Women and All LGBTQ People!

• As the Supreme Court nears a decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which would overturn Roe v. Wade, we need a new, mass women’s movement on the scale of the 60s and 70s when Roe was first won. This includes marches, protests, occupations, and direct action.

• Fight for free, safe, legal abortion. All contraception should be provided at no cost as part of a broad program for women’s reproductive health.

• Full reproductive rights means universal childcare, high quality public housing, fully funded public schools, Medicare for All, and drastic climate action to ensure a healthy planet for the next generation.

• We need an immediate struggle against reactionary anti-trans bills taking shape across the country. Queer youth in particular are under assault and we need mass demonstrations of students and workers, including workplace action, to push back on an emboldened right.

End the COVID Chaos • Yet another COVID variant, BA.2, appears to have gained a foothold in the U.S..

It’s abundantly clear that capitalist world leaders have failed to contain this crisis.

We need a People’s Plan to end the COVID chaos!

• Lift patent protections on all COVID

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ALTERNATIVE

W W W. S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E .O R G / S U B S C R I B E

How do we tackle historic inequality and fight to secure our basic needs?

What is the best strategy to defeat unionbusting and build the labor movement to new heights?

How can ordinary people take action to stop the devastation of war?

This and other key questions of the day are what Socialist Alternative works to answer, year-round, in our independent socialist newspaper.

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vaccines. This would remove a key obstacle to poor countries manufacturing them at home. It would also make publicly available the science and technology behind these life-saving vaccines.

Advanced capitalist countries need to be pushed to urgently reallocate their surplus vaccines to poor countries and help establish the infrastructure for universal vaccination worldwide.

Biden should immediately rescind his warnings that the U.S. cannot cover the cost of a fourth shot. Taxing the profits of major pharmaceutical companies would be a first step in raising the money to ensure full vaccination.

We urgently need to take Big Pharma profiteers into public ownership and turn existing vaccines into the People’s Vaccines!

We need an ongoing infrastructure to cope with COVID in instances where it flares up. This includes free, easily accessible tests available in every community across the country. Workers exposed to COVID should be given paid self-isolation days after exposure or after developing symptoms.

No mass firings of workers refusing the vaccine! These punitive measures should be replaced with democratic negotiation of reasonable health protocol in the workplace.

A New Political Party for Working People • The complete failure of the Biden administration to make good on campaign promises to expand the social safety net and begin to address climate change is opening the door again to the right and the far right, and exposes the dire need for a new working class political party not beholden to big business interests.

• Democrats and Republicans alike are unwilling to make any structural changes that threaten the dominance of big business. We need a new, multiracial left party that organizes and fights for workers’ interests and is committed to socialist policies to lead the fight against the right and point a way out of the horrors of capitalism.

• No attacks on democratic rights! We need to fight against all attempts at racist voter suppression being driven through by Republicans.

For a Socialist Green New Deal • We need a genuine Green New Deal jobs program that provides well-paid union jobs for millions of workers expanding green infrastructure.

• We need to build an international environmental struggle led by the global working class and youth fighting for an immediate end to the use of fossil fuels and a 100% transition to green energy.

• This can only be accomplished by taking the top 100 polluting companies into democratic public ownership. We need a democratically planned economy here and around the world to carry out the transformation necessary to avoid climate disaster.

A Safe and Just Society: End Racist Policing and Criminal (in)Justice • Arrest and convict killer cops! Purge police forces of anyone with known ties to white supremacist groups or any cop who has committed violent or racist attacks.

• End the militarization of police. Ban police use of “crowd control” weapons. Disarm police on patrol.

• Put policing under the control of democratically-elected civilian boards with power over hiring and firing, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena.

The Whole System is Guilty • Capitalism produces pandemics, poverty, racism, sexism, inequality, environmental destruction, and war. We need an international struggle against this failed system.

• Bring the top 500 companies and banks into democratic public ownership.

• We need a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the planet.

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

EDITORIAL

The State of The Squad How AOC and House Progressives Failed To Become “Changemakers On The Inside”

Erin Brightwell, Oakland In 2018, on her first day in Washington DC as the newly elected congressperson from New York City, democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined environmental activists as they staged a sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office in the Capitol Building. The message was clear: AOC was not your ordinary establishment politician.

Corbin Trent, AOC’s spokesman at the time, explained AOC’s appearance at the protest, “She was elected as part of the movement, she intends to govern as part of the movement. She thinks there is no other priority that we should be focused on and supports the Sunrise Movement’s call for Democrats to create a plan to transition the economy to a zero carbon economy so we have that ready to go when we take back the Presidency in 2020.”

Since Bernie Sanders’ explosive presidential candidacy in the 2016 election, Sanders, AOC, and other members of the Squad in Congress have been reference points for leftwing movements and campaigns. Their prominence is a representation of the leftward political shift among broad sections of U.S. society.

AOC spent her first years in office under a Trump presidency. The Democrats controlled only the House, and AOC was broadly untested. Then came the election of Joe APRIL 2022

Biden, a longtime consummate corporate Democrat. This posed a challenge to these progressive leaders in Washington. Would Bernie and AOC consistently oppose the Democratic establishment? Would AOC and the Squad galvanize their base and use the slim Democratic margin in Congress to try and win concessions for working class people from the political establishment, or would they fall in line behind Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic party power structure?

Alliance With The Establishment More than a year into Biden’s presidency, Bernie, AOC, and the Squad have been entirely unprepared to stand up for their program of a federal $15 minimum wage, Medicare-for-All, free public college education, cancellation of student debt, and a Green New Deal. Instead of mobilizing ordinary people to fight for these enormously popular measures, they have abandoned their original goals that got them elected and formed an alliance with Biden to back his watered-down agenda.

This strategy has failed miserably, with serious consequences for working-class people. The Democrats have failed to get any of their agenda through Congress, other than an extremely business-friendly and highly inadequate infrastructure bill. In addition to the existing crises of healthcare, housing, student debt, the low wage job economy,

and the climate, working people also have to deal with the skyrocketing cost of living and a seemingly unending deadly pandemic.

With midterm elections approaching, and Biden’s approval numbers having dipped to historic lows, the door is open for the Trumpdominated Republicans to make major gains.

Already, the right has used this momentum to launch new attacks on women and LGBTQ people in Republican-dominated states.

On top of the crises at home, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is now another front on which working-class people both in the U.S. and worldwide desperately need leadership prepared to take a position based on internationalist solidarity and not nationalism. Aside from making a brief video explaining the real consequence of the U.S. and NATO declaring a no-fly zone, AOC’s approach on the war has been seriously lacking. She has signed onto a bipartisan letter to the President which has no anti-war message and which actually leaves open the possibility of direct U.S. military intervention.

Working-class people didn’t send AOC to Congress to get along with capitalist class representatives. Instead of developing a principled anti-war position, AOC is taking the path of least resistance. To her credit, Ilhan Omar, the Squad member in the House from Minnesota, has voted against every hawkish pro-war measure, demonstrating a very principled, internationalist approach in contrast to her colleagues.

It Didn’t Have To Be This Way Less than four years after she sat in with Sunrise Movement protesters, AOC went to the global climate summit COP26 – not to join the youth climate protesters in the streets of Glasgow, but as part of the U.S. congressional delegation led by, ironically perhaps, Nancy Pelosi. AOC, speaking at an official COP26 event, reassured the world that, “when we say that the United States is back, it’s not just that we’re back in the way that the United States was pursuing climate policy before. It is different. And I would argue that it’s a fundamentally different approach.”

The approach that AOC was talking about from within the convention center in Glasgow was not the Green New Deal that AOC has (sometimes) championed, and which aims to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 globally as part of a broadly transformative pro-worker and social justice-based agenda.

AOC was actually talking about Biden’s climate agenda, which has a much more modest target, and uses market incentives to inch closer to the net-zero goal without any of the transformative potential of the Green New Deal.

As we know now, Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan which included his limited measures to help the climate, never actually made it to the floor of the Senate for a vote. Key sections of the capitalist class that control the economy, represented ably by Joe Manchin, refused to allow even Biden’s limited measures to pass. Biden, now faced with soaring gas prices, is sending his administration on a “drill, baby, drill” mission to ramp up domestic oil production and line the pockets of U.S. oil tycoons.

While some people may have seen AOC and Bernie’s “go along to get along”

approach to the Biden administration as strategic, unfortunately it’s been entirely useless.

It proved that it will take a sustained mass movement, likely including strike action, to force the political establishment to take action to even partially defeat the power of the fossil fuel industry and meaningfully reduce carbon emissions.

Time To Abandon The Democratic Party From climate to healthcare, student debt, and the federal minimum wage, progress on the program championed by Bernie Sanders and AOC is stalled. Not only that, but the right wing has gathered serious momentum in attacking women and LGBTQ people.

If AOC was governing “as part of the movement,” she would be appearing to speak at protests, organizing town halls, and exposing the inaction of the liberal women’s and LGTBQ groups.

Instead AOC’s biggest headline in the last year was for showing up at the Met Gala to hobnob with celebrities, rather than protesting outside of it. Her social media in recent weeks is less about politics and protest and more about beauty tips.

The current situation for the left is difficult and complex. With Biden broadly unpopular, and the left of the Democratic Party having thrown their lot in with him, the midterm elections are likely to be a watershed moment for the Republicans. AOC, the rest of the Squad, and Bernie Sanders have largely abandoned the pro-working class, left-wing programs that made them so popular, and it’s extremely unlikely that they will find their way back to meaningfully fighting for working people without a massive push from below.

The collapse in fighting credibility of these figures is a direct product of their commitment to remain in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party establishment specializes in one thing: keeping progressives in check.

They have exerted tremendous pressure on these figures, and that pressure has proven insurmountable.

If AOC and Bernie, instead of trying to keep the peace in a capitalist party, built a new political party for the working class, they would be freed up to fight ferociously for their agenda and we would’ve backed them up.

As we have raised countless times, if Bernie Sanders had used either presidential campaign to call for an independent, working class political party, millions would have met that call. Such a party could’ve been used to organize a fight against attacks from the right and to build political support for the labor struggles that have burst onto the scene.

Of course, the opportunity is not lost and the urgency for a political alternative to the Democrats has only grown. The left needs to learn the lessons from the collapse of Bernie and AOC’s legitimacy and immediately end its practice of supporting “lesser evil” Democrats. We need to run independent, workingclass candidates across the country as a first step to building a new political party.

It’s necessary for the left to clearly assess the weaknesses of leaders, campaigns and movements the past several years and rebuild its organizations of struggle firmly on the basis of the multi-racial working class. J

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L ABOR MOVEMENT

No Compromise on What Minneapolis Educators & Students Deserve!

As we go to print, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) leadership is pointing towards a proposed tentative agreement with the district. Unfortunately, we think this agreement will likely fall short of what educators are fighting for. Visit SocialistAlternative.org for updated material and videos on the struggle.

Socialist Alternative MN, on the ground After a 97% strike authorization vote, around 4,000 educators with the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) walked off the job for the first time in 50 years. As we go to print, the MFT leadership are recommending a vote on a tentative agreement rallies and a daily strike bulletin. Morale on for a 3% teachers’ raise, and bonus checks the pickets has been fighting and high, but for Educational Support Professionals (ESPs) bargaining updates only started in the third which is not nearly enough for ESPs making week. Speaking at the rallies, the leadership poverty wages and for all educators to keep often focused on corporate targets and mass up with rampant inflation. inequality, but didn’t talk about an escalation This tentative agreement is far below the plan to win specific demands, or comment initial demands for a 20% teacher pay raise, on progress in bargaining. As often happens and $35,000 starting salary for the ESPs, in the class struggle, they didn’t organize and reflects weakthe outside presnesses in what Luke Gitar, 5th Grade Teacher and MFT Steward sure needed to began as a strong overcome rotten strike. Educators, compromise.

“Ed Graff, the MPS board of education, Mayor students, and Jacob Frey, and Governor Tim Walz seek to The broader parents deserve destroy public education in Minneapolis. Educacommunity better than 3% tor pay has not kept pace with inflation the last overwhelmingly raises for teach- 20 years. Our elected officials remain quiet or supports eduers, and one-time negative on educator strike demands despite cators’ original bonuses for ESPs. massive public support, and massive funds at demands, espeA three percent MPS and the state. Pressure from the strike forced cially for a big raise will be wiped the resignation of both a school board member teachers’ raise out by less than a and the head of Human Resources. We must and $35,000 year of inflation. organize the power of working people to grant starting annual This agreement educator demands and save public education.” pay for ESPs. To would become win, we need to a pay cut in real turn this support terms on top of decades of declining wages. into action.

One job should be enough, and that’s what’s The leadership’s greatest success in this necessary to keep students in the district struggle was to prepare its members to strike. and give them the attention they deserve. We However, despite a self-sacrificing membersupport a “no” vote on this tentative agree- ship, the strike has lacked the all out strategy ment, alongside MFT members who are call- needed to fully overcome district opposition. ing on the broader community to immediately organize for an escalation and reorganization Teachers Raises and Strike of the strike.

The money is still there! There’s a $9 bil- Strategy lion state budget surplus, and the Twin Cities Even with strong preparation, the leaderare home to numerous fortune 500 compa- ship used the threat of a strike as a tool at nies raking in record profits. We can win our the negotiating table rather than immediately demands, much better than what’s on offer launching into an all out strategy, waiting an in this weak tentative agreement, if we fight additional week after the 97% authorization for what we need and organize a real escala- to call the educators off work. The district tion to win. wasn’t going to blink without a mass escaThe MFT leadership have called for lation, planned in advance to fully mobilize many of the right tactics, including regular

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Carriers Branch 9 passed resolutions to mobilize their memberships in solidarity, and ATU 1005 donated $5,000 to the MFT strike funds. These proposals were initiated by members of Socialist Alternative. Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant donated $2,000 from her office solidarity fund.

In the absence of a union wide daily meeting, “Daily Strike Review” meetings started in week one to discuss pickets and proposals. Over 70 MFT members have attended a nightly meeting.

Two Socialist Alternative members, one a strike captain and the other a steward, joined with other MFT educators to launch a petition to point the way forward for the strongest possible strike. ten thousand parents and the broader comThis was necessary because unfortunately munity, backed by statewide unions. The district argued from day one that the money many of the actions called by MFT have been isn’t there, while they sit on a pot of $280 organized inwardly, often with little notice million including COVID relief funds. Super- given to union members, never-mind the wider public. Along intendent Ed Graff Jason Hardwig, ESP and Strike Captain with not sufficiently is hated for being mobilizing the deep paid $230,000, ten “The labor movement was not built on community suptimes more than an ‘one day stronger, one day longer’.

It was port, the other main ESP, lives in a suburb mistake of the MFT and sends his kids built on mass mobilizations, occupations, leadership has been to private school. and hitting the political establishment where to downplay the During the first week it hurts - their pocket books. The money is there to pay for the schools that educators demand for teacher of the strike, state pay increases. level politicians dis- and students need, but we’re going to need Many teachers covered the historic to shut down business as usual to get it!” say that the main budget surplus was even higher than initially reported at $9 goal of the strike is to raise ESP pay, and therefore that teachers should be open to setbillion!

Teachers went on strike motivated by the tling for less. It’s a powerful example of the demand for a 20% raise. In reality, teachers instinctual solidarity that exists among workwould need a 24% raise to bring their wages ing people, but it runs the risk of backfiring if back to year 2000 buying power. Some don’t one group of the union accepts a rotten comhave full confidence that a 20% raise was promise that sacrifices their needs. Educaattainable or would be supported by the tors need a massive raise and more; and no broader public. Mass actions could highlight educator should accept a contract that keeps the widespread public support for higher pay. them working more than one job!

For example, on their own, students organized sit-ins at the district headquarters in It Isn’t Too Late To Fight For support of the demands, which demonstrates Better Schools broader support but is currently being underutilized by the union leadership.

Educators can vote “no” on this tentative It has been a strength in the strike that agreement, reopen negotiations and call on these economic demands go beyond the the broader community to join. We can use set-backs felt from the COVID-19 pandemic, this to re-energize the strike and activate comalongside other structural demands for munity support and other unions too. Edusmaller class sizes, increased mental health cators have been clear that they didn’t take support staff, concrete language to retain strike action to settle for crumbs. Educators educators of color, and more. fight for not just ourselves, but for our stuTo build for the strike, Socialist Alterna- dents’ learning conditions, and to stand firm tive organized three door knocks led by our against ongoing attacks on working people. educator members and other union mem- To fully-fund public education, clearly we can bers, including postal, clerical, and transit tax the rich and the 16 Fortune 500 compaworkers. Amalgamated Transit Workers Local nies based in Minnesota. J 1005 and the National Association of Letter S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

L ABOR MOVEMENT

COUNTERING STARBUCKS’ UNION-BUSTING LIES Ty Nolan, Barista at Boston Starbucks Fighting for a Union

A few weeks ago, I had my first experience of a 2-on-1 union-busting meeting with my manager and district manager at the Starbucks where I work. Because of the precariousness of work in the service industry, meetings like this put workers like me on edge, and put me under pressure to go along with whatever the managers say. Unionizing could give us the job security many of us have never experienced before. But until we win a union, to be told repeatedly to vote “no” by people with the power to fire me is a profoundly intimidating experience.

It is not just my store being forced through these meetings with corporate and management. Starbucks workers across the country are being subjected to intense union-busting tactics including captive audience sessions, intimidating 1-on-1 meetings, and most notably the firing of seven workers in Memphis and a lead organizer in Buffalo.

This response has demonstrated that Starbucks is fundamentally anti-union. As baristas continue to face down the barrel of Starbucks’ union-busting, an important conversation has developed in many stores: how can we respond to corporate’s misleading union-busting arguments?

J Argument One: “They just want your dues.”

In Boston, the starting pay for baristas is $15.14 per hour, and it’s even lower in surrounding areas. That’s more than $4 under the living wage here, and in many cities that disparity is even worse! Starbucks workers like me are unionizing so we can afford to stay in our cities, get high quality necessary health-care, and have manageable schedules. We are fighting for things like $20 per hour base pay tied to inflation, regular raises based on time with the company, high quality health care for all, and guaranteed hours with appropriately staffed stores.

The only way workers have ever achieved significant raises or substantial improvements in their benefits is by getting organized. Unionized workers in the U.S. make on average 11.2% more than non-union workers. They are also more likely to have quality health care, guaranteed hours, and protections from harassment in the workplace.

Our dues will go towards funding a union that is accountable to us and will fight for our interests. With a union, we can win a contract with pay and benefits that far outweigh the cost of union dues. Attempts by Starbucks to convince us we will have less money in our pocket with a union are untruthful.

APRIL 2022

J Argument Two: “The union is a third party getting in between workers and managers.”

Starbucks has consistently characterized unions as unnecessary middlemen between managers and baristas. Starbucks management makes it out to be as if the union is a nefarious force working behind the scenes, pretending to act on behalf of workers, but in reality not. This is wrong on every level. A strong union is built out of active, democratic rank-and-file participation. Without the rankand-file, there is no union.

Ordinary workers, not union staffers, have been the ones talking to their co-workers and collecting the union cards. Workers compose the union organizing committees within their workplace. Going forward, if we build a militant rank-and-file membership, we can elect a leadership that is accountable to us. The union is not a third party acting behind the scenes on the behalf of workers – workers ARE the union.

Even once a store unionizes, workers will continue to play the central role within contract negotiations and in all workplace disputes moving forward. As we prepare for a union vote and contract fight, it’s necessary for us to organize regular store-wide meetings to discuss what demands we want to put forward and generally update all workers on how negotiations are going. This is to ensure we go into the contract negotiations on as strong of a footing as possible. We know Starbucks will not back down, so we must be prepared to fight for what we are owed.

J Argument Three: “Unionizing doesn’t guarantee you will actually win anything.”

It’s true that unionizing alone will not be enough. It’s actually often harder to win a first contract than it is to win a union vote itself. Starbucks will want to fight us on every little detail, and will likely seek ways to delay contract negotiations in hopes that we will concede on our initial demands. If we are going to win a strong contract, it is necessary for us to begin building power on the shop floor among our coworkers.

Power in the bargaining room comes from power outside of the bargaining room.

Already, Starbucks workers have begun to show the sorts of class struggle methods that will be necessary for us to win a strong contract. Shortly after

winning their union vote, a store in Buffalo went on strike and won paid COVID time off for stores nationwide.

Recently, Starbucks workers in Philadelphia held a sick-out from work to protest against their store lifting its mask mandate, and workers in Denver went on strike in response to Starbucks’ union-busting and cutting hours. Taking concrete actions such as sick-outs, walk-outs, and strikes requires participation from all workers, not just an active few, and ultimately these militant tactics are what is needed to win a strong contract.

J Argument Four: “Starbucks already provides great benefits, but the union could trade away some of the benefits you value most.”

Compared to many companies, Starbucks does provide great benefits. This is especially true when it comes to gender-affirming health care which is criminally not provided by many employers. But so long as we aren’t unionized, all of these benefits can be taken away from us at any moment. In fact, with corporate cutting our hours nationwide these benefits are already being taken away from us given we only qualify for them if we work a certain amount.

Starbucks, despite its progressive veneer, has the same interests as any other corporation: maximizing profits. Every dollar raise, every health care plan, every promise of guaranteed hours cuts into Starbucks’ profits. Unionizing is how we protect our current benefits and prevent Starbucks from rolling them back – like the company already did with COVID hazard pay.

In addition, though Starbucks has excellent benefits compared to the rest of the industry,

the service industry is infamous for poor working conditions, low pay, and virtually nonexistent benefits for workers.

What Starbucks workers have now is better than that, but that bar shouldn’t be left on the floor.

With a profit of over $4.2 billion in 2021, Starbucks can afford world-class health care benefits to all its workers regardless of hours, and with a union we can win that. Ultimately, the momentum to unionize Starbucks can play a major role in raising the expectations of workers across the industry, and inspire fights at other workplaces.

Combatting Union-Busting and Building Fighting Unions In Boston, myself and a group of other Starbucks workers across three stores are drafting a pamphlet in response to Starbucks’ union-busting arguments. Our plan is to use it to counter Starbucks’ lies and explain what we can win through a union. We have found that rallying co-workers around a set of demands that excites them, like higher base pay tied to inflation, guaranteed hours, and high quality healthcare for all, is our best defense against union busting attempts.

While this pamphlet can be a useful tool to educate workers and arm them with counter-arguments against the bosses’ intimidation tactics, we cannot expect that this alone will be enough to defeat Starbucks’ union-busting.

For stores preparing to file, or for others who are counting the days till their vote, we must prepare to counter captive audience and intimidating 2-on-1 meetings by organizing our own meetings, store by store, to discredit the bosses’ lies and build confidence among workers that we can win a union and more. One or two workers in every store doing all of the work is a failing strategy. Providing an organized space for baristas to decide collectively on a course of action to combat union-busting will be crucial to our success.

We must continue to stand up against Starbucks’ union-busting and serve as an example to the rest of the labor movement of how workers can take on massive corporations. J

Unionizing Starbucks workers in Brooklyn asked Socialist Alternative members to picket outside their store during a captive audience meeting. Workers joined outside after management ended the meeting.

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ENVIRONMENT

OIL AND GAS FALTER: WE NEED A TRANSITION TO RENEWABLES Sea level rise, and the direct repercussions of it, are far from the only disastrous impacts.

Even inland areas will be – and already are – at higher risk of disasters like droughts, flooding, and storms. According to the World Health Organization, climate change already causes about 150,000 deaths annually, and is expected to cause 250,000 annually between 2030 and 2050.

The IPCC report is clear – the only way to prevent worsening impacts of climate change is for global carbon emissions to rapidly reach net zero.

Profit Versus Survival

Greyson Van Arsdale, Philadelphia Millions of households across America that rely on a vehicle to get around are spending much more on gas this month, as Biden’s ban on the import of Russian oil worsens the global supply crunch. The average price of gas in the U.S. was over $4.25 per gallon on March 21 compared to $3.53 last month, with a current average price over $5.85 per gallon in California.

The wild fluctuation of gas prices comes from the early days of the pandemic, where demand for gas was significantly reduced during the global shutdown, and production was slowed. Once workers were expected to resume normal life, demand skyrocketed again, but production did not rise to meet it, leading to high prices at the gas pump.

Now, alongside the U.S., countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia have banned the import of Russian oil.

Previously, Russian oil made up one out of every ten barrels the world consumed. Gas prices temporarily shot up to $130 per barrel, leading to massive profits for oil tycoons and a tight crunch on working peoples’ wallets, and is expected to stay at or above $100 for the time being. Despite Biden’s insistence on ramping up U.S. oil production, even oil executives are admitting that companies can’t simply ramp up production to close this gap, in part due to supply chain issues and

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worker shortages.

Increasing gas prices, as well as inflation generally, are eating more and more of workers’ paychecks and leading to an untenable situation especially for low paid workers who rely on their cars and don’t have access to public transportation. A solution must be found. But debates around the energy crisis have largely ignored the elephant in the room: that continuing to burn fossil fuels is just as untenable.

A Darkening Horizon The 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presents a dire situation. For years, experts on climate change have warned about a point from which there is no return, where the curbing of emissions will no longer be able to avert massive damage to the planet’s ecosystems and everything that depends on them. Now, the IPCC has reported that many effects of climate change are “irreversible” – meaning they cannot be undone in the short term, and could take millennia to reverse course.

According to the IPCC, mountain and polar glaciers will continue melting for decades or centuries, and permafrost thaw is “irreversible at centennial time scales.” Global sea level rise is certain. At even 1.5m of sea level rising, major low-lying areas around the world will be completely flooded, including major cities like Tokyo, Mumbai, and New York City.

The world emitted 22.1 billion tons of CO2 in 1988, the year the IPCC was formed to observe the onset of climate change. By 2019, yearly emissions of CO2 had grown to 36.70 billion tons – an increase of 66% since 1988. Emissions dropped in the year 2020 due to the global COVID-19 lockdown, but only to 34.81 billion tons, or a decrease of 5.1%.

When Biden took office, he came out with a pledge that was called “bold” by some – to cut emissions in half by 2030, and get the U.S. on track to net zero emissions by 2050.

In theory, such a plan would be enough to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, current policies in place suggest that the planet is still on track for 2.9 degrees of warming before 2100, which scientists warn would have devastating effects on society like those described in the IPCC report.

Right now, due to the war, there is a significant gap between the energy being produced and the demand for energy. There is not an overnight fix to simply provide the world with more oil to bring prices down.

As a result, there exists currently a major opportunity to rapidly expand renewable energies. Right now, the Biden administration should be rapidly working to approve permits for solar and wind farms that can start to reduce U.S. dependence on oil and gas. (So far, the administration has approved only four solar farms, and no wind farms.)

Instead, the Biden administration and governments worldwide are scrambling with an approach that proposes working people take short-term measures to limit their energy consumption, during a crisis that is likely to last months if not years. The International Energy

Agency has released a 10-point plan to deal with the energy crisis, proposing that working people use mass transit, carpool, participate in “car-free Sundays,” work from home three times a week, and so on. While working people pinch as many pennies as they can, Biden met with oil and gas tycoons to echo their “drill, baby, drill” approach, urging them to ramp up production anywhere possible.

“That means you producing more right now, where and if you can,” the U.S. energy secretary said in the meeting.

The administration’s response to the crisis suggests that, despite sloganeering to the contrary, Biden is ultimately still an oil-andgas president like any other. This opening would be the optimal point to publicly call for a massive expansion in renewable energy.

Instead, Biden is putting his faith in the oil tycoons, in the service of profits for oil and gas stockholders.

A Massive New Undertaking The failure of the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats broadly to pivot to prioritizing expanding renewable energy is revealing of an important fact. It shows how, rather than simply being loath to undercut the oil and gas industry when it’s performing to a standard that provides cheap energy to the masses, they are determined to buoy the industry when it’s unable to keep up with demand.

This is an unacceptable, and frankly suicidal, approach. The party that has publicly crowed that it “believes in science” should be the first to point out that the very continued existence of the oil and gas industry in the long term is a threat to human society.

The climate movement needs full independence from the Democratic Party, which has over and over demonstrated little interest in acting with urgency.

In the next few years, millions of people will be impacted by the disasters of climate change – losing their homes, their livelihoods, or even their lives. Working people must, on a basis independent from the two parties of big business, do what the institutions of profit will not: organize to effect a wholesale transition of the economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy on the basis of a democratically controlled energy sector. There is no time to waste. J

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

THE ROLE OF BLACK MISLEADERSHIP TODAY Tamar Wilson, Philadelphia “When the axe came into the forest, the trees looked at its wooden handle and said ‘Oh, it’s one of us’.”

Since the historic events of the Justice for George Floyd movement, one of the core questions facing the capitalist establishment has been how to give the appearance of anti-racist progress to the millions of working-class people and youth seeking change, without actually changing anything.

To serve this need, the post-George Floyd era has given rise to multiple Black mayors who, instead of targeting police brutality and systemic poverty, prey on fears of public safety to exacerbate systemic injustice and police violence.

These local politicians, including Eric Adams in New York City and Bruce Harrell

The Corporate Agenda & Toxic Identity Politics of Mayor Eric Adams Eljeer Hawkins, NYC The ascendency of New York City’s second Black mayor, Eric Adams, follows the convoluted rhetorical left-populism of Bill de Blasio, who famously campaigned in 2013 to address the “Tale of Two Cities” in NYC. Today, New York is even more unequal, a devastating critique of de Blasio’s reign. Adams’ rise, which should be alarming to the broader segments of the working class, poor, and youth, is rooted in the crisis of big business and the lack of popular support for the institutions of capitalism in New York City.

The absence of a coherent left workingclass movement, with leadership and organization rooted in our labor movement and communities, is profoundly apparent as working people in the city continue to struggle with the fundamental issues of precarity, lack of jobs, and housing.

In November, Eric Adams ran as a centerright law and order candidate who utilized populist rhetoric and toxic corporate identity politics to win the Mayor’s race. He has governed in the same manner for his first 100 days in office. Adams represents big business’s response to the George Floyd rebellion in 2020 in New York and the overall crisis of capitalism. Adams’s administration is a clear and present danger for the city’s workingclass, poor, and oppressed.

In recent days, Adams’s administration has announced an austerity temporary budget proposal of $98 billion with APRIL 2022

in Seattle, represent the latest iteration of what is sometimes called the “Black Misleadership Class” – Black cultural and political leaders who profess that the way to overcome systemic racism is through respectability and the expansion of the Black middle class, not by overthrowing racist exploitation at its root, the capitalist system.

This class differentiation within the Black population originated at the end of the civil rights movement, following its victory in overthrowing Jim Crow in the South.

Emerging at the end of the era after the assassinations and imprisonment of revolutionary Black leaders, reformist civic and political leaders of the civil rights movement forsook mass-movement politics and instead sought to create alliances with the capitalist establishment in order to negotiate reforms.

significant spending cuts to city agencies, cutting 3,200 vacant city jobs, $615 million in cuts to homeless services, with no cuts to the NYPD and Department of Corrections.

In the face of the mounting headlines of crime, violence in the subways, and the killing of two law enforcement officers, the former NYPD cop Adams has governed with a law and order approach akin to the 20 years of Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg’s reign in the city. His administration and big business will not address this crisis concretely and will exacerbate it further. More law enforcement officers will temporarily affect specific communities, but underlining poverty, hopelessness, and survival will not disappear. It is a severe concern for ordinary working people and the poor. This crisis lies at the doorstep of the system of capitalism and the agenda of big business that has put profits before the needs of working people.

Eric Adams vehemently opposed the defund the police demand and lent his voice to the national and local charge to refund police following the George Floyd rebellion.

Adams has met with President Biden and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to strategize an overall response to the crisis of crime and violence across the country and their respective cities.

The Democratic Party leadership in multiple cities, including Minneapolis, the epicenter of the rebellion in 2020, oversaw the rise of law and order military-style policies alongside deplorable living conditions for the working class, youth, and poor. We should anticipate the same conditions and policies if no grassroots mass movement can provide a political alternative. J

This rejection of the Black masses as the agents of change paved the way for the transformation of civil rights organizations from organs of struggle and mass movements into apparatuses by, of and for the Black middle class.

Despite being a minority composition in the Black population, thanks to their alliance with and reliance on the capitalist establishment, the Black middle class was able to benefit in wealth, education and connections, allowing them to assume a dominant position within the Black body politic. However, these Black politicians have no interest in the kind of politics that are necessary to eliminate racism and exploitation – revolutionary politics that challenge the capitalist system by democratizing power into the hands of working class Black people.

Instead, these “misleaders” willfully play

Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Brutal War On The Poor Alvin Muragori, Seattle In Seattle’s November general elections, the political establishment consolidated its hold on city politics with the election of conservative Democrat City Councilmember Sara Nelson, the first Republican city attorney in thirty years Ann Davison, and Seattle’s second-ever Black mayor, Bruce Harrell.

Since being in office, Harrell has promoted his vision of a “One Seattle”, with the goal of portraying the neoliberal agenda of continued austerity and pro-big business policies of the Democratic establishment as the only game in town. During his inaugural address, Harrell stated that his “One Seattle” vision is one that would prioritize public safety, homelessness, and “revitalizing” the Downtown area which has been hit hard with the economic impacts of the pandemic and rising unaffordability. In truth, this means supporting the business elite instead of working people and the poor who have borne the brunt of these economic impacts. He plans to hire more police officers and will likely reinstate hiring and retention bonuses for the Seattle Police Department, one of the most right-wing departments in the country.

His promises to address homelessness are nothing but empty words. He has not released any plan to address the severe lack of affordable housing or the skyrocketing rents that are absolutely crushing working people in a city where rental prices jumped nearly 30% in the last year.

Harrell’s agenda is similar to that of Lori Lightfoot in Chicago, Eric Adams in New York

FIGHTING RACISM

WRITTEN BY MEMBERS OF SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE’S BLACK CAUCUS

their part in an elaborate theater upholding the racist, exploitative status quo. Settling for representation and a scintilla of real power rather than liberation, this Black misleadership class plays defense for the ruling class, mollifying eruptions of justified Black anger where possible with vapid excuses and false promises or mercilessly putting it down via state violence when not, like Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago.

For a true multi-racial movement of working people to challenge this racist system of brutal exploitation, we must recognize these misleaders for what they are, identifying them through their allegiance with the ruling class and their repressive actions, rather than mistakenly characterizing them as progressives due to their skin color and professed anti-racism. J

City, and London Breed in San Francisco.

They represent an ardent neoliberal agenda that targets working-class communities, especially Black and Brown communities, by slashing public resources, and promoting a corporate agenda. Their identity is cynically weaponized to sow illusions in their ability to address the issues facing Black communities. Their role, and that of the Democratic Party more broadly, is to sideline progressive and socialist voices and undermine mass movements. “One Seattle” projects a vision of unity, but it’s unity around the establishment and capitalist forces and obfuscates the reality that big business and the establishment have waged a brutal war against working people and the poor.

To address public safety and the recent uptick in crime in Seattle, we need a massive investment in public resources like living wage paying union jobs and fully funding public schools paid for taxing the rich.

The only solution to the homelessness and crisis is a massive expansion of the Amazon Tax to fund permanently affordable housing and pay for mental health and addiction services. Seattle needs strong rent control with no corporate loopholes to stop greedy landlords from gentrifying our neighborhoods, especially the historical Black Central District which has seen an over 50% decrease in Black residents in the past 50 years due to corporate landlords and developers. We cannot have any faith in the Democrats or the political establishment and we need to build a multi-racial mass movement of renters, workers, housing advocates, and socialists to pressure the political establishment to wrestle these gains from big business and the corporate elite. J

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F.A.Q. THE WAR IN UKRAINE

1.

What led to this war?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, global capital has been allowed to freely run amok in Russia. This has meant a drastic reduction in living standards overseen by ruthless autocrats like Putin.

At the same time, new imperialist contradictions have been built up. There is a global power struggle between U.S. and Chinese imperialism which has resulted in battles over strategic areas, resources, and economics. This includes the eastward expansion of NATO (the military alliance led by U.S. imperialism). Putin calculated that, with U.S. imperialism having been sufficiently weakened after Iraq, Afghanistan, and the financial crisis, he would have space to ramp up his own offensive. But the war has not developed as he thought and the West has responded harshly. This shock will lead to an intensification of Putin’s own efforts.

2.

w b h pearing. Add th speech, and cri Far from for They have dente in ending the w

WHY SOCIALISTS OPPOSE W MILITARY INTERVENTION Andy Moxley, ISA As the madness of the war in Ukraine continues to create enormous bloodshed and a refugee crisis the likes of which have not been seen in Europe since World War II, millions of workers and young people around the world are seeking answers to end the chaos and violence. Amid this growing anxiety and confusion about the situation, both Moscow and Western powers are mounting massive propaganda campaigns. With global revulsion at Putin’s invasion growing, a discussion about the possibility of more direct intervention by NATO militarily, to stop the Russian invasion, has been posed.

The war has given Western imperialism a favorable avenue to build support by constructing an overall narrative of a Western bloc that defends “democratic values” and “national sovereignty” versus the oppressive authoritarianism of Russia and China.

Putin’s new and horrendous war is linked to a wider inter imperialist conflict, the new cold war between U.S. imperialism and Chinese imperialism. Ukraine has been an important forum for imperialist conflict over the past years. In particular, the extension of the U.S.-led imperialist military alliance NATO into central and eastern Europe since the collapse of Stalinism has helped set the stage for the current war. So has the change in approach adopted by Joe Biden’s administration towards the Putin regime since taking office in January 2021.

The success of the West’s “democracy” narrative, which continues to fill the front pages of news sources throughout North America and Europe, paired with the genuine horror of the war, has meant the mood for direct Western intervention has grown. This has been particularly the case on the question of further economic sanctions, which polls at 69% support in the U.S., 82% support in Japan and 78% in the UK at the time of writing, all representing a seismic shift in favor.

With the horrors of the war continuing, a call for more direct military intervention from NATO can gain resonance. While broad

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support for NATO “boots on the ground” in Ukraine remains relatively low, a recent poll indicated NATO implementation of a “No Fly Zone” would enjoy up to 74% support in the U.S. And though a shift from the policy of providing massive amount of military aid to the Ukrainian army from the majority of NATO and EU countries towards mobilization of their own forces into the country seems unlikely at the moment for a variety of reasons, some significant figures in Western political and military establishments have come out in support.

Western Intervention Would Mean More Misery Western imperialism has restrained itself thus far from military intervention. Its representatives, including Biden, are on record as ruling out engaging in direct military combat with Russia, openly declaring that this would mean “World War 3.” However, U.S. and NATO imperialism’s reluctance to engage in the short term is not due to fear of greater bloodshed among ordinary people, but concern for its own interests. From the perspective of U.S. imperialism, despite everything happening with Ukraine and Russia, China is still its main strategic rival. China itself is also wary of getting directly involved for its own imperialist reasons.

However, events like the Russian bombing of a Ukrainian military base close to the Polish border on March 13 have heightened fears that a direct conflict could be provoked. On the same day, the Polish President stated that in the case of a Russian attack within Ukraine using chemical weapons, NATO would have to “think seriously” about intervening militarily.

The establishment of a NATO No Fly Zone would be a direct move towards a broader and bloodier war directly involving all NATO countries: it means direct conflict between NATO and Russia. This type of war could not only surpass the horrors of all previous wars, but could pose a threat to humanity itself, as it will be the first direct conflict between imperialist powers in the age of nuclear warfare. Whether or not it was just a “show of force” that Putin put the Russian Nuclear Defense Forces on

high alert in the last few weeks, it represents a very real threat.

Even a limited (spoken of as “tactical”) nuclear strike by either side could be on the scale of U.S. imperialism’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, which killed over 213,000 people either instantanously from the strikes or within five months due to acute radiation poisoning. And while the rich and powerful would be able to hide in their bunkers, it would be regular people that would bear the brunt of the horror. Not only that, but even a “limited” initial strike would likely provoke a retaliatory response.

Socialists must stand steadfastly against the war in Ukraine, and also against this war spilling over into an even more catastrophic and reactionary global bloodbath.

The Bloody History of Western Intervention Beyond its immediate implications of drawing more workers and young people around the world directly into the conflict, socialists oppose all imperialist military intervention. History is littered with imperialist forces offering military aid to “assist” struggles of oppressed peoples, only to betray them for the preservation of their own interests. Far from being humanitarian in their intentions, history is full of massacres and terror bombings conducted

by Western imperialism.

The Arab Spring of 2010–11 brought forward mass and victorious popular revolutions which toppled reactionary regimes across the Middle East and North Africa. Unfortunately, the absence of a clear working class-led political alternative meant that capitalism was maintained and these revolutions were not able to consolidate their positions. In Syria and Libya, this quickly led to the eruption of civil wars as rival gangs of exploiters sought to fill the vacuum.

In Libya, the masses across tribal lines in Benghazi stood up in revolt and ran the repressive Muammar Gaddafi regime out of this and surrounding cities. Only a few weeks later, NATO, which had previously worked closely

with Libyan dictator Gaddafi, quickly established a No Fly Zone in wake of the revolutionary developments. The term No Fly Zone is intentionally misleading. It includes not just no planes being allowed over a certain area but the military neutralization of the “Zone” including by attacking installations that are deemed as threats to military aircraft — an extremely wide and murky net to cast.

At the time many progressive-minded youth and workers would have looked at this as a positive development preventing Gaddafi’s forces, which were significantly better armed, from gaining military initiative against rebel anti-government forces. However, NATO had not done this out of commitment to the revolutionary struggle of the Libyan masses, but to protect its own interests in the region. Despite continuing to be slowly bled by the costly military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. imperialism — through NATO — used the opportunity to insert itself in a limited way to prevent the spread of the revolutionary tide further, particularly into countries occupied by key allies of U.S. imperialism in the region such as Saudi Arabia.

In Libya, this resulted in a NATO bombing and airstrike campaign that killed not only many of the rebel forces they said they were there to support but also hundreds of civilians, and thousands more were wounded. As U.S. imperialism had no real interest in Libya itself, something admitted by several senior U.S. governmental officials at the time, once its main mission of heading off independent action by the Libyan masses was achieved by its intervention and Gaddafi’s death, it unceremoniously withdrew. It succeeded in derailing the popular rebellion and left Libya in a fractured, divided state of sectarian war that continues to this day.

In Kurdistan, (the nation comprising parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) the fierce resistance of the Kurdish people against the seemingly unstoppable advance of the medieval violence of the jihadist Islamic State in 2014– 2015 was celebrated by left and progressive people across the world.The most ferocious fighting came from the IS-besieged territory of Kobane in Western Kurdistan (aka Rojava).

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

Who do sanctions hurt?

The West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia with an aim to pressure Putin to withdraw troops from Ukraine. These sanctions are war by other means with the victims being ordinary Russian people, many of whom oppose the war themselves. Food prices have skyrocketed, life saving medicines are in short supply, and savings are rapidly disaphis to the years of austerity which has starved public services, the mass censorship of free iminalization of protest and working Russians are enduring a bleak set of circumstances. rcing Putin to step back, the sanctions have only spread the pain of this conflict wider. ted the fighting spirit of the Russian working class who themselves have a key role to play war by building a mass movement at home.

3.

Socialists stand for neither imperialist “side” in this war. While many people yearn for a straightforward solution to this conflict, none will be found under the direction of Western intervention or Russian authoritarianism. World War I was not ended through “diplomacy” between world powers, but by a revolutionary uprising of German sailors and the specter of the Russian Revolution.

Our allies in this conflict are the Ukrainian, Russian, and global working class who have nothing to gain through imperialist saber-rattling and warfare. We stand with Ukrainian workers and their right to self-determination and with the working class across borders who have everything to gain by uniting in a global struggle against capitalist brutality and exploitation.

WESTERN Rojava is the Syrian part of Kurdistan which has been self-governed under a system of “democratic autonomy” by the Syrian branch (PYD) of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) since it was deserted by the forces of Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad in 2012.

While originally intending to abandon Kobane to IS, the U.S. government made an abrupt change in policy as the people of Rojava bravely continued to hold out against the onslaught they were receiving from the Islamic State. Seeing a chance to strike a blow against IS (which threatened U.S. imperialist interests in the region), restore some lost prestige, and wanting to have leverage on the ground versus Russia and Turkey’s Erdogan, respectively, the U.S. intervened with another No Fly Zone. This intervention included airstrikes on the IS, providing weapons and supplies to the Rojava military forces of the People’s Defense Units (YPG). Ultimately IS was successfully defeated in the battle by the brave fighters of Rojava.

As it always does, the aid from imperialism came with significant strings attached – not least in the attempt by the U.S. government to install a more “moderate” political regime in Rojava. In the wake of the destruction wrought

Who are our allies in this conflict?

by the siege and the bombing, the Kurdish people were left to their own devices in trying to rebuild their homes, schools and other infrastructure.

But even more destructive was the fact that this was part of a dangerous path of alliances with capitalist and imperialist powers for leadership of the different Kurdish political factions that has caused serious defeats for the Kurds. And when that relationship became too costly and no longer necessary from the standpoint of the U.S., the Kurds were abandoned. This happened only a few years later in 2019 when U.S. imperialism once again suddenly withdrew all its forces without warning as Turkey invaded Rojava. This created a mass refugee population of over 300,000 seemingly overnight. In addition, Afrin, one of the three cantons in Rojava, remains under Turkish occupation to this day.

What Can End the War? Socialists are not pacifists, but we understand the old maxim that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” The previous examples are only a few of many that show workers and the oppressed cannot place any trust in any form of imperialism as an ally in the fight for our survival. Those examples also illustrate another important lesson that flies in the face of the long list of politicians

and media commentators (many of whom hail from the “Left”) who put forward illusions in the “pragmatism” of a military solution to the conflict based on imperialist intervention.

To be sure, socialists support the right of the Ukrainian masses to defend themselves including with arms. And as we have maintained, who controls the arms and how the working class is organized in defense are all important questions on that front. However, particularly when it comes to a militarily weaker force taking on a much bigger army, it will be the question of politics that is the most decisive weapon in the hands of workers and the oppressed.

We saw a glimmer of this in the early days of the invasion. Social media was abound with videos of Ukrainians talking to Russian soldiers, asking them why they were there and imploring them to return to Russia. They were not greeted by bullets but with Russian soldiers responding they didn’t know why they were there nor did they even want to be in Ukraine. While the extent of this is unclear as the Western media used it for its own ends, it gives a small view of what could stop the war.

The current war is already unpopular among many people in Russia, where there are rumors of dissent within the army itself. If the Ukrainian masses were armed and organized by democratic, independent working class self-defense committees based on a revolutionary struggle, a class appeal to the Russian working class could be made on the basis of

their common interests in fighting against war and the impoverishment and oppression of life under both Putin and Zelensky. Such an appeal, calling on the Russian working class to stand in solidarity as workers and refuse to participate in the war, could have an immeasurable effect.

This would not only give fuel to the antiwar movement but also give confidence to Russian soldiers to refuse to obey orders to continue with the war. Combined with an appeal to the workers of the world in all nations to take action to refuse to provide any material for the war effort, refusing to transport arms, etc. an international working class movement could stop the war in its tracks. It could also very quickly give an impetus to the revolutionary potential in mass movements, illustrating the independent interests and power of the working class across borders.

However, all this must be done on the basis of an independent working class standpoint.

Intervention or deals with Western imperialism will only weaken the movement of the working class, undermine its independence and mean more broken promises from capitalists and imperialists. A revolutionary struggle against the war must first and foremost be an international working class political struggle against the warmongers themselves. Only on this basis can we end the war in Ukraine, stop future wars in their tracks, and end the system of capitalism and imperialism that creates them at our expense.J

Locals gather next to a building in Tripoli, Libya which was destroyed during a NATO bombing campaign, June 2011.

APRIL 2022

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TRANS RIGHTS and harassment. Now, they are being targeted by state agencies with the power to shatter their lives.

As soon as a report is made to CPS, its investigators have sweeping power over what happens to the family, who are overwhelmingly likely to be low-income and people of color. An overzealous agent could inspect the home or go to the child’s school and search their backpack, find a bottle of prescribed hormone pills, can take them away or arrest the parents on the spot on the basis of Abbott’s mandate.

– and now it’s being ripped away from them.

The number of anti-trans bills introduced

by Republicans in state legislatures skyrocketed in 2021, which 85% of trans and nonbinary youth report has negatively impacted their mental health. How does a young person cope with powerful officials condemning, in the most grotesque and alarmist terms, their ability to go to the doctor, compete with their sports team, or use the bathroom as threats to society? The scope of the harm inflicted on young people by this constant dehumanization is unfathomable, and it is the result

Resistance is the Only Option!

Abbott and his cohort are testing the limits of public compliance, and they will not stop until threatened with serious resistance.

In reality, Greg Abbott is only as powerful as working people allow. The burden of determining the extent of the damage this cruel mandate inflicts on families and their kids will unfortunately fall on the working adults who are expected to enforce it. Teachers, nurses, doctors, daycare providers, state employees, counselors, and social workers – the thou-

THE RIGHT-WING ASSAULT ON TRANS YOUTH

RESIST AND FIGHT BACK! Right-Wing Siege

Grace Fors, Dallas On February 22nd, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared open season on transgender children and their families. Following a nonbinding legal opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton, Abbott published an order directing the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to begin investigating families who provide genderaffirming healthcare to trans kids for “child abuse.” This included a call for all mandatory reporters as well as “members of the general public” to report parents of children they suspect of receiving this care.

Neither Paxton’s opinion or Abbott’s directive are legally binding, but this fact has hardly mattered: providing trans kids lifesaving gender-affirming healthcare has effectively been banned and parents of trans children are at risk of having their children taken away from them. The DFPS Commissioner followed up with a statement that the agency will follow Abbott’s orders. The Department had already set off alarms by quietly removing an LGBT crisis hotline from their suicide prevention resources webpage. The largest pediatric hospital in the state, Texas Children’s Hospital, has already pulled all hormone therapies for trans minors.

The day after the order, a DFPS employee approached her supervisor to ask for clarification on the order. Within hours, she was placed on leave and informed she was subject to investigation for “abuse” of her 16 year-old trans daughter. The next day, a CPS investigator was at the door. Reports are trickling in, followed by investigations that place families at immediate risk of losing their kids.

Confusion, Grief, and Fear Trans children and their families are already at heightened risk of discrimination

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The snowballing attacks on trans youth by right-wing legislatures across the country has grown into an avalanche. Arkansas made it perfectly legal for doctors to discriminate against trans minors by outright refusing care. Idaho is poised to pass a bill that would put doctors who treat their young trans patients at risk of felony charges. This is an acute crisis with life or death implications. As much as 72% of trans and nonbinary youth experience depression, and an astonishing half report having seriously considered suicide. Access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy have been shown to reduce the risk of depression and suicidality by 60% and 73% respectively.

Abbott’s directive came out exactly a week before the March 1 primaries. Faced with a Trumpier-than-thou challenger, Abbott has spent the past year making every effort to neutralize pressure from his right by making his administration the vanguard of attacks on the marginalized. The rights of trans youth, abortion rights, and voting rights were all dealt major blows in the 2021 legislative session.

But the stark reality is that most people in Texas oppose the government’s assault on abortion rights and on transgender adolescents. A majority support LGBT protections.

What’s happening in Texas is not working people moving to the right; it is representatives of a corrupt political establishment pandering to a rogue right-wing Trumpist base so they can stay in power to do the bidding of oil and gas lobbyists.

Crisis of Trans Youth The flood of attacks is exacerbating an already desperate situation for young people who are trans or nonbinary. LGBT youth are twice as likely to experience homelessness, with family rejection as the most common cause. They are overrepresented in the child welfare system, and more likely to experience trauma and violence once in the system. Just one in three LGBT youth report living in a safe household that is supportive of their identity

of a shameful system that shows itself time and again as profoundly incapable of keeping LGBT children safe.

Like every twisted attack against working people in Texas and elsewhere in recent months, there has been a crushing lack of response in relation to the scope of the situation.

Joe Biden denounced Abbott’s order as “government overreach,” and simply called on Texans to file federal complaints to HHS – an option available only after they’ve been targeted for investigation. Nonprofits like the ACLU and Lambda Legal have taken up legal cases against the order. But now, after 6 months of living in the shadow of the abortion ban and its devastating consequences, a condemn-and-sue approach is a nonstarter when right-wing bigots are descending like vultures on vulnerable trans kids.

The hard ultra-right wing saw they could take away abortion rights away without much opposition from Democrats and nonprofits; now they are coming after trans youth, with future attacks certain until they finally meet real resistance.

This passivity could not be further from the attitude of young people who are eager to take up this fight. One in 5 Gen Z adults is LGBT, and youth have so far led the way in pushing back against the attacks in schools.

In September 2021 in central Texas, students staged a massive walkout in protest of their trans classmate being denied access to the girls’ locker room. That same month, hundreds of students in Irving marched demanding reinstatement of two teachers who were removed in retaliation for refusing to take down stickers that designated their classrooms as safe spaces for LGBT students.

Texas House candidate Jeff Younger, who has shamefully claimed “there is no such thing as a transgender person” was shouted down by students at an appearance at the University of North Texas where he planned to tout the dangers of progressive ideas around gender and advocate criminalization of gender-affirming care.

sands and thousands of mandatory reporters in the state – as well as adults in school communities and neighborhoods would need to answer Abbott’s call to put his agenda into motion. The buck stops with them.

The establishment is banking on being able to effectively weaponize social polarization and individuals’ anxieties to implement their agenda. Many of these workers are now caught in a bind – those who work with trans children will have to choose between subjecting a loving family to devastation at the hands of the state, or risk sacrificing their jobs or being criminally charged with failure to report. The only solution to this is to organize mass noncompliance within the workplace.

Discussions must be had in workplaces and among colleagues building support for organized noncompliance on the principle that an injury to one is an injury to all. They can’t go after everyone.

Teachers unions must firmly, publicly declare they will not comply with this order, and prepare a fight to stand their ground alongside students and parents. State employees must do the same, and take up the fight at the ground level – not just in the courtroom – to demand reinstatement of the DFPS employee removed and investigated. This could include coordinated refusal to investigate families of trans youth or even walkouts to stop the attacks and put pressure on Gov. Abbott. Pediatric doctors and nurses must organize in their hospitals to demand reinstatement of hormone therapy and refusal to share minors’ private medical information with the state. These struggles and others like them could be the basis for desperately needed rebuilding of the labor movement in Texas. Continued school walkouts and student organizing will also be necessary to build momentum and confidence of the movement, and send a strong signal across the country that these attacks will not stand.

“Protecting children” has become an ominous rallying cry behind not only this attack, but the crusade against critical race theory, the book-banning frenzy, and criminalization

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THE SUPREME COURT

NO JUSTICE IN THE JUSTICE WHY WE CAN’T SYSTEM RELY ON THE

Alicia Salvadeo, Pittsburgh

In the lead up to a harrowing decision that will determine the fate of abortion rights in the U.S., a majority of ordinary people now disapprove of how the Supreme Court is handling its job. Historically the Court has enjoyed much higher approval ratings; but its slipping credibility joins the overall declining confidence in the government, from the presidency to the healthcare and criminal justice institutions.

For centuries the myth that the Court stands above society as “objective” has allowed it to act as a significant accomplice to attacks on workers, women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ people. Today, an overwhelming majority are rightfully skeptical of the court’s impartiality, especially as judicial appointments play out as partisan bloodbaths.

Recently President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who is set to retire later this summer. Jackson would be the first Black woman appointed to the Supreme Court.

The state as a whole exists to mediate antagonisms between the ruling and exploited classes, whether by force or by “democratic” means, and always in favor of the former.

Supreme Court justices serve lifetime appointments by the president, without democratic election or recall, and with full discretion over what cases to hear. As socialist Eugene Debs summarized in 1918, “corporations and trusts dictate their appointment… not to serve the people, but to serve the interests that place them and keep them where they are.” Like the equally outdated electoral college, its purpose is to curb what James Madison called the “tyranny of the majority.” The country’s founders feared the genuine democratic rule of the masses, who had just overthrown the British monarchy during the American Revolution. Any government acting through and for the interests of the working class, poor, and oppressed would be at the expense of the minority – those who owned businesses, land, and slaves. Thus the

movements have always been the driving force behind landmark legal victories, in spite of the Court’s aim to suppress the “tyranny of the majority.”

A more forward-thinking section of the ruling elite understands that sometimes concessions are necessary to cut across further working class action against the bosses, landlords, and the rich. It walks a tightrope to curtail radicalization and social upheaval, which would threaten business as usual. This is why a conservative SCOTUS ruled in favor of abortion rights in 1973. In the lead up to Roe v. Wade, pro-choice feminist and socialist organizations staged mass demonstrations and direct actions across the country, not just in the name of abortion rights, but women’s liberation, in line with the revolu-

COURTS

local courts, and legislative offices. A third major blow came when Janus v. AFSCME extended “right to work” to public sector unions. This weakens workers’ ability to organize by exempting non-union members from paying union dues, even though they benefit from union-negotiated contracts.

Republicans were afforded a huge opportunity to pack the Court with truly despised ultra-conservatives during the Trump years: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett joined the bench, all hand-picked by dark money and far right forces. Trump’s shortlist of judicial nominations was drafted by

“How do these unelected elites in robes have so much control over our lives and our rights, and what can we do about it?”

Praised by Biden as a “consensus builder” and endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, even this center-moderate pick faces intense scrutiny from the GOP as we go to print. Regardless of who is appointed, this increasingly unpopular institution will maintain a firm right-wing supermajority, posing a threat to the democratic rights and survival of millions across the country. How do these random elites in robes have so much control over our lives and our rights, and what can we do about it?

Guardian of Democracy or Instrument of the Ruling Class?

Despite its anointed role as the “guardian of the Constitution” and “equal justice” under the law, the reality is that the U.S. Supreme Court is a supremely undemocratic institution. Marxists understand that, under capitalism, the courts, the police, and the political establishment are designed to work hand-inhand to defend the interests of the wealthy.

APRIL 2022

Supreme Court’s fundamental role has always been to act as a check on working people, and to safeguard the capitalist class’s power.

But the capitalist class is far from unanimous on how to best do that. Neither neutral nor static, the Supreme Court serves as a decisive battleground for these debates. Ultimately responsible for interpreting the vague terms of the U.S. Constitution – written by and for the elite – it’s free to construe the law to suit the needs of the rich during any time period. The Court is therefore subject to pressures from competing sections of the ruling elite – as well as pressures from below.

The Court doubled down with its decision on Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and many other racist decisions. But less than a century later, a shift in society, reflected in the growing Civil Rights movement, compelled the Court to change course with Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which swept away the Jim Crow doctrine of “separate but equal,” and Atlanta Motel v. U.S., which upheld and strengthened the new Civil Rights Act of 1964. In other words, organized mass

tionary energy of the Civil Rights, anti-war, and labor struggles of the 60s and 70s. The Court was not suddenly morally convinced of the right to abortion: it was convinced by the possibility of an explosive backlash against an unpopular decision.

The Supreme Court Today The Supreme Court’s recent track record reflects significant breakthroughs for the capitalist class’s reactionary wing. Three cases in particular set the stage for the systematic attacks we see today. In 2010, Citizens United v. FEC prohibited the government from limiting corporate political campaign expenditures under free speech protection.

This essentially allows big businesses to write blank checks to preferred candidates and ballot measures. In 2013, it dismantled key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, which has dramatically marginalized poor and minority voters particularly in the South, and has consolidated the right’s grip on school boards,

the Federalist society, which champions “intentionalism” and states’ rights. This 6-3 reactionary majority is now at the disposal of an emboldened right-wing offensive, and abortion rights are in its most immediate crosshairs.

The pro-corporate assault on working people’s ability to organize was possible in the absence of mass struggle in workplaces and the streets, with no strategy for action coming from labor leadership. These losses have put labor and the women’s movement at a huge disadvantage in the face of Roe v. Wade’s likely overturn, which is already sparking fear that same-sex marriage could be clawed back as well.

Build a Mass Fightback from Below The question now is, how do we defend women and workers from further attacks handed down by the Supreme Court?

continued on p.15

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L ABOR MOVEMENT

NEW TEAMSTERS LEADERSHIP WILL FACE IMPORTANT TESTS Sean O’Brien, new Teamsters president.

Justin Harrison (Unit 1 Secretary, CWA Local 13000, personal capacity) and Chuck Cannon, Philadelphia After decisively winning the Teamsters national leadership election last October, the OZ-Teamsters United slate took office at the Teamsters Union on Tuesday March 22. The new leadership finally evicted the conservative ‘Teamster Power’ Hoffa Jr. regime that had pushed through concessionary contracts at UPS and the bankrupting of the central states pension fund over the mass opposition of working Teamsters union members.

In a final demonstration of petty bureaucratic grace, Hoffa’s administration stonewalled the new leadership’s transition team, refusing to brief them on ongoing work and denying them access to the union office until the last minute.

Last October’s Teamsters election was held in the midst of a historic strike wave, a major feature of which was bureaucratic union leaderships coming under fire from rank and file workers for not putting up a sufficient fight.

In this context, a new leadership was elected in the Teamsters for the first time in over 20 years. For only the second time in its history, an establishment-backed slate lost to a reform caucus. Sean O’Brien’s leadership team comes into power at a challenging time for the Teamsters and the U.S. Labor Movement as a whole. Important Teamsters contracts, including the key UPS contract, will be bargained in 2022 and 2023.

The results of last year’s strike wave are mixed, with some wins, some losses, and many unions just holding their ground. Workers at Nabisco, Kellogg’s, and John Deere demonstrated their willingness to fight for better pay, benefits, and conditions but came up against the limits of the “one day longer” strike strategy. There is an exciting wave of organizing happening in the coffee industry, led by the union drive at Starbucks, at the same time millions of workers have joined the great resignation.

The Sean O’Brien/Fred Zuckerman slate succeeded in winning two-thirds of the vote

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promising a “…team dedicated to rebuilding the Teamsters as a militant fighting union from bottom to top.” With rank and file members of unions across the country demanding a more militant leadership that is not tied to the failed strategy of business unionism, this election is a significant development, and it is seen by many as a victory for the labor movement. A reinvigorated, dynamic, fighting Teamsters can set the tone for struggle in 2022 and inspire a new generation of working class fighters.

Ron Carey and the 1997 UPS Strike In 1992, Ron Carey, a reform candidate backed by Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), was elected President of the Teamsters. Like Sean O’Brien, the key issue for Carey was the concessionary 1990 UPS contract. Carey promised to fight corruption. Once in office he made several important internal reforms and helped to reverse decades of declining membership and unstable union finances. TDU, a reform caucus founded in the 1970s by rank and file Teamsters, many of them socialists, played a significant role in Carey’s victory.

The 1997 nationwide strike at UPS was Carey’s crowning achievement. Starting over a year before the strike, the Teamsters organized an internal mass mobilization campaign to prepare workers not only to strike but to strike effectively and shut UPS down hard. They also built an effective grassroots campaign to win wider public support for the strike, with a Gallup poll showing 55% of respondents supporting the union. The mass wave of public support brought enough political pressure on President Clinton to prevent him from invoking Taft-Hartley to end the strike. UPS executives were caught unaware, not expecting the union to be prepared to strike.

The effectiveness of the strike cost UPS $600 million over two weeks and scored several major concessions from the bosses: starting pay would be increased for the first time in 15 years, 10,000 part time jobs would be converted into full time jobs, benefits for

workers were increased, and UPS backed down on its attempts to convert the multiemployer union pension plan into a company pension plan.

In response to the UPS strike and the anti corruption reforms, old guard union officials rallied around James Hoffa Jr, who had narrowly lost a heated 1996 election to Carey.

Hoffa and the old guard turned to the federal government to help them seize control of the union. Despite decades of ignoring corruption at the highest levels of the union, the federal government, at Hoffa’s request, launched a corruption investigation into Carey who had made a critical mistake in relying on Democratic Party consultants to help his 1996 union election campaign. While correctly attempting to mobilize the broader Teamsters membership to support the strike at UPS, Carey failed to mobilize members in response to this attack from the federal government. Even though he was eventually found not guilty, Carey was undemocratically removed from office and expelled from the union for life. The corrupt old guard was back in control.

2018 UPS Contract and the Betrayal of the Hoffa Leadership With the Hoffa leadership back in power, the next twenty years in the Teamsters were marked by a string of concessionary contracts that dramatically drove down the living standards of workers. In 2018, over 90% of Teamsters members at UPS voted to authorize a strike, if necessary, in the negotiation of a new contract. Among the many issues that rank and file members wanted addressed were: an end to two-tier contracts, low wages, and control of bargained work by members. Despite a mandate to aggressively negotiate a strong contract, the Teamsters leadership gave further concessions to a UPS making record profits.

The contract kept the hated two-tier system, designed to undercut the bargaining power of workers, and only raised starting pay to keep pace with non-union employers like Amazon and FedEx. The demand for a

starting rate of $15 an hour was not seriously taken up, despite already being a compromise. When presented with such a terrible contract, despite a campaign of pressure and fearmongering from the leadership to approve it, 54% of members voted “No” on the contract. In spite of this, Hoffa Jr. used a constitutional mechanism, the “two-thirds rule”, to undemocratically impose the contract anyway.

For many rank and file Teamsters, this betrayal was a final proof that Hoffa Jr. and the rest of the union leadership were more aligned with UPS executives than with their own members. In response, rank-andfile activists began to gear up for the June 2021 Teamsters convention and ultimately won many important victories, including an end to the two-thirds rule and a stipulation that all Bargaining Committees must include rank-and-file members and not just union leadership or staffers. These wins boosted Teamsters United’s momentum going into the October 2021 national leadership election.

Victory of Teamsters United In a dramatic change from the 2016 elections, the Hoffa-backed Teamster Power slate led by Steve Vairma lost by a historic 2-1 margin to the Teamsters United slate led

by Sean O’Brien and Fred Zuckerman and endorsed by TDU, a clear indictment of the Hoffa leadership.

One of the key reasons for this result was low turnout from locals that have traditionally been strongholds for Hoffa and the Teamster Power bureaucracy. The Hoffa-backed Teamster Power slate lost nearly 20,000 votes in comparison to 2016, while the Teamsters United slate saw its total votes increase by around 12,000. Ultimately, this result shows a collapse of support for the old guard of the union bureaucracy, with many Teamsters members voting more against Hoffa than for O’Brien.

A key source of anger was the mishandling and imminent bankruptcy of the Central States Pension Fund, which millions of Teamsters members rely on or will rely on soon. Declining membership, decades of corruption and skimming as well as gambling the pension fund on the stock market had created a disastrous situation where millions of Teamsters members were on the verge of

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L ABOR MOVEMENT

UNIONIZING COFFEE WORKERS VOTE ON DEMANDS

BUILDING DEMOCRATIC UNIONS FROM THE GROUND UP Hannah Smith, Darwin’s United Negotiating Committee (personal capacity)

keep the fire of our union lit.

By the end of the night, despite our differences, we had concrete demands (see below) to unite us in our fight for better lives.

On Thursday March 10th, a majority of the membership of Darwin’s United, the newly-unionized staff of four local coffee shops in Cambridge, Massachusetts, met in a small, rented meeting hall to discuss, to vote, and to rally.

The agenda was packed but carefully Demands As A planned by representatives from each store, Path Forward all eager to stoke the flames of action. Each point on that agenda was introduced by a We cannot rest on different union member, only some of whom the success of our have previously acted in leadership roles. A single meeting, nor on Darwin’s worker and fellow Socialist Alterna- the selection of a few tive member chaired the meeting alongside demands. Bargaining a UniteHere staffer. There were small and can be a long road large group discussions where workers from even for established unions. For a first condifferent stores came together, in many tract like ours, that road can be even longer. cases for the first time. The Organizing It may be months before the above-voted Committee put forward several demands for demands make it to the bargaining table. discussion and voting, and the membership More demands will crop up in the meandebated out details and amendments. time, to which we must respond as they This is not to say the meeting was happen. perfect,or entirely harmonious. We went For example: What counts as full-time? into our first meeting expecting a naïve Is it thirty hours? Twenty-five? What about a sort of homogeny, and instead we found sexual harassment policy? How long is our people of different backgrounds, com- probationary period for new hires? munication styles, and specific needs all Between now and bargaining, there will coming together on the same floor. We be countless chances and needs for more heard conflicting priorivoting and for demandsties between back-ofspecific escalation tacWhen we make house kitchen staff and tics. But the earlier in our demands clear, front-of-house baristas the process we are bold when we give those in particular. and upfront about our Rather than funda- demands a number, key demands, and the mentally dividing us, more organized we are what the meeting did we stick an expectation in fighting for them, the was lay those differences into the minds of more power we will have bare, such that we may workers and the minds behind us. begin to forge unity. Had When we make our we not all met together of a community. demands clear, when as we did, we may have we give those demands gone ahead on the happy road to bargain- a number, we stick an expectation into the ing largely blind to entire sets of needs and minds of workers and the minds of a comvoices. Instead, we now have the power munity. We make sure that our coworkers which comes from differences: ingenuity know what we are fighting for. and across-the-board coverage.

And when ownership or management People in that meeting room stood up for balks at our request to lead decent lives, what they believed in. When the Organiz- we will show the community exactly what ing Committee proposed demands, those their “community spaces” hold dear: not demands were talked out at length. Not the workers, whose names and stories they everyone agreed with each other. Voices know, but profit. We know that pressure were sometimes raised, and at times we works. If we don’t utilize it, we are acting stumbled and struggled to keep the focus. as fools.

Never once did we struggle, however, to As goes a cornerstone adage in the labor APRIL 2022

movement: “Power in the bargaining room comes from power outside the bargaining room.”

Structures to Win As we rise into a new era of worker’s rights and self-advocacy after generations of lull, how do we come to understand what demands we rally behind? How do we build a union when all the education we’ve received surrounding them has been rattled with disdain and parody? Democratically.

This job matters to me. My coworkers matter to me. There is a pernicious myth surrounding food-service work: that it’s temporary and undignified, something college kids do to pay the rent. Something undesirables do, people with criminal histories and mental health issues and kids they have to raise on their own – as though these descriptors strip a person of their humanity.

As though those people weren’t essential a year ago while the CEOs stayed home.

Without us, the workers, the entire system would fail. My coworkers and I have become class conscious. We are one. Baristas with three degrees, line cooks with three kids, sixteen-year-olds on the register. We are all but different phases of each other.

We must organize together, with intent and care. A socialist perspective, like we study and practice as members of Socialist Alternative, is the way forward. A national network of fellow workers, like the one we have forged over the course of the coffee unionization movement, is the way forward.

Discipline and focus is the way forward.

When we fight, we win. J

OUR DEMANDS

1.

$24 an hour base pay, before tips, with raises tied to inflation.

2.

Quality, premium-free health care, including dental, vision, and gender-affirming care, extended to all workers.

(17 FOR, 1 AGAINST)

No more begging for tips to pay the rent.

No more selling sandwiches worth more than we are.

This demand began at $20/hour. A member of the union rank-and-file proposed, to the discussion floor, raising that number to $24 on the grounds of the exorbitant cost of living in Cambridge. That number was talked out, democratically: concerns about it being unwinnable were raised. But where do we aim if not high? The history of food service work is one of accepting scraps, of generating profit and hardly seeing a dime. If we err on the side of caution, we are erring on the side of ownership and management.

And so we voted on $24.

(18 FOR, 0 AGAINST)

No more wearing our joints into nothing without the ability to access care. No more migraines from trying to see without glasses we can’t afford. No more forced gender dysphoria on display for hundreds of strangers every day.

No demand was more thoroughly talked through than this one. The unanimous vote reflects that: the more that membership knows about the demands on which they are voting, the more comfortable and secure they will feel in voting YES. ‘No’ votes are often mere reflections of uncertainty. By erasing that uncertainty, by debating and discussing and getting into detail, we build a strong union and strong set of demands.

3.

Three weeks paid time off. 40 hours of sick time from day one, with additional accrual.

(16 FOR, 2 AGAINST)

No more years without seeing our families because we can’t afford to take a week away.

No more going to work sick for the months it takes to earn a single day of sick leave.

Significant discussion, details, and thorns went into the formation of this demand. With hourly work, we are presented with a question: What is a week? For a full-time worker, it might be forty paid hours. For a part-time worker, it might be twelve. That uncertainty is reflected in our vote which, though overwhelmingly YES, came with some hesitation. That hesitation is a path forward: MORE discussions, MORE meetings, MORE debate from MORE voices.

4.

Fully staffed stores and extra pay for working understaffed shifts.

(16 FOR, 2 AGAINST)

No more working twice as hard just for a few extra cents from the tip jar. Our final demand is, so far, the vaguest. Time ticked by quickly in the meeting room, but, even without yet solidifying the details, a consensus was clear: we cannot continue to each do the work of many. As with our third demand, this one leaves room for additional democratic engagement.

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COVID-19

$65,000 A MINUTE

PHARMA PROFITS SOAR FROM VACCINE MONOPOLIES Sophie Scholl, Milwaukee

Profit Over Global Health

Moderna released its 2021 annual report which showed the pharmaceutical giant made $12.2 billion in profits. Pfizer similarly reported $21.9 billion in profits. Johnson & Johnson reported $4.7 billion in profits.

Massive amounts of public funding have gone into the production of the COVID-19 vaccines used in the U.S. For example, the U.S. government provided Moderna with nearly $10 billion in taxpayer money for the research and development of their vaccine, along with the purchase of 500 million doses of the vaccine.

This incredible price tag reportedly covered almost the entire cost of the clinical development for their vaccine. Moderna was also given access to patents by the U.S. government that they used to make their vaccine.

The 2021 third quarter financial reports released in November showed that Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have been making combined profits of $65,000 every minute off of vaccines that were almost entirely developed with public funding. These two companies alone have produced five new billionaires during the pandemic, with a combined net wealth of over $35 billion from their monopolies on their vaccines.

Pharmaceutical companies frequently claim that their exorbitant prices are due to needing to recuperate the costs of research and development that go into the production of their life-saving products. However, as we can see in the case of Moderna, even when their products are funded almost entirely by the public, they still seek to make astronomical profits.

A recent report showed that, of the 1.8 billion COVID vaccine donations promised by rich nations to the neocolonial world, only about 14% had been delivered as of October 2021, even as new variants of the virus mutate and wreak havoc around the world.

According to the report: “Almost half (49%) of the vaccines sold by AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson have been delivered to high-income countries, even though such countries only comprise 16% of the world’s population.”

In fact, as of October of 2021, Moderna had only delivered 0.2 percent of their total vaccine supply to low-income countries and Pfizer/BioNTech delivered less than 1 percent.

This unequal international distribution of vaccines is a product of the capitalist system. The governments of wealthy imperialist nations like the U.S., desperate to reopen their economies and send the working class back to work, place enormous pressure on vaccine manufacturers to deliver their product to them first.

The motivation to increase their profits drives these companies to compete instead of collaborating to maximize production of highquality accessible doses for the world, and has served as a basis to refuse international calls to share their vaccine patents and technology.

These refusals from Big Pharma come because despite the fact that sharing vaccine technology would lead to greatly increased vaccine production and more equitable distribution, it would also reduce the edge they have over their competitors and lead to reduced prices for the vaccines they already produce and charge top dollar for.

Despite the fact that releasing their intellectual property would shorten the pandemic and save c o untle s s lives, the profit motive under c api t a l i s m demands that

14

these companies jealously guard any internationally find themselves employed information that could allow anyone else in it. to make their products.

However, instead of putting millions of Due to the failure of the capitalist gov- people to work to rid humanity of our most ernments around the world to success- dangerous diseases, these workers’ scifully facilitate mass vaccination, COVID entific and medical efforts are pit against is not only spreading each other in a race to worldwide among develop vaccines and In order to fully unprotected people, medications that will be but is also mutat- combat COVID-19 sold to the highest biding. New variants and prepare for ders and exported to the emerging out richest regions of the future pandemics, of the poorrichest countries. est countries the entire healthcare Meanwhile, the comare now industry should be panies laying claim to threatening miracles of modern scitaken into public to unleash ence steadfastly refuse themselve s ownership and control. to share patents and on even fully vaccine technology for vaccinated people thousands of fear of being out-competed in the marmiles away. ketplace and missing out on a chance to As The Guardian reports: increase their profits.

“In December of 2021, UK’s This arrangement where workers toil Department of Health, placed away to save lives only to have the ruling a travel ban on southern Africa, class stand in the way is not only morally while issuing a warning that the intolerable, it is completely unsustainable.

‘Omicron’ variant of COVID-19 COVID has affected all our lives in one was the most ‘complex’ and ‘wor- way or another; even if not all of us have rying’ seen yet.” fallen sick with it, we have been affected Pharmaceutical companies by supply chain disruption, mental anguish have produced over 11 billion and isolation, and the economic recession vaccines in 2021 alone – more that COVID-19 sparked. than enough to vaccinate the Capitalism has shown that it has no whole world. Despite this, many way to bring a swift end to the pandemic, countries are facing shortages, and it’s left many feeling like they have even as new variants emerge that no choice but to simply pretend it isn’t the current vaccines have reduced happening. We don’t have to just accept capacity to inoculate against. the devastation and death COVID-19 has brought as an immutable fate; a better world is possible!

Take Big Pharma Into In order to fully combat COVID-19 and Democratic Public prepare for future pandemics, the entire Ownership healthcare industry should be taken into public ownership and control – includIn the U.S. alone, more than ing pharmaceutical research and devel800,000 workers are employed opment, and technology vital to vaccine in the biopharmaceutical industry. development should be shared with every Worldwide more than 5.5 million nation on earth. workers are employed in the pharmaInstead of the profit-driven economy of ceutical industry, with over 3 million capitalism, we need an economy that is being in Asia. deliberately planned to serve human need.

In 2017, the industry had a global This socialist economy would be GDP of over half a trillion dollars, planned by democratically elected counfully accounting for 1% of the entire cils of workers from each industry repreglobal GDP by itself. senting the working class as a whole. UltiThe pharmaceutical industry is mately, to provide a planned health care massive. It is both extremely profsystem that works for everyone requires itable for the capitalist class, and doing away with the whole profit-driven huge sections of the working class capitalist system. J

S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

C O N T I N U AT I O N S

ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATION IN TEXAS of abortion based on the falsehood that an unborn fetus is a child in need of saving.

It is up to working people to expose this as false by pointing to an alternative. A society genuinely concerned with protecting children would have universal childcare, living wages

continued from p.10

and union benefits for parents, paid family leave. Trans and nonbinary youth deserve trans-inclusive Medicare for All, fully funded public schools with adequate and LGBTfriendly support staff, and robust social services. This type of society ultimately would do

away with capitalism altogether – the system that relies on alienating us from one another, from our bodies, and from the value we produce as working people; and that peddles in social sickness in the form of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. J

HISTORY OF THE SUPREME COURT Democrats will undoubtedly urge voters to “vote blue no matter who,” while some advocate for adding more justices in order to “pack the court” with more liberal or diverse judges. This is the same party that relinquished Obama’s moderate Supreme Court nomination to the GOP, and failed to put up any serious opposition to Trump’s picks after years of mounting attacks and decisions against reproductive rights. While having more progressive judges may help, history demonstrates this is neither permanent nor impervious to corporate interests. By affirming her own “originalist” position and rejecting the notion of a “living Constitution” that evolves with the times, Biden’s pick of Ketanji Brown

continued from p.11

Jackson suits ultra-conservative establishment quite well. These strategies can’t resolve the undemocratic and pro-business nature of the Supreme Court, or the two corporate parties vying for influence.

Our real power comes from outside the halls of capitalist state institutions. We need to rely on successful methods for fighting antiworker and anti-women attacks. This means building independent mass movements to coordinate direct action in the streets and our workplaces. To prevent Roe’s overturn this summer as the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision comes down, we would need to rapidly organize mass days of action, civil disobedience, and workplace

action. Young women in particular have taken the lead in recent labor strikes and union drives, and have come into the streets time and again over the past decade to fight racism, climate disaster, and the right. A vibrant, militant women’s movement is our only defense against the erosion of Roe. As long as capitalism remains intact, every victory is temporary as the ruling class calculates its next opportunity to reverse it. We need to go on the offensive for expanded democratic and economic rights, including legal, safe, and free abortion on demand, full protections for LGBTQ workers and renters, and strong rank-and-file unions unfettered by the limitations designed by the bosses. J

NEW TEAMSTERS LEADERSHIP losing their pension, previously expected to go bankrupt by 2025. In the 11th hour, as the Teamster bureaucracy looked likely to lose the election, the Democratic Party stepped in to to bailout the pension fund to the tune of billions of dollars. This temporary stay of execution was done not out of any genuine support for Teamster retirees, but as a last-ditch effort to save the Hoffa bureaucracy from defeat.

Teamster members in the Central States, long a Hoffa stronghold, saw through this last-minute measure, which solved none of the structural issues imperiling the pension fund nor addressed Hoffa’s decades of mishandling the fund.

However, a weakness of the win is shown by the fact that the overall turnout for the

continued from p.12

vote was only 14%, demonstrating skepticism among members that O’Brien can deliver. The drop in turnout and collapse of support in Hoffa strongholds shows that while the failed strategies of the business unionists have lost significant support, many rank and file Teamsters do not see a clear alternative to the previous leadership.

Winning a Fighting Union Any successful labor struggle under capitalism requires an understanding of the nature of the system – that the capitalist class and the working class are in conflict. The capitalist class will concede nothing to shame or moralizing, only to a direct threat to their profits.

To truly threaten the profits of the capitalist class requires not just the interruption of production but a

broadening of struggles to include other workplaces and the local community. Socialist Alternative has said that the greatest obstacle to workers organizing now is the conservative labor leadership. While the election of Sean O’Brien is a shift from the longstanding Teamsters bureaucracy, he does not represent a fundamental change in outlook. A key flaw in the outlook of most union leaders today is the idea that there is only so much that can be won and only so much money to go around.

If a militant labor movement is to be rebuilt, workers will need to see unions as something worth fighting for. While a small section of workers will be convinced of the need for unions by vague notions of dignity in the workplace or through simply seeing unions as a moral good, most of the working class will not be motivated to fight on this basis. Rebuilding a militant labor movement will require mass working class participation, which can only be built through bold and clear demands that motivate working class people to join the struggle by the millions. J

WORD TO WIN Socialist Crossword

ACROSS: 1. Countries that Moderna delivered only 0.2% of its vaccine supply to 2. Union president during historic 1997 strike 3. City where coffee workers voted to unionize unanimously 4. Europe’s top vaccine manufacturer APRIL 2022

l

April 2022

DOWN: 5. Company where workers went on strike for 34 days in 2021 6. New Teamster President 7. WHO’s vaccine distribution initiative 8. Coffee mogul returning from

retirement to bust unions 9. Body voting on a new Supreme Court Justice 10. What solidarity strikes were after Taft-Hartley

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE ISSN 2638-3349

EDITOR: Keely Mullen EDITORIAL BOARD: George Brown, Tom Crean, Grace Fors, Eljeer Hawkins, Joshua Koritz, Greyson Van Arsdale, Tony Wilsdon

Editors@SocialistAlternative.org

NATIONAL (347) 457-6069 info@SocialistAlternative.org facebook.com/SocialistAlternativeUSA Instagram: @Socialist_Alternative Twitter: @SocialistAlt Tik Tok: @socialistus

INTERNATIONAL Socialist Alternative is part of International Socialist Alternative (ISA), which has sections in over 30 countries. Learn more about the ISA at internationalsocialist.net.

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15

SOCIALIST

ISSUE #82 l APRIL 2022 SUGGESTED DONATION $2 Max Nolan, Gainesville The “Don’t Say Gay” bill has passed the Florida Senate, and at the time we go to press it is on the way to Governor Ron DeSantis’ desk where he’s promised to sign it into law.

Already the bill has kicked off a wave of student walkouts where students can be seen chanting “I say gay!” as well as a walkout of hundreds of Disney workers demanding the company take a stronger stance against the attacks on LGBTQ people.

The bill, scheduled to go into effect on July 1, bans any discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom from kindergarten to third grade. It also prohibits lessons in other grades unless they are arbitrarily determined “age appropriate.”

This bill is part of a broader right wing offensive across the country and in Florida in particular, attacking reproductive rights and the right to protest, enacting racist voting restrictions, and banning trans children from gender-affirming care and school sports. The attacks won’t stop here. We need a mass movement to defend LGBTQ rights and fight back against the right.

A National Wave of Anti-LGBTQ Attacks Texas Governor Greg Abbot recently wrote a letter calling on the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate genderaffirming care for children as “child abuse.”

Iowa recently became the eleventh state since the beginning of 2021 to pass a bill

ALTERNATIVE

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banning trans children from participating in school sports. Arkansas passed a total ban on gender-affirming care for children last year, and this year 17 states have introduced bills that would restrict healthcare for transgender youth.

The hardships of working class queer and trans people aren’t limited to attacks from Governors mansions and state legislatures.

2021 was the deadliest year on record for transgender people in the U.S. Genderaffirming care is unaffordable, and LGBTQ people have higher rates of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness.

Anti-LGBTQ Legislation Bankrolled by Big Business DeSantis and the sponsors of this bill have received heaps of funding from many supposedly “LGBTQ friendly” corporations, including AT&T, UnitedHealth Group, Disney, Comcast/NBC Universal, Duke Energy, and Walgreens. All of these companies received perfect scores on Human Rights Campaign’s 2022 Corporate Equality Index.

Disney has come under fire from its own workers for its hypocritical statements in support of LGBTQ rights. They donated nearly $300,000 to supporters of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill just in the past two years. CEO Bob Chapek refused to condemn the bill until faced with mounting outrage from Disney workers which culminated in the companywide walkout on March 22.

In addition to being part of the broader attempt by the right wing to undermine

teachers efforts to teach progressive curriculum, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill is part of a broader effort to undermine public education by empowering individual parents to sue schools for damages, potentially bankrupting an already starved public school system. Big business and the right wing would prefer if all education in Florida was open season for privatization.

We Can’t Rely on the Courts or the Democratic Party Right now, Democrats control the presidency and both houses of Congress, but so far their support for the Equality Act has been limited to platitudes. They have not made abortion rights the “law of the land,” as Biden promised on the campaign trail. In response to the Texas abortion ban last year, the Biden administration simply punted the issue over to the courts.

The “Don’t Say Gay” bill will likely face legal challenges, but absent a mass movement to defend LGBTQ rights, the chilling effect it would have in schools and wider society would remain. The courts alone will not provide LGBTQ youth with real victories such as funding for school counselors, reproductive rights, free college, and free trans health care through trans-inclusive Medicare for All.

We Need A Mass Movement Young people and workers have started fighting back against this right-wing assault

on LGBTQ people.

School-based actions are an essential part of defeating this right-wing assault. Students and educators have already held walkouts all over the state, including a walkout of over 500 students at Winter Park High School.

The teachers unions should urgently organize their members against this attack on their rights in the classroom. They should call for a day of action against the bill and work with students and workers in other industries like at Disney to organize walkouts.

The broader labor movement should loudly oppose this bill as not just an attack on the rights of teachers in the classroom, but an attack on LGBTQ teachers and students as a whole.

The right, in an attempt to mobilize their base, are doubling down on their attacks on queer youth. This is an offensive with deadly consequences and has to be ferociously fought. We need a multi-racial, multi-gender mass movement of working people and students to defend LGBTQ rights. We need to link the movement for LGBTQ rights with the fight for reproductive rights to fight for free, safe and legal abortion through trans-inclusive Medicare for All. And finally we need a mass movement to fight against the capitalist system itself.

Ultimately, a true end to homophobia and transphobia will only come with the complete socialist transformation of society. J