Socialist Alternative #91 - March 2023

ALTERNATIVE

SOCIALIST ISSUE #91 l MARCH 2023

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INSIDE SPY BALLOON & NEW COLD WAR UNION MEMBERS SPEAK OUT INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

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WHAT WE STAND FOR Their Profits, Our Lives: A Socialist Program for Disaster Relief

• Building off the historic union victory at Amazon in New York and the ongoing Starbucks organizing drive, unions should stop spending hundreds of millions of dollars on electing Democratic Party politicians, and spend it instead on efforts to organize the unorganized.

• Unions should form consumer protection committees to monitor price increases. They should have the power to review corporate finances, especially when money is squandered on CEO pay and stock buybacks. Profits off basic goods should be heavily taxed and price-gouging companies should be brought under democratic public ownership.

• The U.S. averages one chemical accident every two days. Extreme weather displaced 3.4 million Americans in 2022, people across the country are seeing their communities turned into disaster zones from corporations’ ecological warfare.

• Make the polluters pay for the million-dollar cleanups – not working people! There needs to be strict accountability and oversight to protect the interests of communities and the environment.

• In the wake of disasters, corporations should immediately be responsible for relocation costs, health costs, and home remediation. Invest In Our Basic Needs When many residents need to relocate, the • Pass strong rent control. End economic businesses responsible for the disasters evictions. Tax the rich and big business to should offer to buy people’s land at a rate fund permanently affordable, high-quality well above pre-disaster market value. social housing.

• Take trucking and rail into democratic • No pay cuts! We need a significant raise public ownership, end the regime of corpoin the minimum wage and to tie raises to rate greed, deregulation, cut corners, and inflation. understaffing that cause these preventable • Capitalism failed to stop COVID-19, with catastrophes! the “post-pandemic” new normal consisting of total indifference to public health. We Fight Inflation & Rebuild A urgently need permanently free and accessible testing, paid sick leave, and to take Fighting Labor Movement Big Pharma into public ownership – vac• Inflation and the rising cost of living is cines should be for public health, not profit! eating into our paychecks, and capitalist • Make the child tax credit permanent and politicians have no solutions – we need a fully fund high-quality, universal childcare. class struggle to turn the tide on this race No cuts to food stamps! to the bottom!

• An immediate transition to Medicare for • As thousands of workers are winning union All. Take for-profit hospital chains and Big recognition for the first time, it is critical Pharma into public ownership and retool that unions fight to win strong contracts. them to provide free, state-of-the-art We need unions that are armed with clear healthcare to all. demands like contractual cost of living • Fully fund public education! End school privaadjustments (COLA), and they have to be tization. Give educators an immediate 25% prepared to go on strike to win them. raise and increase staffing. Cancel all student • Union leaders across all unions should debt and make public college tuition-free. accept the average wage of a worker in their industry and should be accountable to their membership and the broader working class. End Racist Policing And Criminal • An injury to one is an injury to all! Unions (in)Justice need to fight all manifestations of racism, • The death of Tyre Nichols in January showed sexism, queerphobia, and all forms of that there is still a fight to be waged against oppression. police violence, especially with Democratic city governments increasing police funding and promoting “law and order” policing. We need a new movement in the streets and mass organizations of struggle to fight for Black liberation!

• Arrest and convict killer cops! Purge police forces of anyone with known ties to white www.SocialistAlternative.org supremacist groups or any cop who has info@SocialistAlternative.org committed violent or racist attacks.

• End the militarization of police. Ban the use @Socialist Alternative of “crowd control” weapons. Disarm police @SocialistAlt on patrol. /SocialistAlternative.USA • Put policing under the control of democrati /c/SocialistAlternative cally-elected civilian boards with power over @socialistus hiring and firing, reviewing budget priorities, and the power to subpoena.

WHY I JOINED SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE SHAYNA ANN HOWLETT, BAY AREA I grew up in a “Vote Blue No Matter Who” household. Growing up in a conservative district, my family was deemed too far left for wearing Obama campaign t-shirts in public. I understood us to be as far left as it got.

In high school, I started learning about how colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy are sewn into the fabric of our institutions. I also learned that these pillars of subjugation uphold capitalism. From there, I began to question the validity of a system hinged on dehumanizing people.

I supported Bernie in the 2016 election, but I was still too young to vote. When the nation elected Donald Trump, I blamed third party voters. I still believed democratic socialists in the Democratic Party could regulate capitalism and promote well-being.

It wasn’t until I watched Joe Biden take the Democratic Party nomination that I understood the Democrats could not provide the progressive solutions I was seeking.

No To Imperialist Wars • Socialist Alternative completely opposes Russian imperialism’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Ordinary Ukrainians who already suffer exploitation, oppression, corruption, and growing poverty conditions now face the horror of war and bloodshed.

• We oppose the aggressive imperialist agenda of NATO and the U.S. for whom Ukrainians are a pawn in the wider Cold War conflict with Chinese imperialism.

• 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! Sending increasingly destructive weapons to the conflict only serves to escalate & poses a greater risk of all-out war – only socialist internationalism can end war and destruction and win lasting peace and stability for the working masses around the world.

I knew I needed to join the struggle for a better system. Since joining SA, I’ve joined in public meetings and protests in support of abortion rights, connected with community members in support of Amazon unionization efforts, and studied labor struggles in the United States and abroad. I’m eager to deepen my roots as a member of this international organization and build revolutionary politics. J

reproductive justice including universal childcare, and Medicare for All including free reproductive and gender-affirming care.

For A Socialist Green New Deal • We need a union jobs program to rapidly expand green infrastructure.

• Expand public transit and make it free.

• While taking climate change head-on, we also need to expand infrastructure to keep people safe from natural disasters and extreme weather as these become more frequent.

• Fossil fuels can’t coexist with a sustainable future – take the top 100 polluting companies into democratic public ownership while implementing a democratically planned, just transition to 100% green energy.!

A New Political Party For Working People

• The capitalist Democratic Party offers no solution to right-wing attacks against workers and marginalized people and has repeatedly failed to use their majorities to protect our rights.

Mobilize Against Gender • We need a new, working-class, multiracial Oppression & Attacks On Bodily left party that organizes and fights for workAutonomy ers’ interests and is committed to socialist policies to lead the fight against the • The overturn of Roe v. Wade opened the door right and point a way out of the horrors of for vicious attacks on bodily autonomy across capitalism. the country. We need a mass movement against the reactionary right on the scale of The Whole System Is Guilty the 60s and 70s when Roe was first won.

• Free, safe, legal abortion. All contraception • Capitalism produces pandemics, povshould be provided at no cost as part of a erty, racism, transphobia, environmental broad program for reproductive health! destruction, and war. We need an interna• Fight back against the brutal anti-trans legtional struggle against this failed system. islation in many states and all right-wing • Bring the top 500 companies and banks attacks on LGBTQ people. Noncompliance into democratic public ownership. with these bigoted laws should be organized • We need a socialist world. This means a by the labor movement among workers democratic socialist plan for the economy tasked with enforcing them. based on the interests of the overwhelming • Fighting gender oppression means fightmajority of people and the planet. ing for our rights to bodily autonomy,

EDITORIAL

SPY BALLOON RATCHETS UP TENSIONS IN U.S.-CHINA COLD WAR GEORGE BROWN, MADISON On February 4, the United States Air Force shot down a Chinese-operated highaltitude balloon off the coast of South Carolina. This sparked off a major diplomatic incident between the U.S. and China. Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceled what would have been his first visit to Beijing since 2018. At a subsequent international security conference in Munich, Blinken had a tense confrontation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Six businesses linked to the balloon were added to the U.S. Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List, a U.S. exports blacklist. Soon, a paranoid balloon panic broke out, with three more balloons being downed that turned out to have no relationship with China.

The Republicans got in on it as well. In spite of the balloon incident inflaming the U.S.-China New Cold War, Republicans attacked the Biden administration for not inflaming things enough. Thus we were treated to frothing-at-the-mouth warmongering, such as Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) tweeting “How can the Chinese Communist Party believe we’ll protect Taiwan if the Biden Admin doesn’t even have the stomach to deal with a balloon?”

As for the Chinese response, they initially tried to pass off the balloon as a civilian weather balloon. Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the shooting down of the balloon as “an unacceptable and irresponsible action.” Later, China’s Defense Ministry said they “reserved the right to use necessary means to deal with similar situations.”

When the balloon incident broke out, the U.S. and China had been trying to calm down the New Cold War. This was the purpose of Blinken’s intended visit to Beijing. What is really telling about this incident is not that the Chinese were spying, but that it was enough to derail the attempt to reset the relationship a bit after so much escalation.

A Hypocritical Response The fact that China is spying on the U.S. is hardly news. Of course China is spying on the U.S., and of course the U.S. is spying on China. Currently the Chinese government is claiming that the U.S. had spy balloons over Xinjiang. This is certainly believable and, even if it doesn’t turn out to be true, the U.S. has definitely used spy balloons against China and the Soviet Union in the past as MARCH 2023

part of Project Genetrix.

The whole incident brings to mind the 1960 U-2 incident, in which the Soviet Union shot down a U.S. spy plane. As with the balloon controversy, American authorities initially portrayed the plane as civilian weather research aircraft operated by NASA. However, a few days later, the Soviet government produced the captured pilot and parts of the U-2’s surveillance equipment, including photographs of Soviet military bases, revealing its illegal purpose.

With this in mind, the response of the U.S. government has been completely hypocritical. Chinese spying operations are simply following in the footsteps of their fellow imperialists.

More worrying than the spying itself is the very public warmongering and escalations on both sides of the new Cold War, exemplified

by China’s recent threats to arm Russia in its war against Ukraine.

The War Machine Springs To Life Especially given the war in Ukraine, the U.S. and China are both publicly committed to avoiding a direct military conflict with each other. At the same time, both countries are objectively preparing for war.

China has been massively expanding its navy, with its fleet expected to reach 420 ships in the next two years. They’ve been staking claims in the South China Sea that encroach on the sovereignty of other countries in the region.

The Chinese navy has conducted drills around Taiwan that repeatedly crossed the “median line” in the Taiwan Strait. This is a notional, unofficial boundary, but it was largely respected by both sides for decades.

By making these incursions, Chinese imperialism seeks to establish new “facts on the ground” in order to support the CCP’s claim of sovereignty over the whole waterway.

In response, U.S. imperialism and its allies are also ramping up militarily in the Pacific. Japan pumped $320 billion into its biggest military build-up since World War Two. In response to Chinese imperialism’s incursions in the South China Sea, president of the Phillipines Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former U.S. puppet dictator, has invited the U.S. to increase its military presence in the country.

The immediate threat of war between China and Taiwan receded as a result of the war in Ukraine. However, the underlying forces behind the U.S.-China conflict have been exacerbated by the same conflict. If China invaded Taiwan and the U.S. retaliated, the war could easily spread to involve Japan,

India, Australia, and NATO. In a memo to his officers, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command wrote, “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me [we] will fight in 2025.”

Growing Sinophobia Meanwhile, at home, the balloon controversy has been used to whip up anti-China sentiment, especially by the right. This has had very real consequences. Already since Trump and his railings against the “China virus,” the U.S. has had a sharp uptick in anti-Asian violence. This has continued beyond Trump.

The rise in anti-Asian violence has been

The goal of these measures is to keep China years behind in high-end tech and to hobble China’s economic development (particularly its plans to achieve breakthroughs in key fields such as A.I., supercomputers, advanced robotics, and crucially next-generation weapons systems).

A subsidiary concern is that U.S. imperialism wants less reliance on Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, especially should it fall under China’s control in a war.

Working-Class Solidarity There have been attempts since the balloon incident to scale back tensions. But the damage is done. The U.S.-China conflict emerged in the context of the long-term decline of U.S. imperialism, while Chinese imperialism was on the rise and increasingly

“The U.S. and China are both publicly committed to avoiding a direct military conflict with each other. At the same time, both countries are objectively preparing for war.” accompanied by legal attacks. Back in 2020, the Trump administration tried unsuccessfully to ban TikTok. Now, renewed attempts at banning the platform have gained bipartisan support.

Even more worrying is legislation in Texas and other states that would bar not only Chinese businesses, but Chinese nationals, from owning farmland in the state. When antiChina sentiment first came to prominence, many were quick to lay the blame solely on Trump. But it’s clearly much more deeply tied to the growing inter-imperialist rivalry.

The Chip War Even before things come to blows over Taiwan, the U.S. has declared economic war on China. In August, the CHIPS Act passed into law providing $50 billion for the construction of microprocessor plants in the U.S. This was followed by new export controls announced by the Biden administration in October. These block the sale to China of advanced computer chips and the tools to make such chips. The measures from the U.S. Commerce Department apply not only to U.S. companies but also to foreign companies if their products contain U.S.-made components or software.

assertive. Now China’s economy is in deep crisis while the CCP regime is floundering, abandoning Zero COVID and facing increased dissatisfaction from workers and young people. Arguably the rise of Chinese imperialism has peaked. This does not make the situation less dangerous. Increasing U.S. confidence, resulting from its reassertion during the Ukraine conflict, and deepening crisis in China can lead to a military adventure by the CCP to forestall the threat of revolution.

At the end of last year, mainland China saw the biggest protests since 1989. The movement receded in the wake of repression and concessions, but these have resolved none of the underlying issues behind the crisis of Chinese capitalism and it’s an inevitability that similar protests will reemerge.

The growing inter-imperialist rivalry poses danger of war on a much larger scale than Ukraine. The force that can challenge that is the international solidarity of the working class. Ultimately, it is only through workers taking power out of the hands of the warmongers and billionaires, and doing away with capitalism and imperialism, that a future of war, conflict and environmental destruction can be averted. J

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THEIR PROFITS, OUR LIVES A truck carrying extremely hazardous nitric acid crashed on a major highway in Tucson, filling the air with clouds of redbrown gas.

A marsh in Charleston was drowned in three thousand gallons of diesel due to a pump control failure at a wastewater plant. Photos showed streams of bright red diesel-water weaving through the wetlands.

An explosion at an Ohio metals plant showered molten metal and debris on neighboring buildings and sent up smoke that could be seen 15 miles away.

THE U.S. AVERAGES ONE CHEMICAL ACCIDENT EVERY TWO DAYS...

ORDINARY EVENTS WITH EXTRAORDINARY CONSEQUENCES The chemical scares making national news have people across the country demanding to know what is going on.

The truth is, horrifying as they are, these events are businessas-usual. The East Palestine train derailment has simply brought more attention to the

entirely ordinary phenomenon where ruthless corporations’ blunders create lasting disasters for the environment and local communities.

People have had to deal with evacuations and ongoing health scares. There have been gruesome and avoidable workplace deaths. The trucking and rail barons cut corners on safety and emit thick suffocating fumes, corrosive acids, and toxic spills – and we

pay for the cleanup.

And this is just the accidents, to say nothing of the pollution they do on purpose, without which they wouldn’t be able to make their sky-high profits.

Only a movement for democratic public ownership of transportation can put an end to the organized crime of the big polluters and implement a new regime of sustainability, rationality, and workplace safety. J

FOR-PROFIT RAILROADS CAUSED THE DISASTER IN EAST PALESTINE

KEELY MULLEN, CHICAGO Thousands of people in East Palestine were told it was safe to return home after a Norfolk Southern train derailment left their town covered in a heavy toxic smoke and flames, and coated in highly flammable chemicals. But far from returning to the town they’d left only days before, residents came home to an apocalyptic sight: tens of thousands of dead fish floating in the river and collapsed animals in their once-lively backyards.

From start to finish this disaster has exposed the complete barbarism of the capitalist system. A mass of safety violations and cover-ups going back decades have brought us to this exact moment, where thousands of families now live in what will likely become a cancerous wasteland.

The Chain Of Events: CostCutting To Blame For Derailment In the early 90s, the freight magnates, seeing an opportunity to massively expand their profits, introduced a concept called “Precision Scheduled Railroading” (PSR).

They made the trains longer, reduced the staff, scrapped safety inspections, and lobbied the government to whittle down regulations.

As Railroad Workers United – a reform caucus of union railroad workers – correctly points out, nearly everything that makes PSR dangerous contributed to the Ohio derailment.

At every level, PSR has meant cutting costs – especially labor costs. The cause of the derailment was an overheated wheel bearing which caught fire 20 miles outside East Palestine. Due to widespread layoffs of car inspectors, this defective car was allowed

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to leave the terminal without being inspected. By the time the poorly-maintained safety sensors alerted the crew to the overheating bearing, it was too late – another product of Norfolk Southern’s cost-cutting.

The weight of the train was poorly distributed because the railroads have eliminated the practice of “blocking” trains (putting the heaviest cars toward the front and the lightest toward the back). The rail tycoons concluded this process takes too much time, and therefore too much money. This caused the train to “jackknife” when it derailed, sending 38 cars off the track.

Raising alarms about the dire working conditions on the tracks, including the heightened risk of dangerous derailments, rail workers voted by huge numbers to go on strike for a fair contract this winter. Yet in an episode best described as a sell-out on steroids, politicians in both major parties – including socalled progressives like AOC – voted to take away rail workers’ right to strike in December, sending them back to work in the exact conditions that produced the disaster in East Palestine and will bring more such disasters if not corrected.

Carrying out the transition to PSR would have been impossible without the willing participation of the politicians on both sides of the aisle who perform their duties as loyal servants of the billionaire class. Over the past two decades the teamwork of railroad lobbyists and corporate politicians has led to widespread deregulation of the industry. This deregulation has allowed profits for the major rail carriers to nearly triple while safety standards have fallen below the floor.

All of the deregulation, cost-cutting measures, understaffing, and disinvestment in rail infrastructure over the decades has brought us to this moment. Norfolk Southern CEOs can expect to take home more

than $13,000,000 a year while families in East Palestine look ahead to years of chronic health problems and potential financial ruin.

Life In East Palestine The night of the derailment, thousands of people across East Palestine were evacuated from their homes. In a rational society, these families would have been immediately accommodated with free high-quality temporary housing; a free, rapid health checkup; and a guarantee that they would not be responsible for paying the cost of any damages to their homes or health – short- or longterm – caused by the derailment.

Unfortunately, we do not live in a rational society. For two full weeks after the disaster, officials in East Palestine were told their town doesn’t qualify for any federal assistance through FEMA. The EPA has engaged in what looks more like a cover-up than a clean-up. And Norfolk Southern has boasted that they’ve set up a $1 million charity fund, which is an insulting fraction of the costs these families are about to incur. At every level, this community has been failed.

70% of East Palestine residents own their homes, and 60% have mortgages. If experience teaches us anything, this chemical spill could effectively reduce the value of East Palestine homes by around 10% in the short term. This is to say nothing of the long term health care costs these families can expect to be on the hook for.

While countless lawsuits have already been filed, and many more will materialize, winning in the courts will require a broad public pressure campaign within East Palestine and the surrounding communities, as well as among all other communities along the tracks nationwide.

A campaign that ties these communities together in a joint struggle against the

recklessness of industry bosses could put enormous pressure on them to deliver swift relief in the form of cash payments; free, regular, and comprehensive blood and urine testing; free regular home inspections and deep cleaning services; and the option to sell their home and land to Norfolk Southern at well-above what market value was prior to the derailment.

If a campaign like this were to go one step further and link up with rail workers fighting for safer conditions on the tracks, it could force the rail corporations to reintroduce safety protocols they abandoned in the transition to PSR – preventing disasters like this from happening again.

Bring The Railroads Into Public Ownership Railroad Workers United adopted a resolution in the fall of 2022 that ended with: “Be it finally resolved that RWU urges all labor unions, environmental and community groups… and others to push for a modern publicly owned rail system, one that serves the nation’s passengers, shippers, communities, and citizens.”

The events in Ohio underscore the importance of this conclusion a million times over.

Far from the capitalist promise that private ownership of industry delivers innovation, the North American railroads being in private hands has meant the industry has contracted, become increasingly inefficient, and become more dangerous for workers, the planet, and communities like East Palestine.

We need public ownership of the railroads and all other industries that are essential to the functioning of our society but are hamstrung by the thirst for profit. It’s only on this basis that we can begin building a future free of disasters like we see in East Palestine today. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

BLACK WORKERS AND THE LABOR RESURGENCE MANUEL CRUZ, BOSTON After decades of decline, the labor movement in the U.S. has been gaining some momentum. According to the NLRB, more than 2,000 petitions to form a union were filed in the U.S. last year, the most since 2015.

Gallup reports 71% of Americans say they approve of labor unions, the highest number since 1965.

Non-white workers are playing a key role in all this progress, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing 231,000 non-white workers joined union ranks in 2022.

Black workers are more likely than white workers to be part of a union, and currently have the highest unionization rates of any racial and ethnic group at 12.8%. While that’s a far cry from 1983, when 31.7% of Black workers were unionized, Black workers are also highly represented in many of the workforces currently engaged in labor struggle, including health care, transportation, and the service industry.

That means that attacks on unions are also attacks on Black workers. It also means any advancements in labor struggle can help raise living standards for Black workers and reduce racial inequality.

The ongoing battle to organize Amazon warehouses and delivery centers has already seen Black workers taking a lead. A key example of this is the Amazon Labor Union’s (ALU) organizing success in Staten Island, led by Chris Smalls alongside a team of Black and brown worker leaders. This is just the first step in not only organizing Amazon, but winning contracts that can inspire other workers to organize a powerful movement of the multiracial working class.

Black workers have the potential to play a historic role in helping to shape this next era of labor struggle, using the labor movement as a lever to increase living standards for workers, while also fighting for political and social equality.

Still, the existence of a union in itself is not enough. History is littered with examples of unions that have failed to help Black workers move the needle on racial and economic inequality, either through outright discrimination or strategic missteps. Today, the leaderships of the majority of unions have accepted a failed policy of looking to make gains through conciliation with the bosses, rather than organizing powerful movements of workers to win real gains. One important task for Black workers today is to adopt a fighting approach that builds labor struggle around the socialist principles of mass movements and militant tactics in order to be a more effective vehicle to advance Black freedom.

MARCH 2023

Unions And The Fight Against Racism From Reconstruction to the early 20th century, Black workers were often excluded from participating in trade unions due to entrenched racism. The tide began to shift after the First World War, when hundreds of thousands of Black Americans migrated to the north fleeing Jim Crow and racist violence. They found work in the fast-growing automotive, shipbuilding, steel, and meatpacking industries.

From there, under the leadership of the new labor federation, the CIO, Black workers would participate in some of the most explosive and formative union struggles in American history in the 1930s. This led to dramatic improvements in working conditions and living standards for millions of Americans. Along the way, they also played key roles in pushing their unions to adopt a radical agenda for labor and civil rights.

Take the case of the United Auto Workers union (UAW) in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Black workers in Detroit were initially skeptical of joining the UAW, a new union, due to its affiliation with the notoriously racist American Federation of Labor (AFL).

However, they also recognized the key role collective bargaining could play in advancing Black struggle. In deciding to join UAW, Black delegates made specific demands of the union, including allowing Black women to apply for jobs, creating an official grievance process, equal opportunities for promotions and apprenticeships, and representation on key leadership bodies.

Over time, more Black auto workers joined

FIGHTING RACISM Charleston hospital strike of 1969.

What Makes Labor Struggle Successful?

Bringing some of these lessons forward, a militant labor movement can be a vehicle for Black and white workers to organize together in common struggle, including against racism. Unionized workers can push for strong politicized demands that provide more substance to unions’ Amazon Labor Union general anti-racist slogans, which (ALU), an independent union, can often be easily co-opted or succeeded in unionizing distorted by the bosses. For examthe first ever Amazon wareple, to co-opt the “Black Lives house in the U.S. Speaking Matter at work” slogan adopted by is Derrick Palmer, one of the union organizers in Bessemer, Alafounding members of ALU. bama, Amazon introduced a Black Employee Network (BEN) as a way to cynically win the support of a small minority of Black workers to oppose the union.

Unionized workers pushing for an anti-racist agenda can demand explicit language in contracts, demanding transparency in wage scales, promotions, and benefits. But racism can’t be eradicated through a union contract alone, which is why it will be important for unions to connect shop floor organizing to wider movements. Socialists have played a key role in bringing this wider perspective to unions, demonstrating in action what solidarity looks like. For example, during the 2020 George Floyd protests, bus drivers with Minthe UAW, although many were slow to fully trust the union. With guidance from an alli- neapolis’ Local 1005 union refused to transance of local and national union organizers, port protesters to jail in opposition to police members of the Communist Party, and key repression.

The bosses have used racism as a key Black organizers like Shelton Tappes, Black workers took part in UAW sit-ins, leafleting, tool to divide workers against one another. walkouts, and picketing. In 1941, the UAW Using the labor movement as a battering ram secured a contract with Ford that included against racist division is an essential way to an anti-discrimination clause negotiated by demonstrate that our interests as workers Tappes. Radical Black workers played a key are linked. This is the meaning of solidarity.

Rebuilding the labor movement is an essenrole in making this victory possible. tial task in the fight for Black freedom. J In another example, from the 1950s through the 1970s, Local 1199 of the Drug and Hospital Union became renowned for its uncompromising militant organizing on behalf of Black workers. Formed initially to represent drugstore clerks in Harlem, the union would eventually represent as many as 36,500 hospital workers and 5,000 pharmacy workers by 1970.

It earned the admiration of figures like Malcolm X and MLK (who called it his “favorite” union), not only by explicitly linking labor organizing to the fight against racism and oppression, but also by adopting fighting tactics in struggles like the two-month long

SOCIALIST

ALTERNATIVE

In honor of Black History Month, the Black Caucus of Socialist Alternative hosted a public meeting to discuss the lessons of one of the greatest revolutionaries in American history – Fred Hampton. Fred Hampton, and other Black revolutionaries like him such as Malcolm X, understood that the fight against racial oppression is directly connected to the fight against capitalism.

It is clear that the racism that Hampton fought against is still very alive under American capitalism and the question of how to bring workingclass struggle into the fight for racial justice is entering many people’s minds. This is why

we look back at figures like Hampton.

The meeting had 85 attendees at its height, and as that number implies, it had a multi-faceted discussion not just about Hampton and his politics but about important questions facing the Black freedom movement like the importance of multicultural struggle and the role of the entirety of the working class in fighting against racism and capitalist oppression. These discussions highlighted the eagerness of many to reignite the fight against racism with working-class tactics, a task to which the Black Caucus of Socialist Alternative and the organization as a whole are fiercely committed. J

DAKOTA CASTROJARRETT, PITTSBURGH

BLACK CAUCUS

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L ABOR

INTERVIEW

AG: Some of the biggest concerns we had as a store revolved around staffing and scheduling. My coworkers are hoping for a more consistently staffed floor every single day of business, as well as being able to depend on a more consistent weekly schedule.

CB: In addition to more consistent and Two Starbucks baristas in Evanston, IL discuss humane staffing and how they won a unanimous vote at their store, scheduling, I would add and what’s next to win the demands they’re that we were all motifighting for. vated to organize for significantly higher wages and bigger annual they unionized for. raises.

We also want all workers to be eligible for J What strategies did you use to win your health care and other benefits – beginning on unanimous vote at your Starbucks store? their first day.

AG: I think the most impactful strategy

WINNING A UNION AT STARBUCKS DIANE STOKES, CHICAGO In late January, Starbucks workers in Evanston, at Chicago Avenue and Main Street, voted unanimously to join Starbucks Workers United. Over the past year, employees at 14 other Starbucks stores in Illinois have voted to unionize along with over 280 stores nationally. Workers are organizing and demanding safer working conditions, more staffing, and better wages and benefits.

Starbucks corporate’s reaction to employees asserting their rights has been brutal. The company has used a range of union-busting tactics including firings, store closures, denying benefits, and reducing hours to take away health care. This puts pressure on the union movement to win a contract that will deliver on workers’ demands and defeat the retaliatory attacks.

The power of the union comes from building strong rank and file solidarity in the workplace and with the wider movement. ASHLEY GRAHAM and CONNOR BRENNAN, union baristas from the Starbucks in Evanston, explain how they joined with others to win a unanimous vote to unionize at their store, and what’s next in the fight to win the demands

that led to the unanimous vote was sharing accurate information about what joining a union means for us workers. We had consistent weekly meetings for roughly two months before going public. We encouraged questions and comments, and exchanged information. Everyone in the store was thoroughly informed about other stores’ movements and what our own could look like.

CB: In particular, we had several individual and group conversations to inoculate our coworkers against retaliation and antiunion propaganda. We anticipated many of the arguments management might use to try to sway us into voting no. Since we discussed these arguments ahead of time and explained why they were untrue or misleading, we were all better equipped to handle the union-busting meetings and weren’t caught off-guard or easily manipulated.

J What were the things your coworkers cared about most that convinced them to vote yes for the union?

FIGHT TO UNIONIZE AMAZON HEATS UP AT CINCINNATI AIR HUB CHRIS GRAY, MINNEAPOLIS Amazon workers are preparing to start collecting union authorization cards at Amazon’s KCVG Air Hub in northern Kentucky.

Collecting authorization cards is the first formal step in organizing a union. Once enough cards are collected, there will be an election where every worker can vote. If the workers win the vote, then they will have won

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the union and the next step will be fighting for a good union contract. Amazon will put up resistance at every stage of the campaign. The stakes are high.

Jeff Bezos personally broke ground on the KCVG Air Hub in 2019. KCVG’s current parking capacity is 33 planes, though it will eventually have enough aircraft parking for 100 cargo planes. For reference, the UPS Worldport in Louisville, Kentucky has

continue to build the movement and escalate toward a contract. We want to work with other stores across Illinois to plan these actions with as many workers as possible, reach more stores, make use of all our resources, community support, and critically evaluate our work so each action can be stronger and more effective than the last.

J To build the movement for a strong union at Starbucks, what kind of collaboration do you think is going to be necessary with workers at other stores in the Chicago area?

AG: I think that showing up for each other as partners, on the ground and online will build a strong movement. Whether we show support during a sip-in, picket at a strike, or something as simple as sharing on Twitter when another store has filed or voted yes. It’s been surreal being uplifted and celebrated by so many different organizers and stores.

The continuation of physical support is key in growing the movement and reaching a contract.

CB: The Chicago area is interesting, because the movement was slower to take off here initially, but now we are gaining momentum locally at a critical moment in the campaign. We have had four stores in Illinois win union votes in December and January, including two unanimous wins.

I am very excited to be working alongside a really solid group of worker-organizers. We want to collaborate to support newly organizing stores as well as to protect each other by uniting against retaliation. We also need to be able to coordinate collective actions as we

J How do you foresee your battle for a strong contract as different from the fight to win your union? What kind of tactics do you think will be necessary to win?

AG: I think the biggest difference in the “battles” is the reach outward for support, rather than reaching inward. In order to win the union, we had to build our strength as a store team. We had to stay consistent in our conversations and build excitement within our individual ecosystem to achieve union status.

Now that we are there, we must bring in other sources of strength: other baristas/ stores, local organizers, community supporters, SBWU resources, friends, family and more. We now need the public recognition and push so that Starbucks hears and responds to our need for a contract. The more stores, community, and union supporters to build a movement – the better.

CB: I absolutely agree. The biggest factors in winning our union were the trust, solidarity, and communication we built between the workers at our store. In order to win a contract and our demands, it will take more than that. We need to build the movement and unite with workers across many stores as well as community and labor allies. We will need to be able to shut down business to force Starbucks to negotiate with us. This can only happen if more stores continue to organize, and are capable of taking a series of highly coordinated and escalating actions, and particularly strikes.

Smaller local actions like sip-ins, rallies, and informational leafleting can also definitely be useful in building momentum and boosting the profile of the campaign. However, these actions alone won’t build the kind of economic pressure we need to win a contract, but should be seen as ways to supplement and build toward larger actions that aim to shut down production and profits. J

capacity for 125 planes. KCVG alone processes up to 35% of freight in Amazon’s air freight network, with further development bringing the site’s share of volume up to 80%.

The union campaign started when a small group of workers launched a petition in response to Amazon’s stingy decision to revoke holiday “Peak Pay.” These workers met almost daily after work, and convened a wider general meeting to discuss the key demands, make decisions democratically, and decide the next steps in the campaign.

Demands have played an essential role in communicating what the union is fighting for. The main demands are for a $30 per hour starting wage, 180 hours of paid time off without a cap on accrued time, and union representation at all disciplinary meetings. They are working on a longer list of demands around healthcare, pensions, and safety as well.

The only way Amazon can succeed at stomping out a unionization effort is to lie, manipulate, and intimidate workers to vote against their own interests. One of their favorite union-busting tools is to fire worker leaders. Recently the NLRB ruled that Amazon was illegally firing union organizers.

On January 17, Amazon fired Edward Clarke at KCVG, Darryl Richardson in Bessemer, Alabama, along with many other workers.

In response, workers launched a Defend Ed petition, distributed hundreds of “Rehire Ed” buttons at work, and organized a rally with union members and community supporters.

On March 18, KCVG workers will launch the next phase of their campaign at a rally near the Air Hub with their coworkers, members of Amazon Labor Union from Staten Island, unionized workers from the greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area, representatives from Workers Strike Back, and other community supporters. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

SHORT STAFFED WORKPL ACE

TYLER VASSEUR

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS, BRANCH 9

M A I L C a r r i e r

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the “Great Resignation,” an aging workforce, cost cutting measures from Postmaster General DeJoy’s disastrous 10-Year Plan, and poor working conditions have created a staffing crisis for the post office.

In many areas letter carriers are working forced overtime of 10, 12, and even 14 hours a day, and entire towns and communities are experiencing mail delays of up to a week or more. We’ve been told to file grievances against management in hopes the sheer amount of them will force federal arbitrators to intervene, but grievances filed in July have still not been processed!

National bargaining in our union started on February 22 and a lot is at stake. In 2022, NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers) Branch 9 in Minneapolis formed an Organizing Committee. The purpose of this committee was to help build solidarity and support for other unions who are going on strike or for organizing campaigns, and to organize internally within our union and strengthen rank and file involvement.

Organizing Committees like this should be formed in every NALC branch across the country.

We need clear demands to energize our membership. This includes abolishing the two-tier payscale. Start new hires on the Table 1 (meaning an immediate raise for new hires from $19 to $32 an hour), raise max pay to $42 (similar to UPS), end mandatory overtime, and fully fund the post office to hire staff. Clear demands like this should be linked to building public rallies across the country to mobilize public support behind the post office, an agency that polls show is viewed multiple times more favorable than Congress. J

JOE SUGRUE

NORTHSHORE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

T E A C H E R

In the last two years, public education lost about 7% of its educators. A survey done by the NEA last year found that an alarming 55% of teachers have made plans to leave before retirement. Teachers are fed up with comparatively low wages, increasing behavioral challenges, feeling disrespected and safety concerns, excessive paperwork and planning, and lack of administrative support.

This is deeply unfortunate, both because of the necessity of a strong public school system, and because most teachers join the profession in the first place with a passion for educating. Rank-and-file teachers need to become active and organized in their unions, and not buy into negotiating tactics such as “interest-based bargaining” which see the district and the workers as equal partners. Also, we should not view “the district” as the only enemy, because sometimes it is true that the district itself has no more money to give; that responsibility lies squarely with the politicians who have been unwilling to tax the rich to fully fund education.

All educators need an immediate 25% raise and reimbursement for classroom expenses. We need tuition reimbursement for people entering the field. There is much more we can do to make the job better. Educators need more control over curriculum, input over testing and professional development. We need to fully fund public schools and end the expansion of charter schools, many of which are non-union, for-profit, and ineffective.

We need real solutions to the deep social crises our students face, including free breakfast and lunch, common sense gun control, etc. None of this will happen if our unions continue to support the same corporate politicians, mostly Democrats, who caused the crisis educators face. J

MARCH 2023

U N I O N W O R K E R S O N T H E S TA F F I N G C R I S I S ADAM BURCH

AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION, LOCAL 1005

B U S D R I V E R

Metro Transit is down some 300 drivers from the normal 1,200 bus drivers. Transit workers were among the hardest hit during the pandemic. Politicians, mainly Democrats, have taken the opportunity to propose cuts to services. Safety is a big issue, but more police isn’t the answer. This narrow focus doesn’t address the structural issues that put operators and riders at risk, and make the job seem impossible.

Transit workers’ wage increases have not kept up with inflation, which is why ATU 1005 is demanding a cost of living adjustment back in our contract this year, along with a series of proposals to expand transit, make it safe, and bring back ridership.

Unfortunately, the ATU International President John Costa is pointing in the opposite direction, blaming reduced fares for the crisis, doubling down on a failed strategy scapegoating homeless people while cheerleading the same politicians who created this mess.

Skilled social worker teams should be employed to rapidly respond to potentially dangerous situations to de-escalating conflict and offer state resources to those that need them. We need to reduce fares, end chronic short-staffing, and expand transit routes. Studies have shown that there is safety in numbers. Assaults are more likely to occur when there are fewer people on trains and buses.

We need to tax the rich and fully fund housing, health care, and social services.

There is a direct correlation between the chronic underfunding of healthcare, housing, and basic social services, and the increase in antisocial behavior. Without real answers to these structural issues, transit operators and riders are forced to the front lines of this social crisis. J

MARTY HARRISON

PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF STAFF NURSES AND ALLIED PROFESSIONALS

N U R S E

Health care workers and patients are in a desperate situation created by our profit-driven health care industry, then exacerbated by the profound crisis of the pandemic. Thousands of our co-workers left the field forever. Young workers have taken up the challenge, but there are too few seasoned, experienced workers to provide them with the on-the-job training they need to be competent.

Patients are suffering. Their meds are late, they are in pain. All because we are short-staffed. Ongoing supply chain disruptions mean that every day, some essential medication, supply, or piece of equipment is unavailable.

The massive pandemic-related stimulus to the hospitals and relaxation of Medicaid income limits for patients, which benefited so many, are winding down.

This combination is setting up a perfect storm of budget cuts, hospital closures, and benefit denials which will further undermine public health and our ability to combat the next crisis.

Patients need Medicare for All with mental health care, dental care, and preventative care. Restoring public health will require real investment in treating underlying social crises which are manifesting as opioid abuse and gun violence.

Millions of healthcare workers are not yet members of any union. Healthcare workers’ unions must launch a national organizing drive to bring these workers into the struggle for our patients and our livelihood. To win, our unions must take a fighting, class struggle approach and be prepared to strike, to shut our institutions down, until the boss delivers what we need to provide safe, quality care at the bedside. J

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WHERE IS THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT? KAILYN NICHOLSON, SEATTLE After decades of painfully slow yet measurable progress for women – a shrinking wage gap; increasing awareness of gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence; and more women being elected to public office – working-class women and girls in the United States were sold a lie that women’s equality had been accomplished. This is a far cry from the actual experiences of increasing inequality and oppression, most acutely shown through a new normalization of misogyny. The fact that this is happening under a Democratic administration, and just a few years after the 2017 Women’s March made history as the largest single-day street protest in American history, is both confusing and deeply demoralizing, especially for young women.

A recent CDC survey found that nearly three in five teenage girls felt persistent sadness in 2021, and one in three seriously considered attempting suicide. In 2020, over half of all women in the U.S. – 51.2% – received mental health services.

Conditions Facing Women Today The alarming rates of depression among women and girls are the product of our concrete life experiences. The rate of teenage girls who report having been forced to have sex at some point in their lives is increasing (currently 14%), and the same is true for LGBTQ youth (20%). It’s well documented that young women who frequently use social media are also facing a self-esteem crisis. The epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses impacts one in five women, yet only one student in 12,400 is expelled for sexual assault. Domestic violence against women rose dramatically during COVID lockdows and has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

Links between restrictive abortion laws and increased rates of suicide for women were proven by large-scale studies well before the overturn of Roe v Wade. Today, abortion restrictions exist in 29 of 50 states.

Along with increasing legal repression of women’s rights, popular consciousness and culture are featuring markedly higher degrees of sexism. Andrew Tate and other right-wing influencers are popularizing shockingly misogynistic ideas to disaffected young men while high-profile public “showdowns” like the Depp v. Heard trial act as a release valve for cultural misogyny and polarization. These are just a few

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of the best-known examples of how anger at the alienation and disintegration of the social fabric is being diverted from the true culprits – the rich and powerful – towards the age-old scapegoat, women.

Working-class young men are undeniably suffering from an objective scarcity of living wage jobs and wages that are failing to keep pace with inflation. There is a mental health and addiction crisis ravaging the lives of many young men, with suicide deaths for young men outnumbering those of young women by degrees of magnitude. Men account for almost 70% of the opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. But far from being the result of feminism – as vultures like Tate would have you believe – the blame lies with the exact capitalist system these right-wing figures defend. If feminism was behind the declining conditions facing working-class men, why is it that women suffer the most from economic precarity?

During the depths of the pandemic, 13.6 million women – 18% of the entire U.S. female population – lost their jobs. And while the overall rebounding of women’s employment figures is being broadly celebrated, those figures mask deepening inequalities between women, where wealthier women are seeing modest gains in their standard of living while working-class women fall further and further behind.

Women with college degrees now have higher rates of employment than before the pandemic while women without college degrees have not yet returned to pre-pandemic employment levels. Recent decreases in unemployment levels for Black women are also being touted, yet Black women continue to face unemployment at significantly higher rates than white women (4.7% to 2.8%). A disproportionate number of women who have reentered the workforce post-pandemic are, as before, working in the service and hospitality sectors. These sectors are particularly sensitive to recessions, meaning the recession that nearly every mainstream economist is now predicting for 2023 will undoubtedly wipe out many of these recently reestablished jobs.

Employment rates only tell a fraction of the story. While the pay gap between men and women has shrunk over the decades, it remains the case that women earn on average 18% less than men. Add to this the fact that the burden of caring for children and family members, both economically and physically, falls overwhelmingly on women’s shoulders and the real economic divide becomes even deeper. In 2022, women were five to eight

times more likely to experience a caregiving impact on their employment than men.

Absence Of A Mass Fightback Compared to the height of the Women’s Marches after Trump’s election, or the spontaneous and viral #MeToo movement, the absence of a mass fighting resistance to the overturn of Roe stands out starkly.

The fact that these earlier movements failed to meaningfully improve the lives of workingclass and young women is almost certainly a major factor in spreading pessimism and disillusionment about the efficacy of protesting among broad sections of young women.

The primary blame for the demobilization of these struggles after 2016 lies with the Democrats and liberal non-profit leaders. As Democrats corralled the mass Women’s March protests into a “vote Blue” midterm campaign, Trump was undeterred neither in his misogynistic rhetoric nor his systematic defunding of health, housing, and low-income services, relied on disproportionately by women.

anger at the alienation and disintegration of the social fabric is being diverted from the true culprits – the rich and powerful – towards the age-old scapegoat, women.

When perhaps the most high profile #MeToo case broke out in the halls of power in D.C. with the appointment hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Democrats did absolutely nothing. In fact, it was the “yes” vote of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin that ultimately tipped the scales in favor of Kavanaugh.

The #MeToo movement certainly had an important effect on people’s understanding of gender based violence, and the movement succeeded in bringing down notorious abusers like Harvey Weinstein and Larry Nassar. But sexual assault and harassment remain a nearconstant threat, especially for poor women, women of color, and transgender women.

The fact that there was not a mass fighting defense of Roe falls at the feet of so-called “leaders” of the women’s movement. Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Biden Administration,

and the Democratic majority in Congress (featuring more women than ever before in American history) were looked to by millions for a lead in fighting back after the initial leak of the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. After decades of campaigning and fundraising on defending abortion rights, the best these misleaders had to offer was handwringing about Republicans and preparing for a “post-Roe” world – fundraising for the travel assistance and mutual aid networks that would be necessary, but never sufficient – once abortion restrictions were passed.

Again, as with the Women’s Marches and the #MeToo movement, the mass anger at this historic attack on women’s rights was channeled into a “vote Blue” midterm campaign, which succeeded in winning more Congressional seats for Democrats but did nothing to expand abortion access or reverse the overall crisis facing women. After having been in office for more than two years, Biden has yet to reverse the Trump administration’s total gutting of Title IX protections which stripped students of protections against gender-based discrimination in schools.

Conditions have continued to deteriorate for working-class people of all genders under the Biden administration, leaving the space wide open for the right wing to put forward their own backwards explanation. They point toward the “feminist movement” and the “war on men” as the reason for falling living standards and the fraying of the social fabric. Absent any honest explanation from establishment politicians for why working class men continue to face chronically low wages, diminishing job opportunities, and poor health outcomes, we’re seeing many men driven into the arms of the right. This creates a very dangerous set of circumstances for women and girls who are now confronted with reinvigorated misogyny from their coworkers, peers, significant others, and sons.

Rebuilding A Fighting Women’s Movement The women’s movement may be dormant in the U.S. right now, but that doesn’t mean there’s no potential to revive it and turn the tides against sexist culture, laws, and economic conditions. There have been important flashpoints of struggle amidst the broader downturn that indicate a continued desire to fight among working-class and young women.

Despite the best efforts of the Democrats and mainstream women’s organizations to channel S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

anger at the Dobbs ruling into “vote Blue” campaigns, explosive protests still happened in dozens of cities across the U.S. Rather than hand-wringing and sad acceptance of an inevitable post-Roe future, these protests were characterized by deep anger and determination not to accept the rolling back of women’s basic rights.

Some limited victories have been won on this basis. Socialists in Seattle and Dane County, WI mobilized to pass abortion sanctuary laws, ensuring that women who travel there seeking abortions won’t be sent home to face legal charges. Voters in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont reinforced abortion protections by turning out in huge numbers to vote on ballot measures in the 2022 midterms.

The instinctive solidarity that exists between young people active in the fight against sexism, LGBTQ oppression, and racism shows the potential that exists to unite anti-oppression struggles

and use our strength in numbers to more effectively fight back against right-wing attacks. This solidarity is antithetical to the rigidly siloed identity politics of many misleaders, which only serves to keep oppressed groups isolated and vulnerable, playing right into the divide-andconquer strategy of the far right and ruling class.

Socialist feminism is the opposite of “girlboss,” exclusionary feminism. It bases itself on the principles of solidarity and class unity that so many young people instinctively gravitate towards, because lived experience teaches us that working class women have more in common with working class people of all genders and racial identities than we do with rich women. More women CEOs exploiting workingclass women and men does nothing to further the feminist movement. In fact, it can in some instances undermine the ability of workingclass women to advance our interests by papering over the grim realities of the economic

ROSA International Socialist Feminists and International Socialist Alternative In 1908, 15,000 garment workers marched through the streets of New York to protest their working conditions, demand an eight-hour work day, a pay rise, an immediate end to child labor, and the right to vote.

The next year, the Socialist Party of America declared the first “National Women’s Day” in recognition of their struggle. In 1910, pioneering German socialist feminist Clara Zetkin, inspired by the New York garment workers, proposed the adoption of an international working women’s day. This proposal sought to link the universal struggle for women’s political and social rights to the fight for an end to exploitation of all workers; and conversely, to link the fight to end the exploitation of workers to the struggle for women’s political and social rights.

The following year, more than one million women took part in marches and meetings to mark the first International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day (IWD) 2023 approaches as the wave of women leading movements and struggles against oppression and capitalist exploitation continues to develop, often explosively. The dire consequences of war, mass hunger, climate destruction, political crisis, and social breakdown falls heaviest on working-class and impoverished women around the world. It is no surprise that they are fighting back.

Since IWD 2022, new explosive and revolutionary

situation facing the vast majority of women.

All working-class people share a common interest in fighting back against the all-sided attack on our ability to earn a stable living. Our enemy is not each other, but the tiny minority of wealthy bosses, served by their loyal politicians in both parties, who appropriate the vast majority of the wealth that we create through our labor and leave us to fall further and further behind.

Women’s rights are workers’ rights, and this has been shown through the crucial role women have played in the revitalized labor movement – from the Starbucks unionization effort to the New York nurses strike.

The labor movement needs to aggressively mobilize against all forms of sexism. But we can’t sit back and wait for this to happen; we need to proactively fight against sexism and complacency in the labor movement by organizing our workplaces and bringing fighting demands into existing unions. Using the

economic leverage of organized labor (the ability to shut off the flow of profits via strikes and slow-downs) to fight for a $25/hr minimum wage, free abortion on demand, free universal childcare, and paid family leave would absolutely transform the women’s movement while bringing millions of women and young people enthusiastically into the labor movement.

Our potential strength is in our numbers and our willingness to use them in a coordinated, strategic way to win our demands. Together, working-class women, LGBTQ people, people of color, and all those whose labor is being exploited to make a rich boss richer represent 99% of society. By getting organized in our workplaces and schools, we can harness our collective power to shut down businesses and institutions that refuse to meet our demands.J

struggles have taken place, with working-class and young women on the front line. In Iran, the slogan “women, life, freedom” has captured the mood of a generation unwilling to accept the systematic brutality of the Iranian regime, whose rule relies on the oppression, subjugation, and rigid control over women and their bodies.

In 2023, socialist feminists organized in ROSA and International Socialist Alternative (ISA) will draw inspiration from such struggles and seek to play our part in organizing protests to fight for all the things that women need to live free of oppression – from abortion rights to a fully funded care sector, a society free from fear and violence, an end to right-wing attacks on migrants, and more.

Struggling for equality and an ending of oppression necessitates a truly radical vision for change. It means struggling for the socialist alternative to capitalism. This means disempowering the parasitic capitalist class that is profiting from sexism and destruction of the ecosystem. It means taking the wealth and resources out of private hands – and for democratic, public control and ownership of the banks and the major corporations, the key levers of the economy.

The sort of socialist change that is required to really end oppression would necessitate a mass and revolutionary struggle. Women have an integral role to play in any such revolt of the working class and oppressed masses.

Demands for bodily autonomy, freedom from violence, free and high-quality childcare and elder care, public housing, rent cuts, price controls, and an end to racism and transphobia all must be inextricably part of that movement. That very reality means that in the process of building such a movement, as well as building major political forces organized around revolutionary and internationalist socialist ideas, all sorts of enduring sexist and oppressive attitudes and behaviors as they reflect themselves amongst the exploited majority will be challenged.

Build the socialist feminist struggle internationally with us on International Women’s Day and beyond! J

INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY 2023 – women in struggle MARCH 2023

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S P O R T S for about 85% of this one billion.

As a nonprofit organization, the NCAA purports to focus “on cultivating an environment that emphasizes academics, fairness and wellbeing across college sports.”

All of that sounds lovely, but something doesn’t add up here.

CHRIS CARROLL, CHICAGO March Madness is here! For one month, college basketball treats fans to one of the most exciting tournaments in sports, full of dazzling skill and dramatic upsets. Under capitalism, however, alongside all this excitement is a dark underbelly of exploitation. This is most readily apparent in college athletics and it’s even worse for women. However, there is a growing movement being taken up by the players to change this through trying to organize a union.

Big Revenue, Small Paycheck The March Madness tournament is the “property” of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which rakes in roughly one billion dollars annually from media rights fees, ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, and television ads. March Madness accounts

All of these proceeds are amassed on the backs of athletes who are wildly shortchanged in terms of compensation. Top football and basketball coaches can make up to eight or nine million a year. The schools rake in millions from TV deals and merchandising.

But, after totaling the value of an average scholarship and room and board, universities spend around only $70,000 on athletes per year, little of which actually ends up in athletes’ hands. While players make steals on the basketball court, it is their coaches, university administrations, and the NCAA who thieve billions.

Gender Imbalance Millions of people love watching women’s sports as much or more than men’s sports.

The gender imbalance in sports is cultivated by the owners of professional teams, the corporate media, and groups like the NCAA. March Madness is no exception. Up until 2021, the disparities for men’s and women’s

March Madness were extreme, as vastly different resources have been made available based on gender.

The NCAA sells TV rights to men’s March Madness separate from all other tournaments and uses some fuzzy math to claim that the women’s tournament is a money loser. Groups like Our Fair Shot, made up of women athletes and coaches, are calling for more transparency in the profitability of these events, and also correctly point out people’s “preferences” are shaped by the fact billions more dollars are spent on marketing and promoting men’s sports.

If the profit motive was removed from sports and they were run democratically by the players themselves, these artificial imbalances and divisions would fade away.

Can’t Rely On The Courts If the players wish to combat this exploitation and sexism, they will need more than teamwork. They will need to organize unions and build solidarity across fans, college communities, and sports communities. However, relying solely on the legal system is not the way to win union recognition across college sports.

Capitalist institutions like the court system and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have consistently ruled against the interests of college athletes. Even when this pattern breaks, such as the recent Johnson vs NCAA case ruling that college athletes fit the definition of an employee and therefore have a right to an hourly wage and overtime pay, there is an entire maze of appeals that cost millions of dollars to navigate. The NCAA and its affiliated universities have more than enough money to tie up the most well-meaning cases in the courts.

Furthermore, in an attempt to cut across

any momentum toward the recognition of student athletes as employees, the forming of unions, and the class awareness that could form in the process of fighting against their bosses–the NCAA adopted an interim policy that allows athletes to earn money from their names, images, and likenesses (NIL). This policy feeds illusions in entrepreneurialism and self-promotion, and affects only a small subset of the best athletes who have a better chance of making a living off the sport. But the vast majority of athletes never have that option.

Neither college athletes nor any working people can rely upon the legal system, they must rely upon their own independent political power. The most surefire way to ensure compensation and the rights to collectively bargain for it is to get organized on the courts rather than through the courts.

Strike For Recognition In reality, workers do not need legal permission to form a union. Historically, the first unions were illegal but workers formed them anyway to address the problems of their daily lives. College athletes can and should do the same.

Advocacy groups like College Athletes Players Association and National College Players Association should take an organizing approach rather than a legal approach. They should begin a determined, multi-school organizing effort based upon a bold set of demands around which college athletes could rally.

Coordination among the established pro unions and the first handful of declared college player unions would lay the basis for collective, escalatory action that builds toward a strike. Such a fighting approach would be needed not only for union recognition, but also to force the exploiters to the bargaining table for a first contract. The NCAA, the universities, and the overpaid coaches aren’t playing games when it comes to ensuring their interests–neither should we! J

30% of LGBTQ People Live In A State With A Trans Sports Ban GREYSON VAN ARSDALE, CHICAGO In 2020, the Republican Party took an absurdly specific issue and started to run with it – thus began the crusade to ban transgender student athletes from participating in sports teams that correspond to their gender identity, under the guise of “protecting womens’ sports.” Idaho became the first state to ban transgender girls from participating in girls sports in March of that year, alongside other legislation preventing transgender people from legally changing their birth certificates.

Since then, Republican-controlled states across the U.S. have eagerly taken up similar legislation.

In 2020 and 2021, 83 such bills were introduced into legislatures.

While many of the bills have failed, 18 states now ban trans athletes from participating in sports teams

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corresponding to their gender identity, meaning that an estimated 30% of LGBTQ people now live in a state with a ban.

The bans overwhelmingly target miniscule numbers of transgender student athletes. In Utah, the state’s ban – which has been amended by a court to allow trans athletes after approval by a panel – would only apply to one known trans athlete, according to the state’s school athletic association.

Current proposed legislation in Ohio would similarly target six athletes.

While there is little evidence that working-class people broadly desire these policies (just 8% say they’ve been following the news about it), the continued push by the GOP to scapegoat transgender people has had a measurable effect on public opinion. In 2017, 44% of Pew Research poll respondents believed that someone’s gender could be different

from the sex they were assigned at birth – by 2021 that shrank to 41%, and dropped even more sharply to 38% just a year later.

Still, 64% of Americans favor protecting transgender people from discrimination, even as right-wing fervor whips support behind discriminatory policies like trans sports bans.

Now, a growing number of trans sports bans are going beyond K-12 athletes and aim to exclude collegiate-level trans athletes as well.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott vowed at a young conservatives conference in Dallas to ban trans women from women’s teams at the college level, after already passing a K-12 ban in 2021. Ohio’s revised version of a trans sports ban that failed last year includes a collegiate ban and was re-introduced to the legislature in February.

Participating in high school team sports is linked to higher

self-esteem, better social skills, and fewer depressive symptoms.

Students who participate in team sports also tend to perform better academically, and are more likely to develop lifelong fitness habits.

Systematically excluding transgender student athletes from the teams that correspond to their gender identity not only compounds the bullying and harassment that many already face in their schools, but strips them of opportunities for development and growth.

Increasingly, transgender students find themselves marginalized in their schools. Many of them are now banned from participating in sports, and other Republican legislative pushes aim to force teachers to “out” trans kids to their parents without their consent. Some states, including Florida and Texas, have already limited schools from teaching students about gender and sexuality,

further ostracizing transgender students. Despite this, there has not been any attempt by Democrats to implement legislation protecting the rights of transgender people.

The reality, despite Republicans and major media outlets spreading misinformation about transgender people, is that the majority of Americans support protecting transgender people from discrimination.

Teachers’ and nurses’ unions, parents’ associations, athletic associations, and student groups should publicly oppose trans sports bans and all other forms of transgender marginalization.

Student activist groups in states like Florida have admirably mobilized to out-of-the-way legislative meetings to pack public comment, but this is needed on a much bigger scale to stop the right wing’s advance on trangender people. J S O C I A L I S TA LT E R N AT I V E . O R G

I N F L AT I O N

HOW DID EGGS GET SO EXPENSIVE?

GRACE FORS, CHICAGO In January of 2022, walking out of the grocery store with a dozen large Grade A eggs would have put you out $1.93. In December, that number shot up to $4.25.

Inflation and rising interest rates have brought countless new economic stressors into our lives. Thanks to the ending of pandemic-era SNAP benefits on March 1, food stamp recipients can expect at least $95 less per month in assistance. Still, it’s particularly stunning to experience what has always been a staple food for working class people, and one of the most affordable sources of protein in a sea of cheap processed food, starting to cost an arm and a leg.

According to the USDA, Americans consume an average of 278 eggs per person every year; it’s breakfast on most days. Among all the common grocery items that have seen major price increases in 2022 – like butter, oats, and breakfast cereal – the price of eggs has seen the most dramatic leap.

The ensuing chaos around “eggflation” has tended toward the absurd. The New York Times reports rising demand for at-home egg-laying chickens as a presumably cheaper alternative to buying eggs at the store. Contraband eggs are piling up at the U.S-Mexico border, where border agents report confiscating thousands of eggs per week that they then transport to a waste facility to be “steamed, sterilized, and thrown away.” Right-wing commentators like Tucker Carlson, Candance Owens, and thousands of Facebook users are pushing conspiracy theories that the Biden administration is “hiding something” about chicken feed that’s causing backyard hens to underperform. Debates about “Are Eggs Really Good For You After All?” are getting new algorithm boosts, and opinion pieces abound on how American people can “change the way we relate to eggs.”

It even made for an awkward moment at the 2023 Grammys when host Trevor Noah MARCH 2023

asked Taylor Swift if she could direct her notorious fanbase of “swifties” to lower the price of eggs when they’re finished suing Ticketmaster. The joke fell on a blank face of the near-billionaire artist, but the desire for a solution to the climbing prices was likely all too real for the millions watching at home.

The Era Of Shortages Like with the crisis of baby formula and medications, “eggflation” exposes preventable supply-side crises depleting inventories and contributing to scarcity and skyrocketing prices, which in turn are made worse by broader inflationary trends. However, the “eggflation” phenomenon, like each of the recent shortages, also has its own unique features. With such a large portion of the world’s supply of oats, corn, and barley used for animal feed coming from Ukraine and Russia, the impact of war on exports has had an impact on poultry farming in the U.S. and worldwide. Most notably, an outbreak of avian influenza (bird flu) wiped out over 58 million U.S. commercial birds in 2022 alone, including 44 million egg-laying hens.

Bird flu was detected in the U.S. in January 2022 for the first time since 2016, and the ensuing outbreak has already taken the title of the deadliest in U.S. history. The latest

WE CAN’T KEEP UP

strain of the virus is not only more lethal than past strains, but is infecting a range of migratory birds like owls, hawks, and eagles, allowing for wide geographic spread and ample room for variants. The mutant strain H5N1 recently shut down a mink facility in Spain, in an alarming sign of the possibilities for mammals to contract the disease as well.

When a facility has a bird flu outbreak, the standard response is “depopulation,” or mass extermination of all animals in a facility to stop the contagion in its tracks. There are a number of problems with this. One is that the urgent need for profit has been driving producers to restore flock numbers as rapidly as possible, even when outbreaks are still ongoing. This counteracts containment and brings the situation back to square one.

Another problem relates to the preexisting conditions of egg production: thousands of hens are warehoused in tightly-packed cages.

This is a perfect scenario for bird flu to be transmitted through droppings and feathers.

Dena Jones of the Animal Welfare Institute pointed out in a press release early last year that “Factory farms are ideal incubators for disease – cramped, filthy warehouses for massive flocks or herds of animals bred to possess little genetic diversity. Yet producers remain unwilling to effectively plan for emergencies.”

At the top of the chain of culpability is a season regular in the era of shortages: monopolies. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, advocacy group Farm Action made a convincing case that the surge in egg prices is due, in addition to other named factors, to corporate price gouging that far outpaces the impact of bird flu has had on production. The tried-and-true capitalist strategy of vertical integration (the disastrous practice wherein big companies gobbling up smaller companies to cut competition and dominate markets) has landed Cal-Maine foods with a comfortable 20% of the retail egg market.

Cal-Maine saw a ten-fold increase in profits as avian flu decimated egg production, $525 million in 2022 from $50 million a year prior.

Public Ownership Of Big Agriculture At the time of writing, shoppers may be feeling some relief as egg prices nudged down in January. But looking ahead, 47 states still have active avian flu outbreaks as of February, with infected migratory birds in all 50. With no fundamental change in how these necessities are produced, there are bound to be more shake ups on the horizon.

Of all the industries in most urgent need of being taken into democratic public

FOOD PRICES INCREASED 9.9% IN 2022.

IN 2023, THEY’RE HERE’S A BREAKEXPECTED TO FUR- DOWN OF THE USDA’S PRICE THER INCREASE BY 7.1% INCREASE PREDICTIONS FOR 2023.

ownership, Big Agriculture ranks among the highest. Production of food, our most basic of necessities, is in dire need of an overhaul as corporations create crises and have consumers foot the bill with no interruption to profits, only for disaster to strike again later on.

Taking the biggest agricultural chains into democratic public ownership would usher in a reorganization of the industry. The existing conditions could be a thing of the past, with smaller, sustainable, free-range facilities replacing the current model of overcrowded factory farms. While this might decrease yield slightly, it would ensure a higher quality product with far less waste. Over 200 million eggs are thrown away every year before they even hit grocery shelves! This is not to mention the amount of eggs rejected by stores or thrown away by consumers – eggs are among the most wasted food products in the U.S. A transition to smaller-scale farming would mitigate the risk of disease outbreak and allow for far better living conditions for the animals, lessen the astounding impact of factory farming on the environment, and improve working conditions for farm workers.

Farm workers are some of the most criminally hyper-exploited workers among all industries with a range of occupational hazards. Instead of putting the burden on workers themselves at these massive plants – as current advisories are doing – the ultra-rich bosses need to provide PPE, clean facilities, drinking water, and health care to workers. This needs to be won through a mass campaign to organize farm workers, who are overwhelmingly made up of immigrant workers without protections, and less than 1% of farm workers are in a union.

Public ownership would also allow workers and consumers to open up the books to see what’s really behind the sky-high prices.

We need massive investment in making food production safer and more sustainable.

This investment can’t be in the hands of the CEOs of monopolies like Cal-Maine who are doling out millions in profits to their shareholders. It needs to happen under the direction of farmers and consumers themselves in the best interest of public health and environmental justice.

Throughout history, including very recent history, prices for food and other necessities have been the spark for powerful mass movements. As shortages, shocks, and cost-of-living crises further expose capitalism’s inability to put food on the table, sooner or later working people will need to stand up and fight to stop the chaos that corporate greed imposes on our everyday lives, and take back the power to build a truly reliable system. J

EGGS

h27.3%

DAIRY

h8%

FATS+OILS

h16.5%

FRUITS+VEGGIES

h9.6%

CEREALS

h12%

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WA R & I M P E R I A L I S M the Ukrainian regime, with rolling corruption crises and cabinet dismissals.

If or when Zelensky signs a treaty that falls short of restoring 100% of “Ukrainian territory” there will be a fierce reaction from sections of the population who have accepted the scale of casualties and destruction in order to achieve this goal. Who is likely to lead such a struggle? At this point it would likely be the far right in Ukraine which would benefit in this situation. But given the vicious attacks on working people by the Zelensky regime, there is also the potential for the reemergence of the class struggle.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE LOOMS AS UKRAINE WAR ESCALATES TOM CREAN, NEW YORK CITY The horrific war in Ukraine, which began nearly a year ago, is by far the biggest on the European landmass since World War II. Total casualties, both dead and wounded, number in the hundreds of thousands. City after city in Eastern and Southern Ukraine have been reduced to rubble. The effects for the civilian population have been devastating. Of the pre-war population of 40 million, 8 million have fled Ukraine while 5.9 million more are internally displaced. The World Food Program estimates that one in three households in the country is food insecure.

International Socialist Alternative opposed Russian imperialism's brutal invasion from the start as well as Putin's attempt to deny Ukraine's right to even exist as a nation.

From the beginning, this war has been a battleground for the inter-imperialist conflicts which increasingly dominate our epoch, most immediately between Russian imperialism and NATO, itself a "subplot" in the wider Cold War conflict between U.S. and Chinese imperialism. Not only is the war from over, it is clearly escalating with the possibility of becoming a much wider conflict.

The Character Of The War The Ukraine war cannot be understood outside of the context of the new era of global instability, where inter-imperialist rivalry and conflict is posed in a far sharper way than during the previous era of neoliberal globalization. The inter-imperialist character of the conflict is not its only feature, because it also has the element of a fight against foreign occupation by an invaded people, as well as other features. But to put it bluntly, the motivation, suffering, and struggle of the Ukrainian people has, in agreement with Zelensky, been “hijacked” by Western imperialism for its own ends.

The Russian regime has increasingly sought to break out of NATO encroachment and assert itself. both in its own backyard and beyond, as it has done in Syria and now

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in sub-Saharan Africa. Putin and China's Xi Xinping signed a “no limits” partnership right before the war, which emboldened Putin.

However, the invasion of Ukraine was a profound blunder by Putin’s regime; Russia massively overestimated their own military capacity.

The U.S. in particular has seized the war as an opportunity to reassert itself globally and to strengthen NATO and their broader Cold War bloc, not just against Russia but against China. While it escalates militarily in Ukraine, U.S. imperialism is also waging economic war against China, seeking to cut off its access to high-end semiconductor technology and thereby block its development in high tech. The Biden administration seeks to inflict a defeat on Russia in no small part to send a very clear message to Xi Jinping about Taiwan. The U.S. is now also directly warning China against sending military aid to Russia, saying this would be a “serious problem” for rapidly deteriorating U.S./China relations.

What Comes Next As the war enters a new phase, Western (and especially U.S.) imperialism has decided it needs to go further. A whole series of countries from Poland to the UK and the U.S. have now pledged to send hundreds of tanks to Ukraine on a timescale ranging from a few months to a year or more. But even before the tanks were promised, the U.S. committed to equipping the equivalent of two armored battalions with Bradley and Stryker armored vehicles.

There is no immediate prospect of the war coming to an end. Neither side is ready to negotiate. This points to the war dragging on for months if not years with the danger and even likelihood of further escalation. There have of course been many threats by the Putin regime to use nuclear weapons. This remains unlikely for a number of reasons. However, as the past year has amply demonstrated, war, even involving nuclear powers, can escalate massively even while being restricted to the use of “conventional” weapons. The main

What Is The Way Forward?

danger is that the war becomes an ever more direct conflict between NATO and Russia and that it spreads geographically.

But the consequences of the continued war go much further. These include the disastrous effect on global food and fertilizer supplies, including the threat of mass starvation in parts of the world. This has already begun in the Horn of Africa. Another year or more of war will also have significant negative consequences for the fragile world economy despite the recent more upbeat projections by the IMF. A defeat for Russia remains the most likely outcome of the war although clearly there is concern in the Zelensky regime and NATO that the Russian military has “not said its last word.”

Russia has far more soldiers and a population nearly four times the size of Ukraine. Latest reports indicate that Russia may be preparing to use its still largely intact and potent air force on a wider scale in Ukraine.

Military defeat for Russia would almost certainly produce a massive political crisis and possibly lead to the removal of Putin, though in the short term, given the weakness of the Russian left and labor movement, this may lead to an even more dangerous military dictatorship led by nationalist hardliners, not a social revolution.

On the other hand, recent reports point to problems with morale in the Ukrainian army due to the conduct of the war by the regime.

This has been acknowledged by Zelensky himself. Other reports indicate that there have been significant desertions of soldiers who understandably don't want to be thrown into the “meat grinder” of Bakhmut. There are also signs of increasing tensions within

The course of the war completely confirms that there is no basis for genuine independence for Ukraine on the basis of capitalism.

This will require a revolutionary struggle led by the Ukrainian working class against all imperialist forces linked to a workers movement internationally conscious of its tasks.

The key missing factor in Ukraine today is an independent working-class force. A working class-led struggle would not just be military but more fundamentally political in character. It would mean the mass mobilization of the population, and the formation of workers councils in workplaces and communities to organize the struggle.

A working-class force in Ukraine could potentially have enormous success in launching a direct class appeal to Russian soldiers, hundreds of thousands of whom are conscripts who don't want to be there. Our goal is to end the slaughter and to wage a common struggle against the real enemies of the people, the oligarchs in Kyiv and Moscow, and imperialism in general.

Today, the warmongers are in the driver's seat. But this can and will change.

In Russia, the left and liberal opposition that came on the streets to oppose the invasion of Ukraine a year ago faces intense repression.

But while protest has been suppressed, the massive casualties and forced conscription have created enormous anger and resentment in wide sections of the population far beyond the metropolitan centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

War poses a unique test for the left and revolutionary left. The bulk of the left, including the far left, has utterly failed this test. The reformist left in the West has lined up behind Western imperialism while many on the “far left” have been apologists for Russian imperialism, as the “lesser evil” or even allegedly “non-imperialist” power. The task facing the labor movement today, and especially its most conscious elements, is to build a mass movement of workers and youth against the war, against all measures of escalation, and against both imperialist camps. J

The total aid of all types committed by the West from January 24, 2022 through January 15, 2023 totalled over 140 billion euros. The U.S. alone has committed 44.3 billion euros ($47.2 billion).

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

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

FATE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

Tens Of Thousands Still Under Rubble As Death Toll Of Turkey-Syria Earthquakes Climb SERGE JORDAN, ISA The scenes of the aftermath of the 7.8 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes that struck wide swaths of Turkey, Syria, and Kurdistan in the early morning of Monday, February 6, were harrowing. If that weren’t enough, after two weeks of thousands of aftershocks, another 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck again on February 20.

At the time of writing, the death toll has surpassed 46,000, and tens of thousands are still unaccounted for, trapped under the rubble as the Turkish government officially ends its rescue operation. As the areas affected in Syria are mostly war zones split between factions, the official death toll on the Syrian side is unreliably approximate.

Tens of thousands of people have been injured, and millions left without homes trying to survive in subzero winter temperatures, often with no access to electricity, gas, clean water, or food. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that as many as 23 million people have been directly impacted by the earthquakes.

Mixed with grief and despair, rage is mounting at the authorities on both sides of the border for their responsibility for, and appalling response to, the disaster. “Everyone is getting angrier by the minute,” said a man from Sarmada, a town in Syria’s Idlib province, as people have been left to fend for themselves. In most areas of Turkey, no rescue team arrived during the first critical 24 hours after the quakes. Protests by earthquake victims have since been reported in some badly-affected localities, like in Adıyaman and in Ordu.

Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has blamed the delays on the damaged roads and airports; but that serves only to hide his regime’s own culpability in this situation.

Hatay Airport, whose runway has been split MARCH 2023

into two and made unusable by the earthquakes, was built on the Amik Plain, a tectonically active area, despite repeated warnings from environmental activists and protests by local residents.

After a massive earthquake struck northwestern Turkey in 1999, an “earthquake tax” was introduced, supposedly to develop disaster prevention and emergency services and avoid similar tragedies in the future. But no one fully knows where that money went and, notwithstanding the tireless efforts of rescue workers, it is obvious that the state itself was awfully unprepared despite the region being a prime candidate for seismic events of that type. To add insult to injury, volunteering individuals, civil society organizations, aid groups, and assistance from oppositionrun cities were also prevented from getting involved in the rescue efforts because of bureaucratic hurdles imposed on them by AKP government officials.

Corporate Profiteering At The Heart Of The Problem Erdogan has blamed “fate’s plan” for the scale of the disaster. Although Monday’s earthquakes were the most powerful in the region since 1939, the scale of human and material destruction has nothing to do with fate, nor is it natural.

“In the study of geohazards we have a saying, which is that earthquakes don’t really kill people – buildings do,” said Carmia Schoeman, master’s degree holder in landslide geology, and member of WASP (ISA in South Africa). She explains, “For many decades, the science and technology has existed to not only predict the areas that would be worst hit by such events, but also how to minimize the damage caused through earthquake-proof construction of buildings.”

After the 1999 disaster, Turkey introduced

opposition-held areas hit by the earthquakes barely a few hours after the disaster.

Twelve years of war in Syria, fueled by Assad’s regime as well as multi-sided imperialist interventions, had already left the country’s infrastructure and people’s housing conditions in tatters. Nearly one-third of the homes in Aleppo and Idlib had already been damaged or destroyed by the war, 70% of the population was in need of aid, and 2.9 million were at risk of starvation across the country even before the earthquakes made a horrific situation compellingly worse. Millions of Syrians have been displaced multiple times by the war and now, many more will be displaced by this disaster.

Almost immediately after the earthquakes hit, several Western governments mobilized aid and rescue teams to Turkey, but they offered very little or nothing to Syria. Victims of the earthquakes are paying the price of the ongoing power struggle between Western imperialism and the Syrian dictatorship; both are playing with people’s lives to boost their power and prestige. U.S.-imposed economic sanctions impede the shipment of aid to the affected zones, whereas the regime itself is withholding aid to rebel-controlled areas. Systemic corruption and price-gouging across the board are corroding further the chances of meaningful humanitarian assistance.

Cascading Disaster new building regulations for earthquake zones. But these regulations were at best A new layer of disaster will now predictvery lightly enforced, at worst ignored entirely, ably add on to the immediate effects of the while older buildings were not retrofitted to earthquakes. People who haven’t died from match the new standards. A regime-backed being stuck under the rubble are threatened building boom saw the proliferation of large by the cold, hunger, and the potential spread residential projects that were often delivered of diseases. As illustrated by a dam collapse with sub-par material and without proper in Syria’s Idlib province on February 9, furquality control, so as to maximize financial ther accidents are bound to develop out of returns for a few top real estate companies the current situation. with tight bonds to the ruling party.

This tragedy epitomizes the utterly This building spree, facilitated dysfunctional and barbaric by huge state support and nature of capitalism. As it greased by large-scale coralways happens in this “As it always ruption to circumvent the type of mega-disasters, rules, became a cash happens in this type of big corporations are cow for these regimealso rubbing their mega-disasters, big corporaallied businesses. hands in greed while The construction and tions are also rubbing their hands contemplating the renovation of many opportunities to in greed while contemplating the public buildings like profit from people’s hospitals, schools, opportunities to profit from misery and death – post offices, and from cement compapeople’s misery and death.” administrative buildings nies seeing their shares were also subcontracted jump on the stock exchange via state tenders under the just after the earthquakes, to AKP government. While such some Western banks overcharging buildings should have provided safety customers to transfer money to Turkey. to the public in case of disaster, they were In contrast though, volunteers everywhere among the first to collapse —including the have rushed to help extract people from the headquarters of Turkey’s Disaster and Emer- rubble, donate blood, or collect basic necesgency Management Authority (AFAD) in sities to assist survivors. This instinctive Hatay. solidarity from working-class people provides Syria: Earthquake Effects Amplified By War But the callousness and cynicism of the ruling classes doesn’t stop here. On February 7, Turkish armed forces bombed homes in the Kurdish majority and earthquake-affected district of Tel Rifaat in Northern Syria, before people could even remove the debris from the quakes. The Syrian army also bombed

the seeds out of which, beyond the urgent assistance required to save lives, a movement could grow to demand justice for the numerous and largely preventable victims of this disaster. But this movement could also fight for a new society, one that puts people’s lives and safety at its core instead of profit accumulation for a tiny few, to make sure that such horrors never happen again. J

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H E A LT H C A R E RANSON THOMAS, GAINESVILLE

Ranson Thomas is an RN, MSN in nursing education.

VIRAL COP ‘OVERDOSES’ FUEL FENTANYL MISINFORMATION

Fentanyl has been in use by physicians for the treatment of pain since the 1960s, but over the last few years news stories related to fentanyl have been everywhere. From contributing to record numbers of overdose deaths, to a number of police officers having what appear to be near-fatal episodes following contact with the drug, there’s a lot of fear and paranoia regarding fentanyl and the danger it poses. Is this fear justified, and A deputy of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department collapsed on July 3, what’s behind the sudden explosion in the 2021 in a viral video posted by the San Diego Sheriff, after claiming to have illicit use of fentanyl? handled fentanyl. The video has been widely discredited by public health experts.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid analgesic frequently prescribed to patients by physicians to treat pain, and it’s typically adminis- in 2016 a training video that spreads these made billions of dollars over the years from need to take private pharmaceutical compatered via oral tablets, patches, or injections. exact falsehoods. “[J]ust touching fentanyl selling drugs like Oxycontin, another opioid nies like those that lied and profited off the Fentanyl is a powerful pain reliever, used for or accidentally inhaling the substance… can narcotic, and lying about the evidence they opioid epidemic under democratic workers’ the long term management of chronic pain, result in absorption through the skin and that had regarding its addictive nature. control. post-surgical pain, labor pain in pregnant is one of the biggest dangers with fentanyl.

Even though big pharma companies push This would mean that health care comwomen, and management of cancer pain. The onset of adverse health effects, such as narcotics on Americans, why have so many panies wouldn’t be out to profit off the illWhile it’s sensationalized as “50-100 times disorientation, coughing, sedation, respira- people even needed pain medicine to begin ness of people but would instead be geared stronger than morphine,” fentanyl is pre- tory distress or cardiac arrest is very rapid with? One key factor is the toll which work towards actually curing and healing the sick scribed in much smaller doses. and profound, usually occurring within min- in the U.S. puts on the bodies and minds of and injured, while also prioritizing treatment Perhaps the most sensational examples of utes of exposure,” the video claimed. average people. The state with the highest for those who are still addicted to opioids and the harm fentanyl can cause are the stories The DEA has since removed this video rate of overdose deaths in the U.S. is West other drugs. This would also mean increased of police officers nearly dying from fentanyl from their website, but it was live as recently Virginia, and the DEA acknowledges that one production and distribution of drugs like exposure. These stories have generated mil- as March 2021. of the primary reasons for this is the high con- naloxone – a drug used to treat narcotic lions of reactions on social media since as centration of blue collar industrial jobs which overdose – as well as mental health theraearly as 2015, but more viral instances con- Who Is Fentanyl Endangering? have high rates of workplace injury which can pists trained and made available to addicts, tinue to show up, like that posted by a San leave people in chronic pain and injury even and more treatment centers geared towards While many of these accounts of contact after their immediate injury has healed.

Diego sheriff in 2021. In truth, police offikeeping people safe while they are addicted cers face no harm at all from direct contact overdoses are complete fabrications, fentanyl It’s not just West Virginia; in 2021, while also working to help them break out of with fentanyl. Physicians, nurses, and other overdoses and deaths are possible and in fact Amazon had a total of 38,300 workplace addiction. common. Accord- injuries throughout its U.S. facilities, twice healthcare providThe opioid epidemic is rooted in the capiing to the CDC, in the rate of injury of its closest competitors. talist system and the greed of the billionaires ers come into the Drug overdoses are extremely 2021 drug over- Companies like Amazon eschew workplace who run it. It would be utopian and unrealissame kind of contact with fentanyl dangerous, but not to people who dose deaths sur- safety and paid time off so they can exploit tic to say that in a socialist society problems on a daily basis might come into casual contact with passed 100,000 their workers and their bodies at such a like addiction would never occur. But in a in the U.S., with without adverse pace that the average Amazon ware- socialist society, addiction and other health the drug through their work or in deaths from opioid brutal reactions. house worker only stays in the position for problems would be treated with the goal of overdoses specifi- eight months!

“It’s extremely their community. actually healing and preventing further injury. cally increasing by unlikely that law The billionaires and politicians want to Fentanyl and other opioids are dangerous, almost 50% from paint the opioid crisis as an individual moral but not in the way typically presented by the enforcement The people actually suffering are the previous year. failing on the part of those who are addicted, media – and that danger was created by the officials or other The reality is, rather than placing the blame where it billionaires who run our health care indusfirst responders the individuals addicted to opioids drug overdoses belongs: on big pharma and for-profit health try and the politicians who protect and fund will experience especially care. an overdose after due to nationwide epidemic that has and paramilitary policing, not the individuals who brief, uninten- overwhelmingly victimized working- opioid overdoses have been sacrificed to addiction in the name are extremely dantional exposure class people. of corporate profits. J Fighting The Root Cause Of gerous, but not to while caring for people who might Addiction individuals who used opioids,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a phy- come into casual contact with the drug To really address the dangers that fentanyl sician and medical analyst for CNN. Wen through their work or in their community. and other opioids pose to society, socialists The people actually suffering and at risk explained that opioids are not absorbed well would attack the root cause. We need to fight through the skin except through prolonged from fentanyl overdoses are the individu- for higher wages, better working conditions, ONE contact, and are not aerosolized outside als who have become addicted to opioids and unions at every workplace, especially AMERICAN FAMILY extreme circumstances, meaning it’s not as part of a nationwide opioid epidemic that those at places like Amazon where workers possible to quickly overdose from breath- has overwhelmingly victimized working-class face extraordinary levels of physical exploiMADE $12 BILLION PUSHing it. To date, there has not been a single people, and which was manufactured by tation. Safer workplaces mean less injury ING PAIN KILLERS ON SICK AND confirmed case of a police officer having a giant pharmaceutical companies which lied and better wages, and access to healthto and deceived the public in the name of fentanyl overdose from accidental exposure. care means workers getting appropriINJURED PATIENTS. THIS FAMILY, THE Despite this, small studies indicate that expanding their own profits. ately treated for their injuries and having For years, opioid manufacturers lied about the overwhelming majority of police officers SACKLERS, OWN PURDUE PHARMA adequate time off to heal when they do, believe that touching or breathing fentanyl is the addictive effects of opioid narcotics like not having to rely on quick fixes which AND ARE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE fatal – along with potentially untold amounts fentanyl to healthcare providers and to the put them back to work and at greater of regular working people who are in contact public. This was so that the drugs would risk for lifelong chronic injuries.

FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS IF NOT be prescribed more often, increasing their with opioid users on a day-to-day basis.

The most important step would be to It’s no big shock why this misinforma- profits, while also attempting to shield them- end for-profit health care. Medicare For HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF tion tends to stick. The U.S. Drug Enforce- selves from the fallout once people became All is the absolute minimum that workers in OVERDOSE DEATHS. ment Administration (DEA) itself published addicted. Companies like Purdue Pharma the U.S. should expect, but beyond that, we

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

MOVEMENTS

SOCIALIST SEATTLE MOVEMENT WINS RESOLUTION BANNING CASTE ALTERNATIVE DISCRIMINATION

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE SEATTLE On February 21, community activists and socialists made history by winning a firstin-the-nation ban on caste discrimination, brought forward by Kshama Sawant’s socialist city council office. Workers Strike Back fought alongside South Asian community activists, Socialist Alternative, union members, and regular working people to win this victory against caste-based oppression, and against the right wing who viciously opposed us. Our grassroots movement mobilized thousands of people to take action, including speaking in public comment, sending over 4,000 emails

to Seattle City Council, and collecting more than 1,400 petition signatures in support of this historic ordinance.

This victory was only possible because working people built a powerful, organized movement independent of the Democratic Party and big business. At every step, we faced opposition and attempted delays from Democrats on Seattle City Council, including from so-called “progressives” who refused to speak out publicly in support of the ordinance and provided excuse after excuse for not fighting alongside caste-oppressed people who have faced widespread discrimination for generations. As late as the morning of the vote, “progressive” Democrats were considering bringing an amendment that would have delayed implementation of our movement’s legislation for an indefinite period of time.

Caste oppression has been used for 3,000 years by the ruling class in South Asia to divide and exploit oppressed people. Just like racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression, it is a brutal tool of the

FRENCH MOVEMENT AGAINST PENSION REFORM BUILDS MOMENTUM INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE (ISA)

Since January 19, millions of workers and youth in France have been demonstrating and striking against Macron’s pension reform. We now have to build for a general strike, renewable upon vote by workers’ general assemblies, beginning in March to do away with Macron and all austerity policies.

Macron’s pension reform would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 alongside other actions that will negatively impact workers.

More than two million demonstrators participated across France in the first day of action against the pension reform, organized by the intersyndicale — the common front of France’s eight largest trade unions – what a historic and promising beginning!

From the start, the most combative layers of youth showed a stronger determination than in past years to join the movement and

to struggle alongside the trade unions and workers. The 150,000 strong demonstration in Paris on January 21, two days after the first union mobilization, had been planned and mobilized for weeks in advance by student and youth organizations as well as France Insoumise, adding further momentum.

One of the most crucial elements in the development of the movement so far are the impressive demonstrations of working-class power and control over private production through the “Robin Hood” actions. Hospitals, public sports centers, libraries, high schools, nurseries, etc. were placed on “free electricity or gas.” What a powerful illustration of what a society led by the working class would look like.

After the first national intersectoral mobilization on January 19, another four followed. On January 31, 2.8 million participated across France, on February 7, over 2 million, on February 11, over 2.5 million, and on February 16, 1.3 million joined the demonstrations. Overall participation in the strike movement is even higher, as some

elite used against the working class. With mass emigration of South Asians to the United States, caste discrimination

has followed.

We need to fight caste discrimination everywhere and spread this victory around the country. To succeed, we need to build fighting workers’ organizations and movements strong enough to counter the lies and mobilization of the right wing. The groups who opposed our movement in Seattle had strong ties to the Modi government and right-wing organizations. This included the Vishva Hindu Parishad, a dangerous far-right organization which, according to Human Rights Watch, was one of the three fundamentalist organizations considered most responsible for the massive carnage in the Western Indian state of Gujarat in 2002. Whenever working people fight for our rights, we will face determined opposition from reactionary forces like these.

Our power as working people comes from our solidarity and collective action, including our ability to shut down production in the workplace. We need a mass workers’ movement to fight against caste discrimination, racism, sexism, and ALL forms of oppression.

And our victory in Seattle shows once again: when we fight – we can win! J stayed at the picket lines and did not join the demonstrations.

ISA activists participated with a contingent in the demonstration in Paris. The mood was very combative and not only was there a palpable anger against Macron, but a genuine desire to stop him. At the same time, there is also a basic understanding that a series of mass demonstrations by themselves, without being connected to each other and a strategy of escalation, will not be enough.

So far, the government and Macron are not backing down. They hope for a repeat of the 2019- 2020 movement, when the struggle, although titanic, had suffered from the lack of a bold plan of action towards a general renewable strike. The movement was running out of steam after nine days of intersectoral mobilizations that were not connected enough to channel the anger in a way that can create a continuous and escalating dynamic linked to a perspective to win.

It is urgent to organize assemblies of struggle in the workplaces open to all colleagues, unionized or not, and to organize similar committees in the high schools, universities, and neighborhoods to build for a general renewable strike. J

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15

SOCIALIST ISSUE #91 l MARCH 2023

ALTERNATIVE

A MONTH ON THE GROUND WITH

WORKERS STRIKE BACK Jesse Shussett, NYC

It has now been over a month since the launch of Workers Strike Back, an initiative of Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative, and in that time it has become clear just how necessary broad working-class organization is to address the crises facing working people today. We’ve been hard at work talking to workers and young people about how to fight back against the cost of living crisis, supporting workers under fire from corporate union-busting, and organizing against attacks on the oppressed.

A Program For Working People Inflation is impacting our everyday lives while the bosses continue to extract massive profits at our expense, vicious backlash against women and LGBTQ people is wreaking havoc across the country, and the corporate parties in power simply do not represent our interests as working people.

The time is ripe to take action. Across the country, working people have shown initiative to resist paying for the bosses crisis. Workers at Amazon and Starbucks have opened the path to a new wave of organizing the unorganized, but have faced vicious retaliation from the bosses - pointing to the need for a strategy to fight union-busting. Unionized workers in education and healthcare have taken heroic strike action so far this year, winning raises and improved staffing ratios.

Building fighting unions and winning good contracts will be key to better fight for the raises we need to match rising inflation.

Rank-and-file led-unions could also play a critical role by providing a baseline level of organization to mobilize around other necessary fights. For example, education and healthcare workers can be at the center of fighting against attacks on queer youth,

whose healthcare is being threatened and whose gender expression is under assault in schools.

With the recent memory of Biden’s absolute abandonment of his promises to improve working peoples’ lives, the Democrats’ refusal to put up a real fight against the overthrow of Roe, Congress’ smashing of the rail workers’ strike, and countless others, it is clear that the real initiative is going to come from ordinary people. Leaving the task of changing society to the Democrats or the Republicans essentially amounts to leaving it to the billionaires. We urgently need to coalesce our movements into a new working class party run by and for working people.

There is a fight to be waged, but what is lacking is the necessary coordination and organization to have the best impact, and a uniting program to point the struggle forward.

What Does This Look Like?

Workers Strike Back is on the ground in Kentucky at the KCVG Amazon Air Hub as they fight for a union, and where five workers were fired in the past month. It is critical that we build a network of solidarity across the country to support the workers and stand against the bosses. A union victory there at Amazon’s largest Air Hub would undoubtedly inspire other Amazon facilities across the country, reinvigorating a movement that began last year with the groundbreaking win at JFK8 on Staten Island through the Amazon Labor Union – and would give a surge of confidence to other workers in the logistics industry and beyond.

There has been an excited response to Workers Strike Back even in its early stages, as we’ve spoken to ordinary people out in the streets across the country and on picket

1. Workers need a real raise!

2. Good union jobs for all!

3. Fight racism, sexism, and all oppression!

4. Quality, affordable housing and free healthcare for all!

5. No more sellouts – we need a new party!

lines where working people are fighting back.

We’ve helped organize a network of undergraduate support for unionized graduate students at Temple University who are fighting for a living wage of their own while up against administrators earning six-figure salaries.

We’ve picketed alongside American Airlines employees demanding a contract and an end to AA’s regime of corporate greed and disgraceful underpayment. We joined over 200 union journalists in a walkout against retaliatory firings at NBC, and stood with nurses calling for safe staffing. We’re working alongside rail workers across the country issuing calls to nationalize rail in the wake of a crushed strike, and now increased attention to devastating derailments from corporate cost-cutting and skimping on safety measures. These initiatives, and more, show the type of solidarity in action and class struggle that Workers Strike Back hopes to amplify and strengthen to its fullest potential.

In recent years, workers’ struggles have hit a high after decades of very little activity. It is crucial that as the capitalists’ crisis only worsens, our struggle goes forward, not backward. Ultimately, working people have the power to organize for improvements in our lives, and even to take society into our own hands. Without losing sight of the urgency of the situation, we should look forward to opportunities to fight and win. J

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