Key Battle for Labor
Rights and Black Freedom
Defend the
Charleston Five!
Defeat the Racist
Union-Busters with Hard Class
Struggle
The fight to defend the
Charleston Five is a key battle linking
labor struggle with the cause of black
freedom. These members of International
Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422 are
facing years in prison on federal charges
of “felonious riot.” They are targets of a
racist anti-union assault as the bosses
seek to break a key outpost of black labor
in the South, Charleston, the second
largest port on the U.S. East Coast. On 20
January 2000, the unionists picketing a
scab operation were set upon by 600 state
and local riot cops and prison guards, who
used tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion
grenades as well as armored cars,
helicopters, sniper details, police boats
and attack dogs. Three days before the
police riot, ILA Local 1422 participated
in a march of tens of thousands in
Columbia, the state capital, demanding
that the Confederate flag be taken down
from above the statehouse. The brutal
attack in Charleston was in good part a
“payback” from the racist state
government. In the face of the persecution
of the Charleston Five and the escalating
attack on union rights, what’s called for
is a solid longshore strike to shut down
all three coasts. Defend
the
Charleston Five! (June 2001)
For a Class-Struggle
Fight Against the Racist
Union-Busters!
Defeat the
Capitalist Onslaught Against
Public Education!
Teachers,
Minorities, Immigrants Targeted
The public school system
is the focal point of an assault by key
sectors of the U.S. ruling class.
“Education reform” was a top issue for
both Democrats and Republicans in last
year’s presidential election, as it is
in the New York City mayoral election
this coming fall. Masked by phony
pro-children rhetoric and squabbling
over vouchers, there is a “bipartisan”
consensus to “reinvent” public education
to reflect the demands of the capitalist
market. As usual, teachers are portrayed
as the obstacle to high standards and
improving schools. The effect of this
and similar reforms around the country
will be to dramatically increase the
tendency to a two-tier education system,
with more rigorous schools for those
considered “college bound” and
barracks-like “academies” for those
tracked to be low-wage unskilled labor.
The purpose of all the rulers’ talk of
“standards” is not to improve the
chances for poor inner-city children –
they don’t give a damn about that – but
to make the labor force more
“competitive” globally with its
imperialist rivals, to “Americanize” the
new wave of immigrants, and ultimately
to prepare the population for war.
Defeat
the
Capitalist Onslaught Against Public
Education! (June 2001)
Korean Auto Workers
Fight Mass Firings
Victory to
Daewoo Workers!
As bankruptcy threatened
the Daewoo industrial empire, one of
South Korea’s leading trusts, the
management of its auto plants ordered
the mass firing of 1,800 workers, a
third of the entire workforce. Militant
Daewoo workers and their families
responded by occupying the key plant,
while the capitalist government sent in
thousands of riot cops. The battle
continues as Daewoo workers seek
international labor solidarity in
protesting the planned takeover of the
company by the U.S. auto giant, General
Motors. Despite Korean workers’
militancy, their leaders in the Korean
Confederation of Trade Unions have aided
South Korean president Kim Dae-jung in
ramming through mass layoffs. The fight
for a Trotskyist workers party is
urgently posed. Victory
to
Daewoo Workers! (June 2001)
Drive Out War
Criminal Bob Kerrey!
He Should Be
Brought to Justice by a Court
of
His Surviving
Victims in Ho Chi Minh City!
The president of New
School University is a war criminal.
Covered up for 30 years, the war crime
was the work of “Kerrey’s Raiders,” a
U.S. Navy special forces (SEAL) unit
commanded by Lt. Robert Kerrey. Trading
on his reputation as a “war hero,”
Kerrey went on to become a U.S. senator,
a leading liberal Democratic
presidential hopeful, and this January
was named president of the prestigious
New School. Now the truth has been
exposed that he is a mass murderer of
women and children. Today, an
orchestrated campaign from liberals and
conservatives alike seeks to carry out
damage control. But the facts clearly
show: Bob Kerrey is guilty as
hell! Drive
Out
War Criminal Bob Kerrey! (1 May
2001)
For a
Class-Struggle Fight to Unionize the
Maquiladoras!
Mexico: Women
Workers Battle Gun Thugs
The demise
of the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) regime, formally certified in the
elections of 2 July 2000, raised hopes
in various sectors, including layers of
the working class. For more than half a
century, the PRI’s domination was based
on iron-fisted control of the
proletariat by its corporatist “union”
apparatus. Many workers in the
maquiladoras thought that the defeat of
the PRI meant that – finally! – they
could throw off the dead hand of the
corporatist apparatus which condemned
them to poverty wages. Yet this has not
changed up to this point. Thus the stage
has been set for an upsurge of fierce,
and possibly bloody, struggles. Of all
the current conflicts, the most dramatic
is the struggle of the workers at the
Duro Bag Manufacturing Company in Río
Bravo, in the border state of
Tamaulipas. Mexico:
Women
Workers Battle Gun Thugs (May
2001)
Open Letter from the
Internationalist Group
“Alliance” with
Cops = Betrayal of Workers
During a
February 18 “March for Workers’ Rights”
in Brooklyn, a spokesman at the closing
rally announced the “support” of the Latino
Officers Association, represented by a
Street Narcotics cop of the NYPD. This
is the criminal repressive force which
murdered Amadou Diallo. The
Internationalist Group contingent
chanted “Cops
Out!” and walked out protesting the
presence of professional strikebreakers
and enforcers of the capitalist state. “‘Unity’ with police means trampling
the memory of Anthony Báez, Patrick
Dorismond, Yong Xin Huang, Gideon Busch
and countless other victims of the
NYPD's racist terror,” stated this Open
Letter issued by the IG. “Alliance”
with Cops = Betrayal of the Workers
(February 2001)
Mass Protests and
Arrests as Navy Resumes
Bombing of Vieques, Air Force Bombs
Koon-I, South Korea
From Puerto Rico
to Korea: U.S. Bombers Get
Out!
Anti-Communist
Exclusion Undermines Protest
In a
brazen display of imperial arrogance,
the U.S. Navy resumed bombardment of the
Puerto Rican island of Vieques on June
25. Over the next few days, federal
agents arrested hundreds of protesters
seeking to block the bombing. A week
earlier, some 3,000 South Korean
villagers, students and a sizeable
contingent of workers from the Kia auto
plant demonstrated militantly against a
U.S. Air Force bombing range in the
village of Maehyang-ri, demanding "Drive
the U.S. troops out!" Internationalist
Group protesters participated in a June
22 demonstration over Vieques but were
excluded by the nationalist organizers
for chanting "U.S. Navy out of Puerto
Rico, U.S. Army out of Korea!" From
Puerto
Rico to Korea: U.S. Bombers Get Out!
(30 June 2000)
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