Posts Tagged workers/labor
Violence Against Anti-mining Protesters in El Salvador
Posted by illvox collective in Organizing on August 27, 2009
by Jason Wallach
A wave of violence targeted at anti-mining protesters has ripped through Cabañas in north-eastern El Salvador, and Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, the mid-size Canadian company which has lost millions in its effort to exploit the area’s ample gold deposits has remained curiously silent on the attacks.
Last month, Marcelo Rivera, a prominent anti-mining activist, community leader and FMLN member was forcibly disappeared by unknown assailants. Though many organizations immediately denounced his disappearance, police failed to act quickly enough to alter his fate. Rivera’s disfigured body was found dumped in a well two weeks after he was last seen alive.
Rivera was well-known in Cabañas. He headed a local community center and founded Amigos of San Isidro, an organization that formed part of the main coalition of groups that opposed the re-opening of the El Dorado mine, where Pacific Rim intends to set up shop. According to the Salvadoran daily, Diario Co-latino, Rivera’s funeral was attended by hundreds of “children, youth and elders…all crying at the same time.”
“He fought against the mining threat from the perspective of a teacher, a cultural promoter, a director of a community organization, and as a political leader”, says Francisco Piñeda, a local environmentalist, also quoted in Co-latino.
Instead of merely sending a signal, Rivera’s murder has marked the start of an open season against anyone openly opposed to the El Dorado mine. On Monday July 28, parish priest Father Luis Quintanilla was traveling from Victoria to Sensuntepeque after his weekly radio broadcast when his vehicle was forcibly pulled over by three men wearing ski masks. According to published video testimony, Quintanilla and narrowly escaped under a nearby fence after his assailants were distracted by Quintanilla’s own inadvertently (or not?) triggered car alarm.
Before the roadside assault, Quintanilla had already been the target of threats. The priest had received a volley of cell phone text messages, one of which read: “Extermination: you’ve been warned to stop f**king around. You better shut your mouths if you don’t want us to shut them once and for all.” Another said:”Extermination > you mother-f**kers better stop stirring people up if you don’t want to end up like Marcelo. We’ve got eyes on you.”
Last week, the government’s Human Rights Ombudsman, Oscar Luna, held a special press conference to denouce threats made against three reporters at Radio Victoria, a community-based radio station out of Cuidad Victoria. News gatherers Ludwin Iraheta, José Beltrán, and Vladimir Ayala, ages 17,18, and 20 years old respectively, received messages over the course of the past month stating, “you’re on the list,”and “you’ll be next.” The most threatenening stated, “Be careful, because they spoke too much in San Isidro,” a direct reference to the Rivera assassination.
The Radio Victoria staff have been among the most prominent voices to denounce the proposed gold mine plans, and they were the first to denounce their friend Marcelo’s disappearance. After his death, they are calling for a full investigation.
Rivera’s assassination, the assault on Father Quintanilla and the ongoing threats accent a already tense climate in a place which saw voting suspended in San Isidro during January’s legislative election after allegations emerged that Mayor José Ignacio Bautista from the ARENA party was contracting voters across the nearby border with Honduras to stack the polls in his favor. When a re-vote was held a week later, Bautista won. Rumors of fraud fell to a murmur in this isolated rural town of 10,000, but open scars remained in the wake of the election battle.
Mining Rights, Mining Wrongs
The prospect of re-initiating gold mining-as-economic-development-strategy in El Salvador has stirred passions on both sides of the debate. Mining advocates mostly hail from the ARENA and PCN political parties—heirs of the deathsquad-sponsoring governments of the 1980’s. The two parties rule 100% of the Mayor’s offices and Municipal Councils in the Cabañas Department. Together, they carry big sticks in the national Legislative Assembly, where PCN deputies have been the chief sponsors of revamping the El Salvador’s relatively restrictive mining laws. Ex-President Francisco Flores’s environmental ministry issued a series of exploration permits to two gold mining companies in 1996—the first such permits to be issued in decades.
But last year, cracks in ARENA’s traditional rural power base emerged when ranchers in Cabañas noticed that the plentiful springs they used to water crops and livestock were mysteriously drying up. Upon investigation, ranchers found what local people long had suspected: the exploratory drill holes utilized by Pacific Rim to estimate gold deposits were re-channeling underground streams and drastically impacting the aquifer. Under its exploration permit issued by the Saca government, Pacific Rim drilled hundreds of holes, each one carefully documented by the company itself, with meticulous data made available for stockholders (and anyone else) to see on its website. This, aghast residents asked, and the company hasn’t even begun mining?
The movement opposed to Pacific Rim’s presence in Cabañas had been active since 2005, but as the truth about exploratory holes began to ripple through Cabañas, participation in anti-mining events burgeoned. Residents became active through a combination of community and faith-based organizing. They spoke about the impacts of the holes, and explained the dangers of cyanide leach mining on the water table. The leap was not a hard one to make for folks who had already seen their water disappear. Soon, the conservative Archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Saenz Lacalle, was declaring, “Not one drop of cyanide should enter El Salvador.”
“”We are a very small and densely populated country that has already suffered enough.”
In response, Pacific Rim attempted to buy public support—or at least quell resistance with a PR campaign touting the virtues of “Minería verde,” or “green mining” campaign touted the benefits of mining projects on local development. Worried about the potential effectiveness of such a campaign, the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining was born.
Word crawled up the political ladder, and ex-President Tony Saca and the ARENA leadership were caught in a bind. Behind in the polls to a charismatic TV host named Mauricio Funes and facing the most contentious election in 25 years, a virtual mutiny was taking place in ARENA circles. The party’s leadership was forced to decide between issuing mining permits to Pacific Rim and risking a fissure in its well-oiled Cabañas electoral machine. The other option was to abandon the party’s traditional pro-business stance and suture the ecological and political wounds inflicted by Pacific Rim to preserve the possibility of electoral victory.
Saca banked on the electoral victory. One week before the election he announced that no new excavation permits would be offered to Pacific Rim. (Note: late enough in the campaign that no offended donor could recoup any donations…)
Amid rumors that Pacific Rim would sue El Salvador under foreign investor protection rules outlined in the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Saca responded soundly: “I would rather pay the $90 million than issue the permit.” (A defeatist attitude, considering that no suit had yet been filed. Meanwhile, the San Salvador-based Center for Trade and Investment Research, CEICOM, declared that the government had the evidence to defeat any case brought against it, and that win or lose no payment should be made.)
Saca’s new found role as bulwark against foreign corporate intrusion and defender of the public interest may have surprised some who had followed his politics during the course of his five year term. After all, Saca’s own 2004 campaign was predicated on reaping the benefits of international investment that CAFTA would rain on El Salvador. But Saca’s turnaround on mining only highlights the severity of the political crisis he and the rest of ARENA faced (and still face) in Cabañas generally and San Isidro specifically.
Pacific Rim, for its part, has been facing its own crisis before and since the election. Much of the company’s business model was built around the promise of return on its El Dorado holdings. With public opinion, the Catholic Church, and the current government opposed to El Dorado, the company is now banking on a $77 million dollar arbitration claim in the CAFTA courts. The company recently announced its third straight loss year. Its shares on the NYSE are trading at 22 cents. Pacific Rim liquidated its holdings in another mine to gain cash. The company’s FY2009 report glibly revealed that the COO and CEO have been released. The President and CEO have taken large pay decreases.
The Current Wave of Violence
With the election firmly in rearview, mining advocates in Cabañas have little incentive for good behavior. The current wave of violence and politically motivated assassination is equivalent to a form of social cleansing—an extra-judicial form of exterminating the political enemies of Cabañas’s ruling elite. It is unclear what role Pacific Rim has had in the recent wave of violence, but the company’s curious silence and it’s refusal to denounce violence against anti-mining activists has led people in Cabañas to wonder whether the company, in addition to its arbitration suit, is not also seeking other forms of retaliation.
“We want a professional investigation. These [perpetrators] are people paid for by those in power and economic interests like Pacific Rim are present,” said Elín Jordan, a member of the Community-radio Network, ARPAS.
Via Upside Down World
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Of Tea-Parties and Patriots: Liberty for Who?
Posted by illvox collective in Organizing on August 26, 2009
by Dave Strano
As town hall meetings on health care become the targets for disruptive protest and a growing “pro-liberty” movement gains traction and headlines, a full analysis of the situations we are facing as white working class people and an analysis of the strategies of the new “pro-liberty” movement is necessary.
I am authoring this piece as a white working class male that comes from a military family background, and identifies to some extent as being a libertarian. This description of myself is important as it helps color the perspective I am writing from, as any differences in my background, race, or socio-economic status would ultimately change the entire nature of this essay.
This piece is also mainly directed at white working class people that are active within this new movement. The reasons for this are many, as will become obvious as this piece progresses.
On race…
The Liberty Movement resembles the broader Libertarian Movement in a myriad of ways. One of these ways is in racial composition. To be plain and up front, the U.S. Right is mostly comprised of white people. These giant Tea Parties, our demonstrations and meetings are seas of white faces, with small sprinklings of nonwhite faces.
Whiteness is defined in many different ways by many different people. To many, Jews are not white. Up until the mid 1900’s, white skinned people of Irish and Italian descent were not considered white. Some folks still think this way.
I identify, for the benefit of this essay, a white person as any person with pale skin pigmentation that would commonly pass as white in this society. We don’t need to break this down any further. We know whether we’re white or not.
Most whites immediately become defensive when the word race is even brought up. We don’t want to admit we think in these terms. We don’t want to admit that race has anything to do with our lives or what’s going on in this country. We’d rather pretend it doesn’t exist and not talk about it.
We can act like Ostriches all we want. It doesn’t change that our movement is nearly completely white. Let’s admit that, understand that, and move on to understanding what that means for us.
On class…
When people bring up the term “class”, many white working people start to snicker. The calls of “leftist” or “socialist” or “pinko” come to the lips of many at the mere indication that someone may be conscious of class in America. Despite this tendency, especially within the ranks of poor and working whites, most white working people naturally view the world in terms of class, whether they’d admit it or not.
Our realities are shaped by where we stand socially, economically, and politically. The vast majority of whites, like people of all other races, live in precarious social, political, and economic realities. We live paycheck to paycheck. We live off over-extended credit. We live in debt. We don’t own much, if at all, in real estate. We live in stressful situations, where if one part of the chain breaks, we lose everything. Our very existence is one of insecurity and economic disaster.
Most people in the middle and upper classes of white society try to stifle this talk amongst us in the working or lower classes. Political, social, and church leaders try to erase the class line. But for those of us going home at night to trailers, slumlord owned apartments, or dilapidated houses, we tend to not forget the large suburban homes and mansions that these leaders sleep in.
Class exists. Just like race, we can’t make it go away by ignoring it. But why would we even want to ignore it? Our situation as working whites boils down directly to the idea of class.
Our class interests…
I start with the idea that most white working class people want similar things. We, as most people do, want security, freedom, prosperity, comfort, and safety. We don’t want to have to worry about where our next meal is coming from, how we’re going to be able to afford school supplies for our children, or whether or not we will fall victims to a “terrorist” attack. We don’t want to constantly fear losing our jobs or living the rest of our lives in precarious economic situations.
We now live in a country with a huge division between rich and poor. We live with a failed economy. We live in a nearly failed state. The government of the United States has systemically become a monstrous giant of bureaucrats and neo-tyrants. The whole government, every single politician, is part of this corrupt system.
Back home, in our communities, both rural and urban, we are losing our jobs. We are watching our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, dying in deserts and mountains halfway across the world. Our police forces are growing larger, just as our prison populations. We, as working people, are losing everything.
But, there may still be hope for us. White working class people are starting to organize on a national level for what we believe are our interests as a class, as physically manifested with the wave of “Tea Parties” and protests against what many feel to be an impending socialist nightmare in Washington, D.C.
Thousands have mobilized in past months to send clear messages to the politicians in charge of this mess that we won’t take it anymore. And now, we’re mobilizing to shut down what many see as a socialist attempt to take away our health care options and build even more government power.
But what do these mobilizations really mean? And what have we gained by disruptively protesting these town hall meetings on health care reform? Are we gaining ground? Or are we merely paving the way for further future losses?
Liberty
Typically, political scientists have defined the concept of liberty as a political idea that identifies that a person has the right to act according to their own will and desires. This is how many Americans would like to think about liberty.
At Tea Parties, political meetings, and other gatherings, most white working people keep this image of liberty, of true freedom, deep in their hearts. It tends to motivate how we view the rest of the world and our relationship to it. We see liberty manifested here in the U.S., and the founders of this country dying to ensure it existed.
The other liberty…
Let’s be clear, however about the concept of liberty. We’ve all been duped, plainly and simply. On this land, the concept of liberty as defined in the previous context has never existed. In fact, we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes so tightly, that we can’t even see how the word has changed meaning and been used against us.
Historically, because of the conditions in the United States, the concept of liberty in this country has taken on a much different connotation than the one previously stated. Liberty, in the United States, has become synonymous with the protection of rights to own property.
To many within the white working class, this doesn’t seem like a contradiction. Part of being able to determine our own wills and act in true freedom is being able to own property. We define freedom by the ability to own objects, to own land, to own cars, to own firearms. And we defend this right to own private property to the death.
However, the right to own property is the right that allows for the rich and elites to own everything that we produce. The right to property has become the legal and social basis for the rise in power of those that directly exploit us. Because it’s a protected right to own water resources, because it’s a protected right to own land that you will never live on or work on your own, because it’s a protected right to own a house and price gouge your tenants for rent, because it’s a protected right to own a business and pay your workers next to nothing, because we as white working people have helped protect these rights, we’ve laid the foundation for our own misery.
The concepts of freedom and private property, then, are at direct odds with each other. How can we be free when a corporation owns the rights to our water? How can we be free when a bank owns the land that our houses sit on? How can we be free when all of our food is owned by a field boss? How can freedom exist when a small minority own the very means of our survival?
We’ve become casualties of this way of thinking for centuries. The idea that property protection and liberty are one and the same has allowed for the rich, the political and economic elite, to swindle the rest of us.
In the name of freedom and liberty, we protect the right of 5% of the residents of this country to maintain ownership over 90% of the property and means of survival in this country. Modern liberty has become the freedom to starve, the freedom to lose our jobs without notice, and the freedom to have a bank take back its property from underneath us.
While the rich in this country pillage our paychecks, destroy our retirement funds, and take away our livelihoods, we gladly hand our resources to them. After all, liberty doesn’t exist without the protection of these rich people to own that property. They have the right to even own us, in fact.
By its very nature, the concept of private property has destroyed us and allowed the rich to ride all over us.
And it’s this thinking that has created and shaped our current “Liberty” Movement.
The Liberty Movement
The Liberty Movement, this new manifestation of centuries old U.S. patriotism, has spread across the country like a wild fire. Tea Parties, large mobilizations denouncing a rising “socialism” in this country, were held in cities across the U.S. in the Spring and early Summer.
New organizations on college campuses and within communities have sprung up to continue the organizing efforts. The main enemy is President Barack Obama. His policies resemble a socialist attack on the American way of life, and they must be stopped.
Led mostly by rich politically ambitious organizers these rallies have brought together thousands of mostly white working class participants to start to fight back against this onslaught from the left.
However, many contradictions appear within this framework. Thousands of white working people, people who rely on foodstamps, unemployment payments, and even welfare checks, fill the ranks at demonstrations calling for an end to social services. White working people, full of fear about socialism and an attack on “liberty” (in this case, an attack on the property rights of the rich) turn against their own interests and sell out their own needs to fight the new socialism.
The unpleasant reality for working class and poor people who have participated and still participate in this new movement, is that we’re being used by these rich leaders within the movement to protect their interests, not ours. But that’s nothing new.
A history of playing for the wrong team
The history of the white working class has been a history of being an exploited people. However, we’ve been an exploited people that further exploits other exploited people. While we’ve been living in tenements and slums for centuries, we’ve also been used by the rich to attack our neighbors, co-workers, and friends of different colors, religions, and nationalities.
Since the colonization of the Americas in the late 1400’s, white working people have been the footsoldiers of political and economic elites seeking to dominate and control land, resources, and wealth, all at our own expense.
We have enlisted in armies to slaughter indigenous peoples. We’ve been slave catchers to trap and enslave Africans. We’ve been police officers to terrorize communities of color. We’ve been prison guards to keep other working people locked up. We’ve been settlers, occupiers, colonizers, and conquerors. These roles have done very little to benefit us, on the whole. We’ve been used to benefit a small minority of politicians, bosses, and aristocrats.
The blunt reality is that for the last five hundred years on this continent, white working class people have been used by mostly white rich people to colonize for, kill for, work for, and then better the living standards of those same white rich people, all the while sacrificing our own needs, wants, aspirations, and even lives. It really is as simple as that. No one denies the history of what has happened at working people’s expenses. Wars, poverty, homelessness, wage slavery… these are all ills created by someone, and perpetuated by us… the same workers who suffer these ills.
For some five centuries we’ve been used by the rich among our own race to promote their agenda and suffered because of it. Yet, somehow, we’ve still been convinced that it is in our interests to protect the rights of the rich to own as much property as they can, to protect the right of the rich to even exist, to protect these same rich people who would just as soon see us die for their benefit.
The heart of the matter is that for these five centuries, we’ve been too busy fighting the people who should naturally be our allies against these injustices. The rich whites have used our skin color against us, have used our human nature of fearing living beings different than us against us… they’ve used us against us. They’ve blinded us with these racialist ideas of “white supremacy” and “white pride” and “white nationalism” into fighting other working people of other races, while they sit on the sideline and laugh.
The New Liberty Movement plays directly into this situation, and turns us, as white working class people, against our natural interests as working class people, and against our natural allies. We’re still being used by rich whites to advance their causes, and lose everything that we desire and need.
Of socialism and healthcare
Let’s be plain. Obama is not a socialist. His reforms and the reforms of other politicians are not socialist. They’re not even radical. They’re truly reformist. And they’re truly state-capitalist.
Obama’s policies have not threatened the power structures of this country in anyway. The rich will stay rich. The poor will stay poor. Property will still be just as protected as it is now. Wars will still be waged on multiple continents. The systemic inequities that have created a mess for all working people will still exist.
But while these reforms, like public option healthcare, are not radical and do not fundamentally change any power relationships in this country, they still remain important bread and butter survival policies for poor and working people.
Just like people of all races and backgrounds, most white working and poor people have no healthcare. We’ve seen it disappear. We don’t have access to medical care when we need it. While national healthcare is not the answer to all of our problems, and shouldn’t be our ultimate end goal, it is a short term fix that we, as working class people, could probably use.
However, the red flag of socialism has been waved in front of our faces. We can’t see anything but the closet communist Obama taunting us and attacking our very way of life with these reforms.
And it’s this mentality that divides us from nonwhite working people even more. The vast majority of nonwhite working people are in support of this healthcare reform. They are in support of social service spending. They are in support of legislation that affects their survival as working class people.
We’re divided in a way that is fairly predictable. White working class people, people who have been bought off by the rich, would rather protect property rights that are used against us and our interests than work for healthcare and social services that we don’t like to admit that we utilize and need.
In our class based, capitalist society, white working class people protect property, while nonwhite working people struggle for social services necessary for survival. And thus, we as white working people play for the wrong team. And in the end, everyone besides the rich and the politicians ends up losing.
Let’s be honest. I don’t want the government to control healthcare. But I also don’t want to live in a property based society where I’m denied healthcare because I don’t make enough money. Until we get rid of that property based economic relationship, then I’ll gladly take social services from the state, just to level the playing field a bit between me and the rich boss that steals money from my paycheck, or the rich politician who guts money from our schools to fund occupations of other countries that benefit corporations he owns stock in.
Migrants and other scapegoats
Perhaps the most glaring example of how white working people are playing for the wrong team, and how the new Liberty Movement actively works against the liberty of all people, especially nonwhite people, is the role that the movement plays within the debate on immigration.
One of the attacks leveled at the government by the Liberty Movement is the government’s failure to secure the border. The white populist logic of the movement becomes quite clear at these times.
We have bought into the ridiculous notion that mostly brown skinned immigrants from Mexico or other countries are our enemy, that they are somehow stealing our jobs, that they somehow really threaten us. Let’s get real. Who’s really stealing our jobs?
Even with a generous estimate of the number of illegal immigrants working in the U.S. at 6 million (notice I said working, not living), this stands in stark contrast to the conservative estimate that nearly 50 million jobs will have been lost to outsourcing by 2015 since NAFTA came into affect in 1994. Well, let’s ask ourselves, who’s really stealing our jobs? Poor Mexicans? Or Rich White CEOs?
Leaders of the new Liberty Movement feed us ridiculous ideas of the “invading” brown hordes, and the rich whites that make up the upper echelons of organizations like the Minutemen and other similar groups salivate over our reactions. If we’re busy fighting the Mexicans at the border, and busy trying to round up all the “illegals” then we’re too busy to fight that real enemy, that one that keeps eluding us, the rich and political elite.
Most of us that keep falling for these lines initially might mean well. Heck, we only want to defend our families and our communities… but in reality, we’re weakening them even more, by fighting our real potential allies and diverting our attention from the real enemy.
And why are all these brown skinned immigrants coming here in the first place? Why is there this sudden rush in the last thirteen years to get into this country? 80% of all illegal immigrants have entered since 1994. Why is that? What happened in 1994 that affected working people in Mexico just as it affected us? The passage of NAFTA, a free trade program that benefits nobody but the rich people on both sides of the border!
The new Liberty Movement defends the liberty of rich people to own property, while attacking the liberty of movement of brown working class people. The new Liberty Movement doesn’t protect liberty, it actively attacks it and defends a system that makes liberty for all people impossible.
We’re failing and being used
The new Liberty Movement is not a failure. It’s highly successful for accomplishing what the leaders of this movement want. If our interests as white working class people mirror those of other working people, the interests of the rich and political elite within our own movement mirror those of the rich and political elite within the government. The leaders of our own movement seek to keep the infighting amongst working people of all backgrounds and colors alive. Again, if we’re too busy fighting each other, then we can’t fight them.
We as white working class people are being used at these mobilizations. We’re fulfilling our old role of being foot soldiers for the political elite, for keeping other poor and working people in line. We’ve blinded ourselves again.
How else can we explain the willingness of hundreds of people without healthcare to actively work against legislation that would provide them with that healthcare?
And the worst part is, we don’t really gain anything from this situation. We’re failing ourselves. All of our work within the New Liberty movement, all of our energy, money, and talents are going to reinforce the same predatory economic, political, and social systems that keep us, as white working people, exploited and living in misery as well.
Our allegiances to these leaders, to people like Ron Paul, to people like Alex Jones, our acceptance of their white populist talk, our willingness to attack migrants, to disrupt attempts to provide healthcare to working class people, our willingness to cling to these ideas of the “other” liberty, the protection of property and not of people, are the biggest reasons that we are doomed to continue to live this way. We will continue to live paycheck to paycheck (at least those of us that have jobs) and in constant fear of eviction or foreclosure. We will continue to have to choose between new schoolbooks for our kids or dinner for the whole family. We will continue to see our retirement funds looted, our world destroyed, and our family members being killed in wars. And we will continue to not be able to do anything about it, unless we change our strategy and direction.
Moving forward
If we as white working people envision a world of safe, free, and economically secure communities, then we must act now. We have to start to identify our allegiances to that of our class, and not our race. We must create a revolutionary white identity that can actively work against all forms of domination that ensure that we will never enjoy true liberty.
Migrants and blacks are not our enemies. White rich people are not our friends. We must reverse this paradigm and start to work alongside movements of nonwhite working people against all predatory political, economic, and social systems. This means not just working against the state, but also working against capitalism. The state and capitalism are two faces of the same coin, a coin that must be thrown away.
We also must work actively against white supremacy in all its incarnations. Our future depends on this. If we as white working people want to enjoy freedom, then we must not be used by the rich to deny it to others and ourselves. The more we act as footsoldiers for the rich, the more we ensure that our freedom is also unattainable.
Historically, we as white working people have seen our allegiance become an allegiance to whiteness, to being white. We can relate to other white people, no matter how poor or rich. They’re white like us, and that’s something we can identify with, come to terms with. So of course, our natural enemies become nonwhite peoples.
The only problem with this idea is that we’ve had it wrong for centuries. We’ve been kept blind to the true nature of what is afoot here, as to what’s really going on. Look around us. Who fills the trailer parks with us? Who works in the factories or fast food restaurants with us? Who is beside us working in the fields, picking produce that we’ll never really be able to afford? Is it rich people, especially rich white people? Hell no, it isn’t. It’s brown people, black people, yellow people. It’s people who have different shades of skin than us. They are the people that are in similar situations to us, living paycheck to paycheck, suffering like we do. So why then would we view them as our enemy?
Allegiances, traditionally, are made amongst people who have common interests. In an historical sense, white skinned working people have overwhelmingly believed that our interests are based on skin color. We have to work for the betterment of the race, for our culture, for our identity. The truth, however, could never be further away. Whose interests do these beliefs really serve? White workers? In some sense, the answer may be “yes”. Working for the advancement of the white race at the cost of other races does buy us relative privileges and even some luxuries. In the end, however, we’re still poor, we’re still being used to make other people money. And those people aren’t non-white working people.
We have a stake in creating a new social paradigm and movement that goes beyond the idea of liberty being a protection for property ownership. We have a direct interest in fighting white supremacy, the state, and capitalism. Our freedom is intimately woven into the freedom of all working people. Until we are free as a working class, we will never be free as individuals, no matter what skin color we are.
I don’t want to end on an abstract note. I want to end with a couple concrete steps that white working class people can take to work to build a movement for real liberty.
- Actively work against groups like the Minutemen, the Klan, the Christian Identity Movement, and others that seek to divide us as working class people from other working class people based on their race, gender, sexuality, nationality or religion. These people are class traitors and ensure that we will never see freedom for ourselves or our families, as they keep us fighting other working class people and not the real enemy: the rich. Disrupt their attempts to organize and to recruit. Make it known they are not welcome at gun shows or other events where you are present. Not joining their organizations isn’t enough, we must actively stop them from organizing at all.
- Actively work against leaders of the New Liberty movement that organize against nonwhite working class people. Alex Jones, Ron Paul, David Duke, and others are trying to ensure that we will turn on migrants and other people of color rather than turn on rich people, most of whom happen to be white.
- Organize debtor’s unions and tenants unions in your neighborhood. We must come together with our neighbors to defend each other from foreclosures and evictions. Create networks of people in your neighborhood that can show up and help defend each other and prevent evictions.
- Refuse to pay any debts you have and organize rent strikes. Don’t pay your hospital bills, your credit card bills, or any other debts you have. Don’t give these people that have been exploiting us any more of your money.
- Support GI resistance to war and occupation. Many working class people are refusing orders to deploy, and resisting the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan in other ways. Lend them your support at couragetoresist.org
- Don’t join the military, help prevent your family members from joining the military. This institution has robbed too many working people of their lives by convincing them it’s their patriotic duty. We must stop falling for this line, and fight for our class, not for the political elites.
- Follow the examples of other working class people and occupy your workplace if threatened with layoffs or terminations. There have been occupations of workplaces in the U.S. and across other countries as the economic crisis has broadened. These reclamations of workplaces have ended with workers receiving back and severance pay, and sometimes even preventing their workplaces from closing
- Organize with your neighbors to grow food for your communities. Don’t rely on the economic elites for your food any longer. Starting a personal garden is a good first step, but community gardens can provide more food for more people, and create important community ties and working relationships.
- Be ready to actively defend your neighborhoods, workplaces, and communities from the police and state forces. Take whatever measures you deem necessary to do so.
- Don’t get a job as a cop or prison guard. These jobs also reinforce racial divisions within our class, as well as create domestic armies to use against us when we do work toward our own power. Cops are not our friends. The police systemically exist to protect the rich and their property. Prison guards are not any better. Especially with the expansion of the war on drugs to include a war against Meth, many white working class people are finding themselves in prison and on the other side of the bars from their neighbors in guard’s uniforms.
- Do anything you can to take back resources from the rich. We’ll keep this suggestion intentionally vague. The rich have all the food, all the money, all the wealth, and all the power. Let’s take it back. Any way we can.
Via IAS
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Ssangyong motors strike in South Korea ends in defeat and heavy repression
Posted by APOC-Philly in General on August 21, 2009
Loren Goldner’s analysis and overview of the defeated strike and occupation of the Ssangyong Motors plant against job cuts.
The Ssangyong Motor Company strike and plant occupation in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, ended after 77 days on Aug. 5. For the 976 workers who seized the small auto plant on May 22 and held it against repeated quasi-military assault, the settlement signed by Ssangyong court receivership manager Park Young-tae and local union president Han Sang-kyun represented a near-total defeat. Worse still, the surrender was followed by detention and interrogation of dozens of strikers by police, possibly to be followed by felony charges, as well by a massive ($45 million) lawsuit against the Korean Metal Workers’ Union and probable further lawsuits against individual strikers for damages incurred during the strike. The hard-right Korean government of Lee Myong Bak is signaling with these measures—its latest and most dramatic “take no prisoners” victory over popular protest in the past year and a half– its intention to steamroller any potential future resistance to its unabashed rule on behalf of big capital.
The Ssangyong strike echoed in many ways the dynamic seen in the recent Visteon struggle in the UK and in battles over auto industry restructuring around the world. Involving, on the other hand, an outright factory seizure and occupation, and subsequent violent defense of the plant against the police, thugs and scabs, it was the first struggle of its kind in South Korea for years. Its defeat—one in a long series of defeats extending over years—does not bode well for future resistance.
Ssangyong Motor Company was taken over three years ago by China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, which holds 51% ownership. At the time, the Pyeongtaek plant (located about 45 minutes from Seoul) had 8700 employees; by the time of the strike, it had only 7000. In February the company filed for bankruptcy, proposing a restructuring and offering the Pyeongtaek plant as collateral for further loans to re-emerge from bankruptcy. The court approved the bankruptcy plan, pending adequate layoffs to make the company profitable again.
The management strategy seems to have been a long-term whittling down of personnel combined with acquisition of technology for operations in China. Since the Shanghai Automotive takeover, there has been no new investment at Ssangyong Motors, and no new car model launched. (Korean prosecutors have raised questions over the legality of the technology transfer to China, since the technology in question was developed with Korean government subsidies, but to date no legal action has been taken.) In December 2008 there was also a brief job action protesting this technology transfer.
Following the decision of the bankruptcy court, workers at the plant responded in April with warning strikes against pending layoffs. This evolved on May 22 into a full strike, plant takeover and occupation by 1700 workers when the list of workers to be laid off was announced. The strike focused on three main demands: 1) no layoffs 2) no casualization and 3) no outsourcing. The company wanted to force 1700 workers into early retirement and has fired 300 casuals.
The Ssangyong workers are organized in the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) and have worked an average of 15-20 years in the factory. A regular worker earns a base pay of approximately 30,000,000 won (currently ca. $25,000) per year; a casual earns about 15,000,000 for the same work. (In Korea, the base pay is only part of the salary, which includes benefits –for regular workers—as well as significant overtime paid at a higher rate, often 10 hours a week and accepted, or even desired, by most workers as a necessary income supplement.)
As of mid-June, about 1000 workers were continuing the occupation, with wives and families providing food. About 5000 workers not slated for layoff stayed at home, and about 1000 supervisory staff scabbed, mainly maintaining machines, though no cars were produced once the occupation began.
There was in the early weeks little mass police presence in Pyeongtaek. This was due at least in part to the ongoing political crisis in South Korea following the recent suicide of ex-president Noh Mu Hyeon and subsequent large-scale demonstrations expressing growing outrage against the current right-wing government of Lee Myong Bak. The Lee government, elected in December 2007 on a program of high economic growth and already somewhat discredited by repeated blatant measures in favor of the wealthy and by the world crisis, was initially taken aback by the depth of outrage revealed in demonstrations mobilizing up to one million people. After the unleashing of riot police following Noh’s funeral provoked further outrage and brought more people to the streets, the government was at first unwilling to risk further disenchantment by an early assault on the Pyeongtaek factory.
On June 16, a large anti-strike rally of more than 1500 people was held outside the factory gates. The rally was attended by the 1000 supervisory scabs, 200 hired thugs and 300 workers not on the layoff list and not supporting the strike. 400 riot police stood by, doing nothing, and finally declared the scab assembly illegal, apparently due to fear that the occupying workers and their supporters might attack it.
During the scab rally, about 700-800 workers from nearby factories, such as the Kia Motor company, had come to defend the Ssangyong plant, in part in response to a text message tree of the KMWU.
The occupying workers made plans for armed defense against any police attempt to recapture the plant, stocking iron pipes and Molotov cocktails. As a further fallback plan, they prepared to concentrate in the paint department, where the flammable materials (in their estimate) would dissuade the police from firing tear gas cannisters and setting off a conflagration. (This calculation did prove correct, as we shall see, but it ultimately proved of no avail.)
I spoke to one activist participating in the occupation and critical of the role of the union. In his view, the KMWU remained in control of the strike. However, in contrast to role of the unions in the Visteon struggle in the UK and in the dismantling of the US auto industry, the KMWU supported the illegal actions of seizing the plant and preparing for its armed defense. On the other hand, in negotiations with the company, it concentrated on the demand for no layoffs and soft-pedaled the demands for job security for all and against out-sourcing.
The core occupation of the plant was powered by 50 or 60 rank-and-file groups of 10 workers each, who in turn elected a delegate (chojang) for coordinated action. According to the same critical activist, these chojang are the most combative and class-conscious workers.
Once again, the Ssangyong strike initially benefited from a favorable political climate, which put the Korean government on the back foot, but it is up against the deep crisis of the world auto industry and the world economic crisis generally. The nearby Kia Motor Company plant was itself in the middle of critical negotiations for crisis measures, and GM-Daewoo is being hit with the world reorganization of GM. The company strategy, as in the case of Visteon, has been at best slow attrition (already underway since 2006) or even an outright closing of the plant.
In late June, the government and company dropped their wait-and-see attitude and began to go on the offensive. On June 22, stiff lawsuits had already been filed against 190 strikers. A few days later, one fired and heavily-indebted worker committed suicide. The broader social and political climate continued to harden, with groups ranging from school teachers to monks attacking the government’s accelerating drift to the right, and the forces of order, led by the ruling Hanaradang (Grand National) Party, branded such critics as sympathizers of North Korea. Demonstrations of strike supporters took place periodically in Seoul and in Pyeongtaek, but rarely assembled more than a few thousand people.
On June 26th-27th a serious government and employer attack on the plant resumed , as hired thugs, scabs recruited from the workers not slated for firing, and riot police tried to enter the factory. They secured the main building after violent fighting in which many people were injured. The occupying workers retreated to the paint sector, which was part of the (above-mentioned) strategy. (In January, five people in Seoul died in another fire set off during a confrontation with police, sparking weeks of outrage.).
On the following day, the company issued a statement declaring that there had been enough violence, but in reality in recognition of the tenacious worker resistance, and police and thugs were withdrawn. The company urged the government to involve itself directly in negations.
Ever since the attack of the 26th-27th, aimed at isolating Ssangyong’s struggle and breaking the strike, solidarity actions outside the plant were attempting to build broader support. These included a street campaign, mainly from family organizations in the center of Seoul and in the Pyeongtaek area, and a 4-hour general strike by the KMWU during which metal workers from nearby plants rallied in front of Ssangyong factory gate.
Then, on July 1, all water was cut off, which in the hot and humid Korean summer ultimately forced workers to trap rain water as they could and make improvised toilets from barrels when all toilets backed up. All access to the plant was blocked and negotiations collapsed.
On July 4th , and July 11 the KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) held nationwide labor rallies in support of the Ssangyong’s struggle. These actions were, however , poorly attended and the leadership of the KMWU hesitated in declaring an all-out strike in response to the attacks on the plant. Activists think the KMWU and KCTU leaderships were more preoccupied with upcoming union elections. (927 activists also held a one –day hunger strike in the center of Seoul on July 11.) (From my experience in Korea over the past four years, these are largely ritual actions which rarely influence the outcome of a struggle, except as barometers of weakness and isolation.)
Finally, on July 16, 3,000 KMWU members gathered to support the Ssangyong strike in front of the Pyeongtaek City Hall. When they tried to move to the factory after the rally, they were blocked by police and 82 workers were arrested on the spot. During one subsequent (and failed) attempt to reach the plant gate with food and water, company thugs went out of their way to break every bottle of water.
The gloves really came off on Monday July 20. Here is the military situation as described by a worker from nearby Kia Motor Company who came, with hundreds of others, to help defend the plant against an attack by 3000 police, thug and scabs:
When we finished night shift work at 5:30 this morning, we went to Pyeongtaek to the front gate of the Ssangyong factory where the struggles were going on, just as they had on the previous day.
By 9:00 or 10:00 AM many buses loaded with riot police were arriving at the gate, as well as approximately 20 fire-fighting vehicles as well.
While 2,000 riot police were trying to get near the paint plant, the workers responded with slingshots and sometimes Molotov cocktails. A catapult using bolts and nuts had a range of 200-300 meters and was effective. Tires placed in an effort to defend the plant were burning, and the black smoke covered the sky over the factory.
The company had cut off water and gas supplies and enforced a blockade on all material for workers from outside, including medical supplies. The company seems to have as a first strategy wearing people down to get them to leave the paint plant spontaneously.
Later that day, a police helicopter was spreading tear gas against workers who were fighting on the housetops.
On 21 July, the KCTU declared a general strike from July 22nd to the 24th , and scheduled a nationwide labor rally on Saturday July 25th. The KMWU announced partial strikes on the 22nd and 24th in support of the Pyeongtaek strike and of ongoing negotiations. These strikes, which the KCTU in particular is in the habit of calling with neither follow-through or serious support, remained scattered and ineffective.
The same Kia worker, fighting police at the plant gate, reported these events as follows on July 22:.
Starting July 20th, with a court order, more than 3,000 riot police, including a ranger unit, had tried to seize the plant and ordered workers out of the factory. After the workers rejected this order, the police launched an attack against occupying workers for 7 consecutive days, and this attack also involved hired thugs and scabs from workers not laid off.
The police are conducting round-the-clock ideological propaganda, and a police helicopter is flying low to prevent workers from sleeping and to unnerve them.
They have cut off the supplies of water and and gas and are refusing factory entry to humanitarian medical help. (Electricity has been left on to prevent paint and other flammable materials in the paint plant from decomposing.)
From the 21st onward, the police have been dropping tear gas from helicopters onto workers struggling on the roof of the paint sector. That gas includes a toxic material that can melt sponge rubber.
Intermittently, when the riot police try to get into the paint plant, they use a special gun firing 50,000 volts and nails, while the scabs are using slingshots from the building opposite.
Naturally, we are fighting the police with iron pipes and Molotov cocktails on the street in front of the factory to defend the strike.
By the end of July, the approximately 700 workers left in the plant were eating a rice ball with salt instead of regular meals, and drinking boiled rain. Though many workers had been injured during the fight, they resolutely continued their struggle.
On Jul. 20th, one union official’s wife committed suicide at her home. Even though her husband was not laid off, he participated in the struggle despite several threats from management. His wife was just 29 years old. Thus far five people have died or committed suicide in as a result of this struggle.
On July 25, the KCTU held a rally in front of the Pyeongteck railway station. After that rally, the workers and other participants, armed with iron pipes and stones from the sidewalk, fought against riot police, while attempting to march to the Ssangyong factory gate. A brutal attack by police forced us to retreat from the front of the factory. Struggles continued late into the night on the streets of Pyeongtaek.
We of the KMWU are scheduled to launch a 6 -hour general strike on July 29th but as you know, it is so difficult to mobilize all union members to participate in such a strike.
Management has been seeking the moral high ground, claiming they may be forced into bankruptcy.
Amid growing pressure from some civic organizations, and some congressman, management and the Ssangyong union were scheduled to meet on July 25th. But the management cancelled that meeting unilaterally, for the sole reason (they claimed) that the workers still throwing bolts and that they could not accept the union’s demand of no layoffs but with all dismissed workers rotating on unpaid temporary retirement.
The management rejected union’s concession, and said that they will only accept layoffs.
On July 27, the Ssangyong workers held a press conference and another rally in front of the paint plant, escaping for a while the suffocating atmosphere inside.
The demands of that rally were:
1) Withdrawal of the police
2) Direct negotiation with management and government
3) Release of the results of the investigation into illegal effluence resulting from the use of hybrid diesel engine technology.Finally I’ll finish this, referring to the last part of the press conference ;
“ ….We have been doing our best to solve this dispute with the principle of peaceful settlement with dialogue. Nevertheless, if this kind of brutal, deadly repression continues, we openly declare our resolute will to fight to the death..
Those of us in here will show our determination to die to the world not only as workers but also as human beings.
We will fight unflinchingly and regain our rights and return to our homes at last.
In the daily fighting from July 20 to July 27, the police, thugs and scabs had recaptured the entire plant with the exception of the paint department. Large contingents of police massed in the building next door, a few yards from the paint department entrance.
After renewed negotiations broke down again over the weekend of Aug. 1-2, electricity to the paint department was finally cut off, forcing the occupying workers to use candlelight at night. The final battle began on Aug. 3 and continued through the 5th.
100 strikers had left the occupation throughout the night (many out of disgust at the ruthlessness of the state and company’s violence). In the final negotiations, the local union president agreed to early retirement (i.e. layoff with severance pay) for 52% of the occupiers, with 48% furlough for one year without pay, after which they will be rehired, economic conditions permitting. The company will also pay a 550,000 won monthly subsidy for one year to some workers transferred to sales positions.
In the ensuing days, insult was piled on injury with detention and pending indictments of scores of workers, and a 500,000,000 won ($45,000,000 US) lawsuit by the company against the KMWU. As indicated, further individual lawsuits, possible under Korean labor law which have left striking workers destitute in the past, may follow. The company claims 316 billion won ($258.6 million) damages and about 14,600 vehicles in lost production due to the strike.
This calculated vengeance by the government and the company shows a clear escalation of a general offensive against all possible opposition. A year before, in summer 2008, the 12-month strike at the E-Land department stores went down to defeat. Of the 10,000 employees who had struck in summer 2007, many returned to their jobs, accepting the miserable offer they had initially rejected, Others had already moved on to other jobs. The E-Land employees had repeatedly sat in and occupied stores, and on several occasions fought off police and thugs attempting to escort strikebreakers into stores. Nevertheless, following the defeat, nothing like the reprisals coming down on the Ssangyong workers occurred.
The Lee Myong Bak government of the Hanaradang Party has important roots in the 1961-1979 dictatorship of Park Chung-hee, which were the glory years of Korea’s emergence as the first Asian tiger. Park’s daughter was only narrowly edged out by Lee to become the party’s presidential candidate in 2007. More broadly, a rose-tinted view of the Park dictatorship, focused on its economic dynamism and downplaying or ignoring its brutal repression, has become widespread in Korean society in recent years, fueled by the spotty growth since the early 1990’s and above all since the 1997-98 financial meltdown when Korea came under the control of the IMF. (One of the IMF’s main conditions for its $57 billion bailout was a major increase in the casualization of workers.) The Lee government not only repealed a tax on luxury real estate transactions imposed by the previous Noh government, but it refunded the tax money collected in those years. During the Ssangyong strike, it also pushed through a much-contested media law, which will allow a Rupert Murdoch-type consolidation of the media by a few large conglomerates, wiping out smaller and more critical outlets. Korea’s notorious National Security Law, passed in 1948 during the civil war preceding the Korean War during which hundreds of thousands of leftists were killed, remains in force and has been recently used to arrest socialist groups for the simple fact of being socialist, as well as book dealers selling ostensibly pro-North Korean books.
The Ssangyong defeat cannot be attributed merely to the lame role of the KMWU national organization, which from the beginning allowed the negotiations to be channeled in a narrow focus on “no layoffs”. (By contrast, the local union president, who ultimately signed the surrender document, stayed in the occupied plant right to the end, even though he was not on the layoff list.) Nor can the defeat be fully explained by the atmosphere of economic crisis. Both of these factors undoubtedly played a major role. But above and beyond their undeniable impact, it is the year-in, year-out rollback of the Korean working class, above all through casualization, which now affects more than 50% of the work force. 1 Thousands of workers from nearby plant did repeatedly aid the Ssangyong strike, but it was not enough. The defeat of the Ssangyong strikers, despite their heroism and tenacity, will only deepen the reigning demoralization until a strategy is developed that can mobilize sufficiently broad layers of support, not merely to fight these defensive battles but to go on the offensive.
- 1. Cf. my article “The Korean Working Class:
From Mass Strike to Casualization and Retreat, 1987-2007” – http://libcom.org/history/korean-working-class-mass-strike-casualization-retreat-1987-2007
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Labor Group Probes Torture of Zimbabwe Union Leaders
Posted by illvox collective in Organizing on August 16, 2009
A three-member team of International Labour Organisation (ILO) lawyers arrived in Zimbabwe on Wednesday to begin investigations into the alleged torture of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) leaders in 2006, the labour union has said.
“The three distinguished lawyers appointed by the ILO on the basis of impartiality and knowledge of industrial relations and human rights are now in the country to investigate whether the there was any human rights violations when people where beaten for expressing themselves in 2006,” ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo told ZimOnline.
The lawyers, who are from South Africa and Mauritius, will mainly conduct interviews with ZCTU leaders, labour and workers rights activists assaulted by the police after they staged protests against deteriorating working and living conditions for workers.
The ILO lawyers are also expected to meet with the police, several government ministers, security agencies and labour leaders.
“They are going to meet several people but I can not go into the details of their work because it will be pre-judicial to do so,” said Matombo.
Several ZCTU leaders and activists incurred serious injuries including broken limbs while others are said have suffered some permanent disabilities.
Police however denied assaulting or torturing the ZCTU officials, insisting that the unionists were injured after they tried to jump off a moving police truck.
But lawyers representing the union leaders alleged at the time that their clients were tortured while in police detention at the notorious Matapi Police Station in Mbare.
Torture and other forms of inhuman punishment are illegal in Zimbabwe.
Western governments and local human rights groups condemned the torture of the ZCTU activists but President Robert Mugabe publicly backed the police for ill-treating the unionists who he accused of plotting to topple his government.
An ILO delegation visited the country early this year to access the situation of workers’ rights in Zimbabwe and urged the country to adhere to the international statutes on workers’ rights.
A report on Zimbabwe is to be presented at an ILO meeting in Geneva, Switzerland later this year. The report will encompass the findings of the three-man ILO investigating team.
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Demand Justice for Targeted Immigrant Worker
Posted by illvox collective in Organizing on August 14, 2009
Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that Aizze was the best barista at the Snelling & Selby Starbucks in St. Paul, MN. She knew every regular’s drink and could make a latte in 28 seconds. She has 20 MUG awards for her job performance, and was never written up in her two years of service, nor was her till ever ‘over’ or ‘short.’ Her coworkers and customers loved her; they called her ‘Aizze’ (pronounced ‘Ozzie’), short for Azmera. This description is in the past tense because Starbucks wrongfully fired Aizze on July 8, 2009. Starbucks management accused her of theft, although they themselves ADMIT that they have no video or other evidence to support their accusation.
Adding insult to injury, Saint Paul District Manager Claire Gallagher took advantage of Aizze’s limited English abilities and bullied and manipulated her into signing a promissory note saying she would pay Starbucks the arbitrarily- determined amount of $1200. Acting through the notoriously anti-worker law firm Olonoff, Asen & Serebro,. LLP, Starbucks has since sent Aizze a letter threatening to send their baseless claim to a collections agency.
Azmera is not a thief. An immigrant from Ethiopia, Azmera has been a citizen of the U.S. for the past ten years. She has worked at Starbucks for the past two years. Together with her husband, a Taxi driver, Azmera is the proud mother of three young children. Aizze is an honest, deeply religious woman who loves her job and works hard to care for her family.
How did this happen?
On July 8, 2009, Aizze was told to sit in the back room at the end of her shift, alone with St. Paul District Manager Claire Gallagher. For almost two hours, she was not allowed to leave, and no other workers were allowed to enter. The DM made a conference call with “Partner & Asset Protection” Manager Chris Vanderhoof and together they began to interrogate Aizze. When Aizze informed her interrogators that she did not understand what they were saying, they just repeated the same words over and over. Aizze was not offered an interpreter. She was told that if she didn’t sign the promissory note, they would call the police and have her arrested. Thinking of her children, she signed the paper. Her interrogators told her flatly that they had no proof or video of her stealing money, yet they accused her of theft. Aizze never stole. If there was change someone didn’t want from a transaction, Aizze put it in the tip jar, but she never, ever stole.
Why Aizze?
We can only speculate on why Aizze was targeted, but one thing is clear: Starbucks thinks they can get away with victimizing her because she is an immigrant and a non-native English speaker.
What You Can Do To Help
We all have a responsibility to stand up for the most vulnerable amongst us. We will not sit idly by while Starbucks management victimizes one who has come to this country seeking a better life. We demand immediate reinstatement, the immediate nullification of the promissory note, and an apology to Aizze. Justice must be done for Aizze and all workers.
DEMAND JUSTICE
Call:
- Regional Vice President SUMI GOSH at 312-342-8701
- Regional Director DIMITRI HATZIGEORGIOU at 312-731-8909
- St. Paul District Manager CLAIRE GALLAGHER at 651-260-5079
Via IWW
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Korean Sanggyong Strike Up Against the Wall
Posted by APOC-Philly in Uncategorized on July 21, 2009
Submitted by catch on Jul 17 2009
The Ssangyong Motors strike in Pyeongtaek, South Korea (near Seoul), is now in its eighth week, and the situation of the strikers is increasingly dire.
Loren Goldner
July 17
(The following article reports “just the facts”, based on communications from workers and other activists involved in the struggle.)
The Ssangyong Motors strike in Pyeongtaek, South Korea (near Seoul), is now in its eighth week, and the situation of the strikers is increasingly dire.
To briefly reiterate the overall situation (following on my earlier report of June 19):
Ssangyong Motors is 51% owned by China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation. In February the company filed for bankruptcy, proposing a restructuring and offering the Pyeongtaek plant as collateral for further loans to re-emerge from bankruptcy. The court approved the bankruptcy plan, pending adequate layoffs to make the company profitable again.
Following job actions through the spring in anticipation of the layoffs, the current strike began on May 27 when the company announced layoffs and forced retirement of 1700 out of 7000 workers, with immediate additional firings of 300 casuals. The workers slated for layoff immediately occupied the plant, demanding no layoffs, no casualization and no outsourcing. The KMWU (Korean Metal Workers Union) supported the occupation but tried to channel negations strictly around the question of layoffs.
As of mid-June, about 1000 workers were continuing the occupation, with wives and families providing food. The government and the company bided their time, in part because of a broader political crisis of the hard-right Lee government which militated against any immediate massive police and thug attack, But two weeks later, they felt confident to go on the offensive. The workers, for their part, had armed themselves with iron crowbars and Molotov cocktails.
On June 26th-27th a serious government and employer attack began , as hired thugs, scabs recruited from the workers not slated for firing, and riot police tried to enter the factory. They secured the main building after violent fighting in which many people were injured. The occupying workers retreated to the paint sector, which was part of a defensive plan based on the belief that police would not fire tear gas canisters into the highly flammable area. (In January, five people in Seoul died in another fire set off during a confrontation with police, sparking weeks of outrage.).
The following day, the company issued a statement to the effect that there had been enough violence, but in reality in recognition of the tenacious worker resistance, and police and thugs were withdrawn. The company urged the government to involve itself directly in negations. All water in the plant was nonetheless cut off at the end of June.
Following a court order, the forces of repression struck again on July 11 as the riot police moved to seize the factory area with the exception of the paint sector, and encircled the entire factory.
Ever since the attack of the 26th-27th attack aimed at isolating Ssangyong’s struggle and breaking the strike, solidarity actions outside the plant were attempting to build broader support. These included a street campaign, mainly from family organizations in the center of Seoul and Pyeongtaek areas, a 4-hour general strike by the KMWU during which metal workers from nearby plants rallied in front of Ssangyong factory gate; on July 4th , and July 11 the KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) held nationwide labor rallies in support of the Ssangyong’s struggle. These actions were however poorly attended and the leadership of the KMWU has hesitated in declaring an all-out strike in response to the attacks on the plant. Activists think the KMWU and KCTU leaderships are more preoccupied with upcoming union elections. (927 activists also held a one –day hunger strike in the center of Seoul on July 11.) (From my experience in Korea over the past four years, these are largely ritual actions which rarely influence the outcome of a struggle.)
Finally, on July 16, 3,000 KMWU members gathered to support the Ssangyong strike in front of the Pyeongtaek City Hall. When they tried to move to the factory after the rally, they were blocked by police and 82 workers were arrested on the spot.
All in all, chances for a serious generalization of the struggle to other factories look remote. Activists on the scene feel that even if the KMWU called a general strike, only a few districts would follow it. The Hyundai auto workers are in the midst of wage negotiations themselves. Nearby supplier plants have already gone through structural adjustment and are not likely to mobilize.
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Strikes and Lockouts in South Korea
Posted by APOC-Philly in General on June 3, 2009
Submitted by Ed on Jun 1 2009
As the economic recession hits South Korea, striking car workers have been locked out of their factory while earlier in the week construction workers go on strike in and around Seoul.
Ssangyong Motor Company has locked striking workers out of its plant to stop them disrupting production at the carmaker, which is in bankruptcy protection.
Unionised workers at the South Korean automaker have been on strike since May 21, demanding management keep the assembly line workforce at current levels in a self-rescue plan the company is devising under a court order.
The carmaker’s management said in a statement it had to impose the lockout after unionised workers began an illegal sit-in and blocked managers from going to work.
Ssangyong management has called for more than 2,600 workers to be laid off (36% of its workforce), triggering protests from the workers. The labor union has called for the government’s financial assistance to prevent massive layoffs amid the economic meltdown and help resuscitate the automaker by enlarging its market share. The company is 51-percent owned by China’s top automaker, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., which has balked at providing more support.
Construction workers strike
The Korean Construction Workers Union staged a strike earlier this week and held several rallies in and around Seoul and, according to some sources, has made progress on working conditions with the Land Ministry.
The union, which represents 25,000 workers across the country, held morning rallies in Daebang-dong, southwestern Seoul, and Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, that drew roughly 4,000 workers in total. Nearly 20,000 workers gathered in front of the government complex in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi, for an afternoon demonstration (pictured above).
The union said it scheduled the strike in Seoul after it failed to reach an agreement on working conditions with the government on Tuesday. But the two sides were able to hammer out a partial agreement that covered a key union demand relating to the use of non-union workers on construction sites, according to a press release issued yesterday by the ministry.
The union claims that the government is increasingly using outside workers and contractors on construction projects, diminishing opportunities for union members. It also wants the government to provide guaranteed labor rights for so-called special workers – mainly those who are self-employed.
Additionally, the construction workers union wants help combating unemployment related to the economic downturn.
Oh I-taek, a senior executive of the construction union, said that union members now account for just 30 percent of all construction workers on construction sites.
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First Mass Redundancies Announced in South Korea; Wokers Respond With Strike Action
Posted by APOC-Philly in General, Organizing on May 25, 2009
Submitted by Ed on May 25 2009
Workers at South Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor went on strike Thursday in protest at plans for mass layoffs to save the firm from bankruptcy.
Assembly lines at its plant in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, stopped at 1:30pm, said union spokesman Lee Chang-Geun.
“Management should come to talk with the union on avoiding the proposed massive job cuts,” Lee said, adding that the duration of the strike would be decided Friday.
Debt-stricken Ssangyong in February won court protection from creditors. The court told its Chinese majority owner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), to give up management control. Court-appointed managers have since struggled to turn the company around through job cuts and cost savings.
The programme calls for the sacking of 2,646 workers or 36 percent of the workforce, in what would be the country’s first mass layoffs since the onset of the global economic crisis in September. The programme also proposes the firm take out a new bank loan of 250 billion won (200 million dollars) by offering its factory as collateral.
Union leaders representing 7,100 workers immediately rejected the job cuts and demanded managers minimise sackings through job-sharing.
Ssangyong, which specialises in sport-utility vehicles and luxury sedans, posted a net loss of 709.7 billion won last year on sales of 2.5 trillion won. In the first three months of this year, its sales nosedived 76 percent to 6,471 units. SAIC still holds a 51 percent stake in the firm.
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