Working Class Monthly Published by the revolutionary soCialist organization

revolutionary SOCIALIST
famously replied, New Labour. A reference to the parties championing of de-regulation of the financial sector as well as its driving through of neoliberal economic measures such as the privatisation of parts of the National Health Service and the Royal Mail. and in the current dire economic climate placing faith in such traitors may be fatal. If the bosses and capitalists are not shown a proper fightback then they will continue with their policy of exploiting the workers and scrounging from the wealth of society. This however can only happen if the workers stop relying on leaders who have sold them out time and time again and if they take their fate into their own hands. We need to remember that it is the workers, not the bosses, who create the wealth of society and that when they decide to do so they can bring the whole of production to a grinding halt. The bosses and the government know this but they are calling the union bosses bluff. The working class needs to show that it is serious about not taking any more punches from the ruling class. That is why on the 30th of No-

Issue No. 2 October 2011 Price: Donation

Labour, Tory; Same Old Story!

On Sunday 2nd of October Manchester played host to the biggest political demonstration staged outside of London in a generation as 35,000 people marched past the Conservative Party conference protesting against the governments austerity measures. 250 coaches brought people from all over the country to the North West for the day and the depth of anger people felt towards the government was palpable, the shouts of Tory Scum, directed at the conference hall as the protest marched past, contained a viciousness that is vital if the working class is to defend itself against the capitalists onslaught. The fact of the matter is that the attack on the working class during this age of austerity is not ideological, it is not only a Tory policy, a Labour policy or a Liberal Democrat policy. The cuts are the policy of capitalism and if we want to stop the cuts then we have to overcome capitalism itself. This means organizing as a class around the revolutionary ideas of Marxism, with the Encouraging as the day was, goal of bringing about a communist there was also the sense that the trade society. unions, who were largely responsible for mobilizing the numbers on the day, The established leaders of the would be happier if the anger directed working class in the unions and the Laat the conservative party stayed as just bour party have made it explicitly clear that. The speeches made by the lead- that they want no part whatsoever in ers of the unions at the rally talked of this project. Why would they? A revobuilding a resistance to the ideologi- lutionary upheaval in society would cal attacks. Those with more integrity threaten their comfortable position as spoke positively of the need for coor- sergeants of the capitalists, gorging on dinated industrial action to stem the the crumbs from the capitalists table as assault. The broader message though reward for keeping their troops, the orwas not one of class struggle, pitting dinary workers, in line. the workers against the bosses, but rather was directed at building a vague Take, for example, the former opposition to the nasty Tories and leader of the Labour party, Tony Blair. implicitly supporting the Labour Party. A man who sent working class soldiers to their deaths in two unnecesAn attitude of this would sary wars, who cosied up to dictators, never happen if only Labour were in such as Colonel Gadaffi, so British oil power is far worse than naive, it is companies could exploit the nations dangerous. Recalling everything the resources, and who spoke constantly Labour Party has said since the global of the great achievements of the finaneconomic crisis hit, not to mention cial institutions of the city of London. their record whilst in power, we know He was rewarded after his time in ofthat if the Labour party were in power fice with a job on the board of Goldit would be implementing exactly the man Sachs which pays him millions of same attacks on the working class, the pounds a year for his previous services only difference being that it would be to them. the unions, and not big business, who would be funding the political party Another example of this failed pushing the cuts through. Additionally, leadership is Derek Simpson, former the Labour party does not even support joint secretary of Unite, the union. He the efforts of the working class people was so dedicated to fighting for the who vote for it to defend their working betterment of living standards for his conditions and livelihood by using the unions members that he constantly best weapon they posses, the strike. Ed sold them out to employers and pockMilliband categorically called strikes a eted a 300,000 golden goodbye from mistake at the TUC conference earlier union funds upon his retirement. this year. These are just two examples To expect any other attitude of how the supposed opponents of the from the Labour Party though would cuts use their positions of influence to be completely illusory. The Labour lead the working class into traps. This Party is a Bourgeois workers party. It means the working class is more easily is a party that represents the working exploited by the capitalist class and the class but does so in a way that works bureaucrats and MPs get their thirty actively against the interest of its pieces of silver for selling the workers electors. It used to at least advocate a out. responsible form of capitalism, but now it does not even do that. Margaret The working class, even in Thatcher, when asked what her great- the best of economic climates, cannot est achievement as prime minister was, afford to trust such men to lead them,

vember all workers, both in the public and private sector should take strike action as a first step in the counter offensive during this age of austerity.

in its own power and abilities, goes on the offensive, and brings into life a new revolutionary communist party that will fight in every workplace, in every university, on every street for soBut finally, a wider fightback, not cialism, will the working class succeed just against the current cuts, but against in its historic task. this whole system of misery and poverty has to be put on the agenda. Only if the working class gains confidence

Steves Jobs
A moan goes through the hipster centres of this world; Berlins Prenzlauer Berg, Londons Shoreditch and Manchesters Northern Quarter. The mastermind behind a number of Apple products, including the iBook, the iPhone and the iPod, Steve Jobs, is dead! While some of his fans mourn, as if their own child had died, we want to put the focus firmly on the dark side of the success of the Apple brand. In November 2010, all operations at the Deutsche Post mail distribution centre in Berlin-Mitte collapsed. The reason for this was the inquiry notice of a woman in a city newspaper for a man in his early 20 with retro glasses who had worked in a cafe in Mitte on a Mac-Book and was telling her about his new project. No fewer than 13 800 men felt addressed and answered the advert. That not only says something about the taste in glasses of many Berlin men, but already points out what kind of a cult status Apple products have reached, especially in the betteroff, creative circles. Now there are photos appearing on the Internet from San Francisco, Sydney and Beijing, where people lay flowers in front of Apple stores and thank the deceased for the iPhone. Apple and the workshop of the world Speaking of the iPhone, since the first generation, the popular mobile phone has been produced in China, originally in the Xiamen Special Economic Zone. Today, Apple employs the Taiwanese company Foxconn to produce the iPhone, as well as other products.( in China) Foxconn is one of the worlds leading and largest manufacturers of electronic and computer parts. Foxconns Shenzhen City, in south China, is the largest single electronics company in the world and has approximately 130,000 employees. Its not only Apple that produces its products in Shenzen, other companies such as Intel, HP, Dell, Sony and Nintendo also take advantage of the easily exploitable workforce. There, in the so-called Pearl River Delta, where 5% of all global goods are made and, so it is said, where there is a strike with at least 1,000 workers involved every day, lies the workshop of the world. And, like in 19th Century England, the former workshop of the world, the conditions in the Chinese electronics industry are appalling. After a series of suicides by desperate workers at Foxconn in 2010, even the mainstream international media became interested. A study by an institute in Hong Kong showed, among other things: Although the monthly maximum amount of overtime allowed by law is only 36 hours, a large number of workers were working 60-80 hours per month more. When there was a particularly high demand for the iPad, workers were allowed to take only one day off every two weeks. continue on page 2

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During their 12-hour shifts, the workers are not allowed to talk to each other and have to stand throughout the whole shift. Bad workers have been degraded and humiliated by the heads of department in front of their colleagues. Such conditions are now ubiquitous in Chinas economy, the local media even speaks of Guolaosi, death by overwork. In our brochure, China on the path to world power, we describe in detail the working conditions in Chinas free trade zones, where about 70% of the workers are women. The mostly very young workers have to contend with, not only 12-15 hour working days, forced overtime and enormous health and safety deficiencies, but also degrading disciplinary measures and sexual assault. It would be wrong to portray Chinas young workers solely as poor helpless victims, as Western media and NGOs like to do. Whilst, for example, the suicide series at Foxconn got a lot of media attention, the bourgeois media hardly reported on the strike of 7000 Foxconn workers for higher wages in November 2010. This selective reporting follows, consciously or unconsciously, a certain agenda. Namely that the Chinese working class should be depicted as a bunch of poor slaves, and not as a combative and self-conscious social force. The Left and the labor movement in Europe should not fall into this trap and should, according to their resources and capabilities, report on the struggles of the Chinese workers. Should I boycott Apple? What can we do if we are shocked by the ways in which Apple does manufacture its lifestyle products? Must people now no longer have iPhones (if they can afford them at all)? Do they have to throw away their old iPods? No! Individual consumer boycott has never been a solution to any

problem. And if one does not want to renounce the comforts that have been brought to us by the mechanization of our society, one will hardly find ethically viable alternatives. All major electronics companies produce under similar conditions. Change of consumption means change in production! Rather than worrying about how we can individually, with abstention from consumption, get out of this society, we should talk about how we can change this society. Even if parts of the establishment always want to hand the responsibility to the consumers, the real responsibility lies at the level of production. It is the way the capitalist economy works: the means of production (factories, raw materials ...) are privately owned by a small class of capitalists. These capitalists compete with one another and are forced to, if they want to survive in a market economy, constantly strive to increase profits and thus increase their capital. They have no other choice than to make as much profit as possible. Only in a society where the means of production are no longer in the hands of a small class of capitalists, but where the production is organized and controlled by the whole of society, will it be possible to really produce for the needs of mankind and in a way that does not inflict suffering upon another part of society. For Steve Jobs, who was also said to be extremely ruthless when dealing with his own staff, we shall shed no tears. Our sympathy and solidarity is with the workers in the supplier companies of Apple, and all workers in the Chinese electronics industry. And the best way to show that solidarity with the Chinese workers is doing the same thing here as they are trying to do in China, although under way more dangerous conditions; bring communist ideas back to the workplaces and organize resistance!

Sparks of Resistance

At the moment, the construction industry is launching a massive attack on electricians. The eight major construction firms have decided to back out of the Joint Industry Board (JIB) agreements, which regulated the hourly rates for electricians. It is concretely possible that the current hourly rate of 16.25 might be dropped to as low as 10.50, which means a massive decrease in living standards for electricians! This is certainly motivated by no other reason than to squeeze more and more money out of the workers. Construction firms in Britain have been fed some major deals, such as the Olympics Infrastructure in London or the Town Hall renovation in Manchester, which itself is worth 100 million pounds. But it seems that the thirst of the capitalists for profit can never be satisfied. The conditions of employment in the construction industry are already highly uneven. Wage rates often differ on the basis of slight differences between some of the jobs done. The bosses have already come up with a scheme to replace the JIB agreement where electricians will be paid 10.50

for installing conduit, 12 for wiring and 14 for terminating. Other differences exist between British and immigrant workers. This clearly fulfils no other purpose than to divide the workforce and make it easier to attack groups of workers on site. But as we know, an injury to one is still an injury to all! In addition to this latest attack, the construction industry has a nasty history of blacklisting workers who dare to show their discontent over the prevailing conditions. There are 3,500 blacklisted electricians, some for being overly concerned about health and safety. Semilegal companies exist solely to profit from the selling of names and details of workers with a history of standing up for themselves to the employers. Many such electricians have been unable to attain work for decades . This is just another little episode in the bosses struggle against the workers. The union bureaucrats have made clear that they themselves are not up for this fight. Unites officials have started to negotiate with the bosses in the wings. Of course the electricians on the sites whose livelihoods are endangered

are not supposed to have their say in it. The best Unite came up with was having a recruitment drive and then a ballot for strike action after the 7th of December, the date when the electricians have to have their new contracts signed by. Of course this is complete nonsense and gives a huge advantage to the bosses. Now, the electricians have started discussing wildcat strike action, and rightly so. If the workers dont surrender to the bosses and the union bureaucrats but take on the fightback themselves using strike action, which really hurts the companies, they will be much more likely to succeed, or at least show the bosses that there is no more free lunch at the workers expense. In the current climate of constant attacks on workers, it is crucial that both public and private sector workers, both under the same threat of capitalist misery, link their struggles. The bosses fear the united working class and the union bureaucrats do their best to maintain disunity in the workers ranks. But in the end the working class is stronger than all its enemies and can overcome all obstacles on its way to a brighter, socialist future.

Who we are
A brief summary of the political positions of the RSO The Revolutionary Socialist Organization (RSO) is fighting against capitalism and for a new socialist economic and social order. Every day it becomes more evident that the so-called free market has nothing to offer for most of the worlds population. Capitalism means hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, war and misery. Even in the richest countries in the world, millions live at or below the poverty line. In contrast, a small portion of the population owns the majority of the assets; in Britain 1% of the population owns more than a third of all assets. Two classes are facing each other in the capitalist society. On one side are the capitalists who own the means of production. They are faced by the wage earners who are forced to sell their labor power. Many workers today are isolated, discouraged, and full of capitalist political ideas and filled with capitalist prejudices. Nevertheless, only the wage earners through strikes and other collective forms of struggle can bring the capitalist mode of production to a halt and hit the capitalist class at the critical point, their profits. Capitalism in its neoliberal phase after the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91 is politically and militarily on the rise world wide. The working class of the European countries is subject to massive social attacks. Trade unions and social democratic parties are unable to oppose this, but are perfectly integrated into the system. Their representatives participate in cutting public services and creating racist divisions. The Green Parties are not an alternative, they are bourgeois parties, some of which have a progressive rhetoric on human rights issues, but, where they participate in government, show that they are part of the normal capitalist state. The different imperialist blocs are arming themselves. The imperialist global player is still the United States. But the EU is trying to downsize the military gap with the United States and is also more and more acting as a militarily independent bloc. In contrast, we support the resistance against imperialist wars and occupations and combine this with the slogan: The main enemy is at home. To secure its domination, capitalism is (also) using and fostering the division of the working class. We are fighting against the oppression of people because of their ethnicity, gender, age or sexual orientation and we oppose these divisions with the unconditional support of every fight for equal rights. We are for the socialization of large corporations and their transformation into co-operatives under democratic workers management and control. Capitalism can not be eliminated by a few votes or parliamentary reform. All attempts to overcome capitalism through reforms have failed (and have often led to bloody defeats). Only a fundamental upheaval, a revolution based on the active participation of large segments of the population can destroy the state of the ruling class, eliminate the bases of inequality, oppression and exploitation and create a free society. We are Marxists and follow in the tradition of the left opposition against Stalinism by Leon Trotsky. Our alternative is socialism. Our socialism is a free, democratic society built on elected councils. We refer positively to the Russian October Revolution of 1917. This revolution has indeed failed in the Stalinist degeneration in the twenties, but the idea of an alternative to capitalism retains its validity. Our socialism has thus nothing to do with the social democratic parties, or with the Stalinist dictatorships in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba and China. Capitalism is internationally organized and networked. Therefore, our revolutionary alternative has to be international and internationalist. The RSO is not the revolutionary party. None of the currently existing organizations can claim that for themselves. A new revolutionary party will emerge from a process of transformations and mergers. The RSO will try to play a positive role in this process to build such a party and therefore put forward a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. If you are interested in this project, then get in contact with us and support us in building a revolutionary and socialist organization!

Contact:
If you want to know more about the Revolutionary Socialist Organisation go to the English language part of our international web page : www.sozialismus.net or e-mail us at: revolutionarysocialist@gmx.com or just simply talk to the person who sold you this paper.