Workers Leading Autonomous Struggle
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On Saturday, May 20, 2017 workers took the street again. More workers from more factories left their job posts at SIPA and demanded to be let free from the factory walls, to join their fellow workers marching in the street, at time-mark 1:50 the gates are finally opened and the workers flood the street. They lead themselves to block the road to Toussaint Louverture International Airport, where they were quickly repressed by state violence of tear gas and acid water by CIMO (Haitian SWAT units) along with other police forces. These photos are just before the state-backed violent repression.
On Saturday, May 20, 2017 workers took the street again. More workers from more factories left their job posts at SIPA and demanded to be let free from the factory walls, to join their fellow workers marching in the street, at time-mark 1:50 the gates are finally opened and the workers flood the street. They lead themselves to block the road to Toussaint Louverture International Airport, where they were quickly repressed by state violence of tear gas and acid water by CIMO (Haitian SWAT units) along with other police forces. These photos are just before the state-backed violent repression.
Today, the primary demand is for 800 gourdes per day minimum wage, but they also are demanding social services, like food, transportation, and housing in order to cope with their conditions of teetering and even succumbing to hunger and homelessness. The workers have have absolutely nothing and every measure taken by the state has been against them, in the interest of others, on the workers backs.
WHAT IS TO COME
As of Sunday, May 21, 2017, the workers plan to continue their struggle for Monday, May 22, 2017. Depending on how the situation develops with the repressive forces, we await news from our comrades in struggle. They will not give up the fight anytime soon, they have come so far. With fists up, the working class faces a continued battle, in dignity but not without great sacrifice and risk. Stay tuned with our friend the Rapid Response Network for updates as this struggle unfolds, and for calls to action in extending our solidarity to the brave and determined
MEDIA REPORTING IN THE U.S.
On Sunday, May 21, 2017 the media in the United States joins with the interests of the factory owners in Haiti, parroting the false statements about the workers of ADIH and Le Nouvelliste. The Miami Herald, reported via @JacquelineCharles on her twitter account parroting the lies of ADIH that, “protestors violently forced way in & beat workers”.
Miami Herald Correspondent Tweets Anti-Worker Lies
Workers Struggle shames the complicity of the media in Haiti and the United States, neither attempted accurate representation of the several thousands of workers willingly STRIKE and marching across Port-au-Prince. These media sources are bourgeois mouthpieces for the factory owners themselves, turning their backs on the Haitian workers who are risking it all while facing violent repression facilitated by international business interests, sparked only from their dignity in the face of sharp pangs of hunger and precarious lives.
CALL TO ALL WORKERS!
Militant workers call all workers to take the streets
Solidarity, Kathe Kollwitz 1932
We need autonomous working class organizations today! With inspiration from the working class in Haiti, we call to stand in solidarity with each other not suffocating with the collaborationist union ropes around our necks in our ever worsening brutal treatment and austerity workers are facing everywhere. Workers face the same conflict, from the United States to internationally and it is by the same class of people, who run networks of multinational corporations operating factories with sweatshop-like conditions.
Multinational corporations are capitalists with armies behind them, they roam the world for opportunities for ever cheaper cost of labor to maximize their profit margins. Workers across have common bond with each other. Stand together as an autonomous force outside collaboration to weaken the chains of death. When workers in one location, stand in solidarity with workers somewhere else, the corporations lose a corner to run to.
The solution to this is for all workers to organize in their interests and for the intermediate level organization to bring the level of working class internationalism into workers struggles.
Let us be very clear, the relationship between worker and capitalist is antagonistic inherent to capitalism. How much a worker is paid in wage directly corresponds to how much the capitalist keeps in their pockets. This relationship is intrinsic to capitalism, thus universal across all places internationally they setup shop “open for business” as they say.
They lie and tell us if wages raise, costs of goods will rise – pitting the worker against the consumer (her/himself). This is false redirection of the antagonism. Why doesn’t the multi-millions bonuses and executive salaries take a reduction? The relationship is NOT direct between the wage the worker receives and the price of a consumer good. The relationship IS direct between the wages the workers receive and the profit the capitalist extracts for their use and benefit.
Why does International Working Class Solidarity Matter?
Workers are an international class, just as the capitalists are who operate multinational corporations and use both bourgeois democracies and autocratic governments to exploit respective nation’s working class for all they can. They organize internationally, and so must we! All of production is now intertwined internationally. We can’t just save our jobs, we have to stand shoulder to shoulder with all workers in our common fight against the same enemy.
Thus, when workers lead their own struggle in one place, start organizing and fighting for their collective class interests, it places pressure on the same capitalists we face somewhere else and this pressure begins to exacerbate their vulnerable, unnatural and violent chain process of exploitation. When workers become stronger together, the owners of factories tend to move the facilities to other countries where the cost of labor inputs make it easier for them to exploit workers. This dynamic between owners and workers is clear, it is antagonistic and non reconcilable relationship. This is why we see constantly churning of jobs sent to other countries. The chain process of production is a brutal economic war on workers internationally. The brutality of the economic wars in turn then becomes social wars as access to services and the most basic of democratic rights are denied or stripped.
The solution is in our hands: workers and laborers in organization here and internationally, and in solidarity to our class sisters and brothers in other lands. The stronger our organizations and fights are everywhere, the stronger our power is collectively. This strength gives the exploiters less escape routes and free passes to freely roam across borders and bodies of water we can’t travel across to benefit from cheaper cost of labor so they can line their own pockets while we peril. The brutality of this economic and social war, materializes in every day violence, ignored by oversight authorities from government to collaborationist unions. We need our own parallel autonomous organizations.
Collaborationist unions at best can be seen as opportunists. In the U.S. it is illegal to STRIKE with most “unions”, these are the collaborators. They facilitate the interests of the companies in our name, right on our back. At the negotiating tables while corporations make record profits annually, it is not “what can we workers gain,” it’s “what sacrifices can we make?” These organizations are NOT workers organizations, they long ago integrated into the belly of business-women and men who live off our sweat. Collaborationist unions are ineffective because they are not for us, since they are not of us!
Our following of the struggle in Haiti by militant workers organizing the intermediate level has renewed our struggle and need our own autonomous organizations to fight for our own interests as workers and laborers. Autonomous organization today! Join with us of Workers Struggle- Miami and we will bring the light to the backed in corner of darkness we have been painted into. Let’s take back our fight! We will reject opportunism and collaboration with our enemy and struggle to determine our fate!
SUPPORT THE WORKERS STRIKE FUND, via the RAPID RESPONSE NETWORK:
A Note on The Intermediate Level Organization
Workers struggle is an intermediate level organization attempting build autonomous organizations of workers and laborers for them and by them. We call for the unity of all workers and laborers on for our collective class interests. Our vision is to construct a combative, militant, mass movement of the working class and laborers. We have been divided by the Capitalist politicians and their yellow unions for too long. Yellow Unions are collaborationist business unions. They are run and controlled by professional staff, with Presidents and administrations which exist off the backs of the working class. They claim to be pro-worker. Yet, they constantly come around to persuade us to vote for this or another politician who ends up exploiting us like the one before and after. They try to convince us not to strike or they support one only for limited time when we no longer follow their rules on it. They sell out the strike as the first claus in contracts with the bosses. They are on the side of the bosses and are opportunistic liars to the working class! We are not against the construction of unions for and by workers but we call for organization across job sites, across any line or border manufactured by the Capitalists to keep us running around fighting each other. We call for the autonomous organization of workers whether inside or outside unions. We are on the side of the workers, not those push their identity politics on us to divide us!
The overall autonomous mass movement Workers Struggle is attempting to construct (we take example from Batay Ouvriye in Haiti), will be composed of autonomous mass level unions and other forms of organizations, as well as intermediate level workers organizations. Intermediate Level organizations are militants in organizations that are present within the mass movement connecting all the dots, linking the struggles, and pushing it forward. The intermediate level organizations are always present in the movement of working class fighting towards a goal to construct organizations and grow the movement. The intermediate level connects all these struggles from all over to unite them all against their common exploiters, it constantly pushes the workers to fight for more of what was stolen from their labor! We pay keen attention to these organizations for learning their path in gaining so much momentum in the workers movement.
The IL shows us how workers can fight back and gain footing up against the immense expectations of production and the brutal tactics in their always transforming domination. These organizations are autonomous organizations that exist amongst the working class within and parallel to all other worker’s and representative organizations. They are the organized expression of the advanced level of working class’s political consciousness. The IL militant workers are politically conscious and disciplined in their role. They know their fights are in unity with all workers around the world, they have a vision to unite all workers for their common interests, expose the opportunist and business unions, politicians, media, etc
How do workers build a movement in their collective interest?
The working class must organize and struggle beyond just the mass-level organizations like trade unions. Mass-level organizations may fight for short-term, immediate demands, such as wage increase but with them along comes opportunism and collaborationist leadership. If the struggle is just limited to the union level, the political consciousness of the workers does not go beyond just bread and butter and these heroic struggles we are seeing in Haiti would not have come so far. They are typically either easily crushed and/or are pulled towards some politicians that come around talking shit to shut them up and keep them for fighting for their actual class interests…..sound familiar?…..
These mass level struggles do not advance the collective struggle even if they are able to negotiate for or win small incremental concessions at times. Fighting the opportunists, and all those who side with the bosses against the collective interests of the whole class and explaining the limitation of these struggles is key work of the intermediate level. We need to struggle against the opportunist and collaborationist bullshit lines of traitors which may sway some workers. Through organized efforts, the IL agitates to mobilize workers in their fight to take their fate into their collective hands.
Their contribution to advancing the interest of the working class is marked by their autonomous presence. This means the struggle is not being guided by or “represented” by outsiders with a line counter to the collective interest of the working class. Lines for example like fighting for just a $15 minimum wage in the US while we can barely survive on that. The IL exposes all those professional paid organizers and anybody pushing anything against the interests of the workers and laborers as a whole. They are not contained by outsiders and construct organizations for and by the workers and laborers be it within or outside whatever various unions. The “representatives” of the business unions, are not worker organizations. They limit the struggle and even try to pacify the workers when the workers know more is needed, their leadership is often more for the comforts of the business/union interests themselves, not the workers.
Militant workers’ leadership in the intermediate level organizations want more than just the primary demand of the very moment – a raised wage for example – but it is these organizations and their contribution which recognizes the interest for the future of all the workers and laborers.
The intermediate level organizes beyond mass level demands for wages and improved conditions, but agitates to mobilize the workers attention against capitalists and the different structures coordinating exploitation and domination on the backs of workers. These structures stand in silence to the everyday violence against the workers and break agreements made to the workers.
The intermediate level identifies the enemy as the coordinating capitalist players – including the government and its police, the collaborationist unions, and factory owners. They agitate for organizing purposes, to mobilize the workers who join in marching and chanting shouting down the state, the electoral politicians, the police and their cold complicity in the brutal exploitation and domination suffered by the workers in the factories.