Dinkins campaign offers no solutions for Blacks and workers

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NEW YORK-On Sept. 12, Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins defeated incumbent Edward Koch in the Democratic Party primary for mayor. Given the dominance of the Democratic Party in New York City politics, it is likely that Dinkins will go on to defeat Republican nominee Rudolph Giuliani to become New York's first Black mayor.

Dinkins's campaign was heavily backed by New York City's organized labor movement. This included unions that backed Jesse Jackson's presidential bid last year-Local 1199 of the Hospital Workers, AFSCME D.C. 37, and UAW District 65. But it also included unions that hadn't backed Jackson-the United Federation of Teachers and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Many Black voters undoubtedly saw their vote as a vote against 12 racist years of the Koch administration. Dinkins carried 95 percent of the Black votedown slightly from Jesse Jackson's 98 percent in the New York state presidential primary in 1988.

But a Dinkins victory will not make any fundamental difference in the lives of Black people in New York City-any more than the election of Black mayors in Los Angeles, Gary, Philadelphia, Chicago, or Washington, D.C., did.

So much attention has been paid to the "choice" given to New York City voters that one might think it is the mayor who rules New York City. But this is not the case. It is the banks and corporations, headquartered on Wall Street, which call the shots.

At a press conference this summer, Dinkins proposed a modest decrease in the city's oppressive sales tax. Outraged editorials in the big business newspapers reminded him, in case he had "forgotten," that such an action was illegal. It violated an agreement with the Municipal Assistance Corporation, a virtual junta of bankers who have had veto power over city financial decisions since New York's budgetary crisis of 1975.

Dinkins immediately retracted his position.

No answer to housing crisis One of the most deeply felt issues affecting New Yorkers is the crisis of affordable housing. That there are presently 100,000 homeless people sleeping in the streets, subways, and shelters every night has by now been prominently covered in the media. Less well known is the fact that the "hidden homeless" — those doubled and tripled up in public projects and private apartments—number 300,000.

One-third of all New Yorkers pay more than one-half of their income on rent. This is the lawful result of housing for profit, spurred on by over $2 billion in tax abatements under the Koch administration for realtors and developers of luxury condominiums.

Dinkins doesn't oppose housing for profit—or tax abatements for developers. He wants to "heal the wounds" by "balancing" tax incentives for luxury housing with those for low-income housing.

In 1986, Koch inaugurated his much-trumpeted 10-year, $5.1 billion program to construct or renovate 250,000 units of housing, 63 percent of which he claimed would be designated for "low-income" families (defined as families with incomes under $19,000 a year).

Dinkins, in an interview with The New York Times (Aug. 31, 1989) pronounced himself "basically satisfied" with the Koch plan. But a recent study by Bonnie Brower of the Housing Justice Coalition revealed that only 23 percent, or 57,500 units, would be designated for low-income families.

It is estimated that the city loses 13,000 low-income units a year just from skyrocketing rent prices alone. Add to this the units lost each year through condo conversion, arson, abandonment, and demolition and you have some idea of the magnitude of the hoax being perpetrated on New Yorkers when the candidates promise this as a solution to the housing crisis.

"Tough on drugs?"

But the biggest growth industry in New York City is not luxury condominiums-it is the drug industry. The Manhattan district attorney's office estimates that income from drug sales amounted to $80 billion last year alone. (The annual budget of New York City is $26 billion.) The drug business employs an estimated 300,000 people.

"I'm going to be the toughest mayor you ever saw with regard to drugs and crime," Dinkins said in his victory speech on Sept. 12. Although Dinkins raised the excellent demand for "drug treatment on demand" during the campaign, he also called for boot camps for first-time drug offenders, doubling the police on the beat, and mandatory drug testing for parolees.

No candidate talked in any are, of course, deeply felt issues for working people. But without linking them at every step to the issues of racism, education, and unemployment, "the war on drugs" becomes the latest cover for a campaign of police terror against Blacks and Latinos.

Koch made a campaign point about the fact that unemployment is at its lowest in New York City in 20 years-under 6 percent. It is a mark of this so-called "prosperity," however, that the unemployment rate for Blacks in the ghetto is 49.6 percent.

It is not as if there is no productive work to be done. It is estimated that it will take $2.5 billion to repair the city's 2000 neglected and collapsing bridges alone. The bridges, tunnels, water system, subways, and highways are in desperate need of repair. And then there is the need for decent low-cost housing.

Workers need their own party Anyone who attended the recent 400,000strong Labor Day parade could not fail to be impressed by the power of labor, even if it was used to back Dinkins.

A labor party, based on the trade unions, would reject the framework of the debate dietated by the Democrats. It would be "tough" with "special interests" all right-the real special interests, the banks and corporations, who have bled this city dry.

For a real war on drugs! For a mass program of public works to rebuild the city's rotting infrastructure at union wages! Make the Helmsleys, the Trumps, the real-estate magnates, and the drug money-laundering banks pay!

For a real housing program! For municipalization and federal funding for all vacant buildings and apartments warehoused by private developers! These should be administered by tenants' committees, coalitions of the homeless, and the unions. For labor action against police and racist vigilante terror!

Mayor Koch scampering fire