Boston labor rallies against cutbacks

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20,000 workers marched through the streets of Boston on April BOSTON-In what the AFL-CIO called a "take back the government" protest, at least 20,000 demonstrators marched on City Hall and the State House to the chant of "Governor Weld go to hell." The April 13 march and rally was called to protest layoffs and furloughs of state workers and cuts in public education and social services.

The march, one of organized labor's biggest actions in this area in years, included Boston firefighters, building-trades workers, rail workers, retail employees, and dozens of public-employee unions representing social workers, teachers, subway operators, and other workers.

The Republican Party administration of Gov. Weld is continuing the massive cuts started by Michael Dukakis's Democrats in trying to balance the state budget on the back of the poor and workers. While seeking over $100 million in public education cuts, Weld, recently pushed through an $85,000 salary increase for his cabinet.

It's this kind of in-your-face shamelessness that the people of Massachusetts are coming to see as the reality of state goverment. Gov. Weld, who acts like he won his office on the squash court from some other member of the Brahmin Club, is making enemies in labor faster than you can say "Croquet."

How is it that here, in the richest country in the world, the public school system, the mass transit systems, the vast network of roads and bridges—the entire infrastructure of American society is being allowed to steadily deteriorate and even collapse?

Why is it that although a steadily increasing portion of workers' wages go to city, state, and federal treasuries to pay for schools and other social services, the tax collectors demand more, claiming there aren't enough tax dollars for these things in the treasuries?

Not only are "we" rich, but each year the economy continues to grow, producing more goods faster than the increase in population. Each year society has more productive capacity available out of which these basic systems can be maintained at their highest level of efficiency, not to mention, be improved.

But, this increasing wealth doesn't get where it needs to go to maintain the basic infrastructure of society.

Moreover, for at least the last 20 years, the living standards of those who produce the wealth of this country—the working class—have steadily declined despite the increasing number of breadwinners in the average family.

An ever-larger proportion of the working class is being driven below the poverty level, with growing numbers of homeless people sleeping in the streets of the nation's big cities.

Karl Marx was the first to come up with a fully consistent explanation of how the capitalist economic system works-and why it doesn't work. While it's beyond the scope of a newspaper article to attempt to present Marx's economic theory here, we can point the reader in that direction by providing a brief introduction to a few basic ideas.

Where do profits come from? All wealth is produced by workers. All commodities are exchanged according to their value; that is, the labor time necessary for their production.!

Although wage workers are paid the value of their labor power, they are compelled to work longer than necessary for reproducing the value of their wages.

Thus, a good portion of the workers' labor-perhaps half, on average-is not paid for. The difference between the wages paid out and the surplus value produced by the worker is pocketed by the capitalist as profit.

But this "profit" is shared by the industrial capitalist with the whole class of capitalists, including bankers and landowners, 1 More accurately: socially necessary, abstract, human labor power.

TRADES Boston's Mayor Ray Flynn, a Democrat, is not winning any popularity contests either. This "pro-labor" mayor has plans to eliminate 1500 city jobs. Greeted with boos and jeers by the protesters as he crept onto the podium, Flynn told the crowd, "There's no government that has the right to take 13.

away a person's right to work."

But the Boston city hospital workers, who have been working without a contract since July, and the members of other unions whose members have been laid off by the Flynn administration, were less than impressed. affect up to 80,000 workers, is basically slave labor—1990s style. If you are considered a "critical" worker, you show up to work without pay for from two to 15 days. If you're not considered "critical," you stay home unpaid. The rumor is that Weld considers his gardener "critical."

The April 13 rally promises to be the start of a long hot summer for Weld and his cronies and the idle Democrats in state government who are doing what they seem to do best—wringing their hands with a grimace and counting time till their pensions come through.

The official union leadership is encouraging caution, informational picketing, and letRick Tudor Socialist Action ter writing. But they also say that they are seeing new heights of anger.

College students, increasingly angry with service cuts and tuition hikes, plan another mass protest at the State House (their last one, in October 1989, drew 15,000). Teachers, angry at having to work without pay, are planning on cancelling classes and organizing informational picketing, with wildcat strikes to follow.

Joseph L. Langis, executive director of the State Students Association of Massachusetts, said recently that "it's really coming to a head." Speaking on the discontent over state education cuts, he said, "The bulk of the students are coming from lowerincome and middle-income levels. They don't have the luxury of living off trust funds. It's become more of a class war"