[List action’s sister party in the Fourth International…]

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List action’s sister party in the Fourth International, OKDE-Spartakos, is in ANTARSYA.

The violent Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn (GD) party, whose hard-core members are from the police and army, has gained support by posing as the most un­ compromising opponent of the memorandum. GD re­ ceived 6.99% of the vote, allowing these racist thugs to increase their seats in parliament from 17 to 18. The GD vote has risen on the Greek islands that have seen an influx of immigrants.

According to Alternate Shipping Minister Chris­ tos Zois, about 230,000 undocumented immigrants, mostly from Syria, have arrived in Greece over the previous eight months. Many come to Greece as a stopping-off point in their migration to Germany and other European countries. Molotov cocktails were thrown at refugees on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Kos. Amnesty International witnessed “thugs” with bats attacking them in Kos. Moreover, human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Greek police for heavy-handed tactics against the refugees.

GD says that all “illegal immigrants” should be rounded up and deported. A united mobilization of the entire working class is needed to smash fascism. The dead-end Syriza strategy Syriza’s strategy, hailed by many on the internation­ al left as the wave of the future, is based on the low­ est common denominator of divergent radical forces. Syriza stressed the electoral road to socialism (when socialism was even mentioned!), not popular mobili­ zation. Its base is considered small within the union movement.

Syriza is led by the former “Eurocommunist” wing of the Greek Communist Party. Eurocommunism was a trend within the Stalinist parties of Europe, begin­ The world is still buzzing about the lies told by Volkswagen, whose diesel cars were de­ signed to cheat on emissions tests. The public is still stunned by the price gouging of Tur­ ing Pharmaceuticals that bought the rights to manufacture a 62-year-old drug and raised the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

But the Hall of Shame would be incomplete without registering this: General Motors agreed to pay $900 million (U.S.) to resolve criminal charges over its concealment of an ignition-switch defect. The flaw is linked to at least 169 deaths, U.S. federal prosecutors said on Sept. 17.

The settlement calls for two charges—wire fraud and scheming to conceal information from government regulators—to be dropped after three years, if the auto giant cooperates fully.

GM announced that it would spend $575 mil­ lion to settle many of the civil lawsuits filed over the scandal. This brings to over $5.3 bil­ lion the amount GM has spent on a problem prosecutors say could have been fixed at a cost of less than a dollar per car. The expenses in­ clude government fines, compensation for vic­ tims, and the recall and repair of millions of af­ fected vehicles. No GM officials were arrested.

—BARRY WEISLEDER SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2015 3

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ity of a larger and more equitable settlement. The hungry cannot easily afford to look scorn­ fully on “half a loaf.” At this point, though, OUR Walmart workers are continuing their strug­ gle. (See the website http://forrespect.org.

Of course, a company like Walmart can maintain its profits in many ways. What’s lost on one front can be regained on another. Walmart has joined with other companies to lobby for a reform more to its liking: seek­ ing changes in workers’ compensation laws. Corporations are asking for the standards to be rewritten so that companies themselves determine the extent of a worker’s injury and the rate of compensation. Needless to say, cor­ porate America intends to grant injured work­ ers even less money and require them to make more effort to obtain it.

The Wall Street influence on Washington is such that reform legislation is conceived from the beginning to have the least impact, to make the fewest inroads into private profit. When, for instance, a different Clinton was president, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was passed and celebrated with much public commendation. It was, in fact, Bill Clin­ ton’s first law as chief executive. Even today, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says he is “proud” of his efforts to implement it.

The limits of the law have become quite ob­