Labor Briefing

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4 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2016 • Striking Nurses Vote On New Of­ fer—At our deadline, more than 4000 RN members of the Minnesota Nurses Association were preparing to vote on a new contract offer from Allina Health Care in the Twin Cities area. After an earlier “warning strike,” the nurses began an open-ended walkout on La­ bor Day. They have been joined on the picket lines by unionists from AFSCME, SEIU, and other union and community supporters. A Federal mediator brought the parties back to the table during the last week of September, when the com­ pany modified its prior “last, best, and final offer.” It was described by the St. Paul Union Advocate as “a three-year contract proposal from Allina that makes some gains on staffing and safe­ ty—two of their top issues—but wasn’t good enough to win a recommenda­ tion from the union’s bargaining team.” Picketing continued during the voting.

• They Left Before the Overture— The New York Times reported, “The mu­ sicians of the fabled Philadelphia Or­ chestra went on strike on Friday [Sept. 30] just before their season-opening gala concert, rattling the classical music world and silencing one of the nation’s great ensembles a little more than four years after it emerged from bankruptcy.

“The strike—called on the same day that musicians on the other side of Pennsylvania at the Pittsburgh Sym­ phony Orchestra walked out on strike— came as the Philadelphia’s players sought to recover some of the pay they lost to concessions during the recent bankruptcy.”

The Philadelphia strike was settled two days later. Musicians voted 73-11 to accept a three-year contract, with a raise of 2% in the first year, and 2.5% in the remaining years. The Ft, Worth Symphony is also on strike.

• Second Time Works—The Interna­ tional Brotherhood of Electrical Work­ ers didn’t give up after losing a union representation election at a Memphis Electrolux oven plant. The Swedishbased appliance giant is totally union­ ized at home but uses the same union avoidance measures as most American bosses in the USA. On a second try, IBEW had assistance from IG Metall—the union representing Electrolux work­ ers in Sweden. The Memphis workers voted 461-193 for the union.

• Tired Of Being Taken For a Ride— Lucy Nicholson opened a Reuters dis­ patch, “Nearly 14,000 Uber and Lyft drivers in New York have signed up to join the local branch of the Amalgamat­ ed Transit Union, according to a union spokesperson. The group plans to rally at the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commis­ sion (TLC) headquarters next week to

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Socialist Action presidential tour wins new support In a series of East Coast debates and public forums from Sept. 15-26, Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action’s 2016 presi­ dential candidate, spoke to enthusiastic audiences about the relevance of revolutionary socialist politics today. Mackler’s tour included public meetings in New York City, Albany, Boston, Providence, Hartford/New Britain, and Philadelphia.

In the course of his 12-day tour, close to a dozen social and political activists expressed interest in joining So­ cialist Action, opening up new opportunities for social­ ist education, party-building activity, and participation in rising social movements in all of the cities he visited. This month, Socialist Action’s vice presidential can­ didate, Karen Schraufnagel, will begin a speaking tour of several Upper Midwestern cities, including Chicago, Madison, Duluth-Superior, and Waukeesha, Wis. See so­ cialistaction.org for more information.

Jeff Mackler was joined in a Socialist Action-sponsored forum in New York City by former political prisoner and people’s attorney Lynne Stewart and New Abolition­ ist leader Ralph Poynter, who have endorsed Mackler’s presidential campaign.

In Albany, Mackler was joined in a debate format enti­ tled, “The 2016 Elections: Humanity’s Future in Troubled Times.” Speakers included Joe Seeman, a Hillary Clin­ ton supporter and volunteer organizer with the Working Families Party, Citizen Action of New York, MoveOn. org, and the Bernie Sanders network of the Capital Re­ gion. Also speaking were Peter LaVenia, co-chair of the New York State Green Party, who supported Jill Stein. The Albany Public Library debate was initiated by activ­ ists in the Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace and chaired by Joe Lombardo, national co-coordinator of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC).

Mackler’s central debate themes often began with the statement, “All the critical issues of our time that so many agree on today—rampant racism and police murder of unarmed Blacks, sexism, homophobia, endless imperial­ ist wars, mass incarceration of Blacks, Latinos, and Na­ tive Americans, environmental destruction and, indeed, the immediate global warming threat to life on earth, the worldwide imposition of unprecedented austerity mea­ sures of every kind—are inherent in and inseparable from the functioning of the capitalist system. As this predatory system is based on human exploitation and oppression, it has no alternative other than to resolve its crises at the expense of the vast majority.”

Mackler insisted in all his tour forums and debates that “the U.S. and worldwide capitalist crisis cannot be re­ solved by a change of the palace guard—by the election of yet another capitalist politician beholden to a social system that subordinates human needs and life itself to the profits of the one percent.”

He counterposed the corporate-promoted illusion that significant social gains can be achieved by the election of one or another capitalist or pro-capitalist party or can­ didate to the socialist perspective that working-class vic­ tories have always been the product of massive, indepen­ dent working-class and allied mobilizations independent of and against the policies of all capitalist parties. “His­ tory repeatedly teaches us that only capitalism’s victims, the vast majority of working people, organized to fight for their own interests through their own organizations, can change the course of history. “While workers today find themselves shocked and of­ ten in despair at the generalized attacks on their lives, they are far from accepting the legitimacy of Wall Street rule. In time, and in the not too distant future, their deeply held anger and hatred of capitalist injustice will give way to new forms of struggle, including a fundamental ex­ pansion, reconstitution, and democratization of today’s unions, whose bureaucratic mis-leaders act as a major firewall to channel discontent into the graveyard of social movements, the Democratic Party.”

Without exception, Mackler’s Democratic Party and Green Party debate opponents cited the reactionary, rac­ ist, misogynist, Islamophobic views of Donald Trump to urge support for Hillary Clinton or Jill Stein. “Lesser evil” arguments were in full bloom during virtually every debate as speakers minimized or offered soft criticisms of Clinton’s record of warmongering and racism while insisting that the “fascist” Trump had to be stopped. Jill Stein supporters, on the other hand, pointed to the need to organize to elect Green Party candidates at the local level to build a mass electoral base aimed at reform­ ing capitalism, usually along the lines of the pro-capital­ ist social democratic parties in Europe. Stein supporters called for a 50 percent cut in military spending as well as free college tuition and health care (all achievable goals, they argued) in the framework of a reformed, kinder, gentler capitalism—one whose banking and fundamental corporate structures could be altered without challenging the private profit basis of the system itself. Mackler’s critique of his Green Party opponents cen­ tered on their view that “independent political action” essentially excluded the fundamental proposition that any effective challenge to capitalism required the orga­ nization and re-organization of the working class through their own revitalized institutions—democratic, fighting and qualitatively expanded trade unions—that are funded by and controlled by workers themselves. Without this independent working-class perspective— coupled with its expression in the political arena with a fighting Labor Party, controlled by working people— Mackler argued, the Green Party perspective amounted to organizing a vague multi-class electoral alliance that can only be limited to reforming a system that cannot be reformed.

The Boston debate, entitled, “Elections 2016: Human­ ity’s Future in a Troubled World: What About War, Cli­ mate, and Social Justice?” included Jill Stein supporter Danny Factor, the Green Party candidate for State Assem­ bly; and Hillary Clinton supporter and 350.org member Rosalie Anders, also a board member of Massachusetts Peace Action (speaking for herself rather than for the or­ ganization). Mackler was also joined on the debate panel by Democratic Socialists of America National Political Committee member Jared Abbot, who was listed as ad­ vocating, “Vote Strategically to Defeat Trump—Greens or Democrats.” Abbot argued for DSA’s perspective of voting Green in “safe states” and for Clinton elsewhere. The debate was sponsored by United for Justice with Peace and chaired by Marilyn Levin, a leader of UJP and the co-national coordinator of UNAC.

Socialist Action in Philadelphia co-sponsored Mack­ ler’s forum in that city with the on-line journal Left Voice. Mackler was accompanied at the podium by Left Voice editor Juan Cruz Ferre, who supports Mackler’s cam­ paign. Ferre recounted the experience of the Socialist Workers Party (PTS) of Argentina in winning 1.5 million votes in the last presidential election when three revolu­ tionary socialist parties joined to form the Workers Left Front (FIT). The FIT won several seats in the Argentine parliament while participating in several major working-class mobilizations that challenged the government’s aus­ terity offensive.

The Providence forum, sponsored by Rhode Island So­ cialist Action, was held at the Direct Action for Racial Equality headquarters and included welcoming remarks by the DARE director as well as from LGBTQI activist, Josh Kirby.

Mackler’s forum in New Britain, Conn., was spon­ sored by the campus Central Connecticut State Univer­ sity (CCSU) Youth for Socialist Action, a youth group in solidarity with Socialist Action. It was attended by some 35 young people, mostly students. Mackler noted that this audience was by far the most advanced in rejecting “lesser-evil” politics and in solidarity with fundamental socialist ideas. “Youth today,” Mackler observed, “ are keenly aware of the broad range of social injustices that permeate so­ ciety and are, indeed, directly affected by the present and long-enduring capitalist crisis. Unlike previous genera­ tions, they cannot look forward to stable living wage jobs and are increasingly chained to enormous and unpayable college tuition debts. They are generally the most attuned to the struggles of the most oppressed, are supporters of the growing Movement for Black Lives and against the racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and endless wars that are capitalism’s norm across the globe.” To date 31 CCTU students have joined the YSA chapter, Speakers at the Socialist Action forum in New York City: (From left) Ralph Poynter, Jeff Mackler, Lynne Stewart, and chairperson Marty Goodman.

plus several others who signed up at Mackler’s campus forum. “Today’s youth radicalization bodes well for the mass working-class struggles to come,” Mackler said. “Socialist Action’s steady gains among these youth is an achievement and a major source of inspiration to deepen our efforts to build a revolutionary party.” n ... Puerto Rico (continued from page 3: “Organizing against U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico”)

most important aspects of any social struggle.

S.A.: How can Puerto Rican workers and stu­ dents stop PROMESA and other policies of U.S.

imperialism?

F.S.: In Juventud Hostosiana, we are of the idea that what is necessary in the present is a battle on all possible fronts. No matter what type of action a person takes, if it is politicized against the bill or U.S. imperialism it will find in us a friend. We believe that our role, and the role of others, is not to homogenize the struggle or try to grasp only one way, but to serve as a connection between multiple “trenches” as to make a whole front instead of little defenseless and isolated castles.

In that sense, we have outlined four actions to take in the coming months: the strengthening of the organization at all levels, civil disobedi­ ence, alliances with other sectors, and constant propaganda.

S.A.: What did Juventud Hostosiana learn from their recent experience in Cuba? How does it apply to the fight for independence?

F.S.: The Juventud Hostosiana, since its in­ ception, has had ties with the Cuban youth in part because of the historical ties between our mother organization, the Movimiento Indepen­ dentista Nacional Hostosiano (MINH) and the Cuban revolutionary government.

Cuba and Puerto Rico have an unbreakable historical bond that will intertwine the history of both nations for years to come. More so, we who believe in an anti-capitalist independence for Puerto Rico also believe in the integration of the Latin-American region for the betterment of our different peoples. We believe in Latino­ americanism and in the dream of a bigger “Pa­ tria Grande” and a Confederation of Antilles, which was also the belief of many of the great Caribbean heroes of the 19th century.

In that sense I recite a passage of a Puerto Ri­ can Poet Lola Rodríguez de Tió: “Cuba y Puerto Rico son, de un pájaro las dos alas, ambas re­ ciben flores y balas, sobre un mismo corazón.

(Cuba and Puerto Rico are, of a bird both wings, both receive flowers and bullets, upon the same heart.) n SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 2016 5