This spring hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers, most of them “illegal aliens,” as the bourgeoisie calls them, predominantly from Latin American countries, took to the streets in major American cities across the country, from Los Angeles, to Dallas, to Chicago, to Washington DC, and New York City, protesting a threatened crackdown proposed in legislation advocated by the rightwing of the Republican party. The movement seemed to erupt overnight, coming from nowhere. What is the meaning of these events and what is the class nature of this movement?

The anti-immigrant legislation that won approval in the House of Representatives and provoked the demonstrations would criminalize illegal immigration, making it a felony for the first time. Currently being an illegal immigrant is a civil violation, not a criminal offense. Illegal immigrants would be arrested, tried, convicted, deported, and would forfeit any possibility to ever legally return to the US in the future. State laws which forbid local agencies, from police to schools to social services from reporting illegal aliens to immigration officials would be nullified, and employers who hired illegal aliens would suffer legal penalties as well. Under this legislation, upwards of 12 million immigrants would face deportation. This extreme legislation does not have the support of the dominant fraction of the bourgeoisie, as it does not correspond to the global interests of American state capitalism, which clearly needs immigrant workers to fill low paid jobs, to serve as a reserve army of unemployed and underemployed workers to depress wages for the entire working class, and considers the idea of mass deportation of 12 million people to be an absurdity. Opposed to this proposed crackdown is the Bush administration, the official Republican leadership in the Senate, the Democrats, big city mayors, state governors, major corporate employers who need to exploit a plentiful supply of immigrant workers (in the retail, restaurant, meat packing, agribusiness, construction and home care industries), and the trade unions who dream of extracting membership dues from these destitute workers. This motley crew of bourgeois “champions” of immigrant workers favors more moderate legislation, which would tighten up the border, slash the numbers of new immigrants, allow illegal immigrants who have been here for a number of years to become legalized, and force those who have been here for less than two years to leave the country, but with the possibility to return legally in the future. Some form of “guest” worker program would be set up to allow foreign workers to find temporary work in the US on a legal basis and maintain the supply of needed cheap labor. 

It was in this social and political context that the immigrant worker demonstrations erupted. Coming on the heels of the unemployed immigrant youth riots in France last autumn, the student revolt triggered in France this spring against the government’s attack on job security, and the transit strike in New York in December, the immigrant demonstrations were hailed by leftists of all stripes, and many libertarian, anarchist groups as well. It is certainly true that the immigrants threatened by the legislation are a sector of the working class that confronts a particularly harsh and brutal exploitation, suffers a harrowing existence, denied access to social services and medical treatment, and that their situation demands the solidarity and support of the working class as a whole. This solidarity is all the more necessary because in classical fashion the bourgeoisie uses the debate over legal and illegal status of the immigrants as a means to stir up racism and hatred, to divide the proletariat against itself, all the while that it profits from the exploitation of the immigrant workers. This could indeed have been a struggle on the proletarian terrain, but there is a big difference between what could be and what actually happens in any given movement.

Wishful thinking should not blind us to the actual class nature of the recent demonstrations, which were in large measure a bourgeois manipulation. Yes, there have been workers in the streets, but they are there totally on the terrain of the bourgeoisie, which provoked it, manipulated it, controlled it, and openly led it. It is true that there have been some instances, such as the spontaneous walkouts by Mexican immigrant high school students in California – the sons and daughters of the working class – that implied certain similarities to the situation in France, but this movement was not organized on the proletarian terrain or controlled by immigrant workers themselves. The demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets were orchestrated and mobilized by the Spanish-language mass media, that is to say by the Spanish-speaking bourgeoisie, with the support of large corporations and establishment politicians.

Nationalism has poisoned the movement, whether it was Latino nationalism, which was cropped up in the opening moments of the demonstrations, or the sickening rush to affirm Americanism that followed more recently, or the nationalist, racist-based opposition to the immigrants fomented by rightwing talk show broadcasters on the radio and rightwing Republicans. When there were complaints in the mass media that too many immigrant demonstrators carried Mexican flags in California and that this showed they were more loyal to their home country than their adopted home, movement organizers supplied thousands of American flags to be waved in the demonstrations that followed in other cities to affirm the loyalty and Americanism of the protests. By the end of April a Spanish language version of the national anthem recorded by leading Hispanic pop stars was released and broadcast on the radio. Of course the rightwing nationalist opponents of the immigrants jumped on the Spanish-language version of the national anthem as affront to national dignity. The demand for citizenship, which is a totally bourgeois legalism, is another example of the non-proletarian terrain of the struggle. This putrid nationalist ideology is designed to completely short circuit any possibility for immigrants and American-born workers to recognize their essential unity.

Nowhere was the capitalist nature of the movement more evident than the mass demonstration in New York City in April, when 300,000 immigrants rallied outside City Hall, where they had the support of the city’s mayor, Republican Michael Bloomberg, and Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Hilary Clinton, who spoke to the crowd and praised their struggle as example of Americanism and patriotism.

It’s been 20 years since the last major immigration reform effort undertaken by the Reagan administration, which granted amnesty to illegal immigrants. But that amnesty did nothing to stem the tide of illegal immigration that has continued unabated for two decades, because American capitalism needs a constant supply of cheap labor and because the effects of the social decomposition of capitalism in underdeveloped countries has so degraded living conditions as to impel growing numbers of workers to seek refuge in the relatively more stable and prosperous capitalist metropoles.

For the bourgeoisie the time has come to stabilize the situation once again, as it has become more difficult to absorb an increasing flood of immigrants and more and more difficult to tolerate a situation where millions of workers are not officially integrated into the economy or society, who don’t pay taxes, are not documented, after nearly 20 years of illegal status. On the one hand this has led to Bush administration resort to clumsy efforts to restrict new immigration at the border, for example by militarizing the border with Mexico, literally constructing a Berlin Wall to make it difficult for immigrants to cross into the US. On the other hand it has also led the administration to favor legalization for workers who have been here more than two years. Because the U.S. economy is such that it needs a constant flow of cheap labor in a big sector of the economy, it is highly unlikely that the several million workers who have been in the U.S. under two years and will be legally required to leave the country, will actually do so. Most likely they will remain here illegally, and will become the base of the future illegal workforce that will continue to be necessary for the capitalist economy, both to provide cheap labor and put pressure on wages for the rest of the working class.

The recalcitrance of the rightwing to accept this reality reflects the increasing political irrationality created by social decomposition, which has previously manifested itself in the ruling class’ difficulty in achieving its desired results in the presidential election. It’s hard to believe that the extreme right cannot see the impossibility of mass deportations of 12 million people, and the need to stabilize the situation. It’s only a matter of time before the dominant fraction of the bourgeoisie imposes its solution to the problem and the mass demonstrations recede, as the bourgeoisie moves to integrate the newly legalized population into the mainstream political process.

Internationalism, April 2006
 

The BNP’s gains in the recent council elections showed the relationship between the neo-Nazis and their more mainstream political buddies.

The BNP said in some of its local literature that it was just like "the Labour Party your grandfathers voted for" and that it was "people just like you making a difference". It even had a "totally assimilated Greek-Armenian" as one of its candidates.

But while presenting itself as a respectable organisation it insisted that it was the “foremost patriotic political party” that is “daring to break the stranglehold of the old parties on our dying democracy”. Accordingly the other parties return the compliment. Tory leader David Cameron said that "I would rather people voted for any party other than the BNP." Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, said that “There is a great danger that the BNP's election gains give a veneer of respectability to racist ideas, and could pull mainstream politics into the gutter."

In reality all bourgeois politicians are in the gutter and none of them are looking at the stars. While the BNP say provocatively that they’re prepared to be thrown out of the council chamber in their patriotic crusade, their ‘opponents’ talk up the ‘fascist threat’. In a notorious interview Margaret Hodge claimed that many white working class people might vote BNP because "They can't get a home for their children, they see black and ethnic minority communities moving in and they are angry". Looking at her own constituency she said that “When I arrived in 1994, it was a predominantly white, working class area. Now, go through the middle of Barking and you could be in Camden or Brixton.”

This is obviously shocking to Hodge, the rich, privately educated wife of a High Court Judge who once employed Cherie Blair. Her argument is simple, the BNP is responding to genuine concerns and the other parties must confront them. This ‘confrontation’ takes place through the ballot box and in the whole process of capitalist democracy. The BNP defends democracy; all the rest of them defend democracy; and whatever their differences they all know it means the dictatorship of a minority exploiting class.

Hodge, leader of Islington Council for ten years, once had a bust of Lenin installed in the town hall and still claims Rosa Luxemburg as a political role model. Yet the Lenin who wrote State and Revolution showed that the state exists when there are irreconcilable class interests. The Luxemburg who wrote The Mass Strike showed all the different creative forces within the working class in struggle. Hodge stands for the same capitalist state as the Tories and the BNP. They compliment each other perfectly. The BNP makes some electoral gains. The fascist menace is made to seem a little more tangible. People must no longer be ‘apathetic’, they must take up their civic responsibilities, they must vote for anyone but the BNP.

It is in this process the ruling class tries to persuade workers to forget their own class interests and fall in behind the parties of their exploiters. The democratic lie is that we have something in common with the class that dominates every aspect of our lives, above all with the state that invades every corner of social life in its defence of rotting capitalism.   Car 6/5/6

 

 

 

 

This leaflet was written by Enternasyonalist Kömunist Sol (Internationalist Communist Left) a new proletarian group in Turkey. We very much welcome the appearance of this group and in a future publication we will look at their statement of basic principles, which we have received recently.

The EKS gave out the leaflet at the May Day demonstration in Ankara. In London the ICC took charge of producing it and distributing it at the May Day demonstration. It was also given out by some participants in the libcom.org internet forum. 

Despite some secondary differences with formulations used in the leaflet, the ICC fully associates itself with the internationalist outlook it defends. The leaflet is correct in denouncing the way that the left wing of capital has turned May Day into a meaningless ritual, a position already reached by the Communist Left of France after World War 2. But we think that it is also correct to affirm the perspective that a new generation of the working class will one day be able to reclaim May Day and other symbols of its international unity against capitalism.
 

 It is available in PDF for download and distribution here:

files/en/May_Day_eng+turk_A4.pdf [8]

MAY DAY IS THE DAY OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS

For too long May Day has been a ritual with no meaning for the working class. May Day was originally meant to be a day of international workers solidarity, but today on the May Day demonstrations all we see is leftists of various colours calling on the working class to back different nationalist groups. Whether it be the Turkish nationalist left calling for an ‘independent Turkey’, and screaming against the imperialists while at the same time ignoring the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO, or those who disgusted by the state’s barbarity in the South East side with the Kurdish nationalists, and their hideous mirror image of Turkish nationalism, or even the anti Americanism of the left loudly shouting “Yankee go home”. What for? Then we can have our own ‘nice’ Turkish capitalist bosses. All of this disgusts us. It saddens us that it is left to a small group of internationalists to defend the principles of international working class solidarity.

                When we look to America, we see not only Bush, but also the 100,000 workers that marched against racist immigration laws on March 10th in Chicago .

                We see not only the imperialist war machine, but also the over 6,000 American soldiers who have deserted, and crossed the Canadian border rather than go to fight for ‘their’ country in Iraq.

                When we look at Britain, we see not only Blair, but also the 1,000,000 people who marched on the streets of London against the Iraq war.

                We see not only the British Government’s obedience to America, but also Malcolm Kendall-Smith, the RAF officer who was sent to prison on April the 14th for refusing to go to Iraq.

                Similarly, when we look to Iraq, it is not only nationalist, and Islamic resistance that we see, but also the thousands of workers who demonstrated in Kirkuk to protest against the high cost of living and lack of electricity and fuel.

                When we look to Iran, it is not only President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the states drive to obtain nuclear weapons that we see, but also the massive strike wave all across Iran, which has included bus drivers, textile workers, miners, and car workers.

                Workers, look to the recent strikes in France: thousands of students demonstrating alongside striking workers to defeat a law making it easier to sack young workers. Look to Britain, where over 1,000,000 workers struck in the biggest strike for eighty years to defend their pension rights. Look to the workers of Iran struggling valiantly against capitalism, and the state despite the oppression from the regime. Look to the working class not nationalists of whatever shade.

 

THE WORKERS HAVE NO COUNTRY

FOR INTERNATIONALISM AND WORKERS’ STRUGGLE

 

Enternasyonalist Kömunist Sol

1 MAYIS İŞÇİ SINIFININ

ENTERNASYONAL MÜCADELE GÜNÜDÜR

 1 Mayıs uzun bir süredir işçi sınıfı için hiçbir şey ifade etmeyen anlamsız bir gösteriye dönüştürülmüş durumda. Köken olarak 1 Mayıs işçi sınıfının gerçek uluslararası  dayanışmasının günü olmasına rağmen, bugün 1 Mayıs eylemlerinde gördüğümüz tek şey çeşitli renklerden sol grupların işçi sınıfını o veya bu ulusalcılıkları desteklemeye çağırmasından ibaret. Bu gösteride bir yanda Türkiye’nin NATO üyesi bir ülke olduğu gerçeğini görmezden gelerek “bağımsız bir Türkiye” den ve üstelik “emperyalistlere” karşı mücadeleden bahseden Türk ulusalcı solu duruyor. Diğer yanda ise Devletin güneydoğuda uyguladığı barbarca şiddete karşı, sanki onlar Türk milliyetçiliğinin aynı ölçüde vahşi bir yansıması değilmiş gibi Kürt milliyetçiliği yanında saf tutanlar konumlanmış durumda. Bütün bu maskeli baloya Ortadoğu emekçilerinin kanı üzerinden yükselen ve İslami-kapitalist diktatörlüklerin yanında saf tutan kaypak bir anti-amerikancılığa tutunmuş her türden İslamcı, milliyetçi ve sol akım da katılıyor. Peki bütün bunlar ne için? Kendi “özbeöz”  Türk veya Kürt patronlarımıza sahip olabilmemiz için. Biz bütün bu gösteriden nefret ediyoruz Fakat, işçi sınıfının enternasyonalist dayanışma ilkelerinin bugün için yalnızca küçük bir azınlık tarafından savunuluyor olması, sınıflar arasındaki  mücadelenin bu temel niteliğini değiştirmiyor.

                Biz, ABD’ye baktığımızda sadece Bush’u değil, aynı zamanda, ırkçı, göçmen düşmanı yasaya karşı 10 Mart günü Şikago’da yürüyen 100.000 işçiyi de görüyoruz.

                Sadece savaşa yürüyen dev bir emperyalist yıkım makinesini değil, “kendi ülkelerinin çıkarları” için Irak’ta savaşmayı reddedip Kanada sınırından kaçarak ulusal ordularını terk eden 6000’i aşkın amerikan askerini de görüyoruz.

                İngiltere’ye baktığımızda sadece Blair’i değil, Londra sokaklarında savaşa karşı yürüyen 1.000.000 insanı da görüyoruz.

Biz sadece İngiliz hükümetinin Amerika’ya itaatini değil, 14 şubat’ta Irak’a gitmeyi reddettiği için hapse atılan İngiliz kraliyet hava gücü subayı Malcolm Kendall’ı da görüyoruz.

                Benzer şekilde Irak’a baktığımızda gördüğümüz sadece milliyetçi ve İslamcı direniş değil, Kerkük’te ağır yaşam koşulları ve yüksek elektrik ve benzin fiyatlarına karşı ayaklanan binlerce işçidir de.

                İran’a baktığımızda sadece başkan Mahmut Ahmedinecat ve devletin “emperyalizme karşı” nükleer silahlanma hamlesini değil, İran’ı boydan boya saran ve otobüs şoförleri, tekstil işçileri, madenciler ve otomobil sanayi işçilerinin katıldığı grev dalgasını da görüyoruz..

                Emekçiler, Fransa’daki son grevlere, genç işçilerin işten atılmasını kolaylaştırmaya çalışan yasaya karşı mücadele eden grevci işçilere ve eylem yapan öğrencilere bakın. Britanya’da 80 yıldan beri gerçekleşen en büyük greve, 1.000.000’un üzerinde işçinin emeklilik hakları için yürüttüğü mücadeleye bakın. İran’a, rejimin baskılarına rağmen devlete ve sermayeye karşı mücadele eden işçilere bakın. Baktığınızda göreceğiniz şey şu veya bu ulusalcı, milliyetçi hareket değil kendi ulusal sermaye sahiplerine, kendi patronlarına ve kendi ordularına karşı savaşan işçilerden başka bir şey olmayacaktır. İşçi sınıfı mücadelesinin tek gerçekliği uluslarüstüdür, enternasyonaldir. Çünkü;

İŞÇI SINIFININ VATANI YOKTUR

YAŞASIN ENTERNASYONALİZM VE EMEKÇİLERİN MÜCADELESİ

 

Enternasyonalist Kömunist Sol

 

 

The walkout by up to 3,000 Vauxhall car workers at the Ellesmere plant on the 11th May only lasted a day, but it expressed something very important: the refusal to passively accept being thrown onto the unemployment scrap-heap. Upon hearing that 1,000 jobs may go, the morning shift walked out. They were joined by the afternoon shift. “Strike action spread through the plant after workers took the comments to mean that GM had already decided to cut the posts” (Guardian 12/5/06). By the end of the day all three thousand workers had joined in this struggle. The management and the unions rapidly make it clear that there had been no decision on the numbers to be thrown on the street. The unions got the workers to go back with the promise that they would negotiate with the management.

This spontaneous rejection of the threat of lay-offs has to be seen in a wider context. It came within days of the announcement of up to 2,000 lay offs at Orange mobile phones, another 500 health workers being laid off - this time by Gloucestershire's three Primary Care Trusts with the closure of community hospitals - and the dismissal of 6,000 telecommunications workers at NTL. It also came after the decision of the French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen to close its central England plant next year, eliminating 2,300 jobs, and the closing of Rover last year. Thus, the evident determination of the Vauxhall workers not to passively accept unemployment was an example to the rest of the working class.

The Vauxhall workers’ action also needs to be seen against the background of a resurgence of struggles. The strike of over a million council workers on the 28th March in defence of pensions, the postal workers’ unofficial strike in Belfast, the massive student movement in France this spring, the strike by council workers in Germany at the same time, the transport workers’ strike in New York in December – all these movements provide proof that there is new mood developing in the international working class, a growing determination to defend its interests against attacks, especially on the issue of jobs and pensions.

The struggle at Vauxhall was right from the beginning a response to international conditions. The ignition-key for the struggle were comments by GM Europe's chief executive, Carl-Peter Forster “We know, thank God, that the English labour market is more capable of absorption than, let's say, the German or the Belgian markets". (BBC News on-line 12/5/06). Whether this was a provocation or simply an unguarded comment is hard to tell, but one thing is for certain: the unions and bosses used them as an excuse for playing the nationalist card.  It is not only in Britain that Vauxhall workers are under threat but throughout Europe and world wide, as are other car workers at Ford, GM and elsewhere. In order to try and stop any international solidarity against these attacks,  the unions used Forster's comments to try and set up a barrier between the Ellesmere workers and their comrades in the rest of Europe. Both the TGWU and Amicus played the nationalist card: "British car workers are among the best in Europe, but they're the easiest to sack", said TGWU General Secretary Tony Woodley  (BBC on-line 12/5/06). Whilst according to the BBC, “Amicus said it wanted cuts to be spread throughout Europe's Astra plants in Belgium and Germany.” (www.bbc.co.uk/news [14] 12/5/06).

The unions may have played the nationalist card to divert the workers' discontent, but they have shown real international solidarity with Vauxhall’s bosses: for weeks before and during the struggle the both had been planning “ways of spreading any job losses across Europe, and talks between the two sides will continue today” (The Guardian 12/5/06).

Forster's comments also contained the very poisonous idea that even if workers are laid-off, there are jobs in Britain to go around. This is the lie pushed by the government as well. The economy is working well over here, so if you are unemployed it is your own fault. This idea seeks to reduce the unemployed to isolated individuals. The fact that there are officially over one and half million unemployed is simply brushed aside. However workers are increasingly not willing to accept the capitalist logic of accepting one’s fate. The fact that this struggle was reported on the main BBC evening news, albeit with the unions pushing the nationalist message of the defence of British jobs, showed that discontent is growing in the class.

This increasing militancy is in its initial stages but there is a growing determination within the working class to defend jobs. As with Ellesmere, workers have gone through years of accepting attacks on working conditions, on wages and job security in order to at least maintain some level of employment where they work. Today however increasing numbers of workers are no longer willing to make these endless sacrifices. There is a growing realisation that all workers are under attack, as night after night there are reports of lay-offs in plants, in hospitals, or in offices.

Fighting unemployment is not easy: often bosses will try to use strikes as a pretext for pushing through the plant-closures they want anyway. But it is far easier to do this when the workers’ resistance remains isolated to one factory or company. On the other hand, the threat or reality of struggles extending across union, sectional and other divisions – in short, the threat of the mass strike – can oblige the ruling class to back down, as it did over the CPE in France.

Such retreats by the bourgeoisie can only be temporary. The remorseless deepening of the economic crisis will force it to return to the offensive and make even more desperate attacks on living and working conditions. In the final analysis, massive unemployment is a sure sign of the bankruptcy of capitalist society. For the working class, they must become a stimulus for struggling not only against the effects of exploitation, but against exploitation itself.

ICC 16.5.06.