The stakes are higher than ever. It's becoming increasingly clear to millions of workers that even in the "best of times", capitalism simply doesn't work anymore. The corruption, greed, and mismanagement of the system has reached unheard of proportions. Capitalism has always been an exploitative, oppressive system, but its existence was historically justified by the fact that it was able to drive technology and productivity forward.
Compared to the feudal system of the Middle Ages, capitalism was a colossal step forward. Now, however, it is a colossal brake on the further advancement of human society. It is no longer a question of this or that company's profits, or of these or those workers getting laid off; what is at stake is the very existence of humanity itself.
At least on paper, the U.S. economy is moving forward. But it is an expansion based on trillions in fictional capital and the merciless squeezing of working people in the U.S. and around the world. If this is the "boom", what will it be like when the economy inevitably sputters to a stop? In the meantime, billions are spent on war and domestic spying, the rich get mega-handouts and tax cuts, and social programs are cut to the bone.
The bosses and their representatives in government are hell-bent on turning the clock back 75 years or more. Wages, conditions, pensions, and benefits are all on the chopping block. And remember: pensions are deferred wages - workers have earned every penny that goes into their retirement funds, and to take that away is theft, pure and simple.
Major corporations like Delphi are declaring "bankruptcy" as a battering ram against organized labor. Never mind that they are sheltering billions in assets in offshore accounts and companies. The government has intervened openly on the side of the bosses, agreeing to bonuses for the incompetent CEOs, and in favor of gutting the pensions of the workers. The same goes for the airlines. This blows the illusion of the "impartiality of the courts" out of the water.
Over the last year, gasoline prices rose from $1.19 to over $2.20 a gallon in some areas. In a country where the average worker drives more than seven and a half hours every week, these are huge increases. Petro-chemical giant Exxon Mobil announced that it made a 2005 profit of $36.13 billion, $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter alone - the highest ever annual profit for a US company and up 43 percent from last year. In the same quarter, Chevron's profits were up 20 percent from last year, while Conoco/Phillips reported a 51 percent increase. High gas and oil prices have a knock on effect throughout the economy. It is not at all far-fetched to imagine gas riots at a certain stage if prices keep going up. If the poor of Paris revolted in 1789 over the price of bread, working people in the U.S. today could easily reach boiling point at the gas pump. Gouging at the pump is steadily eating up the little disposable income of the majority of American workers.
Then there's the blatant disregard for workers' safety that was so tragically apparent in the case of the West Virginia coal miners. That's just par for the course in a profit-driven system: in some industries we see the tremendous incompetence, callousness, and deception of the CEOs, while in others we see corporate profits skyrocketing at the expense of the vast majority of the population.
For decades, U.S. workers had illusions in the "American Dream" - that by working hard, we could gradually and continually improve our conditions of life and those of our children and grandchildren. We hoped that capitalism could be reformed, that over time we would get an ever-larger slice of the pie. Now, even the crumbs are being taken away, and we're learning the hard way that this is "as good as it gets". Yet it is precisely now that the union leadership wants us to make concessions in order to continue the one-sided "partnership with the bosses".
It's clear now that all bets are off: the social contract is over. The bosses, with the connivance of the bi-partisan government, are waging a one-sided war against the working class. But some workers have had enough. As happens so often in the classic Western movies of yesteryear, they "picked on the wrong guy" - or in this case, the wrong group of workers.
The Soldiers of Solidarity (SoS) have had enough and are showing working Americans the way forward. After a long string of betrayals and sellouts, a group of rank and file United Auto Workers have launched a campaign of genuine class-wide solidarity against the attacks faced by us all. With nothing left to lose and their backs against the wall, they understand fully that if the bosses succeed in breaking the resistance of Delphi's workers, then they can do the same to workers across the board. This is the Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill of the U.S. Labor Movement. Working people internationally can rely only on our own strength and organization to combat the combined attacks of the bosses, the government, and the pro-boss trade union leadership. This affects every last one of us: all support to the SoS!
American labor can also learn from the experience of the Venezuelan workers. After decades of attacks and sellouts, they took things into their own hands: they threw out the corrupt and incompetent trade union leaders as well as voting out the bosses' political parties. They also occupied several major factories, some of which have subsequently been nationalized, and began running them under democratic workers' control. This shows that another world is possible - but they can't do it alone. They need our international solidarity: once again, the struggle of these workers affects us all.
The bottom line is, the bosses are unable to efficiently and safely run the oil, auto, and airline industries - or for that matter, any other vital part of the economy. Instead of running them in the interests of the vast majority of working Americans who actually do all the work and create all the wealth, they become richer than ever, while we are thrown out on our ears. On top of that, they want billions in handouts of public money to keep things running while they lay off tens of thousands. If they want public money, then we demand public control.
It's the 1930s all over again, and only by returning to the militant methods we used back then, the methods of the Flint sit-down strikers and the formation of the CIO, can we hope to stop these attacks once and for all. American workers need to follow in the footsteps of our Venezuelan brothers and sisters: if the bosses can't run things anymore, then we need to.