Union leaders. Never miss an opportunity to remain silent.

We have all seen bits and pieces flying off air planes over the past few days. It is not a reassuring sight. This is the result of profit addicted capitalist owners not servicing the planes sufficiently. To do so would cut into their profits too much you see.

Now I am a socialist and think that all the airlines should be collectively owned and run and managed by the working class. I know that the union leaders are not socialists. They believe in capitalism. But even so. You would think they could say something. After all their members and working people are at risk.

Look at this. The capitalist owners of the airlines insufficiently service their planes because the regulators let them or in most cases because there are far too few regulators to do anything about it. The reason for this is that the capitalists have bribed their politicians in Washington to pass laws to let them get away with this, to strip regulators and regulatory laws of any power. This is corruption.

Regulation, that is any overseeing by the state, is a major issue for capitalism. They are striving every muscle to cut back on regulation. From the banks and Wall Street, to the industrial companies, to every sector of the economy their drive is to reduce regulation. They pay their political parties to make sure that they can do what they like, that the regulatory agencies are either closed down or so short staffed they are incapable of being effective. And in particular they fight tooth and nail to see that no increased regulation is enacted. We will police ourselves they cry, they do not adopt this position in other areas of society. When a young kid steal he would have some chance of getting off by appealing to the judge to be allowed to police himself.

Here is a great opportunity for the union leaders to explain to working people how the capitalist system works. Attack the capitalists and their bought and paid political parties for bribing the politicians to reduce regulation, point to the planes with bits falling off them and explain why this is. Then mobilize the workers in the airline industry to have control over maintenance and the industry, mobilize the passengers who ride the planes to have elected committees with input into and joint control with the workers over the airlines, mobilize all to take the airlines out of the hands of the profit addicted capitalists and put them in collective ownership under workers and passengers control and management. And mobilize to build a mass working peoples party so we can stop the capitalist bribers buying Washington.

Sean