Philadelphia Teachers contract thrown out. Union leadership pleads for help from the courts

Protests are not enough though

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

The Wall Street Journal reports today on the decision by Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission to cancel the Teachers union contract and force its members to contribute to their own health insurance. Leaving aside the absurd idea that we should have an insurance company involved in health care, why would they not do this?  The capitalist offensive against US workers has increased in intensity including the ideological offensive yet the response from the heads of organized labor is the same old failed policies----offer more concessions and plead with the bosses to be less aggressive.

But this strategy won't work; they are offering peace when the opponent’s policies demand war. The representatives of the 1% in the US Congress do not make this mistake when their economic interests are threatened.  They don’t make it in the face of threats from competitors abroad or workers at home.

Bill Green, the chairperson of the School Reform Commission, the members of which are appointed by the governor, justifies the decision to the media: “We can’t say to students, ‘We would like to give you millions of dollars to improve schools, but the PFT won’t let its members pay for some of its health insurance,’” (Referring to the Teacher’s Union)

But that’s exactly what he is saying. The crisis in education is placed squarely on the shoulders of greedy teachers and their union so drastic measures have to be taken.  Well done, Mr. Green, you’ve performed well. But there is another possible explanation. It could be announced to students, parents and the working public that:
“We would like to give you millions of dollars to improve the schools but trillions of dollars are needed to pay for foreign wars and to fund despotic regimes that ensure a safe haven for US corporations. And although U.S. wealth is up $34 trillion since the recession, Pew Research reported that 93 percent of you lost wealth, on average, in the post-recession recovery, and those who made it won’t part with it.”

Mr. Green would be out of a job and his career shattered if he laid bare the facts about wealth in the US and criticized the priorities of the few thousand people who have their hands on the levers of society.  Mr. Green is a representative of the 1%.  Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress are representatives of the 1% and defenders of the capitalist mode of production. The wars have to be paid for and the hedge fund managers, bankers arms manufacturers and others are determined it won’t be them and they have two political parties that represent these economic interests.

It is the trade union leadership that should be attacking the wealth of Mr. Green’s patrons as there is absolutely no reason for education or any other public services to be cut. . According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, “There are 3.6 million full-time minimum wage workers in the US and their total (combined) 2013 earnings is less than the 2013 stock market gains of just eight individuals all of whom take more than their share from society: the four Walton’s, the two Kochs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.” This is not civilization. It is not a "Land of the Free" unless by that we mean to rip people off. And I remind the reader of the Oxfam International report that found the world’s richest 85 people have as much combined wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion (see Michael Roberts post: The Waltons, John Cochrane and the Road to Serfdom.

Jerry Jordan the president of the 15,000 member Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is a bit upset, after all, the union leadership offered concessions last year that would have saved millions of dollars he tells the media. And after 21 months of talking with the bosses, pleading with them to be nice, the contract was arbitrarily thrown out; weakness attracts aggression as they say.  Jordan tells the WSJ that the union “will fight the action, although he didn’t offer details.”, and accused the commission of “pursuing a ‘union-busting” strategy. What a surprise.  Union busting? Can that be? The union leadership has its finger on the pulse of society that’s for sure. 

So what is the union leadership’s response to this brutal assault? Jordan and his colleagues “quickly filed a lawsuit, joined by the state Department of Education, asking a judge to rule they have such power.” 

--> says the WSJ. Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of teachers AFL-CIO responded with the usual rhetoric: "Green, in fact, has shown by his actions—spending his time and resources hiring lawyers and going to court—that the commission would rather attempt to impose a contract than work with teachers to figure out what is best for Philadelphia’s kids." Yes they would Randi. It's the same old approach they used in Wisconsin.  The union leadership has no problem with cuts, they just want to be part of the discussion. But why should the bosses include them? (read more from Weingarten here)

I am sure the lawsuit will be accompanied by a letter from a friendly Democratic Party politician urging the state to be fair. This is in return for the huge sums of money from their member’s dues payments that these Democrats receive at election time, not to mention the volunteer precinct walkers and phone banks the unions provide. But let me see, have we tried this before?

Instead of relying on the tremendous power of organized labor to bring this economy to a halt especially when the additional power that the unorganized would bring to the table if the leadership were serious about organizing them was included; the failed policies of a generation or two are dragged out yet again; rely on the courts, rely on the Democrats, offer concessions, will be the limits of organized resistance. I have written too often about why the Union leadership refuses to fight so I will refer the reader to other commentaries about this subject but I do want to say something about public funds.

Where does public expenditure come from?
The argument we hear all the time about public sector jobs, our pensions, wages and benefits etc., is that the public doesn’t want to pay for them any more.  This is the result of the ideological war waged in the corporate media along the lines of the quote above from the chairperson of Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission.  Remember, the class that owns the means by which we produce the material needs of society is the same class that owns the production of ideas and as importantly, the means of distributing them, the universities and the mass media from TV to Hollywood movies. The only options are those that don’t undermine their material well being. They want to rob Peter to pay Paul.

What is presented to us are two bad options. The union hierarchy tells us that it’s either wage and benefit cuts or layoffs.  Workers choose the former of course. The union hierarchy enters every dispute and negotiation from a position of weakness, with concessions in arms. It’s easy for them as they generally do not have to work under the contracts they force on their members and their outlook is extremely short sighted and oriented to the present. They have no fundamental difference with the 1% when it comes to their view of society; they just want them to be less aggressive.

In this scenario, workers, most of whom do not have wages, benefits, security and a more humane working environment that public sector workers have traditionally had by comparison, begrudge paying for it for someone else.  We turn on each other having no alternative presented to us.  When you think about it, business receives far more government assistance than wage workers if you consider the defense industry and millions of businesses that rely on public money and projects for work. Then there are all the speculators and investors whose income derives from capital or the interest on capital. The law is made for them by their political representatives.

The source of wealth in society is the labor process, specifically that part of working time above that which produces value equivalent to our wages. This surplus value, the product of unpaid labor, is the source of the capitalists profit. But a healthy capitalist society needs transportation, and other agencies like garbage collection and education services and a means of defending the economy’s interests against its competitors and suppressing social unrest internally. The industrial revolution meant that workers needed basic reading and writing skills. So the capitalist class plows some of the national wealth back in to the economy in the form of social services and other public ventures that add to the economy’s efficiency from their point of view.  They are clever, they don't trust the market with the important stuff. The balance of forces in the class struggle will also at times force them to invest in public projects for the benefit of the working class such as our entertainment and pleasure, but they don’t like it.

So when we think of public money like the funding of education for all workers, or a national health care system, or mass transit, all that is happening is that a portion of the wealth our labor creates---our product, is coming back to us in the form of social services, in higher living standards.  We have to take this wealth out of the hands of the clique that usurped it to fully benefit from social labor. We must fight for more public sector services and jobs not less.  The market will not provide decent jobs with wages we can live on.

In order to do this, we must reject the 1%’s view of the world. 

The downward spiral will not stop by itself and capitalism will not stop it. The Philadelphia school system like many of them has cut 5,000 positions, closed 31 schools and imposed layoffs by seniority although when it hired staffers back, seniority didn’t apply, another undermining of a union principle that tends to weaken our power in the workplace. We are in for a new round of cuts in order to pay for the new “long-term” offensive in the Middle East that is driving this also.

“Requiring teachers to pay toward health insurance puts them in the same position as other district employees and most American workers.”, Bill Green, the Reform Commission’s chairperson says.  This is why every defeat, every setback by any group of workers is a defeat for all of us and why the union leadership’s policies are so devastating, they have cooperated with the bosses in driving wages, benefits and working conditions back to those that existed prior to the rise of the CIO in the 1930’s and all workers, union and non union alike are suffering for it.

The response from the Teachers union leadership to this latest assault in Philadelphia is a disgrace. It is the reason the rank and file union member doesn’t bother to go to meetings and why right wing elements like the Right to Work foundation get an echo among some workers. They point to the obscene salaries many paid officials make as their dues go up and wages go down. Why belong to a union? It is these disastrous policies that lead to the no vote for the UAW at the VW plant in the South.

A movement of opposition to the offensive of capital will develop and most likely outside of the official unions given the role of the leadership. But for union members who are looking to fight back we must recognize that we cannot avoid an internal struggle with the heads of organized labor who worship the market, are wedded to the Team Concept and cooperation with the bosses. This worldview forces them to suppress any movement from within their ranks that threatens the relationship they have built with the bosses based on labor peace.

Rank and file opposition caucuses must be built that challenge the union hierarchy’s disastrous policies and campaigned for openly among the ranks.  Changing or decertifying one union for another is simply trying to avoid a fight we cannot avoid. The entire leadership of organized labor speak with one voice on this issue----at this point in time anyway.

Opposition caucuses that confront the offensive of capital with direct action methods and with a program that not only opposes the Team Concept* and all concessions and austerity measures, but demands what working people need not what we are told is acceptable to the hierarchy and their allies in the Democratic Party is what can begin to transform this situation.  Power attracts and rank and file workers will be inspired by a movement that fights back aggressively on our behalf.

The public sector is the last major bastion of trade unionism in the US with some 30% or more of us organized.  Along with jobs, public services have also been slashed. As this writer and others have pointed out in previous commentaries, the days of guns and butter are over; the US ruling class is committed to placing workers and the middle class on rations----the poor and the unorganized and those not incarcerated, are already there. They are forced to do this by the system of production we call capitalism. It is not a character flaw.

Albert Einstein is credited with defining insanity as: ”Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”. When it comes to organized labor’s hierarchy they do the same thing over and over again actually expecting the same results, less aggressive concessions than the bosses are demanding. This has allowed them to slow the decline of their member’s living standards while preserving theirs. But today there is no room to maneuver, the labor leadership cannot even pretend to be fighting for their members interests these days and have moved to open collaboration, partially in order to save their own jobs.  This does not mean there aren’t decent leaders at the lower levels who want things to change. We have the power, we have the numbers, we occupy a critical role in production and distribution of society's needs, but change at the top will not come without a struggle within the entire labor movement.

*The Team Concept is the most damaging philosophy held by the entire trade union leadership and passed down to all levels of the apparatus. It is the view that workers and bosses/employers have the same economic interests. It is the philosophy behind the betrayals and the refusal of the leadership to organize a fightback against cuts. How can one mobilize one's forces against against one's own teammates? It has many different names, Quality of Life circles, Labor Management cooperation, Interest Based Bargaining etc.

The Waltons, John Cochrane and the road to serfdom

by Michael Roberts

As the World Bank and the IMF meet for their semi-annual meeting this weekend, in a speech, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim underlined the importance of “addressing inequality” in the world. Kim told students and faculty at Howard University that a recent Oxfam International report had found the world’s richest 85 people have as much combined wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion. And this compared to around a billion people who still live on $2 a day, have no electricity, drinking water, or even latrines.

The evidence of growing inequality of wealth and income globally is now overwhelming. In a new report, the OECD finds that global income inequality is now back at 1820 levels (http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/how-was-life-shows-long-term-progress-in-key-areas-of-well-being.htm). OECD researchers studied income levels in 25 different countries, charted them back in time to 1820 and then collated them as if the world were a single country. “The enormous increase of income inequality on a global scale is one of the most significant -– and worrying -– features of the development of the world economy in the past 200 years,” concluded the OECD in its 269-page report. Interestingly, the OECD noted that global inequality rose once globalisation took root after the 1980s.

And within the US alone, the latest triennial Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) from the Federal Reserve (http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2014/pdf/scf14.pdf), reveals how the rich have got richer compared to the rest of us, even after the Great Recession. In the Great Recession, net wealth for the average American household fell 39%, but just 16% for the top 400 American families (as measured by Forbes magazine), while net wealth actually rose for the Walton family (who are part of the 85 Oxfam people), the owners of the cut-price, anti-labour American retailer, WalMart (up 45%!). Recession was good for the Waltons.

It was the collapse of home prices that hit the average American household the most, while the fall in stock priced affected the richest 400 more. In the ‘recovery’ since 2010, the average household has experienced a further fall in wealth (-2%), but the top 400 have gained an extra 45%, while the Waltons have added another 50%! Typical US family wealth in 2013 was $81,200 — which is about the same as it was in 1992 at $80,200 (in real terms). The cumulative wealth of the Forbes 400 was about $2.1 trillion, or roughly the same as that held by the entire bottom 60% of American families. The combined worth of the Walton Six was $145 billion in 2013, which equalled the total wealth of the bottom 43%!

The Fed and OECD studies confirm a myriad of others, including the most comprehensive by Anthony Atkinson (see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/the-story-of-inequality/) and, of course, the best-selling book on the rising inequality of wealth in the major economies by French economist Thomas Piketty, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (see my posts, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/thomas-piketty-and-the-search-for-r/).
FT columnist Martin Wolf in his latest book (The shifts and the shocks) also launches the idea that inequality is the main problem of capitalism. “It is increasingly recognised that, beyond a certain point, inequality will be a source of significant economic ills.” Wolf cites the Federal Reserve study above on inequality of income where the top 3% income earners got 30.5% of total incomes in 2013. The next 7% received just 16.8% and this left barely over half of total incomes to the remaining 90%. The upper 3% was also the only group to have enjoyed a rising share in incomes since the early 1990s. So inequality keeps rising.

Wolf also cites the Morgan Stanley study which lists among causes of the rise in inequality: the growing proportion of poorly paid and insecure low-paid jobs; the rising wage premium for educated people; and the fact that tax and spending policies are less redistributive than they used to be a few decades ago. According to the OECD, the US ranked highest among the high-income countries in the share of relatively low-paying jobs. Moreover, the bottom quintile of the income distribution received only 36% of federal transfer payments in 2010, down from 54% in 1979. The poorest are getting a smaller share of available welfare benefits.

Wolf then trots out the argument still dominant among leftist and Keynesian economists that rising inequality is not only unjust but that it is the principal cause of crises and stagnation under capitalism. The argument goes: “up to the time of the crisis, many of those who were not enjoying rising real incomes borrowed instead. Rising house prices made this possible. By late 2007, debt peaked at 135 per cent of disposable incomes. Then came the crash. Left with huge debts and unable to borrow more, people on low incomes have been forced to spend less. Withdrawal of mortgage equity, financed by borrowing, has collapsed. The result has been an exceptionally weak recovery of consumption.”

The argument that the Great Recession and the weak recovery were due to a collapse in consumption just does not hold up – see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/is-inequality-the-cause-of-capitalist-crises/.) But Wolf’s propositions are now the conventional wisdom of the left or liberal wing of mainstream economics.

I have argued before that there are two reasons for this. First, the powers that be (IMF, OECD, World Bank etc) are genuinely worried that growing inequality could lead to a political and social backlash by the poor against the rich that could threaten the capitalist system itself.  Second, claiming that growing inequality is the real cause of slumps in capitalist production is a comforting theory because it suggests that, with a judicious policy of redistribution of wealth and incomes, crises could be eliminated without the need to replace the capitalist mode of production. So nobody on the left (let alone the mainstream) pays any attention to the causal explanation of crises provided by Marxist economics.

Inequality may be seen as the issue by the liberal left and Keynesians, but it is certainly not by the hardline neoclassical mainstream. John Cochrane is a leading University of Chicago neoclassical economist (http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/). He is a strong critic of all this liberal ‘fuss’ about inequality. At a recent panel on inequality organised by the Hoover Institution in memory of another neoclassical great, Gary Becker, Cochrane commented that asking for the redistribution of wealth and income was pointless because “we all know there isn’t enough money, especially to address real global poverty” and yet the ‘liberals’ keep insisting on trying to. “I think it is a mistake to accept the premise that inequality, per se, is a “problem” needing to be solved and to craft alternative solutions. Inequality is a symptom of other problems.”

Cochrane starts with the argument that the top wealth owners, like the Waltons or the Steve Jobs at Apple, have ‘earned’ their wealth. It’s the same view expressed by Greg Mankiw, the doyen of economics textbooks, in his (indefensible) defence of the top 1% (see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/defending-the-indefensible/). You see, some people are more skilled than others or luckier than others and so get better-off. It is nothing to do with ‘cronyism’, or ‘rent-seeking’ i.e. the ownership of capital. The answer to inequality is thus more education for the unskilled, not more taxation of the rich.

But be careful, says Cochrane, state funded education would be a bad idea as people will train up as art historians or such rather than in skills useful for jobs in the capitalist economy and we cannot have that. And education must be directed to those where it will work. At the lower end, we just have single mothers, criminals, druggies and other ‘low lifes’ and no amount of education or redistribution of income in benefits etc will change them. After all, “70% of male black high school dropouts will end up in prison, hence essentially unemployable and poor marriage prospects. Less than half are even looking for legal work.”  Thus Cochrane drags up the old argument that ‘incentives’ (money, status etc) really only works for those who are already rich to make them do productive things, while ‘incentives’ like benefits or free education and health etc are useless for the poor.

Anyway, Cochrane goes on “as rich people mostly give away or reinvest their wealth. It’s hard to see just how this is a problem”. So that’s all right then. But it is also not true. There are many studies that show poorer people give more to charities as a percentage of their income that the richest. And most of the giving by the rich ‘philanthropists’ is for tax avoiding purposes and the kudos of supporting ‘the arts’ or universities like Cochrane’s Chicago. The Waltons are noted for their lack of philanthropy.

Cochrane then comes up with the well-versed argument that actually global inequality has been declining, not rising. This proposition is based on looking at inequality between nations not within nations, as the OECD or Fed studies above do. Branco Mankovic, formerly of the World Bank, has done the work and shown that the gap between an average household in the emerging economies and those in the rich countries has narrowed over the last few decades (see my post, http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/workers-of-the-world-cannot-unite-conclusive-evidence/).

But this is only for one reason: China. The huge growth in the Chinese economy and the rise in living standards there explain nearly all of this improvement – strip that out and it is the same old story – no change. Cochrane has to admit that China is the reason but argues that China succeeded by not taxing its rich people but by growing. Yes, fast growth is the factor, but it is also the case China’s inequality ratios have rocketed so that inequality of income there now matches the levels in the US.

Nevertheless, Cochrane tells us that Bill Gates being a super-rich billionaire is hardly a problem for the body politic of human civilisation compared to murderous dictators who killed millions like Mao Tse-Tung or Joseph Stalin. Poor people don’t worry about rich people getting richer as long as their own living improves “just what problem does top 1% inequality really represent to them?” Well, as the global financial crash has exposed, it is the greed of the bankers, hedge fund speculators making their billions that eventually caused the huge loss in wealth for the average American recorded by the Fed above. So just letting the rich do what they want with our money is a problem.

And as for the poor revolting against capitalism because of rising inequality, don’t worry, “Maybe the poor should rise up and overthrow the rich, but they never have. Inequality was pretty bad on Thomas Jefferson’s farm. But he started a revolution, not his slaves.” Perhaps Cochrane ought to be more cautious: the poor have not always docilely accepted the extravagances of the rich. History is the history of class struggle as just three examples show: the Peasants Revolt of 1381 in England; the French revolution of the late 18th century and the Russian revolution of the early 20th century. Indeed, if the Waltons and the super rich have nothing to fear from the rest of us, why do they spend so much effort stopping trade unions, using police and other forces to crush any protests and intervening around the world against regimes and people who appear to object to their rule? The rich appear more worried than Cochrane.

Finally, we get the Hayek argument to defend inequality. Just after 1945, Friedrich Hayek, a right-wing market economist and main protagonist in opposition to Keynesian views, argued that more regulation and redistribution would put everybody on the ‘road to serfdom under an all-powerful state, Orwellian-style. Cochrane says that ‘liberals’ that advocate higher taxes and regulation on the rich would so the same.

The problem with this argument is that Hayek was wrong. Tax rates on the top 1% reached 90% under Eisenhower in the 1950s but the economy kept on growing fast by historic standards and dictatorship medieval style did not appear. The golden age of the US economy was in the 1960s when economic growth was 4%-plus a year, inequality declined (according to Piketty) and living standards of the poor rose sharply. Growth was much lower when corporate taxation and income tax for the rich was cut in the 1980s onwards, inequality grew and living standards stagnated.

So let’s sum up. The ‘liberal’ Keynesian wing of mainstream economics is pushing the argument that rising inequality of wealth and income is the issue for capitalism and the globe. It is generating social instability and is the main cause of crises under capitalism. The neoclassical right-wing of mainstream economics dismisses this as rubbish. Inequality is part of capitalism, sure, but is not a social or economic problem and indeed any attempt to correct the market forces at work that have created will make things worse by helping state-run dictatorships to develop. It’s the road to serfdom.

In my view, both sides are right and wrong. Yes, inequality appears to be getting worse as a result of the neoliberal counterrevolution and it is not a product of better skilled or educated workers ‘earning’ more, but because those who own or control capital have been taking more. But inequality is not the cause of crises but a consequence of them as the latest evidence of the Fed shows. Yes, redistributing wealth and income through heavier taxation etc may make things worse for capitalism as Cochrane suggests, but only because it would lower profitability at a time when it is near its historic post-war lows. It would not if profitability was high and rising as it was in the 1950s and 1960s.

The idea that inequality is a fact of life that cannot be changed is just apologia for the rich. Serfdom would not follow from the ending of the capitalist mode of production and the expropriation of the super-rich and their capital. We are already serfs compared to the Waltons. With ownership in common, we could plan for need not profit – the best ‘incentive’ of all.

The German Engine Falters

October 6, 2014
Dan Armstrong in Germany

Normally referred to as the engine of the European economy, the latest figures for the German economy are sobering. The normal complacency concerning the economy could well give way to a more strident approach by government.

Up until now, the new coalition of CDU/SPD has enjoyed relatively broad support. The bourgeoisie have praised the aim of balancing the books and foresaw revenues actually exceeding expenditure within a year or two which of course would mean a reduction in the debt service charges. And the labour movement has been mainly quiet since last December when the Grand Coalition came into office, primarily because the SPD ministers fought for and won several concessions and reforms on pensions, benefits and mainly the introduction of a legal minimum wage across all industries.

Polls reflected this situation with the CDU/CSU stable at around 40-42%, boosted by the collapse of the Free Democrats, and the SPD on a low 23-24%.  The Linke has made no headway for a long time now, having lost seats in four western parliaments and were badly weakened in Brandenburg because of their collusion with the SPD in budget cuts but have hung on to support in the east in Saxony and Thuringia where they are the biggest party and may even enter a coalition with the junior SPD; in Thuringia however the Linke led by the devout Christian Ramelow is programmatically indistinguishable from the social democrats with only a timid programme of more teachers and more police. 

Under the quiet surface, there has been an erosion of benefits, growth of food banks, moonlighting jobs, and so on.  The lowest layers and some nationally orientated bourgeois forces are finding expression on the right with this new party,  the AfD,  picking up 7-10% of the votes in regional elections on an anti-Euro and anti-migrant platform. The AfD has been taking votes in almost equal  numbers from all the other parties, including the from Linke.

But politics rests of course on economics. And  the second quarter of this year saw an actual fall in GDP by 0.2%, the opposite of what the experts had been predicting. Worse, today's figures for the third quarter show a crumbling of industrial orders by 5.7%, the biggest fall since the crash of 2009 and foreign orders declining by a huge 8.4%. Machine tools and vehicles suffered even worse, dropping by 8.5%. This is due to three factors: the stagnation in the Eurozone, the poor growth in the BRIC countries once hailed as the saviours of the west, and the political crisis continuing in Ukraine.

Since no changes in any of these three areas is in sight, we can expect the beginnings of a revival in the activities in the German labour movement in the next period.

Video: Right wing Israeli's protest court decision on Arican immigrants

Anti-immigrant, racist and xenophobic tendencies and parties are on the rise not just in Israel but in Britain and other countries as the victims of capitalist globalization and its wars and famine are forced as economic migrants to find food, shelter and security. From Al Jazeera

About 100 far-right activists in Tel Aviv on Sunday against the High Court's September ruling to close Holot detention centre. The court's landmark decision (link is external) struck down government legislation of incarcerating migrants who came into Israel illegally without trial. It also concluded that holding African migrants for up to a year is illegal.

The detention centre is set to close (link is external) within 90 days of the ruling. Protesters say the ruling would give rise (link is external) to criminal activity, and increase tensions with the immigrant community.

Demonstrators waved black flags with "bagatz", an acronym of the Israel's High Court of Justice, written in white. Several online believed the flag was meant to draw a comparison (link is external) between the country's highest legal body and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Catholic Church, Organized Religion and Women

by Wendy Forrest, Toronto

Several days ago a contributor to this blog posted an excellent piece on the role of the Catholic Church in the perpetuation of poverty and inequality world wide and the oppression and exploitation of women over the centuries.

It almost seems an insult to the above mentioned author not to comment fully and responsibly. I hope to be able to do this, or at least give more attention to this topic in the future. At this moment though I will confine my contribution to a brief anecdotal response based on my personal experience as a woman as as a health care worker.

Organized religion has no place in education and health care and to the degree that it exerts influence it never fails to perpetuate the oppression of women and control over our bodies, minds and emotions, our sexuality and by implication our social and economic well being and safety. Often one small every day experience,  a few small moments as we go about our lives, can reveal an entire narrative of pain and terror, fear and anger.

What follows is merely an example of this . It seems an embarrassment to offer up such a tiny anecdote in response to the profound and accurate contribution made by the author of the recent blog piece.

Approximately 20 years in Ontario massive health care restructuring was unleashed by the Tory government. This involved closures of community hospitals, the loss of hundreds of much needed hospital beds and local outpatient services.

At the time , despite a significant community mobilization against it , a much needed and loved downtown hospital was forced to merge with a larger catholic hospital in downtown Toronto. This catholic hospital funded by the state, denied abortions, restricted access to contraception and education around women's reproductive rights to birth control. Each hospital had its own family practice unit.

As a patient of one of these family practice units I along with hundreds was forced to become a patient of the catholic hospital family practice unit.

To make a long story short I recently had an ultrasound of my face and neck , related to a diagnosis of hypothyroidism. As I sat in the waiting room at St Michael's Hospital, with 10 other patients I looked around for reading material to ease the boredom of the wait.

The only reading materials on offer were magazine extolling the joys, wonder and sanctity of family as well as several glossy pamphlets promoting private education/schools. For a tiny moment I thought "what the hell- what is this propaganda doing in the waiting room of a publicly funded health care facility".  I quickly made the connections and the anger , not yet rage , quickly started to simmer in my belly.

I refocused and talked myself down. Then looking at the wall facing me I saw a huge graphic display of the development of the human fetus-the only picture, sign, whatever on the wall of the entire waiting room. Approximately 16 photos of ultrasound images of the human fetus from 2 weeks to term.  Were I not vulnerable in that I cherish my status as a decades long patient of a family practice unit, I trust and rely upon and did not want to end up having to resort to walk in clinics , I literally had to force myself to stay in my seat to avoid ripping these images off the wall.

As a woman who opted for an abortion, 3 decades ago I can still not look at images of a first trimester fetus. An ultimate rationalist, socialist, feminist and hard core realist without a sentimental bone in my body, I have no regrets, I bear no shame and will support women's rights to choice until I draw my last breath. The choice I made was painful and accompanied by several weeks of sadness- a sadness no priest or pastor representing a patriarchal, rigid, misogynistic institution and force can even imagine or have the right even to try to imagine until and unless he throws off his vestments and trappings of illegitimate and abusive authority.

I made my decision to have an abortion as a well paid worker. I was not poor. I did not have to worry about feeding and clothing any children I may have borne. I was not in a in an abusive relationship, I had not been raped.

Those who foam at the mouth at women's right to choose care nothing about who will provide for children. In fact by collaborating with, filling the role of right hand man to the capitalist class who by its very nature will force poverty upon working and poor people worldwide, they are in fact nothing less than guilty of inflicting starvation, disease and death upon billions.

So my rage was not about my sadness.

It was about the terror inflicted on women and children physically and psychologically every single minute of every single day, for centuries even till now by the patriarchs of organized religion. In that waiting room were patients with all kinds of physical ailments and problems. In fact there was only one pregnant women in the room. Was it just coincidence that they chose to mount images of fetuses. Not a chance. I wondered as I was called in to the examining room if the Catholic Hospital funded by public money via the state would pick up the tab for the food, care and education at one of the private schools they were promoting.

No of course not. The most they will do is piss a few pennies and nickels into the charity pot in order to whitewash their crimes against women and children world wide.

California's modest poultry law survives court challenge.

California law puts a stop to this. Source

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Oakland CA

We all hear or read about the Rule of Law.  The big business mass media uses the term all the time whether it’s to describe a regime that they don’t like because it doesn’t have this special rule or to denigrate opposition or protests against injustice here in the US.  But what law are they talking about? People or political legislators write and pass laws.  Here in the US we have only two political parties of note to choose from at election time, both representing bankers and the 1%, so most of the laws are made to protect the interests of this constituency.

That doesn’t mean that the pressure of an overwhelming working class electorate doesn’t force concessions from them at times, we have sick leave and unemployment insurance for example, legislation that they pass under duress due to pressure form below.

In 2008, no doubt under pressure from environmentalists, animal rights and consumer groups (I’d like to say the trade union leadership but it’s just as likely they would defend the rights of the corporations in cases like these) California passed legislation that bans the sale of any eggs in the state that are produced by hens that are housed in the all too familiar cramped and inhumane conditions that exist in the poultry industry.

The law states that not only hens, but pigs and calves, must be raised in conditions that allow the animals to “lie down, stand up, turn around and fully extend their limbs.”   This is not exactly an earth shattering decision; after all, for many of us, we have only seen such animals enjoying life in the field or barnyard. Surely this is a much healthier environment than what exists at the moment.

In response to this minor change in the housing of animals for human consumption, Missouri’s Attorney General Chris Koster filed suit to block the law and officials from a half-dozen states joined in. They claimed that the California law “…overstepped California’s legal authority and violated principles of interstate commerce enshrined in the US constitution.” (WSJ 10-4/5-14)

 “California’s lawmakers were trying to force expensive rules on any farmer who might market eggs in the state.”, the lawyers for these other egg producing states claim. The states, Missouri, Nebraska, Alabama, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Iowa produce about 20 billion eggs a year and 2 billion or so of them are exported to California.

It is California’s economic power with about 13% of US GDP that gives it some clout. It is perhaps the 8^th largest economy in the world and the most populous US state with one in eight Americans living here.

It was reported in today’s Wall Street Journal that a federal judge has thrown out the lawsuit.  But it’s interesting to see what is behind all this.  Firstly, even a minor law or legislation like this passing in a legislature controlled by big business parties, a legislature that has no representatives from a workers’ party, is due solely to pressure from below. Big business at the top, through their politicians that actually vote yea or nay, always cringe at such legislation and do whatever they can to stop it. But despite a host of the world’s billionaires living in California, the pressure from below was enough and the billionaire’s wealth not threatened enough, to force them in to a war on this issue. Also, many of California’s wealthy come out of the tech or movie industry as opposed to manufacturing although we do have a huge agricultural sector.

California is often maligned as being hostile to business and the home of loony’s hippies and liberals; the media portrays it as a place full of irresponsible revelers and lefties. It is not the loonies” or the nudist activists that bother business, it is legislation, regulation or any restrictions that might curb profits and capital flow; that is the problem. Capital hates obstacles to its motion.  Even something as innocuous as allowing a chicken to stand up and spread its wings is too intrusive to business.  Legislation that protects workers, consumers, travelers (highway laws) and the environment are a hindrance to profit taking---this is why California is maligned in the big business press.

The attorneys general representing the states that brought the lawsuit don’t actually represent “the states” meaning the inhabitants in total.  They represent a certain section of the population. As representatives of the food industry, in this particular case, poultry production, it is this section they represent, or better still, their economic interests.  The Missouri attorney general is speaking for that state’s capitalists whose capital is tied up in the egg producing business but he doesn’t say that.  His spokesperson tells the WSJ, Instead:

“We disagree with the federal court’s opinion that Missouri lacks standing to defend its business and consumers against burdensome economic regulation imposed by out-of-state legislators. “

He means by “Missouri” himself as the “official” representative of the sate either through appointment or election, it’s sort of secondary as to which.  He is speaking solely for the minority of individuals in Missouri that are owners of the egg producing industry.  I’ll bet in these states their workers are not in unions. Chicken farms in the US are notorious for their inhumane, stressful conditions of work. The most “burdensome” issue the workers in these plants have to deal with is their bosses.

So it is a lie that the attorney general of Missouri or any other state is acting in defense of workers or consumers. Where has Missouri’s attorney general been over the years as inequality and poverty has ravaged working class communities while the police have acted like an occupying force as the events in Ferguson so clearly showed? How many lawsuits or public condemnations has he made of the conditions working people are forced to endure?   And leaving aside that this writer believes agriculture and food production needs to change its character altogether, allowing a pig to stand upright in a stall does no harm to a worker in these industries.  And the consumer can only benefit from meat from animals that have a healthier existence, range feeding being paramount.

Legislation like California’s law should be supported but it should also be clear that another aspect of this struggle is the division between different sections of the capitalist class in the same political party.  They can disagree on some details that benefit competing sections of the class at one time or another.  But what we workers have to understand first and foremost is that these divisions take place due to pressure from workers and the middle class and plain old competition between capitalists themselves. Capitalists do compete with each other, and there are economic pressures that affect one section or another at different times. But as far as the system as a whole is concerned, the private ownership of the means of production and the labor process that are the source of profits this is where they draw the line-------the integrity of this system and their place at the helm comes first.

So while it might appear that we have a small difference between capitalist politicians in one state (Missouri’s attorney general is Democrat) this does not mean that this political party should be supported in any way by working people. It is a dead end for us, a black hole that leads to the same place the Republicans are headed; they are two parties bought and paid for by the banks and the 1%. There’s no way out for us through this door.  There is also no guarantee that an independent party of the working class will resolve the crisis of global capitalism, it is this writers contention that only a democratic socialist society and economy can do that, but political independence does give us an alternative that we can join, build and discuss ideas, strategy and tactics for advancing our interests. And a political party governs.  Such a formation would change the balance of class forces in this country as the 1% presently have a monopoly in the political sphere.

The production of food has to be collective, more localized and deindustrialized. Meanwhile, I’m pleased the state I live in recognizes a chicken should be housed in a way that it can stand up and spread its wings.

Climate Change has devastating effect on Arctic Wildlife.

That capitalist politicians and scientists in the pay of corporations deny climate change should not surprise us.  The same forces denied that cigarette smoking had anything to do with cancer for years, that certain chemicals in our communities were having a negative affect on health or that they poisoned drinking water and many other such truths.  They argue that climate changes naturally anyway.  But we have the ability to regulate and control how we interact with nature to produce the necessities of life.  We can determine what is a necessity and what isn't, what is harmful to our short and  long-term health and what is not; what degrades the environment and what doesn't.  But to do that, we have to eliminate the power capital and the market has over our lives.  We can change the way we live for the better of humanity and the natural world, but not as long as the capitalist mode of production rules.

Production under capitalism is for profit, not need. This is the problem, it's that simple.  The image and comments below are from Mother Jones Magazine.

If These 35,000 Walruses Can't Convince You Climate Change Is Real, I Don't Know What to Tell You

By Tim McDonnell

Thu Oct. 2, 2014 11:36 AM EDT

This an image from a NOAA research flight over a remote stretch of Alaska's north shore on Saturday. It shows approximately 35,000 walruses crowded on a beach, which according to the AP is a record number for this survey program.

Bear in mind that each of the little brown dots in this image can weigh over 4,000 pounds, placing them high in the running to be the world's biggest climate refugees.
Why are so many walruses "hauled out" on this narrow strip of land? Part of the reason is that there's not enough sea ice for them to rest on, according to NOAA.

On September 17, Arctic sea ice reached its minimum extent for 2014, which according to federal data is the sixth-lowest coverage since the satellite record began in 1979.

"The massive concentration of walruses onshore—when they should be scattered broadly in ice-covered waters—is just one example of the impacts of climate change on the distribution of marine species in the Arctic," Margaret Williams, the managing director of WWF's Arctic program, said in a statement.

If you've ever seen these blubbery beasts duke it out, then you know there's some serious marine mammal mayhem in store. Thanks, climate change!

Support the movement for democratic rights in Hong Kong

Occupy Central Hong Kong Calling for international support for democracy in Hong Kong!

#DemocracyNowHK #OccupyCentral - By 李成康 Li Shing Hong, Samuel

HONG KONG, a small dot on the map, is standing up against what is arguably the most capable and successful authoritarian regime of our time - the Chinese Communist Party, and its representatives in the Hong Kong government. For days, citizens and students with nothing more than their bodies have been battling the city's increasingly violent and brutal police force. Tear gas, anti-riot police and pepper spray have already been used on defenceless students and citizens, amongst other brutal violence.

The Hong Kong Federation of Students have declared an indefinite class boycott for all universities in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions have declared an indefinite strike across the city. Read more Sign the HKCTU petition here sign Please show that you are on the side of all that stands for human rights, freedom and democratic values, because in this battle between David and Goliath, this small but defiant city cannot win without international support. Hong Kong students, workers and people will strive on even if it means facing the wrath of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. If we succeed, this will be the first truly democratic political regime in the whole of authoritarian China. We are making history with every step we walk. Please walk with us.

Sign the HKCTU petition Take a picture of yourself and your comrades with a sign expressing solidarity with people in Hong Kong, and share it on social media using the #DemocracyNowHK and #OccupyCentral hash tags Share this story!

Statement by Hong Kong Confederation of Trade UnionsHKCTU strongly condemns the police crackdown of people’s protest by Hong Kong government Calling all workers in Hong Kong to participate in a general strike tomorrow Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) strongly condemns the police for their violent attack on unarmed students and people. We strongly condemn the government for suppressing the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly in Hong Kong. HKCTU calls for all workers in Hong Kong to strike tomorrow, in protest of the ruling of the National People’s Congress, as well as the brutal suppression of peaceful protest by the Hong Kong government. Workers and students must unite to force the totalitarian government to hand state power back to the people. Since the peaceful assembly outside the Government Headquarters on September 26th, thousands of people join and support the assembly.

The ever growing number of people maintained peace and order. Yet, the police attacked the protesters heavily with pepper spray, baton and riot squads armed with shields and helmets, while people who only had towels and umbrellas to protect themselves. In face of several rounds of suppression, protesters only raised their hands up without fighting back. In the evening of September 28th, the police furthered their attack with several rounds of tear gas. Many peaceful protesters were injured.

Workers must stand up against the unjust government and violent suppression. Workers must stand up, as the totalitarian government has to back down when all workers protest in solidarity. To defend democracy and justice, we cannot let the students fight the suppression alone. HKCTU hereby announces and calls all workers to participate in a general strike tomorrow. We demand: Police must release the arrested protesters immediately.

They must guarantee the basic human rights of the arrested protestors during retention. The government and police must stop suppressing the peaceful assembly and apologize to the people. National People’s Congress must withdraw the ‘fake universal suffrage’. The Hong Kong government must restart the consultation of political reform. Workers have been demanding a fair election system to rectify the long standing problem of the business-leaning government. However, the ‘fake universal suffrage’ framework proposed by NPC is merely ‘old wine in a new bottle’. Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying must step down to bear the responsibility of violent suppression of protest. Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Union September 28th, 2014.   ITUC report here.

A tactful Irish response to the growing commodification of water.

Catholic Church's monstrous crimes in Ireland.

Not a woman among them.

by Sean O'Torrain*

In the interest of full disclosure I was born into a Protestant family and I am now and have been for 40 years an atheist. And even fuller disclosure, I have been a revolutionary socialist for these past four decades, was part of the Bogside uprising in 1969 was a full time organizer for the Socialist party and its International, the CWI, until I was expelled in 1996. I am giving this information in order that it will be difficult for me to be tared with the brush of being anti Catholic for what I am about to say.

I am sure that all who are reading this are familiar with the monstrous activities of the Catholic church hierarchy in Ireland. Their child abuse. their enslaving of young women, their making them work for nothing, their taking their children away from them, their ill treatment of the children of unmarried mothers and leaving them to die, their burying them in septic tanks, their imprisoning them in what they called convents but which were in fact prisons.

The Catholic church has tried to deny that they made money out of the slave labor of these women. But the ledgers are now being found which show how much money they did make by doing the laundry for major hotels and also for government departments. This is increasingly known and this is a very good development.  But what I would like to raise here is another aspect of this crime. First: who are the main people and elements responsible for these monstrous crimes? Second, what is the responsibility of those who have been rank and file members and remain rank and file members of this organization, that is the Catholic church?

The responsibility above all lies with the Catholic hierarchy.  This is an all male caste which is unelected and which runs an organization of over one billion people. It has a very clear ideology. It is pro capitalist. In fact it is the main church of capitalism. In previous centuries it was the church of feudalism but when capitalism became dominant it adapted and became the main church of capitalism. It is very conscious of this role that it plays. When Stalinism was collapsing, the popes of the time visited 18 Stalinist countries to make sure that Stalinism would be replaced by capitalism rather than democratic socialism. It worked closely with the US government on this. The Protestant churches are also churches of capitalism but the Catholic church is the dominant church of capitalism. 

The Catholic church is undemocratic. Its leaders are not elected. It is anti women. Not only in its policies, anti pro choice etc.,  but also in its structures. Women cannot hold the top positions. It is a vicious misogynist organization. It is an incredibly wealthy organization. It rolls out its platitudes against poverty but of course it keeps its gigantic wealth to itself. And when it does talk about poverty it maintains the old crap that poverty we will always have with us. In other words it preaches that poverty will never be ended.  This is a totally corrupt and rotten organization, which is against the interests of working people worldwide.

The caste, which runs it, has to be seen in this way. This is who they are. They must be condemned and opposed. They keep power through terror. They threaten with hell fire. They manipulate peoples’ emotions to control them. The say the powerful sex drive is wrong unless blessed by them. For this blessing and go ahead you have to be a member of their corrupt organization and contribute money.  On top of this they keep their pageantry and music and drama to memorize.

Now to the membership of this organization. What is your responsibility? And what should you do? In my opinion anybody with any sense of fairness or decency, anybody who believes in equality and democratic rights, anybody who believes in women’s’ rights and an end to poverty should not belong to the Catholic church, should leave the Catholic church. It does not hold up to say that you are against all these ills in society and to belong to the Catholic church. To do so is like saying you belong to the KKK but oppose racism. The Catholic church supports with the greatest determination the capitalist system, which is responsible for these ills.  So I advocate that anybody with a shred of decency and fairness should leave this organization and do so openly and publicly and state their reasons.

It is nauseating to see what passes for public and political life in Ireland. Just about every political party from Fianna Fail to Sinn Fein to the Labor Party bootlicks the Catholic hierarchy. That is, they bootlick the monstrous criminals who presided over the Magdalene laundries and all the rest. They get them to sprinkle water on their children’s’ heads when they are born, they get them to chant and wave their arms and give the go ahead to them to have sex when they are getting married, they get them to moan and pretend they are sad and are able to usher them into some other place rather than hell when they die. And the central theme in all these events is to make sure that the Catholic church is at the center of things.

It is particularly nauseating to see Sinn Fein. They claim to fight against the domination and exploitation of Ireland. Yet there they also bootlicking the Catholic church on all such occasions. This when the Catholic church after British imperialism has been and continues to be the main force of exploitation  of the people and resources of Ireland and been this for centuries. It is just as nauseating to see the so-called Labor Party, which is supposed to stand for working people also bootlicking the Catholic hierarchy.

I have given my suggestion as to what members of the Catholic church should do. Leave it. If you cannot do so then form an open and public opposition within it. But do so with your eyes open. When the opposition Liberation Theology movement developed in the Catholic church in the 1970’s the Catholic hierarchy collaborated with US imperialism to wipe them out, that is murder them.

But should more be done?  I would like a discussion on this. The Catholic church is basically a terrorist organization. It bases itself on terrorizing its membership with its own creation “hell.”  I am not in favor of calling on the capitalist state to ban organizations as this opens the door to this state to ban workers and left organizations.  So I am not in favor of banning the Catholic church in Ireland.

But I am in favor of this. The evidence is all around us to prove that something has to be done.  I am in favor of removing the control of the Catholic church from all fields of education, from all areas of health, in other words I am in favor of a total separation of church and state and the Catholic church and the Protestant churches to be excluded from any input into and control of education and health. I am also in favor of the Catholic church and all churches having to pay compensation to the women who were forced to work for nothing and whose children were taken from them. Let the wealth in the big houses of the Bishops and the Cardinals and the other property it owns be taken off them and used to pay the compensation to the victims. Why should the taxpayer have to pay? 

I am also in favor of making sure that all are aware of the role of Irish capitalism in relation to the domination of the Catholic church over Irish society. This to be done by changing the curriculum in the education system. The Irish capitalist class came on the scene of history late. (See Trotsky’s the theory of the Permanent Revolution) It was weak, dominated by British imperialism and afraid of its own working class. After the war of independence in which it played practically no role, or even opposed, (see where William Martin Murphy and the bosses called for the execution of Connolly and others) Irish capitalism was in a very weak and vulnerable state. It needed allies. It reached out and clasped the willing hand of the Catholic hierarchy and made a deal. The Catholic church could have control of education and health care and the disciplining of children and women and in return the Catholic church would support capitalism. Which of course it did anyway. Some deal.   

So when we point the finger for who is responsible for these monstrous crimes we have to point it at the Catholic hierarchy but we also have to point it at the Irish capitalist class. They too are responsible for the monstrous criminal actions of the Catholic hierarchy, which are now being exposed.

Sean O'Torrain (John Throne) is an activist and former member of the Bogside Defence Committee and author of The Donegal Woman, a tribute to his grandmother and all the young women and boys who were "hired out" to the rich landowners.  He can be reached at loughfinn@aol.com