COMMUNITIES AGAINST
CAPITALISM
Put Life and Love Before Profit and War
By Charles E. Simmons <csim592951@aol.com>
May 1, 2001
DETROIT -- We can predict that there will be or at least ought to be lots of
outrage and protest about the expansion of the economic globalization throughout
the Americas. That is what the march was about recently when labor and social
justice activists marched near the Detroit River and faced Canadian border with
signs of support for fellow workers and environmentalists on the other side.
Since the term, Free Trade, implies freedom, which everyone loves, we must ask
how this new concept differs from the present trade between nations, and who
will benefit from this new plan so strongly advocated by George Bush?
Prior to the current ideas about international trade, each nation decided how
much and what type of goods or services to include or exclude or to tax in order
to protect their own labor force or their businesses. Under that system, the
relative rich nations had more difficulty ripping off the business and labor of
the small agricultural nations.
Consequently, the exploitation took place by circumventing the law, bribing
officials, or paying the workers dirt cheap wages. Since the establishment of
Free Trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico under the banner of the North
American Free Trade Assn NAFTA)., large U.S. businesses now have the freedom to
ignore the local customs and laws, take over the local commerce once enjoyed by
small and medium sized businesses, and reduce the wages of workers and farmers
even more than before. This time even the middle classes are feeling the heavy
economic blows. Already, one forth of the Mexican workers and much of the middle
classes are now unemployed and more are underemployed. This explains, in part,
the rapid increase in the immigration of Mexican farmers, workers and many
professionals into the U.S.
This Freedom of Trade also explains the increasingly hostile attitude of Big
Business within the U.S. which are telling American workers point blank to
either take severe cuts in wages and benefits or run the risk that those
companies will head across the border. Never mind that the company executives
are getting multimillion-dollar salaries, stock options and hefty bonuses. But
those are the benefits of Free Trade for the wealthy.
How do Detroit workers benefit from this intensification of globalization or the
expansion of Free Trade? A waitress in a small restaurant who had watched the
news about the Quebec demonstrations of those attending the Labor Notes
Conference in Detroit asked me, and I asked a union representative: "How
much am I supposed to be paid?" I was embarrassed to report that her
employer only had to pay her $2.25 per hour and no benefits. Waitresses are not
covered by the minimum wage law because the big restaurant industry lobby led by
the billion dollar fast food industry, exercising their Freedom of Trade, has
paid off U.S. politicians enough to keep the wages of their workers, mostly
women and teenagers, dirt cheap.
Recall the picket line on the corner of Michigan Ave and Cass last year of
restaurant workers at the Billion dollar Aramark Corporation. There the workers,
mostly African American women, were being paid just above minimum wages with no
contract and no benefits even for those who had been with the company over 25
years. Fortunately, because of the support of fellow rank and file workers from
other locals, retired workers, and some church members who came out to picket
the company in the snow and ice, those women now have a contract and better
wages. That was an important victory and a significant lesson for all of us in
these times of outright theft by the corporations: In unity there is strength!
Such a demonstration ought not to have been necessary, but that is where we find
ourselves on this May Day, 2001.
This is a policy, which has already led to the unemployment of a third of the
African American workers in American inner cities and the cheapening of labor in
the rest of the hemisphere including Canada and the U.S. That policy is leading
to the elimination of family farmers and ranchers in rural America.
Due to the efforts of a growing movement of young people around the world, we
now know that many of the hundreds of thousands of jobs downsized from Detroit
have moved to Indonesia or Brazil and throughout the so-called Third World. In
many of the agricultural nations, the workers are paid less than ten per cent of
what they make in the U.S. In case the more affluent workers in heavy industry
think they are safe, better think again. The auto and steel industries are
continuing to downsize and outsource, making claims that they are suffering on
their way to the bank.
And there are many other results of this globalization of the economy or Freedom
of Trade policies. A recent hearing of the Detroit City Council witnessed an
audience packed with retired workers from the industrial and transportation
sector. These retirees ranged from their 60s to their 90s. Some of them had
witnessed the great sit down strikes, which led to the empowerment of organized
labor. There was testimony about seniors being thrown out of subsidized housing.
One retiree, over 70, was set out in the alley with all of his belongings.
Because of rising medical costs, he had to choose between his rent and
prescriptions.
Another person testified about a double amputee who had been set out on the
sidewalk and his wheelchair actually thrown out in the street with such force
that the wheels broke off. Another witness described the practice by landlords
who demand their rent payments in cash, refuse to give receipts, and later tell
the tenant to make the same payment again because there is no proof of payment.
The audience listened to stories of seniors living with no utilities, plaster
falling down on them, and infestation with rats and roaches. We have long known
about these conditions among the unemployed, now we are hearing it about those
who have worked all their lives in the best of industrial blue collar jobs.
At the local level, in every U.S. city, we must be clear about this: The Mayor,
the City Council and the School board, to the extent that they support
privatization, weakening of the Living Wage ordinance or movements are a part of
the problem. To the extent that the governor and other politicians allow the
continuation of police brutality, or make no effort to empower the
neighborhoods; to the degree that they cut or take control of local budgets and
programs for education and health, they are also contributing to this criminal
policy of globalization.
In the name of Free Trade, The Bush administration -- as did Bill Clinton before
him -- is now leading the charge on behalf of the big corporations to wipe out
the gains of the past half-century of struggle for better working and living
conditions in the U.S. In Quebec, surrounded by an army of police to protect
them from the people, Bush and the various presidents of the American nations,
led the pack to broaden and deepen this rape of the Americas. Only Cuba was
lucky enough not to be invited to this feast on humanity.
The Free Trade and globalization movement is butchering the laws we had fought
for and won to protect the safety and health of workers where they work, live
and play, or to monitor what they eat and drink and breathe. All those
regulations are now up for grabs, along with civil rights victories of the past.
During the Reagan administration, we saw the beginning of this movement to
eliminate the gains made by organized labor in its days of a stronger militancy
and rank-and-file solidarity during the New Deal administration of President
Roosevelt.
The theme of the recent Labor Notes conference was: Can Workers Change the
World? We have to respond that we have no choice but to make changes and to
empower our communities from the ground up. Our mission must no longer be
limited to the present workplace but must extend to where our grandchildren will
live and study and play. We can no longer expect this to be done from the top
down by governments or corporations. Workers' local unions and community
organizations are going to have to adopt communities and help them find
resources to help themselves. Trade unionists have to decide that they must
organize the unemployed as well as the employed. Workers must find new ways to
extend social help to the retired, the underemployed and to the homeless.
Workers must begin to see themselves as environmentalists and students, and
environmentalists and students must begin to see themselves as workers.
The old barriers and biases held by workers between rural, suburban and urban
America are going to have to come to an end. We are going to have to educate the
police that they are also workers and should not allow themselves to be the
guardians of injustice. Male workers must fight for the rights of their sisters
and daughters, and white workers must fight to uproot racism at its roots. City
workers must fight for the interests of family farmers and ranchers, and all of
us are going to have to think about ways to establish serious positive
relationships with workers and farmers around the world so that we can stop this
rat race to the bottom and towards war.
It was fitting that the rally in downtown Detroit retraced the steps of former
runaway slaves escaping to Canada to get away from the Free Trade in humans in
the early days of globalization. It is also fitting that downtown near the river
was also the home of the early Fort Detroit, where settlers fought the Native
Americans to take their land. It is fitting that three centuries later, workers
gathered from across the Americas to demand justice for everyone. Yes, workers,
farmers and students can and must change the world.
Let's change our thinking from being dependent to taking charge, from being
victims to becoming leaders. Let's live and grow and work in harmony with Mother
Nature, and let's put life and love before profit and War.
--
Charles Simmons teaches Journalism and Media Law at Eastern
Michigan University. He is also the Co-Chair of the
Committee for the Political Resurrection of Detroit.
Copyright (c) 2001 Charles Simmons. All Rights Reserved.