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The Michigan Socialist | News |
National
News
All out to D.C. for the
Million Worker March!
By MARTIN SCHREADER
Editor, the Michigan Socialist
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Demands
of the Million Worker March |
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Universal single-payer
health care from cradle to grave that ends the stranglehold of
greedy insurance companies and secures health care as a right
of all people in America.
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A national living wage
that lifts people permanently out of poverty.
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Protection and
enhancement of Social Security immune to privatization.
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Guaranteed pensions that
sustain a decent life for all working people.
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The cancellation of all
corporate “free” trade agreements, including NAFTA, MAI and
FTAA.
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An end to privatization,
contracting out, deregulation and the pitting of workers
against each other across national boundaries in a mad race to
the bottom.
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For workers’ right to
organize and for a repeal of Taft Hartley and all anti-labor
legislation.
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Funding public education
in a crash program to restore our decaying and abandoned
schools with state of the art school facilities in every
community.
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Funding a vast army of
teachers to end functional illiteracy in America and unleash
the talent and potential of our abandoned children and adults.
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Launching a national
training program in skills and capacities that will enlist our
people in rebuilding our country and putting an end to both
the criminalization of poverty and the prison-industrial
complex.
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Rebuilding our decaying
inner cities with clean, modern and affordable housing and
eliminating homelessness in America with guaranteed housing
and jobs for all.
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Progressive taxation
that increases taxation on corporations and the rich while
providing relief for the working class and poor.
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An end to the poisoning
of the atmosphere, soil, water and food supply with a national
emergency program to restore the environment, end global
warming and preserve our endangered eco-system.
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Creating efficient,
modern and free mass transit in every city and town.
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Repeal of the PATRIOT
Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and all such repressive legislation.
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Slash the military
budget and recover the trillions of dollars stolen from our
labor to enrich the corporations that profit from war.
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Open the books on the
secret budgets of the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies
in the service of corporations and banks and the pursuit of
imperial war on the poor everywhere.
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Extend democracy to our
economic structure so that all decisions affecting the lives
of our citizens are made by working people who produce all
value through their labor.
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An aggressive
enforcement of all civil rights and a national education
campaign and mobilization against all racist and
discriminatory acts in the work place and in our communities.
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Amnesty for all
undocumented workers.
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Increase in federal
funding for the arts in public schools.
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For a democratic media
that allow labor and all voices to be heard and oppose
monopolization and union busting of media workers.
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ON OCTOBER 17, 2004, working people from across
the United States will be gathering on the Mall in Washington, D.C.,
for what could be one of the most important moments in American
labor history: the
Million
Worker March.
Local 10 of the
International
Longshore and Warehouse Union, representing dockworkers in the
San Francisco, Calif., area, initiated the March. Since then,
organizations and individuals across the country have signed on,
pledging to “actively organize and mobilize” for the event.
Labor union endorsers include the National
Education Association, Transport Workers Union Local 100
(representing New York City transit workers), the American Postal
Workers Union and the United Steel Workers of America, as well as
hundreds of union locals and regional Labor Councils from
Massachusetts to California.
Well known public figures like radio personality
Casey Kasem, actor Danny Glover and comedian Dick Gregory have
endorsed. Musical groups like Propagandhi, Chumbawumba and the
Dropkick Murphys have also signed on to the March.
All of this labor support for the March has come
about in spite of an edict from the headquarters of the AFL-CIO, the
main labor union federation in the U.S., demanding their affiliates
not endorse and instead devote their time and resources to campaign
for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
All of the community and individual support for
the March has developed in spite of a total media blackout about the
event.
Without question, the March is shaping up to be
one of the largest workers’ demonstrations in U.S. history — far
surpassing the AFL-CIO-sponsored “Solidarity Days” of the 1980s. But
there is more to it.
THE MILLION WORKER March is not like any other
labor marches that have happened in this country.
This is not simply a demonstration for better
wages or benefits, or for some single issue. The demands of the
March go much farther, pushing themselves out of the economic arena
and touching virtually all aspects of society.
Several overtly political (and radical-political)
slogans, including repeal of the USA-PATRIOT Act, “aggressive
enforcement of all civil rights” and amnesty for undocumented
workers are to be found among the demands of the March.
The economic demands of the March range from calls
for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley “slave labor” legislation,
funding for a national job training program and progressive taxation
to a demand for the government to “open the books” of the Pentagon
and national intelligence agencies, guaranteed housing and jobs for
all, and slashing the military budget.
By far, though, the most compelling — and most
interesting — demands are the calls for “extend[ing] democracy to
our economic structure” and “for a democratic media.”
For these demands to be raised by a mainstream
labor union in the United States is unprecedented — even for a union
like the ILWU, with its militant history.
This is because of what it would mean, and what it
would take, to implement these demands.
How can working people in the U.S. succeed in
“extend[ing] democracy to our economic structure so that all
decisions ... are made by working people?”
Capitalism in the economic arena is a totalitarian
dictatorship.
Private ownership of the means of production
(factories, mines, transport terminals, mills, etc. — also known as
“private property”) gives the individual capitalist, or cartel of
capitalists, sole power and authority over what and how much is
produced by whom.
As long as private ownership of the means of
production exists, democracy on the workplace floor is virtually
impossible. The only way that democracy can be extended to the
economic arena would be to place these elements of the economy into
public, common ownership under democratic control.
That is, the only way to bring democracy to the
economy is to establish workers’ control of production — the
cornerstone of democratic socialism.
The same is true of the demand for “a democratic
media that allow labor and all voices to be heard.”
In the 21st century, the media — television, radio
and print, as well as the Internet — are privately owned and
controlled in the same way as other elements of the economy.
Indeed, the capitalists who own the media see
their product (i.e., information) as just another commodity.
In order to have a “democratic media,” it would be
necessary to place it into the public trust, making it common
property democratically controlled by media workers. Again, this is
the cornerstone of democratic socialism.
IF THOSE WHO ARE organizing the Million Worker
March were to ever achieve their demands, the situation would
immediately bring them into conflict with the capitalist state.
The state, as the enforcer of capitalist “order,”
actively defends the interests of that ruling class against the
actions and interests of working people. It acts as a tool to
suppress the desires and actions of working people to attain their
basic interests.
In order to achieve even half of the demands of
the March, it is necessary to go beyond the economic arena, and to
begin to organize on the political field.
Concretely, that means building a class-conscious
political movement: a political party of working people.
Over the years, there have been several attempts
to build such a party. Each time, these attempts have failed. Why?
Often times, those who sought to organize these
parties were doing so in order to steer working-class discontent
back into “official” channels, like the Democratic Party.
At other times, these initial moves to organize
were spiked by the conscious disruption and attacks of the
“official” union leaderships. Whether it was the Greenback-Labor
Party of the 1890s, the Farmer-Labor Party of the 1920s or the Labor
Party of the 1990s, the result was the same.
But, again, there is more to it.
The reason why it was so relatively easy for these
movements to be reincorporated back into the capitalist order was
because the demands and consciousness of these organizations never
traveled far from capitalist doctrine — liberalism and
left-populism.
If the organizers of the Million Worker March were
to codify their demands as the platform of a new political party of
working people, it would place such an organization miles ahead of
any of its predecessors.
However, in order to avoid any backslide back into
capitalism, it would need to take the final necessary steps.
It would have to recognize that that only way to
make the economy work for working people would be to completely
remove the capitalists from political power.
That is, it would have to make as its central
political demand the establishment of a democratic workers’
republic, based on local bodies composed of and led by working
people, with state and national representatives elected by those
bodies.
Anything less than this would inevitably result in
the loss of whatever gains we may make, and a period of brutal
suppression by the capitalists as they reassert their control over
society.
We cannot afford to make such mistakes. We must
take our time and make sure we do things right, which means
discussing and debating these points out until all those involved
are on the same political page.
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Socialist
Party of Michigan
Endorses the Million Worker March
The following is the statement
adopted at the
August 2004 meeting of the Socialist Party of Michigan
endorsing the Million Worker March. |
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As a political party of the working class, the Socialist
Party of Michigan advocates the transitional demands
embodied by the Million Worker March Organizing Committee
that represent the interests of working people. Believing
the Million Worker March is an expression of workers’
self-organization and emancipation, the Socialist Party of
Michigan hereby endorses the Sunday, October 17, 2004, march
in Washington, D.C. |
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TO GET TO THIS point, however, requires us to make
sure that the Million Worker March is an unquestionable success.
This means pulling out all the stops in order to
see that the March has the greatest possible participation of our
class.
The Socialist Party of Michigan and the Detroit
Socialist Party have formally endorsed the March because we see it
playing this kind of catalyst role.
Both the DSP and SPMI have already begun to work
on organizing working people to travel to Washington for this event.
Our goal is to bring as many working people from
Michigan — especially those from poor and oppressed backgrounds — to
Washington for the March.
We are actively encouraging our members,
supporters, readers and friends to build, support and attend the
Million Worker March.
Without maximum effort and participation, this
March could fail — which would please the capitalists to no end and
embolden them to stage more attacks.
Join with us to make the Million Worker March a
smashing success. Join with us to send a message to Big Capital:
Your days are numbered!
Join with us to make history. All out for the
Million Worker March! |
