Americas

Latin America is a huge area of the world, rich in human and material resources and yet a large part of its peoples live in poverty. Most of the countries that make it up speak a common language and have a common history. Simon Bolivar raised the idea of uniting all these countries to fight the imperialists. In today’s context this idea translates into the Socialist United States of Latin America – a socialist federation.

We are publishing the draft perspectives document of the Venezuelan Marxists. For now it is only available in Spanish, but shortly we plan to have it up in English. The document provides a detailed analysis of the process in Venezuela and highlights the fact that a growing number of activists feel that the revolution must be completed now. The Opposition is weak and divided and time must not be lost. But within the Bolivarian movement there are leaders and bureaucrats who are trying to hold the masses back.

The bosses at Delphi are offering a so-called “consensual” agreement and some in the autoworkers’ union have sent out signals they are prepared to take the bait. The Soldiers of Solidarity (SoS), a rank-and-file body within the UAW, understand that there is a lot more at stake here. Here we publish an article by Gregg Shotwell of the SoS.

On Wednesday January 25, while the attention of most people was on the events of the World Social Forum in Caracas, an important meeting took place in the industrialized Guayana-region. The meeting, which was held in the meeting hall of Venalum, attracted more than 200 people, mainly workers and trade union activists from the basic industries in Guayana.

Trezentos representantes dostrabalhadores das fabricas ocupadas do Brasil, do MST, do Centro de Direitos Humanos (CDH), representantes de trabalhadores de fábricas ameaçadas de fechamento ou demitidos, representantes de sindicatos, da CUT, do movimento popular, da juventude trabalhadora, com a participação fraterna de representantes de fábricas recuperadas na Venezuela, na Argentina, no Uruguai, na Bolívia, nos reunimos no auditório da Cipla, e discutimos democrática e livremente como organizar e mobilizar nossas forças para que nenhum posto mais de trabalho seja perdido e como conquistar a...

The Liberal Party of Canada has finally been kicked out of office. The Conservatives must attempt to lead an even more fractured minority Parliament while there is little support for right-wing policies. The Canadian elite wants a strong majority government to push through attacks on the working class. But the good showing by the union-backed NDP, and the continued presence of the separatist Bloc Québécois, means the Canadian political crisis will continue until the fall of this weak government.

Rank and file United Auto Workers in the USA are picketing the Delphi World Headquarters in Michigan on Monday, January 23. We are republishing their appeal for support and participation, published on Future of the Union. If you are in the area and can make it, be there!

We publish two letters commenting on the recent New York TWU strike, one from the USA and another from Venezuela. The strike has exposed once more the fact that the two main US parties, Republicans and Democrats are not enemies, but partners opposed to the working class. The strike has also highlighted the fact that in the USA there is not just the imperialist bourgeoisie, but also a might working class that is an ally of the workers of the world.

A new anti-immigration bill is being considered in the United States that would be used to criminalize and persecute mainly the millions of Latino workers. The aim of course is not to “send them back” for these workers are quite useful to the US bosses. Without legal rights they can be paid less than the other workers, and so they make bigger profits for the bosses. The aim is to actually make it even easier to exploit them.

The massive victory of the MAS in the elections was the distorted by-product of the revolutionary movement that Bolivia has witnessed for the last two years. This is why the imperialists are worried. The choice faced by the Morales government is clear: either with the workers and peasants or with the multinationals. If he attempts to please both he will please none.

Iraq was consciously destroyed by intense bombing. New Orleans was destroyed thanks to negligence on the part of the powers that be. Reconstruction is proving painfully slow, but the beneficiaries are the same companies as in Iraq, corporate giants like Halliburton and Bechtel. Whether it be the suffering of the Iraqi people or of the US working class, the same parasites at the top benefit.

ALCASA is an aluminium plant in Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela. It is being run under cogestion, formally speaking workers’ participation. But when you take a closer look what we see is that in practice the workforce is moving more and more towards genuine workers’ control. Managers are elected and do not get higher wages than those they had before becoming managers, and so on. It confirms that the Venezuelan workers are in the vanguard of the world revolution.

Class contradictions are increasing sharply in the USA, the “richest country in the world”. The recent strike of the New York Transit Workers has brought into sharp relief that there are two Americas, one for the rich and one for the poor. Although that strike was derailed by the union leadership it marks the beginning of a new era in trade union relations in the USA, one of bitter conflict.

A major attack on trade union rights is also going ahead at Delphi. If the UAW workers there are forced to take a 63 percent pay cut and severe attacks on healthcare benefits and pension rights it will not be long until the bosses begin demanding similar cuts in other industries. A victory for the Delphi autoworkers would be a victory for the whole of the US working class.