Support the Soldiers of Solidarity!

The bosses and their representatives in government are hell-bent on turning the clock back 75 years or more. Wages, conditions, pensions, and benefits are all on the chopping block. And remember: pensions are deferred wages - workers have earned every penny that goes into their retirement funds, and to take that away is theft, pure and simple.

Major corporations like Delphi are declaring “bankruptcy” as a battering ram against organized labor. Never mind that they are sheltering billions in assets in offshore accounts and companies. The government has intervened openly on the side of the bosses, agreeing to bonuses for the incompetent CEOs, and in favor of gutting the pensions of the workers. The same goes for the airlines. This blows the illusion of the “impartiality of the courts” out of the water.

Then there’s the blatant disregard for workers’ safety that was so tragically apparent in the case of the West Virginia coal miners. That’s just par for the course in a profit-driven system: in some industries we see the tremendous incompetence, callousness, and deception of the CEOs, while in others we see corporate profits skyrocketing at the expense of the vast majority of the population.

For decades, U.S. workers had illusions in the “American Dream” - that by working hard, we could gradually and continually improve our conditions of life and those of our children and grandchildren. We hoped that capitalism could be reformed, that over time we would get an ever-larger slice of the pie. Now, even the crumbs are being taken away, and we’re learning the hard way that this is “as good as it gets”. Yet it is precisely now that the union leadership wants us to make concessions in order to continue the one-sided “partnership with the bosses”.

It’s clear now that all bets are off: the social contract is over. The bosses, with the connivance of the bi- partisan government, are waging a one-sided war against the working class. The Soldiers of Solidarity (SoS) have had enough and are showing working Americans the way forward. After a long string of betrayals and sellouts, a group of rank and file United Auto Workers have launched a campaign of genuine class-wide solidarity against the attacks faced by us all. With nothing left to lose and their backs against the wall, they understand fully that if the bosses succeed in breaking the resistance of Delphi’s workers, then they can do the same to workers across the board. This is the Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill of the U.S. Labor Movement.

The bottom line is, the bosses are unable to efficiently and safely run the vital industries we all rely on. Instead of running them in the interests of the vast majority of working Americans who actually do all the work and create all the wealth, they pocket record profits while we are thrown out on our ears. On top of that, they use their lawyers and the courts to get their way, and then demand billions in handouts of public money to keep things running while they lay off tens of thousands of workers. If they want public money, then we demand public control.

Working people internationally can rely only on our own strength and organizations to combat the combined attacks of the bosses, the government, and the pro-boss trade union leadership. This affects every last one of us: All Support to the Soldiers of Solidarity!

The American labor movement can also learn from the experience of the Venezuelan workers. After decades of attacks and sellouts, they took things into their own hands: they threw out the corrupt and incompetent trade union leaders and voted out the bosses’ political parties. They also occupied several major factories, some of which have subsequently been nationalized, and began running them under democratic workers’ control. This shows that another world is possible - but they can’t do it alone. They need our international solidarity: once again, the struggle of these workers affects us all.

Brothers and Sisters: it’s the 1930s all over again, and only by returning to the militant methods we used back then, the methods of the Flint sit-down strikers and the formation of the CIO, can we hope to stop these attacks once and for all. American workers need to follow in the footsteps of our Venezuelan compatriots: if the bosses can’t run things anymore, then we need to.

• Concessions Don’t Save Jobs!
• Every Worker a Soldier of Solidarity!
• Nationalize the Auto Industry Under Democratic Workers’ Control!