The working class produces the surplus value for the capitalists. In exchange for the worker’s labour power, the capitalists reap the profits and continue to exploit. The lives of workers revolve around being able to survive and, therefore, in our global society, this translates into them selling their labour power for a pittance.
As the surpluses for the capitalists grow at exponential rates, each and every life on this earth can barely eke out an existence because of the forced situation where everyone, including children, is wage-slaving daily. Workers of every industry and unemployed workers are all dispossessed. We do not have choices except to search for wages, better wages; better working conditions etcetera as our labour powers are all commodities being sold in every corner. People fight for small demands; die for their jobs, only to be denied any power from both capitalists and their lackey unions. The deep desire and fight of all workers can be stifled by the mere challenge to make enough money.
This past month 41 Mittal steel workers lost their lives during a work day when there was a methane gas explosion in Kazakhstan. A few months ago Mittal steel workers in Mexico joined the Sicartsa workers in solidarity to strike and one of the Mittal workers also lost his life when shot by the authorities. Not only do workers lose their lives by slaving away their time daily but also literally lose their physical lives due to the brutal power of the corporations and their custodians. The CEO of Mittal Steel is, according to Forbes, the third richest man in the world, worth 23,000,000,000 dollars. He has stated that each family of the killed miners will receive $50,000 U.S. Words cannot describe this colossal disproportion of labour products.
Workers have been for a long time alleging that Mittal has done little to improve the safety and labour conditions of the mines. Mittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal said that the company has invested US$ 240 million on modernizing the complex. It could be surmised that this modernization is for improved profit and not for safety. Whatever it is invested for, no doubt, as capitalism never sways from producing more surplus value, this investment is to ultimately turn over more profits and certainly most likely not all going towards ‘safety’ or ‘working conditions’ of the workers – especially after the deaths of 41 miners.
Kazakhstan’s Emergency Minister has indicated that the result of the mining tragedy was indeed the result of negligence, or in other words, human error where safety rules were not followed. Currently as of September 29, 2006, there are thousands of steel workers protesting for increased wages in Kazakhstan. The steelworkers whose average wages are $US300 per month are demanding a 40% raise – the trade union leader has stated that ten years earlier they were producing 160,000 tonnes of steel per year and now they are producing 300,000 tonnes, yet receiving the same pay. This is not a huge demand when viewing the entire financial disparity.
While a significant raise in wages is definitely merited, the union is demonstrating a clear example of how they are stifling the true nature of the workers. The union, as a tool within capitalism, maintains the so-called worker struggle within the capitalist framework, securing the permission of the authorities to hold a strike and negotiating a wage that suits the needs of the management. The reformist tendencies, including both trade unionists and sectarians, attempt to encapsulate ‘socialism’ as a future utopia based on nationalist and bourgeoisie ideologies, which is forever compromising the workers’ abilities to take control over the production and distribution of the surplus value, and thus terminating the very capitalist power that enslaves the majority of the world.
In this issue there will be a variety of focuses around worker issues, capitalism and the struggles of various workers both within and outside the ‘legal’ framework of capitalism. A continuation of ‘Strategy and Tactic’ from the previous issue, maintains that the strategy and tactic of the anti-wage-labour movement are one and the same and negate the reformism of making superficial demands which do not address the basis of capitalism, wage-slavery, and unionism. Syndicalism is not a container of anti-capitalism of working class struggle rather it is a place to bury any protest, and the anti-capitalism of the working class. On the other hand, there are sectarian lefties (professional sectarians) that have nothing to do with the working class struggle, and are using this class for their own purposes. Other articles such as the one about workers in Israel protesting and performing a direct action against Israel Electric, and the thousands of job cuts at Ford demonstrate both the power of the workers coupled with compromising unions. These are just examples of many struggles around the world – they can be found from Iran, Argentina, United States, Korea, and elsewhere. This issue also includes an interview that the Swedish “workplace paper” or the ‘co-unter worker’ did with Mohsen Hakimi on August 2004. Mohsen, a worker-activist in Iran, was arrested, jailed and subsequently charged in Iran for activities related to Mayday, 2004, and now again is getting charged with serious offences related to National Security with other workers. Mohsen’s worker activities are valuable to the movement around the world where worker organizing is most often repressed. Naser Paydar has also contributed an article discussing the national elections in Sweden, where the left and right bourgeoisie tried to gain power and where the unions also tried to force their agenda.
Every single problem in our society can be traced to capitalism. For every tragedy and heartbreak in our society, the question “WHY?” always surfaces. The disconnect is when the answer is not deep enough and warrants a typical capitalist band-aid ‘solution’, rather than digging deeper and discovering that ‘capitalism’ is the answer in every situation. This is where we, as workers, can understand, organize and resist accordingly.
As workers trying to understand the nature of capitalism and how it touches every grain of our life, and even how it corrupts and smears most ‘lefty’ politics withreformism and trade unionism, we must recognize within ourselves and our comrades, our true nature to ‘think’, to ‘be’ and especially to ‘act’ outside of society’s capitalist character, to understand ‘socialism’ as the current action of workers to emancipate themselves from wage-slavery. While immediate reforms are necessary and, undoubtedly, we have to struggle for achieving them, the deep solution lies within fighting for abolishing wage-slavery and its perpetuator, capitalism.
