"Five years into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, American workers, like their counter-parts throughout the world, are facing unprecedented conditions of social misery and exploitation. The share of the national income going to labor has fallen to the smallest level since World War II, productivity has shot up by 25 percent since 2000 and real wages have fallen six percent, the sharpest five-year fall since the 1920s. Meanwhile, corporate profits have hit the highest proportion of the GDP in the post-war period, the stock market is at record levels and the richest one percent of the population has grabbed 95 percent of all income gains since the so-called recovery began. In the face of this, the AFL-CIO and other trade unions, which claim to represent American workers, have not organized a single mass protest or industrial action to defend the working class. On the contrary, the unions have fully supported the cost-cutting drive of corporate America and the Obama administration. The demonstration held by the Socialist Equality Party last week to oppose the selloff of the artwork of the DIA—the first expression of working class opposition to the Detroit bankruptcy—points the way forward for the entire working class. The rebuilding of a genuine labor movement will require a rebellion by the working class against the UAW and other anti-labor organizations, a political break with the Democratic Party and the revival of the powerful socialist traditions of the American and international working class."
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 14:57:26 +0000
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