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NEWS & LETTERS, February - March 2007Work Shop TalksRisks taken for day’s pay, in Iraq or U.S.by Htun Lin In December a cluster of Iraqi workers lost their lives to a killer posing as a customer for their labor. When the suicide bomber approached the crowd of eager men hoping to be hired for the day, he blew up the targeted workers. The dire necessity to feed their families motivated these workers to pursue these jobs. Many other workers have already been killed in such terrorist fashion. These workers knowingly took a risk. Millions of workers from China, Africa, Mexico and many other locales also take risks to get work everywhere around the world as they migrate en masse to centers of capital--to Shanghai, to Saudi Arabia, to wherever capital with its werewolf hunger for surplus value devours their low cost labor-power. On Dec. 12, the largest ever workplace raid in U.S. history took place, affecting 13,000 workers. Not too coincidentally this was at a time after the mid-term elections when Bush was being skewered for his miserable record in his “war against terror.” This raid was orchestrated by the Homeland Security Department. Officials bragged that they netted over a thousand suspects at a dozen plants in half a dozen states, owned by meatpacker Swift. Just exactly who were these dangerous suspects? They were undocumented workers who got hired by using social security cards bought from those who traffic in such documents. Federal officials at Homeland Security touted their sophisticated sting operation as breaking up a major identity theft ring. These arrested workers were accused of being recipients of stolen identities, now a major crime against national security in our current Big Brother climate. As one teary wife of an arrested worker yelled, while watching him hauled off to waiting prison buses, “He got the identity only to work, nothing more.” DEMONIZING UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, said, “This is not only a case about illegal immigration, which is bad enough; it’s a case about identity theft and violation of the privacy rights and the economic rights of innocent Americans.” In Victor Hugo’s novel LES MISERABLES, the memorable constable Javert was fixated on arresting the destitute who were guilty of stealing bread. The Javerts of our day would readily point out to us that we live in an era of terrorism, and that we must not let our guard down by feeling sorry for “illegal aliens.” Some on the Left have opined that the Iraqi workers who were blown up while looking for work should not have been collaborating with the imperialist occupiers. The missing element in both of these attitudes is the standpoint of the workers. The central concern of the day for the Iraqi worker, or the worker from Mexico in the U.S., is how not to be forgotten as a human being. What would constitute a new human society is a question which cannot be understood, much less answered, unless workers are engaged. One worker analyzed Homeland Security’s raid, as he saw his co-workers hauled off, by saying, “Everybody has to do what they have to do to make a living. I agree that it’s wrong, but at the same time it’s not wrong because, you know, we are human beings.” Many farmers and other employers lost their workforce overnight. In many places of employment, vegetables and fruit are rotting, cows are going unmilked, food processing has come to a standstill. TEMPORARY STATUS Therefore, Senator Feinstein, a Democrat from California, and Senator Craig, a Republican from Idaho, pushed to give temporary legal status to 1.5 million illegal immigrant workers by creating an even lower underclass with blue cards. They will have to work several years and pay a $500 fine before they can get permanent legal status. Brokering with other people’s lives is what politicians do. Some capitalist politicians in the U.S. have lately taken positions more in line with the growing anti-Iraq war sentiment in the U.S., but for their own reasons--they have now decided staying in Iraq is too costly, is interfering with business. They want to cut their losses and make a deal with any power within Iraq that is willing. Will the first casualty of getting back to business as usual be more lives of workers and women? The rule of capital with its permanent war and struggle to extract unpaid labor finds ever new ways to degrade the human being. Only when we workers extend our human solidarity with each other can we hope to get out of the crossfire of hypocritical bourgeois politics and murderous war. |
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