An international drugs war on workers

New Zealand was locked into an anti-drug war / policy through United Nations policy, where NZ and most of the world, were forced by the United States (US) into their anti-drug / war on drugs policies. In drug policy NZ are lapdogs to the USA policy. Internationally, the US war on drugs has given the U.S. another excuse to justify its campaigns and interventions into other nations. US lies have clearly been exposed: the Iran-contra scandal showed the CIA was involved in drug dealings. In the US, the “War on Drugs” has given the USA an excuse for imprisoning the highest proportion of the working class, in the world. The USA spent heaps on keeping state forces in practice, police and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

Law on Drugs

Drug laws are a frequent sideshow in the parliamentary circus. In the last month we have had Jim Anderton introduce Joe Walsh in the “fight against ‘P’” and the Green party has re-released its policy. Anderton plays on people’s fears by saying he is fighting organized crime with his anti-drug policy. In the workplace, employers are trying to make drug testing mandatory and to justify this level of control of the working class.

US lapdog: Jim Anderton

The Associate Minister of Health in the Labour lead NZ government sounds off with the same fighting anti-drug talk, typical of US policy.

Joe Walsh was happy to come to NZ because he is a born again drug-free rocker, who found god with in some Maori spiritual experience. He was ready to weigh in against drugs. Jim Anderton was borrowing Joe Walsh as support for a war on drugs.

Anderton tours NZ to promote himself as a politician who is doing something to protect communities. His initiative is a spin for himself, without real solutions to the problems. His only solution is police control, and ambulances to pick up the pieces.

He now says lowering the drinking age was a mistake, (but good for the taxes). And that alcohol is the main drug problem in NZ. (I doubt that Alcohol will ever become illegal – the taxes on it are too good).

Restaurant & Hotel workers threatened

“Prevalent drug use” had prompted the Restaurant Association to launch a drug and alcohol education programme, said chief executive Neville Waldren. According to research by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), up to 40 per cent of the New Zealand workforce had tried illegal drugs at least once over the past 12 months. The employers group thinks that: drug abuse was the number one cause of workplace violence and workplace theft in the restaurant industry.

Mr Waldren said because of the social nature of the hospitality industry, combined with the relative youth of the workforce, the 40 per cent figure held true for the hospitality and food service sectors. The Restaurant Association/ESR has promoted employment agreements that allowed drug testing.

Was this an attempt of the part-privatised (now competitive – commercialized) former Department of Industrial and Scientific Research (DSIR) to gain some business? They are the testing agency in the NZ. Has the commercial pressure (capitalist profit motive) over-ridden the ethics of scientific practices?

"We see this as a crucial health and safety issue. Kitchens can be hazardous places to work ... and for front of house, it is essential our staff act in a professional manner ... A barman or waitress under the influence of drugs or alcohol does not live up to that image."

Union criticises bosses’ drug testing plan

The Service and Food Workers Union has condemned employers in the hospitality industry. Union spokesman Alistair Duncan said if the industry had the welfare of its customers and its workers at heart, it would put money into training, improving wages and, for the tiny proportion of staff that had drug problem, providing assistance.

Mr Duncan said that, "just because 40 per cent of workers may have tried illegal drugs once over the past 12 months doesn't mean all of that percentage has a problem that is affecting their work." A court case between Air New Zealand and the Engineers Union, earlier this year had showed judges thought that widespread drug testing was not appropriate. The Employment Court in Auckland decided Air New Zealand could drug test some of its employees in specific circumstances. The court found that the Health and Safety in Employment Act and general law imposed "absolute duties on employers to take all practicable steps to eliminate hazards to employees and others". Because of this, the court said, it was reasonable that employers should be able to take measures, including drug testing, in "safety-sensitive areas".

Fighting unions could claw back pay rates and overtime for working anti-social hours. Let’s fight in the unions for protection against unnecessary shift-work, and against long hours for youth.

Green Party

The Green Party had a re-release of their drug policy. Capitalist class makes drug policies that control the working class, and that make sure workers are fit and ready for work, the Green Party policy is no different. They do not go so far as to advocate the legalisation of cannabis. Rather the Greens just re-classify the drugs on a scale of bad to worse. Their scale is from illegal in some situations to illegal in all situations. This leaves workers vulnerable to police harassment using the excuse of suspected drug use or trafficking.

A Marxist explanation

Drug use has been an aspect of all cultures. Drug use in current society occurs for many reasons, at different levels. A Marxist explanation, which the capitalist class will not wish to acknowledge, is that some workers may use drugs to cope with the alienation of the working class from the means of production and the fruits of our labour. Or that the some of the working class use drugs to cope with the stress of their work, Or to try to have a social life as well as work.

Marxists see drug use on a social scale as a symptom of capitalist exploitation. The real solution is the overthrow of a capitalist system, the sharing out of work, and the creation of meaningful community that truly belongs to us all. This would take out the capitalist motor that drives many people to try drugs to escape harsh realities.

To counter the capitalist anti-drug policies Marxists argue for the legalisation of all drugs. Why legalise?  No excuse for as many police. The police are used as strike breakers in times of working class resistance, the less organized state forces that may act against workers, the better. Fewer police raids. Legalisation of drugs would remove one excuse of the police for raiding workers in their homes and / or searching people in their cars or walking down the street.

Less unpredictable reactions. If drugs were made in standardized laboratories then they could come at a predictable strength and quality. Like, tobacco (nicotine) other drugs could be sold with warning labels on them. Unlike cigarettes currently – it is possible to measure the drug content (e.g. amount of nicotine) and print that ‘dose’ on the labels. This is beginning to occur with alcohol; “standard drinks”.

Crime would decrease. There would be easier access to drugs and the price would fall, so there would be less and less money to be made through drug trafficking. When the price fell drugs would be more affordable, and so theft (to fund drug use) would occur less. Would the market price of “P” be so high if it was a legal drug? No – 40 years ago amphetamines (speed or ‘P’) used to be available as a diet pills on a prescription and affordable to workers.


Fight in your unions
Resist drug testing in the workplace
Protection from harsh hours of work, especially for youth
Overtime rates for anti-social working hours
Legalise all drugs : Ditch the US / UN war on drugs policy
Workers control of the production and packaging for all drugs
Against police control of workers 

From Class Struggle 58 October-November 2004

Victory to Iraq!

On Sunday April 18 about 140 members of Auckland's Arab community and a handful of their supporters marched to the US consulate. Organised at short notice and almost totally ignored by the media, the march was a powerful show of support for the armed insurrection shaking Iraq.

The demonstrators chanted slogans like '1,2,3,4 We don't want your racist war!', 'ANZAC troops, out of Iraq!', and 'With our lives, with our blood we defend you, Iraq!'. CWG members on the march shouted slogans condemning the US repression of Iraq's trade union movement, and called for the rebuilding of the Iraqi union movement and international working class solidarity with the resistance.

A group of young Palestinians delighted the march by improvising a song which paid tribute to the heroism of the defenders of Fallujah. A number of Islamist chants were aired, but when a CWG member raised an old Iraqi revolutionary chant at least a third of the crowd joined in, and others applauded.

Outside the US consulate a series of speakers emphasised the criminal nature of the US/UN occupation of Iraq, and the need to support the the Iraqi resistance to occupation. One Iraqi addressed the US government, saying 'We are not responsible for the killing - get out of our country and we will stop killing you'.

Another Iraqi blasted Bush's talk of democracy, saying 'Freedom exists in Iraq only for Americans. Our country is being made safe only for Americans and Zionists'. A Palestinian speaker announced the news of the murder of Hamas leader Rantissi, and vowed that the intifada would continue until Israel was destroyed.

Bystanders were divided in their response to the demonstration. A handful were enraged, and shouted racist abuse and threats. Many, though, were very supportive. When the march passed a music store near the bottom of Queen Street a crowd of young people poured out of the store and applauded wildly. Dozens of motorists honked their support. A CWG member talked to a young American tourist who had spontaneously joined the march to show her opposition to Bush and solidarity with Iraq.

A disappointing feature of the demonstration was the absence of almost all of Auckland's left-wing community. Apart from Students for Justice in Palestine, the CWG seemed to be the only left group represented. Several speakers emphasised the need for the Arab community to liaise better with the rest of Auckland's anti-war movement, and to explain its cause better to the general public, and one speaker urged demonstrators to come on Auckland's Mayday march.

It is certainly true that Sunday's march could have been better advertised, and that the Arab community could make stronger links with the many Aucklanders who hate Bush and his imperialist war.

But the left and the labour movement also have some work to do, if they are to reach out to the community most affected by the War of Terror. In particular, the left and the union movement must learn from the militant anti-imperialism of last Sunday's demonstration, and of the Iraqi resistance as a whole.

Auckland's Arab community is connected by family and history to an occupation which is for most of the rest of us a matter of TV images and newspaper stories. For Auckland's Arabs, the brutality of US imperialism is especially keenly felt, and the necessity of armed resistance to this imperialism is easily understood.

Last Sunday's message of solidarity with armed resistance to US and NZ troops contrasts very sharply with the official line of this country's mainstream peace movement and larger left-wing parties. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq last year, both the Alliance and the Green Party refused to support Iraqis' right to defend their homeland against Bush's armies.
Instead of backing the Iraqis, Green MPs like Keith Locke and peace movement 'celebrities' like Bishop Randerson used prime speaking slots at massive anti-war demonstrations to promote illusions that the UN and 'international law' could stop the war. When the war wasn't stopped, disappointed demonstrators disappeared faster than Saddam's WMDs. The active anti-war movement faded at the very moment the Iraqi resistance needed it most.

Twelve years of sanctions costing a million lives and a year of brutal UN-sanctioned occupation have made Iraqis somewhat sceptical about the charms of the UN. The Green Party, though, is still blindly calling for a UN 'solution' for Iraq. 'Resistance' is a word that is still absent from Comrade Locke's vocabulary.

Our union movement has an even worse record than the Greens. Echoing Helen Clark, the national leadership of the Council of Trade Unions voted to oppose unilateral US war, but said nothing against a UN-sanctioned bloodbath. When the UN rubber stamped Bush's conquest, Helen was happy to send troops, and the CTU was happy to keep quiet.

Some unions are going further, and seeking a slice of the War of Terror pie. The Engineers' Union, for instance, has been lobbying John Howard's government to build several frigates in Whangarei. (What's next fellas - a tender for a New Zealand leg of the Star Wars system Howard is co-sponsoring with Bush?)

As rank and file trade unionists, we are disgusted and embarrassed by the failure of our movement to distance itself from the imperialist war machine and to show solidarity with the people fighting to stop that machine in its tracks.

Instead of acting as cogs in the War of Terror, our unions should begin a campaign of aid to the Iraqi workers’ organisations opposing the occupation of their country. In the 1930s, New Zealand unions sent money to the Spanish republicans fighting Franco and the Nazis, and some left-wing Kiwis travelled to Spain to join the International Brigade that took on the fascists on the battlefield.

Today, the Iraqi people are defying a colonial occupation every bit as dangerous as fascism. We need to support them by getting Kiwi troops out of their country, and by aiding their struggle for real liberation. Anything less would be a betrayal of the spirit of last Sunday's demonstration. When we march with our Arab sisters and brothers this Mayday our slogans should be:

Victory to Iraq!
Defeat US/NZ Troops!
Build the Iraqi workers' movement!


From Class Struggle 55 April-May 2004

Aotearoa: New Employment Relations Reforms

 

The ERA (Employment Relations Act) is a failure in the eyes of both union and bosses. It failed to rectify the damage done to unions by the Employment Contracts Act of 1991 which decimated the unions. But it was also an irritant to employers who saw it as a shift back towards union domination of the economy. The new reform Bill has revived these antagonisms on both sides. But is it really such a big deal? Class Struggle does its analysis of the Reform Bill and puts the case for workers taking the law into their own hands.

ERA weak

The Government is making some minor changes to the Employment Relations Act (ERA) to strengthen the role of unions. The ERA was designed to restore a balance to industrial relations after the ECA had almost destroyed the unions. Labour’s Blairite approach is to make the unions ‘partners’ with business so as to regulate the labour force and encourage increased labour productivity. But to do that unions have to first get coverage of workers. The ERA failed to give the unions sufficient strength to significantly increase their bargaining power with business. Bosses could refuse to agree to collective agreements and workers did not see the advantages of joining unions. After 3 years, union membership has recovered slightly from being around 18% of the workforce to about 20%. But today only 12% of workers in private industry are unionised compared with 50% in the public sector.

The CTU lobbied Government to improve conditions for unions. They wanted to make it harder for bosses to avoid participating in MECAS (multi-employer collective agreements), to promote collective bargaining, to make the good faith requirements stronger so bosses could not ignore them, to protect vulnerable workers when businesses are sold and to stop free-loading by non-members. The Government took these issues on board:

The Changes

• Fines up to $10,000 if employers do not act in ‘good faith’

• Vulnerable workers get more protections when businesses are sold

• Employers could be fined if they pass union-negotiated wages and conditions to non-union workers

• If MECAS (Multi employer agreements) are sought, employers must attend at least one meeting

• A new system of non-binding 3rd party facilitation when parties can't reach a settlement,

• If the facilitation fails and a collective agreement can't be reached, a settlement could be imposed by the Employment Relations Authority

• Labour Dept inspectors investigate complaints over equal pay

Bosses’ offensive

The employers are objecting to the changes in the Bill. While Labour Minister Margaret Wilson says that stronger unions will actually contribute to economic growth in the whole country, bosses want weaker unions and more control over their worksites. They strongly opposed the ERA when it was first promoted in 2000 and Labour made concessions to them. Even Roger Kerr of the Business Round Table admits that the original ERA was “watered down” and “remained enterprise focused”. Despite Kerr’s plain talking, most capitalists running businesses and employing workers, still hate the ERA and don’t want a bar of the new Bill. They miss the freedom of the ECA to hire and fire at will. So they are running a scare campaign to frighten Labour into submission.

The bosses’ offensive against the Bill has been coordinated by the New Zealand Herald. The ‘business section’ of NZH has run a campaign against the Bill. It reported 3 surveys they conducted of small, medium and large businesses on their negative reactions to the Bill. The alarmist reactions are captured in the headlines in the series of anti-worker stories called ‘Working to Rules’. One headline said ‘More rights, less work’, another ‘Recipe for Ruin’ and another ‘Businesses must rise in Protest”.

For bosses, the most unpopular aspect of the reforms is strengthening the provisions for MECAS. They say that large groups of organised workers across several enterprises is a move back towards national awards and a restriction to right of each employer to hire and fire. They also object to the provisions which protect workers when businesses are sold or transferred. Neither do bosses like the restrictions on freeloading. They claim mediation is not working for them. They object to being forced into an Agreement by the Employment Relations Authority.

Prominent critic Simon Carlaw of Business New Zealand says the Bill is anti-enterprise and anti-growth. The penalty for breaching good faith is too draconian and signals a return to compulsory arbitration and loss of freedom for bosses. Transfer of provisions is yet another compliance cost. Stopping bosses advising workers not to join unions restricts their freedom of speech! Kerr ups the anti, claiming the new Bill aims to return to compulsory unionism, to compulsory arbitration and that multi employer contracts will create class warfare, which will be news to that rabid socialist Margaret Wilson.

Trade unions respond

Trade union leaders predicted businesses would complain and generate panic like they did over the original ERA. So how are unionists reacting to the hysteria? Although the Bill refers to the “inherent inequality of power” in the workplace the unions are treading softly on this argument. Instead, unionists are appealing to the ‘good business sense’ of the bosses. Bill Andersen, president of the National Distribution Union, in an article headlined “Only bad bosses need fear law change”, claimed that if a business was run on a sound investment plan, was informed by market research and had good labour relations, then the new law would be great for them. This echoes former union leader Ken Douglas who stated some years back that the bosses need unions to get the most productivity from workers! That’s presumably why on retirement from the union job Douglas offered his services to business.

Margaret Wilson defended her Bill by restating her philosophy that workers and bosses have interests in common - suggesting that good profits and improved working conditions go together. She appeals to bosses by arguing that the Bill will benefit business. She sees that improved working conditions for workers will be good for business and anyway, good employers are already practicing good faith in their dealings with their workers. She points out that the Bill brings NZ in line with the working conditions in most OECD countries. One lone CEO responding to a NZH survey thought the negative reactions to the Bill were alarmist, and said the worker protections matched those in OECD countries.

Carol Beaumont, CTU secretary, echoes Wilson's arguments, claiming “good employers won’t worry”. According to CTU president Ross Wilson, the CTU position is that unions will work with businesses to manage the economy by helping plan and organise work, to increase productivity and develop economic strategies. The Douglas line lives!

Class Struggle perspective

Will these arguments change bosses minds? While Labour and the unions are taking a soft line stressing partnership and mutual benefits, business is facing an increasingly tough environment with a high dollar and uncertain world economy. The unions are weak, facing further damage in the year ahead unless we can rebuild them on the basis of a strong rank and file. On top of that National has revived its fortunes on the back of a racist anti-Maori campaign. But its new leader Don Brash has a rightwing neo-liberal economic package lined up to follow the racist campaign. We predict that the bosses’ offensive will force another backdown from Labour on the reforms in this Bill that are most helpful to workers.

We say that no labour law can protect workers, unless workers organize and defend these rights on the job. The weakness of the current ERA is that it gave unions more rights on paper – we called it a ‘charter for union bureaucrats’ when it was passed – but it could not strengthen t he rank and file base of the unions. On top of that the Bill has nasty anti-secondary strike provisions that have to be broken if any strike is going to succeed. It cannot stop employers from using scabs as the waterfront dispute in 2002 showed. We also object to union negotiators being able to sign off on deals without the members ratifying them. Workers are the union, not the union bureaucrats.

Despite its inherent failings we support rank and file union campaigns to get the Bill strengthened. So long as workers think that Labour is on their side we have to demand that they prove it. That way we show that Labour’s Blairite policies are really the old new right policies in drag. After the new right smashed the unions, the Blairites came along with a sedative. Today it’s the Labour Minister and her cronies in the union leadership that dose us with the ‘partnership’ class A drug. Let’s demand the things we know that neither Labour nor the union bureaucrats can deliver without pissing off the bosses. In doing so we prove to workers yet again that the only rights they can be sure of are the ones they fought to win and fight to defend!

For the right to strike! For secondary strikes! For national awards! For the closed shop! 

From Class Struggle 54 Feb-March 04

AN IRAQI TROTSKYIST ANSWERS FAQs ON THE WAR

From Class Struggle 51 July-August 2003

We opposed the war, but we failed to stop it.

What can we learn from this experience?

We opposed the war against Iraq.We tried to stop it. We built a movement that spanned the globe. From Madrid to Auckland, from California to Seoul, we organized in our millions to demonstrate our opposition, our fears, our rage and our disgust.

Yet in our millions, we were unable to win. In our millions, we were unable to stop the wheels of the American war machine. We were reduced to watching the onslaught if not in silence, then in impotent rage, in melancholy.

Has the Antiwar movement suffered a colossal defeat?

Practically, yes. Morally? Morally we have been proven correct. On the question of the validity of the case for war we have been proven correct. But the war is now a historical fact. That Bush and Blair lied and continue to lie is clear, but that they are successful liars is just as clear. The question is not whether the war was just; we always knew it was not. But knowing or proving that it was unjust will never be enough to stop a war.

Why did we fail?Isn’t opposition to war a natural and noble human instinct?

The world does not run in the interests of humanity. The world is run by imperialist superpowers in their own interests. Yankee imperialism has a number of strategic objectives that called for the war on Iraq. The only force capable of countering the imperialist machine is the working class. And yet it was precisely the working class that was not mobilized to oppose the war.

While workers certainly joined the movement, they did so primarily as individuals, atomized cells of a shattered and fragmented labor movement. In the absence of workers internationalism, it was natural they did not see themselves as part of the international working class, but as mums and dads. While mums and dads have every reason to oppose wars that their children are sent to kill and die in, they do not have the means to stop them.

Even at the height of the movement, apart from the odd euphoric moment in Hyde Park or in Rome, we knew that we were not going to win. We knew that the war would happen.

Why couldn’t the international working class stop this war with a general strike?

There were many good instances of this kind of action. The firefighters in Britain spring to mind as a union that was staunch in its opposition. In Greece(and elsewhere) transport workers refused to move military goods and supplies. These moves needed to be emulated and widened to the point of paralyzing the bosses’ economies. There are of course very good reasons why such a strike did not occur. The workers of the world are reeling from decades of counter-revolutionary advance. From New Zealand to Moscow the workers organizations have been repressed and beaten back. In this international situation the warmongers knew that they would not be defeated.

OK we opposed the war, but we failed to stop it. Who can resist the occupation as a historical fact?

In Iraq, the forces of the labor movement had suffered heavy defeats. Since 1968 the Baathist government has been very active in smashing all resistance. The catastrophic Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 was followed by even more catastrophic military adventures in Kuwait. 13 years of sanctions added their toll. By 2003, the Iraqi working class was disorganized, leaderless and exhausted.

The organizations of the Iraqi working class existed only outside Iraq, ironically in the very imperialist countries that had demanded their obliteration. Traditionally Holland, the UK, and the USA have been the main centers for the exiled Iraqi left. Since 1991 they have been operating in Northern Iraq. From exile the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI) and numerous other independent Iraqi leftists opposed the war.

If the communists are weak can the Baathists muster support?

When war was declared, the Iraqi people took some measure of revenge on the Baath Party by leaving it to its fate, refusing to defend it. The Baath nationalist dictatorship was unable to stand up to the assault. Aware that it was not able to win any head-on military confrontations with the American forces, the Baath Party preferred to melt away. The dictatorship had given orders to its followers, to its Republican Guard and other elements close to the regime, to embark on a campaign of looting and murder. The world watched as the museums and the banks were stripped.

But the Baathists are still resisting the occupation

In the weeks since the fall of Baghdad, Baathist forces have been engaged in a campaign of provocation and sabotage that has reinforced their anti-worker credentials. They have routinely sent armed men into unarmed demonstrations and shot US soldiers, inviting return fire. They have attacked Iraqi electricity workers trying to restore power to parts of the city of Baghdad. They have given the occupying forces a ready excuse to do what they will. Under their leadership, Baghdad fell and was occupied by the Yankee invader. This fact alone is enough to condemn the dictatorship to ignominy.

If neither the communists nor Baathists can defeat the occupation, how do we take our fate into our own hands?

The occupation is a historical fact. We must learn from it that we must never trust a nationalist dictatorship to defend the workers anywhere, at any time.

We are unable to undo history. We must not tire no matter how bitter the pill it forces down our throat. The occupation of Iraq by the Yankee invaders is a painful state of affairs.

Rather than desperation, what is required now of the Iraqi revolution is firmness. We must strive to turn this reversal into its opposite, into a defeat for imperialism. A number of important steps have been taken already. Generally, we must turn the Imperialist occupation into a workers’ revolution.

How do we go from occupation to revolution?

It is clear that occupation will not end without a victorious armed struggle. Having said that, for the Iraqi left to start armed struggle against the Yankee occupier at this stage is suicidal. It would in fact not be very different from the tactics of the Islamic groups in Palestine. Small forces of armed men taking pot shots at passing US convoys may meet the mechanical demands of anti-imperialists in the West, but it offers no solution to the Iraqi working class.

What is your perspective?

Iraqi left forces must form a united front of labor and begin organizing a liberation movement. The people of Iraq already march through the streets protesting the occupation. Their anger and their energy must be harnessed. We need boycott the puppet Governing Council, which is made up of handpicked US stooges and demand and urgently build a constituent assembly. That way we can build the mass workers movement as the only possible way we can liberate Iraq.

How can we do this practically?

There are signs of this process beginning. The Worker-Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI) is playing a lead role in organizing the movement. It has already initiated “The Preparatory Committee for Forming Workers’ Councils and Trade Unions in Iraq”. This is an excellent development. The councils in particular have the potential to become the basic organizations for workers’ democracy.

The WCPI have formed a union for the unemployed. As of June 17^th, they had signed up around 20,000 members to the Union of Unemployed in Iraq (UUI). The basic demands of the union can be summarized as “either jobs, or Unemployment insurance”. They have already scored astonishing successes, such as the occupation of the old Iraqi trade union building. The soldiers of Iraq’s Army have been successful in their demand for payment of their wages.

The Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) was founded on the 22^nd of June. Already they have established the first women’s shelter in the Middle East. They are organizing against the Islamist elements that are trying to impose the reactionary veil and other aspects of their reactionary politics on the secular women of Iraq, and they are organizing against the occupation.

How does this kind of organizing help in the struggle for freedom from occupation?

Firstly it takes the initiative back from the Islamists. After the collapse of the dictatorship, the Islamic currents gained a brief advantage. They were the only organization in Iraq that had a ready audience and an existing infrastructure. They sent their armed men into hospitals and food banks and set themselves up as repositories of medicine and general help.

It did not take long for the true nature of this movement to show itself. Liquor stores were bombed, women were forced to adopt Islamic customs.

Secondly, this kind of movement is a mass movement that is oriented directly to the blue-collar workers and the unemployed who number in the millions. It is imperative that the movement must encompass oil and transport and other workers, decommissioned soldiers, students etc. This movement must evolve to include all the working classes and other exploited classes in Iraq.

Is there really no alternative but a workers’ revolution?

There will be no Marshal plan for Iraq. While George Bush may be able to pledge 15 billion dollars to help fight AIDS in Africa (Bush’s re-election is coming up) he is unable to find the money to rebuild Iraq. The US economy is not the powerhouse it was in post World War II period.

Let there be no mistake, it is the imperialists of the world, and the USA in the first instance, that are responsible for all the tragedies of modern Iraq, including Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Far from being liberators, the Yankees are seen correctly as the cause of Iraq’s suffering. As Saddam himself said, the Baathists were brought to power “aboard an American train”. Far from greeting them as liberators, we should present them with a bill for the last 35 years of Iraq’s suffering.

The demands for jobs and for unemployment insurance will not be met. The capitalists of Iraq are not able to offer anything to the workers. Neither are the capitalists of the USA.

But there are factories in Iraq. There are fields in Iraq. There are minerals in Iraq. And there are millions of workers, scientists, technicians, peasants and students, soldiers and mothers in Iraq.

It is time to take these resources, from the fields of Babylon to the oilfields of Kirkuk, and to put them to work for the good of the toilers of Iraq.

How do workers and peasants take control?

It is necessary for the movement that has already started fighting to begin occupying the factories and the oil fields.

We have shown that we can organize the defense of our streets and neighborhoods; now let us run and organize the defense of our workplaces.

If we do not start taking what is ours, the American occupier will. Their plans to privatize public industry into the hands of their own capitalists are well known.

This ancient civilization that gave the world the first alphabet, can once again lead the world by showing the way to a truly human, socialist society. We can do this by convincing Iraqi workers that they can win a new society in which workers and producers are able to transcend the tyranny of imperialism and capitalism.

---

Workers Aid to Free Iraq!

The red-hot question facing workers internationally is this: can Bush get away with his invasion and occupation of Iraq?The US stepped up its role of world policeman by unilaterally invading Iraq to make ‘regime change’. The ‘blank cheque’ that the US issued after S11 was filled out. The invasion of Iraq marked a decisive shift from the previous Gulf War which stopped short of invasion, and the wars in Serbia, Kosovo and Afghanistan that were waged jointly by all the imperialist powers.By going it alone, the US was signaling a breakdown of the UN and the ‘collective security’ of the imperialist bloc.The open rivalry of the US, EU, and less visibly, Japan, the major imperialist powers, was now ‘all go’ again. The US invaded and occupied Iraq.

This defeat had serious international repercussions most notably the stepping up of attacks against Palestine, against the revolutionary workers in Latin America, further repression of migrants and trade union rights in the US, and the warnings to Iran and North Korea that the US would not tolerate the development of nuclear weapons. The cost of this invasion to the US is that the Emperor now has no clothes.All the flimsy pretexts for war have been exposed as lies. The end of Saddam has brought a US military dictatorship up against the Iraqi people and their desire for democracy. So now US imperialism faces the prospect of escalating resistance in Iraq. If this opposition becomes organised and spreads internationally this can reverse some of the setbacks flowing from Iraq’s defeat.

Already opposition in the imperialist countries is spreading among those who supported the war as the reasons for the invasion are being seriously challenged even inside the ruling class. However, while we call on workers in these countries (and in their lackey client states like NZ) to mobilise and defeat their own ruling classes to prevent them from going to war and to get the US/UK out of Iraq, it is the ongoing armed confrontation between US military and the Iraqi people that is the critical point for the world revolution.

Faced with this reality, we urgently need a specific plan of action to support this resistance.If it was correct to defend Iraq during its war with the imperialist invaders it is still correct to call for military aid to go to the resistance to defeat the imperialist occupiers including those of the armed forces of our‘own countries’.If it was correct to bloc militarily with the Baathists and Islamics against the imperialists, it is still correct today to bloc with all those fighting the imperialists.However, these two political currents have their class base in the national state bureaucracy and the petty bourgeoisie. Their real interests are in doing a deal with imperialism to get the franchise to run Iraq. Therefore we defend them only if they are fighting the imperialists and not the workers.

That is why we say that the working class and the poor peasants alone have an interest in liberating Iraq from imperialism.Working class organisations have to be rebuilt. We support all the efforts of revolutionaries to organise and arm workers. We support the organisation of the unemployed for jobs, workers’ occupations of factories, and the formation of workers’ self-defence committees and militias.

That is why we call for the anti-war workers in the labour movement to take action to Free Iraq.We say that workers’ material aid should go only to those workers and peasants who organise independently of the capitalist, petty capitalist and reformist parties whose class interests are to collaborate with imperialism. We also make clear that, to organise and mobilise successfully against imperialism and its national collaborators, a revolutionary party capable of leading the insurgent workers and poor peasants must be built as part of a new international revolutionary working class party.

You can get involved by taking the campaign for NZ workers’ aid to Iraqi workers into your unions and get resolutions in support of the following organisations:

“Union of the Unemployed in Iraq” Union_u_iraq@yahoo.com

Read their official letter to all labor unions and organisations around the world

http://www.wpiraq.org/english/unemployed170603.htm

“Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq”nadia64uk@yahoo.com

announcement of formation on June 22 in Baghdad

http://www.wpiraq.org/english/baghdad010703.htm

Also read about the formation of a “Preparatory Committee for Forming Workers’ Councils and Trade Unions in Iraq” at:

http://wpiraq.org/english/moayed10703.htm