Regular readers (Sid and Doris blogger) will be aware that I am a Labour Party member. I don't often post links to papers published by supporters of other political organisations.
However this week's Socialist Worker puts clearly into the public domain some shocking news connected to the case of my friend and former UNISON NEC member Yunus Bakhsh.
Follow the link for the full story, but it here's a precis.
Yunus faced disciplinary action from both his employer and trade union as a result of allegations of bullying. In his defence Yunus suggested that the complaints may have been motivated by racism. This argument was, as I understand it, disregarded.
Now it has come to light that one of his accusers appears to have been "Facebook friends" with far right activists and to have actively joined racist groups on Facebook. Furthermore there are indications that the British National Party had inside information on the case against Yunus.
I understand that UNISON is investigating these revelations and I - and I am sure other NEC members - shall certainly ask for a thorough investigation and regular updates. The legitimacy of the disciplinary action taken against Yunus must be called into question by this news - particularly in the absence of any explanation for the information which has come to light from the complainant.
I am proud to be a UNISON member - and one of the reasons I am proud of this is that I believe wholeheartedly in the sincerity of our commitment to fight racism in general and to confront the far right in particular. We must now find a way, in this particular case, to live up to UNISON's best traditions and put right an injustice.
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Confronting the "far right" means nothing unless you understnd the material basis for racism: the super profits that the capitalists earn from the wage differentials of minority workers, whether they be black, Latin, Asian, and their white working class brothers and sisters. In the US it is estimated that 1/3 of all profits are a result of racist wage differentials. That essentially means that racism is essential to capitalism's need to maximize profits. What is the "socialist" answer to racism. Oppose it superficially , but coexist with the capitalist financial and monetary system that are the underpinning of racism and exploitation of all who labor. Racism drags down the wages of all
workers not just minorities as racist unemployment creates a large reserve army of labor that capitalists can use as a club over the head of all who are employed.
What a communist analysis based on dialectical materialism you are just patching the dam of a crumbling dying capitalism instead of blowing it away. We need to build a revolutionary communist international party of the working class not to fight for socialism which maintains the wage and monetary system of capitalism and greatly contributed to the capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and China, but for a wage-less international communist society. Socialism has been proven dead as a goal for working class revolution by the historical experience of the communist movement. There was no way that Marx, Lenin, and Mao could have foreseen this without historical experience. The first two great revolutions of the proletariat were bold attempts to change the world and end exploitation of labor. They accomplished much , but eventually failed because of both
objective problems faced by the Soviets with a small party, starvation, and armed intervention by the Western capitalists in their civil war, which wiped out much of their cadre. The answer to the initial failures of these bold experiments , must be a steel-like determination to rebuild the international communist movement with a mass party and rejecting all alliances
and all theory which incorporates accomodation with the racist, imperialist capitalist system.
This is a song I adapted to the
current crisis of labor. Written originally by Les Rice a communist song writer of the Depression days of the 1930's and popularized by Woody Guthry and Pete Seeger when they were communists. Called "The Banks of Marble"
We traveled 'round this country
From shore to shining shore
And it really made us angry
The things we heard and saw!
We saw the banks foreclosin'
Kicking workers in their seats
WE heard the Congress sayin'
Here's a Trillion for Wall Street!
(Chorus)
But those banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door
And their vaults are stuffed with silver,
That the workers sweated for
We've seen the folks on welfare
With no clothes or food to eat
While Bloomberg cuts the budget
AS he lives on EZ Street!
(Chorus)
We've seen the workers standin'
By the employment office doors
And we've heard the Bosses sayin'
Got no jobs for you no more!
(chorus)
We've seen the workers fightin'
All across this bosses' land
And we're gonna get together
And together make a stand!
Then we'll smash those banks of marble
And kick the bosses OUT the door
And we'll share our fruits of labor,
That we have sweated for!
Yes, we'll smash those banks of marble,
And kick the bosses out the door
And we''share our fruits of labor ,
That we have sweated for!
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