USWA Local presidents pledge to defend union gains (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Joint statement by Scott Duvall, President USWA 5328; Bill Ferguson, President USWA 8782; and Rolf Gerstenberger, President USWA 1005, April 2, 2004 On March 22nd, ironically the same day the Wall Street Journal reported that steel prices and profits have gone through the roof, Judge Farley handed down his verdict on the Union's motion challenging the C.C.A.A. decision declaring Stelco insolvent. Judge Farley writes, "In the end result I have concluded on the balance of probability that Stelco is insolvent and therefore it is a 'debtor company' as of the date of filing. The Union's motion is therefore dismissed." The Judge's definition of insolvency would arguable allow any company that wants to cry poverty the right to go to the court and take advantage of their creditors on the basis that they might be broke in a year from now. As the Locals have said all along, the C.C.A.A. process is just an excuse for Stelco to try and take away our pensions, benefits and wages. We are all agreed, we will not go along with Stelco's Agenda. The very fact that the Judge is ruling on his own order of January 29th is also a concern for us since the Locals were appealing Judge Farley's decision to grant Stelco C.C.A.A. protection in the first place. We are working with our lawyer David Jacobs investigating any basis to appeal Judge Farley's decision to a higher court. If Stelco truly wanted restructuring in the plants there are Collective Agreements in place that have language that provides the Company the opportunity to discuss any issue pertaining to any changes in work practices on the shop floor. Instead of the Company respecting our contracts, they have asked Judge Farley to limit our contracts and we are going to court to challenge the Judge's right to interfere with the provisions of the Ontario Labour Relations act including the collective bargaining process. The Union's position on the Pension and the Pensioners is absolutely clear, whether Stelco is in C.C.A.A. or not; the first priority and responsibility of Stelco is to fund the Pension Plan. That obligation exists before any bank or bond holder receives a penny. Our Pensions have been under funded by Stelco in excess of $300 million over the last eight years, and we demand that they have first claim. We have instructed our lawyers to investigate any court action that will protect the rights of the Pensioners and the Pension Plan. Our Pensions have been funded by our deferred wages. The Plan is now under funded because of irresponsible actions of Stelco management, tantamount to fiduciary irresponsibility on the part of the Trustees of the Plan, which in this case is the Company. In closing, the three Local Union Presidents want to make it clear that Locals 1005, 5328 and 8782 will not participate in a Hap Stephen's Restructuring Process with a gun to our heads. We will carry on under our Basic Agreements defending our hard won gains. It took over 50 years to build our Agreements and we will not allow them to be just tossed aside. Judge Farley's ruling is only one small battle in a long war. If we remain united, all the Locals together, we can defend our pension, benefits and wages from being undermined by the courts or the Company. (Back) (Home) People and nature before profits (The following editorial is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) The second half of April is usually the first real stretch of good weather in many parts of Canada. But more significantly, this period also contains two important dates on the calendar, reminding us that the struggle to put people and nature before profits remains crucial. Earth Day, April 22, comes as the threat to global survival grows ever more ominous. Blinded by the pursuit of profits, the transnational corporations which dictate the course of economic development across our planet are driving us towards disaster. Climate changes, resource depletion, massive pollution of the land, seas and air, the disappearance of rising numbers of plant and animal species - all these trends are becoming worse, not better. As Frederick Engels warned over a century ago, the idea that humanity is the master of nature is bringing terrible consequences. Every measure to slow down this tragedy is urgently necessary. But ultimately - sooner rather than later - the capitalist economic system based on exploitation of labour and nature must be replaced by a socialist economy which allows us to plan a dramatically reduced human impact on the environment. Just as capitalists care nothing for nature (except as the setting for their expensive vacations), they grind up the lives of workers without a thought. The shocking story of Satwinder Brar's death at work, reported on page 3 of this issue, is a timely warming to all workers: never assume that the boss worries about your interests or your safety. Trust only in your own judgement and in the collective strength of your fellow workers to protect your health and your life. On April 28, the Day of Mourning for Workers Killed and Injured on the Job, take a moment to remember that over one million of our brothers and sisters will die this year from accidents and other workplace causes. As the saying goes, don't just mourn, but organize to fight back! (Back) (Home) Che Guevara Brigade to Cuba this summer (Letter to the Editor) (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Dear Friends, The time has come again to build a strong 12th Che Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade to Cuba. This is a very important project of friendship and solidarity with Cuba. If you have gone before, you know you will enjoy repeating the experience. If you haven't, this is the opportunity to visit Cuba, meet and work alongside Cubans. Come and learn about Cuba,. its Revolution, its socialist society and how they resist. If you cannot go, please advertise this opportunity to others. As we have done for 11 years, we will spend three unforgettable and rich weeks volunteering our work and showing our solidarity to the Cuban people. We will be in Cuba the first three weeks in August. Check our website - www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca/brigade - to get more information on what a Brigade is and how to join. From the website you can download the brigade brochure. Please use it to help promote the brigade at events you organize or go to. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope to hear from you soon. Nino Pagliccia, Vancouver, BC (Back) (Home) Why are they so afraid of us? (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By Kenneth Higham Last June, the Communist Party won a great victory in the Supreme Court of Canada concerning electoral requirement. Although Elections Canada may not be able to implement regulations reducing the number of candidates needed for registered party status in time for the federal election, this victory is encouraging. The government, however, does not seem content to let the court ruling stand. It is determined to violate the spirit of the ruling and hinder democratic options by any means possible. If I am wrong, let the government say why. We would love to hear from them! Take Bill C-24 for example. What is particularly galling about this legislation is its apparent intent to limit the electoral playing field to the mainline parties (even the NDP is in agreement!). Every year, these parties will get $1.75 from the taxpayers for every vote they totalled in the most recent federal election. Smaller parties which receive less than two percent of the total vote will not receive a single red cent. Then consider Bill C-3, which proposes the disbanding of parties which commit election irregularities. This would be an excellent idea, if we could take its intentions as honourable. Our Communist Party of Canada will take on the Liberal Party any day on the honesty question because we are sure that communists are less corrupt than liberals. Who is so naive, however, as to assume that that is the real intent lurking in their proposal. There is an old saying: "The law is like a spider web. It only catches the small flies." The Communist Party is a small fly, and we have been caught in the law's sticky web many times, not for corruption or even inadvertent errors, but for being what we are. Canadian communists have been sent to prison and concentration camps, they have been deported, fired and even killed. The new bill proposes that to gain registered status, a party must provide the names and addresses of 250 members. The Communist Party has nothing to hide. But given the history of persecution against Communists, we are not enthusiastic about giving this information to the government. What assurances could we have that it would not be promptly shared with CSIS and the RCMP, or even with the CIA and the FBI? The bill also prohibits parties from endorsing candidates of other parties in constituencies where they are not running. What is the purpose of this attempt to stifle freedom of expression? Perhaps most shocking, C-3 gives the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada sweeping new powers to deregister political parties, based on whether their platforms and activities meet rather vague criteria. The current holder of this position, Jean- Pierre Kingsley, protested strongly that he did not want or need such authority, but this provision was included anyway. We are not stupid. We can read between the lines. The government wants to drive smaller parties out of the market, just as the big companies try to squeeze out the small ones. Today our bourgeois system is in the age of "monopoly democracy," refusing to tolerate divergent views such as the progressive and socialist ideas raised by the Communists. Why else would they so oppress us? If we were as inconsequential as they say, would they not win electoral points by showing how tolerant and high-minded they are in sharing elections with us? The fact is they have every reason to fear us, because we will eventually beat them, even with their sully, irritating rules. Do you know why? Let's see: During the next coffee break, ask your fellow workers how they are going to vote, and why. Some will slay the Liberals are better than the right-wing extremism of the Conservatives. Others will say they are voting Conservative to get rid of Liberal corruption. Some will say they vote NDP to protect eroding services, or the Bloc because it will stick up for Quebec's interests. Some will say they vote strategically so as not to split the vote. After your investigation, you will note that one dimension is consistently lacking: they are not voting for any party because they particularly like it. Indeed, for this reason, many will not even vote. But when workers eventually connect with a workers' party, and are convinced that that is the party for them, they will vote for it. The CPC is that party. It has consistently championed workers' interests. When the bourgeois fog clears and workers recognize this fact, they will clean house and install a workers' government. Workers do not need a millionaire Prime Minister any more than they need a millionaire boss. (Back) (Home) UK scientist warns of "climate disaster" (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) The British government's chief scientist has set out an "apocalyptic vision" of global warming bringing back the conditions which drove the dinosaurs to extinction. Professor Sir David King told a House of Lords committee last month that urgent action was needed "within the next few years" to avert the threat of sudden and severe climate change. He claimed that last summer's heatwave was a human-made event and a warning sign of worse to come. And he defied Downing Street by repeating his charges that global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism, and that Washington is failing to tackle the problem. On a recent trip to the US to talk about the threat of global warming, Sir David was warned by Downing Street to limit his contact with the media. A memo from a No. 10 aide was leaked to a journalist in Seattle, where the scientist was delivering a lecture. Sir David told the House of Lords on March 10 that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was probably the highest it had been for 65 million years, since the Palaeocene epoch when most dinosaurs became extinct. He said the era saw a "massive reduction" in life on earth and added: :The Antarctic was the best place to be at that time. The rest of the world was virtually uninhabitable." He also delivered a thinly-veiled attack on President George Bush by praising the effort which individual American states were making to curb their carbon dioxide emissions, in the absence of a ruling from Washington. And he accused American oil giant Exxon of funding lobbyists who are trying to undermine the consensus on glob al warming by suggesting that scientists are divided on the nature of the problem. Sir David said: "This is the biggest issue for us to face this century. It's man-made. The science is done. It's complete. It's a matter of political understanding. I personally have little doubt that unfortunately, as time moves on, the global warming events such as the very high temperatures in Europe over the past summer and the flooding two years before will occur more frequently, the understanding of what's driving these will become more apparent. And I think nations across the world will understand...that action has to be taken." In the past few centuries, carbon dioxide in the air has risen from 270 to 370 parts per million and is still on the increase, Sir David said. He predicted that if the level reached 550 parts per million, the polar ice caps would melt and the Gulf Stream current would be reversed, plunging Europe into a new ice age while the rest of the globe overheated. To avoid that threat, he said, the level needed to be stabilised at 450 parts per million. (From a report by Ben Leapman in the Evening Standard, London) (Back) (Home) Nepal union and political leaders arrested (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) As peaceful mass protests demanding a return to democracy continue in Nepal, the royal government has declared a "riot-zone" covering the entire cities of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. Supporters of the freedom movement launched mass sit-ins, chanting slogans and waving flags in all major parts of the cities, in spite of police lathi charges, tear gas attacks, and the arrests of more than 4,000 leaders and activists. Among those arrested on April 10 were Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) leaders Bharat Mohan Adhikari and Keshab Badal, Nepali Congress general Secretary Sushil Koirala, United Peoples Front vice-president Lila Mani Pokhrel, and other top political leaders of the sit-in struggle. The trade union leaders arrested included Many Bishnu Rimal, Secretary General of the General Federation of Nepali Trade Unions, as well as the treasurer and education chief of GEFONT, and Narayan Neupane, President of the Street Workers Federation of GEFONT. At People's Voice press deadline on April 12, the struggle was continuing for the release of all those arrested, the immediate withdrawal of the "riot zone" order, and the resignation of the unconstitutional government of King Gyanendra, who suspended the country's Parliament in October 2002. (Back) (Home) Olympic workers risking lives (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) A Greek union leader has warmed that construction workers are risking their lives to get Athens ready for this summer's Olympic Games. Geogios Filiousis, president of the Greek construction workers union, told the BBC that 13 workers involved in Olympic projects had already died, including five at the Olympic Village alone. He compared this to one death in the run-up to the 2000 Sydney Games, and blamed it on companies cutting costs. Filiousis fears that more workers will die as the deadline draws nearer. The union says that average working hours are being pushed to as long as 12 hours a day, as construction firms seeks to finish ahead of schedule and claim early completion bonuses. Contractors have denied that health and safety is being sacrificed for speed and insist that protective gear is available at the sites. But according to the BBC's Matt Williams in the capital, Athens, few of the workers on project sites can be seen wearing hard hats. Builders are working round the clock on key sites. Only 24 of 38 Olympic venues have so far been completed, and the main stadium is not predicted to be finished until July 20, a few weeks before the Games begin on August 13. The 16,000 ton, $147 million glass-and- steel dome over the stadium is still not in place and the athletics track has not been laid. In early April, construction workers staged a one-day strike over a pay dispute. Athens was paralysed as thousands of workers took action to push home their demand for an 8% pay rise.   (Back) (Home)  European protests hit social cuts and mass unemployment   (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Half a million demonstrators took to the streets of Germany on Saturday, April 3, to protest against government cuts to welfare state provisions and pensions. The protests were the biggest in Germany since the mass mobilisation of 350,000 workers in Bonn against the social policies of the conservative government of Helmut Kohl. Two years later, in 1998, the Kohl government was replaced by the current SPD (German Social Democratic Party)-Green Party coalition that came to power promising to put an end to the dismantling of the welfare state begun under Kohl. The protests were part of a European day of action organised by trade unions and social organisations to protest attacks being carried out by both social-democratic and conservative governments throughout Europe. Demonstrations, meetings and rallies took place in a total of 16 European countries in both eastern and western Europe. Alongside Germany, the biggest demonstration took place in Italy, with an estimated half a million, including many pensioners, taking to the streets of Rome to protest the latest measures of the Berlusconi government for so-called "pension reform" and other social cuts. The biggest turnout in Germany took place in Berlin, with an estimated 250,000 demonstrating to express their anger and disgust with the policies of Germany's SPD-Green Party coalition government. In Stuttgart, up to 150,000 took part in a demonstration in the city centre, and turnout in Cologne was estimated at 100,000. The demonstration in Berlin began with three massive marches from different points of the city, converging in a central rally at the city's Brandenburg Gate. Traffic was brought to a standstill as the entire city centre choked with demonstrators, young and old, and from all walks of life. At the same time, it was evident that a broad swath of the demonstration comprised rant-and-file trade union members - the traditional voting base of the German Social Democratic Party. The anger and militancy of those taking part was unmistakable. Numerous banners, large and small, called for the immediate scrapping of the "Agenda 2010." Other banners demanded the resignation of German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his government and called tor the construction of a new political alternative. Placards also condemned the role played by the Green Party in actively supporting the most drastic attacks on welfare and social rights in modern German history. Some banners also linked the issue of social devastation with militarism and the drive to war. Tables were set up along the roadside to collect signatures for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. This was the third major rally in the German capital in a little more than a year. In February of last year, half a million gathered in Berlin to oppose the US-led war in Iraq. In November, an estimated 100,000 gathered in the capital to protest the implementation of drastic attacks on the German welfare state and social system - the so-called Agenda 2010 of the Schroeder government. The main speaker at the Berlin rally was the chair of the German trade (union) movement (DGB), Michael Sommer. In his speech, Sommer issued a "warning" that the government was acting recklessly in defying public opposition and in continuing to push ahead with its assault against the German welfare state. Sommer sought to appease some of the concerns raised by those attending the rally, while at the same time avoiding any concrete commitment for a withdrawal of the Agenda 2010. Sommer appealed for an end to the redistribution of social resources from the poor to the rich and called for an end "to policies that harm the mass of the population while the rich become even richer and capital and its managers become even more brazen." Sommer also decried the introduction of  "American conditions" in Germany. Sommer mentioned the German chancellor just once: "The chancellor and the conservative opposition must know that if they  continue with these anti-social policies, we will come again." He attacked specific elements of the Agenda 2010, such as the demand for unemployed workers to take any form of work, but while declaring in a general fashion that the trade unions would refuse their solidarity with the government on the issue of Agenda 2010, such as the demand for unemployed workers to take any form of work,  but while declaring in a general fashion that the trade unions would refuse their solidarity with the government on the issue of Agenda 2010, Sommer failed to provide any perspective for effectively opposing or reversing the Agenda proposals. While calling for a "social Europe," Sommer refrained from addressing any concrete developments in Europe and made no mention of the recent elections in Spain and France, which saw a move to the left by broad layers of the population, in particular young voters. Conservative governments in both countries felt the brunt of popular resentment directed at Spanish support for the Iraq war and anti-social policies introduced in both countries. Sommer's warning to the government was also taken up by the guest speaker at the Berlin rally, Bernard Thibault, general secretary of the French CGT, who reiterated that unmistakable signs of public discontent must serve as a "warning" to those in government. (With files from World Socialist Web Service) (Back) (Home) Lidice, Oradour, Falluja reprisal massacres   (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By David Morgan One of the problems of occupying someone else's country is that they sometimes keep resisting. Hitler's armies occupied much of Europe between 1940 and 1945. Any resistance to this occupation was punctuated by reprisal massacres to terrorize the occupied population into submission. For instance on 29 May 1942 Reinhard Heidrich, Deputy Chief of the Gestapo, was blown up by a bomb while driving his Mercedes sports car in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Thirteen-hundred-and-thirty- one Czechs, including 201 women, were immediately executed by the Gestapo. Then on 9 June 1942, ten truckloads of German security police surrounded the little village of Lidice near Prague. They shot 172 men and boys over sixteen. Seven women were taken to Prague and shot. The remaining 195 women were sent to a slower death at the Ravensbrueck concentration camp in Germany. Similarly on 10 June 1944, the people of the village of Oradour- sur-glane, near Limoges in France, were summoned to the central square by the commander of a detachment of the S.S. division Das Reich. He told them that explosives had been hidden in the village. His troops then locked up the entire population of 652 people. They locked the men in barns, the women and children in a church. Then they set fire to the whole village. Survivors were machine-gunned. Less than two weeks ago on 31 March, Iraqi resistance fighters bombed and killed four US civilian security guards in their truck in the Iraq town of Falluja, on the Euphrates river, 60 km west of Baghdad. the bodies of these guards were mutilated and burnt by a mob and dragged through the streets. Two of the bodies were hanged from a bridge. On 5 April, US forces surrounded and sealed off Falluja and began an assault on the town. The media reported these events: "Sixteen children reportedly killed in Fallujah when US warplanes rocketed their homes." (Guardian 6 April 2004) In Falluja, "300 Iraqis had been killed and at least 400 wounded since Sunday." (New York Times, NYT 8 April 2004) "A doctor at one of (Falluja's) hospitals, Rasi al-Esawi, said that 141 bodies had been collected at his medical center since the fighting started, with 30 collected just today." (NYT 9 April 2004) The attack on Falluja is still currently underway. Tanks, helicopter gunships and jet bombers are all being used by US forces in this attack. Such weapons can not discriminate between Iraqi resistance fighters and the men, women and children of Falluja. The US attack on Falluja therefore has the features of a Reprisal Massacre. US forces in Iraq have no more business being there than Hitler's armies had in occupying Europe in the nineteen-forties. The entire US presence in Iraq, from Paul Bremer III on down, is there without a shred of legitimacy. As far as the innocent victims are concerned, there is no difference between being shot by an S.S. rifleman or by rounds from a helicopter gun-ship. The intent is the same: To terrorize an occupied country's population into submission. What is happening in Falluja is a Reprisal Massacre every bit as damnable as the massacres of Lidice and Oradour. The war criminals responsible for all of the war crimes in Iraq should be dealt with in the same way that the criminals responsible for all of the war crimes of World War II were dealt with at Nuremberg. (Back) (Home) A rich and perceptive portrait (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Ho Chi Minh: A Life, by William J. Duiker. NY: Hyperion. $23.95 Can., 695 pages, ISBN 0-7868-8701-x Review by Steve Gilbert William J. Duiker became fascinated with Ho Chi Minh in the mid- 1960's. As a young foreign service officer stationed at the US Embassy in Saigon, he was puzzled by the fact that the ill-equipped National Liberation Front ("Viet Cong") guerrillas were more highly motivated and better disciplined than the armed forces of South Vietnam. Duiker became convinced that major factors in the success of the NLF were the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and the passionate desire of the Vietnamese to defend their homeland against foreign imperialists. Duiker is now Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at Pennsylvania State University, and the author of eleven books on the politics and history of China, Vietnam and Indochina. After resigning from government service, he began writing a biography of Ho Chi Minh, but was immediately confronted with the problem of finding reliable source material in English. Ho Chi Minh had travelled thought the world for over 30 years, supporting himself as a journalist. He wrote in French, Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian and English, and his articles were published under a variety of assumed names in radical newspapers and magazines throughout Europe and Indochina. The task of collecting and translating these sources presented formidable difficulties. Over a period of two decades, Duiker collected fragments of this background material. The recent release of additional material from various countries enable him to complete his work, a tour de force of scholarly research and the definitive portrait of the complex and enigmatic Ho Chi Minh. According to Duiker, the defeat of the US in 1975 was "a legacy of the vision, the will and the leadership of one man: Ho Chi Minh," who founded the Vietnamese Communist Party, led the revolutionary movement, and was the elected President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) from 1946 to his death in 1969. Ho Chi Minh was one of the most influential, but least understood political figures of the 20th century. His motives have long been the subject of controversy among bourgeois academics. Did he put nationalism before communism? Did his public image of avuncular simplicity and sincerity disguise darker motives? Was he a subservient tool of Moscow, or a selfless patriot attempting to introduce moderate socialist reforms? Many Westerners who knew him saw him as a humanitarian devoted to opposing global imperialism and improving the lot of his fellow Vietnamese. His enemies, citing alleged excesses committed in his name, accused him of being "a wolf in sheep's clothing," an agent of Joseph Stalin and advocate of world revolution. Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19, 1890, in the rural village of Kim Lien. His father was a respected Confucian scholar and teacher from whom Ho Chi Minh acquired his love of scholarship and his passionate nationalism. Vietnam had been a de facto French possession since the 1880's. The French occupation of Vietnam was part of a much larger process of 19th century imperialism, driven by the insatiable desire for cheap raw materials to feed the factories of Europe. By 1900 almost all of Indochina was under colonial domination. French colonials in Vietnam were arrogant and intolerant. In many cases they forced Vietnamese peasants to work as slaves. Those who resisted were beaten, tortured and imprisoned. As a youth Ho Chi Minh learned that liberté ‚égalité, et fraternité‚ were for the French, but not for the Vietnamese. In 1911, at the age of 21, Ho Chi Minh signed on a French steamship as waiter and kitchen helper. Thus began three decades of travel, during which time he lived for extended periods in France, the Soviet Union, China, and parts of Indochina. He became well known as a radical journalist, organizer, and respected leader of underground revolutionary networks throughout Indochina. When the U.S. journalist Anna Louise Strong asked why he had embarked on such a long journey abroad, Ho Chi Minh replied: "The people of Vietnam, including my own father, often wondered who would help remove the yoke of French control. Some said Japan, others Great Britain, and some the United States. I saw that I must go abroad and see for myself. After I had found out how they lived, I would return to help my countrymen." Ho Chi Minh's quest ended in 1945 when he returned to assume the presidency of the newly created DRV. Toward the end of his life, Ho Chi Minh wrote a final testament in which he called for the reunification of Vietnam while reaffirming his commitment to both Vietnamese national independence and the creation of a socialist society. He stressed the importance of realizing the equality of the sexes and called for a campaign of self-criticism to improve morality among party cadres. He ended with a plea for the restoration of the unity of the world communist movement, threatened by discord between China and the Soviet Union. Ho Chi Minh's dream of reunifying Vietnam was realized under the leadership of his successor, Le Duan. In early 1975, North Vietnamese troops liberated Da Nang and the northern half of South Vietnam, while others moved toward Saigon. In April, Saigon fell and the remaining Americans were evacuated from the roof of the US Embassy by helicopter. In 1976 North and South Vietnam were unified, forming the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The war had lasted fifteen years, costing the lives of over three million North Vietnamese and some 58,000 Americans. Duiker's Ho Chi Minh: A Life is a labour of love. Impressively researched, rich in detail and eminently readable, it presents a perceptive portrait of one of the world's most respected and influential communist leaders. (Back) (Home)   DEATH ON THE JOB: capitalism's dirty secret (The following article is from the April 16-30/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) PV Vancouver Bureau Workers often ask themselves, are we working to live, or living to work? Under a capitalist economic system that puts the private profits of owners ahead of the well-being of the many, it's a good question. All too often, that system literally kills and maims those who produce the profits. Each year, hundreds of Canadians lose their lives on the job, and thousands are injured. The figures are shocking, to say the least. it is estimated that every year, one Canadian worker out of 16 suffers an injury at the workplace. More than 800,000 such injuries are reported annually in Canada, of which up to 1,000 are fatal. In 2003, Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board reported 359,353 workers suffered injuries and occupational diseases; another 552 died, of whom two-thirds suffered a fatal disease. In total, more than 16 million days of work are lost each year in Canada - the equivalent of the average work of 67,000 people. Young, inexperienced workers are particularly at risk. Between 1993 and 1998 about 30% of all accident victims compensated for time lost were aged 15 to 29. During 2001, 57 Canadian workers between the ages of 15 and 24 were killed at work. No other age group faces a higher risk on the job. But other workers are similarly vulnerable and face unique risks. Pregnant or nursing mothers may be exposed to harmful chemicals that impact their health and that of their unborn or newborn child. Part time, contract, temporary and non-union workers often fear that raising health and safety concerns will cost them their employment. Many new immigrants enter workplaces with little or no training as well as encountering language barriers. Every year, workers' compensation boards across Canada pay out about over $5 billion in benefits. With the addition of the indirect costs, the annual cost of occupational injuries to the Canadian economy is in the range of $10 billion. From the very beginning of the "Industrial Revolution," workers have struggled to achieve a less dangerous job environment. Many labour battles have been fought for the goal of workplace safety, both at the jobsite and using wider political strategies. Workers have organized into trade unions to achieve safer working conditions, and to press for legislation holding corporations and bosses accountable for preventable deaths and injuries on the job. The idea of an annual day of remembrance for workers killed on the job emerged in the northern Ontario community of Sudbury, a dangerous place for miners and smelter workers. The annual Day of Mourning was fixed as April 28 to commemorate the date of Canada's first comprehensive Workers' Compensation Act, adopted in Ontario in 1914. In 1984, the Canadian Labour Congress declared a National Day of Mourning for workers killed and injured on the job. Observances of April 28 have become widespread in Canada, led by unions and labour councils, often with the participation of municipalities, social action groups, and other non-governmental organizations. In 1987 a national monument to workers killed or injured on the job was placed in ottawa's Vincent Massey Park. Union organizations in other countries quickly followed suit. in the United States, a Workers' Memorial Day was established by the AFL-CIO. Today, working people around the world take time on April 28 to remember lost co-workers, friends and family while renewing their commitment to safer workplaces under the slogan "fight for the living, mourn for the dead." The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) estimates that about 1.2 million workers a year are killed on the job, about a third from injury, a third from disease and another third unaccounted for. Often, major disasters have drawn attention to the need for better working conditions, such as the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York. On June 1, 1974, the Nypro Chemical plant in Flixborough, England, exploded, killing 28 workers. The Westray mine disaster in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, killed 26 miners on May 9, 1992. The Kader toy factory fire in Thailand killed 189 workers and injured 469 more, on May 10, 1993. The Zhili toy factory fire in Shenzen, China killed 87 and injured 47 on November 19, 1993. The biggest such disaster was a leak of isocyanates from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India in 1988, which killed at least 2,500 workers and their families, condemning many thousands more to painful, permanent disability. But far more workers are killed, injured or made sick one at a time, in situations where most people would not expect danger. For example, over 6,500 Canadian Union of Postal Workers members were injured on the job last year. Nearly half of their injuries were at least temporarily disabling. As former CUPE President Judy Darcy said in her 2002 message for the Day of Mourning, "workplace fatalities might typically conjure images of mining or nautical disasters. But such catastrophes - thankfully - seldom occur. Instead, workers are ravaged by a war of attrition - a slow burn of fatalities, injuries and diseases that Canadian society largely regards as acceptable. "A death toll of an estimated 11,000 workers since the Workers Mourning Day Act was passed is not acceptable. That's a sum about equal to the population of an average small town. Imagine, since 1991, the equivalent of one Edmunston, New Brunswick or Nelson, British Columbia wiped off the map. "In the last forty years, the number of Canadian workplace deaths is roughly equal to the number of Canadian fatalities from World War II. We might expect death in war; we should not expect death in the workplace. "Workplace deaths are preventable. Governments and employers possess the knowledge and resources to recognize and eliminate workplace hazards. They know what workplace chemicals cause cancer. They know which work processes cause musculoskeletal injuries. They know how to end workplace violence. "Still, each year, more workers are killed, injured and made sick. At this point in our nation's development, surely workers returning home each day healthy and alive is a reasonable expectation. "Consider public sector health care workers. Hospitals are seen as centres of healing. Yet health care workers suffer more debilitating workplace injuries than any other group. Back injuries, stress and overwork are crippling these public sector workers. Our hospitals should have some of the country's healthiest workers. Instead, the health care sector is a barometer for the dismal state of workers' health." (Back) (Home)

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