Wolfsfeld is right to see the fight for jobs under the slogan of "jobs for all" as a key one for working people today. The labor movement needs to advance demands for government-funded public works programs and a shorter workweek with no cut in pay to spread the available work around.

Affirmative action is not a diversion from this fight, but a front in it. Because of discrimination, women, Blacks, and other oppressed nationalities are hit hardest by layoffs. They are the "last hired, first fired."

The bosses use divisions along race and sex lines among working people to drag down the wages and working conditions of all workers and to sap the ability of the working class to come together as one in a fight against them. Affirmative action is a way for the labor movement to overcome divisions along race and sex lines fostered by capitalism.

The labor movement needs to demand quotas in hiring. During layoffs, dual seniority lists would protect those most vulnerable to the capitalist crisis. We should not allow the bosses to use seniority--first won by the unions to protect workers against arbitrary layoffs--to pit us against each other on the basis of race or sex.

This stance on affirmative action helps us answer the politics of resentment promoted by capitalist politicians and played on by ultrarightists to divert our focus from the real problem: the bosses and their capitalist system. That’s why affirmative action is a target today by the bosses.

By championing the fight to defend and extend affirmative action, the unions will draw more workers from oppressed nationalities, along with women, into their ranks and leadership. The result will be a stronger, more unified labor movement--one that is seen as an ally by all the oppressed and a bulwark for all progressive struggles.

Out of such struggles, the working class will forge a movement that will ultimately be capable of taking power away from the ruling billionaire families and establishing a workers and farmers government. The working class will then be able to join in the worldwide fight for socialism--a fight that will not only uproot racism and sexism, but redress the inequalities imposed on the world’s oppressed by U.S. imperialism.  
 
 
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