In response to the weeklong blackout in Queens, New York, as well as the power outages in St. Louis and California, our campaign calls for the nationalization of the U.S. energy industry. We say: take these profit-driven companies out of private hands and run them as a public utility for the benefit of the majority, with workers controlling production. Launch a massive public works program to rebuild the infrastructure and create thousands of jobs.

In Queens, Con Edison and City Hall have shown callous indifference to the conditions facing more than 100,000 people day after day, with no lights or air conditioning, spoiled food, elevators stalled, and stores and restaurants shut down. What was termed an “inconvenience” by Con Ed and “annoying” by Mayor Michael Bloomberg are conditions that hit working people the hardest and endanger the health and safety of the ill and elderly.

At the height of a heat wave, 10 of 22 main feeder lines in the area broke down and the utility decided to keep power running through lower-voltage cables, which burned out. The problem highlighted the company’s refusal to do necessary maintenance on deteriorating cables and other infrastructure or to expand electrical capacity to meet growing demand. Why? Because it’s not profitable enough for Con Ed’s wealthy owners. Yet electricity rates keep rising. And, compounding the national energy crisis, gasoline prices have surpassed a record $3 a gallon.

This is not a technical issue but a political one. The problem is that Con Edison is in business to make profits, not to provide a socially necessary service. And its profit-based decisions only guarantee more blackouts and breakdowns affecting millions. The latest debacle follows the big power outages in Manhattan’s Washington Heights in 1999 and throughout the Northeast in 2003, as well as the recurring energy crisis in California.

The calls for more “regulation” and “oversight,” proposed by various capitalist politicians, are sham solutions that cover up the root problem: private ownership of an industry that is vital to meeting people’s needs but criminally incapable of doing so.

To ensure reliable and affordable power for all, the labor movement should demand that the federal government nationalize the energy industry. A fight toward such a goal must include opening the books of these trusts—gaining knowledge for the working class and public at large about everything that big business and the capitalist government hide from us. The workers can shine a spotlight on “business secrets,” the behind-the-scenes deals and swindles, including how the rulers’ wars affect us. The labor movement can be mobilized to expose contrived shortages and hidden stockpiles, to get at the truth behind the disastrous breakdowns inflicted on the population under capitalism.

The nationalized energy companies must be run under workers’ control. This includes not just public exposure of their books, but actual control on the job—over the pace of production, over how the job is organized, and over safety at work and for the broader public. Doing so also becomes a school for the working class in preparing to manage and plan the entire economy under a workers and farmers government.

The Socialist Workers Party campaign also calls for a massive public works program to meet pressing needs, including the rebuilding of deteriorated infrastructure, and to create thousands of jobs at union-scale wages.

To wage a successful fight around such demands, labor cannot remain subordinated to the twin capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans. We need our own party—a labor party, based on the unions—that will champion the interests of all working people. The recent mobilizations and political strikes by millions of workers demanding legalization of all immigrants offer a glimpse of the power that could be unleashed by organizing such a party.

Working people need to approach access to energy from the standpoint of the world, not a narrow New York or U.S. framework. The energy industry is controlled by monopolies with an international reach. At the same time, one-third of the world’s people lack modern sources of energy. Labor must oppose the drive by Washington and other imperialist powers to block oppressed nations, from Iran to Bolivia, from developing nuclear power and other energy sources needed to make economic and social advances and bring much of humanity out of darkness.
 
 
Related articles:
State orders end to use of ‘loyalty oath’
Responds to Pennsylvania SWP campaign
Socialist candidates in N.Y.: Nationalize energy industry!
Initial list of Socialist Worker Party candidates in 2006  
 
 
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