Vol. 72/No. 32      August 18, 2008

Inflation and unemployment are permanent features of the capitalist system. With that system in its worst financial crisis since the 1930s, the bosses are shifting more and more of the burden of their crisis onto the backs of working people. They will intensify their attacks on our class as they seek ways to divide workers and break down solidarity, pitting the employed against the unemployed, native-born against immigrant, white against Black, and men against women. The working class needs to respond with a course of action that can unite the toilers in the face of the employers’ assault.

Socialist Workers candidates on the federal, state, and local level are advancing such a course. A key demand of the campaign is for a sliding scale of wages and a sliding scale of hours that includes:

A cost-of-living clause. When prices go up, wages should automatically go up to match. Cost-of-living clauses are also needed for pensions, Social Security payments, unemployment, and other benefits.

A shorter workweek, with no cut in take-home pay. When unemployment rises, work hours must be reduced to guarantee jobs for all.

In addition to a shorter workweek, the socialist candidates call for an increase in the federal minimum wage and a massive public works program to build and repair much-needed hospitals, schools, public housing, roads and bridges, and other infrastructure. Millions could be put to work at union-scale wages on such projects, which would advance the living conditions of all working people.

These are demands around which a labor party, based on a fighting union movement, can mobilize the power of the working class, contesting the Democrats and Republicans in the political arena and organizing us to act in our own defense.
 
 
Related articles:
Unemployment at highest level in more than 3 years
Real wages decline amid rising ‘productivity’  
 
 
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