Socialist Action /April 2001
Hoffa Backs Bush's Plan to Despoil Alaska
Wilderness
By CHARLES WALKER
Don't look now, but the once heralded Teamster/Turtle
coalition that sprang to life on Seattle's streets during the popular anti-WTO
demonstrations is now as cold and lifeless as last night's roadkill.
The death notice was delivered March 28 at a Washington
press conference, where Teamsters President James P. Hoffa called on Congress
to open up part of the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANAR) to
predatory exploitation by Big Oil. Joining Hoffa were officials from the
Marine Engineers Beneficial Association and the Laborers International Union.
Apparently disregarding the tragic lessons of the
Exxon/Valdez environmental disaster, Hoffa claims that the oil and gas profiteers
will operate in an environmentally responsible way. Hoffa also has turned
a blind eye to the oil companies' predatory pricing and energy market manipulations
that have forced even a few government regulators to weep crocodile tears.
Hoffa says opening up the coastal plains of Alaska
for oil and gas drilling will bolster the economy, provide more jobs, and
secure the national security.
"In 1991, then Secretary of State James Baker
said there were three reasons the U.S. was going to war with Iraq. They
were jobs, jobs, jobs," Hoffa said. "We fought that war to protect
our supply of foreign oil because a threat to that supply means a threat
to our economy's stability and American job security."
Actually, most of the world rightly believes that
the three issues that underlie the Persian Gulf War were oil profits, oil
profits, and oil profits-making Baker a liar, and Hoffa, at best, a dupe.
Hoffa hopes to get working-class support for his
policy by promising that as many as 735,000 new jobs are at stake at a time
when "there is economic recession darkening our doorstep." Hoffa
said that he expects to pick up 25,000 new members in drilling, construction,
and transportation. Hoffa promised that Alaskan exploitation would lead
to "a steady flow of fuel, oil, and gasoline to make this economy come
back and come back strong."
Probably no economist would agree with Hoffa. The
looming recession is part of capitalism's boom and bust cycle that periodically
forces millions of U.S. workers into unemployment, despite the population's
ongoing need for food, clothing, shelter, and a modern living standard.
Even when the U.S. economy is expanding, there
aren't enough good-paying jobs to go around; that is, jobs that provide
workers and their families with a secure future. And no wonder. Corporate
America is constantly seeking ways to eliminate jobs, to "rationalize"
production by technological innovations when it must, and by speed-up when
it can get away with it.
As a result, jobs that once paid one wage earner
enough to raise a family on are all but museum curiosities. Consequently,
U.S. workers are working the longest workweek of any major industrial nation
and two-earner families are common. Nevertheless, U.S. workers' share of
the wealth they create has fallen yearly by hundreds of billions of dollars,
as measured by the government's tally of the gross domestic product.
Hoffa's support for the environmental rape of the
wildlife refuge may not give the oil industry the leverage it needs to reap
the Far North bonanza. That's because many Americans are opposed to the
oil industry's plans and its front men, oil industry millionaires President
Bush and Vice President Cheney.
That opposition is for the moment at least pressuring
some members of Congress to oppose Bush's oil plans. The New York Times
(Mar. 30) quoted Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as saying, "He [Bush] recognizes
that ANWR isn't going to pass. The American people don't want it."
Hoffa's support for Bush's designs on the Alaskan
oil resources is certainly a blow to the hopes of environmentalists and
young people for an alliance at the top with the labor movement. Clearly,
substantial progress toward a cleaner, healthier society can't happen without
the support of the nation's workers, especially those workers organized
independently of Corporate America. Hoffa's insult to allies who can make
a difference during fights with the bosses is more than short-sighted, it's
criminally shameful.
But even worse is Hoffa's attempt to mislead workers
into placing their hopes for a better life into the hands of the very bosses
they struggle against every working day. Hoffa's plan for more jobs didn't
originate with him. It's the creation of the bosses, who always have jobs
available when there's profits aplenty for themselves.
A real workers' jobs plan doesn't depend on the
bosses; in fact, it rests on the understanding that only the powerful solidarity
of workers can provide full employment and security by shortening the workweek
as society's needs are fulfilled, and sharing the social abundance fairly
and democratically-rather than allowing the nation's ruling circles to hoard
the lion's share for themselves.
Hoffa's plan to make good paying jobs dependent
on soaring profits is no plan at all. In fact, why pay dues to an outfit
that waits for the bosses to do what they are going to do anyway? Just like
workers don't need leaders to negotiate wage cuts and takeaways, workers
don't need leaders who don't fight for jobs when the bosses don't want to
provide them!
Socialist Action /April 2001 |