By: Alvaro Zapata
The Partisan is happy to share an article from The Potomac Worker covering Washington DC and Northern Virginia on the workers’ struggle for rights and health. Exposing capitalists and their running dogs, the State Unions, is a vital task of all revolutionaries-in-formation, in particular their revolutionary publications. We encourage all comrades to conduct this kind of deep investigation into their local conditions and organize mass campaigns and mass mobilizations to develop a genuine class-conscious, militant and independent workers movement.
In 2016, under the direction of American University and Chartwells (the contracting agency that employs kitchen workers), the state union SEIU 500 blocked off the kitchen staff’s locker rooms to “make upgrades and renovate” the workers’ break space. What was actually happening behind the scenes was more nefarious than simply making better seating and spacious lockers. The real reason why “renovations” (which amounted to a simple removal of the ceiling) were being made to the locker room was because there was asbestos in the ceilings of the locker room that workers had been inhaling, ingesting, and storing in their bodies, poisoning them in the process.
AU workers have suffered greatly from this exposure for decades now. As [redacted], a worker in the AU kitchens, stated: “At least 25 people have developed cancer from asbestos poisoning with seven dying since 2016…even the union rep and his son got cancer and died…! The union has done nothing!” What is the root of this crime against the workers perpetrated by American University, Chartwells, and SEIU 500? When we go to the root, we see how the exploitation and oppression of workers by the bosses, capitalists, and government/union elites creates the conditions for these and other deadly crimes against the people.
It is profitable to wait until the last moment possible to protect workers. Protecting workers takes money that would go into the hands of the ruling class away from them. It is also worth noting that at a predominantly white institution (PWI) like AU, most of the workers that work in the kitchens are Black or Latino immigrants who have been forced to leave their home countries as a result of imperialist exploitation and oppression. Thirdly, as the unionized worker [redacted] commented,
“The union just drags its feet to protect us. They said they wouldn’t support our class action lawsuit against the school.” When establishment unions work in collaboration with employers and not workers, when they focus more on getting along with the bosses and following the State’s priorities for labor, we know it is time to take matters into our own hands rather than wait forever for the so-called “union” to lead a fight they have already surrendered. For too long, workers have been separated from students here at AU. Instead of fostering a close relationship with workers, students have been made to see them almost as if they are servants rather than as comrades in the struggle against our common problems and issues in US society. The time for this kind of view has ended, and by bringing to light struggles like the asbestos poisoning here at AU, we can shout as one: Enough is enough!
WORKERS AND STUDENTS, FIGHT IN A COMMON STRUGGLE! DEFEND WORKERS:
FIGHT FOR OUR DEMANDS AND AGAINST ALL THOSE WHO OPPRESS US!
