WORKERS VOICE
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE NEW ORLEANS WORKERS GROUP | 504-657-3171 | facebook.com/neworleanswokers | SEPTEMBER 2016
INTRODUCING WORKERS VOICE
With this issue, the New Orleans Work-
ers Group announces and publishes our
newspaper: Workers Voice.
We intend that this paper will advo-
cate for the political position of the
US multi-national working class in its
irreconcilable battle against the bil-
lionaire ruling class. We call on all mili-
tant workers, women and men, gay and
straight to become supporters of and
contributors to Workers Voice produc-
tion and distribution.
Workers Voice will report on the struggle
of the workers to end this capitalist sys-
tem of oppression and exploitation. We
will advocate for the unity of workers of
all nationalities to build fighting unions
Worker
Correspondence
D.B.
I work in a factory in Harahan. I wake up at
4:30 am to be to work for 5:00 am to start
my ten-hour shift in the dingy old build-
ing. In the sweltering Louisianan summer,
I can feel myself starting to sweat as soon
as I enter the old plant, which is always
hotter than the outside. It gets hotter as
the day drags on, becoming most intense
at noon. The factory can reach tempera-
tures of over 110 degrees. All of us workers
complain about the extreme heat. The is-
sue of installing an air conditioning sys-
tem came up to the big bosses, but they
choose to install a state of the art surveil-
lance system instead. Our plant manager
says that he has screens in his office now
so that he can see all of us all the time
and everything we do, and hes always
50
Malcolm Suber
led by revolutionary workers. We will Workers Voice will fight against patriarchy
not only fight for a living wage, but we and male chauvinism and for the full
will fight to make the working class the equality of women workers.
ruling class so that we, the majority, can
Workers Voice will support the struggle
have ownership of the production and
of the international working class and
distribution of the goods and services
oppressed nations. We oppose imperi-
that comes from our collective labor.
alist war and the needless destruction it
Workers Voice opposes all forms of cap- brings.
italist oppression. We will champion the
Workers Voice opposes homophobia
struggle of the oppressed nations for the
and supports the LGBTQ struggle for
right to self-determination. We support
equality and for immigrants rights and
the Black Lives Matter movement and its
an end to deportations.
fight to combat white racist supremacy
and gain full equality. We call on workers to join the New Or-
leans Workers Group and help us orga-
Workers Voice will fight for decent housing,
nize the workers fight for revolution and
living wage jobs, quality education and
genuine socialism!
healthcare for our families and communities.
watching. Its a bit unsettling. We workers
would have preferred improvements like
before. As I walk, in I greet my coworkers,
many of whom have been working there
air conditioning, but the corporate bosses
made their decision. It was a non-issue to
them because they are not the ones in the
for many years. Some of them are pairs
of fathers and sons, mothers and daugh-
ters. My grandfather worked in this plant
heat. We usually only get one 15 minute for most of his life. My father and uncles
break and 15 minutes for lunch in our 10 also worked here for some time, just as I
hour day; however, since the powers that do now. For generations, some of us or
be do recognize the seriousness of the our family members have been producing
temperatures we are given an extra 15 continued on Page 2
minutes for lunch during summer. Some-
thing that troubled me was that for sum- THE NEW ORLEANS WORKERS GROUP SUPPORTS
mer last year we had an extra 15 minutes
added to our lunch break unconditionally,
but this year we were told if we didnt al-
ternate breaks so that the machines run
constantly without stopping, we would
have no choice but to stay an extra 30
minutes in the day. That in itself isnt so
bad I suppose, but its a trend I certainly
wouldnt like to see continue onto other
things, slowly adding more necessary
changes to our workday that have us
working harder for the same pay that we www.facebook.com/TakeEmDownNOLA
strangely did perfectly without the year
Worker Correspondence
continued from Page 1 BATON ROUGE FLOODING #JUSTICEFOREricHarrisNOLA STOP THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE!
You bailed out the banks, now
Max Wilde
wealth for the owner of our factory and Every
many others like it, who happens to be kota) people of the Standing Rock Res- damaged pipeline.

bail out the workers 100%!

the second richest man in Australia with
a net worth of over $10 billion. Maybe
he wouldnt be able to maintain the 2nd
wealthiest spot in his country if he didnt
employ Americans, since in Australia the
minimum wage for workers older than
20 is 16.87 Australian dollars ($13.55) an
hour. He only has to pay us a starting
wage of $11 in order to be competitive
with the other factories in the area. Sad-
ly, some of our coworkers cant support
themselves and their families on $11 and
after our 10-hour shift ends, have to pre-
pare to start their next job.
Just think About U.S. and
the Annexation of Hawaii
Just think About U.S. and
Agent Orange
Just think About U.S and the
Tuskegee experiment;
Just think About U.S and
Iran-contra
Just think About U.S and where
the interstate highways were built
and who made the decisions
Just think About U.S and Plessy
Alex Quintero
The natural disaster that struck Baton
Rouge was a flashback of the cataclysmic
events of Hurricane Katrina, and in much
of the same way the government has re-
acted with little to no disaster relief at all.
The U.S. Spent close to $16 trillion of
public money to bail out the banks in the
2008 market crash. One trillion dollars a
year goes to our military budget profiting
those in the business of making war. But
when it comes to bailing out the peo-
ple of Louisiana, especially in the Black
community, FEMA gives very little. This
was the case in New Orleans and now
our sisters and brothers of the working
class in many parishes in Louisiana are
devastated.
110,000 homes were destroyed or dam-
aged. Almost all applied for FEMA. But
FEMA only gives a $33,000 max grant
(and usually much less) if the victim can
provide paperwork that may have been
lost in the floods, Only 12% had flood
insurance because these areas were not
known to flood before. Also, many peo-
ple have already been denied, especially
in the African American neighborhoods
in Baton Rouge.
There has also been a loss of job income,
businesses destroyed, and cars demol-
ished. Immediate unemployment assis-
tance is needed.
Disaster capitalists like contractors are
hiring undocumented workers so they
can under-pay or con them out of pay al-
together. Meanwhile, thousands of work-
ers are now out of jobs. There even was
a fatal bus crash of an unlicensed immi-
grant driver as its consequence. While
the driver was jailed, we say jail the con-
tractor.
This is why workers need to be for legal-
izing immigrants so these workers, who
are only trying to feed their families, can-
not be taken advantage of and there is
no incentive not to hire all workers where
there is high unemployment like in the
Black community.
Louisiana legislators should call an
emergency session to cut corporate tax
breaks and help the flood victims.
Tuesday
5-7 pm
S. Claiborne &
Washington St.
Solidarity with
National Prison Strike
Quest Riggs
On September 9th prisoners across the
country stood up for their human rights.
Walking in the footsteps of the heroes of
the 1971 Attica Prison Rebellion, our caged
brothers and sisters worked very hard to
coordinate a countrywide prisoner strike.
Strikes took place in 26 states despite ef-
forts by wardens and guards to silence
and isolate militant prisoners. In some
prisons striking by even a minority of the
prisoners scared the authorities into stop-
ping work altogether. The nation-wide
strike took place in both men and wom-
ens prisons. The prisoners were applaud-
ed and supported by tens of thousands
of non-incarcerated people across the
country.
Some prisons, including several in Florida,
experienced full-scale prisoner rebellions.
ervation in North Dakota are battling a
$3.8 billion oil pipeline development by
Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to protect
their main water supply, the Missouri
River, and to defend their sacred land. In
the face of invasions, desecrations, and
broken treaties, the occupation has unit-
ed the largest coalition of Native tribes
in decades. Over 200 different tribes,
supported by thousands of protestors of
all nationalities, have successfully stood
their ground to protect aboriginal terri-
tory and halt construction.
The pipeline, which will slice through
four states (North and South Dakota,
Iowa, and Illinois), transporting 570,000
barrels of crude oil a day, is not just a
threat to the Oceti peoples way of life
and their future generations, but is also a
potential environmental catastrophe. In
just the past 5 years, pipeline spills and
ruptures have released about 7 million
gallons of crude oil and killed a total of
80 people. One of the largest of those
spills already happened in North Dakota
in 2013, pouring 840,000 gallons of oil
into a wheat field. Not only that, but as
recently as September 5th, and as near-
by as Barataria, Louisiana, 5,300 gallons
of oil spilled into Barataria Bay from a
Standing Rock and other Native Amer-
ican reservations have, bit by bit, been
shrinking since their formation in the
1860-1880s. In the 1950s, the same Army
Corps of Engineers that now approves
this latest invasion, built five dams on the
Missouri which displaced multiple native
villages.
The North Dakota government, on be-
half of DAPL, has arrested over 40 peo-
ple. A security group (G4S) hired by
DAPL has unleashed dogs on peaceful,
mostly Native American protestors. At
least 6 people were bitten, including a
child, and these thugs have also rained
pepper spray down into the crowd. De-
spite these attacks, the thousands chal-
lenging this construction have, day after
day, stood their ground and fought back.
The Obama administration, a strong
supporter of the pipeline, has bowed to
nationwide pressure and issued a tem-
porary halt on its construction, so the
struggle continues until construction is
stopped permanently. The leaders of the
Oceti people have been very clear that
no matter what happens, the people are
not backing down.
The Black Lives Matter Movement & The

Workers Education Forums

vs. Ferguson
Just think About U.S and the Dred
Scott decision
Just think About U.S and the
3/5th clause
Just think About U.S and the
Iraq war
Just think About U.S and the
Chinese Exclusion Act
Just think About U.S and the
deportation of Marcus Garvey
Just think About U.S and the Trail
of Tears
Just think About U.S and little
boy and fat boy
Now what we gon do about U.S.?
Enigma~
The Oceti Sakowin (Lakota/Da-
WORKERS VOICE PAGE 2
Fight Against Police Terror was the title
of our first forum on August 28th at Cafe
Istanbul. It was attended by over a hun-
dred people, black and white. The main
speaker was Malcolm Suber, a devoted
black revolutionary who has been on the
front lines in the struggle against NOPD
abuse for over three decades.
During his presentation, Suber explained
that the main political lesson drawn from
the Black Lives Matter movement is that
it is spontaneous resistance to police
terror that has propelled the freedom
struggle to a level we havent seen since
the 60s and 70s. He said the choice
before our movement is: will we wage a
revolutionary fight to end the rule of the
billionaire ruling class, or will we contin-
ue on the road of reform that guaran-
tees continued police terror and murder
of national minority youth on the streets
of America?
He also noted that the police are doing
exactly what the rulers want them to do.
It is their function to terrorize us and
keep us in our place, in our oppressed
condition.
At the end of his talk, Suber invited sing-
er Nana Nantambu on stage to lead the
audience in singing the classic freedom
song We Who Believe in Freedom Can-
not Rest. Afterwards there was a lively
discussion full of revolutionary energy
and solidarity among the audience. At
the end everyone walked out enthused,
with a deep understanding of the black
lives matter movement, and they were
therefore more ready for the fight against
racist police oppression.
Of course, the ruling class media calls the
prisoners rioters so that we on the out-
side will ignore the just demands of the
prisoners. These arent riots; they are re-
bellions against the barbaric conditions in
US prisons.
Florida prisons, like Louisianas, are ex-
tremely overcrowded. Prisoners often
face lengthy time in solitary confinement,
which is a form of torture, and brutal
physical and sexual abuse and murder by
prison guards.
New Orleans jails more people than any
other city, and Louisiana has the largest
percentage of people in prison in the U.S.,
and the U.S. has the largest rate of incar-
ceration in the world. We must support
Congress of Day Laborers, a New Orleans organization that stands against
the prisoners demands to abolish mod-
brutal exploitation at the hands of Immigration authorities, held a 24 hour
ern day slavery.
Vigil on September 1st to fight against the wrongful jailing of three communi-
WE WILL SEND WORKERS VOICE ty members on charges of reentry, William Diaz-Castro, Jose Isaias Lara-Ser-
FREE TO PRISONERS AND WELCOME rano, and Jonny Manzanares. All three men leave behind spouses who spoke
at the vigil. Contact the Congress of Day Laborers at the New Orleans Work-
LETTERS FROM PRISONERS
ers Center for Racial Justice at (504) 309-5165.
WORKERS VOICE PAGE 3
The Capitalist Elections
THE NEW ORLEANS WORKERS GROUP WORKERS VOICE PAGE 4
Gavrielle Gemma
We need higher wages, better jobs, an
end to police terror, lower rent and home
prices, good schools and a fix to the en-
vironment. But will the candidate from
either of the two major parties who rep-
resent the soaring profits of Wall Street do
any of this? No.
Trump is a billionaire racist who hates
women and whips up anti-immigrant,
anti-Muslim hatred in an attempt to
get workers angry at the wrong people.
Trumps family was Nazi supporters and
built its empire by racist and price goug-
ing rent practices.
Clinton helped destroy the safety net for
mostly women and children in the 1990s,
leaving hundreds of thousands desperate.
Clinton was an ardent supporter of mass
incarcerating people and called young
Black men superpredators. As a senator
and Secretary of State under Obama, she
pushed for endless military and economic
warfare, supported coups, and carried out
drone bombings of civilians for what. To
enrich the oil companies and war profi-
teers. She has stated she wants increased
sending of U.S. troops to war.
Neither wants to touch the over $1trillion
military budget which is looting our public
funds by the profit making military con-
tractors; instead of using our money for
INDIA, SEPT. 2: 1.5 million workers of all nationalities across India held the larg-
est general strike in history. Solidarity to the Indian workers demanding higher
wages, equal pay for women, and an end to the privatization of the economy!
CONTACT INFO
New Orleans Workers Group
noworkersgroup@gmail.com / 504-657-3171
the needs of the people or repair of the
infrastructure.
Congress is a millionaires club. Both
Democrats and Republicans have huge
personal investments in oil, banking, mil-
itary, pharmaceutical and chemical com-
panies. Both represent the capitalist class
that is rolling in stolen profits while the liv-
ing standard of all workers declines. Both
are beholden to the corporate campaign
contributions from Wall Street.
The growing dominance of the most
right wing economic sectors - military,
oil, banking and the slavish conciliation
of the Democratic Party to these interests
has actually been responsible for the rise
of the more openly racist, openly worker
hating Trumps and their ilk. Supporting
either capitalist party is to keep slipping
the noose over our own necks.
Every 4 years, workers, youth, retirees
and national minorities are herded into
the Democratic Party by using fear of the
Republican candidate. But for the past
40 years, the Democratic Party has basi-
cally agreed with them. They supported
and expanded some of the most horrible
abuses like the Patriot Act or cutting ser-
vices to fund imperialist wars, while laying
off workers and allowing companies not
to pay taxes and run-away to lower wage
countries using the military to help them.
We must unite to stop Trump and all his
racist right wing, anti-worker, anti-woman,
anti-gay policies. Only independent grass
roots, mass movement can accomplish this.
All those truly concerned with combatting
racism and fascism and Trump need to
take the step to the independent orga-
nizing of the people and the recognition
that this is a class society. The Democratic
Party will not stop them. The Democrats
and Republicans represent the capitalist
class exclusively. No matter what words
are used, they will always do what is in
the interest of amassing profits for the rich
rather than the well-being of workers and
oppressed people.
That time is now to reject the whole damn
system and step up to fight for what be-
longs collectively to those who do all the
work, create all the wealth the working
class and fight together.
The New Orleans Workers group is a
multi-national organization of revolu-
tionary workers who understand that
the working class struggle for free-
dom and liberation must be guided
by the study of revolutionary theory
and commitment to struggle. We are
opposed to capitalism and all forms of
capitalist oppression including impe-
rialism, racism, sexism, homophobia,
and we support full rights for immi-
grants. We seek to build a new world
based on the ending of capitalist ex-
ploitation and founding of a genuine-
ly socialist society that guarantees the
equality of all working people. Only
this future will end US imperialist war
and domination and usher in a world
of human rights and self-determina-
tion for all the oppressed.