CLASS STRUGGLE IN THAILAND

What has erupted in Thailand is the first stage of a class struggle. Bitter political infighting in the Thai ruling elites over the past four years has opened the door for the entry of sections of the rural and urban poor into political life.

The Thai military is poised to move

The army has declared two areas of the capital to be “live fire zones”.

“Red shirt” demonstrators are confronting heavily armed troops. that have broad significance for workers throughout the region and internationally

demands for immediate elections, deeper social concerns over poverty and unemployment have begun to intrude.

The “Red Shirt” protests backed by ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, billionaire businessman



far from homogeneous, but come from the country’s poorer rural areas, obvious signs of sympathy among the military’s lower ranks, drawn from the same social layers.

she added. “They [are] always rich, we always poor. That is not democracy”.

extravagant riches of a tiny elite have continued to multiply even as the global economic crisis has brought greater hardships

“democracy” goes well beyond demand of Thaksin and protest leaders for new elections
basic social right to a decent standard of living

top 20 percent of the population controls 69 percent of the nation’s wealth as compared to just 1 percent for the lowest 20 percent.

the bottom 20 percent is $US45 a month—the official poverty line.

economy contracted by 3.5 percent, credit dried up, small farmers, businessmen and vendors, along with the working class. Resumption of economic growth and booming share prices have not alleviated.



harbinger of class struggles throughout the region and globally.

small minority who enriched through speculation and exploitation of cheap labour
throughout Asia

The divide in China and India is also socially explosive.

Thailand point to political problems. anti-government movement dominated by the Thaksin-backed United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) who are exploiting the demonstrations for the economic and political interests of a section of the Thai elite.

in power between 2001 and 2006, Thaksin also to ride roughshod over democratic rights as his opponents.

He limited handouts to stimulating the economy and reviving Thai businesses after the 1997–1998 Asian economic crisis.

His programs cut across long-established systems of patronage which alienated the army, state bureaucracy and the monarchy

if these urban and rural poor remain under UDD leadership, they will be betrayed.

last April when the demonstrations went out of their control, Thaksin and the UDD ended the campaign.

This is confirmation of Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. The organic incapacity of any section of the bourgeoisie to satisfy the democratic aspirations and social needs of working people

Only the proletariat is capable of genuine democratic rights, agrarian reform and rouse the rural masses into a struggle for a workers and farmers’ government based on socialist policies

Thailand is the tenth largest auto exporter with half a million workers

working class has yet to make its presence felt. Like its counterparts around the world, the working class in Thailand has no mass political party of its own that represents its class interests on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. It has limited trade unions that function as tools of government and the corporate elite

Stalinist Communist Party of Thailand, based on the bankrupt Maoist perspective of rural guerrilla action, dissolved.

Former student radicals from the 1970s have joined pro- and anti-Thaksin camps of the ruling class.

Unless they become independent of all factions of the capitalist class, the working class faces great dangers.

There are discussion in ruling circles about the military coup and the unleashing of tanks and troops to restore order which is driven by sharp falls on the share market
disaster for the tourist industry, amid a global economic climate of continuing instability and crisis

The IWW and Music: Creating a Working Class Counter-Culture

music both as an organising tool and as a means of developing a sense of community. establishment of the IWW in 1905. organise on a national level
The industrial tactic, creating cohesion, would stand together in a strike,etc

organizewomen, unskilled workers, unemployed workers, black workers and immigrants.

a singing union. IWW's songbook was a crucial aid in recruiting new members
building a sense of fellowship, keeping spirits up in hard situations

WE WERE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THESE WERE MASS PRODUCED IN ITALY

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A labor rights group alleged Tuesday that crucifixes sold in religious gift shops in the U.S. are produced under “horrific” conditions in a Chinese factory with more than 15-hour work days and inadequate food.

“It’s a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago,” said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee.

Kernaghan held a news conference in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to call attention to conditions at a factory in Dongguan, a southern Chinese city near Hong Kong, where he said crosses sold at the historic church and elsewhere are made.





Kernaghan said the factory’s mostly young, female employees work from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week and are paid 26 cents an hour with no sick days or vacation. Workers live in filthy dormitories and are fed a watery “slop.”





Trinity spokeswoman Diane Reed said her church had been “under the impression that these were mass-produced in Italy.”



Dongguan lies at the center of China’s export manufacturing industry, which relies heavily on low wages to remain competitive. Factories there have been accused in the past of labor abuses, including those making products for McDonald’s, Disney, Mattel and the Beijing Olympics.

National Labor Committee: http://www.nlcnet.org/