What do U.S. auto workers at GM, Chicago teachers and nurses, direct care provider workers in Massachusetts, Metal workers in Brazil, South African bank workers, transportation workers in Greece and France, and doctors in Sri Lanka have in common with the youth of the world who are fired up about climate change? All struck or authorized strikes during the month of September. The youth see no future in a world with a poisoned and increasingly dangerous environment. Workers increasingly have no future in a profit driven world capitalist economy—especially when their jobs can be replaced by technology faster than new jobs can be created.
Regardless of whether the issue is job security, a living wage, enough weekly hours, the conditions in classrooms under which our children learn, the environment in which our loved ones are cared for in hospitals or the condition of the environment we all live in, all stand in opposition to the maximum profits of the corporations. To increase one is to decrease the other.
As long as the technology of the digital revolution remains in the hands of the corporations or government they control, it will be used to grow their profits to the same extent that it insures our misery. It is when that technology is in the hands of humanity for the benefit of humanity as a whole that we will all enjoy a happy and prosperous future.
