Mississippi workplace murders
Racism & Lockheed Martin
By Heather Cottin
Doug Williams assassinated six co-workers in
Meridian, Miss., on July 9 and injured eight others before
shooting himself. Five of the dead workers were African
American. It was the worst workplace shooting in the United
States this year.
Williams worked in a Lockheed Martin plant that made
stabilizers for the newest U.S. fighter plane, the F/A-22
Raptor. Williams was a known racist. The company on several
occasions had sent him to "anger management" classes.
He recently dressed up in something that looked like a Klan
hood. When a Black worker objected, he was asked to remove it
or leave. He left. It was well known among his fellow workers
that he believed "Black people had a leg up in society." They
said he was angry that he had been passed up for promotions at
the plant, where he had worked for 19 years. (Associated Press,
July 9)
Williams was an angry worker whose understanding of the
economic system was twisted by racism. Rather than seeing the
bosses as his enemy--as the class that keeps the entire working
class separated, in competition, poor and oppressed--Williams
thought that Black people were the cause of his poverty and
unhappiness.
Legal segregation ended after heroic struggles by the civil
rights movement, but Mississippi is still a racist state. The
old ruling class still owns most of it. The Ku Klux Klan still
operates openly. And racism has kept both wages and
organization low.
In 1998, when 25.4 percent of non-agricultural wage workers
were unionized in New York State, only 5.6 percent were
organized in Mississippi. Other Southern states like South
Carolina and North Caro lina had even lower figures. (Bureau of
Labor Statistics) In 2002, average weekly wages in New York
State were $909, in Mississippi $538. Mississippi has no
minimum wage law.
Around the country, women and people of color have been
leading the most successful union organizing drives. Organ
ization is strongest in areas where white workers recognize the
need for solidarity against racism and accept the important
role of the nationally oppressed.
Racists like Doug Williams fall into the bosses' trap when
they reject worker solidarity against big capital. He could
have joined the International Association of Machinists, which
had organized the plant. But instead, Williams built his life
around his guns and racist ideology. On the day of the murders,
he was carrying his 12-gauge shotgun, 22 magnum Derringer,
mini-14.223 semiautomatic rifle, .45 Ruger pistol, and a .22
rifle with a scope and a lot of ammunition. (Amsterdam News,
July 10)
After the murders, the Lauderdale, Miss., county sheriff's
office hastened to assure the media that there was no
indication Williams's crimes were racially motivated. The
coverage of the shootings in the Mississippi newspapers barely
whispers the word "racism." But Hubert Threatt, an IAM union
shop steward who had worked with Williams for 15 years, had
heard many complaints about him. And Aaron Hopson, a Black
employee, told the Associated Press that he had filed a
complaint with management in Dec ember 2001 after Williams
threatened him personally. Hopson said Williams used a racial
epithet, threatening to shoot Black workers and kill
himself.
Lockheed Martin management was well aware of Williams'
explosive racism. But they kept him on.
Lockheed Martin is the largest manufacturer of weapons of
war in the United States. It began to produce the F/A-22 Raptor
in 2000. This plane was used to murder people of color in Iraq.
Lockheed Martin profits from war and murder of Third World
people on a global scale. This is the company that claims to
have taught Doug Williams how to control his violent
impulses.
Reprinted from the July 24, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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