I work in a rubber mat factory. Recently there was a fire that destroyed a portion of the yard. The day after, some of us were already called back to work for the clean up. In a scene out of Chernobyl, factory workers with no training or experience were tasked with cleaning up the carcinogenic waste.
When one of my coworkers asked for a respirator, he was told that there were none and an N95 mask would have to suffice. On my first day back I was sent to work in the yard next to a 30-foot pile of burned rubber mats. By the end of my shift I looked like a coal miner, covered head to toe in black ash. The next day we had no floor supervisor or safety officer present. All of the bosses were out looking after their inventory. Thirty minutes after I began working I was told the material already at my station was contaminated by the smoke and was too dangerous to work with. We only found this out because another worker happened to realize something was wrong and asked a supervisor, who hadn’t bothered to inform us of the hazard.
Their property was more important to them than our lives. Walking home, I felt my blood boiling with rage. I thought about my coworkers coughing on the factory floor. I thought about the corporate executives in their air-conditioned offices getting bonuses bigger than our salaries from the profits they made by poisoning us. There can be no justice for these people. Hell is not hot enough for these parasites. The only solace I have is that a day’s worth of my wages goes to building the Revolutionary Communist Party to overthrow this decaying and murderous system. I do this so that no one ever has to give up years of their life to keep a roof over their head again. It isn’t enough to burn it down; as long as capitalism exists, they’ll send us back to work in the rubble. This is why we need a communist revolution.
– Tristan C., Abbotsford
