Vol. 77/No. 44      December 9, 2013

Betsy Farley, a member of United Steelworkers Local 1010 in East Chicago, Ind., sent the note below along with a contribution to the Socialist Workers Party Capital Fund, which helps finance long-range work of the revolutionary party. The “blood money” Farley refers to is a term used to describe one-time payments from bosses — safety, attendance, production and “profit-sharing” bonuses, contract-signing incentives, holiday gifts and other such bribes — intended to make workers accept speedup, wage cuts, concession contracts and dangerous working conditions.

On Nov. 13, workers at ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor Works steel mill in East Chicago received profit-sharing checks in the mail. At 6:33 a.m. the same day, Michael Samuelson was killed as he was doing repair work in one of the East Chicago Basic Oxygen Furnaces. Samuelson, 39, was working for a contractor in the mill when he was crushed by a steel plate that he and two co-workers were in the process of replacing. The plate shifted and fell as they were burning a hole to move it. The other two workers were hospitalized.

On Nov. 14, ArcelorMittal CEO and owner Lakshmi Mittal welcomed President Barack Obama in a visit to the Cleveland mill. Obama congratulated Mittal for making his company “not just one of the most productive steel mills in the country, but in the world.”

ArcelorMittal reported a profit of $1.7 billion in the third-quarter, an 18.5 percent increase over the previous quarter. It is a profit that comes at the cost of countless injuries, occupational illnesses and even the lives of workers it employs throughout the world.

The $241.34 check I received truly is blood money. I can think of no better use than to donate it to the Capital Fund to strengthen the working-class struggle to end once and for all a world in which workers die for the capitalist bosses’ profit drive.  
 
 
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