It could be said that retired LA Detective Mark Fuhrman, and all the Fuhrmans on all the police forces around the U.S., were the main organizers of the march, along with Newt Gingrich and his racist budget slashing "Contract on America." Farrakhan was able to ride a growing wave of anti-racist anger that exploded with the LA riots, after the cops that beat Rodney King on videotape, were acquitted by an all-white jury. Since then, scores of black workers and youth have been gunned down by racist cops, "from sea to shining sea." Major police scandals have been exposed in New York and Philadelphia, and millions have been rocked by racist budget cuts from New York to Washington DC, the area where most of the marchers came from.
In the midst of growing racist terror, the OJ Simpson trial dragged on for a year. The defense successfully put the racist LAPD on trial. The Fuhrman tapes were a bombshell, bringing to light what almost every black family already knew from personal experience. Around this time, Jesse Jackson jumped on the bandwagon, endorsing the march. The reaction of millions to the OJ verdict indicated the mood of black working people. Fortunately for Farrakhan, it came just weeks before the march.
More black men are in prison than in college.
* One in every three black men in their 20's is either in jail, on probation, or on parole.
* The unemployment rate for black workers is double the rate of white workers.
* The wage gap between black and white is higher than before the civil rights movement.
* The infant mortality rate for black babies in every major city of the U.S. dwarfs that of any industrialized nation on earth.
* A whole generation of black youth have never had a job.
* Every major politician and political party, attacks black teenage mothers, forced onto welfare by a system that cannot provide jobs.
The list is endless, and it's a bottomless pit. The Chinese communists were right.
The rulers fear rebellion among young black workers. Black workers are the key force for revolution in the U.S., concentrated in the major cities, and in basic industries. U.S. politicians can still hear the blasts of anti-racist rebellion that rocked every major city in the U.S. The 1967 Detroit Rebellion overran the cops and the National Guard, forcing Lyndon Johnson to divert the 81st Airborne from Vietnam to put down the rebels in Detroit. In the wake of that rebellion, 100,000 black workers were hired in the auto industry. But now, U.S. bosses are not about to set out 100,000 jobs. Instead, they will build 100,000 new prison cells.
Self critically, PLP, as an anti-racist communist Party, was slow to react to the Fuhrman tapes. We talked about the racist thugs, but as the saying goes, talk is cheap. Fighting racism is more than talk. We should have organized demonstrations in every city with the slogans, "They're all Fuhrmans" and "A racist system that cannot provide jobs must be destroyed." We were too slow to organize the anger of black workers. We were too passive to lead that hatred of the cops into a more profound united working class attack against the enemy. This must change now.
Nationalism is the flip side of racism, masking the class nature of society, exploitation, and oppression. It forces workers to unite behind "their boss," and "their nation." It can only lead to genocidal slaughter, as between Iraq and Iran, and in Bosnia, etc. But working people have no nation! We are one class, around the globe, with common interests regardless of skin color, or language. Colin Powell, Jesse Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan are a nationalist shell game being played by the most racist ruling class in history. Whichever choice black workers make, we all lose.
The only antidote to the twin evils of racism and nationalism is a united working class, kicking sparks out of the bosses' ass. Racist unemployment, police terror, wage cuts won't go away unless we fight their cause -- capitalism.
Organizing class war will create the conditions to win millions to communism. The vision of a communist future, a classless, raceless society, based on equality, sharing, and collectivity, when grasped by the masses, will become a material force that will wipe away the horrors we know today. This is our goal, today and forever.
Chicago's Mayor Daley, and the Chicago City Council, also endorsed the march, while they destroy public housing to make way for the Democratic Convention next summer.
AT&T, which has laid off tens of thousands of workers, gave anyone the day off who wanted to attend the march, while scores of bosses and racist universities and school systems followed suit.
Don't expect the same treatment if you're going out on strike, fighting a clinic or hospital closing, or marching on May Day.
Who are these great humanitarians showing concern about abused women? They are the same ruling class politicians who are cutting welfare for mothers and children, closing hospitals and laying off government workers by the thousands. In LA, the County Board of Supervisors has just sent out 3,500 layoff and demotion notices. A large portion of those to be laid off are black women. Thousands of latin women garment workers will lose pre-natal care under the budget cuts. Isn't this abuse of women? What is NOW doing about this? President Clinton? Mayor Riorden?
This propaganda is meant to hide the truth that the fight against racism and the fight against sexism are inseparable! The capitalist system is the biggest abuser of women. Those men who batter their wives have learned the capitalist values of treating women as possessions and using them as scapegoats. More are white than black. A higher percentage of abused women are wives of cops or military wives than appear in the civilian population. It's no accident that Fuhrman was both an open racist and a woman hater. The Nazis were, too. The two go hand-in-hand. Black, latin and women workers work harder, and earn less to create super-profits for the bosses. Both racism and sexism divide and hurt the entire working class.
The NOW leadership is moving professional women into the arms of the fascists by calling on the state, the police and the courts, to take care of sexism. How would you like Fuhrman to come protect you against abuse?
The word "abuser," has become the latest racist buzz word. The bosses' media is pointing the finger at black men, creating racist images of black men as "brutes" threatening "white womanhood." The ruling class through its media has used the OJ case to bring back the old lie about black men --lies which led to countless lynchings.
All this racist propaganda is being pushed to divide the working class, trying to deprive us of militant leadership, and justify throwing more black men into prison for the crime of being unemployed. The bosses' crisis is deepening. They cannot provide jobs. They are terrified of a united working class, led especially by the most angry oppressed workers -- black workers, both men and women -- challenging their racist system, rebelling against the layoffs, budget cuts and racist police terror. PLP members and friends should organize more boldly to take on this racism and show that the interests of all workers--black, latin, asian, white, men and women, are the same.
On Oct. 11, out of the blue, the union called a march on company headquarters. Over 1,000 workers showed up. "World Class, my ass" was on their lips. They were rejecting Boeing's "World Class Competitiveness" plans for speed-up, layoffs and increased sub-contracting. Clearly, the workers have little love for these schemes.
When IAM District President Bill Johnson said five officials were going to deliver a letter to CEO Frank Shrontz, 50 workers pushed into the building. Johnson left corporate headquarters, but the workers stayed -- chanting "The workers, united, will never be defeated," and "Frank got the gold, we got the shaft." When given a chance, and Left leadership, Boeing workers show they know it's us, the working class, versus them, the bosses. Our class anger is still there.
Even the union acknowledged that. The march began with a long, cadenced chant that drove home its point at the end: "Workers' power grows stronger by the hour!" The chant was repeated again at the end of the march, immediately preceding International President Kourpias' speech.
"At the beginning of every union meeting," Kourpias said, "we pledge allegiance to the flag. Why don't they (the bosses) start the Board of Directors meetings in the same way?"
Nationalism, it turned out, and not workers' power, was the real theme of the march. Completely unlike the marches during the previous week in the plants, the union march was led by a big Stars and Stripes. Red, white and blue ribbons were handed out and a clear nationalist message was being put across -- American jobs for American workers. "Export planes, not jobs," is one of the union's key slogans.
Waving the flag hides the truth. The truth is that capitalism worldwide is gripped by a severe economic crisis -- the crisis of overproduction. Markets have collapsed and with them, profits. Boeing President Phil Condit and his gang are the capitalists. They live and die for profit. If profits can't grow in expanding markets, they must squeeze them out of more intense exploitation of the working class: fewer workers working harder, cheaper and faster.
This crisis of the capitalist system has caused 60,000 job losses at Boeing in the last five years. This crisis drives the bosses to move the wire shop to Foley, Alabama for $7/hour labor. This crisis justifies, to the profit-hungry bosses, moving the blanket shop to Mexico to exploit labor for a few cents an hour. This crisis is behind the plan to expand sub-contracting to 52% of production -- in essence, pitting those of us still employed against the laid-off and unemployed who are forced to work for low-wage job shops.
Our enemies aren't the workers of the world. Ford workers in Mexico just sent us a telegram of support calling for equality of wages across the border and an international movement for shorter hours of work with no loss in pay to create millions of living-wage jobs. Europe's Airbus, Boeings main rival, will only deliver 66 transports next year. Europe's working class has been hit, too, by the same crisis of overproduction. Our real enemy is capitalism -- a system that creates jobs only if the capitalist can turn a big enough profit.
The same week Kourpias was flag-waving in Seattle, there was a judge at work in Wichita, Kansas. To be sworn in as judge, he too had pledged allegiance to the flag. The same flag flown in the courtroom. This Wichita judge showed clearly which class that flag represents. He issued an injunction against Boeing Wichita strikers aimed at breaking any power that the workers might have wanted to exercise on their picket lines. Boeing workers, according to the injunction, are prohibited from "congregating, gathering, massing, demonstrating, marching, picketing, parking in automobiles, standing, sitting, loitering, walking, standing, from obstructing or interfering in any manner..." at the entrances to the plants. Wichita workers are prohibited from "assaulting, pushing, elbowing, shouldering, or in any manner physically contacting, shouting at, yelling or making insulting, disgraceful or abusive remarks to..." scabs. The judge left the striker's right to picket, but took away the point of it. The Stars and Stripes, it turns out, is the flag of the Boeing bosses!
And when a young worker, who recently graduated from high school joined the Progressive Labor Party last week-end, he showed the way to victory in this class struggle. When tens, and then tens of thousands pick up the red flag of revolution, like this young worker, our class will settle this question -- "do we owe our allegiance to the bosses' nation or to our class?" -- once and for all with communist revolution.
The police and school authorities have taken advantage of this fear not to deal with the causes of gangs but to increase repression of all youth. For example, the day of the gang fight, a teacher, Mr. Levenson, used excessive force against one student, and another student was punished for telling Levenson that he was too rough.
On Sept. 28, after Sergio's murder, the school used metal detectors subjecting all students, gangbangers or not, to being treated like delinquents. Many youth were angry because of this. The cops have responded with day and night patrols treating all workers and youth in McFarland as criminals.
Some people believe that this is the best way to deal with youth violence. That's a big mistake. The main reason that so many young people are derailed by gangs and other criminal activities is because they are totally alienated by the racism of this capitalist society. There are no jobs, no decent education, no future for millions and millions of youth. The bosses know that youth and workers will not tolerate this forever; that workers will rebel and fight back. So the rulers' only solution is more repression, more jails. The gangbangers offer the rulers a good excuse to carry out this fascist plan.
It is up to us in PLP to offer workers and youth the only solution to the dead-end future of capitalism. Our program of fighting for jobs and against police terror must be brought to more and more workers and youth of McFarland. We must win more and more to our Party and to see that a system that only offers police terror, gangs and joblessness must be destroyed.
What did this bailout do? It temporarily bailed out the bosses from facing us angry workers. It allowed the cutbacks a two-week reprieve to bypass the contract deadline. 2,800 workers received layoff notices on Oct. 14. Six hundred more notices will go out in two more weeks. Another 700 workers have been demoted. The majority of these are black and latin women workers.
Registered Nurses (RN's) are among the most affected. The hospital administrators fear the RN's, who have struck the County twice in the last 7 years, so they have set out to divide them. County Emergency Room (ER) nurses staged a much publicized sick-out against layoffs. Its sole purpose was to demand "exclusion" of ER nurses from the planned layoff. It was pushed by management to divide the RNs.
The union leaders supported this walkout and its demands, calling it a "victory" that they saved the jobs of the ER, Operating Room, and Intensive Care Unit nurses. But they "saved" them at the expense of staff and clinic nurses. Before the sick-out, management met with the ER nurses urging them to tell the Board of Supervisors to exclude them from layoffs, to lay off other "less-qualified nurses" instead. Even worse, the union leaders supported this divisive fight to save the ER nurses' jobs at the expense of staff and clinic nurses.
Many of the nurses who bit this racist garbage are young, with little seniority at the County. Some attacked older nurses who "don't do anything special" and said they should be laid off instead. Only 48% of the ER nurses are white; less than 30% of the staff and clinic nurses are white. Instead of uniting with all county workers they were temporarily won to building disunity. The County wants to keep these ER nurses -- for now.
If the County and Union can trick these young nurses into fighting to save their jobs at the expense of others then they'll be in the back pocket of the bosses. But the nurses who fall for the bosses' elitism are cutting their own throats because the County is planning to privatize all of our jobs. The reason the County could temporarily get away with this is that these nurses don't yet see the potential of a mass, united fight for jobs.
The ideology of "me, me, me," of selfishness, does not come from the working class. It's the ideology of the bosses, of capitalism. It's a loser for all workers, especially those who fall for it the hardest. The opposite, "us, us, us," is the ideology that what's best for each worker is what's best for the collective. Workers move ahead by uniting and strengthening the collective, and rejecting the bosses divisions of race, sex, and job classifications. Building the collective is a communist idea. It represents the interests of all workers. Hospital workers should unite and act together against any and all layoffs. The demand of 30 hours' work for 40 hours' pay, part of the RN bargaining committee's package, emphasizes the fight for jobs for all.
The County of LA is paying $500 million to First Interstate Bank in profits (interest payments). They take this money off the top to make the rich bankers and bondholders even richer. They always act on "Me first." They plan to lay off thousands of workers and kill many thousands of patients -- all to make these bankers richer. The profit of the banks is the motor for capitalism. The motor for communism will be the well being of all workers.
The RN Bargaining Committee has voted for a strike and is trying to bring other bargaining units along in a united fight against layoffs. PLP salutes these workers and urges them to focus the fight against the First Interstate Bank to demand a moratorium on the debt payments. Out of this struggle, more workers need to join PLP to put the needs of the whole working class for communist equality, front and center.
"This University education which offers no solution to the racist unemployment that exists in the U.S. is racist education," said a young black student leader. "Today I am talking to you peacefully, but our patience is running out, the situation is unacceptable."
The students were supported by a small but militant group of staff workers. University of California is the second largest employer in the state, employing over 100,000 workers. The University management is attacking unions and weakening grievance procedures in the name of efficiency. It is estimated that 50% of University workers will be laid off in the next five years along with a large number of faculty. The university administration is run by about 1,700 bureaucrats making over $100,000 each.
The attacks on campus workers and the racist decisions by the Regents are reflections of capitalism in deep crisis. The collapse of the aerospace industry and the large corporate mergers have created a large pool of highly skilled unemployed workers. The capitalist bosses who control the University through the Regents have recognized the need to reduce the "surplus" graduates, by increasing tuition.
Although this skyrocketing increase in the tuition disproportionately affects black and latin students, the racist politicians blame them for "displacing" white students. Behind these racist lies which are repeated with fascistic hysteria is a stark reality. Only 1,100 black high school students in California are UC eligible. For an overwhelming number of the black and latin youth racism is a way of life because of racist police terror and laws like "three strikes and you are out." The schools, hospitals and factories are closing with war-like devastation.
The racist bosses know that such misery wins them no friends. They need fascism to stop youth and workers from rebelling. This move towards fascism is two fold.The efforts of the right wing politicians who attack affirmative action is supplemented by liberals, like Jesse Jackson, who build illusions that affirmative action, voting, etc. are the solutions to racism.
We in PLP are struggling with a growing number of students and workers to realize that capitalist education cannot and will never serve the working class. Real working class education comes from the struggle to build a communist egalitarian society without racism and wage slavery. On Oct. 12, after the walk-out, some of the workers did not go back to work. Instead we met and talked about the idea of building for revolution. We talked about the Boeing strike and about the need for a worker-students alliance to fight for jobs.
Police terror has increased tremendously all over the city, particularly against black and latin youth. The bosses know that these youth have the most potential to rebel against the growing cutbacks in social services, mass unemployment, etc. Mayor Giuliani, under the guise of fighting "quality of life crimes," have given the rulers' armed goons, the cops, license to kill to try to keep these youths under control. Shoot first and ask questions later has become their modus operandi.
The PLP protest was very militant and multi-racial in spite of the cops' lies and intimidation which kept members of the Pollard family from marching. The family and PLP were denied a permit to march because a memorial peace walk against youth violence, led by a group of young children and church ladies was being held nearby. But in spite of that the Pollard family was inspired by our rally and is planning a march on Oct. 28.
The participants experienced people's openness to our ideas. Our chant, "The cops, the Courts, the Ku Klux Klan, all parts of the bosses' plan," became a focus of discussion with many people passing by on the street. Our comrades did an excellent job explaining the ideas behind that chant -- that the rulers use their armed goons to keep their racist system afloat.
In several articles Bob Herbert denounced the working and living conditions of the garment workers in El Salvador. But he has never mentioned that the capitalist system, with its crisis of overproduction, is the cause of these conditions. Obviously he hasn't mentioned that the workers need to struggle for a society of communist equality in order to free themselves of these conditions.
For example: In the Doall Plant (of the "free" trade zone, that is, free to super-exploit workers), the workers produce jackets for Liz Claiborne. These jackets are sold in the U.S. for $178 each. The garment workers are paid an average of 56cents. Under communism the clothes we make will be produced for use, not to make a profit. Brand names will cease to exist and only the highest quality clothes will be produced. The best for the working class.
Under capitalism, the rule is profits for the few at the cost of poverty and death for millions of workers. At the El Mandarin maquiladora, in the free trade zone of San Macros, David Wang, CEO said, "If you would ask me, I would say that this is not just...but the biggest international brands are looking for cheap labor around the world." Mr. Wang says that GAP, Liz Claiborne, J.C. Penny or any other company will look for another place to produce clothes if the costs rise here. Of course, Mr. Wang and Gap, Doall and Liz Claiborne, together with the fascist government of EL Salvador assure, by violent repression, that these costs don't rise, in order to assure their huge profits.
El Mandarin workers tried to build a union last June, and 168 workers were fired and threatened by Mr. Wang and the government. The workers are continuing their struggle to be rehired and to have the union be recognized. Even though it is good to fight for a union, in the long run we have to destroy this capitalist system and all the bosses with a communist revolution. That's the only way to end the rule of Liz Claiborne over the workers from El Salvador to Los Angeles to China.
Garment workers, organized by PLP in Los Angeles have had several protests in support of the workers in El Salvador. We want to help organize an international union of garment workers that demands equal pay for equal work internationally. In this campaign of unionization in Los Angeles, Mexico, El Salvador, and other countries, we will fight for a shorter work week of 6 hours' work for 8 hours' pay. This campaign will break through borders and nationalist divisions to build workers' internationalism! Workers of every country have the same needs!
Members of the Committee Against Asian-American Violence, the Columbia U. Black and Latino Caucus, and PLP chanted, "Anti-asian, latin, black- Racist, Bratton; watch your back!" A PLP'er described Bratton as being the biggest drug dealer in town. A student from the Committee Against Asian American Violence commented that Bratton has been sending a message to police that they have free reign on youth in black, latin and asian communities by not prosecuting the many police officers who are fascistic in attacking youth.
A strong message was sent to the highest levels of "pig-dom" in NYC -- they can't just come talk at our schools anymore without meeting militant opposition. All the students present worked in complete unison, smashing nationalism with simple practice. The same feeling of camaraderie set an atmosphere where ten Challenge-Desafíos were sold; and one participant will attend our next reader's group. This type of action will increase as we communists get more involved in the mass movement.
We marched to the Boston School Committee to demand quality education for every child in the city and to condemn the elitism of the Boston school system.
McLaughlin is suing the city for "reverse discrimination" because his daughter was denied admission to Boston Latin High School (one of Boston's three elite exam schools) after she scored higher than a number of black and latin applicants who were admitted. McLaughlin wants to do away with all racial quotas in school admissions and return to the day when virtually no black, latin or asian students had access to college bound programs.
In the Boston school system:
* Black and latin students account for 70% of the school population, but only 35% of the slots at Boston Latin are reserved for blacks and latins.
* Only 18% of the students in the school system are white, but they comprise 50% of the student body at Boston Latin.
* Although Boston Latin gets the same budget as any other high school, it has superior equipment and facilities because parents and alumni raise large sums of money for the school.
* Boston's non-exam high schools, like all inner-city schools, are poorly equipped and have rotten conditions. The Jeremiad Burke H.S. was denied accreditation last spring.
* Only 440 7th graders enter Boston Latin each year. 40% of Boston Latin's black and latin students and 65% of its white students came from private elementary schools.
The emphasis on "merit" or test scores to set admissions standards is racist and elitist. Test results reflect the quality of education a child has received, which is a result of his/her class background. The emphasis on merit and tests is a cover for justifying race and class inequality. The fact that such a high percentage of children (black, latin and white) at Boston Latin came from private elementary schools, shows that class privilege and not merit is the real criteria for setting admissions standards.
The whole existence of exam schools is elitist -- one of the ways capitalism unfairly metes out its limited educational resources. Affirmative Action is supposed to create more equality. It accepts the assumption that capitalism has limited resources and opportunities. Affirmative Action is not designed to address the fundamental inequality of capitalism. !
It's only supposed to guarantee that the few who `make it' represent all ethnic groups. It says, "to hell with the vast majority of the children of the working class, a disproportionate number of whom are minorities, who drop out and work at low wage jobs or are recruited to the army to be used as cannon fodder."
Instead of suing the city for providing too little quality education for Boston's children, McLaughlin chose to attack the black and latin students. Similarly, all over the country attacks on affirmative action are being used to build racism and get people to fight over the crumbs, rather than the system that provides only crumbs. As communists we must use this issue as an opportunity to win people to understand that capitalism is built on inequalities that 30 years of affirmative action can't correct. Capitalists make reforms only to fool people into thinking that the system can work. At the same time as we fight the racist attacks on affirmative action, we need to expose it as nothing but a band-aid on the cancer of capitalist inequality.
Japanese and U.S. capitalism are both being weakened by imperialist rivalry. Japan now spends some $50 billion a year on war preparations, more than any country in the world other than the U.S. and Russia. Despite the apparent intention of the ruling classes of the two countries to renew the treaty which allows the U.S. to use key Japanese facilities for military bases, imperialist rivalry between the two countries is intensifying. This is the context in which to analyze the turmoil raised in Okinawa over the Sept. 4 abduction and rape of a twelve-year-old schoolgirl by U.S. Marines.
Both Japanese and U.S. societies are rotting from within. As moribund capitalism decays, crime will continue to rise in both societies. Crimes on a much bigger scale -- namely military actions -- are being planned by Japanese and U.S. capitalists who will stop at nothing to maintain their domination of the resources and cheap labor of Asia. For now, they will continue to mount this effort as partners, as they have for the past fifty years, through the Korean, Vietnamese, Gulf and other wars. But, like all bullies and thieves, they will eventually fight among themselves.
We are planning a series of PLP leaflets and rallies to call for international working-class solidarity between U.S., Japanese and Okinawan workers, soldiers and youth. Diplomats, generals, nationalists, and revisionists (fake reformists) are squirming to find ways to dissipate the anger against U.S. and Japanese imperialism in Japan. Communist ideas are needed in this struggle, and we will do our best to put them forward and draw a clear line of distinction between ourselves and our enemies.
Tokyo comrades
I think it will be useful to share with you a visit I had last week with a Boeing striker. This guy plays chess, works out with weights, grew up and worked in the industrial Midwest before moving out to Seattle and landing a job at Boeing. In short he is a powerful guy, with industrial experience who is used to thinking strategically.
"We won't be able to stop them (Boeing) downsizing," he told me, "To do that we would have to get a new man in the White House. I hope this will be a short strike."
I replied we need to visit the White House all right, with an army of millions of workers. I said I thought the strike would be long because the company had to break the rebellious spirit of the workers. Furthermore I figured Boeing would get its divided workforce (regular vs. sub-contracted) to work harder, faster and cheaper after the strike.
After thinking it over I'm dissatisfied with my reply. How can we possibly get an army of millions of workers to make a revolution? It seems completely unreal. (Although more real than expecting the White House to deliver a secure, healthy life to us). The fact is it's a pipe-dream to talk of revolution without talking about building a mass revolutionary PLP. And we can't get a mass Party until industrially experienced, strategic thinkers like him, join. This is an urgent matter because the crisis of overproduction that has gripped capitalism is deep and unending, short of World War. This is not an easy job but one that one committed communist can influence enormously. Therefore two, three, four and more communists can have an even greater effect.
Well, I'll be able to correct this oversight. Our friendship is strong, the struggle is sharp and it will continue,
A PLP'er in Seattle
I'm writing to update the readers on the ILGWU Goodtimes and Song of CA strike in Los Angeles. As a worker of that company I lived under constant pressure to produce more for less. The boss, to keep up with the competition would reduce our wages penny by penny to pay for the latest machine technology and to fill his money-hungry pocket.
As you will recall, we went out on strike. We stopped production in one of his companies, Goodtime. At Song of CA about one third of the work-force joined us. The boss kept up production, even if production was minimum, which added more pressure to the workers who remained inside.
After a few days the company began to regain its loss in production. From the pool of labor on reserve that capitalists and the ruling class have created, the boss hired scabs. Many of these workers had been out of work for several weeks, some even months and, lacking a working class outlook, were hungry for the opportunity to work.
Out on the line we watched as one by one the scabs took our seats at the machines we once operated. Upon seeing this we should have taken a more aggressive stand. We must recognize that unions are pro-capitalist and their insistence in staying within the law and its mandates will always limit our struggle. As strikers we should take the risk of going against what the unions tell us to do. It is only in this way that we will teach both the scabs and the bosses a lesson.
I feel that if we had been more aggressive with the scabs our strike would have been different. Three months later I see my co-workers (strikers) out on the line in fewer numbers. Many of them have left to find a job. It has been over a month since the owner of the company closed shop and my co-workers remain outside, waiting.
How many more incidents such as these must we wait for before we as the working class begin to take action? To allow our actions to be guided by what is written on judiciary documents and enforced by the state in all its departments, i.e. the cops and judges, will always keep us in the same place, under capitalism. These laws all keep the bosses rich and us poor. We cannot wait for another O.J. Simpson trial to prove to us that the cop department is drenched with racism serving the rich and famous.
Communism proves to us that in order to protect the bosses' gain, the cops protect the bosses, and therefore will protect the scabs. Strikers undertaking the fight against bosses everywhere around the world, internationally, must fight together to end the capitalist exploitation against all workers. As we realize that a fight against capitalism does not end with reform struggles which only bandage up the system in the hope of making our living situation better, in our union struggles we must demand reforms like a six hour work day for a eight hours pay. The only fight that can take on capitalism is a communist revolution. Anything short of that will permit a stronger and sharper attack by the state against all workers.
A worker in struggle.
Just when you feel a little blue the working class picks you up. That is my experience in Britain this summer. In about five weeks, two us got out 300 copies of Challenge-Desafío and hundreds of other literature. We made some contacts and renewed old friendships. We got Challenge-Desafíos in seven stores and presented some of our friends with copies of the book Comrades.
One incident to illustrate, we were distributing Challenge-Desafíos at the Portobello Road market when an elderly lady confronted us. "Is that a communist paper?" she asked. "Yes," we replied. She said, "A lot of people are frightened of communists, they don't understand. I served in the Royal Air Force during the war. So many of the young today live in a dream world. What can make them change?"
"Well," I said, "their boss helps with his oppressing ways and we have to be there with the answer -- `change the world.' " She thought a while and said, "You're right. Make sure you put the papers in the library down the road. Some people are there all day and it will give them good reading material." She went off carrying Challenge-Desafío.
A Red
A couple of points about the Howard University "Race and Inequity" conference:
First, at least 600 people (mostly students and professionals) registered for the conference, not the 300 reported in Challenge-Desafío (10/18).
Second, the article and letters on the conference missed something very significant. PLP comrades initiated this conference and guaranteed its organization. But the conference itself was far broader than the Party and our close friends.
Our DC area comrades, especially, were able to make this happen because they have been working hard, for a long time, to entrench themselves in the political life of their campuses. They are known and respected as anti-racist fighters and as communists. They have friends all across the political spectrum. Many of these friends saw the need for this conference. They were willing to throw the weight of their mass organizations behind it. The mass organizations did this knowing that PLP would be playing a big role in it, even though most have significant disagreements with our Party.
All of us who attended the conference learned a great deal about how to struggle with friends, or potential friends, over political disagreements while uniting with them to fight the racism of the ruling class. Let's also learn something about the importance of building a base for the Party in existing mass organizations over the long haul.
Chicago comrade
Whoever did it only helps the U.S. ruling class, the big terrorists, impose more repressive laws against workers. The way to fight the bosses and their cops is through mass militant actions and mass strikes (like the Boeing strike, the Detroit newspaper strike, etc.), to build for communist revolution that will destroy their entire class.