Racist Governor Wilson and his allies say the initiative will "restore fairness to California." A liberal coalition of women's groups and civil rights groups is organizing a "Freedom Summer" to defeat the initiative. They plan to involve 2,000 students from all over the country. Along with the Democratic Party, the liberals will use this issue to win workers back into the electoral system. The liberals say that because of racism and sexism, affirmative action is necessary to have a fair society.
Who's right, the conservatives or the liberals?
None of the above.
Overwhelmingly black and latin youth at Los Angeles' Manual Arts High School believe that, "with affirmative action at least we have a chance, now they're taking that away." Despite the bosses propaganda about capitalism's equality and opportunity, these young people recognize that a slim chance is the best the system offers. Is that what we want?
Capitalism requires most of us to "work hard"--we slave away at poverty wages to make profits for a few. The capitalist dream of "getting ahead" means getting ahead of others, who are forced into a nightmare of poverty. Black, latin and women are especially exploited and oppressed, to produce extra profits and to divide the working class and prevent it from overthrowing capitalism.
In the 1960's, black and latin workers rebelled in cities throughout the United States. The ruling class was terrified. They adjusted their system with affirmative action to cool off the workers. Some blacks and latins got to be mayors, police chiefs, doctors, lawyers, executives, supervisors.
But for most blacks and latins, affirmative action has been a rotten fraud. As capitalism declined, real wages went down, unemployment and homelessness went up. Today in the U.S., there are a few black faces in the corporate front offices, and more black faces in police cars--and 40% of black youth are in jail, on probation or on parole. In California, for every latin who was helped by affirmative action, there are dozens toiling for poverty wages under sickening conditions in the garment factories and the fields.
The bosses are using this initiative to tie workers to capitalism in the following ways:
* They organize white workers, especially white males, around the racist idea that their problems are caused by black and latin workers;
* They organize blacks, latins, and some white women around the idea that success means keeping affirmative action instead of destroying the whole rotten capitalist system.
* They tell all workers that the way to control our destiny is to vote. But elections just conceal the dictatorship of the capitalist class by giving us choices that are bad and worse.
Youth and workers who really want to smash racism should help organize a mass May Day march in Downtown LA for communism. Workers and youth do not have competing interests. The worldwide working class has the same interest: getting rid of this system of racist inequality by communist revolution. We are not going to mislead with the idea that affirmative action will stop the worsening of conditions for the working class. We are going to organize workers to fight for communism.
Communism, the next stage of human history, will be a society without wages and competition between workers. We will all work because work and contribution is a human need. We will all share according to need. The bosses are trying to trick us into fighting each other over crumbs.
Angry workers, men and women, of all colors and from all over the world, organize for May Day. Join PLP. Through the May Day march and the Party, we can focus our anger against the capitalists who are robbing all workers and youth of a future. We can fight for a bright future of communist equality.
No sleight of hand, or political razzle-dazzle, like Clinton's proclamation that the economy is "the best in thirty years," can cover up the abject failure of the capitalist system to provide a future for workers and their children. Nor can any set of reforms be offered to alter the decay of capitalism.
Only communist revolution will create a society of security for workers and others. Hiding this fact simply deludes workers. It underestimates the workers' capacity to grasp communist ideas and build PLP, the Party that puts these ideas forward.
Two recent articles in U.S. News and World Report (1/22) and Business Week (2/26) document the failures of capitalism and the current plight of workers and others. These two leading capitalist publications print these articles because they fear the working class. The Business Week article concludes with this point: "But if America continues to stratify...some trapped on the bottom may explode with resentment...All Americans will suffer." What this means is that the bosses will suffer if the workers rebel. The prospect of rebelling workers embracing communism terrifies the ruling class. The article in U.S. News makes the following points:
*Over 25% of the workforce's earnings fall below the $15,000-a-year poverty line. And that doesn't count the 5-10% of the population in the urban working class that doesn't work at all.
*Numbers released in mid-February show that in 1994, the workforce as a whole got its lowest raise in 14 years.
*70,000 soup kitchens serve 26 million people a year, or about 10% of the population.
*A new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows that America has the most unequal distribution of income in advanced industrial relations.
*Stephen Roach, Chief Economist for Morgan Stanley, frets that economic disparity will culminate in worker backlash.
The rulers intense fear of enraged workers has forced some of the fascists out of the closet. The Buchanan candidacy for President is an attempt, in part, to pander to the growing masses of displaced workers. His open fascist programs are based on keeping workers--as many as possible--within the rulers' political shell game.
Like Hitler, Buchanan gives a little lip-service about corporate profits. But his main fire is directed against blacks, Jews and immigrants. He also attacks workers in other countries for taking away U.S. workers' jobs. And of course Buchanan plays to the fascist, religious right with his anti-abortion and family value rhetoric.
All the rulers' politicians play the same game. They all cry crocodile tears about the plight of workers. The conditions were created by the bosses and their various front men in political office. But the fact that they are using Buchanan up front is a sign of their growing weakness. The rulers are growing more concerned with a loss of power to the working class and fear of increased competition from other bosses.
However, fascism is doomed to fail. Far from fooling and/or intimidating workers, it can make workers more militant against the capitalist system. Remember in Europe during W.W.II, the Red Army of the Soviet Union smashed the Nazis. A powerful anti-fascist movement, led by communists, flourished in Europe. Workers learned then, and must relearn, that only communism can defeat fascism. But this is not automatic.
Also recall how the German workers, once strongly socialist, were won over by the Hitlerites. Victory over capitalist fascism is not automatic. It must be fought for. "They shall not pass" was one of the rallying slogans of the communist led anti-fascist movement in Europe. We can smash them here. But we must start yesterday. Large May Day demonstrations that lead to seriously building the PLP can make "they shall not pass" a reality. Building the Party is the key to the future. Workers without a communist party can't win. Any other alternative is the work of the bosses.
Box Social unrest to come
"It is extremely likely that in the next decade the United States will experience a period of social unrest unequaled in this century. It will dwarf the protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The recent strikes and other demonstrations in France are a portent of what is to come for America....unless some solution is found to the dilemma facing those losing their jobs --a population segment that now includes the middle class as well as the poor --America will see public expressions of rage and fear that make the recent strikes in France look like a stroll in the park." (LA Times quote from Warren Bennis, professor of business administration at the University of Southern California)
It is obvious that many bosses and their mouthpieces are worried about the growing anger of workers and others because of the increase in attacks by corporations and their politicians. As the class struggle sharpens, open fascist terror will become the only solution bosses have to offer.
This situation offers great opportunities to build our Party and turn it into a revolutionary communist alternative to the hell of capitalism.
Nearly 200 workers and students--black, latin and white--came and most vowed to help build a big May Day march and fight for a communist future. Garment workers, students, nurses, teachers, and others showed that workers and youth from all parts of the world have the same interests in fighting to get rid of every bloodsucking boss and their borders. We can share a common goal: the fight for communist equality.
The U.S. government's tears over the shooting down of the planes are the ultimate sign of hypocrisy. Just two days before the incident, the U.S. government agreed to pay indemnity to the relatives of the passengers who died after a U.S. ship downed an Iranian commercial airplane in 1988 in the Middle East.
In addition, the downed planes were not "civilian." They were run by Brothers to the Rescue, an organization of right-wing Cuban exiles started by Bay of Pigs veterans (CIA and U.S. military personnel). This group, which was supposedly organized to rescue Cuban boat people, has used its planes to fly 1,800 sorties inside Cuban territorial waters now that the flow of boat people has stopped.
Brothers to the Rescue is financed by the fascist Cuban American Foundation, by the millionaire Bacardi family, by American Airlines, etc. They want to provoke a military confrontation between the U.S. and Cuba. These fascists still use the cold-war rhetoric, calling Fidel Castro's capitalist government, communist. Their aim is to sabotage any deals that might be made between Castro and the Clinton administration. The U.S. bosses want a piece of the capitalist action in Cuba (now in the hands of European, Canadian, Japanese and South American investors).
Communist don't believe in selling workers to imperialists, whether from the U.S. or Europe. The only solution for all workers in Cuba is to organize a revolutionary communist party and fight for workers' power to get rid of all the imperialists and their different front men.
What did Yeltsin say? He attacked his own government, blaming the liberal reformers in his government (led by Viktor Chernomyrdin), for the economic problems facing working people in Russia and the rampant corruption in society. He even said that the government (not meaning himself but the liberal reformers) should be replaced.
"For a long time people have been asked to tighten their belts, and they have done it. But, today their patience is gone. We need tactics of reforms accepted by the entire society. We must develop the market reducing the social cost of that process," said Yeltsin.
Now, to understand how much politicians lie to get elected: The day before the speech, Yeltsin personally accepted a loan of over $10 billion from the International Monetary Fund. Yeltsin took the loan "promising a severe plan of economic adjustments, the opposite of his suggestions in his speech about softening the effect of the reforms on the population." (El País, Madrid, 2/24).
This is the same Yeltsin that keeps on promising to bring peace to Chechnya and other regions, while expanding the war to neighboring Ingushetta.
Workers in Russia, like in the rest of the capitalist world, have realized that capitalist democracy means misery, unemployment and war. Voting for any clowns that promise anything if they get elected just gives them more ammunition to continue lying and oppressing us. What we need is to fight for a workers' dictatorship--communism, without Yeltsin, Zyuganov, Zhirinovski or any other politicians and capitalists.
Like millions of other workers across the country, these clerical workers are having their health benefits sharply reduced by the administration. These bosses want the workers to open the door to new plans that will have no limit on the premium the workers will have to pay.
The same day, 75 students came to the picket lines to support the strike. Many of these students knew PLP from the communist role we played at a recent ethnic studies struggle at Columbia.
After picketing for a while, two comrades sold the 18 Challenge they had with them in as many minutes. This is the second time we have sold out of papers recently, letting us know that the goal for us to sell 25% more papers is reachable. In addition to paper sales, the comrades put out a leaflet that was written with the help of a long-time friend of the Party.
The clerical workers say "Health care is a human right." PLP says, "Right, but under capitalism, health care is a business. We need communism--a workers' dictatorship--to make health care a human right." We have also called a PLP rally on Columbia's campus at noon on Thursday, Feb. 29. It will be a chance for members and friends of PLP to come out and help represent, build and defend the Party.
Now the Board of Education plans to take the bungalows away, forcing 25% of the teachers to travel from room to room throughout the day. The teachers are angry because they, like students, will have to carry all their books and supplies with them.
It's not just the bungalows that are upsetting the teachers. They see this as the latest in a series of attacks on their dream of teaching students what they need to "succeed." PLP is actively involved in the struggle for the bungalows. We are also struggling against the teachers' illusions that classroom improvements will lead to students having a decent life under capitalism.
The local union chapter plans to go to the Bd. of Ed. meeting on March 4 with all the books, supplies, overheads, charts, music and other materials they use every day. Teachers use a lot of materials, many of which they have bought themselves. It is impossible to cart all of this stuff from room to room. Teachers are also circulating a petition calling on the district administration to keep the bungalows on campus without increasing enrollment. Nearly every teacher has signed the petitions, as have several parents.
Faced with the teachers' anger, the principal has devised a plan to diffuse the struggle and make only a few teachers travel. He will house some classes in storerooms or other rooms that weren't built as classrooms. And he will cancel inter-session math classes, which hundreds of students need to graduate. This plan just shifts the pain onto the students.
Teachers are angry about the question of traveling because they really believe in education...but capitalist education is mainly capitalist lies. Even PLP teachers who try to use their classrooms to teach communist ideas know that the structure of the school makes that very difficult. The textbooks full of bosses' ideas, grades, deans, security and custodial work after school for those who don't obey the rules--make teaching communist ideas in the classroom a big contradiction.
The place for youth and teachers to learn what they need to know is within the Progressive Labor Party. There young communists learn about the history of the struggles of the working class, and how to win the fight for equality. Students in our Party learn English, Spanish, and whatever other languages they need to communicate with each other and with other workers. Student comrades read and analyze the ruling class press and Challenge, the working class newspaper. They write leaflets, Challenge articles, songs and poetry to bring communist ideas to other workers and students.
The ruling class says that the young people who go to Manual Arts High School are as expendable as the bungalows they study in. Their economy in crisis has no jobs for them--only jails and the military. These young people are the hope of the future. We invite students and teachers to join Progressive Labor Party--and get and give a real education while they help us build for a mass March on May Day and to fight for a communist future.
The strike is "successful" by all the usual measures: roughly 80% of the teachers, and 90% of the students have stayed out so far, making the shutdown of the schools almost total; parents have expressed widespread support for the teachers' demands; and many students are actively supporting the strike.
But something is seriously wrong. The School Board is refusing to negotiate, saying they've "put all the money on the table," and are unable to improve their last offer of a 3.75% salary increase, a 1.27% bonus, and some minor concession on class size.
The teachers union, the Oakland Education Association (OEA), says there are too many overpaid administrators, and that the School Board should "chop from the top" to find the money to decrease class size and give them a raise.
The School Board agrees there should be a "re-allocation of resources," and wants to bring in a consultant who did a study for the Chicago school system. The result there was layoffs for 1,600 non-teaching staff, as their jobs were "privatized" to outside contractors.
The School Board has thus sent a clear message that anything it gives the teachers will be taken away from the other school workers! Then they further play upon this division by bringing out their trump card--racism. Various community leaders, including a preacher, the head of the NAACP, and a leader of a Democratic Party club have publicly attacked the teachers for leading a selfish, racist strike against the best interests of the children and parents in Oakland, most of whom are black.
Even a strike for smaller classes, which would normally be seen as a "progressive" demand in the best interests of teachers, children, and parents, is now portrayed as a selfish, racist strike and is being used to create angry divisions in the community!
PLP members have participated in strike demonstrations and picket lines, and we have raised the idea that the crisis of capitalism drives to turn every reform fight into a fascist development!
The reality is that corporate profits are at an all-time high; yet there is a "budget crisis" across the country slashing every vital service that workers need. PLP asks these workers in their bitter struggle, "What kind of system has a few wealthy bosses accumulate huge profits and tells the rest of us that there's no money for schools, jobs and medical care?" Workers shrug their shoulders and say, "That's capitalism." And PLP answers, "We need a different system--one that is organized for our needs and destroys these blood-sucking bosses!"
It becomes clearer every day that it's impossible to reform capitalism. We will struggle with these strikers, students and parents to come to May Day with us, and begin building a massive PLP that can lead a revolution for communism which will destroy this rotten, racist system once and for all and replace it with workers power!
PLP says, "Get a real education, not the brainwashing we get in capitalist-run schools which only defend the bosses' profit system. March with us on May Day--Read Challenge-Desafio, Study Dialectical Materialism. Join the mass fightback of workers to win our class to revolution!"
Late in the 1980's the Palestinian people raised the flag of rebellion against Israeli occupation in the form of the Intifada.
The Intifada exposed the fascist nature of the so-called "only democratic country in the Middle East." Thousands of Arab workers were slaughtered by the Israeli army. Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers filled the Israeli jails in the west bank and the Gaza strip.
The Intifada went on for years, the "glorious" Israeli army who once defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in seven days (June, 1967), could not put down a mass rebellion of workers and youth who settled for rocks and stones as their major weapons.
Israelis, who took for granted the occupation of the territories and their future annexation to the state of Israel, began to raise doubts and questions. For the first time since the foundation of the state of Israel young people openly refused to enlist in the army and serve in the occupied territories.
At the same time the Palestinian traditional national leadership (the PLO) most of whom lived in exile in Tunis, realized that a new leadership was taking over in the occupied territories and the influence of the Islamic fundamentalist movements (the Chames and Islamic Jihad) was spreading fast.
For the first time since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began, the Israeli ruling class and the Palestinian national bourgeoisie had a common goal: stopping the Intifada before it got out of hand. So, the so-called "peace process" began.
Unfortunately for the workers of the Middle East, the only major opposition to this process came from the extreme right-wing and the reactionary forces on both sides. In Israel, the settlers in the west bank threatened to take up arms against the Israeli army if they were to be evacuated as part of the "peace process." Some of them took matters into their own hands and were involved in racist murders of Palestinians, such as the slaughter of tens of Palestinians in Hebron by Baruch Goldstein.
Zionist racist ideology took it for granted that "a Jew will not take arms or kill another Jew." This racist belief was shattered by Yigal Amir on Nov. 4 at the end of a government-organized "Peace Rally." Yigal Amir would not have been able to get that close to Rabin if it wasn't for that racist myth. Thus Rabin was the victim of the racist ideology which he practiced and helped spread.
The irony of it all is that Rabin who should be on trial for committing crimes against humanity and for the mass murder of Palestinians is now being hailed by the world's ruling class as one of the world's greatest "peace lovers." No wonder he was awarded the Nobel "Peace Prize" together with his twin Palestinian brother, Arafat, and his current successor, Shimon Peres.
Among the Palestinians the opposition to the "peace process" came from the Islamic movements who claim that the whole of Palestine should be Islamic, ironically enough these reactionary forces are supported by so-called progressive movements for liberation of the Palestinian people such as "The popular Front for the liberation of Palestine" headed by Dr. George Habash and the "Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine" headed by Naif Hawatmeh. These two movements which proclaim themselves to be Marxist, say that Palestine should be Arabic.
Salvation for the workers in the Middle East will not come from those who run the "peace process" or from those who oppose it on the basis of religion and nationalism.
Palestine should not be Islamic, any more than it should be Jewish; and should not be Arabic, any more than it should be Israeli. Workers in the Middle East (Arabs and Jews) will have to build their vanguard Party: the Progressive Labor Party.
A Party which will set communism as its final goal. This is the only way to achieve peace in the Middle East, a peace between governments is a peace between ruling classes. Their "Peace Process" is a disaster for workers and means more exploitation, more poverty and a rotten standard of living.
Because we are all anxious about our jobs, never has the opportunity been greater to discuss the need for communist revolution. Worker after worker says that the causes of these cuts "are bigger than Jefferson."
These workers are correct. "It's bigger than Jefferson" because the layoffs are caused by the profit system we live under--capitalism.
Jefferson Hospital is a business. Like every other big business today, it is largely run by the banks. Five directors of the PNC bank (one of the largest in the U.S.) are on the Jefferson's ruling Board of Trustees.
Jefferson is scrambling for patients in the highly competitive Philadelphia-area health care market. Under capitalism, that's what health care is about. The banks demand maximum return on their investments, and layoffs can increase profits.
That's why PLP is calling a demonstration on March 1 against the hospital layoffs at a nearby PNC Bank. The bankers' capitalist system is indeed bigger than Jefferson. But it's not too big for workers to take down.
Many workers are anxious about the layoffs, but very few expect the union to do something. "Layoffs and cuts are happening everywhere," they say, "what can the union do?"
The union (Local 1199C of the Hospital Workers) negotiated a contract that guarantees the bosses' right to cut our jobs. The union's role will be to ensure that the layoffs happen in accordance with seniority and bumping rights. (Bumping rights allow a laid off worker from one department to bump a worker with less seniority from another department.)
At the February 1199C Delegates' Meeting, the union Vice President announced that the union officials anticipated mass layoffs. Therefore, union organizers would spend less time at the unionized hospitals and more time organizing non-union workers into 1199 "to guarantee the stability of the union". In other words, the union admits that they can't and won't do anything to save our jobs. So to make up for the lost dues money of the laid-off members, the union, like a vampire, is searching for new victims to keep the union business rolling.
Unions can't fight for the workers' interests because they accept the limits set by capitalism. The layoff crisis is proving to many workers that we must go beyond these limits. The Jefferson Hospital PLP club is planning for the protest on March 1 and the May Day march to develop workers' revolutionary class consciousness and their understanding of communism.
--Seattle Times, the day after the strike ended.
The profit system has outlived its usefulness. Wage slavery has chained us to a system in global crisis. The capitalist crisis of overproduction means more producers are trying to sell to a stagnant market. Profit margins shrink.
Boeing CEO Schrontz & Co., like all bosses, live and die for profits. This crisis forces the Boeing bosses to squeeze profits out of more intense exploitation of the working class: fewer workers working harder, cheaper and faster. Team concepts and subcontracting, here and abroad, are two sides of the same coin. The IAM and, for that matter, all unions are forced to go along or they are out of business.
IAM International president George Kourpias virtually admitted as much. "We have a closer relationship (with Schrontz & Co.) than before [the strike]," he said. "The union is not out to destroy the company."
George Kourpias waves the flag to provide cover for his partnership-with-the-bosses' plans. Slogans like "export planes, not jobs" line us up behind the bosses.
Union leaders from Kourpias to AFL-CIO president Sweeney warn workers not to vote for Buchanan. What hypocrisy! The union says, "export planes, not jobs"; and Buchanan calls for "economic nationalism" (U.S. jobs for U.S. citizens). Where Kourpias leads, Pat "our-own-little-Hitler" Buchanan follows. It's becoming impossible to tell the difference between the reform leaders and the traditional right-wing fascists. The logic of reform pushes these union leaders to support fascism as this crisis of capitalism deepens.
The bosses have set up borders to protect their profits and divide us from our class brothers and sisters. We have more in common with workers in Mexico and China than with Schrontz or union boss Kourpias.
We workers are all chained to the system of wage slavery that Schrontz and Kourpias support. When we workers view the world, we see only two classes, the workers and the capitalists. The working class knows no borders.
Internationalism requires an international communist party. A party that represents one class with one common interest--to rid ourselves of a system that feeds on our exploitation. Progressive Labor Party is building that kind of Party.
"Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains!" wrote Karl Marx over a hundred years ago in The Communist Manifesto. He was right! So we see the next lesson we learned from this strike is a very old lesson, indeed.
PHILADELPHIA, PA., Feb. 19 -- More than 1,000 workers, students, and members of liberal organizations congregated in front of the Mellon Bank building today. They came to protest a $5,000 per plate Republican Party fund raising dinner with Newt Gingrich as the guest of honor. Two dozen cops stood in front of the Mellon Bank building to protect Gingrich and the bankers from the rage of the working class.
A PLP student, who had come to the rally with other Haverford College students, used a bullhorn to begin chants of "Fight Back!" Then the union hacks did their part to protect Newt and his pals. One yelled "Workers will never follow you doing that!" But most of the demonstrators joined in the chant.
Many workers are already fed up with the hacks' line that "we know Clinton is bad but vote for him and the Democrats anyway to stop Gingrich-Buchanan, etc." And many are open to communism. We sold 25 copies of Challenge at the demonstration.
After a little quick math, a steward pointed out that this wage still leaves a family of three below the official poverty line. He challenged the lobbyist saying, "Why doesn't the labor movement put forward a $10 per hour minimum wage to keep a family's head above water?"
The lobbyist rejected the steward's suggestion, saying that in his "professional experience, state government and corporations would never allow $10 per hour to be placed on the ballot."
A Red shop steward pointed out that the lobbyist was actually saying that voting was useless for workers because the bosses will never allow anything that really benefits workers on the ballot. He also said and that instead of building a campaign for poverty wages we should organize a revolutionary movement.
A couple of weeks later at a retirement party, the steward was asked to present a union windbreaker and certificate to the retiree. With 35 workers attending, the steward explained how this was one of the last retirees to leave with a decent pension and that everyone else in the room would have to work 5-10 years longer and receive less when they retired.
He said, "We are all on a down escalator and the union and company only talk about the width of the steps. We're steadily going down and it's getting harder to breathe. We're all going to have to fight this system or go down with it." We must have a plan and know what we want instead.
We're not able to stop the effects of capitalism at MTA, but after each attack workers here are more receptive to the idea that capitalism is in crisis and it will ruin us if we don't replace it with a new world of workers' power--communism.
One woman said that her co-workers were going to write a letter to PLP saying, "Amen!" Another woman, a regular Challenge reader, was reluctant to distribute the PLP leaflet. She was always saying, "We can't win," and that the workers aren't interested.
The day after giving out the leaflet, she said she had never seen the workers respond like that to anything. She said their eyes lit up, and one worker said, "Finally! Someone on our side!"
The workers debated communism, and communist leadership. Workers kept coming back for more leaflets until she ran out. Then they made more copies. Their response made a big impression on the reluctant organizer.
At least 11 workers distributed the Party flyer, with many more making copies and faxing it from one area to another. For three days, the workers expressed their voice through their Party. They talked about coming to May Day, fighting their supervisors, and overcoming their co-workers' anti-communist fears.
Young workers took the lead in spreading the Party's ideas. One said, "I get it. We're going to take what's ours!" Another, who distributed the flyer in his work area, said the place erupted. All the workers were buzzing about the call for communist revolution. Some thought it was great until "the communist part." Others took it as a death threat against the boss and called PLP to say, "Let us know before you do anything, so we can stay home that day."
Two workers with similar reactions, said the bosses would never let workers take power, and how they ruthlessly murdered Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. They talked of their previous involvement in the Black Panther Party and the civil rights movement, and how the lesson they learned was, you can't win. They were especially passionate in their cynicism, not grasping that these movements failed because they tried to reform the capitalist system and didn't see the working class as the key force for change. But days later, they were back asking about PLP, to discuss their disagreements in a more serious way. They want the Party to defeat their cynicism.
The bosses issued another flyer, "explaining" why they will continue to throw money at doctors and executives "to attract the best," while destroying jobs. They boasted of being one of the 10 richest hospitals in the U.S., and like AT&T, IBM, and GM, have to lay off to stay on top. Finally, they said the economy is doing so good, we're sure to find other jobs.
Teamsters Local 743 is frozen in its tracks, unable to challenge the bosses or defend the workers. For one thing, they are paralyzed by internal squabbling, reflected in the up-coming local and delegate elections. The pro-Carey and pro-Hoffa forces haven't offered a word of fightback against the job cuts. They are too focused on getting themselves elected, and controlling the local treasury.
But even at their best, because their outlook is limited by the laws of trade unionism, they hit a brick wall as soon as they think of responding to the bosses attacks. One local official said, "We should meet with management to make sure our rights are protected." Not our jobs, but our "rights" to get laid off in the proper order or do the work of two and three people.
While organizing for our May Day march and to increase the readership of Challenge, we are also bringing a group of workers to the next union meeting to demand strike action against the layoffs. We are also going to launch smaller fights against the little Hitlers running various departments at UCH. There is much to do, and the bosses are giving us plenty of ammunition. They use greed and obscene wealth to attract their best. We advance the vision of a communist future, based on equality and meeting the needs of the workers, to attract our best. The layoffs are scheduled for May. So is May Day.
In the 1960's UC worked in cahoots with the Blackstone Rangers, a South Side street gang, to burn buildings bordered by 60 and 63rd streets, Cottage Grove and Stoney Island Avenues. Thousands of black workers lived in these buildings.
The university expanded into part of the burned out area. The rest was given to The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), a black economic development group with close ties to the city. TWO built middle-class housing in the area to keep black workers away from the university.
In 1930, the Dean of the School of Social Service advised setting up separate mental health clinics for black and white children. When the University Hospital Clinics opened, officers said they wanted to keep black patients out. The University of Chicago affiliated with historically black Provident Hospital so it could send black patients there instead.
University of Chicago has become one of the wealthiest universities in the country and its hospital is making millions of dollars. Wealthy families from around the country send their children to UC assured that the university will keep the Hyde Park neighborhood surrounding the school a middle-class island on Chicago's poor South Side. To this day incoming UC students are given a lecture about the dangers of going into the black areas that surround the campus.
I work at the University of Chicago (UofC). You'd be surprised at the reaction that we received from the Challenge letter that was written in response to our vice-president Lipstein about layoffs..
We got all kinds of responses from different employees of the U of C., even non-union workers such as doctors and managers. For instance there were some doctors who said, "It's about time that someone made a move such as this."
Some co-workers responded by saying, "maybe another organization can better organize us as a group than the one that we have such as our local union." Our union representatives such as Philip John have not responded to any memos that were issued by the U of C. in reference to layoffs. He has not made any personal contact with any of his stewards nor has he made any public notice of what's happening.
Maybe we should reconsider another alternate such as PLP instead of Local 743.
A U of C reader
Friends often advise us to drop the word communist. "It turns people off," they say. Last Saturday, 5 PL'ers sold 200 copies of Challenge-Desafío in a few hours.
Those 200 people were "turned on" by the idea of making a communist revolution, of overthrowing the racist, war-mongering capitalists once and for all. They weren't put off by the idea of communism, they welcomed it.
One man rolled down his car window to buy Challenge and said "Met a lot of communists out here today? Well you just met one more." He took several copies of "Road to Revolution IV" to give to friends. Others gave their names because they wanted to hear more about communism.
At a labor rally, we sold 90 Challenge-Desafíos with the headline, "Tired of War and Racism? March for Communism". At the same rally, the so-called communist party (CP) gave away their paper headlined: "America needs a raise." The world's workers, not just "America," need a hell of a lot more than a raise. This is what Challenge offers: a society without wages, without rich and poor, without racism, without imperialist wars.
We're proud of being communists. Of course the capitalists and their friends try to give us a bad name. Communism is the last thing in the world they want. But the working class? Every time we sell Challenge on the street we see more evidence that communism has mass appeal. The capitalists are the ones who need to hide what they are and call themselves something else.
Will it take more than just selling Challenge to make a communist revolution? Absolutely. Will people who are bombarded daily with anti-communism join PLP after reading one issue of Challenge? Probably not. But every day it becomes harder and harder for the working class to live in the old way and for the rulers to rule in the old way.
As the PLP grows through many years of struggling and fighting, communist revolution will become a reality.
Challenge-Desafío organizer
I recently moved from the supposedly "mean" streets of New York to the supposedly "happy" streets of Virginia, and believe me happiness is the last thing that is happening here. I have had the opportunity to talk to a lot of workers from nearby factories (Cannon Copier, Pepsi-Cola, Revco, etc.).
It was pretty much unanimous that the workers here are angry at their living conditions. First of all, their wages are slightly above the minimum. They all have major bills that these jobs don't help them pay. Working conditions are miserable, requiring workers to be on their feet eight out of the nine hours they work. Their every move is monitored by electronic devices and if they miss any days or hours of work due to bad weather conditions, health, or family emergencies they do not get paid.
Add racism, sexism, unemployment to these workers problems, and you'll see that capitalism cannot hide its evil face in any part of this country or the world. Having a sister that works at Cannon Copiers has given me a chance to have a more in-depth discussion with these workers. They're all angry, desperate and want better lives for themselves and their families, but unfortunately they have fallen for the lie that there is nothing that they can do. This is where I come in with the only better alternative to capitalism: communism.
The workers are surprised and ask if Adolph Hitler founded communism. With slight anger in my voice, I explained to them that the bosses under capitalism (which they didn`t know the meaning of) want them to think of communism as some sort of evil word because they're afraid of the workers realizing that it is capitalism, not communism, that is screwing the workers all over the world.
Of course, workers agreed with this particular discussion, but there's a lot to be done. I'm trying to find meeting grounds to have more discussions with these workers and to introduce them to Challenge-Desafío.
The workers in Virginia as everywhere else in the world need communist education, and we in PL should supply it. Long Live Communism. If there are any comrades in the vicinity of Newport News, Virginia or Hampton, etc. please contact PL New York for participation in our future discussions or for my address.
Virginia comrade
The article in the 2/28 Challenge-Desafío on the murder of Marcus Jones, a victim of a violent crime in a train station near Cook County Hospital (CCH), exposed clearly how the racist policies of institutions like CCH are deadly for patients and hospital workers. The policies of CCH did not allow for Mr. Jones to get help from the hospital, a block away, and made him wait for the 911 response.
I think the reaction of the comrades at CCH could have been more than telling workers to march on May Day (at least as the article said). PLP has been active at CCH for many years. We are involved in the struggle to fight the firing of two pediatrics doctors. We should react to murders like those of Jones, and more when workers ask us to do it.
The best way to win workers to our communist May Day is to show them in practice what communists do to fight the murderous bosses. We should have organized a protest, a rally and other actions to blame the CCH bosses and capitalism for the lack of regards of the life of a black worker.
C-D Reader
The Chicago letter in the 2/28 Challenge-Desafío criticizing the teacher in Flatbush, NY raises some interesting points. The Chicago teacher criticizes the NY teacher for trying to turn her classroom into a PLP club meeting, while still using the same textbooks and teaching materials with her students. In essence the criticism made by the Chicago letter is that one cannot have democratic-centralist form (the way the PLP operates) with capitalist content.
Well, yes and no. After all, we are trying to build a communist movement right now in the middle of full-blown capitalism. I read the NY letter a little differently. The comrade is trying to use the classroom to try to win students to the Party, and this takes many forms.
There is a contradiction in everything we do as wage slaves. The NY comrade is a teacher, and therefore has to do her job, preparing the students for the Regents. Just as a worker in a garment shop, or a steel plant has to produce for the boss to keep his/her job. The point is that she is trying to do her best to bring PLP politics to her students.
This takes many forms, including trying to instill the students with the idea of how our Party operates. This teacher sells 150-200 Challenges a week in her school, discusses articles from the paper both in her classes and with her co-workers. She brings students to Party activities and has recruited some of them to the Party.
Finally, the Chicago letter missed the most important point of the NY letter: the fact that comrades in Flatbush are trying to bring 1,000 youth and workers to the May Day march in Washington. I think that is something all PLP teachers should aim for with their students.
Former teacher
The letter from a New York teacher, made me conclude that content is primary over form. What you say and fight for is primary over how you organize the discussion.
The form is important, of course, but it's secondary. The majority can agree on the wrong position. That's why we need to develop lots of communist leaders to fight for communist ideas and actions.
We should try to organize exciting, and probably controversial, discussions in and out of class about affirmative action and how it is not and never has been the solution to massive racist inequality. If reading the editorial fell flat, another form of discussion would be helpful.
A teacher friend of mine had a very lively struggle with his students over whether or not affirmative action was a way to fight racism. At the end not everyone agreed, but their beliefs were challenged about how people get ahead. They found out more about communism.
A comrade who grew up in the Soviet Union in the 1930's told me that life there was wonderful and collective. On the other hand, she said the students were not encouraged to learn and fight for communist ideas and practice.
In the end, this proved key. Society was organized to a great extent so that the youth would be treated well. They went to youth clubs, had a healthy social life, and worked hard. But the concepts of dialectical materialism, and the other concepts of communist equality were not made the fighting principles of the youth.
Collectivity can be used for anything. We should learn from this error. The main thing we need now and after we make a revolution is not reforms, however collective, but developing millions of communist leaders.
LA comrade
The conditions for workers here in Colombia is dire, as it is in the rest of the world. On top of anti-worker laws imposed by the drug-dealing government, there have been mass firings in Avianca airlines, Telecom, Croydon, Coltabaco and many other companies.
The bosses break every union contract signed. Meanwhile militant workers are either arrested or murdered by death squads, like the banana workers of the Uraba region.
The leaders of the several trade union federations are also part of the problem. Their role is to keep workers politically ignorant and tied to capitalism. The constant sellout contracts by these union leaders have made many workers skeptical about the need to organize and fight our class enemies.
Union hacks like Obregom are the most faithful defenders of the capitalist exploitation system. They signed a second social pact with President ("I love the cartel bosses") Samper, forcing workers to accept cutbacks and to be passive while the attacks by bosses grow.
Now, more than ever, the revolutionary communist politics of PLP are needed. We must win many workers to our Party here in Colombia. We must not only fight the bosses' attacks with strikes, protests and other actions, we must follow a revolutionary road to destroy the system that has brought all this misery, unemployment and repression to us. This road is not followed by fake leftists of any kind here, it is only followed by PLP. Join us!
Brewery workers, Colombia