Editorial
Over the last century millions of young workers have been killed in this ongoing war. This can end. The rulers put guns in the hands of young working class young people who have no interest in murdering for oil profits. Those guns can be turned on the exploiters.
Soldiers fighting for communism will be a decisive force for revolution. Without the military to protect them, the U.S. US bosses will be defeated by the working class. With the soldiers on our side communism will win.
The Air Force compound was bombed by terrorist forces in Saudi Arabia who want to get rid of the current government and replace it with one more independent of the U.S. The economy in Saudi Arabia has taken a turn for the worse over the last 10 years because the price of oil has dropped. Also, the 1991 Gulf War cost the Saudis $60 billion.
This has created mass poverty in Saudi Arabia. the country. As conditions have gotten worse there is growing anger against the ultra-wealthy ruling family and their U.S. US partners in crime, who rob the people of the wealth they produce for the oil industry.
Mid-East east oil is so vital to the U.S. US capitalists that they killed a half a million Iraqis in 1991 to protect their wells in Kuwait. Saudi Arabia produces even more oil than Kuwait, and the U.S. US will not hesitate to kill millions more to hold onto that oil.
Not just the U.S., US, but capitalists worldwide are dependent on oil. Oil fuels industry, armies, and transportation systems of every country in the world. The advantage to whoever controls the oil is huge. The super- profits made from the oil industry have allowed the U.S. US to build up the biggest military in the world. That is why the capitalists will fight so hard to control it.
The oil in the Middle East is the cheapest and easiest to get out of the ground. Since the discovery, in 1904, of oil in that part of the world in 1904 the capitalists have been fighting for control of the region.
The British army first secured the oil in the Mid East east shortly after it was discovered. Since then, there have been 16 sixteen major wars fought in the region. That is a large scale war every five or six years. The U.S. US gained control of the oil 50 fifty years ago as a result of World War II. Since then, they have built Israel, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia into major local military powers. in the region. All of these countries have been at war several times. In between these wars the fighting has constantly continued constantly with bombings, air raids and retaliations from all sides. This continual slaughter will go on for as long as capitalism exists.
The victims of this slaughter will be those who benefit least from the oil: the youth of the U.S. US and Middle East. While the oil barons make billions of dollars young people are scratching to make pennies. Per, capita income in Saudi Arabia has dropped from $14,000 to $4,000 a year since 1982 and unemployment among Saudi youth is over 25%. young people are scratching to make pennies.
While the U.S. US and Saudi bosses live in mansions and palaces, street corners and jails are the home for many youth.
Soldiers and young people can change the cycle of oil wars into with revolution. The 19 U.S. nineteen US soldiers dead are the latest addition to the pile of victims in the Middle East. They were killed defending oil that only benefits the wealthy. The day after the bombing three Israeli soldiers were killed, and no doubt many, many more Arabs will be killed in retaliation.
The 5,000 U.S. 5000 US soldiers in Saudi Arabia along with the two 2 million other U.S. US soldiers around the world can be a force to change history by turning their guns against the capitalists. They are armed to protect the profits of the rich, but soldiers organized into PLP can help overthrow the bosses. Ask yourself, what did those 19 nineteen airmen and women die for? Are you ready to be next, or is time to rebel? [Do we want to use the word rebel or would it be better to say, time to organize for revolution?]
America sure doesn't take care of its homeless people, its children, its elderly, its uninsured sick people, its unemployed. To be more accurate: American capitalism doesn't take care of the working class.
Clinton makes America sound like one neat package, tied up in a red-white-and-blue flag. He wants us to think that way to prepare us for war. He want to motivate young workers to fight, but it's not the workers who need all that oil. So Clinton brings out the snake-oil of American patriotism.
But America is a contradiction: a unity of opposites locked in struggle.
Workers and bosses are tied together, all right. Bosses need workers to exploit. Under capitalism -- but only under capitalism -- workers need bosses because in this system of private property, the bosses own the factories, mines, and everything else required for production.
The American bosses -- and all other bosses -- take care of profits, andosses' ideological jail and build PLP in practice;
* Communist Centralism as the Party's method of organization.
After the discussion, we agreed to:
* Continue and strengthen our main concentration among garment-textile workers;
* Build the Party using Challenge-Desafío. We agreed to immediately increase our weekly sale by 55 more papers, and to follow up new readers.
* Create a Party section with 12 textile-garment workers, to increase the sale of Challenge-Desafío in that area and organize Readers' Groups to build the Party;
* A plan to distribute leaflets, put up stickers and write for Challenge-Desafío about the exploitation in the textile industry and call on workers to organize themselves with PLP.
All the participants in the school agreed that this school was the best one yet held by PLP here, particularly because of the political quality of the workers who took part and the increased participation of women workers.
I want to share with others a recent experience I had in the M&M garment factory in the Dominican Republic. The bosses recently set up a different "mode" of production, dividing the 3,000 workers into different groups. They pit workers against each other to make us work harder and produce more profits for the company.
They make us start working at 6 a.m., instead of the usual 8 a.m. The workers who produced more were to be "rewarded." Many workers who believed this scheme came to work as early as 4 a.m. That day the production record was broken since each one worked three extra hours without extra pay--all profits for the bosses.
What was the reward? Each worker got 100 pesos (about $7) for the "successful" day. But the next day, because the workers were so tired from this "Perfect Day," production fell and the bosses fined workers 200 pesos each.
On the fourth day, the new mode of production ended since we had already produced the equivalent of the six days work (the length of the work-week here). We ended up not getting paid for two days. So the bosses not only made three extra hours, but three extra days in profits.
For me the bosses' "Perfect Day" became a communist day. Why? 1) I learned quickly that the strategy of the company: was to get more surplus value out of our labor; 2) When the scheme began I explained the bosses' plan to several workers. Later, when they came to me saying I was right I gave them Challenge-Desafío and told them I learned all that through reading the paper and from the PLP.
Workers must turn around all these bosses' attacks by using them to bring Challenge-Desafío and the Party's ideas to masses of workers. I won two workers to the Party. Indeed it was a perfect communist day for us.
PLP textile worker, Dominican Republic
Dear Challenge
June 26, 1996, was a learning experience for me. As a leader of the Haitian Club, I really saw how powerful the students can be. But Mr. Cioffi, (the Prospect Heights High School principal) did not know that we were brave like that. He thought we were just like a club, not that we were leaders.
Over the years, we have met with Mr. Cioffi for every event that we wanted to organize, but he still doesn't remember my name. That shows how racist he is.
I entered Mr. Cioffi's office with the members of the Haitian Club. While I was in there, we asked him a lot of questions about Ms. Lonergan, who he fired.
One of the questions that shocked him was when we demanded to know, "What is the purpose of firing Ms. Lonergan?"
He said to me, "Because she had been collecting money from the students for the trip on May 4 (May Day)."
I replied, "First of all, this trip was not a school trip."
He said, "I am the principal of the school, I should have known about it."
"But it was not a school trip, Mr. Cioffi," I said.
He said, "That is absurd."
I replied, "That is not absurd, because this trip was not a school trip."
Then he showed me one part of a leaflet which said Mr. Cioffi and the Superintendent of Schools, Mrs. Coppin, were fascists. He did not know that I and other members of the club helped to give out hundreds of these leaflets at the graduation last night!.
He asked me if I think is he a fascist? And I said, "Well, I have no idea, Mr. Cioffi, because I don't know you. You have to decide for yourself if you are a fascist or not."
Then I told him that I went on the May Day March. He was shocked again.
I said back to him, "Well, why not? The trip was about unity among students and workers."
He said, "I should have received the names of the students who were going on the trip."
The vice-president of the Haitian Club said to him, "Like Mikel told you, this was not a school trip."
To show us how upset he was for being called a fascist, he cried, "That's ridiculous."
While he was crying, we laughed. He said, "That's not funny. Are you laughing at me?"
To avoid us, he told us that he had a meeting. He said to us that if we need more details about firing Ms. Lonergan, we have to come back and meet with him, and he hurried out of the office.
Mr. Cioffi said he would bring "his" students to the trial for Ms. Lonergan's job who will testify about her selling tickets for May Day in the classroom. We told him that the members of the Haitian Club are planning to testify about all the good things about Ms. Lonergan, and why we went on May Day. I am very excited to have this trial come.
MF, Pres., Haitian Club, Prospect Heights H.S.
Commonwealth Gas is a monopoly, and a state regulatory agency guarantees its profits. So they can't even use the excuse of needing to downsize to stay competitive. Comm Gas made $53 million in profits this year and the company president gave himself an 8% bonus.
Comm Gas workers are following their union's defensive strategy and grasping at straws. They are collecting unemployment benefits, hoping the company will settle when winter is near and the company requires a full work force. They hoped Governor Weld would help them until they found out that the company president was on his fundraising committee. Now they're looking to Senator Kerry and hoping that some new pro-labor national politician will appear. Who? While the workers rely on false hopes, the company relies on foremen and private contractors to keep the profits rolling in.
In Worcester and Cambridge, Mass., PLP comrades have brought Challenge to the picket lines. We are challenging the workers' hopes with hard reality.
The whole political system is guaranteed to keep the bosses in control. Politicians who talk pro-labor are useful to the bosses because they keep workers hooked into the electoral system, trying to reform capitalism to meet their needs.
Commonwealth Gas executives, like bosses everywhere, bank on the weakness of the labor movement. They ask themselves, "Why should we continue paying decent wages, when we can get workers for less?" The question for the working class must become, "Why should we continue to be wage slaves, when we can lock out the bosses permanently?"
A strike, the most militant tactic unions offer, can't do this. Only a workers' revolution can. As difficult and far away as it may seem to walk the road of communist revolution, it is the only real solution to the disasters workers face today.
Some Commonwealth Gas workers are listening to this message.
Thousands of teachers, school workers, students, and parents participated at the Newark Teachers' Union (NTU) rally at the office of the state-appointed school superintendent, Beverly Hall. Last summer the State of New Jersey took over the Newark public schools, with the support of the NTU, and created the illusion that things would be better without the old corrupt Board of Ed.
To win support for the takeover, Hall & Co. made some repairs to the dilapidated schools, and planted pots of marigolds near the school doors. Many parents were fooled into thinking that conditions would improve.
The NTU drove a hearse through Newark's crowded downtown as protesters followed dressed in black, to signify that cutbacks of teachers, libraries, and arts signified the death of public education. Their main demand was to get rid of Hall and Republican governor Whitman.
PL members directed the protesters' anger to the greatest enemy of all workers and students--capitalism. We said that replacing Hall and Whitman wouldn't change anything. We distributed 120 copies of Challenge-Desafío, and 1,000 leaflets that showed how the educational system is designed to serve the needs of the bosses. We said that a system that can't provide a future for our youth should be destroyed and that only under communism would education benefit the working class.
The severity of the cutbacks in Newark since the state's takeover has shocked many teachers into action. Even though one parent speaker at the rally made the point that the "ruling class is the enemy," most participants do not yet see these cutbacks as the necessary result of capitalism.
Our answer must be to build the PLP. We want a communist system of education. Under communist education, individualism and memorization of ludicrous historical facts will not be taught. Instead, children will be taught scientifically how to build and organize labor collectively. In the midst of our present communist struggle, students and workers are being taught how to nail shut the coffins of the profit-hungry capitalist bosses.
"We starting meeting just before May Day. I took a summer job as a UIC maintenance worker to continue our study group and carry out our line of recruiting black workers to the Party during our summer project."
A CHALLENGE readers' group has been established among these workers. This student and another comrade, who is a clerical worker at UIC, are meeting with them. The biggest obstacle that stands between the workers and the Party is that the workers cannot see the importance of organizing for communist revolution now. We have not yet been able to get them to see that communism is not something in the distant future, but rather something that exists now and within the Party.
Our study group tries to relate communist ideas to the workers' own experiences. The university has continually tried to undermine the full time workers by hiring temporary and part-time workers. Some part-timers are called "900 hour workers". Workers are contracted for 900 hours of work. At the end of this term they get laid off. If they're "lucky" they're considered for full-time employment.
We discussed how this tactic is used to weaken workers by dividing them into tiers. The full-time workers are on pins and needles about whether or not their jobs will be reduced to part time. This terror is used against part-time workers (especially black women who are the majority of the large clerical staff at UIC) forcing them into accepting these work conditions because they can't find anything better.
We explained why only communism could end this racist exploitation. The workers suggested that the union would fight for them "if their rights were violated." We argued that the union keeps workers chained to wage slavery. And that under capitalism, UIC has the "right" to hire as many part-time workers as they need to save the bosses' money. The union only negotiates the terms of workers' wage enslavement.
Two of the three workers in the CHALLENGE readers' group defended the Party against a nationalist attack during our meeting.
One worker said that "Black people need to have their own nation. Then we would not have all of the problems that come from having to deal with racist whites."
A second worker responded, "I refuse to believe that there is no solution to the problem of racism."
The third worker agreed. "Children aren't born racist. The idea must come from somewhere. Listen to what these people are saying ; it sounds like it could be true."
In our next meeting we will show the "Road to Revolution" video. The student/worker alliance is growing at UIC.
Pouf! Money makes money.
Pouf! Our friend, who once organized against the capitalists, is now imitating them.
Some magic.
But science has always defeated magic. The communist science of political economy can easily expose the pyramid scam.
When you join a pyramid, you invest some money (in this story, $2000) and then recruit others who recruit others and so on. Each recruit moves you along until you reach the top of the pyramid and cash out.
"I've put $14,000 aside," our friend told us, "and re-invested $2000." Money, it appears, has made money. We're all familiar with that. If you have a savings account, you get interest. Every day the news reports the ups and downs of the stock market. Every week a new Lotto millionaire is made.
But what appears to be so isn't necessarily so. The Sun appears to go around the Earth, but science shows that it's the Earth that goes around the Sun. Science gets beneath the appearance of things and reveals their essence.
But political economy shows that it's work -- human labor -- that produces all value and money. Our friend didn't really "make" money. He just re-distributed money that had already been made.
And that's why the pyramid will inevitably collapse. By the end of the scam there will be the same amount of money in the community, but a few households will be richer while the majority will be poorer. For our friend to get his $14000, seven families must have lost $2000 each.
The pyramid organizer is just a copy-cat capitalist. Yet in his hurry he's overlooked a number of important realities.
First, the big capitalists don't tolerate copycats or rivals. The lottery and stock market are legal; pyramids are not. Our friend's very attempt to avoid the realities of declining capitalism may bring the capitalist state down on his head harder than ever.
Second, $14,000 in the bank won't buy him or his family out of the consequences of living in a racist society on the brink of war. The cop won't check your bank statement before he shoots your kid. The bomb won't check it before falling on your home. How long, even, would $14,000 last if you lose your job?
Third, who are these seven families whose loss was his gain? By the very nature of the pyramid, they are friends of friends. Pyramid schemes build distrust among those who most need solidarity: working class families confronting the effects of the capitalist crisis.
As much as we might look for ways out, there is in reality only one solution. It is social, not individual. The working class has to build a revolution to replace capitalism with workers' power -- communism.
Don't contribute to the pyramid and build illusions. Contribute to the PLP and build a future where the value we create will be for the needs of the working class, and the working class alone.
Red `n Ed
Ed: Heck, no. She's out looking every day, too. I'm trying to get her to sign up for one of those job programs, whatchacallit, workfare or something.
Red: Bet she's not too thrilled with that idea.
Ed: How did you know? Practically hung up on me when I suggested it. I don't know what's wrong with her. Isn't work better than a handout?
Red: Politicians don't seem to have any problem with handouts--so long as they go to the rich. Things like tax breaks to big businesses. Or bailouts to banks. Not to speak of mortgage deductions on second homes.
Ed: Still, what's wrong with making them work for their benefits?
Red: Nothing--if you like slavery.
Ed: C'mon.
Red: No, really. These workfare jobs, you get maybe a few bucks an hour. Can't even pay for day care, bus fare and all that.
Ed: Yeah, that's what my sister told me. And you know what else, one of her friends got sent on a job where they had just laid a bunch of people off. People who used to make good money.
Red: A lot better than what the workfare people get.
Ed: I guess that workfare business really is like slave labor. And it ends up lowering wages for all of us.
Red: Yup. The bosses gotta have some unemployment. Always have. Always will. They need it to keep our wages down. And have workers available whenever they need `em. It's built into the system.
Ed: So you're saying that the whole welfare thing is built-in, too?
Red: Yup. The bosses need some kind of welfare system, unemployment insurance, charity, that sort of thing. Just to keep their pool of unemployed workers alive, raise their kids to replenish the pool.
Ed: Like trout, huh?
Red: Very funny. But I think you're onto something, work being a good thing.
Ed: What? Didn't we just agree that those "put-em-to-work" welfare programs are for the birds? And it's not like you and I are in love with this job. So where's the good in work?
Red: You spend a lot of time in your garden, right. And another couple hours a week coaching your daughter's softball team. Why do you do these things?
Ed: I don't know. I enjoy them. And I guess...well, I guess they make me feel useful.
Red: How about this job. You enjoy it? Make you feel useful?
Ed: No...not really. On both counts.
Red: See something screwy here?
Ed: Hmm. What makes us feel decent we don't get paid for. And what we get paid for makes us feel crummy. Great system.
Red: That's capitalism. The bosses don't let us work for the common good. They own the world. Everything we make goes for their profits. We just get our dinky wages. Scraps.
Ed: Unless you don't have a job. And, like you say, bosses gotta have some unemployment. To keep our wages down. And have workers available whenever they need `em.
Red: And that's where welfare comes in. Crumbs for the unemployed. A while back workers fought for those crumbs. Now bosses gotta have every crumb for themselves. So they cut the welfare rolls and let workers starve. Call it welfare reform, but a better name for it is developing fascism.
Ed: So it's not that welfare destroys the desire to work. It's capitalism that makes work a drag--whether or not you have a job.
Red: Yup. Under communism, you, me, your sister, and workers everywhere will be happy to work our tails off to make this a world worth living in.
Ed: No more welfare, huh? And no more wages either?
My nephew called to tell me about his first day at camp. The kids brought in box turtles for a race. The counselors drew a big circle on the ground and put all the turtles in the middle and covered them with a box. Then they removed the box and everyone settled back (for a long time) to watch. "My turtle Jerry didn't win," my nephew said. "When the first turtle got out of the circle Jerry was still in the middle, on top of another turtle."
Consolidating new members and recruiting others into the Progressive Labor Party seems a little like the turtle race. The process is slow. The development is uneven. Sometimes it seems like there's no motion at all. So we can get "give-up-itis."
In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, we have 96 members and friends in our club/study groups, 75 of whom signed up this past May Day. We tried to set up five clubs, but since then we've consolidated them into three. Twenty of the 96 have participated in recent Party activities, including 15 who attended the recent school on dialectical materialism. The others are still in the middle of the circle.
Then there are times, like a recent club meeting, when we can see the movement. A new member, an unemployed home attendant, talked about the dialectics school: "It was a great experience. It felt like my family. And I learned a lot." I passed the school outline to a new member who sells equipment for AT&T. He began to read it.
"Wow, this is deep. Listen to this. It says, `Do you think the bosses are more intelligent than the workers?' Well, maybe they are since they have all the power and money."
"But I know some bosses who are idiots. And lots of them are born with money in their families," said another worker. Still another said, "When we're born we all have bodies and brains to develop."
A new member, a factory machine operator, stood up. "I haven't been to school," he said, "but I can tell you what I've observed since I came to the U.S. The bosses organize work so that workers are constantly working faster, producing more, all for the bosses. All we can do is go to work and eat and sleep. We're too tired even to relax. And that's the way the system works." I said, "Now there's an example of the intelligence of the working class."
We then discussed the Party's response to the mass firings at the Alexander Doll factory. The day after the Party had given out a communist leaflet calling for a sit-down strike, the union, the bosses, Councilman Linares and a priest staged meetings in the factory to pacify the workers. "What is needed in the factory," a comrade reported, "is decisive leadership by the workers. The most important thing in forming this leadership is building communist consciousness."
We planned to do another leaflet with some factory workers, to leaflet in the community about the layoffs and to organize a meeting of the workers. Our main goal, in the words of a new comrade, is "to involve the workers in the Party."
We all took bundles of Challenge-Desafíos to distribute hand-to-hand, our clubs' bottom line activity. Everyone took tickets for the Bear Mountain trip on July 28 and pledged to invite friends to an upcoming Party forum on July 13.
It is not easy to get participation in club meetings and political education. Living under declining capitalism, Party members--like all workers--face many real problems. Some are unemployed, while others are being killed by speed-up, working 12- or 15-hour days, and then going home to cook; the mad rush for summer child care when programs have been gutted; and the pain of watching loved ones unable to get medical care or being hooked on alcohol or drugs.
We recognize the limits capitalism places on workers' activity with the Party. At the same time we struggle to overcome all obstacles. That means spending more time in each others' homes and figuring out together how to do more for the Party day-by-day, and how to make the Party more central to all aspects of our lives.
We've had discussions with several workers about how we can organize a committee of PLP and answer these attacks fighting not only to change the situation but fighting to destroy wage slavery and exploitation with communism. Some of them have been reading Challenge for a long time and, little by little, they are raising questions about communism.
Last week we discussed with some workers how the foremen are like the racists in the KKK and "Voice of Citizens Together", since both the racist groups and the foremen do the work of the bosses, terrorizing the workers, and dividing us, to try to make us passive so the bosses can exploit us more.
When we invited these workers to participate with us on July 4th against the racists' rally, one of them said, "These groups are very bad, they shouldn't exist." Another said, "I'm going--and if its possible, we'll give these scum some of what they deserve." Even though other workers said they were afraid and that they'd have to think about it, they took our position of fighting the racists seriously. We pointed out that racist terror is a cornerstone of capitalism, and that's why we build PLP to fight for communism.
These discussions have helped us to develop an ideological struggle with these fellow workers. We've tried to show that the bosses use these racist groups, from the burners of black churches in the South to the racist attacks on immigrants, to increase the direct exploitation of workers in the factories. The way to smash these racists and to end the exploitation they impose in the factories is to destroy capitalism once and for all.
University of Chicago Hospitals-6/28: Negotiations for a new contract have begun, and workers' anger is beginning to boil. We have sat through two union elections, which have done nothing to stop the ongoing layoffs and cutbacks. More than 100 jobs will be eliminated this week, including 17 food service jobs.
But this week 75 workers attended a union meeting, more than ever attend the boring and useless monthly meetings, to hear what our Business Agent (BA), had to say about the layoffs and contract, and to let him get an earful. The meeting came about when the BA said he would organize a meeting, and did nothing about it. Then a group of women workers from Finance secured a room on the U of C campus, and sent a letter to the BA and the new local president, saying, "The meeting is on...be there!"
At that point, BA Philip John sent the women an "official notice" of the meeting, but didn't notify anyone else. In fact, he told the stewards and the bargaining team not to attend, "blaming" the meeting on PLP! Hundreds of copies of the "official notice" were distributed all around the hospital. When it became clear he couldn't sabotage the meeting, Philip decided to attend, bringing stewards and the local president with him, for back up.
Philip John opened the meeting with an amazing display of double talk. First he called our current contract, a "model," sought after by workers from Rhode Island to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He failed to say that Henry Ford is the biggest non-union hospital in Detroit. Then he said that the current trend of cutbacks in medical care are national in scope, began 20 years ago, and steamrolled into the `90's. But "there was no way we could have foreseen" what U of C bosses would do, when we signed this "model contract" just three years ago! He said there was no point in signing a new agreement until we get them to stick to the current one, even though this contract allows for layoffs, new job classifications, and union busting. Finally, he said the key to getting a good contract, was to keep all the workers in the dark as to what was being negotiated, and the union's strategy.
From all around the room, the mostly women workers documented attacks, harassment, and abuse. To each one, smooth talking Philip said, "I'm working on it." By the end of the meeting, it was clear to most workers that the local union is either unwilling, or incapable of leading us into battle against the bosses.
A PLP organizer was distributing a communist shop paper and Challenge as workers were leaving the meeting, when he was confronted by the new Recording Secretary and two stewards. The blatant anti-communist attack is welcome confirmation that the Party is moving more workers, and striking a nerve down at the union hall. Come on with it. As the attacks grow, so will the Party!
In the face of a budget crisis, Montgomery has cut its service in half. City officials claim it cannot afford to throw away its shrinking tax dollar on a service that benefits only 2,200 people. Montgomery is not alone. Birmingham, Alabama has also cut its service in half. Greenville, S.C. has done away with its buses completely.
It's true that a relative rise in wealth since the 1950s has made it possible for more people to buy cars, and they are therefore less in need of buses. But it is also true that the continuing decline in workers' wages in recent decades is reversing that trend and making bus service even more vital.
The Montgomery story is significant: another banner struggle of the civil rights movement is wiped out by the deepening economic crisis of capitalism. It is especially significant to workers like those at Oakland, California's A/C Transit who are debating the merits of reform versus revolution. Montgomery tells us, once again, that the aim of reforming capitalism is useless to the working class.
The anti-racist impulse of the civil rights movement was crippled by reformist demands. Capitalism was not challenged by the revolutionary anger of the working class. The result: forty years later, racism is as rampant as ever, capitalism even more vicious, and a new generation has to begin the fight again. This time we must be determined to ensure a revolutionary leadership.
Mid-level MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) Labor Relations managers and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) union hacks at Los Angeles are eagerly following the capitalists' orders. In the process, they demonstrated the just how quickly capitalism is rotting.
The MTA bosses snatched $260 from eight bus painters earlier this year. These workers get this money yearly to pay for tools. The workers felt entitled to this money so they decided to go through the "proper channels" to get it.
First the painters talked to their supervisor. They figured he could solve their problem. He couldn't, so they didn't get their money on their next payday. They thought going to the next level would help. So they sent a grievance to the production superintendent. He said the workers would be paid "in a timely manner."
After waiting three paydays, the eight painters checked with the acting superintendent about their tool allowance. The superintendent wrote the shop steward a note.
Labor Relations had assured him the painters would have the money in their next check.
On the next payday, they got nothing--again.
Still seeking the right person, a painter called an ATU union officer. He assured the steward he'd call Labor Relations and have it squared away. Two more paydays--nothing!
Finally, on the next pay day, the painters walked across the street to the Gateway headquarters. They went to the tenth floor and told the MTA Labor Relations boss, "We want the money you owe us." Two days later they had their checks.
These workers learned that direct confrontation with the boss is possible. They also leaned that under capitalism we can't get what we need.
We can't put up with a capitalist system which makes us scratch and claw for chump change. We're not winning when our class must go hat in hand for money to buy tools to do the slave masters work. We must destroy their system and take power.
The tiny capitalist class has the power and it makes decisions about society to increase their profits at the workers' expense. That's why they are taking back the small gains we made in the past. That's why they are lowering wages and benefits of all drivers and mechanics. That's why they are reducing service to only the most profitable low maintenance bus lines.
Ten years ago when the capitalist economy was less unstable, the company and the unions cooperated to buy off the workers. One example of this was the company disciplining lower management for openly violating the union contracts. Now the MTA and ATU bosses are actively breaking the contract and taking anything they can from the workers. This is the face of capitalism in crisis--fascism.
The lesson for us is that communist revolution is the solution to the problems of capitalism. The proper channels for this are close political and personal relationships with workers. Each one of these painters is now getting Challenge. We are struggling with them to form a study group, help distribute Challenge and join the Party.
Millions of workers who are leaders of the Progressive Labor Party are the right people to bury capitalism, wages, tool allowance and all.
In a similar case a couple of weeks ago, six agents of the PNC, drunk, massacred a group of six workers in the department of La Paz (Zacatecoluca). Immediately, hundreds of neighbors of the massacred workers, in a wave of fury, looked for the murderers and tried to lynch them. The rest of the cops from the station, armed to the teeth, defended them from the punishment of the workers.
This "civil" police is the force that originated in the "peace treaty" between the traitors of the FMLN and the fascist government of El Salvador. These examples show clearly that the main job of the police in the capitalist system in all parts of the world is terrorizing and murdering workers.
Anti-working class terror and racism go with the badge. If you have a candidate for the Fuhrman award send it to us.
In the first week of the summer project in Chicago over 1000 workers took Challenge and donated money to support the paper. 129 bus drivers, 80 auto workers, 35 steel workers, 50 postal workers, and hundreds of others read Challenge this week. 45 of these workers gave us their names and phone numbers. We told workers that we were not there to "sell papers", but to build a revolutionary movement. We told them they needed to join PLP and the fight for communism. Many agreed and many others said they'd read Challenge and think about it.
"Monroe" is a postal worker we met who right away started talking about what was wrong with capitalism. He talked about wage slavery, about the brainwashing done by television, the racism promoted by the rich people. We told him that since he obviously knew what was going on, he needed to do something about it. He needed to join PLP so he could be part of an organized movement to destroy the capitalist system. He's thinking about it.
There are more and more "Monroe's" out there, and we intend to recruit as many as possible this summer. The bosses are in for a rude awakening.
Summer Project volunteer
Fascism is indeed the main trend of world capitalism. Sometimes it is masked as "democracy," but it is always racist, anti-working class, murderous and anti-communist.
In Mexico, the fascist trend has been taking giant leaps not only attacking workers' standard of living (massive wage cuts, job losses, etc.), but also politically.
Under the guise of cleaning the totally rotten police force, President Zedillo just named a general to head the Mexico City police. This general is getting rid of precinct commanders, and putting army personnel in their places.
This is supposed to bring military discipline to the police, to make it more efficient against crime. But in reality it is to make it more efficient in attacking workers fighting against the misery they are suffering. The army is now also in control of the states of Chiapas and Guerrero (last week, the "Revolutionary People's Army" came out of nowhere in Guerrero, many view this new "guerrilla" group with suspicion and as a creation of reactionary forces to justify more army control).
Another sign of the rise of fascism is the growing political influence of the Catholic Church. For over a century, and especially after the 1912 revolution, the church was kept away from politics because of its reactionary role in the past. But four years ago, under the guise of "modernizing" the State, the Constitution was changed, giving the church more powers.
The loyal, liberal opposition PRD party voted for this change, supposedly because it will give more opportunities to priests interested in the plight of the masses. But, in reality this change just gave the fascist Catholic hierarchy more power.
The bosses' "reforms" of their government is returning Mexico to the 19<M>th century, when the bishops and generals ran things for the big bosses. The Catholic Church, through the fascist National Action Party, already rules the state of Jalisco, imposing policies even more rightist than the federal government.
Any priest opposed to this fascist agenda is out. Samuel Ruiz was dismissed as bishop of Chiapas because he denounced the plight of the Indians. Today, rightwing death squads, supported by the church and the army, are roaming freely in Chiapas.
As fascism becomes the main trend worldwide, PLP must grow and show workers that there are only two choices: brutal capitalism or communism.
A. Teo
I propose that we publish monthly communist shop papers, on every job where we are organizing. They should all be called, "CHALLENGE," and serve as local extensions of our newspaper. We should organize shop paper committees, with workers who are either new or potential recruits. These committees can serve as study groups and editorial committees. They can become Party clubs.
While we have plenty of experience putting out shop papers, almost all of it is reformist. We used to publish newsletters under InCAR or SOC, or some caucus that we were trying to build. Mainly, we tried to tie all local issues to the fight for jobs and a shorter work week. This had us working in opposition to Challenge, which was telling workers that capitalism can't be fixed and must be destroyed with communist revolution. As a result, Challenge sales rarely advanced, and recruitment was very slow. Most workers, including us, chose reform over revolution.
At University of Chicago Hospitals we have been putting out a communist shop paper since February. They haven't all been gems, but they have put forward communist revolution as the answer to layoffs, union elections, contract negotiations, etc. Workers have contributed information for articles, and have distributed the shop paper, even in the face of anti-communism from the union hacks.
In spite of many weaknesses, this work has helped draw out some more revolutionary-minded workers. Challenge sales rose from about 12 in February to 35 now. Some of the workers who distributed the shop paper are now distributing Challenge as well. What's more, there have been countless debates and political discussions among the workers, over communism, revolution, and PLP. I hope to have a committee set up in the next few weeks, hopefully with brand-new recruits.
In the LA Garment Center, Ford in Mexico, the India Jute mill, Boeing, Cook County Hospital, transit in the Bay Area and Washington, DC, NYC welfare, Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, and elsewhere, we can set up shop paper committees now.
On other job sites, we should start the shop papers now, and build the committees around them. A Party-wide campaign to produce communist shop papers on the job will make communism a more mass issue, help us to think more clearly about applying our line to the immediate concerns of the workers, and quicken the pace for greater Challenge sales and mass recruitment to the Party.
UCH Red
When Amnesty International (AI) denounced "human rights violations" in the former socialist countries, it was accepted as the final word by politicians and the mass media in the U.S. But, today, even the anti-communist AI cannot ignore the brutality of NYPD. Many of the same politicians and mass media are saying that AI "is wrong."
For black and Latin workers and youth in New York, police brutality is a daily occurrence. In the last few weeks, Aswan Watson was shot 24 times by NYPD thugs in daylight in Flatbush Brooklyn, two latin youth were brutally beaten for no reason by cops of the 24<M>th Precinct in the West Side of Manhattan, a Queens man was brutally beaten by cops accusing him of burglarizing his own home, Shane Daniels was beaten to a coma by a gang of racists headed by cop Chris Conis (who is now back at his job).
Contrary to what AI and all liberals believe, the NYPD cannot be reformed. PLP has shown the way to fight racist cops with its recent mass protests in Brooklyn. We have seen that when we boldly put forward the line that all cops are Fuhrman, and that the way to fight police terror is by building a mass communist movement. the masses welcome our politics.
NY Red Anti-Racist
The July 3rd issue of Challenge-Desafío was very good. The front page was understandable and featured the PLP march against police terror and for communism. The story was exciting, and showed the growing possibilities for mass support for anti-fascism and the Party.
Two other stories deserve praise: One about the doll factory in Manhattan, and one about the hospital in Philadelphia. Both show how the immediate issue is tied to the battle for communism.
Both stories correctly depict our critical support for the workers in their effort to fight their firings. Challenge-Desafío could still use stories about how the Party is growing, and how we are trying to overcome obstacles in the growth process.
Keep up
the good work