Challenge, Oct. 8, 1997
Index
Editorial:
Don’t be afraid to fight: Be afraid not to fight
Turn the Bosses’ Attack Around: Build the Progressive Labor
Party
"To be attacked is good." Class struggle for political power is war at its highest point. Don’t expect the bosses to say "great" and throw roses along our path. If the Party is leading sharp efforts against the ruling class, expect to be, nay hope we are, attacked.
Communists Have Always Done the Impossible
About the only way to avoid being attacked is to do nothing. But passivity means that the rulers have won and can afford to ignore us. Many workers and others, and even some of our members and friends, think it’s impossible to fight the rulers: "They are too strong and we are too weak." This is how it always appeared to be.
But in case after case since the Russian Revolution in 1917, communists have done what seems to be the impossible, from defeating the "invincible" czar, to the feudal lords and nationalists in China, to fascism during World War II. Communists were able to take a small force, build it and overcome a seemingly large and unbeatable enemy. Ironically, the Soviet Union and China were defeated when they seemed powerful and led over one billion people.
We can conclude from this that despite the powerful blows from the enemy, defeat doesn’t necessarily come at the hands of the enemy. Primarily, internal strengths and weaknesses determine victory and defeat.
PL Born Fighting
Since the inception of our Party we have been attacked over and over. And despite these attacks and the collapse of the international communist movement, we are still here and fighting, albeit modestly. It is only possible to turn around attacks against us and against the working class if there is a revolutionary communist Party.
One of PL’s earliest actions was to organize a workers’ committee to back an armed miners’ rebellion in Hazard, Kentucky in 1963. We sent organizers there bringing food, clothing, money and communist ideas. The bosses’ screamed in an 8-column front-page banner headline: "Communism Comes To The Mountains!" The miners welcomed us with open arms. This was one of the actions that provoked the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) to attack PL.
Paralleling this action, we broke the Kennedy Administration’s ban on U.S. citizen travel to Cuba. In 1959, the Cuban revolution triumphed. A tiny then-socialist country lay 90 miles from Florida. U.S. bosses huffed and puffed about the evil Castro and "bad communism." One of their acts against Cuba was to make travel there illegal. Nonetheless, in spite of FBI intimidation and threats, we organized two trips to Cuba involving about 130 people, mostly students, in the early 1960’s. Hundreds of thousands of students and others cheered and supported our actions.
Ultimately, we were attacked. Grand Jury indictments, arrests and jailings followed. But the Party grew, even though we suffered some losses. Perhaps more important, the anti-imperialist actions of our Party laid the basis for the subsequent anti-Vietnam war movement on the campuses.
For years, the HUAC ran wild in this country. They scared the crap out of most of those called before it, but some were not frightened. It’s fair to say that HUAC was the scourge of U.S. workers.
PL Whacks HUAC
Because of our efforts around the Hazard miners and the Cuba trip, many of our members were called before HUAC. Unlike previous witnesses who were guided by the cringing Communist Party, our people went on the offensive. PL’ers blasted HUAC for being fascists, racists, strike-breakers and warmongers. We organized a large sit-down in the halls of Congress, an historical first. Our activity prompted the well-known columnist, Murray Kempton, to write: "Well, they [HUAC] got what they deserved." Soon they vanished from the political scene. There is no question that our Party hastened HUAC’s demise.
In the early 60’s anti-war sentiment gained a foothold in the U.S. Because of the possibility of nuclear war against the Soviets and Cubans, the Times Square area in NYC was ruled out of bounds. Our Party called for an anti-Vietnam war demonstration in Times Square. Over 100 participated. Of course we anticipated arrests. We even made a list of those who should be arrested. The cops attacked our demonstration and made many arrests. But the cops omitted one of our members who was on our list to be arrested. So he chased after the cops and said, "Arrest me, arrest me!" He didn’t want the stigma of avoiding arrest.
Even though there were arrests (and surely some political casualties), our action in Times Square helped put us in the forefront of the fledgling anti-war movement.
Challenge Begins in Midst of Anti-Cop Rebellion
The headline in the very first Challenge, in June 1964, read, "Police War in Harlem." True to their racist brutality, the cops murdered a black teenager. This was "the straw that broke the camel’s back." Harlem erupted.
To make a long story short, the FBI blamed our Party for organizing the rebellion. (If only this were true.) At some point during the rebellion, we called on the Harlem community to march against police terror. Scores of organizations, including the Communist Party, issued a mass leaflet and statement attacking us and telling people not to march. We met to march. There were arrests. Ultimately, a Grand Jury convened. Over 40 people were jailed for refusing to be stoolpigeons,even though they were offered immunity.
We organized many different activities against the Grand Jury. One leader of the Party was arrested for "criminal anarchy." Another leader was followed by the cops 24 hours a day in an effort to "break him."
As a result, we lost some members and friends, but still we grew. We recruited more members and won more friends. More significantly, we emerged as a leading anti-racist force. It might be pointed out that we put out a rather famous poster, "Wanted for Murder: Gilligan the Cop" with his photo. (Both printers of this poster were arrested.) Gilligan was the cop that murdered James Powell, the teenager whose slaying precipitated the Harlem rebellion.
Nixon Put PL On His ‘Enemy List’
During the Vietnam War, Nixon put us on his "enemies list." In one of the Nixon tapes, he claimed that "every time I look out the window, I see that PL." Once again our gains during this period far outweighed our losses. It would take too long to list the various efforts by the ruling class to bust PL. The main point is, they failed.
Eventually, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) collapsed. It embraced U.S. imperialism. The CCP was our ally. They were a great ideological pillar of our movement. It was a great loss for us! PLP denounced them. We carried on as best we could and continued to learn from the past CCP history, particularly the forces that had emerged from the Cultural Revolution. Generally, we became isolated and alone (but not from the workers). Communist allies were a one-time thing.
We managed to go on, and continue to lead many events in shops, schools and communities. For example, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, even though we often made the right opportunist error of hiding communist politics behind a militant reform line, we became known as the leaders of the fight against racism. In 1975, our May Day march in Boston physically confronted and beat back the ROAR thugs whom the big bosses were using as a trial balloon for mass-based fascism. Our Summer Project, some months later destroyed these fascists politically, as least in their form at that time, and turned the city of Boston upside down.
From coast to coast, the PLP-led International Committee Against Racism earned recognition as the leader in the fight to smash the KKK and open Nazis every time they reared their heads. We organized probably 100,000 people over the course of this time to participate in these demonstrations, which often involved mass violence. None of this was accomplished without arrests, jail sentences and injuries. None of it took place without serious errors on our part. All of it could have been improved. But we grew and learned how to improve only because we fought. To this day, our Party modestly grows, and is known as a fighting organization, although we could fight harder.
We have been, and still are, guided by the Mao notion of "Slight the enemy strategically, take him into full account tactically." We try to function within the concept of limits. Strategically, we believe in the necessity of mass armed struggle by the working class led by PLP. Given the present political limits, this is not possible now. But eventually it will be. Armed struggle now would be a left error. Not to do it when the movement has members and a base in the millions would be right opportunist.
Today’s Struggle Against War and Fascism
But the limits now present us with many opportunities for struggle against war and fascism. Not to take advantage of these would be right opportunist. PL revolutionary optimism cannot give way to foolishness. But we must see the possibility to slowly, sometimes more quickly, build our Party and fashion it into a force for the seizure of power.
Right now, six comrades in Chicago face felony charges as a result of demonstration against slave labor workfare the weekend before the Democratic Convention in August1996. Here we have an opportunity to grow while we organize against the rulers and their fascist police and fight to defend our comrades.
During World War II, it was said in Italy that "Mussolini killed and killed the communists until there were two million of them." But it wasn’t the Nazis during the war, or later the other imperialists that defeated the Communist Party of Italy. They developed a bad line leading them into the arms of imperialism.
Being attacked by the bosses is a compliment from the capitalist class. It indicates that the Party’s efforts bother them, at least now, and later threatens them. We have to be more fearful of our internal mistakes than of the attacks from the rulers. Turning a "bad thing" (attack) into a "good thing" (Party building) has helped us fight and prevent defeatism. But the big bonus is that continued consistent practice has enabled us to detect and fight right-opportunism in our ranks. This fight has helped us to elevate communist theory to new heights (Road to Revolution 4 and 4.5). Eventually, we climbed off the treadmill of reformism and climbed on the revolutionary express. The truth is that strategically we are stronger than they are, because of our line in these documents. While we must take into account our small numbers, our practice and our ideas will eventually triumph.
PL Youth Blast Warmonger Albright
BRONX, NY, Sept. 30 — More than 20 members and friends of the PLP demonstrated outside the Bronx H.S. of Science today, in opposition to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaking at the school. Four weeks ago, the administration and the Famous Speakers Club announced that Albright would come and address students on Oct. 1st.
As the U.S. ruling class begins to prepare for a ground war in the Middle East, they will send the likes of Albright to indoctrinate young people with capitalist ideology.
The Bronx Science students enthusiastically accepted our presence as hundreds approached the school. "Can you give me a couple of those papers so I can give it to my friends?" "I thought communism was dead. Can I see that paper?" "I have been hearing a lot about you guys in my school." "Can you have a speaker come in my history class and give a talk?" These were the questions that filled the air as we rallied. Students on their way into school eagerly grabbed over 300 Challenges and 1,500 leaflets.
As you can see, communism is alive and growing, and PLP is the only future for students and workers. This reception did not fall out of the sky. PLP has been organizing in Bronx Science for the past year. One young comrade has been raising communist ideas within a student club of which he is a member—Students Organize for Social Justice (SOSJ). There has been disagreement within SOSJ about how to handle the arrival of Albright. Our young comrade proposed that there should be no freedom of speech for a fascist warmonger such as Madeleine Albright. He also proposed that the club hold a banner during the assembly which opposes Albright and her "oil based" interests in the Middle East.
The rally emphasized that Albright’s visit is part of the needs of U.S. imperialists. Why? They want to win millions of workers and students to kill and die for the bosses’ oil war in the Middle East. "Did you say oil?" asked one student. That’s right! We said, "Oil!"
The administration did not expect any opposition from the Progressive Labor Party. (See Challenge, 10/1) This three week long struggle has grown tremendously. A growing number of students are now interested in becoming involved with the Progressive Labor Party. They have begun to help distribute literature and raise these ideas with their friends.
Murderous Speed-Up at a Food Processing Plant: An Injury TO One Is an Injury to All
NEW YORK CITY — We work at a food processing plant. Like all workers, our economic situation goes from bad to worse, plus we suffer a lot of abuses from the bosses.
The company just got a new machine which is 12 times faster than the old one. Many workers have fainted because of the speed up. Many have suffered hand injuries and some have lost fingers in this machine. Unfortunately, these incidents have not been reported because the workers are afraid of losing their jobs.
Personally, I would denounce these accidents But since I have not suffered any, I don’t want to get involve in other people’s business. . I know this isn’t right, but I think I won’t get any support if I protest these conditions. I believe that if we speak with the union, it will sell us out as usual. But we have to bring the grievance to the union, while understanding the need to reject the bosses’ system.
A PLP Workers’ Club Responds: What are the signs of fascism at the workplace? There are plenty at this factory.
In their cutthroat competition to produce more and sell more on the market, the food processing bosses employ fewer workers to produce more at greater speed and lower wages.
The bosses have increased racist and sexist terror as whole sections of the workforce become more rigidly, although "legally," enslaved, like immigrant workers (as many women in this factory are), workfare workers and prison labor.
The union has completely exposed itself as the bosses’ fascist agent in whom the workers correctly have no confidence.
Under these fascist conditions workers are vulnerable and afraid. But anger and the immense power of the working class is just below the surface. No worker can watch his or her co-worker lose limbs and have fingers crushed in machines for the bosses’ profits without feeling enraged.
Workers in our PLP club discussed the situation at this factory. "You should strike," said a friend of the Party. "We workers produce everything. We can stop production. Without us the bosses are nothing!" "I don’t think the workers will do anything," said a member. "They’re immigrant workers without experience in the struggle here." "That can’t be our attitude toward the working class," the new club leader responded. "We must have endless confidence in the working class. Our job as communists is to provide leadership to the workers at this factory." "The workers are right to have no illusions about the union," said another member. "The union works solely in the bosses’ interests, even if workers are maimed or killed on the job. Workers should rely on each other to organize and prepare the struggle by talking person to person. Let’s do a story for Challenge to raise the political consciousness and confidence of the workers. We distribute 20 Challenges hand-to-hand. Maybe our friends would help to pass on more through the network. Without confiding in the union we can use it in the fight."
"I am intelligent. I know how to figure out what is going on," said the factory worker. "We all do because we have become conscious by being in the Party. We read Challenge and expose capitalism. We talk about how the working class, with the leadership of its mass communist Party , is preparing to seize power through revolution and the building of communism. And we realize that we can seize state power by building a mass communist Party on our jobs, neighborhoods, and schools. That’s the only way the working class can defeat the bosses’ fascism, trade wars and shooting wars that spill workers’ blood from the factory to the battlefield. We are here talking and planning how to carry out a fight-back at the factory. Let’s give other workers at the factory that chance. Bring them into PLP," we all agreed.
Union fig leaf can’t cover capitalist crisis
LOS ANGELES — LA County workers hadn’t had a raise in six years. They face layoffs as welfare is cut, hospitals are downsized, clinics are closed, and patients are turned away because of their immigration status or poverty. The union, SEIU Local 660, has declared a contractual victory because, on the eve of a series of one-day strikes, they "won" a 10% wage increase over two years—a wage increase that the County Supervisors were planning to grant in any event. The nurses’ bargaining unit announced that they would strike anyway, because their main demand wasn’t money but hiring more nurses and job security.
Workers in LA County face the growing fascism of a system in crisis. The County Supervisors announced plans to cut General Relief ($212 a month) to four months a year. Hospitals and clinics face closure or downsizing. Cops are attacking black youth and record numbers are being jailed. Over the course of ten years, 400,000 aerospace workers have lost their jobs in LA County alone. The bosses brag that over 73,000 immigrants have already been deported this year, many from Southern California, and that by the end of the year, their goal is deporting 97,000. The bosses are closing civilian hospitals and building military ones.
SEIU 660 leaders don‘t deal with these fascist attacks. They can’t, because to do so is to call the whole system into question. Their job is to keep capitalism intact and keep the workers in the position of wage slaves. They tell the lie that a measly wage increase, which doesn’t keep up with inflation—that will only apply to those still working as public services are closed—is the most workers can expect. These union leaders protect the profit system that’s throwing workers into the streets. Capitalism has nothing to offer us. We don’t need a movement to vainly try to patch it up. We need a mass revolutionary movement to destroy fascist capitalism and to build a communist system in which meeting the needs of the workers is the sole purpose of society.
The fighting nurses want job security and an end to contracting-out. But how can there be any job security for County workers when patients and welfare recipients are being thrown onto the streets? When the top bosses, represented by Clinton, slash health care to prepare for war to defend their oil profits? 90% of the population produces all the wealth, which an ever-shrinking group of bosses own. It’s the bosses’’ profit or workers’ lives. Our goal must be to smash capitalism, eliminate the profit system, and use everything we produce for the well being of our class.
While the union is offering a fig leaf to cover the capitalist crisis, PLP is fighting to win workers to work with and join our party, to read and sell Challenge. If the nurses strike, PLP members and friends and other workers will be on the picket lines with our call for unity against racist capitalism.
SEIU leaders serve the top, old money bosses’ interests well. The union leaders build the dangerous illusion that County workers can have security and decent jobs while the whole working class faces attack after attack. Trusting this leadership means defending their sinking empire. It’s deadly for the working class. These fakers can be taken! A mass revolutionary movement can be built. The best gage of whether workers advance in this fight is certainly not what % of wage increase those who still have jobs temporarily get, but whether more workers have come closer to or joined the PLP and become revolutionary fighters for our class.
Racist Health Care: Billion Dollar Business
NEW YORK CITY--On Sept. 16, 25,000 health care workers, members of Local 1199, marched to Times Square protesting the hospital bosses’ plan to chop 10,000 workers off the payroll when the current contract expires next June.
On the bus ride from Brooklyn to the demonstration, one worker told his co-workers that, "Health care has become a trillion dollar business. The New York hospital industry has made a joke of the old label, ‘voluntary, non-profit hospital.’ These bosses are in this industry for profit. Anything done for the bosses’ must be at the expense of workers. Why? The bosses’ profits come from workers’ labor.
"Anything done for bosses’ profits must also be at the expense of patients. When profits come first, workers’ health care suffers. This is evident from the downsizing and restructuring sweeping the country. That’s the law of capitalism."
At the demonstration itself, the union leadership said they want to work with the hospital bosses to "solve" the layoff problem. The "plan" calls for early retirement, paid for by the existing workers’ pension fund. So far, the union has received nothing in return.
The 1199 leadership can’t defeat these attacks.With the fierce competition in the hospital industry and advancement of new technology from profits already made, hospital closings and layoffs are built into the capitalist system.
The 1199 union membership is mostly black and Hispanic; many are women. These layoffs will be racist. They will add more black and Hispanic jobless workers to their already double rates of unemployment in NYC. For many women, who are sole supporters of their families, this will be a devastating blow.
However, as U.S. bosses prepare for war and compete fiercely with bosses world-wide, they must drive down wages and health care of workers here at home. Therefore, health care for the working class is not, and cannot be, the bosses’ priority.
The working class’s future is not based on union contracts but on the necessity to destroy capitalism and its for-profit health care system. The workers’ future is creation of a Communist society, where workers, not hospital bosses or HMO’s or the bankers who finance them, make the decisions.
Then the health of the workers will get top priority. That’s why workers must build and join the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party.
Mark Furhman Award: 25th District Cop Brutalizes Black Youth
On Friday, September 27th, Jeremiah Meriday headed for the nearby Walgreens drug store on Chicago’s West Side. . He was on a mission to get medicine for an allergic reaction he was having. He had eaten seafood that day. The itching was so intense that he hurried a few feet ahead of his two friends to get there sooneer. . Racist Chicago cops, seeing a black youth moving quickly down the street, jumped out of their squad car and attacked him. They beat him with a long and heavy flashlight, hitting him on his head and face. A whole row of his teeth were knocked in.
He can’t eat and has to take food through a straw. He was never arrested and the family still do not know the names of the cops who beat him. He is now at Cook County Hospital (CCH) where he will have to have reconstructive surgery. Jeremiah’s family did not wait for permission for hospital officials to OK a press conference. They organized it and secretly brought reporters up to Jeremiah’s room to expose the incident. Hospital bosses’ had told the press that Jeremiah couldn’t talk.
PLP members who work at CCH visited Jeremiah and his mother at the hospital. We introduced them to the Party and our analysis of the cops and their role. Both Jeremiah and his mother agreed that cops protect the rich and terrorize workers. We told them about how we are organizing against the cops’ murder of Andrew Durham, another Chicago West Side youth, and the torture of Abner Luima by the NYPD. Jeremiah’s mother said if we organized a demonstration against the cops she would be there. She told us his father was already in the neighborhood organzing against this brutal beating..
Racist County Hospital and Doctor Adds Insult To Injury
On Sept. 30th, a doctor on the plastic surgery service came to see Jeremiah. He told him that they probably wouldn’t be able to operate on him any time soon and he would have to go home. Jeremiah’s mom couldn’t believe it. Her son couldn’t even eat and he was being sent home without the operation he needed. When she protested, the doctor told her that if they weren’t happy about the care they were getting at CCH they could just leave.
The cop’s brutality that started on the streets was continued by the bosses’ racist health care system. Health care services at CCH are being slashed to the bone. The bosses’ are kicking out thousands of workers on an early retirement plan and layoffs are expected December 1st. It is impossible to get operating room time because of short staffing of nurses, technicians, and anesthesia personnel. The first year doctor, in training to be a good Nazi, threatened the family, instead of fighting against this hospital’s outrage.
PLP members at CCH are organizing hospital workers, Jeremiah and his family, and workers on the West Side against racist cops and fascist health care. The two go hand in hand and are part of the capitalism. That is why we must build the PLP and organize a communist revolution to destroy this system which can only provide health care when it makes a profit, and where cops only protect the rich and terrorize the sons and daughters of the working class.
PLP Rally at LA Garment Center: Racist Immigration Reform Attacks All Workers
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26—In a protest by PLP in the garment center, one young speaker said, "The bosses use their borders like a whip against all workers. They allow workers in when they need them and deport them when they don’t. They try to divide us.
Racist attacks on immigrant workers have increased to create patriotism for the bosses’ coming wars. But a united working class will turn these attacks around and destroy the bosses and their borders with communist revolution." During the rally, hundreds of garment workers took our leaflets and bought Challenge (we sold over 200 in an hour). The cops came to harass us, but workers lined up to take our leaflets. The bosses’ terror tactics, along with slave labor wages, are part of the fascism being built by a system in crisis.
Another speaker explained that workers shouldn’t believe in the "American Dream," either for themselves or their children. She said that she is a worker from Mexico and that her son joined the military with the idea of learning a skill and going to college. He was just told that he’s being sent to the Middle East to defend the oil profits of the top U.S. bosses. She said, "the American dream is a lie."
The new immigration laws are part of the stepped up fascist attacks. While the bosses disagree with each other about immigration policy because they have conflicting interests the number of deportations and deaths at the border have gone up. On April 1st, 1996, the new immigration law went into effect. There are two main attacks that effect immigrant workers:
1. -A previous law allowed certain immigrants to adjust their immigration status while they were "illegally" in the U.S. If they paid a fine of $1000, they didn’t have to leave the country. Now, this possibility has been eliminated. These workers will have to choose between leaving their families and jobs or being undocumented and facing the threat of deportation.
2. All those who are in the process of adjusting their permanent residence who don’t have a visa have to leave the US and wait their turn in their country of origin. This could be many years, or never, separating families.
The Statue of Liberty says "Give me your tired and your poor.…" From the beginning, this was a cynical ploy to herd millions of immigrant workers from all over the world to work for low wages in the US. For many decades, the US bosses have left the door "part opened" so that immigrant workers could come to the U.S. and their labor power could be used in industry, in building the railroads in the West (Chinese workers), in the fields, garment, restaurants, hotels, and other industries. But today, with capitalism in crisis and with "globalization," and "fast track," the biggest bosses can exploit workers in their countries of origin, where they move factories and pay $3 and $4 a day. The Old Money bosses use the migra to return some workers back to those factories and to threaten others to accept low wages in the U.S. or be deported. The threat of deportation is a catalyst for many to go into the military to help become citizens. Some bosses, like California agribusiness scapegoat immigrants, having them work for low wages, while denying them benefits and blaming them for capitalism’s crisis. Clinton, representing the top bosses, says he’s "pro-immigrant," while he beefs up the border patrol.
The budget of the INS has tripled in the last ten years, to train more cops to attack workers, to come in the middle of the night to workers’ homes to arrest and deport them.
Where has the extra money for the migra come from? From closing hospitals, cutting social services, from slave labor of welfare recipients and from imprisoned youth forced to do free work for the government.
Many illusions in capitalism die when the bosses show their true fascist face. Today hundreds of thousands of workers are looking for an alternative. It’s up to us to show them that the alternative is communist revolution. Together, the mighty working class can tear down the bosses’ borders and build a world without bosses or money. We need to organize in the factories, neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, churches, etc. We’ve built the world—It is ours! Let’s take it with communist revolution.
SEATTLE—What a difference a month makes! Two months ago, Bill Johnson, President of IAM District 751 at Boeing, was hiding the fact that Boeing was using prison labor. One month ago, he repeated the company line that this slave labor program was for the "good of the community." This month he’s jumped on the bandwagon declaring prison labor a terrible evil.
What caused this sudden change of heart? One thoughtful shop steward characterized the union leadership’s role this way. "You see," he predicted, "they’ll pass a resolution opposing prison labor and as far as they’re concerned it will be a non-issue from then on."
Johnson and Co. can’t lead a fight to end prison labor. It’s not even on their agenda. The union leadership must serve Old Money (see article on AFL-CIO convention). The logic of trade unionism demands it. In other words, Johnson and Co. will join the campaign to corral and control it.
Fascism is the order of the day as the crisis of capitalism intensifies. Although Rockefeller, Inc. may revitalize the morbid union structure to battle its New Money foes and prepare for war, Old Money will not allow unions to actually gain anything for workers. Trade unions are on a very short leash.
Running Fast To Get Nowhere
Johnson dashed up to the mike at the last union meeting when a member handed him a letter attacking prison labor signed by many Boeing workers. "This is great," he said. "I’m going to take it right to the company."
"The company says they are doing this for the good of the community," he added, "but you can never believe the company."
"Did you ask him to turn the other way," asked a machinist back in the shop. "That way you could see his other face!"
The local president also moved that a resolution opposing prison labor be brought up at the District Council. Even the Washington State and Country AFL-CIO have plans to get in on the act.
Keeping The Issue Out Front
We’ve reproduced hundreds of copies of the letter to Brother Bill. Many stewards and others have received information on this issue at union meetings and in the mail. We’ve collected money to Xerox our leaflets and other information. We have started to spread this issue far and wide.
"We’ve got to keep this issue out front," said a friend of Progressive Labor Party, "that way we can prove to many people that the union can’t serve their needs."
The use of prison labor raises fundamental questions. Is not the capitalist that uses slave labor to maximize profits a bigger criminal than the prisoner being exploited? Why is exploitation legal, anyway? How far away from war and fascism can we be when slave labor becomes "good for the community?" The union doesn’t want these questions asked. We communists want to discuss these very topics in as mass a way as possible. Keeping the issue out front includes starting debates around these key points.
The unions can’t lead the battle against slave labor because they can’t even ask these central questions—let alone answer them. The Progressive Labor Party can not only ask the basic questions, but can answer them with a program to end exploitation with communist revolution. Isn’t it time you joined!
Psst.. the new, victorious AFL-CIO held a: UNION COVENTION ON THE QUIET!
At the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh last week, "Building a Movement of American Workers", "Building a New Political Voice for American Workers", and "A New Voice for Workers in the Global Economy", were the tame themes. Not a word was mentioned about capitalist crisis. Yet 5.5 million workers were in prison, on probation or parole in the U.S. last year. Hundreds of thousands were downsized; millions more forced into part-time work, prison labor and workfare.
The current union leaders try to appear active in order to retain the support of their members and keep collecting the dues. "Everything we do is connected to organizing.", AFL-CIO President Sweeney said in a keynote speech. They even appear self-critical about the unions’ past betrayals. " ‘A lot of it was because people fell asleep at the wheel,’", Teamsters President Ron Carey said referring to what he often calls ‘fat cat’ union bosses who were more interested in their own advancement than in supporting workers."(AP, 9/22/97)
The movement and ‘new’ voice that Sweeney and the AFL-CIO call for, however, are directed by Rockefeller and the ‘Old Money’ branch of the US ruling class. It’s a movement to support the Rockefeller group’s plan for fascism and world war. For over 50 years the AFL-CIO has served them by using its international Institutes to influence the working class of other countries to support U.S. imperialism, particularly the Old Money interests. Now they are financial partners, as well.
Literally the first conference on the Convention agenda was: Workers Investing in America: Conference for Union Pension Trustees. Workers’ pension, savings, and stock plans total $6 trillion in assets. $300 billion are in pension funds jointly administered by union and management trustees. $1.6 trillion is in public employee pension funds that often have union representatives on their boards.
Challenge has pointed out that the UPS strike was mainly a fight between Rockefeller’s bankers and UPS over the $60 billion Teamster pension funds.(Challenge, 9/24). The Old Money faction will use their control through the unions over the workers’ pension funds to further battle their New Money rivals and fund their imperialist wars.
The campaign financing battle overshadowed the convention. The federal government is investigating Carey, Sweeney and Trumka, the AFL-CIO Financial Secretary, over illegal donations to Carey’s election campaign for presidency of the Teamsters. This explains the Convention’s so-called cool reception to President Clinton, not his support for ‘fast track’ legislation. . "It's just like a marriage -- sometimes you disagree," said Primo Padeletti, secretary-treasurer of the Maryland-Washington, D.C., branch of the AFL-CIO. The unions are not about to betray their Old Money master who need ‘fast track’ to counter European penetration into Latin American markets.
This is Rockefeller’s way of demonstrating who is in charge. The Unions are on a short leash. The pension funds must be managed for Rockefeller interests. The federal government will yank their chain when necessary. The AFL-CIO can announce plans to draft 2000 candidates for public office by the year 2000 (which the Convention did), but these candidates will serve Rockefeller. They won’t be independent. Rockefeller needs control of capital and Rockefeller holds state power.
The campaign financing battle highlights the potential for exposing the real character of capitalism and state power. Communists use it to show how the trade unions, because they are loyal to capitalism in general, can never serve the needs of the working class. It helps us explain why a union movement that is supposedly ‘victorious’ stages such a quiet, unpublicised Convention. It helps us strip away any illusions that workers may still have about the role of the union movement. And all that helps us in the unions as we build a revolutionary communist Party.
How Do You Spell Sweatshop? C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-M
CHICAGO — Sweatshops are all over the world. Everyone has heard of the terrible conditions that exist in factories in China, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, and India, but not everyone is aware that sweatshops also exist in the U.S.
In one chicken processing plant in Chicago, workers, mainly women are required to de-bone as many as four chicken breasts a minute. All day long in near-freezing temperatures they stand at the conveyor belt. This cold, tiring work leaves many women with carpal tunnel and other injuries. The pay in this shop is extremely low. And this shop is organized by UNITE, one of the largest unions in the country.
Two years ago the PLP participated in a wildcat strike by the chicken workers against the union and the company demanding basic health insurance, paid sick days, and a 50¢-an-hour raise, all of which were denied at the time. In many other industries, including garment and other light manufacturing, it is common to see sweatshops with unions.
So why is UNITE, one of the largest unions in the country organizing a "Day of Conscience to Stop Sweatshops"? For three reasons:
• to keep dues money coming in. Capitalist competition forces many plants to close. So UNITE is trying to protect its income source by attacking non-union shops in other countries.
• serve the Rockefeller bosses by keeping people loyal to the system as wages are cut and the bosses prepare for another oil war. Across the country, the Old Money bosses of Rockefeller are using the union movement to hit at their rivals and try to build the illusion among workers that the system can be made to work for the working class. This was the case most recently in the UPS strike, where the Teamsters helped the Old Money bosses keep the $60 billion pension fund away from their New Money rivals.
• serve the interests of the Rockefeller bosses in other countries. The ruling class has a long history of building unions as a way of getting workers in other countries to unknowingly carry out the policies of the main wing of U.S. imperialism. In El Salvador, for instance, the U.S. has been in a battle for the last several years with different factions of the Salvadoran ruling class over which faction is going to organize workers there.
Sweatshops have multiplied because of the need of capitalism to drive down wages to starvation levels, in order to maximizee profits. The only way to stop sweatshops is to end the system based on capitalist rivalry and exploitation. That means fighting for communist revolution.
Newark, 26 September The current dispute over the fate of Mount Vernon School Principal, Frank Perez, is developing a storm. Following on the heels of the Ivy Hill Neighborhood Association’s call for Perez’s ouster a week ago, the school PTO issued a resounding second at its meeting on September 25th. The vote followed a heated debate involving parents and community residents favoring the workers on one side with the principal and his boss on the other. When one speaker characterized the debate and the vote in terms of "which side are you on" the working class audience gave the youngsters in attendance a "civics lesson" they’ll never forget. By a vote of 83 to 29, PTO members demanded Perez’s removal.
Despite the obvious unity of parents, teachers and community in demanding Perez’s removal, Newark school district officials continue to back fascist principal. This showing of disrespect for workers provides an abject lesson in class struggle for those attending the meeting: the bosses back their agents when they carry out orders.
Another more important lesson learned was that communists in the PLP work to unite the working class for struggle against the bosses. At least 75 of the 225 people attending the meeting purchased Challenge/Desafio. From it, they will learn some of the communist ideas essential to building the kind of movement that goes far beyond getting rid of one little fascist in a neighborhood school, a movement the bosses can’t afford to concede to –millions of workers organizing to abolish capitalism with communist revolution.
Bklyn Haitian workers see there is no justice under capitalism
Dear Challenge:
It's been almost two months since the racist New York City Police
Department (NYPD) brutalized and almost killed a Haitian
immigrant worker, Abner Louima, in Brooklyn's 70th precinct
house. And despite a massive outpouring of community anger at the
attack, what has happened? Nothing!
Louima is still on the critical list at a local hospital. The Coney Island Hospital nurse, Magalie Laurent, who blew the whistle on the 70th Precincts attack, was assaulted herself last week by another nurse at the hospital who warned her about "messing with the NYPD." (The precinct has a long history of bringing "injured" prisoners to CIH for treatment, rather than to Kings County Hospital as required by police procedures. It appears that the history of cover-up is equally long.) And finally, despite a well-publicized "investigation" that revealed little, only four cops have been named in the attack. Those four are back on the city payroll, though not at work anywhere. District Attorney Charles Hynes has refused to press attempted murder charges on the cops because he intends to run for the office of governor and needs the support of the cops' union.
The community organizations that led the mass demonstrations, rallies and meetings seem to have quieted down. More militant groups led the first demonstration on Aug. 16 in the Flatbush neighborhood. These were the people equating the cops with the KKK. However, by the next large demonstration on Aug. 29, a split in the leadership had apparently taken place and a more reactionary sector had usurped leadership. This is the sector led by the Haitian-American Alliance (HAA), who told the demonstrators not to bring their drums in an effort to put a damper on the anti-cop, anti-racist anger and militancy that has previously been a dominant feature of Haitian demonstrations in New York City.
The New York Times (9/24/97) characterizes the New York Haitian community as split along generational lines: the young people, claims the Times, are into U.S. politics, while the older people are into Haitian politics. While there is some truth to this, the real split is much more profound: it is not based on age, but on class.
The "nouvelle generation"--young generation-of HAA is not only U.S.-born or -educated, but college-educated professionals living in Queens (traditionally the home of more middle-class Haitians) that wants Haitians living in the U.S. to be involved in U.S. politics through efforts such as voter registration drives. They are the ones who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with politicians Al Sharpton, David Dinkins and Ruth Messinger at the end of the Aug. 29 demonstration at City Hall Park. They were the ones who cheered the loudest when Sharpton pointed out what they wanted: faith in the system, all cops are not bad, that those cops who brutalized and almost killed Louima were aberrations.
The old guard, it is true, follows events in Haiti intimately, but also has fought to some degree against attacks on Haitian immigrants living in the U.S. Where they differ from the HAA is that their base resides in the more militant, more working class neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
However, what these splits do show us is that the leadership
of the working class Haitian community is up for grabs. They have
been hurt immeasurably by the racist new immigration and welfare
laws and face increasing exploitation and terror from the bosses
and their KKKops. They must not be fooled by the charlatans in
the camps of the old or new guard of bourgeois leaders.
Revolutionary communist leadership of the PLP is the only way
they-and all workers-can escape from the brutality of capitalism,
from the 70th precinct to war and fascism.
AMC
Dear Challenge:
A general strike has been called in Puerto Rico for Oct. 1st. The
workers all over Puerto Rico are angry that all the gains of the
last 40 years are being taken away. However, the demand of the
strike is "don’t sell the government-run phone company
to private companies."
The government is putting the phone company up for sale and;
launching an attack on public employees, claiming they deserve to
lose their jobs because they are lazy. As different imperialist
bosses fight to buy pieces of the phone company, these angry
workers need the revolutionary line of PLP. The bosses’
crisis will not be solved with strikes to try to do the
impossible—which is to keep what we’ve had in the past.
The way to win is to go forward and build the PLP to fight to end
capitalist crises once and for all with communist revolution.
A Comrade
Rally against racist immigration reform
Dear Challenge:
We had a rally on Friday, Sept. 24th, against racist deportations
at 8th and Los Angeles Streets in the garment center. The police
were called on us and threatened to give us tickets for blocking
the sidewalks and for disturbing the peace. Many people were
shocked and curious by what was taking place and, by reading the
leaflet that we were passing out, put two and two together and
became angry and disgusted by this cop harassment. . They took
great interest not only on the leaflet but also in Challenge.
206 Challenges were distributed.
This particular rally will hold a very special place within the minds of many people after reading the leaflet that was distributed. The leaflet indicated that "840 workers died crossing the border already this year, and 75,000 other immigrants were deported this year as well." I ask myself as I’m sure many other workers will ask themselves,, what happened to the land of opportunity, the land of the free and home of the brave?
This saying may be true but not for us, the workers, instead it is a firm belief of the bosses. . The land of opportunity becomes the opportunity to use and harass immigrant workers and when they are needed no longer the Migra is called on them. The land of the free gives them freedom to work their backs off and get minimum wage to take care of their family. The land of the brave becomes the land of the afraid. These people live in fear of losing their jobs, hopes and dreams and fear of the bosses taking advantage of their immigration status and the fear of being deported.
Now, why should they live in fear? Aren’t they human?
Don’t they deserve more? A human is a human regardless of
"race" or gender and we should all be allowed to live
life without fear. But not under this system. We cannot. That can
never occur, unless we take measures. We need a communist system
to abolish the racism we face in our everyday lives. Anger is
stronger than fear, so let’s organize the anger for a
revolution. Join the Progressive Labor Party and fight for
communism.
An immigrant high school student
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Promise Keepers: Using Religion to Build Fascism
The Promise Keepers (PKs) has been organizing massive stadium rallies where men embrace each other, swear their loyalty to Christ, and promise to take back their "rightful" positions as rulers of the family. On Oct. 4th,they will be holding their own so-called "million man march" in Washington D.C. PLP’ers and friends will be there to counter demonstrate at this rally for New Money-style fascism.
While claiming to bond men around all things good—being responsible parents, faithful husbands, and seekers of "racial reconciliation"—the PKs preach male supremacy and fascist authoritarianism. In conjunction with other religious groups on the "radical right" and backed by "New Money" forces, the PKs are making a serious bid for power in the Republican Party. In 1996 about a million men participated in these rallies.
The organization has been led by University of Colorado football coach, Bill McCartney. Holding that abortion is the root of all evil, the PKs preach that women gain "emancipation" through "submission" to men. To the right of the Christian Coalition, the PKs embrace a "charismatic" Christianity that opposes separation religions and churches and calls for the U.S. to be run by a theocracy (religious rule); they proclaim themselves to be at "war" and organize their membership along militaristic lines. While about 90% white, the PKs profess anti-racism; one of their "Seven Promises" is that their members should "reach out across the barriers of race." They stipulate being "not for integration," however; one of their black spokespersons, Wellington Boone, defends Uncle Tom and says that "slavery…was redemptive."
Although their message is reactionary, the PKs are very slick. Their media-spin doctors have managed to make them look harmless and humanistic. As a result, many men whom capitalism has alienated from their families are being suckered in, thinking that the absence of male control and the loss of God cause their anger. Rather than seeking more equality in their marital relations—and fighting back against capitalist-fostered individualism that ruins relationships—these men seek the false "solution" of authoritarianism and inequality.
The Rockefeller-run liberal media, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and various abortion rights groups have set themselves up as the PKs loyal opposition. Following these liberals would be a deadly mistake. This isn’t an argument between good guys and bad guys. It’s a fight between two gangs of nazis. The Promise Keepers may be more obvious. But, if anything, Rockefeller, Inc. are more dangerous, because they represent the main wing of the bosses and they pander to a broader base. Whoever makes the mistake of allying with NOW, The New York Times (NYT), the AFL-CIO hacks, or any of these forces, is really opting for liberal-style fascism, strike-breaking, racist slave labor, and widening imperialist war. This is what Rockefeller, Inc. have brought us and plan to bring us in the future.
But it would be a mistake for communists and their allies to view the PKs simply as sexist religious fanatics, or to seek to oppose them allying with the apparently more "liberal" wing of the ruling class represented by the NOW leadership and the NYT. PLP’ers and friends working in the groups opposed to the PKs need to fight for an anti-sexism and an anti-racism based on class analysis, not "anti-radical right" liberalism.
Oppose Promise Keepers with Communist Ideas
First off the PKs are organized by ruling class New Money forces primarily interested in beating out their Eastern Establishment opponents. The PKs backers focus on the family—Campus Crusade for Christ, Family Research Council, media mogul Stephen Strang, as well as Pat Robertson—are all tied to right-wing foundations that are also backed by New Money capitalists.
The PKs further demonstrates the growing divisions in the U.S. ruling class, and how these antagonisms will lead to war and fascism. As one example, the PKs are organizing seriously in the military. Various former Air Force, Green Beret, and Special Forces officers are part of their staff. McCartney says that the "fiercest fighting is just ahead….It’s wartime." PK backer and Campus Crusade for Christ leader, Bill Bright, speaks of impending "civil war" and warns that "[b]loody battles are being fought on a thousand fronts, both inside and outside of government."
The liberals also want "bloody battles," to defend Rockefeller’s Middle East oil billions. NOW President Patricia Ireland lambastes the "radical right" and in the same breath defends would-be Air Force-pilot Kelly Flinn’s "right" to drop nuclear bombs for U.S. imperialism. She goes on to celebrate the admission of women to the Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute. Why not? The wars the Eastern Establishment is planning will require millions of workers, including women, under arms. Eventually, these bosses will have to restore the draft. The Promise Keepers may represent the cutting edge of New Money fascism, but Rockefeller-friendly liberals like Ireland are helping pave the way for mass terror at home as well as the greatest mass slaughters in history. There’s no "lesser-evil" here. Communist revolution must and will smash both of them.
Oil, Religion and Imperialism Means War: Taliban Uses Fundamentalism to Serve U.S., Saudi Arabia, Pakistan
It has been a year now since Taliban took over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and has control of most of the country. Taliban has imposed its religious beliefs on the masses , and its attitude toward women has turned the clock back to the Middle Ages. But this fundamentalism is just a cover for its real role: to serve the interests of U.S. oil companies, and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the Pakistani.
When the Soviet Army left Afghanistan in 1989, the many different muhjadeen (holy fighters) took the weapons given to them by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and the Pakistanis to fight the Soviets and used them against each other.
In 1991 during the Gulf War, Hektmayar, the Afghan Prime Minister, supported Saddam Hussein. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia couldn’t accept that, because until that point then Hektmayar was their main man in Kabul.
Taliban Gets the Go-Ahead from Its Masters
The drug-smuggling Pakistani intelligence services chose a blind Mullah (a Muslim cleric), who was exiled in the city of Quetta, Pakistan, to form Taliban. Soon Taliban, armed by Pakistan, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia began to control most of Afghanistan (it was able to buy whole guerrilla units loyal to Hektmayar.
Oliver Roy, an expert on Afghanistan, wrote in Le Monde Diplomatique, that Unocal and Delta Oil Company supported Taliban as the best way to build a gas and oil pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan.
Roy says that the U.S. wants to repeat what Aramco did in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s: use religion fundamentalism, tribalism and oil to unite Afghanistan under a pro-U.S. government.
Taliban has not, however, been able to defeat the forces supported by Iran and Russia in the northern part of the country, even though those forces spend as much time fighting each other as fighting Taliban, At the same time, Taliban is not united. The death of Mazar el Charif, a member of Taliban Shura (Supreme Council), in a plane crash shows that there is a power struggle among the factions in Taliban.
Religion and Oil Mean War
Taliban, like all other religions uses fundamentalism as a cover for its real role as a representative of one group of the imperialists fighting to control the oil wealth of the region. Just as the U.S. oil companies and their allies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are bidding for control of oil, other imperialists are doing do the same.
The NY Times (9/28) , reported in "Defying U.S., French Firm to Explore for Gas in Iran", that Total, the French oil company, united with Russia’s Gazprom and Malaysia’s Petronas to sign a $2 billion contract with Iran to drill in an offshore field. (Clinton had banned Conoco two years ago from carrying out this deal).
Russia and Iran are supporting the anti-Taliban forces in the North. Even Saudi Arabia is hesitating about its total reliance on the U.S.
The probability of more wars, from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf is growing. The U.S. is planning a ground war (probably against Iraq or Iran) to protect the oil profits of Exxon and other Big Oil companies in the area. It is also planning to protect its interests in Central Asia. Last week, paratroopers, mostly from the 82nd Airborne, flew 7,700 miles to jump into Kazakstan. One message of the mission is, according to General Sheehan, head of the U.S. Atlantic Forces: "that there is no nation on the face of the Earth that we cannot get to," particularly oil-rich Central Asia.
As Marx said last century, religion is the "opium of the masses." The cure for this deadly addiction is to build a massive revolutionary communist movement, to unite all workers and peasants in the region. The Bolsheviks did it in the middle of the massive invasion by 17 imperialist armies right after the end of World War I. . They won the workers and peasants in Central Asia to communism. The Bolsheviks paid particular attention to the liberation of women from the yoke of feudalism and religion (the Taliban has even banned women from working in Afghanistan.)
PLP believes that workers can do it again, by turning the coming imperialist war into a revolutionary war against the Mullahs and the oil bosses.