The two articles below, from Local 1199 (Hospital Workers Union), and Local 371 (AFSCME welfare workers), show the struggle being waged by PLP inside the mass organizations around the racist police murder of Amadou Diallo. Local 1199 has 200,000 members in NYC. Local 371 has 15,000 members, and is part of DC 37, which has over 120,000 members here. The overwhelming majority of these workers are black and Latin, but also includes tens of thousands of white workers and workers who have come here from every corner of the world.
These struggles are significant in ways that go far beyond organizing mass opposition to racist police terror. They show how by building a mass base for PLP inside the unions and other organizations led by the bosses, we can make communist ideas mass ideas. They also illustrate our strategy for organizing millions of workers for communist revolution to seize power from the racist rulers. We are on the road that can eventually lead to political strikes against all the injustices and racist brutality of the profit system. We are on the road to moving workers off the job, and leading them to the centers of political power. We are on the road to a mass May Day. We are on the long and difficult, but correct, road to revolution!
To be sure, we will make many mistakes, and at this point, our impact is limited. But these are examples to be followed and improved on. They show how you can turn a very bad thing like racist police terror, into its opposite; a mass base for communist revolution.
At a Brooklyn hospital, over 200 workers signed a petition supporting the resolution. Angry workers in every department discussed the recent killing. Many Challenges were distributed and the struggle for workers to participate in the May Day March was heightened.
One worker from the Middle East could not believe the cops would shoot at an unarmed man 41 times. He never expected something like this to happen here. He was told this was the land of democracy and freedom. Another worker pointed out that the cops are doing the same thing here that the U.S. government is doing to the Iraqi working class, killing them.
A worker asked, "What can we do to stop the cops? Signing a petition, demonstrating, still won't stop the cops from arresting and shooting black workers." Another answered, "There is a strong need to build a mass movement against the bosses' capitalist system. This would surely stop them."
A few workers felt that we need to have more black cops and black politicians in office to stop the wave of these racist attacks on black workers. One worker pointed out to a group of workers that the job of the police department (both black and white cops) is not to protect the working class, but to serve and carry out orders for the capitalist class. The cops are the chief servants of the bosses' racist capitalist system. When workers go on strike, we clearly see their role in protecting the bosses.
The politicians from President Clinton to Rev. Jesse Jackson to Sharpton are NOT against a strong police force. They say they are for cleaning out the rotten cops. But you cannot reform the police force. The history of the cops is one of strike breaking, killing people such as Eleanor Bumpers, torturing people like Abner Louima and Rodney King, and invading the homes of black and Latin working families. The only justice we can fight for is to build a mass movement around PLP's ideas for communist revolution.
So subjectivity played an important role in allowing the Clinton impeachment brawl to develop as it did. However, when push came to shove, the Eastern Establishment put its greedy class self-interest ahead of personal feelings. That, and his continued high rating in the polls, explains why he's still president.
The main bosses may detest Clinton, but they're also badly concerned about the erosion of the presidency. It's been in decline since the days of Kennedy, in a process that reflects the international weakening of U.S. imperialism. Dumping the incumbent sleazeball might have solved a minor problem for U.S. capitalists, but it would have diminished the presidency even further. In the long run, the establishment followed the advice of former Arkansas Senator, the liberal Dale Bumpers, in his speech defending Clinton: "If you vote to convict...you're going to create more havoc than he could ever possibly create." A conviction of a second term president with a 65 percent approval rating would have exposed U.S. electoral politics as a complete farce. The rulers need the opposite. As they gear for fascism and a probable ground war for oil in the Middle East, they require more, not less, popular support. So for that reason alone, Clinton had to stay until his term ends.
As for the Republicans, their internal struggle for political control is at a boiling point. This has been a seesaw battle going back at least to the Goldwater-Rockefeller fight in the 1964 Republican presidential primary. Basically, it pits the Rockefeller liberal Eastern Establishment gang against a motley crew of domestic Oil Patch billionaires, U.S.-based isolationist industrialists, and Old Money forces who don't see eye to eye with the Rockefeller strategy of world domination through control of Middle Eastern oil. The anti-Rockefeller faction appeared to have won a big victory in the 1994 "Gingrich Revolution." But this triumph quickly turned into its opposite. Gingrich & Co. are out on their asses. Kenneth Starr is possibly the most unpopular public figure in the U.S. today. And with the Exxon-Mobil merger and the continuing decline of oil prices, the U.S.-based oil companies are in a fight for their survival.
So the Republicans are in disarray, and the Rockefeller forces are mounting an offensive to restore their domination of both parties. They already have the Democratic Party pretty well locked up. They're moving quickly to do the same with the Republicans. "Moderate" Republican Governors Christine Whitman of New Jersey and John Rowland of Connecticut are spearheading this drive. Its organizational form is the "Republican Leadership Council," which is trying to put a smiling face on Rockefeller plans for imperialist war and fascism. The Democratic Leadership Council was headed in the same direction until the Clinton presidency started shooting itself in the foot.
The day after young Diallo's death, a Black History Month program was sponsored by AFSCME Local 371 at the headquarters of District Council 37 (DC 37). During the program, a black city council member alluded to this latest police murder. The more than 500 workers and youth at the program shouted their outrage at the mere mention of Amadou's name. The President of this mainly black and Latin Local, was asked if the union was going to talk about the murder. He said that a speaker already had. The trade union leadership promotes a view of unionized workers as just another niche in the multicultural world. The union President speaks to "bread and butter" union issues. "Black" leaders speak to "Black" issues, "Latin" leaders to "Latin" issues, etc. Only PLP attacks this view.
A friend asked, how could we get this 15,000 member Local, this 120,000 member AFSCME council to take action against the Klan in Blue. How could we bring class-consciousness to our mass organizations? Since we had recently gotten a May Day resolution passed by this Local, we decided to link up the two issues. We compiled a list of union members who had marched with us on May Day in the past, those who read and help circulate Challenge, and union activists who have been friendly to PLP's activities in Local 371. We asked them to call on the Local to support and endorse actions against this police murder. We will encourage co-workers on our job sites to attend demonstrations and try to get local office statements of outrage.
PLP members came to the funeral and distributed thousands of leaflets and hundreds of Challenges. In fact, our contingent of teachers, students and parents was the only multiracial group at the funeral. We were warmly received. Hundreds of West African workers participated in solidarity with the Diallo family, which is no surprise.
In the past few years, conditions for West African immigrants in NYC have gotten increasingly worse. There have been so many West African cab drivers murdered that organizations have been formed to help raise money for their funerals. Last year, officers in Queens were accused of torturing a group of West African drivers. However, we think it is a serious problem when all workers don't respond in solidarity to the oppression of one group. There were very few white workers and union contingents at the funeral. All workers in the city must understand that the cold-blooded execution of this young man is an attack on all workers.
Racism did not escape the funeral, reminding us of many funerals held during the South African apartheid regime. People were herded around like sheep. The street was not closed off and cars tried to find their way through the throngs of the people. At one point, people went to the back of the mosque jeering at the Mayor, who was secretly escorted in, and 20 minutes later, escorted out. It became clear that the funeral service had the potential of turning into a demonstration, especially since it was located so close to the Mayor's home, Gracie Mansion, and people were so angry.
While Al Sharpton presents himself as a militant and an adversary, he has no intention of leading rebellions of any kind. His main aspiration is to become Mayor or hold some other political office representing the liberal bosses. His rhetoric, with its religious overtones, is all about trying to make the justice system work, including bringing in the federal government to handle the Diallo case.
The response of the Mayor and the Police Commissioner is to introduce a new bullet that is even more deadly to victims. It is clear that although these particular cops may get a slap on the wrist, the rulers in this city will continue to unleash their terror against all workers, especially black and Latin workers. More than ever, this system is revealing its fascism to the masses of people. We look to the day when we no longer attend the funerals of our working class brothers and sisters[[lambda]]Aswan Watson, Anthony Baez. William Whitfield, Patrick Bailey, Amadou Diallo to name just a few[[lambda]]but rather dance on the coffins of the bosses and their entire capitalist profit system.
The Ford disaster is just the latest in a long line of job-related deaths and injuries that surpass the grim statistics of U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War. More than 6,000 workers are killed on the job every year, about 17 every day; another 50,000 to 60,000 die from occupational diseases. About 7 million are injured every year.
According to the National Census of Fatal Occupational injuries, 6,218 workers were killed in 1997, up from 6,112 in 1996. Deaths from falls, railway crashes, or being caught in running equipment all reached 6 year highs.
Compared with 15 other industrial nations, the U.S. has the highest occupational injury rate, and ranks 11th with a fatality rate of 5.9 deaths for every 100,000 workers. Britain and the Netherlands reported 1.1 deaths for every 100,000 workers. Norway spends $11.36 for every citizen on health and safety. The U.S. spends $1. Britain has one health and safety inspector for every 2,354 workers. The U.S. has one inspector for every 54,435 workers.
Over 60 percent, 281,000 cases, of workplace illness involved repetitive motion injuries, especially in auto, meatpacking, garment, and poultry. Tens of thousands more suffer from exposure to harmful chemicals. Autoworkers are injured on the job at 2.5 times the national average. Deaths in the steel mills are at a record pace for two years running.
These grim figures are not the result of cheap steel imported from Russia and Japan. They are not caused by Ford workers in Mexico or Argentina. The blood is not on the hands of European Airbus workers. The bosses and their "booming economy" cause the deaths and injuries. It is what makes the Wall Street bankers light up their fat cigars. The bosses are getting away with murder. March on May Day and build a mass PLP of workers, soldiers and youth to seize power from these killers.
"I have bad news. Ralph Lauren has just laid off 200 office workers. This means problems for us," said the owner of New Fashion in LA to 150 workers, who make clothes for Polo. The owner claimed not to know whether Polo will move all its production to one of the other factories where it produces clothes--in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, or Mexico, where they pay workers $3 to $4 a day.
The garment bosses' drive for maximum profits has led them to fire workers in New York and Los Angeles and to super-exploit workers in other parts of the world. In Puebla, Mexico, Guess charges the workers for toilet paper and water. The boss won't let them leave the factory until they've finished their quota of work. In Central America young women workers are examined every month to make sure they're not pregnant. In the 31 countries where they produce for Nike, workers make an average of $3 a day. Capitalist greed is the cause, and the only way to destroy it is by building a mass movement for communist revolution.
Manufacturers like Guess, Calvin Klein, Levi's, Gap, JNCO, Ralph Lauren (Polo), and others are planning to change the way they operate to make more profit. This year, some of them are planning to use large and medium size contractors, mainly in Mexico, who have their own capital to buy machines and employ workers. These contractors will have to buy the material, cut and sew the garments. The manufacturers will buy the finished product and supposedly won't have anything to do with the workers. This would create a new wave of competition among the bosses to pay lower wages in the U.S. and other parts of the world.
Many of the workers laid off from factories like Azteca, Guess, Koos, or JNCO are searching for jobs. Many have to take jobs in sweatshops in LA where they aren't guaranteed even the minimum wage. Others look for jobs in the already full restaurants and hotels. This doesn't count the new wave of immigrants looking for jobs, who have been forced to come to LA because of the lethal combination of natural disasters and the poverty of capitalism in crisis.
But it's not all fear, poverty and fascism. There are groups of workers who see this situation as an opportunity to organize workers to fight back and to expose capitalism as a murderous system that must be destroyed with revolution. More garment workers are saying that they will come to the May Day March in San Francisco. Others come to the Party to look for a way to fight against these daily attacks. As a new member of the Party told us, "I had been looking for you for months. Sometimes I went on Fridays on certain corners to look for even a leaflet thrown on the ground. Now that I found you, we have to organize a struggle against JNCO."
We are launching a mass campaign against these factory closings and the exploitation and poverty caused by these millionaire garment bosses. Workers are building committees on the job and also calling on student and worker organizations to fight these sweatshop conditions in the garment industry in LA and all over the world. We plan a leaflet protesting the slave labor conditions at Ralph Lauren in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico and LA. We will contact workers in these factories to make the fight against the exploiters internationally and to organize workers to fight for a world without exploitation. We aim to build a mass PLP to fight for a world in which we workers have a decent life, without borders, or bosses, a communist world!
It's laughable, but also serious to see how much these institutions that were created by the peace accords need to justify their role with speeches that to fool the students. The representative of the police spoke in their best fascist style, scolding the students for disagreeing with the repressive methods used by the police. He pointed out that university students as a group have never supported the techniques of vigilance and repression against people who are threats to the capitalist system. In his speech he yelled at the students to be spies for the police in their neighborhoods. One student told him that he was using the methods of the old National Guard and that the National Civil Police were on the road to being what they had always been-death squads against the working class.
The same thing happened with the representative of the Office of Human Rights. Students criticized him for the countless unjustified firings from this institution during the month of January. All were fired because they don't belong to the Christian Democratic Party, the party that conducts this farce of human rights. "Isn't the massive layoff of workers a violation of human rights?" asked a student.
These students weren't easily fooled. Reality is very different from the line of these cheap defenders of the capitalist system, which keeps the working class in a state of hunger, poverty and death.
To talk about peace under capitalism is the biggest lie of all, when a billion worldwide are jobless, when UNICEF says there will be one billion functional illiterates worldwide by the year 2,000, when wars ravage Angola, Kosovo, Congo, etc.
We made several contacts among students and teachers, with whom we talked after the forum. They completely agreed that as long as we have the wage system, we'll have capitalism and that only the unity of the working class and the victory of communism will bring us a society where the workers are the priority. Activities like these give us a great opportunity to introduce the ideas of our Party to more people.
Even though the petition took a week to write, the collective way of writing it is an opportunity for workers to participate in their own defense. The "quick and easy" way of one leader writing it and taking it around to be signed leaves too many willing workers in a passive position. Writing and distributing the petition collectively has opened it up to the discussion of communist politics.
One mechanic was hot to fill page after page with signatures. "We'll have the same guys sign two or three petitions in different places. We'll get tons of them...the company and the union will never check." He hopes that a lot of signatures would push MTA management into resorting the tool allowance. But it was pointed out to him that when it comes to taking money from workers and giving it to rich investors, votes don't matter. In November, nearly two-thirds of those who voted turned thumbs down on more spending on the corrupt subway boondoggle. Yet MTA's managers and bankers continue to siphon off millions of workers' tax dollars to rich investors in new subway construction bonds. Signatures alone won't change the situation. But if those who sign the petitions become organizers at union meetings and on the shop floor, we will be in a better position to fight these attacks and the whole capitalist system.
A supervisor wanted a memo from Pepe stating that he was taking his toolbox home. "I don't want a guy removing his tools, and then claiming they were stolen and wanting the company to pay for them." This is how a boss thinks. A mechanic told the supervisor, "You've got it backward[[lambda]]the thieving is coming from the company. It's stealing these guys' $310 tool allowance from them." The body men want to have their tools to work with. It's the company that's causing them to take their boxes home.
For every question or idea about this capitalist system, another Challenge is sold. Challenge sales are way up over the tool allowance issue, and we are struggling with more transit workers, their friends, and families, to march on May Day.
Bevona acted just before SEIU International president Andrew Stern placed the Local in trusteeship and suspended its four top officers and 33-man Executive Board. The Local's 45 top officials together had just raked in $1 million in January in more "unused vacation pay" and are supposedly owed another $5.3 million in severance pay. This is in a Local which collects $26.4 million in annual dues from its 55,000 members, down from 70,000 in the last decade.
Why is all this long-standing corruption suddenly being exposed and "dealt with" by the SEIU leadership (following on the heels of similar action in AFSCME's 120,000-member New York DC 37)? U.S. rulers--especially its dominant Rockefeller wing--are desperate to mobilize the working class behind their drive towards war to control the world's oil. They want to keep workers in the hip pocket of the Democratic Party. They have given this task to their lieutenants in the unions. But these labor fakers cannot do this job and maintain any semblance of rank-and-file trust in their leadership if the businessmen who run the unions are allowed to practice such blatant corruption. So between the government--Manhattan DA Morgenthau in the case of DC 37--and their underlings in unions like SEIU, the bosses want to tone down the kind of highway robbery practiced by union leaders like Bevonas.
The hypocrisy of the International's "crackdown" is revealed in the fact that not only did they allow this stealing of the workers' money to continue for decades, but they now claim they're "powerless" to nullify all this past theft. While "abolishing" the severance and vacation pay plans for "future" officials, the SEIU trustee Balanoff says, "We must honor these commitments for current employees."
The union's general counsel says it would be futile to sue Bevona and the Local's top officials because the Executive Board (which Bevona controlled with an iron hand) had "approved" the payout to Bevona and to themselves! The "extremely generous severance plan...was not illegal."
Well isn't that just too cute! Here was Bevona collecting this huge salary for 18 years, directing the union from his penthouse apartment in union headquarters, maintaining a system of highly paid business agents and Executive Board members whose basic job was to re-elect Bevona and themselves--while functioning in an International led by John Sweeny (now head of the AFL-CIO) who himself had led this same Local before Bevona and afterwards was paid $75,000 a year as a "consultant" to Bevona's Local. Now they expect us to believe that they couldn't have stopped this operation all along?
Furthermore, if they can suspend the officers and place the Local in trusteeship, why can't they nullify Bevona's "retirement" and void the Executive Board's "approval" of the million-dollar payouts? Who's kidding who?
They want to slide past all this corruption as quickly as possible--without any "investigations" that might reveal their own involvement and their allowing the bosses to get away with murder. The Sweeny and Stern labor traitors cannot win workers to believe in their "leadership" alongside such blatant Bevona-type corruption. It may very well be easier to use the honest reformers who sued Bevona to get the membership "active in politics," meaning to support the Democratic Party's drive towards war and fascism.
Capitalism breeds its exploitative values in every institution, including the unions. The union leaders defend the profit system and therefore defend its purposes in the unions and its use of unions to serve the capitalist class. Communist leadership of the working class to smash capitalism is the only answer to capitalism's unions.
When we arrived, we passed out our Workfare pamphlet, a Party leaflet attacking police terror and slave labor, and sold many copies of Challenge. We got very positive responses from many people at the meeting. When we tried to ask questions about liberal politicians we were told to wait for the question period. This never happened. But it led to good discussions with people after the meeting. They especially liked linking slave labor Workfare, prison labor and police terror. When we said the fight must be for revolution, two black women said, "I want to be in THAT", and gave us their names to talk more about organizing for the May Day March.
The main focus of the meeting was to encourage welfare recipients who are forced to work for their welfare checks and now have been cut off welfare benefits, to demand equal pay and form unions. One of the speakers said that Workfare was really slave labor. A PLP student added "This is a fascist system," attempting to draw the link between Workfare and Nazi Germany. Without the Party's viewpoint, the proposed reforms of ACORN will bind workers closer to the system that is imposing fascism.
We plan to wage a campaign against the Workfare system being put in place at Pasadena City College, where welfare recipients in the GAIN program clean the school's windows and take classes on "How to Dress." We plan to mobilize students to build an alliance to fight fascism and march on May Day.
The solution is not the liberals who support the system that is imposing fascism against the working class, nor union hacks who have endorsed the bosses' slave labor program. All wage earners are wage slaves under capitalism. The growing economic crisis, mass unemployment, police terror and prison labor are built into the racist profit system. Workfare is an attempt by the ruling class to solve its crisis through the enslavement and suffering of the working class. This will continue until PLP wins millions of workers to see how only communist revolution can solve this crisis-by destroying capitalism. As we fight against the racist attack of fascist workfare, base building will guide our work in these organizations such as ACORN, and on campuses, bringing revolutionary optimism to our fellow workers and students.
Unemployment in Kosovo is about 80%. Infant mortality there is among the highest in the world. In Yugoslavia, 800,000 unemployed have been joined by 700,000 Serb refugees, expelled from Bosnia and Croatia thanks to NATO and the Dayton Accords. Beneath all the racist divisions and fascist "ethnic cleansings," Kosovo's Trepca mines are the main immediate prize at stake. Now valued at over $4 billion in gold, lead and zinc crude ore and cadmium, they have been a bone of contention since the Nazis stole them from the British and Italians in World War II. They have been called "the Kuwait of the Balkans." They export throughout Europe, including Russia, and even to the U.S. No wonder one of the mine's Serb directors told the New York Times: "We will never give up Trepca. Serbs will fight (to keep it)" (6/8/98).
For 20 years the Germans have attempted to fragment Yugoslavia, while the U.S. has tried to hold it together. Germany's main route to the oil fields of the Mideast lies through Serbia, the most important republic in Yugoslavia. The U.S. wants to keep NATO (the European military alliance that it leads) viable as a cop protecting U.S. business and strategic interests, while a growing movement in Europe looks to build a military-industrial complex independent of the U.S. The press presents a confusing and cynical picture to hide the imperialist roots of this conflict and make the U.S. mission appear "humanitarian."
In fact the story is straightforward. When President Tito died in 1980, Yugoslavia was burdened with a crushing foreign debt of $20 billion. The working class answered IMF starvation "austerity" programs with a militant strike wave .In 1986 there were 851 strikes. Two years later there were 2,000! A major bank was forced into bankruptcy and the Yugoslavian capitalists were losing control.
At this point the Germans encouraged the rich republics of Croatia and Slovenia to break away. The U.S., under George Bush, wanted a united Yugoslavia. But the Germans recognized Croatia within two days, and armed it almost as fast, with Leopard tanks and MIG 21's from the former East Germany. Rabid nationalism took hold and the unity of the strike wave was replaced by Serb, Muslim, and Croat movements. This nationalism was enshrined in the Dayton Peace Accords, as the U.S. scrambled to get into leadership.
With Milosovic's Serbia still too strong for their liking, about two years ago the Germans began arming the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Albanian separatist group. Just as the U.S. was maneuvering to lift the economic sanctions on Yugoslavia, war erupted in Kosovo. This time, the peace talks are in Rambouillet, France, not Dayton.
U.S. rulers want to limit German imperialism's land access to the oil-rich Middle East. This means a US beachhead in the Balkans. Washington also needs a front line of defense against its Russian rivals. But Clinton & Co. are playing with fire. The U.S. military presence in Bosnia was promised to last a short year. Today, no end is in sight. Turning Kosovo into a "protectorate" administered by imperialists deeply divided among themselves is only a recipe more ticking time-bomb "protectorates" and widening war.
The current news photos show columns of working class families fleeing to safety in the hills. Devastation and terror are the order of the day. Albanian families pitching thin tents in the cold woods are paying a terrible price for the self-imposed defeat of the old communist movement. Today these workers flee fascist terror and capitalist crisis and chaos. When we build a new international communist movement, led by a mass, international PLP, these very same columns can turn around and march towards the barracks and the banks[[lambda]]the very seat of capitalist power. This necessity becomes clearer with each fascist atrocity and each imperialist troop movement.
A poster of a huge American flag occupies nearly a full page in the test booklet. It says, "Remember December 7" and "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." The patriotism shouts so loudly that it's almost irrelevant that the poster is from World War II and the quote is from the Gettysburg Address.
Another full page prints the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the "Big Lie" used to escalate the Vietnam War. Students had to answer that this gave the president authority to "protect U.S. forces and prevent aggression." Later, students had to say that the "true" rationale for wars in Korea and Vietnam was "stopping communism." While it is true that U.S. rulers feared the prospect of millions of workers and poor peasants becoming communists, it omits that U.S. imperialism was the aggressor and the "other truth" of Vietnam, that of U.S. economic interests and offshore oil.
Students might learn from the test that it's better to trust the rulers than to take anti-racist action. They have to read a poem describing the militant abolitionist John Brown as "weird," and in contrast, Whitman's poem "Oh Captain, My Captain" that praises Lincoln to the skies. Ellis Island and Angel Island are "ports of entry" for immigrants and not "prisons," though they served as both.
We learn from a letter written during World War I (another full-page), that government regulation benefited women by allowing them to take factory jobs away from teenage boys. More openly fascist ideas have their place in the Illinois tests. To develop a crime-prevention program, for example, what's needed is an understanding of "the causes of crime"[[lambda]]but not of substandard living conditions.
You can't defeat the bosses' lies through truth alone. Under capitalism, every field of knowledge[[lambda]]from history to science and back again[[lambda]]is twisted into lies to serve the bosses' needs. Workers' truth requires a Red Army to destroy the bosses and their system. Their war will create our opportunity.
These programs will feature "education-to-career classes, military training, character education and mandatory participation in summer programs." In each school, 120 students will wear military uniforms five days a week.
The Board of Education will help pay for the uniforms, and give each school over $100,000 for the program, plus space for military training. This is in addition to the "ROTC Academy" planned to open this fall in the former Bronzeville Armory, with funding from the federal government and large corporations.
"The military isn't getting enough recruits," explained a retired military officer and retired teacher. "This way, they'll channel students right in. They've already set up programs, quietly, to get more blacks and Hispanics into West Point and the officer corps. This will go along the same lines." We must make sure that these young workers go into the military armed with the communist ideas and skills needed to organize for revolution.
Last week's "Crush Racist Police Terror! March on May Day!" was an inspiring issue of Challenge to bring to the working class. Our Party's response to the racist murder of Amadou Diallo at the hands of four nazi cops was a sterling example of how communists immediately and boldly respond to fascist terror. The role of the cops under capitalism was clear in our chants and our bold presence on the streets. This builds our confidence in the working class, and the confidence that workers have in our revolutionary communist Party.
On Thursday we, in Chicago, had a May Day forum attended by 45 young people we are counting on as May Day organizers. On Friday we took Challenge and a leaflet about the Ford Rouge explosion to autoworkers at the Ford plant. One worker said he had not heard about the murder and was angry after we talked about it. He applauded our Party's boldness, and we sold about 50 papers during the shift change.
On Saturday, we sold papers on Madison and Pulaski, the all black West Side neighborhood where we were attacked by the cops during the 1996 Democratic Party convention. We held up a sign saying, "Smash Racist Police Terror with Communist Revolution." A street vendor (like Amadou was) yelled, "That's a good sign," and bought a paper. Workers and youth in this very depressed community, with plenty of firsthand knowledge of racist police terror, were snatching papers out of our hands. We sold 72 in a hour and a half.
That afternoon there was a youth study group, organized by a young Party member who proposed a mass demonstration against the racist murder of Diallo. He wanted to win students in his mass organization to participate. We struggled with him to try to get his student organization to take action against Amadou's murder. We also plan to raise it at a postal union meeting, a PTA, and a Chicago teachers' union caucus.
Monday we sold papers and passed out May Day leaflets to steel workers. Again, the response was very good. We connected the crisis of capitalism to the attack on steelworkers, and the police attacks on black and Latin youth. We sold about 100 papers during the shift change. One youth leader sold 40 papers.
Self critically, it's been too long since we sold papers like this in Chicago. At our last city leadership meeting, we discussed the type of fight we must wage to bring our co-workers and classmates to May Day in Washington, DC. We talked about the huge task of building a communist movement and working class consciousness out of the ashes of the old communist movement. The comrades in NYC, along with the response of auto, steel, and unemployed workers and youth here, have helped in this struggle. See you on May Day.
Chicago Red
The following is a letter being circulated at a post office and a public school in NYC. Many people have signed it thus far. More often than not people have recounted stories of racist cop harassment against themselves, a relative, or a friend.
On Thursday, February 4th, at the beginning of Black History Month, four white policemen emptied their semi-automatic weapons into the unarmed 22 year old black man, Amadou Diallo. Diallo was murdered for the "crime" of having a dark complexion. An immigrant from the West African country of Guinea, Amadou had hoped to make it as an entrepreneur in the "land of the free, and home of the brave."
We know the four cops involved in this incident have been given days to coordinate their stories (before being interrogated). However, this ultimate act of racist violence by NYC's "finest" must not be swept under the rug of "investigations" and slaps-on-the-wrist, as has been done on so many other occasions in the past (Anthony Baez, Michael Jones, Aswan Watson, Abner Louima...; and who remembers 10 year old Clifford Glover?).
This racist murder is just the ugly tip of the iceberg of harassment and intimidation suffered daily by African-American and Latino people throughout the United States. Let's look at just a few of the facts of daily life for a person of color:
* all too often African-American and Latino drivers in late model cars are pulled over by the cops for no particular reason;
* people of color are frequently followed as they shop in department stores;
* education for the majority of "minority" students in the public schools includes overcrowded classes and buildings, lack of sufficient books and supplies, crumbling facilities and the prospect of facing the same type of cops in the schools.
We, the undersigned postal workers, want to add our names to the voice of outrage against racist police violence in general, and against the murder of Amadou Diallo in particular.
Red Postal Worker
Even though full-time recruitment into the military is low, the majority of the workers enlisting these days are willing to join the part-time branches of the National Guard and Reserves in order to get benefits for schooling. So, the ruling class has no choice but to start activating their reserved forces into combat. Most recently, the Guard has begun a nationwide activation of soldiers to be shipped throughout the world for two week training "missions." For several soldiers in PLP whose unit has been activated, we are using these "missions" as opportunities to expose the weak nature imperialism to our fellow soldiers in the unit, and at the same time build communist consciousness and the Party.
When our unit was activated to go to a South American country on a "humanitarian mission" for the victims of Hurricane Mitch, the comrades in the unit immediately began research of the history of the U.S. in this country. We created and photocopied a packet of articles[[lambda]]some from Challenge and some not[[lambda]]that we have already begun to circulate among friends in our unit and in other Guard units. Some articles discuss how the leaders of this country allowed U.S. farming industries o clear and strip the lands for years[[lambda]]thus leaving it prone to the deadly mudslides created by Hurricane Mitch that killed thousands of workers and still leaves thousands more starving and homeless. Other articles discuss how the U.S. military and the CIA have historically used this country as a base for massacring of so-called revolutionaries and communists in this country and neighboring countries for years.
The packet is important to our ability to organize in the unit. It allows us to raise and discuss with our fellow soldiers not only about the nature of the relationship between the U.S. ruling class and the ruling class of other countries, but also what the relationship is between the working class in other countries and workers in the U.S.
The Vietnam syndrome works to the advantage of the working class, not against it. On the one hand, it's good that workers aren't won to the idea of "collective duty" or fighting bosses' war. But on the other hand, these same workers express an individualist and apathetic attitude towards members of their own working class, and therefore do not seek to fight against the bosses in a communist revolution and defend the "collective interests" of their class. Soldiers who hate the inefficiency in our unit have a very employee-like mentality towards the drills. Instead of seeking to get to know each other outside of drill, most soldiers converse with one another during the day, and go straight home without communicating with one another until the next drill.
For the comrades in the unit, we have begun to take leadership in developing ties with our fellow soldiers outside of drill. We are slowly but surely getting to know the families and friends of other soldiers. Some soldiers in the unit clearly respect us and see us as leaders. Repeatedly, we have challenged and attacked the officers and head sergeants on questions such as sexual harassment, promotions, and equal opportunity.
After watching a video for our overseas deployment that warned us of "foreign terrorist" activity, comrades asked the officers why U.S. bombings of towns and nations of Iraq aren't considered terrorism. This led to a discussion after the video where one soldier observed that the terrorists that soldiers must challenge are not our "brothers and sisters" in other countries, but the leaders of these countries and the U.S. It is our job in the Party for these soldiers to realize that these "brothers and sisters" are really all a part of one international working class that must and can unite against the "leaders," or capitalists of every nation.
This most recent wave of deployments in the unit has allowed comrades to raise the level of discussion we engage in with our friends both during drill and out side of drill. As fascism and war intensify, so does the potential for communist leadership and growth. The Vietnam syndrome or draft dodging in itself allows workers to link inter-imperialist rivalry and war to poverty, drugs, or unemployment. Comrades in the Party must prove to soldiers and workers that we must have a sense of "collective duty" worth defending is in the fight to liberate the international working class and create a communist world.
Red Guard
I had been planning to call my friend Charlotte, a flight attendant and union activist at American Airlines, to see what she thought about the pilots' sick out. Then I ran into her and her co-worker Anne at church today.
"We fought hard against two-tier wages, both for pilots and flight attendants," Charlotte said. "Now it seems that American is trying to bring two-tier back. The pilots couldn't just go along with that."
Anne didn't believe that it would really take American over a year to get 400 pilots integrated into their huge system, and agreed that the real issue was two-tier wages. She supported the pilots' job action, even though she had lost 30 hours of flight time (and pay) because of it. "They supported us when we went on strike," she said. "They haven't asked for our support, though. They don't need it. They have more power than we do."
From a trade-union perspective, this is true. It's not that easy for the bosses to replace pilots quickly. But they didn't hesitate to break the 1981 air-traffic controllers' strike, even though that endangered air travel for months.
The capitalists have the organized force of the state on their side. Their control over the working class is based, in the end, on violence. Real working-class power will come only from revolutionary violence to break the capitalists' stranglehold over our lives. And the success of communist revolution depends more on workers like flight attendants and baggage handlers than it does on the highly paid pilots.
"So, how are you interested in the labor movement?" Anne asked me. Charlotte, who knew the answer, smiled. "I'm a red," I replied, giving them both Challenge. "Oh, a pinko commie like me," Anne said, carefully putting her paper away.
Red Churchgoer
The 1199 Union leadership in NYC called an emergency meeting about Governor Pataki's cuts in the health care industry. We have been told by the media and newspapers that the capitalist-run economy is doing very well. States all over the U.S. are operating with budget surpluses. One may get the impression that the government is going to allocate more money towards health care. But in fact, it is the other way around.
Clinton wanted to squeeze $400 million more out of New York State's share of Medicare. Mayor Giuliani has reduced NYC's subsidy to the Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC) by $350 million a year. Pataki's cuts in Medicaid would reach $1 billion. We are seeing the dismantling of social programs, including welfare, Medicare and Medicaid. The budget surplus is going to increase military spending for world war.
According to the bosses' newspapers, over 55 million Americans do not have health insurance, many are low income working families. In NYC, two million people are without health insurance. Over the last month, with the outbreak of the flu, hospital emergency rooms all over NYC were overcrowded. Patients were put on gurneys and placed in hallways, waiting to be seen.
The 1199 Union leadership's plan of action is to join with the hospital bosses to go to Albany and lobby the politicians against the cuts. This is a sure loser. The hospital bosses are competing with each other, not for better health care, but to see which can make the most profit. Ads and coupons are being used to bring patients into hospitals. Patients are very often being discharged without getting proper medical attention, and readmitted shortly after, usually with serious complications. Many die. With the downsizing and cutbacks, the capitalist health care system will lay off more workers and not be able to save workers' lives in the future. Only a mass movement for a communist revolution can do that. Fighting to eliminate profit, money, and fascist bosses is the only way to relieve the misery of the working class!
Red Health Care Worker
I'd like to share some experiences that I had recently with a co-worker in the factory where I work. The other day, he offered to give me a ride home from work. It was the first chance I have had to spend time with him off the job.
Riding in the car, he put on the music of Los Guara Guao, a group from Venezuela that sings protest music. I asked him if he liked revolutionary music. "Yes," he answered. "I like it a lot. I like everything that's revolutionary. I don't like capitalism, but I also don't like communism." I asked why. He answered, "Because look what happened in Cuba. There are always rich and poor. Social classes will always exist. It shouldn't be like that. For me, the word communism comes from `in common.' We should all be equal."
I asked him if he knew the difference between capitalism, socialism and communism. "No. The truth is that I don't know." So I explained that socialism led to state capitalism, because the old communist movement made the mistake of believing that a socialist transition was needed between capitalism and communism. Under socialism, they kept money and wages, or wage slavery. The intellectuals made more than the workers; skilled workers more than unskilled workers. The result of socialism was that communists administered capitalism. It didn't lead to communism, as the old communist fighters wanted, but rather back to capitalism. Under communism, there won't be money, wages, or any kind of privilege. The slogan will be "From each according to their commitment, to each according to their need."
When I finished, he exclaimed, "I was confused, but I won't be anymore. Now I know what communism is." I asked him if he had read about Marx and Lenin. He said he had not. So I offered to give him revolutionary literature. Two days later, I gave him Challenge and I loaned him the PLP video, Road to Revolution. A few days later, when he gave me the video back, he told me, "It was great! I liked it so much that while I was watching it, I got goose bumps!" Since then, he gets Challenge every week. He's given me his address to come visit him at home. I'm planning to invite him to a study group, to help build for the May Day March, and to join the party.
A Garment Worker.
Two letters in last week's Challenge have a good point when they say that when students stand up to racism they show a lot of understanding; and that the bosses' press attack youth to justify their brutality against them. However, this sidesteps two questions: the role of communist teachers and also the current claim that education curricula are "dumbed down."
Our experience has been that among the angry youth who stand up to the bosses' attacks, those who are won to building PLP over time are those who have been won to seeing the need and possibility for revolution and communism. Angry youth are capable of learning and making history. Spontaneity isn't enough. The bosses don't want their schools to teach these things. But our Party will do it[[lambda]]in and out of school. The world is knowable and those who have some confidence that we can know it and change it will act on this understanding, and get better at it.
It would be a political error to dismiss those parents and teachers who are worried about the "dumbing down" of the education curriculum. They have a good point! We should seize the opportunity to show that the fault lies with the rulers. Capitalism cannot tolerate a well-informed working class, conscious of its own history and mission, so the bosses' educational system must hide the truth.
Since the beginning, capitalists have sought to undermine working class consciousness. Communists fight for workers to build the confidence to tear down this system of greed and organize a communist world.
A Reader
My girlfriend, her boyfriend, and I went to a club called Vincent's in Randolph, Massachusetts. An evening of fun and socializing ended up being an hour of verbal and physical abuse, assault and arrest. Coming off the dance floor after a few minutes of dancing and heading for the ladies room, I was accosted by a bouncer who said something to me that was totally inaudible in the din created by the loud music and the dancers. I motioned that I couldn't hear him and continued my walk to the ladies room. I was then grabbed by several men, some of whom were cops.
They proceeded to carry and drag me out of the club. The cops carried me in a very demeaning way, one holding each arm, while others held my legs wide open, exposing my full genitalia despite the fact I was wearing underwear. They slammed me into a wall. The black cop had my hair wrapped around his hand and wrist. He repeatedly slammed my head into the concrete, telling me to shut up.
Still face down on the wall, a white cop had my arm pinned behind my back. He had my wrist, and his knee was on my legs. As he pushed my arm up toward the back of my neck, I screamed that he was breaking my arm. Each time I yelled, the black cop told me to shut up, calling me a bitch while he smashed my head into the cement. My girlfriend and her boyfriend questioned the police about how they were treating me. The cops approached the boyfriend, and he asked for their names and badge numbers. They cuffed him and placed him under arrest.
This was the worst night of my life. I was never informed why the police removed me from the club in the first place, aside from the extreme and violent manner in which they did it. Police brutality and excessive force are a regular occurrence in Quincy, Massachusetts. Due process is nothing more than a joke. The cops are repeat offenders, guilty without punishment.
We do indeed live in a police state. My friend is haunted by it, and says she'll never forget the hatred she saw in the cops' eyes. I've seen it before, and know I will encounter it again. I know that I am only one in a million, and I feel no worse about what happened to me than I do when I hear the endless stories of other people who have been victimized by the police. I've always been one to speak out against injustice, but always to no avail. After years of talking, rationalizing and fighting I was exhausted, and the good beating I endured didn't help. Convinced that people will never change, I became hopeless and complacent. The time for that ends now!
The police will try to crush the life out of you no matter who you are, simply at their whim. I have nowhere else to turn, and no one else to share my outrage with but you the public. I only hope that as I cry out for help, and against evil, my cries are heard, and not in vain.
These incidents occur not only in Randolph, but repeatedly in Vincent's. They solicit young patrons, and employ the police to handle crowd control. Rather than keeping the peace, the Randolph police randomly choose an unsuspecting victim to violate and make an example of. I recently spoke to another young female who was brutally handled and verbally abused there. The night I was there, witnesses said this type of brutality was common, in the club and in the town.
Police brutality has an overwhelming past, present and future. Things won't change until we make sure that they do. It's our responsibility to enforce our basic human rights, and to make sure that innocent people aren't violated, mistreated and unfortunately so often killed!
What happened to me could happen to you. We are all at risk. Imagine being completely stripped of your dignity, control over your own body, and knowing that you'll die for no reason. They beat you unconscious without provocation or cause. Finally you survive what you knew would be a fatality, then you become the accused, simply because the police are untouchable no matter what the atrocity.
My greatest hope is that you find motivation in my words. There's not much I can accomplish on my own, but together the world lays at our feet. We can squash police brutality, and make sure that this type of injustice does not continue. The police keep innocent people in fear for their lives, never having to explain their actions or answer to anyone, and are never troubled by the burden of proof. We must keep them in check. I hope to help all avoid the same earth-shattering and life-threatening experience. Come join me and take action at Vincent's on Saturday night, February 27th, and again on March 13th, from 12pm-5pm, for a speak out against police brutality and murder.
For further information and support, write to: PO Box 243, Storrs, Ct. 06268.
Connecticut Victim Of Police Brutality