On April 2nd, around 1,600 workers with the utility company NIPSCO, that covers gas and electricity delivery for the northern part of Indiana, were locked out from work in a fascist move by the bosses who are making profits of billions of dollars. Members of the international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been visiting pickets almost daily to show support for our fellow workers and to share revolutionary analysis and politics as the answer to the bosses’ vicious attacks.

Not to be forgotten are the 800 workers of the British Petroleum (BP) refinery in nearby Whiting, who have been locked out since March 19th. PLP attended the workers picket bringing food and communist politics. 

We will continue fighting to show solidarity with these industrial workers to build the revolutionary power that poses a real challenge to this racist deadly capitalist system.

The following is a speech made at a recent PLP fundraiser by a longtime PL member and NIPSCO worker, where he gives a long-term assessment of the struggle and the worker-run communist world we need to fight for.

I remember guys, when I first started, telling me that we had lifetime jobs at NIPSCO. ‘People will always need gas and electricity!’ I responded that we were not immune from the attacks facing other workers, including steel mills at the time that were closing and ending pensions. The capitalist system doesn’t look to take care of people. It looks to take care of profits. The Democrats and Republicans have all been involved trying to save their empire and leaving pollution and rust belts all over the world.

And sure enough, all through the late 1980s and early 90s and up to today, NIPSCO has cut us back. Bidding out or retiring, when somebody left, their position wasn’t replaced. We have no welders at my station. If something comes up, we have to call another area to see if they have a welder who can help us out. 

So, the company has the upper hand. They have also brought in scabs, temporary workers from all over to do our work. Of course, this makes the situation unsafe. We know the infrastructure, the trucks, the experience.

So why is there a lockout? I think they want to crush the union. We will have to work like we don’t have a union! Us working overtime will be up to them. If they say we have to work past eight hours, we will have to work or be disciplined. 

The bosses have tried to smear the reputation of the workers by posting online the wages of workers who have worked lots of OT. But four years ago, there were 40 linemen in the Gary district. Today there are 14! Trying to keep up with the work and doing a lot of overtime in the process. 

And then the company has the gall to mock these workers and try to turn the public against us. 

Community speakers at a meeting in Gary did not buy the line that NIPSCO bosses were trying to use. Speaker after speaker condemned the company bosses and their outrageous utility bills going up through the roof, but they stood with the locked-out workers who were present!

These examples show the idiocy of capitalism. There are all kinds of gas lines and electric lines that need to be replaced while so many people are out of work. Elderly workers who are retired and on fixed incomes can’t get heat and air conditioning when they need it to stay alive! The working class could do all those things if we had the power to do it. 

One great point about the lockout that has been commented on more than once is that we’ve been able to get to know our coworkers better!

There is a lot of goodwill amongst us! There has been a greater feeling of antiracism. A recent rally had the largely Black and female clerical union joining the mainly white utility workers. The solidarity was palpable. It gives you a taste of the joy there could be in the world if the working class ran it and used it to share all that we produce with those who need it. March on May Day for a communist future!”

Tentative agreement for crumbs, permanent struggle for communism

Although as of April 16th the NIPSCO pickets were suspended on account of a tentative agreement with the company, we know that the struggle is far from over. PLP is fighting to win workers to the idea that there is no contract with the capitalists that could ever match our worth as working people, that the whole foundation of the capitalist system is making profits off the exploitation of our labor. Our collective goal should go beyond the idea of a “fair” contract and be the complete abolition of wages and exploitation through communist revolution, and we need to keep building the mass PLP to ever achieve that.

The brutal war between the Iranian oil bosses and Israel’s tech tycoons, as part of the showdown between U.S. and Chinese imperialists, ended, or at least was paused, in the middle of its second month. We must – as communists – take a hard look at the political forces at play in Israel. Contrary to state propaganda “Hasbarah,” which paints the Israeli nation as a monolithic entity in support of Benjamin Netanyahu’s murderous regime, in reality some Israelis oppose the recent wars and the government behind them.

Liberals will always bow to fascism

The most obvious observation we can make is that liberalism, here and everywhere, is thoroughly rotten and subservient to fascism. From Yair Lapid, the centrist liberal leader in Israel, to General Yair Golan, so-called leader of the “ Zionist Left,”, all liberals fawn and bow before open fascism. Not one liberal openly criticized the war in principle. Sure, they all criticize the details of war, the strategy and tactics – but not the war itself. General Golan’s “hard-line opposition to Netanyahu” facade conceals a great deal of militarism and the lack of a sufficient political spine to openly oppose this war.

Meanwhile, no matter how low the liberals bow before Bibi’s war machine, the fascists and religious fundamentalists still drool and openly call for violence against the “Left” (“respectable” liberals included!). Netanyahu’s thugs physically harass and openly attack well-known opposition figures and beat up anti-regime protesters on the streets. Netanyahu’s media hounds bare their teeth against any opposition, loyal as it may be, spreading libel and filth against all who oppose the government.

Liberalism, as an “opposition” tactic, always fails. This is mainly because most liberals would rather support fascism than working-class and communist forces. Faced with barbarous militarism and cruel state repression, liberals retreat, fawn, and bow their heads. Then, fascists crush them. Countless times in the past century and a half, all over the world, it always ends the same way: fascists opposed by liberals win, and in many cases many liberals join them.

The only political party in Israel openly and resolutely opposing the war, militarism, and fascism is Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), a multi-ethnic alliance of leftist movements led by the Communist Party of Israel (CPI). From day one, Hadash was open in its opposition for the war, without fawning in front of fascists and nationalists. This stands in stark contrast with the intentional weakness shown without exception by all liberals.

Hadash does not buy into the Israeli government’s claims that it wishes to topple the Iranian theocratic regime, nor does it fall into the trap of “defensive” military arguments. Instead, its members risk police and thug violence to openly protest the war in the streets. With a strong and uncompromising communist leadership, its members lead the remaining true-left opposition in struggle against Netanyahu and his billionaire backers.

Progressive Labor Party members, we recognize that despite the reformist nature of the movement’s leadership, its younger members fight hard for a communist future and are willing to take risks in the real war – the fight against fascism and militarism. Despite the movement’s electoralism and its intermittent compromises towards Palestinian nationalism, its actions as Israel’s active and uncompromising opposition show that communists, need to stand on the front lines against murderous reactionaries and their corporate bosses.

Another spirited rally brought together roughly 20 staff and students at our Brooklyn campus to protest ICE kidnappings and the drive toward imperialist war. As the rally unfolded, dozens of students passing by raised their fists, chanted in solidarity, and some stopped to join us. The response made clear that there is a deep well of anger and resistance among young people.

Firing up against capitalism 

This marked our fifth rally of the year, and we are already preparing for the next on May 1st—International Workers’ Day, or May Day. Our school’s anti-ICE committee has decided to hold future rallies after school rather than in the morning, so more students can witness—and take part in—the growing resistance within their own community to the racist violence of this system.

At our most recent organizing meeting, we discussed the escalating war in Iran and the very real threat of World War III. There was unanimous agreement: we must organize not just for our students, but with them. We also debated how to invite student participation while navigating school rules. In that discussion, one deeply committed antiracist teacher captured the mood perfectly: “So what if we get in trouble? Bring it on!”CHALLENGE newspaper was distributed to all as was an invitation to PLP’s annual May Day march down Flatbush Avenue.

Her righteous anger at the system is what should be driving all of us to continue to organize to smash capitalism. It reflects a growing understanding that this racist, imperialist, capitalist system offers our youth nothing but repression at home and war abroad. Our responsibility is to keep building, organizing, and fighting for a communist future: one where all young people, no matter where they are born, are valued and can live with dignity, free from exploitation and violence.

Pakistan

On this May Day 2026, we send militant and internationalist greetings from the factories, fields, universities, and streets of Pakistan. This historic day stands as a powerful reminder that the working class across the globe faces one common enemy: the capitalist system and its imperialist domination. Our struggles are not separate or isolated—they are united expressions of a single, worldwide class struggle against exploitation and oppression.

Fighting back is the only option

In Pakistan, the working class continues to face deepening attacks—skyrocketing inflation, mass unemployment, privatization, and brutal state repression. These conditions are not accidental. They are the inevitable products of capitalism, imposed by a ruling class that serves imperialist interests. From industrial workers to agricultural laborers, from students to unemployed youth, the burden of crisis is placed squarely on our class. Yet even in these harsh conditions, resistance persists and grows.

We firmly reject the illusion that workers share any common interests with the ruling class—whether local or international. The enemy is capitalism itself. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels made clear, the history of all societies is the history of class struggle. Today, that struggle is global in scope and demands a global revolutionary response—one being built through the efforts of the Progressive Labor Party to unite workers under one red flag.

We recognize that nationalism, reformism, and revisionism serve only to divide and weaken the working class. These ideologies obscure the fundamental contradiction between labor and capital, thereby strengthening the ruling class. As Vladimir Lenin emphasized, without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement—but theory must guide practice toward the abolition of capitalism, not its reform.
The line advanced by the Progressive Labor Party makes it clear that only the international working class—united across all borders—has the power to overthrow this system. There is no progressive section of the bourgeoisie, no path through alliances with ruling-class forces, and no national solution to a global system. The task before us is the fight for communist revolution, led by a politically conscious and organized working class.

We draw lessons from the history of past struggles—not as fixed models to imitate, but as experiences to critically assess, learning from both their victories and their defeats. Our central task remains the building of a mass, revolutionary movement rooted in the working class and guided by a correct anti-revisionist line.

Reject all the bosses’ dividers!

Comrades, on this May Day, our message is clear: your struggle is our struggle. We stand with you not as representatives of separate nations, but as members of one international class. Your victories strengthen our resolve. Your setbacks deepen our collective understanding.
Let us reject all divisions imposed by capitalism—nation, race, religion—and unite as one working class. Let us build a revolutionary international communist movement under the red flag of the Progressive Labor Party that can bring an end to this system once and for all.
Workers of the world unite—not for reform, but for international communist revolution.

Colombia

In the context of the commemoration of International Workers’ Day, please accept our cordial and militant greetings from Colombia. This historic date calls upon us to remember and uphold the struggles of the global working class against exploitation, racism, sexism, wage slavery, and all forms of oppression imposed by the capitalist system—along with its deadly wars, which are currently unfolding in regions such as Iran, Gaza, and Sudan.

Throughout history, the working class has demonstrated its strength and determination through great revolutionary feats. As Victor Hugo once expressed, even the darkest night ends with the rising of the sun. However, that dawn demands that we confront the darkness and tear down—brick by brick—the walls that block the light. These words reflect the fighting spirit that has driven workers to organize and resist in the face of exploitation.

Today—in an era marked by an imperialist offensive and deepening inequalities—we, the workers, continue to face war, hunger, misery, violence, and repression. Policies involving cuts to healthcare and education, the persecution of migrants, police terror, and imperialist wars are all manifestations of a system that prioritizes profit over human life.

In the face of this reality, the international working class continues to organize and resist. Through marches, forums, protests, and community-based work, class consciousness is being strengthened, winning new adherents to our struggle. Internationalist solidarity is being demonstrated toward peoples suffering the consequences of war and domination, while simultaneously denouncing repression, racism, and the rise of reactionary forces.

It is fundamental to strengthen political organization and conscious action in every sphere: in the countryside, in the cities, in schools, and in workplaces. Building a communist world requires perseverance, education, and unity—while recognizing that both advances and setbacks are an integral part of the struggle. This May Day serves as a clear call for working-class unity on a global scale—to reject all forms of oppression and to continue building alternatives that enable us to transcend current conditions. History demonstrates that organization and collective struggle are fundamental tools for achieving profound transformations.

From the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), we will continue to commemorate this date as a symbol of resistance and hope, reaffirming our commitment to the struggle against predatory capitalism—along with its militaristic and anti-immigrant offensives—until the day the red flag is raised in every corner of the planet.