BROOKLYN, NY, June 11 -— The unified, spirited voices of about 50 staff members and students rang through the streets as they rallied in front of their school against the latest rounds of racist budget cuts to all NYC schools.

 “They say cut back, we say fight back” and “Money for books, not for crooks” were just a few of the chants used during the half hour rally. This action reflects an effort by PLP members in two of the three schools housed in this one building, to unite the students and the staff in some struggle.

The effort began when a union meeting was called for all three schools to hear the district representative defend the United Federation of Teachers’ (UFT) agreement to allow teachers’ ratings to be based partially on students’ standardized test results. It quickly became clear that the UFT bosses work hand-in-hand with the education bosses to attack students, parents and teachers.

The district rep claimed the union was fighting for teachers’ rights by not allowing 100% of our rating to be based on students’ scores. He argued that a partial link between the two was a victory because since the Department of Education (DOE) was going to pass it anyway, this compromise makes it “less bad.”

A PL teacher responded by attacking the union. She argued that the role of unions should be to fight the boss, not to give in to what the boss wanted. She also said that if the UFT really wanted to fight this they could have organized teachers, students and parents across the country to strike. Lastly she stated that the threatened budget cuts and the linking of teacher ratings to student test scores were primarily a racist attack against students.

More teaching to the test will develop in the schools that are already struggling with low budgets — and these schools primarily serve black and Latino students. Many other teachers at the meeting were angered and spoke out against the district rep’s arrogant and combative attitude and by the anti-worker message he was bringing.

After the meeting teachers got together to plan a building-wide union meeting without the presence of any union hack. At the following meeting teachers decided it was time to take action. A debate ensued about whether to make the focus of our action the attacks against teachers or students.

A PL teacher put these latest attacks in the context of the bigger capitalist crisis. He explained that the bosses were mainly concerned with their imperialist wars in the Middle East so workers were being forced to pay for this latest capitalist crisis with layoffs, lowering of wages, attacks on our healthcare and pensions. He then argued that in schools the budget cuts were racist attacks on our students who are paying the price with less supplies, overcrowded classrooms, fewer electives and afterschool programs. Most teachers, many of whom read CHALLENGE,  quickly agreed to make our students the focus.

Two letters were drafted by two different teacher committees. One was a letter sent to newspapers countering the lies in all of the bosses’ media made about “lazy” workers in the UFT and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The other letter was for parents. It outlined the budget cuts, put them in the context of the bigger economic crisis and called on all parents to unite with their children and teachers to fight back.

Along with these letters, rallies were planned for every Friday morning till the end of the year, the union rally at City Hall on June 16th and one final rally the last day of school. In an act of solidarity, teachers from two of the schools agreed to rally even earlier in the morning than they would have had to because the third school starts on an earlier schedule. This small action shows the potential workers and students in this school building have to create the deep ties needed to develop a real movement against this racist system.

After six years of PL members working with students, parents and teachers, these rallies and meetings with members from all three schools are a huge step forward. Uniting our class brothers and sisters is not an easy or fast process since the bosses use every strategy they can to divide workers. They are splitting up larger schools and creating smaller ones in one school building to divide the student body and the teacher union chapters. But workers in this building are defying them. This is the only way to prepare for the on-going class struggles we need to organize to eventually destroy the system that denies us an education, jobs and our humanity! J

NEW YORK CITY, June 16 — PL’ers and friends attended a mass rally of city workers at City Hall. The rally was well-attended by workers from all over the city. Unfortunately workers were subjected to speeches from numerous union hacks and politicians who were all saying the same thing — not much. PL’ers attempted to start a picket within the rally, to no avail. However, PLP chants of, “No cuts, no more, no money for the war” did spur some discussion with workers at the rally.
All in all it was exciting to see workers from all over the city regardless of occupation together in one place. It was a reminder of the power of a united working class. It was also clear that workers were not satisfied with the empty “leadership” being offered by city unions. The leadership of the Progressive Labor Party is what workers need and want. 

DETROIT, MI, June 17 — If there is a crisis in the U.S. auto industry and within the United Auto Workers Union (UAW), you wouldn’t know it by looking at the 35th Constitutional Convention that just ended. The Hospitality Suites, Officers Receptions and Directors’ Dinners were in full swing as 1,200 delegates were wined and dined in a city where more than half the population, mostly black, former-UAW members and their families, live in poverty. We also were served a 10-course “meal” of politicians and government officials.

Since the last convention four years ago, UAW membership dropped another 35 percent to about 355,000 members, with the largest segment, 155,000, belonging to the Technical, Office, and Professional (TOP) division. The UAW helped GM, Ford and Chrysler impose a two-tier wage system that cut starting wages in half as well as cutting retiree health care.

After the UAW helped defeat their 2008 strike, the American Axel strikers had their wages slashed and then lost their jobs. As part of Obama’s bailout of the industry, the UAW agreed to a no-strike clause until 2015. Outgoing president Gettlefinger and incoming president Bob King (who tried and failed to force more concessions on Ford workers, while the company made a $2 billion profit) both referred to this as “saving the auto industry and the UAW,” to the cheers of the vast majority of delegates. 

If there was anything worse than the well-
orchestrated convention, it was the very loyal opposition of reformers and Trotskyites. The day before the convention opened they held a rally of less than 50 people. This in a city that is 90 percent black, facing poverty and police terror, and made up of tens of thousands of current, retired and former UAW members. On opening day they had less than 10 people picketing Cobo Hall. These “reformers” are current and retired UAW stewards, local officers and delegates, totally isolated from the workers.

In 2009, Solidarity House (UAW international headquarters) paid out almost $100 million in salaries to just over 550 vice-presidents, regional directors, international reps, organizers, attorneys, and more. This is only part of the union apparatus. This week, in the name of “sacrifice,” they gave up their Cost of Living Allowance while voting themselves a healthy raise to make up the difference. In contrast, new-hires at GM, Ford and Chrysler will earn a paltry $28,000 (if they work a full year).

The convention ended with a march from Cobo Hall to the Comerica Bank building, where the UAW, NAACP, Teamsters and state AFL-CIO all endorsed a mass march on Washington, October 2, for Jobs and Justice. What they really want is to rally the troops for the November elections.

It is clear that for the foreseeable future, PLP and other revolutionary-minded and anti-racist workers will have to function within the enemy’s camp, mixing patience and urgency in winning workers to our revolutionary communist outlook. The coming march on Washington is an opportunity to organize a growing number of workers to march and fight for communist revolution. Coming efforts to organize Toyota and the other trans-nationals can provide more openings for our Party. (We will have more to say in coming issues.) 

QUEENS, NY, June 15 — Twenty students and faculty at Queens College held a protest today against the longest war in U.S. history. The war in Afghanistan, which began with a U.S. invasion in late 2001, continues today with a deadly occupation that has killed tens of thousands of Afghans, has spilled over to Pakistan, and shows no sign of ending.

The demonstrators held up anti-war signs and chanted “Occupation Is A Crime, From Iraq to Palestine!” and “Exxon-Mobil, BP, Shell, Take Your War and Go to Hell!” as they marched across campus, giving out flyers and talking to students. The rally was the idea of one student, who thought the occasion of Afghanistan becoming the longest war had to be marked by protest, not silence. He gave a speech decrying the many U.S. war crimes — the repeated killing of innocent civilians by U.S. drone and helicopter attacks along with nighttime raids by U.S. Special Forces.

Although it is now summer session, this demonstration drew almost as many students as an anti-war protest during the regular school year, and we got a good response from other students. Our multi-racial group of protestors was spirited and determined. Party comrades who participated and distributed CHALLENGE were proud to take part.

Our chants and speeches connected various aspects of capitalist oppression — unemployment, budget cuts and a racist prison system at home, along with brutal wars of occupation for economic gain. Working people and the poor pay for these wars, either with their lives or through cuts in services. It is the big-business owners who profit handsomely from the control of raw materials, markets, cheap labor, investment opportunities and fat military contracts — that’s imperialist profits.

One speaker pointed out that there are now another trillion reasons why Obama will not withdraw U.S. troops next summer, as he promised. The Obama administration has just announced what has been known for decades: Afghanistan possesses a trillion dollars worth of valuable mineral deposits, “including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium.” In fact, the deposits are so large that “Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.” (NY Times, 6/14/10)

Nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers will remain to guarantee that U.S. companies, rather than China or another rival, get the lion’s share of these mineral concessions. These troops will be stationed on permanent bases that the U.S. had built for a possible war against Iran, which possesses the world’s second largest reserves of oil and gas. Iran is a rival to the U.S. for dominance in the energy-rich Persian Gulf.

In addition, these troops will guard the building of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India (the TAPI pipeline), part of an overall U.S. plan to control world oil and gas spigots in the likely event of a future military conflict with China.

U.S. wars of occupation have been going on for more than two centuries — against the indigenous people of North America, against dozens of Latin American countries, in Vietnam, in Iraq and throughout Africa and Asia. Millions have demonstrated against these wars. But they won’t end for good until the profit system that causes them — capitalism — is terminated, and the working class has smashed all borders and won a communist world.

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 21 — Even though D.C. Metro recently raised bus fares to $1.45, many riders, with drivers looking the other way in solidarity, have decided to “just pay a buck.” They are not only attacking the bosses where it hurts them the most — the pocketbook — they are also displaying a level of class consciousness that should be an inspiration. Any and every instance of workers looking out for other workers is a reason for optimism. This consciousness, and a revolutionary party to organize our class, are crucial ingredients in the recipe for communist revolution.

Now, despite angry protests and testimony against fare increases by workers and students, the transit board here is hiking fares again, to $1.70. These represent the biggest increases in Metro’s history and is part of the bosses’ response to the crisis of capitalism — put the burden on the backs of workers –  a burden borne disproportionately by the mostly black and Latino Metro employees and riders.

As we have seen worldwide, the racism inherent in capitalism has intensified during the economic crisis. Furthermore, disabled workers, victims of capitalism’s disregard for the health and well-being of workers, will face big increases in the cost of their transportation services.  In response, workers are mobilizing to broaden the “Just Pay a Dollar” campaign, with Metro drivers being asked to continue supporting it by accepting the lower fares.

This resistance is a positive sign. Solidarity can be built among workers through such a campaign. But we should have no illusions that such a movement will significantly alter the bosses’ exploitation of workers and riders. Only with a communist revolution could we actually solve the problem: workers would run Metro in the interests of workers so they could get to work easily and make their contribution to society.

Under communism, transit would be free and available, since we would all be working collectively with one another, to create a better world, not help some exploiting boss make profit from our labor. As the “Just Pay a Dollar” campaign grows, we will work to bring this idea to more workers at Metro and in the community!