PHILADELPHIA, April 5 — One of the cherished notions that the bosses push in defense of their capitalist system is that workers have the right to freedom of speech. Nurses and allied professionals at Temple Hospital are learning that this “right” can disappear quickly when it interferes with the bosses’ profit-making.

During contract negotiations Temple bosses insisted on a “gag clause” that would allow them to fire nurses for speaking out publicly against poor quality care. One nurse was told by a boss, “if you want your constitutional rights you will have to go somewhere else.”

This gag clause is one of the main issues that led the nurses to strike on March 31. Others are demands for safe staffing levels, keeping tuition reimbursement for the children of employees, and no increase in co-pays for health insurance.

The bosses have hired 850 scab nurses to replace the over 1,000 nurses on strike. They are paying these scabs as much as $10,000 per week. According to union calculations the cost of hiring scabs for two weeks would be enough to settle the contract negotiations. Union estimates are that Temple has spent $5 million over and above regular costs for the first week of the strike and will spend $4.5 million per week for the remainder of the strike. The profit of the agency providing the scab nurses, HealthSource Global Staffing, is estimated at $1.1 million per week. The cost of the tuition benefit that Temple is trying to take away is $1.1 million per year!

PLP is taking the first steps in supporting the Temple strike. We are attending support demonstrations and talking to Temple workers. In our collective discussions of the strike we are identifying the strengths and weaknesses of this particular struggle and the general struggle over health care in the failing capitalist economy. It is obvious that politics is primary over economics in this strike. Why would the bosses be willing to spend so much money on scabs if this were not true?

The most positive aspect of the strike is the strikers fighting for the right to defend patient safety more than for their own economic interests. Temple’s insistence on the gag clause was the real trigger for the strike. Some of the right-wing union leadership’s statements suggest that this clause was put forth by management as a demand that would be impossible for the nurses to accept, in order to force a strike. PLP’ers think that the matter goes deeper than this.

The capitalist class has a long-range plan for developing fascist healthcare. In order to achieve their goals they must break the traditional idea that the nurses’ primary obligation is to advocate for the best interests of their patients. It is significant that the bosses are challenging this long-standing tradition in a hospital whose patients are primarily black and Latino workers. We must increase the understanding of this racist gag clause as a step on the road to fascism.

Stop All Scabs!

The nurses are using the media to build community support. Temple students are circulating a petition supporting the strikers and denouncing the “ridiculous” management demands. While these efforts are important they are no substitute for a commitment to winning the strike by stopping scab nurses from crossing the picket lines. Other nursing strikes have been lost because scabs were allowed to work until the bosses were able to hire permanent replacements for the strikers.

Another weakness of the strike is the lack of support from 1199C Hospital Workers Union. Tensions between the union leaders over raiding have led to this situation, the product of a long history of divisive leadership by the bureaucrats in both organizations. 1199’ers should form rank-and-file committees to support the striking nurses and techs in whatever way they can. For example, 1199’ers could join the strikers’ picket lines at breaks and before and after work. In the past, when other unions struck at other Philadelphia hospitals and the 1199 leadership refused to formally support the strike, 1199’ers organized to do everything from picketing to fundraising to support leaflets to secret sabotage to planning sick-outs. All this was done without the union leadership, but, most importantly, with the involvement of PLP communists.

The most significant weakness of the strike is the lack of communist ideas and leadership. The local PLP collective does not have a strong base at Temple but we can begin to have an influence by talking with the few workers we know at Temple and the stronger base we have at other hospitals in the city. We must win them to see that no matter what the outcome of this strike might be, we can only defeat the increasing attacks on healthcare by building the Progressive Labor Party and fighting for communist revolution. 

This year I decided to go on the offensive at my high school in politically organizing my students. I chose the book “The Farming of Bones,” by Edwidge Danticat, about the racist genocide against Haitians in the Dominican Republic in 1937. This could help me intensify a contradiction in my largely Dominican school and neighborhood, raise important aspects of the Party’s line and bring a larger contingent of students to May Day.

We’re still reading, but already we have shared important lessons. We’ve discussed the contradiction between individualism and collectivity: what makes us unique and what unites us. Students agreed that we share much more than what divides us; collectivity is primary. We surveyed racism around the world, compiling a list of super-exploited groups in virtually every country, based on so-called “race,” ethnic background and/or religion.

Clearly, racism is not confined to the U.S. or the Dominican Republic. That point hit home when a guest speaker informed students of a trip she took to Palestine/Israel and the vicious racism she encountered there against Palestinians.

Last fall, I confronted a young Dominican woman at a public forum who said that most Dominicans are racist. I argued then that the ruling class has created racism to make extra profits off the working class and that in my experience my Dominican students show anger against racism.  She used nationalism to attack me, claiming that since she was Dominican, she ought to know. Was she right? How would my students respond when they read about the book’s Dominican characters attacking Haitians? Would they side with their nationality even if meant supporting racism?

My confidence in the working class was confirmed from the first hint of racism in the book. The students immediately snarled at the comments of the racist Dominican landowner: “That’s racist!” Students proudly sided with the working-class Haitians over the ruling Dominican racists.

Since then, we’ve explored various other topics. We read an article in CHALLENGE about John Brown, discussing that the fight against racism is multi-racial, and sometimes necessarily violent. And we responded immediately to the opportunity to discuss the Haitian earthquake, exploring another CHALLENGE article that showed the imperialist racism of the U.S., using its military to control Haitian workers.

One day recently, we had a lesson in political economy, pretending our classroom was a garment factory making jeans. Students were amazed and angered at how much profit the bosses make from our labor! And it never ceases to amaze how capitalist schools hide the truth. When I asked this group of seniors — who just finished a required class in government — what the name of our economic system is, nobody knew! Finally, after many blank stares, one student asked if it was called capitalism.

This past week we had a great success with the public showing of the movie “The Price of Sugar.” Fifty students and teachers crowded into a large classroom to see the film, a blistering indictment of capitalist exploitation and racism in the Dominican Republic today against Haitian workers.

Though the movie is clearly reformist in nature, it does show the way government supports and protects big business interests and tries to pit workers against each other. Students were mesmerized and deeply affected, once again siding with the Haitian workers, and attacking both the bosses and the Dominican workers they bribed and deceived to support them.

Lastly, a contingent from our class participated in the march on the National Day of Action to Defend Education. This was these students’ first public demonstration and they were excited! The highlight was meeting up with transit workers at the end of the march and feeling the unity of interests we share. “Students-workers must unite, fight, fight, fight!” we chanted.

Now we need to deepen our understanding, to learn how capitalism NEEDS racism, both to dramatically increase bosses’ profits and to try to divide the working class so we can’t fight back. We also need to explore the communist alternative to capitalism. There is a solution to racism! I hope to have a healthy group of students from this class at this year’s International May Day celebration!

Red Offensive



PARIS, April 7 — Launching of a national train strike here today indicated that workers’ fighting spirit is growing. They’re demanding 2,000 new jobs and an end to restructuring. A relatively high number of train drivers and conductors — over one-third — are participating in a renewable 24-hour strike against the national train company.

This indicated that worker militancy may
finally be forcing the union misleaders to organize more than symbolic 24-hour strikes. For decades, workers’ capacity to shut down industries here has been frittered away on “symbolic” strikes.

The strike is limited by the small number of non-train crew workers involved, and respect for the government-imposed minimum service, which has kept 75% of the high-speed trains and 60% of other trains rolling.

When rank-and-file workers take control of a strike, it can be a step in upping the ante of class struggle, which, with the development of communist leadership, could lead to a revolutionary movement to end capitalism with communist revolution. 

Along with 20 other churchgoers, I attended a forum on the effects of the war in Afghanistan on U.S. workers. A teacher described the impact of the war economy on education; a nurse practitioner detailed the effects on medical care; and a lawyer presented the consequences for immigrants. The forum’s moderator leads the congregation’s anti-racist committee.

Nobody was unsympathetic, but many different views were expressed on the war’s effects here. Time limits precluded dealing with the terror and war’s impact on the Afghan people, who identify strongly along tribal lines. However, some serious aspects of imperialism were dealt with.

There were some very dramatic moments. The teacher spoke passionately about how funding cuts are affecting his students, and how programs that traditionally have created a rounded school experience — art, music, vocations, library, sports and clubs — no longer exist in the same way. The only school “club” well-funded and growing is the Junior ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps). The teacher has had many discussions with his students about what imperialism has done to school resources.

The nurse practitioner said sadly that patients are often discharged well before they’re fit to take care of themselves. Because of a great shortage of beds, and due to payment policies to the hospitals by Medicare, Medicaid and insurers, patients often are forced to return to the hospital emergency room for readmission because their ailments not only don’t improve after returning home, but sometimes worsen.

Hospitals are closing — either because of public policy or due to fiscal instability — aggravating the shortage of beds. It’s now accepted practice to house patients in hospital hallways while awaiting a bed.

Because of the bed shortage, families are often pressured to agree to DNR (“Do Not Resuscitate”) orders for loved ones with serious underlying conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Hospital
officials also ask for permission, while the patients are still alive, to harvest their organs. I found this very chilling.

When the nurse practitioner was asked who helps these families take on those within the hospital system who are pressuring for permission on the beloved one not yet dead, she replied, “Only the family defends the patient” — a second chilling moment.

The lawyer related new regulations imposed on immigrants and their families. He described the pressure on immigrants to enlist in the military, with the promise of citizenship. He gave examples of many more restrictions on immigrants, having fewer rights since 9/11.

A lively discussion followed. One participant noted that services have been cut for the past 20 years, well before this war started, although the war has intensified cuts. She said capitalism produced this constant destruction here and abroad. Many others described how capitalism creates other problems, implying this wouldn’t end until capitalism ended.

Some participants suggested what must be done to fight to end the war and to obtain needed services. It was proposed that the church organize a petition and that the congregation itself declare the war morally unacceptable, as well as have the entire denomination take a position opposing it.

This led to other suggestions against the war and the cuts. Many excellent speeches underlined people’s desires not only to learn about the problems, but to do something to change the nature of the society.

Some of these participants receive CHALLENGE regularly. We’re trying to win others to take the paper, and recently won one to join a study group. There’s been a growing understanding of the role of banks, government and the media in keeping people down. We must use this growing knowledge to win people to join PLP.