NEW YORK CITY, February 3 — “We will have to rebuild Haiti all over again. Maybe this time we should make it communist,” exclaimed a student. “What do you guys think?” she asked. This occurred at our emergency student government forum last week in a local high school about the crisis in Haiti

Thirty students attended to hear a report from a high school student and a staff member who had just returned from Haiti. Representatives from two local student governments and their advisors also came. The students and staff were extremely inspired by the moving account of how working-class people are dealing with the horrors of capitalism and imperialism.

One speaker explained how his family organized food for their neighbors and tried to help everyone in the community. He then related the chaos, disorganization and long lines at the U.S. Embassy. People were exhausted, hungry and thirsty. They were forced to sign promissory loans to repay the U.S. government for their return flight to the U.S. which really angered the audience.

A staff member who went to Haiti to see her family and help out explained how she got there — riding a horse from the Dominican Republic for the last leg of her journey! She brought nutrition bars and water to give out to everyone she saw. She described how so many buildings were destroyed but that the U.S. Embassy remained intact. If the recently rebuilt embassy could withstand the quake, why weren’t workers’ homes, schools and hospitals built with the same care?

Students raised many important issues connected to the earthquake: was U.S. imperialism or Haiti’s history of dictatorships mainly to blame? How the media is using racism to further attack Haiti’s working class; and what we can do to support the people there.

We also reviewed some history, pointing out how U.S. bosses, including Disney, have long reaped profits there. In 1993, Disney chairman Michael Eisner made $203 million while workers sewing Mickey Mouse pajamas made 12 cents an hour. We said students and staff should take matters into our own hands and organize relief and solidarity activities that are not micro-managed by supervisors and principals. One student suggested organizing walkouts and protests against the U.S. military occupation which defends U.S. corporations that pay Haiti’s workers starvation wages.

We understand the desperate situation in Haiti and were very thankful that these two friends could share what they saw and did. But students and teachers did leave with a feeling of optimism, that we must be involved in everything, from fund-raising to solidarity trips, to support our working-class brothers and sisters in Haiti. 

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 27 — Tonight Metro bosses held public hearings, asking the public to comment on whether the transit system should raise fares, reduce service, or transfer funds from the maintenance budget into operations. Some choice! All of these actions would harm workers and intensify racism.

PLP’ers testifying at the hearing condemned the “choice,” demanding no cuts in service, no fare increase, and no attacks on workers, calling instead for a mass militant movement led by labor to fight for proper funding (from the bosses who have made billions from the transit system). Another person declared that these cuts were fundamentally racist because of their disproportional impact on black and Latino workers. But today’s capitalist system in crisis is unlikely to respond favorably even to the most militant actions of workers, making a revolutionary organization critical to the future.

The former president of the Metro workers’ union condemned the Metro Board as the worst ever, putting the deaths of two track workers the day before squarely at the feet of the Metro Board. These deaths were not accidents, but negligent homicide by Metro because of their forced overtime and failure to deploy flag people. Metro has systematically ignored the many safety problems that workers have brought to their attention because correcting them would cost money. Workers’ lives aren’t worth spit to the bosses.

Within 48 hours of the public hearing, the Metro Board raised fares, declaring that the testimony of the public favored that option. What liars! And exactly what we’ve come to expect from capitalism.

Which way forward? Many Metro workers read CHALLENGE and are beginning to understand the need to build a stronger PLP organization at Metro that targets the entire system of capitalism. As Obama’s wars grow and a fascist police state becomes more and more apparent, revolutionary action against the racist system of capitalism becomes ever more urgent. Workers, riders: fight back with slow-downs and strikes, with the goal of fighting for workers’ power — communism. Take up the red flag of revolution as we battle back against every attack from the bosses! 

MID-WEST AIRPORT, February 1 — At the packed SEIU union hall, metro area and airport cleaners voted unanimously to strike against the racist bosses. The metro area cleaners are preparing  to fight against unfair labor practices, contract give-backs and racism. Meanwhile,  janitors in a downtown office building filed two formal complaints  against the cleaning bosses for blatant racism. New black cleaners are forced to wear different uniforms from the Latino cleaners at $2.50 less pay!

This racist super-exploitation is designed to increase the bosses’ profits and maintain a racially-divided work-force. But this divide-and-conquer attempt failed — all the black, Latino, white and Asian immigrants and citizens voted not to clean one single building until our demands are met.

At the airport, the cleaning bosses distributed a letter, implying that we would lose our jobs if we strike against them. The union steward immediately informed airport cleaners that this is just a fascist scare tactic; the bosses know the airport is crucial to the success of the metro area strike.

Greetings To Immigrant Strikers In France

Meanwhile, the airport workers sent a letter of international solidarity to the striking immigrant workers in France. We explained [in both English and French] that their situation is similar to undocumented Latino immigrants here who are targets of racist immigration raids in the U.S., and that all workers must fight racism globally. We also sent them a package of CHALLENGES .

 We have  a study group of airport workers to discuss CHALLENGE articles and PLP’s revolutionary ideas. We are struggling with these workers to distribute the paper. The Party must grow to enable the international working class to destroy capitalism with communist revolution. 

BROOKLYN, NY, January 26 — Billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Panel on Educational Policy voted to close twenty “failing” NYC schools today, some time after 3:00 am following nine hours of testimony from staff, students and parents at these schools protesting such a decision. Two thousand angry workers and youth drowned out NYC schools’ Chancellor Joel Klein with chants during his entire opening remarks. Through long-standing ties at one of the twenty schools, three PLPers managed to gain early spots on the speakers’ list. We used these opportunities to broaden out the already sharp attacks on Klein and condemn the overall racist nature of these school closings and education under capitalism in general.

This was an angry crowd. When a woman called Klein KKK, the crowd shouted out in agreement. When Klein checked his Blackberry, the entire room chanted “pay attention, Klein!” He left the table for a few minutes after a young woman ended her speech by warning him that he was “messing with the youth of New York City and that was not a smart thing for him to be doing.” The crowd, limited by illusions of reform but feeling the power of refusing to obey, roared that he come back to his seat and do his job, which for that one night was to listen to regular workers and youth. The huge police presence in the room did nothing to dampen the fighting spirit of this crowd.

All 200 CHALLENGES we brought were distributed and important political ties to friends were re-affirmed. The bosses will go ahead and close these schools that their racist system neglected for so long. However, our analysis that such a system must go was well received. The union’s stupid line that “our schools are good schools” rings hollow for everyone who knows how badly the system has abandoned so many thousands of children to failing schools in this city alone.

The bosses may attack, and the unions mislead, but we in the PLP will go ahead and do our work to condemn a system that treats our youth like trash to the dustbin of history. As a young comrade pointed out to the thousands in the room, there is no good education to be found in the schools under this racist capitalist system. Real education happens when workers confront the bosses and communists are there to inject revolutionary content into the fight.

This fight over school closures is not over, and the brutal logic of capitalism can only mean one thing: more fights are sure to come. Each attack the bosses mount on our class increases the opportunities we have to bring more of our friends into the communist movement.