The bosses are delivering nothing but racist, sexist terror to millions of workers worldwide, through mass unemployment, governmental and gang fascism, and environmental change (in other words, another day at their murderous offices). These conditions are caused or worsened by the world’s main imperialist countries. Here in the U.S., immigrants face the daily threat of racist deportations. When immigrants seek asylum or government assistance they must often deal with a hostile climate like the failure to provide basic translation services. In New York City, racist Mayor Eric Adams has told city workers not to interfere with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from seizing immigrants.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) struggles, with our friends and coworkers, to understand events that shape our world and resist the bosses’ plans so we can fight back against this racist murderous capitalist system. Writing for CHALLENGE and including the comments of coworkers is a big step to building interest in our organization. These are new folks who we can ask to come to May Day and other events. With this as a background, a group of city workers that are friendly to the Party recently discussed how they would provide services to immigrants who came to their office. This work, by itself, may not bring a communist revolution, but collectively, and with an international, multiracial focus, it can help build the foundation to a working class world that expels all the bosses for good!
Antiracist city workers stand with immigrants
Worker 1) Servicing immigrants whether they are refugees, asylum seekers or migrants tends to be a hardship because at times there are language barriers or some do not know how to read and write.
When speaking and brainstorming in group discussions we may speak about a situation one of us encountered. We listen to how someone else would have handled the situation, then we use that as a stepping stone for the next client and how best to assist these clients. We help each other and try to help clients as best we can with their individual outcomes. We work together to help not only the client but each other. When a client comes for an appointment and doesn’t have adequate documentation, we try to help them retrieve documents from the proper agencies.
Dealing with individuals from different parts of the world teaches you that not everyone has the same knowledge. You learn that not everyone can adjust, learn or even adapt to their new surroundings.
Worker 2) As a social service professional, I serve a variety of clients from different populations. I aim to provide the migrant clientele with the same level of professionalism that I give to all my other clients. To me there is no difference between them or anyone else.
Worker 3) My experience serving the migrants in my office is that there are many discussions among my coworkers. You have some workers who say, “Why are they coming here, taking services from individuals that were born in the USA?” I say that everyone is entitled to receive services, health care, food stamps, and shelter to live. I will not discriminate against individuals who need help as we all will be in need some day. So what if immigrants are of different races, speak different languages, believe in different religions or may have different sexual orientations? They are still people who need help. I am going to assist those individuals in a positive way. I will continue in these discussions to point out how we should open our eyes and hearts to people as we share many things in common, living and surviving in this world today.
