CHICAGO, October 24 – Over a dozen multiracial workers and union organizers gathered in front of Holy Cross Hospital on the city’s south side this morning to protest against racist cutbacks in healthcare. Days before, the owners of the hospital, Sinai Health System, announced drastic reductions to its services, including cutting the number of beds by more than half, closing units, and laying off workers.
Given the fact that Holy Cross is located in a majority Black and Latin working-class community, these cuts are racist to the core. They reflect the capitalist bosses’ use of healthcare as a profit-making industry, one that makes decisions ultimately based on money and influence, not on workers’ needs. Only by smashing the racist profit system of capitalism through a mass communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) can we ever guarantee the level of health the working class needs and deserves.
They say cut back, we say fight back
On October 21, the racist Sinai bosses sprung the announcement on hospital workers about the cuts. They announced reducing the number of inpatient beds from 264 to just 110. They have indefinitely suspended the obstetrics and gynecology services. According to the bosses, the hospital has been operating at a monthly loss of $2 million dollars since the summer. Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital, also part of Sinai, is facing a similar mass reduction in beds (Chicago Tribune, 10/22).
Many of the Holy Cross workers reported being taken by surprise by the announcement. Some even said that they learned about potentially losing their jobs second-hand, through their
coworkers. Some workers are being offered severance packages, while others will now be forced to travel to other Sinai locations just to keep their jobs.
At the main Sinai Hospital campus on the city’s west side, many workers learned about the cuts to Holy Cross during contract negotiations with the bosses. A few hundred hospital workers here are organized through the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) healthcare local, including some PLP comrades. The bosses at the table just acted like it was no big thing, like having dozens and dozens of workers shuffled around to other buildings wouldn’t affect the hours and job status of other workers.
SEIU scrambled to put together a press conference, but it was clear to it was too little, too late. There were more union organizers and press there than hospital workers. What’s worse, they brought out some of the usual liberal politicians and religious misleaders who only care about making pretty speeches and securing some votes, but are always short on action when push comes to shove.
In contrast, those of us in PLP have been using the cuts as a rallying cry for workers on the necessity to build the struggle against the racist bosses and their attacks. Although it’s Holy Cross and Schwab facing cuts today, if we as workers aren’t organized, it could very well be the rest of us in the crosshairs in a month or year from now. Our coworkers are receptive to this line, as are they open to receiving CHALLENGE as we prepare for a potential strike of Mount Sinai and Schwab workers on November 11th.
Fascism and war threats grow
Sinai’s decision to make the cuts at Holy Cross is part of a larger trend under capitalist healthcare. Throughout the U.S, larger hospital networks such as Sinai are buying up more local community hospitals, then imposing drastic cuts and even shuttering them altogether. When they bought Holy Cross in 2014, the Sinai bosses announced that they were going to convert it into a Level 1 trauma center that still remains desperately needed on the city’s south side. Fast forward five years, and it now stands at risk of closing. To this end, it joins the ranks of MetroSouth and Westlake Hospital, two safety-net hospitals in the area that have faced closure within the last year (Patch, 7/29).
When the larger wealthier hospital systems cut services on a local level, they are forcing workers and their families to travel greater distances to receive care. These larger systems could then be less likely to accept public insurance such as Medicaid used by low-income workers, effectively cutting off much of their healthcare entirely.
From 2009 to 2014, the number of announced hospital consolidations in the U.S. doubled (nihcm.org). A hallmark of fascism (capitalism in crisis) is increasing amounts of monopolization among major industries. This, paired with the bosses’ politicians of all stripes slashing social safety nets for workers in favor of funding their imperialist war machine for upcoming war against rivals China and Russia, could spell a very deadly future for workers.
Fight for a communist future
But fortunately for us, the future is not yet decided. By learning through our fight against the racist hospital bosses, we can build our fighting PLP and crush capitalism and its racist profiteering off workers’ health. In its place, we can organize a collective communist society where we run all hospitals and clinics based on our needs.
THE BRONX, November 5—Over 70 students, along with some faculty members, participated in a Fightback Forum about reform and revolution. It began with a panel discussion featuring the latest developments in the labor movement and concluded with a Q&A. The panels included reports from organizers on the GM autoworkers’ strike, the 7K movement at the City University of New York (CUNY), and a young Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member who is both a student and organizer with homecare workers. The discussion was filled with student enthusiasm from the inspiring examples of militant fight-back.
From start to finish, the activity was led by students—from the details of serving food and signing up students to join Common Ground, a mass organization on campus (see CHALLENGE, 10/23), to what ideas would be emphasized in the forum. CHALLENGE was on every desk along with literature from the various struggles. The planning paid off as the event was seamless from start to finish, with revolutionary music, great participation from the students, and clear and sharp speeches from the panelists.
Student worker unity the way forward
The forum opened with a spirited introductory speech from a West African student who emphasized the need for international solidarity of the working class and who spoke about why CUNY students and workers have the same enemy, and have the same interest in fighting and uniting with other workers and students everywhere. He pointed out that whether it is in Puerto Rico, West Africa, or the South Bronx, workers are all being strangled by capitalist exploitation. He then introduced the first speaker, a UAW (United Auto Workers) organizer who shed light on the exploitation of autoworkers. He described how the bosses super-exploit temporary part-time workers (lower hourly wages than full-time workers, few or no benefits, no path to permanent jobs), and are amassing even higher record profits. He went on to discuss how workers in different auto factories just organized a militant strike against the auto bosses and how they halted production in the plants, causing the bosses to lose profits.
Afterwards, a CUNY professor and “7K or Strike” (for a $7,000 salary/class) organizer delivered an inspirational speech about the super-exploitation of adjunct (part-time) college teachers, and organizing for a better contract for them. He connected the struggle for a better contract as not just for better working conditions but one that will improve conditions for students as well, making the important point that students’ learning conditions are teachers’ working conditions.
The final panelist closed the forum with a poignant account about homecare workers, and opened her talk with a powerful statement: “Workers fought for the eight hour workday in the 19th century. In the 20th, we won the 40-hour workweek and minimum wage laws. Sadly, in the 21st century, thousands of workers in the so-called progressive state of N.Y. work 24-hour workdays. For the last two years, I have been organizing with them.”
She went on to describe the sexist and racist conditions homecare workers in New York face. For example, the mostly Black, Latin and immigrant women work 24-hour shifts and are only paid for 13 of those hours. She emphasized the historical and present-day leadership of women in fighting for shortening the workday.
Future working class leaders learn communist politics
The panelists did a great job of showing that capitalism is the problem. This was reflected in the comments that followed. One student asked whether the panelists believed we need a new system, given the worsening conditions workers are facing across the board. Another student asked whether we saw an end to these injustices in sight, and whether we would achieve equality in our lifetime. All the panelists replied that while workers must continue to fight against the system, capitalism can never meet workers’ needs. In order for us to end the horrors of sexism, racism, exploitation, and inequality, we need to fight for a society that is run by working people—communism. Only then can we meet our needs. Overall, students were very receptive to our ideas.
One young woman remarked, “I am so glad you all opened my eyes to what’s going on. Now I know I have to do something!”
Through our newly formed group, Common Ground, we have been involving students in the fight-back campaigns on campus, whether it is about raises for part-time faculty, the lack of services on campus, or the deportations of workers in our community and students in our schools. We will continue to distribute CHALLENGE, and encourage them to attend PLP study groups. Our goal is to organize students not only to see themselves as the future workers in our society, but also as the future leaders of working-class struggle, and armed with communist ideas, to be the force that will eventually lead us out of this capitalist hell, and into a bright future under communism.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, October 25—Students at the public and private universities, among others, marched through the streets of the capital city. For weeks on end, they have been engaging in increasingly militant fightback against the ruling class of Haiti, capitalism, and imperialism, which have brought worsening food shortages, unemployment and inflation to the already devastated working class here.
According to government reports (very skewed statistics that hardly show the breadth of the problem), at least 35 percent of workers in Haiti – over three million people – are facing a crisis when it comes to obtaining food (Miami Herald, 11/1). Every month, for one week at least, there’s been a full-stop general strike, and uprisings all over. For the last seven weeks, there has been no respite. Everyone is demanding the resignation of president Jovenel Moïse and a change of system.
Throughout, as always, our Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades and friends have been active participants. However, our task as communists in PLP is to clarify that the masses don’t need merely a change in the system—unless we specify that communism and an egalitarian society is the system that we want. We don’t want legislative seats—we want state power!
“We’ve had enough of this system of exploitation!”
Throughout today’s protests, the students and others confronted police, and armed and hooded paramilitary thugs who are responding with increasing violence. It has been reported that up to 700 demonstrators have been killed since the uprisings began last year.
The students attacked certain institutions which symbolize imperialist domination, like the Institut Français en Haiti (IFH). A bus belonging to the State University of Haiti, the vehicle used by the Dean of the School of Ethnology to run over a militant student, was burned. By the end of the day, the running battles had passed by the Law School, the School of Ethnology, and the main police station, where four students were arrested.
Alongside this march, several demonstrations were going on in different parts of the capital and in other towns. Neighbors of president Moïse told him to move out, since, they said, “We’ve never had thieves and criminals of your caliber in our neighborhood.”
PLP was present to give revolutionary communist leadership, as we have become well known to many students and militants. We oriented our speeches towards attacking the bosses and the capitalist system. We handed out a leaflet blaming the imperialist countries for the poverty and misery of Haiti, and concluded correctly that Haitian workers and students need a communist revolution to end this misery once and for all.
We got very positive responses from those who read our literature and heard our chants. One worker responded with, ““Hey, that’s good! A good leaflet. We have to upset the apple-cart (chauvirer la chaudière).” Another exclaimed, “We need another kind of state, a workers’ state! We’ve had enough of the system of exploitation!”
Liberals try to fool workers
The struggle here increasingly taken on the character of struggle between classes. The names of the big bosses and their corporations are buzzing around; people are aware that these are the barons of the social, economic and political system—capitalism. Attacks on businesses and the marches into the corporate areas of Delmas, and into Pétionville, the center of the Haitian and international bourgeoisie, testify to this.
As always, there are politician fakers that are trying to take advantage of the anti-capitalist movement here. Many of these misleaders are the very same politicians who have been serving the ruling class and the imperialists in the government all along. They are also responsible for the deplorable conditions that workers and students in Haiti are facing.
In fact, at least four of them had recently been called to Washington to meet with the U.S. State Department to get their marching orders. These sellouts cannot be trusted to “change” anything. Many of the phony leftists are supporting these traitors because they are willing to accept a few reforms as they try to rob the workers of their militancy and lead them away from revolutionary communism.
Put capitalism in its grave with communist revolution
The economic and political crisis here in Haiti and everywhere can’t be expected to improve as long as capitalism and imperialism exist. In fact, it can only be expected to get worse as economic crisis worsens around the world and the major imperialist powers like the United States, Russia, and China prepare themselves for the next global war.
As communists we need to continue winning the masses away from liberal fascism and towards the end of capitalism through violent revolution and workers’ power. We can convert the class struggle into class war against the bosses. Then, our international PLP and its Red Army will be the force that finally puts this profit system of poverty, exploitation and war in its grave for good.
PHILADELPHIA—As part of a larger fight back against General Motors, several Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades and dozens of other workers joined striking United Auto Workers (UAW) outside a distribution plant in Philadelphia last month in a demonstration of solidarity. Even though this strike has come to an end, there are important lessons we can take away. Mainly, that workers need to take a step further than striking for better conditions, and smash this capitalist system with communist revolution!
Workers must fight back together
Workers from numerous fields came out to support the strikers and emphasized the interconnectedness of everyone’s struggle, acknowledging that the General Motors strike was an action that could benefit all workers. CUNY faculty and staff organized in the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) union pointed out that some of the biggest struggles professors are facing are strikingly similar to those that pushed GM workers to strike: unfair treatment of part-time workers, and poor health care benefits. As one worker put it, “your fight is our fight."
Same enemy, same fight!
Bosses will do anything to divide the working class. Some of the striking workers seemed to — for the moment— buy into the racist “America First” narrative and expressed a desire for General Motors to move production back to the United States. However, workers also expressed empathy for their sisters and brothers in Mexico, saying they “didn’t blame them at all” for being upset at recent General Motors layoffs that occurred in Mexico. They also commended Mexican GM workers who refused to work overtime in response to the strike.
It’s the role of communists in PLP to sharpen the internationalist aspect of this contradiction and win auto workers from the U.S. to Mexico into PLP!
The workers also rejected the capitalist notion that some workers deserve more pay than others. In response to lower salary caps for new workers, one striker explicitly stated, “We don’t care if someone new is making the same as us older workers, even if it’s not what we were paid when we started. We are glad for them.” A young worker expressed dismay that he was getting paid more than his part-time coworkers, even though they do the same work. Another added that the bosses lie about how much money GM workers make to turn the community against them, a strategy also used against MTA workers and teachers.
Black workers key to revolution
Workers were positioned at two different entrances, one for managers and one for employees. Some comrades noticed that white workers were stationed at the more comfortable manager entrance, which had a larger shelter, while young Black workers were stationed near the employee entrance by the highway, a location some called “dangerous.” This served as an important reminder that even within a significant action of worker solidarity, workers must be vigilant to ensure multiracial unity.
Three PL’ers spoke to one of the Black strikers at the employee entrance, who told us that they chose this entrance because of the flow of traffic and that they had requested more support to no avail. This is why we say Black workers are key to revolution. These young Black workers were strategic in reaching the community of their fightback instead of opting for the more comfortable picketing station. Despite his worry that he was “not that experienced,” we urged him to take more of a leadership role and exchanged contact info.
The fight for communism marches forward
As comrades began to leave, some of the workers expressed that they hoped their strike would mean that others would not have to strike. A comrade sharply pointed out that the fight will not be over after this strike. He remarked that the ruling class will continue to attack workers. Another worker similarly expressed that we need a “wave of struggle.” The contradiction between boss and worker cannot be destroyed without communist revolution.
When the strike ended, the Black worker we contacted feared that GM workers went on strike “for nothing.” A PL’er disagreed and stressed to the worker the importance of learning about the union’s corruption, the courage of workers, and how far we need to go. What we are fighting for cannot be given to us; it can only be taken. This system will never allow us to live as comfortably as the rulers who exploit us.
When asked, “don’t you think it would be better if workers ran everything and we got rid of bosses?” a young striker replied that his bosses “do nothing. We could run the plant without them.” The international working class does not need bosses. Through communist revolution, we can build a world where workers run everything for ourselves.
Colombia November 4,–Recently Progressive Labor Party (PLP) organized a revolutionary communist political school in Colombia, which some of our friends and Challenge readers attended. There were good discussions about racist unemployment, sexism, wage slavery, nationalism, and all the horrors of capitalism; and why we need to build a great social base for communism.
Many participated with spirited political discussions. Several workers and students showed great leadership potential to continue advancing our cadre to a new revolutionary leadership in the construction of the PLP.
In the workshops, many discussed their understanding about unemployment, its moral impact on working families, and how under capitalism, unemployment is inevitable, its relation to anti-immigrant nationalism and the war against the workers, and the need for working class unity always, but especially during this period of capitalist crisis.
We discussed the construction of a political base in different organizations, analyzing the imperialist contradictions, where the liberal wing pretends to be friendly and a benefactor to the working class. Our conclusion was that we need to struggle to create study groups and to distribute Challenge.
These are the main points of the discussion on “wage slavery”:
Capitalism can’t provide full employment because of its internal contradictions and the benefits it gets from unemployment.
Even though the working class is the majority, it is ruled by a minority. The bourgeois state and its legislative apparatus lies, cheats and steals the value that workers created through their labor in order to stay in power.
Capitalists create an army of unemployed workers and keep them divided by racism, individualism, and nationalism.
We need to fight for communist internationalism by supporting workers struggles all over the world.
We need to build our communist line and PLP among rural and city workers, students, and soldiers. This is because it is the only way we can destroy the bosses’ system of exploitation and wage slavery. The capitalist system cannot fulfill workers’ needs;
it only brings misery, hunger, police brutality, bad health, and the destruction of nature.
