PARIS, December 5—Workers battle the police’s tear gas canisters, water cannons, and stun grenades. What began as a 300,000-strong protest against planned hikes in fuel taxes on November 17 have transformed into a mass uprising against president Emmanuel Macron. In France, as is worldwide, capitalism is in crisis.
‘An insurrection’
As CHALLENGE goes to press, France is deploying 65,000 cops in anticipation of more rebellions against the capitalist government this weekend. Macron’s promise to suspend the fuel tax hikes was too little too late.
Workers vandalized a national symbol of France, the Arc de Triomphe. This area has become a battleground. Paris’s 8th district mayor called it an “insurrection.” The protests have been declared the “worst rioting in Paris in decades.”
This “Yellow Vest” (Gilets Jaunes) movement takes its name from the yellow jackets protesters have adopted as a symbol of their class anger.
Protesters are angry over record prices at the pump, with the cost of diesel increasing by about 20 percent in the past year to an average of 1.49 euros ($1.68) per litre. Macron then announced further taxes on fuel, set to take effect on January 1, 2019, in a move he said was necessary combat climate change and protect the environment (Al Jazeera, 12/4).
The protests began with workers in rural France but quickly spread to ambulance workers, high school students shutting down schools, and more. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) trade union called energy workers to stage a 48-hour walkout on December 13 in solidarity. Truckers and framers are also calling for strikes.
Tale of two Frances
Like other Western countries, the gap between the ruling and working class is deep and wide.
The top 20 percent of the population earns nearly five times as much as the bottom 20 percent. France’s richest 1 percent represent over 20 percent of the economy’s wealth. Yet the median monthly income is about 1,700 euros, or $1,930, meaning that half of French workers are paid less than that (The New York Times, 12/4).
Clearly, no worker—no matter how rich of a country they are in—is safe from the consequences of capitalism.
France—like Italy, United Kingdom, the United States—and other top imperialist countries (that were came out on top after World War II) is digging itself deeper into crisis. In the face of growing great-power rivalry, the imperialist world order that the U.S. created in its own image is crumbling.
Of course, this crisis has been a long time coming. “Living standards and wages rose in France after World War II during a 30-year growth stretch known as “Les Trente Glorieuses.’”(NY Times, 12/4). Those Glorious Thirty years ended in the 1970s. That marked the beginning of the end of the U.S. liberal world order.
Communists warn that in times of crisis, the bosses’ response to that crisis is called fascism. Workers can fight fascism by refusing to trust and take leadership from any faction of the ruling class. When we choose a side in the bosses’ growing fight, we participate in the building of a fascist society.
Bosses take some losses
The mass protests show that when workers fight back without illusions of nonviolence holding them back, the whole world stops and takes note. French companies were unable to make their usual profits.
French oil company Total has said 75 of its 2,200 petrol stations have run dry because ‘yellow vests’ were blockading fuel depots. Trucking federations said they had suffered operating losses of 400 million euros ($453m) due to protesters blocking highways and toll stations as well as fuel depots (Al Jazeera, 12/4).
Lack of leadership
Unlike union strikes, there is no centralized leadership of the Yellow Vests. The movement is open for all factions of the ruling class to co-opt and control. Internally, there are various levels of class consciousness inside the Yellow Vests as well.
Different factions…have different demands. While they all want a better standard of living, some are furious at…Macron for…unjust tax policies that help the rich but do nothing for the poor, and they want him out of office. Others are more focused on raising the minimum wage and reducing the amount taken out of employee paychecks to cover social security and related services (NY Times, 12/1).
The whole baguette
In an attempt to bribe, president Macron announced it would suspend the gasoline tax increase. One spokesperson of the Yellow Vests said, “We aren’t satisfied…Our demands are much bigger than this moratorium…We want a better distribution of wealth, salary increases. It’s about the whole baguette, not just the crumbs.” (NY Times, 12/4).
Macron was supposed to be the president to “save the liberal order” (one that can rule internationally in the interest of imperialists and rule domestically with a misled and subdued working class). The level of discontent and anger against the France government is yet another example of how democracy and nonviolence has failed workers. This system is proving to be an impossibility for the wellbeing of the working class.
In truth, there is no panacea for France’s decline. Times like these demonstrate the need for a communist party that can provide leadership to class struggles around the world. If workers want the whole baguette, we must own the means to make and bake the bread.
Solidarité!
It’s unclear how exactly the Yellow Vest movement will play out. We can be certain that workers everywhere have everything to gain by supporting the rebellion in France.
Wherever you are, build solidarity with the working class in France!
CHICAGO, November 25—At a solidarity event here to support of the thousands of refugee workers at the U.S.-Mexico border, Progressive Labor Party denounced the hypocrisy of the liberal wing of the ruling class.
Immigrant workers are met with vicious racist attacks while attempting to cross state borders. by the bosses’ border agents shut down ports of entry entirely and they fire tear gas canisters at children when the workers resist.
As the crises of capitalism continue to intensify, so too do opportunities to win more workers away from ideas of reforming the profit system and more towards the goal of destroying it. A multiracial group of communists brought the message of international communist revolution as the only real way to abolish the bosses’ racist borders and liberate the entire working class!
Communist speech shatters liberal illusions
The official title of the solidarity event was “Let Them All In,” and was organized through the coalition efforts of various leftist and immigrant reform organizations. Inside the art gallery where the event kicked off, the varying political lines clashed to the point to where they lacked a coherent political message. Pacifist songs and poems collided with Latin nationalism and flag-waving collided with fake leftist politics.
As people began filing out of the art gallery to begin the march a nearby intersection, a PL’er took to the bullhorn and gave a communist speech that verbally tore apart liberal illusions about how to achieve justice for and with sisters and brothers.
“You can’t vote away ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]! Workers already tried that. The liberal politicians campaigned on ‘abolishing ICE’ and then dropped it as soon as they got elected!”
Time and time again, capitalism and its government have proven itself to be a failure for the working class.
“If you’re really for the abolition of ICE, if you’re for the abolition of the police, if you’re for the abolition of this fascist state, then you better get ready for revolution!”
Haiti and France are currently demonstrating that collective worker fightback is a far more advanced idea than the bosses-approved strategy of voting (see page 4 and 8).
Some participants present were visibly taken aback by the comrade’s speech; others got fired up and came up to take Party literature and join in on anti-racist, anti-capitalist chants The experience reinforced the importance of being bold as a Party and broadcasting our Party line to the masses.
For every person who speaks out against revolutionary internationalism, there is another person who may be drawn to a mass revolutionary communist line as the only way to end this capitalist hell.
After the PL’er’s speech, we helped politically lead the march with international chants towards a plaza at a nearby intersection. We distributed over 100 copies of a Party leaflets attacking anti-immigrant racism as well as dozens of
CHALLENGES.
A hotbed for racist anti-immigrant attacks
The bosses’ racist anti-immigrant attacks in and around Chicago itself raise the potential for militant working-class fightback. Recently, we have witnessed a spike in raids, deportations, and abuse of immigrant children in the area:
In May of this year, a blitzkrieg of raids initiated by ICE that lasted six days saw over 156 arrests of immigrant workers in Chicago and surrounding Cook County. The majority of those arrested came from Mexico and Central America, but those also included workers from countries such as Jamaica, the Philippines, Ecuador, and Jordan (Center for Immigration Studies, 5/29).
The Gary-Chicago International Airport in nearby Indiana has become a major hub for deporting arrested immigrant workers from the region. Between 2013 and 2017, busloads of workers have arrived weekly, with over 12,000 having been deported from the site (Chicago Sun-Times, 7/6).
Heartland Alliance, a Chicago-based liberal philanthropy organization, have received contracts from the federal government to operate over nine “shelters” in the area for immigrant children forcibly separated from their parents. There have been consistent allegations of abuse and neglect from the children at these sites, including forced medicating and sexual assault (ProPublica, 7/27).
Workers have in fact organized responses to these attacks, including regular demonstrations at the Gary airport, as well as a protest that blocked the entrance where Heartland Alliance was having its annual fundraising gala. PLP comrades have been present at many of these actions to help provide leadership.
Communist revolution for a world without borders
Capitalism can offer no solution to the violence rained on workers all over the world. The profit system will continue to pit workers against one another using racism, nationalism, and sexism, because it needs to create division within our class in order to survive and to prepare for war Immigration policy reform under the system will always be manipulated to benefit one section of the bosses or another. They hold state power through their militaries, police, and government bodies.
Building the international communist PLP and working-class revolution remains the only way to destroy these racist borders and end these racist attacks. We will create a world without borders as we collectively serve our class.
The workers’ struggles have no border! ¡Las luchas obreras, no tienen fronteras!
NEW YORK CITY, December 5—Over the past few years, conditions at City University of New York (CUNY) campuses have gotten progressively worse, tuition has steadily increased and CUNY is chronically underfunded. CUNY students, 56 percent of whom are Black or Latin, are the primary targets of this racist underfunding. Not surprisingly, CUNY part time faculty (adjuncts) work for poverty wages. At the same time as the CUNY bosses and their politician stooges, along with the weak union leadership, are preparing to shove a racist, austere budget down the throats of the 26,000 faculty and 250,000 students, many faculty are organizing to strike. As we organize to strike, let’s talk about getting rid of this whole, damn, racist capitalist system.
Poverty wages for college faculty
Adjunct professors teach more than 50 percent of the courses at CUNY, yet most of them work for poverty wages. They make as little as $3,200 per course, meaning a part-time instructor teaching a full load of courses per semester makes $25,600 a year. New York City is one of the most expensive cities in the world; so many adjuncts must work extra jobs such as Uber drivers, or get public benefits and/or are homeless (“Professors in Poverty,” YouTube).
CUNY has been running on the super-exploitation of these adjuncts, many of whom are Black and Latin, while the union has only given lip service to the demand for a raise ($7K per course) but provide no leadership. It’s become apparent to many that winning this demand can never happen as long as we have “business as usual” and we follow the laws and rules that capitalism has created. And even if we win such a modest demand, this capitalist system will continue to destroy the lives of workers and students everywhere, from Yemen to the migrant caravan to the students and staff at CUNY.
Strike against poverty wages; break the bosses laws
At seven campuses, union meetings were held to discuss various strike resolutions. At all seven campuses; resolutions were passed unanimously declaring that chapters would fight back, up to and including striking.Especially significant is the willingness of rank-and-file union members to challenge both the city bosses and their union leadership. In New York State, it is illegal for public employees to strike, thanks to the Taylor Law. More importantly, is that many workers have voted in favor of striking despite opposition from the union leadership, whose favored method is to beg so-called “progressive” politicians and CEOs for crumbs and to, ultimately, take what we are given. Instead of building student-worker solidarity or putting the organizational weight of the union behind preparing for a strike, they cozy up to Democratic politicians like Bill DeBlasio, who turn around and agree to hand over $2 billion to Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, so that Amazon can move in and gentrify a neighborhood in Queens. Two billion to Bezos, poverty wages to adjunct faculty and tuition increases to students. Really, “This whole damn system has to go!” (Ferguson rebels, August, 2014)
Students and staff unite!
Some students have been present at union meetings to support this 7K, demand for raises and to put forward the demand of free tuition. More and more they are taught by teachers struggling with insecurity, homelessness, anxiety and all the other ills that capitalism visits on workers. At a union meeting in the Bronx, one student commented- “I want to become a teacher. This is my fight as well!” Another student added, “Many of my professors encourage us students to fight back and organize –we have your back!”
At the same time, many students at CUNY hold down jobs, and some work full time to pay for the tuition that once free. So, this student-worker alliance is absolutely critical. We have the same enemy and the same fight!
Strike for decent pay, strike for a communist future!
Members of the communist Progressive Labor Party have stressed that we can go only so far under this capitalist system. When there is a strike vote, faculty express that they are willing to put themselves on the line. But there are many more struggles that we will face in the future. In one chapter meeting, a comrade challenged the local union leadership about how they plan to lead the strike. They don’t.
We have to lead any strike and many more battles in the future. At another meeting, teachers were asking–”Where are those strike stickers”? These teachers are the people that will lead a strike, and they must join us in the longer battle for a better world. Those of us at CUNY, whether studying, teaching, or working –we have a tremendous opportunity now to sharpen this struggle, build a worker-student alliance, fight racism, and challenge capitalism.
The Progressive Labor Party salutes the teacher-workers who are making this militant struggle at CUNY and welcome the sharpening of the class struggle and the possibility of a strike. For students and teachers, when it comes to learning the lessons that are needed to destroy capitalism, the picket line is better than any classroom. Join us and fight for communism!
NEW YORK, NY, December 1—As many as 8,000 working-class families mostly from Honduras are traveling by foot to the southern U.S. border. More than 3,000 are already in Tijuana and many more are passing through Mexico City. They are fleeing poverty, corruption and violence that is largely the result of more than a century of domination by U.S. imperialism. This was most recently displayed in the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew the democratically-elected liberal reformer Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, forcing a mass exodus to escape poverty, crime, drug trafficking and police violence. They join more than 60 million refugees around the world, from Africa to South Asia, from Syria to Somalia, trying to escape the horrors of war and terror. This is the fruit of world-wide imperialism. Workers of the world need communist revolution.
President Donald Trump targeted the refugees with fiercely racist diatribes, calling them everything from criminals to disease carriers to Middle East Muslim terrorists. Trump has deployed more than 5,000 active-duty troops to the border, in addition to an army of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Patrol agents and fascist vigilante militias against unarmed poor people, mainly families with children. The U.S. govern building the concentration camps that could house the refugees for some time to come.
Organizing across borders
Progressive Labor Party is organizing solidarity for the refugees on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. We are one Party and there is only one international working class. We have reached out to the refugees in Mexico City and in the U.S., we have started raising money in our unions. We are working on many levels within the New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC) to bring thousands of workers and students to witness, aid and accompany our Central American sisters and brothers into the U.S. We are working with hundreds of volunteers, training to go to the border, work in support capacities, and raise this issue in our unions. So far, many unions have shown an interest and the NSC Call to Organized Labor has gone out to tens of thousands of NYC workers and others and we are heling to organize delegations from these unions to go to the border.
These include workers in 1199, IBT (International Brotherhood of Teamsters) Joint Council 16 (who declared themselves a Sanctuary Union after one of their members was deported), a number of UAW (United Auto Workers) locals, PSC (Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York), NYSNA (New York State Nurses Association) and others. You can sign on at www.sanctuarycaravan.org/labor.
PLP says, “Working People Have No Nation!” This is now true for at least 60 million refugees around the world, and the numbers are growing every day. Imperialism cannot meet the needs of the working class. And the bosses are using the refugee crisis they have created to build mass fascist movements that scapegoat the migrants as the rulers prepare for wider wars.
This crisis requires everyone’s participation at whatever level you can contribute. We cannot sit this out. If you want to help greet the caravan at the border, or in Mexico City and escort the caravan to the U.S., now is the time to get involved.
HAITI,November 18—Every year on this day, we celebrate the Battle of Vertière, the last battle before the declaration of independence from France on Jan. 1, 1804. This year, however, was significantly different as tens of thousands of workers and students all across Haiti took to the streets to join the battle against massive corruption in the PetroCaribe scandal (where the bourgeoisie has pocketed billions of dollars meant to fund education, infrastructure, etc.). Demanding the ousting of Jovenel Moïse, in whom they have no confidence to find and punish the guilty, the masses barricaded the streets. Their bosses responded by sending out all of its armed might, including hooded thugs known as cagoulards, who murdered at least a dozen protesters.
Many understand that this battle is not easy to win because, just like exploitation, corruption is a disease in the lungs of the capitalist system, and to defeat the disease we have to get rid of the entire system itself. We have to replace it with one that serves the interests of the working class.
In one provincial town, there were only a dozen Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends on the street some people were afraid to participate in the marches because the government is running a campaign of terror; in fact, there were more police than protesters. Yet in spite of police presence, our action was a success, and we continued the planned course. Although our numbers were small, we persisted with signs in hand, and we chanted without stopping. The message was clear: “the bourgeoisie and its state are anti-worker, anti-progress, and anti-well-being and they must go.”
The theft of the PetroCaribe funds is awakening Haitian workers and students. We can take advantage of this situation to strengthen our fight. The fight against corruption is a fight against capitalism.We are engaged in it! La lutte continue (the struggle continues)!
