NEW YORK CITY, April 14 — “Democrat, Republican, all the same, racist terror is the name of the game!” “The only solution is communist revolution!” Our multiracial contingent of workers and students, young and not so young, PL’ers and friends, led by women, brought the message to the New York State Republican Gala that any of the candidates, Democrat or Republican, are a dead-end for the working class. While each candidate has some differences in their particular agendas, all will maintain imperialist war and all the ills of capitalism. PLP brought the only real solution for the working class— only communism can meet the needs of our class sisters and brothers around the world.
Carrying a large banner that read “Elections Can’t Fix Capitalism—Fight for Communism!” our lively contingent joined a spirited Fight for 15 demonstration as they marched from Times Square to the hotel hosting the Gala. The Fight for 15 movement brings together workers’ rights groups in the fight for a living wage. At one point along the march, a Trump supporter was spotted along the side holding a sign that said “Build the Wall.” The PL contingent, joined by workers around us, immediately started shouting him down with the chants “No free speech for racists!” and “The fight of the workers, it has no racist borders!/Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras!”
It was inspiring when many groups of workers joined us, passionately taking up our chants as they held CHALLENGE high in the air. These workers especially took to our internationalist chants with enthusiasm— “Obreros, unidos, jamas seran vencidos!/The workers united will never be defeated!” The crowd cheered as they noticed a young boy sitting on his dad’s shoulders holding CHALLENGE with his fist held up, as his dad chanted. A Party member spoke on the bullhorn, saying that this child is the next generation- the reason we fight for a better future. Over 500 CHALLENGEs and a thousand leaflets were distributed, and dozens of people stopped to hear and discuss PLP’s arguments for a communist world.
PLP stands out from the crowd when we fight for multi-racial unity and for communism. The electoral process convinces workers that there is a candidate who will fight for them, or at worst a “lesser evil” who will do less damage. But in fact there is no candidate who will end the exploitation of the working class—they can’t—that’s the basis of capitalism! There is no candidate who will end racism—that’s the foundation of making profit under capitalism! There is no candidate who will end inter-imperialist rivalry—that’s how the U.S. maintains power and control of its interests throughout the world!
While Trump is the most obvious racist who would brutally attack all workers, his Republican counterparts are no better. Likewise, the biggest danger to the working class are the liberal Democrats, like Clinton and Sanders (see page 6), who work to win the working class to believe in and support the very system that oppresses them and uses them as cannon fodder.
Every worker around the world must be won to put down the ballot and organize for communist revolution. Only communism smashes racism, sexism, exploitation of the working class, and imperialist war. If you haven’t joined PLP yet, do so now! March on May Day with PLP! We have nothing to lose but our chains.
PAKISTAN, April 19—Three brave workers were killed in the city of Karachi, organizing a strike. The bosses and their police blame “unknown assailants,” with the underlying message that anyone who challenges the bosses will be killed. But the working class here cannot be stopped by horror or threats! The workers are daring and fearless, responding with anger to the situation of our class here and demonstrations are being organized throughout the country.
PLP: Organizing and Fighting Back!
These actions are defying the bosses’ terror in every corner of Pakistan, a country which is a key player in the sharpening imperialist rivalry between the U.S. and China. PLP is in the thick of working-class fightback and organizing the fight for communism, to give communist leadership to the working class.
On March 8th, International Working Women’s Day, PLP participated in many events, building women to take the lead in our revolutionary party.
Workers are challenging the capitalist system throughout Pakistan, but their efforts are separated. PL’ers are working hard exposing misleaders of different puppet unions: organizing workers — women and men — in the WAPDA (Water And Power Development Authority), on the railroads, postal, docks, steel, telecommunications, healthcare, home health aides, doctors, teachers, domestic workers, landless farmers, students and professionals.
The bosses know the working class is angry, and they’re bringing forth new political faces. PLP has been exposing the illusions pushed by these politicians and their connections to the very capitalist bosses running Pakistan. PLP is the only party capable of liberating the working class by fighting for communism, not the phony attempts of the bosses to keep their system intact while channeling the workers’ rage into still another politician.
Pakistan Bosses: Biggest Terrorists
Every evil of capitalism is squeezing the neck of the working class. Terrorism, nationalism, fascism, corruption, shortage of electricity, privatization, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, exploitation, and more. The terrorist capitalist bosses running Pakistan are no different in kind from the small-time terrorists like al-Qaeda which they pretend to be fighting.
Terrorism is useful to the capitalists here, maintaining enough chaos so that working class remains divided, frightened and quiet. The many terrorist groups in Pakistan have the same thing in common: kill innocent workers, soldiers and students. Capitalist bosses use the terrorists to eliminate their political opponents. They’ve especially targeted workers fighting back, like the three workers in Karachi.
These terrorist groups, while being used for various purposes by rival capitalist factions, are influential powers in their own right. Many terrorist groups have strong ties in different government departments, educational institutions and political parties. When the Pakistan Army started an offensive to clear terrorist sanctuaries around the country to contain their influence, the terrorists started attacking schools, universities and parks, killing innocent workers already facing everyday capitalist terrorism.
Capitalism Means Terrorism for Working Class
In the city of Faisalabad, power loom workers have nothing to feed their families. Bosses are closing down factories and profiting by shifting money to other countries. When the power loom workers organized demonstrations, the police beat them. More than three dozen were severely injured, and about three hundred imprisoned where they were tortured and ordered not go on strike again.
There is no concept of safety at workplaces. Most factories don’t have emergency exits. Miners bear some of the worst working conditions, with more than 134 killed in last three months.
Women workers are not even considered human beings. They are the least paid, and are sexually harassed and abused at workplaces. On average, three women commit suicide, four women are raped, and six killed every day in Pakistan. In 2014, about one thousand women were killed.
There are 10 million children working in different industries but ILO-funded fake-leftist NGOs are claiming that child labor has nearly ended! Meanwhile, in the Sindh province, an average of 17 children die per day because of malnutrition.
Pakistan: Key Link in Imperialist Rivalry
Pakistan is a key link in the sharpening rivalry between U.S. and Chinese imperialism. While in the past Pakistani capitalists have been staunchly pro-U.S. imperialist, Chinese bosses have taken giant steps toward seducing the Pakistani capitalists in the interests of their own imperialist ambitions. The current construction projects known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a strategic part of China’s “New Silk Road,” or “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR; see CHALLENGE editorial, 3/9).
CPEC is rapidly constructing networks of highways, telecommunications lines, railways and other infrastructure, as well as enormous gas and oil pipelines linking China directly to Iran. China recently financed the construction of a massive Pakistani deep-water port in Gwadar. It will receive 60 percent of China’s oil imports and pump them directly into China, avoiding the nearby U.S. Navy-patrolled South China Sea.
Our Party in Pakistan is fighting to build a mass international PLP. Our struggle continues. We will send more updates!
BROOKLYN, April 18—Rank-and-file hospital workers are demanding their department boss stop the harassment and intimidation immediately! They’ve circulated a petition inside the hospital, demanding fired workers be reinstated. Although many signed, so far the hospital bosses have refused to act.
Dreadful Working Conditions
The bosses are pushing workers to the limit, firing and writing up workers in the transport department for “not working hard enough.” They want workers to over-compensate for shortages in staff and an increasing workload.
Workers at another Brooklyn hospital have been laid off and people leaving are not replaced. We finish work every day exhausted. Many have gotten sick, but when we use our sick time, bosses call us lazy. We have the same salary for double the work — one person doing the work of two or three. At the drop of a hat, the bosses send us to labor relations, where they fabricate lies, bullying some into resigning. When it comes to us workers, the bosses “have no money,” but meanwhile they’re remodeling, throwing out relatively new furniture, computers and carpeting.
The transport workers move patients throughout the hospital while on their feet their entire day, except for their lunch break. They cover a lot of distance before their shift ends. “While transporting patients we’re constantly being paged to go to other floors in the hospital,” reported one worker. In the last six months, three workers from this department were fired because they transported the wrong patients to different areas within the hospital. One had been on the job for 30 years!
Black, Latin and women workers face the brunt of these sexist, racist working conditions and attacks. They then go home and do a second shift to maintain their households.
Workers Fight Back, Union Stands Still
The transport workers’ reformist union, 1199/SEIU, has been passive in this fight for workers’ demands against the capitalist bosses. Like all unions, they’ve been relying on the bosses’ system of filing grievances and arbitrations to solve workers’ problems, both of which take a very long time. Most of the outcomes favor the bosses.
Like all unions, 1199/SEIU has also been trying to channel workers into the election game. It promotes the reformist idea that the class struggle is over and involvement in election campaigns is the only solution for healthcare workers. How many times can we hear the Demopublicans’ promises before we realize that voting is a dead-end? The politicos, from Governor Cuomo to Mayor de Blasio, from presidential candidates Trump to Clinton to Sanders, are dedicated to preserving the profit system.
PLP members are working with the healthcare workers in both hospitals to keep fighting. Armed with communist ideas, workers have waged and won many militant battles in the past, including informational picketing that saw workers pouring out from every department and confronting the hospital CEO directly in his office. Through these struggles we learn to see through the bosses’ tricks, how to unite and wield our power.
Keep Fighting, March on May Day!
Sometimes, it seems we fight the same battles over and over. As soon as we win something, the bosses start trying to take it back. Nevertheless, we have to challenge the ways they use and abuse us. On April 30, PLP will march through Brooklyn to celebrate May Day, the international working class holiday. We invite all Downstate workers to bring their struggle to May Day and commit to continuing the fight.
PLP fights for communist revolution as the only real solution for the working class. Workers will build a communist world where all workers give their talents and efforts to building a society without racism, sexism, imperialist war and bosses’ profits. Read CHALLENGE regularly and join us on May Day.
NEW YORK CITY, April 17—Twice in the last three days, Progressive Labor Party has rallied under the banner “elections can’t fix capitalism, fight for communism,” once in Manhattan where the Republican candidates like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were speaking (see page 3) and again in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park opposing Bernie Sanders.
Today, a small but integrated group of female and male PL’ers followed up a May Day planning meeting by heading out to the Sanders rally and test our Party’s line that liberal bosses are the main danger to the working class. We demonstrated around our banner on the entry route into the staging area for Sanders’s speech. Many lingered around us and took CHALLENGE, the newspaper of communist revolution.
Our statements that the Democratic Party is the party of drones, deportations and a jobless recovery earned many nods of agreement. No matter how sweet sounding, Bernie Sanders is an imperialist candidate. If elected, he will be the commander in chief of the most vicious imperialist machine in history. He is still a capitalist candidate through and through. He is a path of reform and pacification through the ballot box.
Those who support Sanders do so because they want changes for the working class. But, only a communist revolution can answer that call. People were open to the idea that Sanders is a misleader. Absent of communist politics, the masses will gravitate towards the “lesser evil.” But when communists are rooted in the masses, the working class will be armed with class-consciousness and an organization that can turn our aspirations for a better world into reality.
The best part of the day was running into a few co-workers and friends. They stoped to say hello and see us standing strong for communist revolution in the face of a festival of liberalism.
NEW YORK CITY, April 20—Dozens of former students, parents, colleagues and friends have been filling the hearing office every day at the “trial” of a New York City educator under attack on false charges, ones of which he’s already acquitted in criminal court! Despite that, the city bosses are trying to take away his licenses and keep him from ever serving our kids again. Even parents from the school he was removed from almost two years ago have come to support him and report back to others.
The whole building has been buzzing about the support, and we’ve been keeping the chairs filled as a team of Department of Education lawyers tries to suppress evidence, exclude spectators and lie their way to victory. But they’re having a hard time of it because they’ve used only the same discredited witnesses from the court trial.
The ruling class’s attack on the working class, and especially Black and Latin children, takes many forms, including poverty, poor housing, poor healthcare and the capitalist education system. That includes crowded classrooms, pathetic reforms, attacks on teachers, and the just plain lies and ruling-class ideas our kids are taught.
This case involves an elementary school principal, with a long distinguished record as an early-childhood teacher and teacher coach He found that he’d became principal of a so-called “failing” school in a building that also housed a charter school which wanted the space. The pushing of charter schools into already existing schools’ spaces is a divisive ruling-class tactic. Appealing to parents’ desires to provide the best for their children, they pit parent against parent and teacher against teacher to convince us to blame each other for the failings of the bosses’ schools. The charter school movement also pacifies parents who might be won to fight for better schools by pulling them away and convincing them there’s a better alternative. But there is no such thing as a good school for the working class under capitalism!
This makes it especially important to organize within the schools to fight the attacks by the Dept. of Education (DOE). When parents, teachers and students unite, the nature of the system is laid bare. This unity scares the bosses. When the principal began to rally the school staff and parents to rebuild the school and fight for the resources his students need, he was arrested on fake charges of physically attacking a student.
Even though he was acquitted of the charges in court, colleagues and friends now face a new fight against the DOE, which is still trying to take away his license and his ability to fight for our children.
When our friend became principal, the school was down to under 100 students, student results were poor and staff and parents were demoralized. The charter school, which belongs to the high-profile “Success Academy” profit-making chain, wanted it to fail and leave so they could take over the space. Although the school had a lot of technology, the DOE had left it drastically short of support services for students, a third of whom needed special services.
Within his first weeks as principal, things began to turn around. He helped teachers begin to work together more, worked with staff to recruit more students (increasing by 25 percent) and started to develop new ties with parents. These moves were important, because getting everyone together is necessary to fight for what our children need, against the system’s racism and neglect of working-class kids. He also fought to keep the charter schools from taking away two classrooms needed for special education students.
So it was no surprise that when the principal took action to protect a disturbed third-grader, and—according to Department rules—prevent him from rushing out of the building and into the streets, the charter school bosses twisted it into being the principal’s attack on the student and pushed to have him arrested on false charges. In court, the principal proved that the charges, the testimony and the whole case were a fraud. The judge acquitted him the minute the trial ended.
His acquittal was positive. But what’s even better is that it led to more fightback, with support from dozens of parents, colleagues, former students he taught years ago and more. He has reached out to people throughout the area, and spoken at many churches, community groups and other gatherings, receiving strong response. Many people said they couldn’t believe this kind of attack against a committed pro-student educator. Many have contributed to legal costs and said they will come to support him at his hearing.
That kind of unity is needed to win more than the new fight for his licenses and future as an educator; we know that the ruling-class attacks on our children and those who support them won’t end here. No matter which kind of schools our working-class children attend, charter or public, they are being taught ruling-class ideas, not the knowledge, skills and class-consciousness they need to make a revolution and a new society. No matter what school reforms the rulers institute, they cannot provide jobs for all the students who leave the schools, with or without diplomas. Racism gives the majority of Black, Latin and immigrant youth the “choice” between racist unemployment or fighting in the bosses’ imperialist wars.
It’s important to broaden this struggle into more than a fight for our friend: it must lead to one that ends the whole system that miseducates and abuses our children and our class. The only system that will provide a quality education for the world’s working class—that will produce the thinkers and doers that can run this world for the working class—is communism! That is why we must win parents, teachers and friends that have shown up to support this comrade to join us at May Day on April 30, and to continue the struggle onward!
