About 32,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) struck Boeing on September 13. The strike began after 96 percent of the members voted to reject a tentative agreement that failed to make up for a decade of lost wages or restore members’ pensions, while Boeing sits on $12.6 Billion cash-on-hand (The Nation) As we go to press, Boeing strikers have been joined by 45,000 dock workers, members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) who are on strike for the first time in 50 years. 

Building communism through strike action

As the crisis of this system gives way to WWIII and fascism grows we must double down on our efforts and struggle mightily to grow our presence in transit and industry to deepen our coworkers’ political understanding and getting our class siblings strike-ready while at the same time promoting transit-rider-dockworker-plant worker solidarity, winning our class siblings to communist ideas. In Progressive Labor Party (PLP) we say strikes are schools for building communism. Strikes help our class realize the enormous power and potential  to shut the system down and bring capital to its knees. From every dock, shipping lane, and manufacturing plant, to transit  industrial workers armed with communist ideas will help bring our class closer to smashing capitalism once and for all! 

Billions for imperialist bosses, nada for workers

While Biden/Harris and Congress throw billions at the war industry and the imperialist supply chain for wars around the world to prop up their empire, workers are feeling restless and are in motion. In the past year, we have seen workers strike or threaten to strike on the railroads, at UPS, in auto, in the hotel industry, and a four-month strike of actors and screenwriters to name a few. Like the wildfires in California, the bosses, politicians, and union leaders are doing everything they can to make sure these fires don’t connect. 

Boeing workers have been trapped in a sellout contract since 2013, when Boeing demanded $8.7 billion in tax breaks from Washington State and major concessions from the workers, despite recording record profits at the time. If the politicians and union leaders didn’t meet their demands, Boeing threatened to move thousands of production jobs out of state. They got what they wanted. The Democratic Party controlled state legislature gave Boeing the largest tax break in U.S. history, and the IAM leadership pushed through a 10-year contract that froze pensions for current workers and eliminated them for all new-hires while cutting pay. Boeing rewarded them by cutting over 12,000 jobs anyway.

Turn imperialist war into class war!

Boeing & Co. have not just been waging war around the world, they are waging war against workers in the U.S. as well. With more than 75,000 industrial workers on strike and wars dramatically escalating in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, now would be the perfect time for the U.S. labor leaders and AFL-CIO to call a general strike against wars abroad and war at home, linking the struggles from Seattle to Gaza and Beirut. But don’t hold your breath. The current union leadership is supporting the war makers, even as some pay lip service for a ceasefire. 

We can do better. We urge all of our members and friends to walk the Boeing and ILA picket lines wherever possible. Try to get your co-workers and union members to join you. Organize discussions in school and on campus, linking the buildup to imperialist war to the sharpening class struggle. In other words, build communist consciousness and the Progressive Labor Party wherever we are. A fighting working class is opening the door.

John and Ellyn Boelter were well known and respected comrades in Chicago for their selfless support of workers in Chicago and their contributions to the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and InCAR (International Committee Against Racism) for decades. Ellyn passed away earlier this year. John passed in 2018.  

Their generous contributions of their time and energy to InCAR and the Party will be remembered for many years to come. John came to Chicago by way of Wisconsin and Indiana and started teaching chemistry at Waller High School. As a teacher, he helped his students understand both scientific principles that describe the world and the political principles needed to change it. In 1968, as a member of the Chicago Teachers Union, he took part in the teachers’ strike of 1968. It was the beginning of John’s strong solidarity with workers’ movements and led to his joining the PLP in the early 1970s.  

As a thank you from the Chicago Public Schools for his support of students, he was fired and blacklisted. This did not stop John from moving on and getting another job in the lab at Cook County Hospital and supporting his fellow workers there. He refused to cross the picket lines when the nurses went on strike in the mid-1970s. For his support, Cook County fired him, and unfortunately the nurse’s union did not support his reinstatement. 

He built the PLP wherever he went. John soon returned to teaching at Bloom Trail High School in a mostly working-class suburb of Chicago. While there, John was able to involve many students, families and staff in Party activities. During this time, he was raising two young children: Aaron and Adrienne with his first wife, Terry.  

In the mid-1970s John and Terry (first wife) divorced. In the late 1970s, John was introduced to Ellyn Hershman, an attorney and InCAR member who had just moved to the Chicago area from California. They married in 1977. He and Ellyn moved to the south side of Chicago soon thereafter and in short order gave active leadership in mass antiracist struggle in the community. 

In 1986, PLP organized an attack on the nazi party, which had planned to march through Chicago’s Marquette Park. The neighborhood was well known for its racism and several antiracist marches had taken place there (including our May Day March in 1979). PLP had previously raided the offices of the nazis and beat the hell out of the fascists on multiple occasions. 

This time, our plan was to stop the Nazis from getting to Marquette Park at all. We ambushed the truck at their set-up location with John leading the way. He later beat charges of attempted murder brought by the racists in the city government.

John later went on to teach at Daley College and then at Chicago State University to help build the presence of PLP there, recruiting more antiracist students and staff to the Party. 

In the 1980s John and Ellyn became parents of two children, Suzy and Brenda. Ellyn helped the Party with fundraising and gave important legal advice. John steadfastly put forward the Party’s line and would always raise concerns in a comradely way. He and Ellyn were always generous with their time, use of their car and monetarily.  John was part of the PLP contingent that went to support the protesters in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after the racist murder by police of Michael Brown.

The Boelter home was, for many years, often the center of Party or InCAR activities. There, it was known, you could replenish your supply of CHALLENGE newspapers and hear a kind word from John or Ellyn. John and Ellyn can be described as true communists through and through with their generosity and organizing of the PLP for many years. Their door was always open. They were loving grandparents to several grandchildren. While they are no longer physically here, their spirit lives on in the lives of the many people they touched in their many years in the struggle in and around the PLP.

Now I know I’m a communist

At first when I saw your table I thought this was a student club just about Palestine, which I wanted to get involved with. But then as we spoke I discovered it was about more than Palestine, it was also about racism and capitalism. Before I moved to this country, I hadn’t thought about these questions very much, but in the last year, this changed after the genocide in Gaza. And now I know I am a communist. I don’t have fancy words for the ideologies and I don’t feel comfortable yet making an argument - English is my fourth language and I still have so much to learn! But I want to learn more and what I know so far is that this party is fighting for the right things, which are equality and a better world. Capitalism is the cause of it and we need communism. 

When I think about my home country, you would not believe the divide between rich and poor. The capital city is where the rich people live, and all the people from my district do all the labor. It’s exactly like the book The Hunger Games. The people who work in the districts live completely different lives and never enjoy what the rich in the capital have.

There is more to life than being born, living and working like a dog just to afford life’s necessities. I want to join and come to the next meetings. A very good friend of mine is also a student and is interested, and I will talk with him about coming too. 
*****

Students in solidarity with Springfield

“An injustice to one is an injustice to all” is our school’s motto. We developed this motto because of our history of facing inequity on our campus over the years. As a mainly Black and Latin school in a mainly white neighborhood, we have faced struggles against cops who force students to leave immediately after school, school safety agents who attack and arrest students, DOE policies that give whiter schools more resources and support. We have learned that unity - students, teachers and parents – is the only way forward.

When students learned about the racist attacks that students and workers currently face in Springfield, Ohio, they naturally wanted to show their solidarity. The two students, a part of Student Government, who crafted the solidarity letter to Haitian workers in Springfield both expressed their disgust with what was happening and also with world-wide racism. One student, who is from Haiti, talked about how angry she was that people were saying these things. Another student, when asked why she volunteered to craft the letter, expressed that these attacks happening to workers worldwide needed to be stopped. 

The letter was spread to other teachers in the school who were asked to get their students to sign on. In one history class, dozens of students signed on when the statement of solidarity was read to them. “We the students of… stand in solidarity with the students and workers from Haiti in Springfield, Ohio who are under racist attack. In our school, we believe an injustice to one is an injustice to all, every person has a purpose and can contribute to improving our society, and that NO human beings are illegal. We condemn the racists who are putting you in harm’s way and commit to doing our part in fighting racism and its impact around the world.”  

Many students were happy to know that the solidarity statement, along with their signatures, would be sent to workers from Haiti living in Springfield, Ohio. As one student said “Even taking a small stand against racism is an important thing to do! She grasped our motto in the Party which is that what we do counts! I urge PL’ers to start a petition showing their solidarity with workers in Springfield at their schools or jobs.
*****

Bringing PL ideas to labor reform

A coalition of community groups, with the support of the TEAMSTERS union, held a press conference at the mayor’s march. The goal was to talk about a bill called the “Safe Jobs Act.” Its main content seeks to prevent any non-unionized worker from being thrown out of their job without justification.

At this conference, we introduced some members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). We work within one of the community organizations present. Through our newspaper, CHALLENGE, our slogans, and in the meetings and events where we participate, we constantly organize to build for a communist world, a world run by the working class.

After the conference, a group went into the offices to lobby the council members. Their goal was to gain majority support when the bill goes to a vote. For the time being, we must engage in this struggle for reforms within community organizations, churches, workplaces, etc. Our goal is to achieve the unity of the entire working class, led by a mass PLP, to make the revolution and build a communist society.

After crushing capitalism, imperialism, and its entire profit system forever, our class will no longer have to fight for crumbs, for it will have everything.
*****

Proposal divides workers; need housing for all! 

Recently, a friend of mine found a flyer posted on his front door. It was circulated by a “community member” calling for the community to come out and oppose plans for a future shelter in the neighborhood. According to this flyer, the neighborhood is already riddled with problems like gang shootings and crime; families are not able to walk the streets especially at night and their property will be devalued, etc. 

This community meeting was to take place the following day. The proposal was that a vacant factory in the neighborhood would be used to house 120 men. I notified my friend that I could make the meeting and invited another friend. My friend wanted to attend to oppose the divisions that the bosses create among workers without homes and those with. The only plan I had was to distribute CHALLENGE newspapers and maybe speak like I’ve done at previous community meetings. But I didn’t have a back-up plan.

Workers and property owners started trickling in, by twos and threes until the seats were filled. The meeting began and the presenters gave information on the role they were each playing in this future endeavor. But they didn’t finish.

People in the back seats started shouting, not giving the presenters the chance to finish. There didn’t seem to be a leader of the opposition as several people were shouting down one of the main presenters at the same time. Then the alderman comes walking in, apologizing in English and Spanish for being late. The opposition community members didn’t stop their shouting even for the alderman.

Long story short: The alderman asked the opposition to go outside to talk. They all went out and we stayed inside with the remaining community members. Some were either in favor or opposed to the new shelter. My friends and I spoke of the need for people to have, not only a roof over their heads and basic needs met, but also to be trained for jobs; that the city and nonprofits needed to be more transparent with the community; that affordable rents are not so “affordable” and any one of us could potentially be thrown out into the streets like the thousands already homeless. A young woman, who worked in a nursing facility across from Cook County jail, said that so much money was taken out of her paycheck in taxes already and assumed that more money would be taken out if a new shelter was built there. She was sincere, not hostile.

I didn’t get her name or give her a CHALLENGE before leaving the building. That was a big mistake. As we left, we saw the group standing outside with the alderman. Neither of us stayed. Another big mistake! We might not have been able to distribute CHALLENGE to the outside group but I could have given one to the young woman inside.

It’s been more than a year since I was directly involved in working with migrant refugees in a shelter close by me. I need to become involved again and build a base in the working class to better understand what it takes to strengthen myself as a revolutionary communist in Progressive Labor Party and not a reformist for capitalism like the alderman, the panelists and non-profits. In the long run, capitalism can’t be reformed.
*****

U.S. bosses recognize need to scale back social welfare to pay for war

New York Times, 9/23–The first sentence of the report — released over the summer by a bipartisan, congressionally appointed commission — was blunt: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.” The threats begin with China… Russia started the first major war in almost 80 years… Iran finances a network of extremist groups… these countries work together, too, sometimes with North Korea… If the U.S. doesn’t do more to deter aggression, living standards in this country could suffer… the warning signs today were similar to those in the run-up to both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 … The report recommended increasing military spending, partly by making changes to Medicare and Social Security… and partly by increasing taxes…

Further election gains for Nazis in Europe

Al Jazeera, 9/29–Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO) is projected to finish first in the country’s general election, ahead of the governing conservatives, underlining rising backing for hard-right parties in Europe… Kickl, a former interior minister who has led the FPO since 2021, seeks to become Austria’s new chancellor on the back of the first far-right national election win in the country since World War II… many people in Austria believe the FPO is controversial due to its Nazi origins. “Their founder was an SS officer and a Nazi minister,” she said, adding that some in Austria do not believe that the party has detached itself completely from its Nazi roots. “Herbert Kickl calls himself the ‘people’s chancellor’, which is a term Adolf Hitler used to describe himself,”  An FPO victory would make Austria the latest European Union country to register surging far-right support after gains in countries including the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Plans for use of nuclear weapons in Europe inch forward

France24, 9/29– The Kremlin said on Sunday that amendments to Russia's nuclear doctrine had been prepared and were about to be formalized, meaning the relevant documents setting out the circumstances in which nuclear arms can be used by Moscow will be updated. President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that under proposed changes to the doctrine Russia could use nuclear arms if it was struck with conventional missiles and would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack. In other words, Moscow will consider responding with nuclear weapons if the West allows Ukraine to strike inside Russia with long-range Western missiles… Peskov cited the international situation, escalating tensions near Russia's borders and the growing proximity of NATO infrastructure to them, and what he called the deeper involvement of Western nuclear powers in the Ukraine war on Kyiv's side, as the backdrop for the changes to the doctrine.

U.S. special ops prepping for start of WWIII with China 

Financial Times, 9/13/24—Seal team 6, the clandestine US Navy commando that killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011, has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China, according to people familiar with the preparations. The elite Navy special forces team ... has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach. The Secret training underlines ...  (US) preparations for such an  event. The preparations have grown since 2021, when Phil Davidson, the US Indo-Pacific commander at the time, warned that China could attack Taiwan within six years...As the threat from terror groups has receded, special operations forces have joined the rest of the US military and the intelligence community in intensifying their focus on China. CIA Director Bill Burns told the Financial Times last week that 20 percent of his budget was devoted to China, a 200 percent increase over three years. The Chinese embassy in Washington said that Taiwan was "the very core of China's core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed in the China-US  relationship."