BROOKLYN, NY, January 5 — Four months of struggle to fight false criminal charges against Ira Wechsler, a retired hospital worker active in the continuing struggle to fight cutbacks and the intended closing of Downstate Medical Center, have been rewarded with victory.  On Dec. 4, the Brooklyn DA had to drop the charges, which were trumped up to try to split workers’ unity against the cuts.

Ira, recently retired from Woodhull Medical Center, is a long-time District 1199 union member. The charges grew out of collusion between corrupt 1199 union officials and the bosses of the merged SUNY Downstate-Long Island College Hospital  medical complex. They want to defeat the rank-and-file rebellion against their plans to destroy health care for predominantly black workers from the West Indies.

A mass rally in June, organized with little assistance from the three unions that represent the bulk of Downstate workers, sparked the rebellion by grounds workers, nurses, and technical workers. A determined rank and file leadership was able to move the workers to act in spite of misleadership from union officials.

The union misleaders called  a rally in mid-July to try to take the initiative away from the rank-and-file. Ira spoke against the leadership at a Downstate workers’ meeting. After leaving this rally, hospital police arrested Ira for “trespassing” as he walked to a bus stop. The move was driven solely by their desperate need to intimidate workers from fighting back.

Workers at Downstate collected over 200 signatures demanding the charges against Ira be dropped. At least 50 other signatures were collected at other Brooklyn healthcare facilities.  Several hospital workers and friends attended the legal proceeding to make sure the courts knew of the solid support for their brother. 

While this was a victory, it was not the end of the struggle. NY Governor Cuomo and his class henchman continue to plan cutbacks in health care for workers and in jobs for healthcare workers. Racism has been the cutting edge of these cutbacks in facilities and programs that serve mainly black and Latino working-class neighborhoods. But Cuomo plans to spread these cuts to the entire working class with Medicaid “redesign” engineered by Wall Street point man Steven Berger.

PLP members have been distributing hundreds of Challenges to Downstate workers every issue.  We need to recruit hospital workers involved in this struggle and develop mass consciousness that capitalism, not just some “bad” bosses, is destroying workers’ lives. This will lead to smashing the racist system that measures our lives in dollars and cents. Under communism, healthcare will be available to all. Only a revolution led by PLP can bring these changes.

AL-ARAKIB, ISRAEL-PALESTINE, December 15 — Several local and international working-class activists, including a PL’er, visited the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of al-Arakib and helped rebuild its demolished shacks and sheds. On Tuesday, the racist Israeli authorities demolished the village for the 42^nd time since the summer of 2010! Israel likes to showcase itself as “the only democracy in the Middle East.” But this “democracy” demolishes the homes of impoverished Bedouin workers and subsistence peasants because they are in the way of the real-estate capitalists’ steamroller.

In front of this criminal bosses’ state and its terrorist police, the villagers of al-Araqib fight back and stick to their ancestral land. They will not move, as the regime wants, to the nearby mis-planned Bedouin town of Rahat, where there are no jobs. The village’s leader, Sheikh Sayakh, once again thanked the Jewish, Arab and international working-class activists who come to help the villagers in their struggle.

The Zionist movement, the “Jewish” colonial nationalists, and the State of Israel it created 64 years ago try to “bring order” to the Bedouin settlements in the Negev (southern Israel-Palestine). This “order” means robbing the Palestinian-Bedouin worker or peasant of his ancestral land, which is his main source of livelihood, in order to let U.S.-based real-estate tycoons such as Ronald Lauder and Inving Moscowitz grow rich from land-theft. The Bedouins, who are, officially, Israeli citizens, are treated as second-class citizens and face racism. Many Bedouins serve in the Border Patrol with the hope of getting decent jobs afterwards, yet at the end of the day are still treated as nothing by these racists. This is the same way the racist U.S. treats Native American, Latino and black workers.

But we Jewish and Arab workers and activists came to al-Araqib in private cars (as Israel lacks public transit on weekends) and helped re-build five shacks. The message should be brought to all corners of the world: the racist, capitalist Israeli state is at war with Arab workers, including the Bedouins, as well as with Jewish workers. The basis of Zionism is racist land robbery. But we, workers of all ethnicities, “races” and creeds, are determined to stand firm with the villagers of al-Araqib in their just struggle.

Paulsboro, New Jersey, December 28 — From a garment factory in Bangladesh to a chemical spill here, capitalism’s murderous worldwide reach shows that the working class must put this profit-hungry beast down with communist revolution. Few Paulsboro residents were thinking about the need for communist revolution however on November 30 when a railroad tanker filled with vinyl chloride derailed and crashed into the Mantua Creek. It released a cloud of this toxic gas into the community. 

The derailment was caused when the bridge failed to close properly. Parts of the bridge date from 1873. A few years ago, Conrail replaced the worker who operated the bridge with an electronic system to save the company about $100,000 a year. The electronic system failed so often that Conrail dispatchers and engineers routinely ignored the system’s red lights and drove trains across the bridge if it “looked okay.”

Many of the working-class residents of Paulsboro were exposed to this gas. The most intense exposure was in an area of the town populated by poor black and white workers. This area was evacuated several hours after the exposure. Seventy people were treated in the Underwood Hospital Emergency Room for respiratory problems, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and headaches. 

Approximately 700 workers were evacuated from the neighborhoods closest to the accident. They were sent to motels in the surrounding areas. Conrail set up a family assistance center at a hall in the neighboring town of Gibbstown. Residents who were not evacuated were told to “shelter in place,” meaning stay in their houses and keep windows and doors closed.

Two weeks after this accident, there are still two tankers filled with vinyl chloride and one filled with ethanol sitting in the Mantua Creek and none of the capitalist experts can figure out how to get them out safely.

There have been two public meetings since the accident and they have both been angry affairs. Paulsboro workers have blasted Conrail and the flunkey Paulsboro politicians for their handling of the emergency. In 2009, a coal train derailed on this same bridge and it was not adequately repaired. There was never an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. The evacuees complained of shabby treatment by Conrail’s support team.

So maybe most Paulsboro folks were not thinking about the need for communist revolution before November 30. But after the chemical spill, they are now planning to form a committee to fight the deadly negligence of the Conrail bosses. This can prove to be fertile soil for PLP’s communist ideas, a “chemical spill” poisonous to all bosses.

New York City, December 28 — Over 1,000 people left homeless by superstorm Sandy were moved into Manhattan hotels after spending a couple of weeks in various shelters. They were dumped at the door, often at fancy establishments, without money, food, clothes, healthcare, or means of transportation. With thousands of empty apartments and even more vacant luxury condos, the bosses would rather pay $300/night for a month than put families in permanent housing for a year.

These mostly black and Latino workers, who previously received some public assistance, now face eviction to homeless shelters. The racism and total human disregard with which they are being treated shows the true nature of U.S. capitalism.

At first, the evacuees resorted to begging food from stores while they asked the Red Cross and other agencies for help. Everyone rejected them until we demonstrated at the Red Cross headquarters. Then the 106 families we know got $100 per person/week food cards and Metro transit cards until December 18. On January 2, all food aid is due to expire, and those with food stamps can’t use them in midtown because their stamps are not accepted at most stores. The hotels removed refrigerators and microwaves from the rooms, so there is no way to store or re-heat food or keep medications like insulin. 

There is no “recovery center” in Manhattan where various agencies help survivors. No sources of health care other than Emergency Rooms were ever identified; no centers of food or clothing donations were set up to help these families. The first, very limited Federal Emegerncy Management Agency (FEMA) office opened here mostly aimed at helping small businesses.

Families have sought help from various local politicians, agencies and news outlets. All of them express their sympathy or momentary interest, take campaign photos of themselves helping victims, and then do nothing.  A small group of evacuees, trade unionists, and members and friends of Progressive Labor Party has formed, trying to build ties with families as they fight back.  

A week ago, hotels began to evict some families onto the street, even though FEMA is supposed to house them until at least January 12. Fifteen families were evicted from the Beekman hotel when their FEMA paperwork was a few hours late. A single mother with five children was evicted on December 27 and sent to a homeless shelter. Other families with young children were facing eviction New Year’s weekend, to make room for celebrators. Although NYC promised case managers several weeks ago, none has materialized. Those who were previously subsidized renters have received no guidance obtaining aid to rent again.

Our group held a rally at the new local FEMA office. After leafleting outside, we walked boldly into the FEMA office. Although threatened with arrest, we stood our ground and demanded answers. The staff simply said over and over again that FEMA would only offer individual assistance about housing, and refused to acknowledge any responsibility for enforcing their own hotel policy. 

One family did go in for individual help and was taken into a back room for 30 minutes. When they emerged, they said all they had been told was to call the FEMA phone number! When you call the FEMA number, you are told to go to a FEMA office. 

The Sandy survivors understand the treachery of politicians and the government; but they do not yet see the need to overthrow this system to create a communist world where workers’ needs, not profits, are the order of the day. We will continue to fight the bosses and their lackeys at these workers’ side, which can lead to recruitment of some more fighters for PLP and to destroying capitalism.