An environmental service worker at a Brooklyn hospital, known to his coworkers as “A.D.,” passed away at the age of 54 on December 28, 2009. His life, shortened by the capitalist health care system, was spent in service to the working class. He was on the frontline of making the hospital a safe and clean environment for the working-class patients. He gave his time and energy to PLP as well, helping to distribute CHALLENGE in the hospital and cooking food for May Day celebrations.

In mid-December, he began complaining of severe pain in his knees and so took time off and visited his doctor. As a diabetic, he was concerned about his blood uric acid, high levels of which can lead to gout. The day after he visited the doctor he had a stroke and was rushed to the very same hospital he gave many years of dedicated service. In the emergency room, the care he needed was not immediately given.  From the emergency room, he was admitted to a floor.  Even on the floor, the care he needed was not provided.  A.D. suffered another stroke; this time a code was called, summoning emergency attention from doctors and nurses, but it was too late.

At A.D.’s funeral service, a delegate from the hospital gave a passionate speech, reflecting on A.D.’s short life.  He spoke of his dedication to the job and his hope that he could provide a healthy environment for the patients. He will be sorely missed by his comrades here. 

NASSAU COUNTY, NY, February 20 —

Grievances and labor laws or class struggle? How do we win co-workers who have been temporarily co-opted by the bosses’ games of favoritism, racism and sexism? Can white workers be won to understand that racism hurts them? How is the goal of communist revolution connected to these problems?

These are some of the questions threaded through meetings of hospital workers as we try to organize against the bosses’ attacks.

One meeting several weeks ago began with a hospital worker passing out a recent CHALLENGE article written about the workers’ fights. Then he made sure everyone got the newest paper. From there began a lively debate about how to fight the hospital bosses.

In the weeks before the meeting a flyer mysteriously appeared all over the hospital. It publicized the attacks on workers in various departments. In many cases these attacks were clearly racist, since they appear to be restricted to black workers. Several housekeeping workers were just fired and workers from another department had been written up and suspended. The flyer called on workers to organize to fight back.

After the flyer, the fired workers were reinstated. The workers did involve the union with their terminations, but the assessment at this meeting was that the flyer definitely played a role in the bosses reversing the firings. At the same time the bosses and the union leaders began threatening anyone they suspected was associated with the flyer.

The rehiring of the fired workers and the reaction from the bosses and union leaders fueled a lively debate. Some of the workers wanted to understandably focus on the write-ups and the technicalities of the grievance cases. Other workers connected these attacks to the bigger things going on around us like the capitalist economic crisis, widening wars and deeper fascism.

The workers who had received write-ups do see the disciplines as racist and are dissatisfied with many of the union delegates whom they view as either in the bosses’ pockets or unwilling to fight militantly. From this point the debate began between the ideas of fighting the bosses mainly by union grievances and the bosses’ labor laws versus developing class struggle against the attacks and building to communist revolution. That first meeting ended with the consensus that the workers would work on the grievance cases at the same time we’d work to build a rank-and-file fight.

At another meeting we heard reports that the threats from the bosses and the union leaders continue against the suspected “trouble-makers.” Also, another worker was fired. The debate continued between relying on grievances and labor laws versus class struggle and communist revolution. Another point of discussion this time was the need to win white workers to understand how racism hurts them.

The workers at this meeting made plans to continue the fight against the racist firings and write-ups. Several of them want to join a PLP study-action group. It’s no surprise since many of them are part of CHALLENGE networks 

As CHALLENGE has long reported, unemployment is a capitalist killer. Now the NY Times (2/25) has surveyed a number of studies proving this point — although, naturally, this bosses’ mouthpiece doesn’t trace unemployment to the profit system. It simply states that, “A growing body of evidence suggests that layoffs can have profound health consequences.” It then reports:

     • A Yale study “found that layoffs more than doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke among older workers.”

     • An Albany, NY State University 2009 study “found that a person who lost a job had an 83% greater chance of developing a stress-related health problem.”

     • A 2009 paper published by a Columbia University economist and a Chicago Federal Reserve researcher concluded that “during the recession of the early 1980s…death rates among high-seniority male workers jumped by 50% to 100% in the year after a job loss.”

Even the Threat of Job Loss
Causes Death

Furthermore, fear of losing one’s job can be more deadly than the actual layoff itself. The Times quotes a 2009 University of Michigan study which “found that ‘persistent perceived job insecurity’ was itself a powerful predictor of poor health and might even be more damaging than actual job loss.”

This was supported by events at the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Lackawanna, NY: “The anxiety among the 260 workers…actually began months, even years, before the company announced in mid-December 2008 that it was closing.” Even before it closed last April, it was discovered that “at least a half-dozen workers…had coronary problems dating back to 2006.” Three, all in relatively good health, died of heart attacks within weeks of one another.

All these latest studies only confirm a 1976 Congressional report which attempted to “estimate the cost of human suffering of people being out of work.” (NYT, 10/31/76) The report, based on 40 years of statistics from the Great Depression in the 1930s through 1973, concluded that when unemployment rose 1.4% in 1970 it led directly to the death of over 30,000 workers in the next five years, from stress-related ailments (strokes, heart and kidney) plus suicides. In fact, Committee testimony stated that, “The national rate of suicide in the U.S. can be viewed as an economic indicator,” so close is the link between joblessness and workers’ violent deaths.”

Consider, if a 1.4% rise in unemployment leads to 30,000 deaths over the following five years, how many deaths will result from the present Great Recession. Its recent 10% rate is more than double the prior 4.5% (supposedly “normal” for capitalism). That would mean 100,000 dead over the next five years. Do the math!

That’s only the “official” jobless rate. The real rate is over 20% (see CHALLENGE, 3/3).

Racist Unemployment

The overall figures become twice as devastating for black, Latino, Asian, immigrant and Native American workers, because racist discrimination, dating back to slavery and before, causes double rates of joblessness for these groups. The unemployment rate for Native Americans hovers around 80%! Racism nets the bosses extra trillions in profits because it enables them to pay these workers a good deal less than white workers.

This is also true for the long-range related effects of joblessness on workers’ families, through malnutrition, mental anguish and untreated sicknesses because of the unemployment-caused loss of health insurance. Infant mortality rates show dramatic increases within one to two years of a recession. Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Harvey Brenner told Congress that “short-term general hospital admissions…respond very sharply to adverse changes in the economy as do mental hospital admissions, for an unbroken period of about 127 years in the U.S.”

Unemployment is integral to capitalism and has existed since the birth of the system. Bosses compete against each other for maximum profits. Each one tries to produce as much as possible to capture the market. This inevitably causes overproduction: the market cannot buy all that’s produced. So bosses must resort to curtailing production, meaning mass layoffs — the “boom-and-bust” cycle — to try to maintain profits.

Unemployment can only be eradicated by eradicating capitalism. That requires a violent communist revolution. Building Progressive Labor Party to achieve this goal is a continuing struggle until we finish them off, ending bosses and profits and their overwhelming mass violence that destroys hundreds of millions of lives through unemployment, racism and wars. 

(Part I — CHALLENGE, 3/3 — detailed Israel’s attacks on Gaza, its apartheid conditions enforced on Palestine, the racism towards Arabs and Muslims and relations between Israeli and U.S. rulers.)

In Palestine there were mass uprisings against Israeli rule in 1987 and 2000, but today there is very little resistance. Since 1990, the governing Fatah party has negotiated with Israel, with the U.S. as mediator, and has become the administrator of much of the West Bank, without ever achieving independence. Most Palestinians view Fatah as corrupt and incompetent. It has now even taken over many internal policing duties from the Israelis.

To protest Fatah, in 2006, the majority (even Christians and secularists) voted for Hamas, which offers only regressive Islamic fundamentalism. Most Palestinians are completely disengaged from either party, but a vacuum exists in the middle. Even the small groups that do continue activism focus on single issues, like the Israeli-built Wall or the fascist judicial system. All are nationalist-oriented, calling for an independent Palestinian state, without examining the nature of the current society or what they need to build.

Palestine and Fatah are dominated by a small number of relatively wealthy families. The masses are poor workers and farmers. These relations will not change in an independent Palestine, leaving poverty and inequality intact. History has repeatedly demonstrated that the fight for the working class’ control of society cannot be postponed, since local ruling classes, and the rich imperialists who control them, continue to run society in the same old way in the “liberated” state.

A nationalist outlook also cuts off the possibility of alliances with workers in Israel, some of whom are also oppressed, especially recent and darker-skinned immigrants and the super-exploited temporary workers Israel imports for its lowest-paid jobs.

In Israel, there is also some limited opposition to government policy. About 5% of young people resist mandatory military service, and are imprisoned. A small group of veterans has spoken out about the atrocities they’ve seen in Gaza and other places in the occupied territories. Some Israelis object to the depths of degradation of, and cruelty to, the Palestinians. However, their demands are usually for “peace” and an end to the military occupation, without considering the role Israel plays for Western imperialism or the class relations in their own society.

Many in Israel and Palestine hoped that Obama would actually represent a new U.S. policy and bring change to the area. They didn’t realize that Obama represents only the interests of the U.S. ruling class, which do not change no matter who is President. In fact, a position paper prepared for Obama before he took office only reiterated the old U.S. call for “two states,” dominated by Israel economically and militarily. Before his inauguration, Obama was silent as Gazans were being slaughtered.

Before our trip to this area we prepared a document which reviews its imperialist history, indicating the weakness of nationalism and calling for an egalitarian communist society. We were fortunate to meet some young Israelis who agree with this position and will begin working with us. Throughout our travels in Israel and the West Bank, we distributed 50 CHALLENGES and as many position papers to activists we met along the way. As we continue to follow up with these friends, we will attempt to stimulate a multi-ethnic communist movement so badly needed in Israel/Palestine. J

Correction: Part I (CHALLENGE, 3/3/10), has a typo. It says that Israel began “building up Hamas in the 1950s as a counterweight to the secular nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).”

The years are incorrect; the PLO was not formed
until 1964, and Hamas didn’t form until 1987.