New York City, May 31—Almost 1,000 retired city workers from former blue-collar workers to clerical, teachers, professors, librarians, nurses, social workers, EMTs, firefighters and more packed the sidewalk outside of City Hall in the continuing struggle against forcing 250,000 retirees into a privatized for profit medicare coverage known as Medicare Advantage. Chants like “healthcare is a human right, fight fight fight” reflected the understanding that health insurance companies are not in business to provide healthcare; they are in business to make profits! Progressive Labor Party says that only in a communist society will healthcare be provided to all based on need rather than on ability to pay. Only then will hospitals, prescription drugs and medical care be free of the profit system.

The retiree health coverage struggle has been going on for over two years. The city bosses led by former KKKop Mayor Adams would like us to give up and accept a September change in our benefits. A gang of high paid labor misleaders called the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), who act on behalf of the city bosses, cut this deal in secret meetings where retirees have no say. Many of the MLC leaders earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, many times more than the workers their unions are supposed to represent. These bought and paid for “leaders” will never give up their cushy union positions to fight for workers.

The Medicare Advantage plan shifts costs to retired workers. New copays for retirees may add up to $1,500 per person per year for healthcare costs. This affects lower income retirees (mainly Black and Latin and women) the most, making it a racist and sexist plan. It will force many retirees to choose between needed medical care and high cost medicine or the costs of housing, food etc.

Although the tactics of filing court cases, asking local city council politicians for support and threatening to vote out Mayor Adams builds faith in the system, getting our hands dirty doing the work of the mass movement allows PL’ers involved in the struggle to raise communist ideas with our friends in a number of union retiree groups and build ties with current workers who we call retirees in training.

CHICAGO, IL, June 7—“Ummm, it looks like there’s a room full of people behind you?”  The head boss of the local health system sounded surprised and nervous when they saw the numerous supporters who came to the online meeting with U.S. kidney leaders. Getting rid of racist kidney lab tests had proven to be no easy task!

This meeting was supposed to be just the two leaders of our antiracism group and U.S. kidney leadership to explain the struggle in medicine to change decades of racism in biology. The head boss was not expecting us to bring the whole group! We had to show that the number of people determined to remove biologic racism from medicine was large and ready to act outside the usual standards of academia and business.

A brief history of biologic racism
Capitalism and racism go hand in hand, and at this stage of capitalism are so intertwined that it is impossible to imagine one existing without the other. Because the economic benefits of slavery were so great, the U.S. ruling class (especially slave owners) created and codified the idea of race and racism into laws. As historian Lerone Bennett describes in The Road Not Taken (link), the development of racism in the U.S. can be traced through laws deliberately created to separate and control workers. He notes that when Black and white workers united in an uprising against their masters in 1676 in Virginia (Bacon’s rebellion), the laws separating workers by race were dramatically strengthened. To justify their brutal system, they couldn’t tell the truth: “we need free labor to become rich and it is easy to identify the enslaved workers by the color of their skin.”  Racist thinking thus permeated every facet of life including the science of medicine.

And so biologic racism was born. The ideas that there are biologic or genetic differences between races, and that the white race is superior, are lies. Biologic racism was used to justify slavery. Thomas Jefferson said that Black workers had “a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus.” This falsehood was used to justify slavery because such forced labor was a way to “vitalize the blood” of supposedly deficient Black workers.

The false idea of biologic racial differences persists despite the fact that the human genome studies show that there are more genetic similarities between racial categories than differences. Antiracist doctors and other health workers including Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members are leading struggles against this biologic racism.

The fight against biologic racism in kidney tests
A PLP member developed a lecture on biologic racism for her coworkers and students. The ensuing discussions led to a proposal to get their hospital to remove race from analyzing laboratory tests for kidney disease. The Covid-19 pandemic put everything on pause--until the George Floyd uprisings by workers against his murder by the kkkops! The ripple effect of militant antiracist struggle moved people at the hospital to form a multiracial antiracism committee that was led by the PLP member.

Race has been included as a component of kidney testing in the United States since 1999. The data to support such inclusion was weak and the biologic claim to support the idea—that Black people have more muscle mass—is racist. Still, this is the way that kidney function has been calculated for over two decades and has resulted in Black patients being diagnosed with kidney disease later than whites and judged not eligible for transplant until they were sicker than their white counterparts.

The PLP member guaranteed that the meetings of this antiracist committee would be more collective than usual staff meetings. Every meeting began with a discussion of an article so that the team built a common base of knowledge. They struggled together to come to mutual understanding and agreement so that all committee members could give leadership to the campaign. The team wrote a paper on removing race from kidney tests, gathered signatures in support, gave lectures on the topic, and emailed their coworkers and friends. By the time this group had started collecting signatures, we knew more about how and why race was included in kidney testing than many kidney specialists!

The local hospital committee voted in support of removing race from kidney function, but this decision was then scrapped by kidney specialists who disagreed and/or wanted to wait for national kidney organizations to okay such a change. The hospital leadership called for a meeting with the two chairs of the committee. Secretly we organized to make sure every member of our antiracist committee and coworkers would attend this meeting. When the camera was turned on at the beginning of the meeting to show 20 people in attendance, the bosses were not happy. When they tried to steer the meeting to the topics they wanted to discuss, we did not let the meeting proceed until our questions were answered. We had to be bold and confrontational backed by our 20 committee members. This meeting was a turning point. It showed the strength we had in numbers and our commitment to this change. When the national guidelines changed to be race-neutral one month later, our hospital was one of the first to apply them due to the work we had done.

Throughout this struggle, the PLP member challenged coworkers to understand the connection between racism and capitalism. There were many times the committee was tested by external forces and internal struggles, but PLP training in prior struggles helped advance this antiracist struggle. The antiracism committee is still fighting today and has gone on to succeed in removing race from lung testing, which previously has kept Black mine workers from getting compensation for Black Lung disease.

The fight continues but needs to be broadened and sharpened
The embedded nature of racism in healthcare will not be eliminated by making every medical test race-neutral. The structural racism built into capitalism to keep the working class divided and weakened is a much larger contributor to worse health outcomes for Black and brown workers. White workers suffer because a working class divided by race cannot fight back effectively for the health and health care they need.

The only way to end structural racism is to destroy capitalism. The billionaire bosses will never give up their wealth to create an equal society. They use structural racism and state violence to grow and maintain their wealth by any means necessary. We need to build a mass communist movement to lead a revolution to seize state power, also by any means necessary. Through communist revolution, we can end the structural racism and poverty that keeps the working class sick. Join PLP!

BAY AREA, June 7—In the interest of the “common good” (read: pro-student and class-solidarity demands), over 3,000 education workers went on an eight-day strike against the Oakland Unified School District. Communists in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) went to picket lines at schools where we knew striking teachers to build solidarity, raise class consciousness, and communicate communist ideas.

From May 4 to 15, these workers honored the picket line, 34,000+ students were out of schools, parents & students joined the picketing and rank-and-file teachers set up solidarity schools for younger children of working parents. A Temporary Agreement (TA) for 2.5 years was signed late Sunday night on the 7th day for a return to school on Tuesday.

The school bosses used legal tactics to create planned Chaos, “delay, deny and blame the victim,” all typical strike-breaking tactics. The contract expired in Oct 2022. Finally, Oakland Education Association (OEA) called a strike in May due to unfair bargaining practices; a “legal” cover for immediate action rather than months of fact finding. This was after a rank-and-file caucus carried out a one-day wildcat strike in March, mainly in high schools, and demanded a 50-person bargaining committee to be responsible to the membership.

What did we learn? What did we teach?
PLP went in solidarity with and to learn from the strikers: how did they view their struggle and the world that produced it?  We learned that conditions in and out of the schools had many teachers talking about the problems of capitalism, but that they did not have a full explanation of “why are things so bad?”
We learned that the Oakland R&F Caucus understands working class power: “We are…committed to transforming the Oakland Education Association into a democratic, member-led union that fights for high-quality schools for all.”

One big lesson developed during the previous teachers’ strike in 2019 when teachers organized with members of the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union)  to shut down the Port of Oakland. The California Teachers’ Association (CTA) sabotaged this action due to fear of being sued for a secondary boycott. Building on that experience, that’s when teachers led the wildcat strike.

During this strike, teachers shut down OUSD (Oakland Unified School District) construction of a new administration building costing $57 million to point out the hypocrisy that $57 million is needed to upgrade the schools, not produce a fancy building for the administration. Many construction workers on site supported this one-day shutdown). They kept the strikers informed on progress and mobilized parent support.

Racism part and parcel of capitalism
The strike’s demands addressed conditions for teachers and students. OUSD is one of the lowest paid districts in the Bay Area, which creates difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers and staff. Schools with the largest population of working-class Black, Latin, immigrant, Indigenous, disabled and special needs students had the most unmet needs, had unhoused families and deteriorated physical plants. For example, one teacher said, “The school’s buildings” have  “lead in the soil and a rat and mice infestation in the classrooms, and they’re concerned about lead in the water.”

Years of school closings, charter school privatization, and real estate profit-motivated displacement had increased these disparities and overcrowding in these neighborhoods. This goes along with imperialist-war related education cutbacks.

A district spokesperson said “the district has a total of $3.4 billion in upgrades and other changes that must happen to get all schools upgraded and modernized.”  OEA’s common good proposals are “far too costly for the district to handle” and should not be included in any collective bargaining agreement (KQED, 5/12).

Developing class consciousness
On the picket line, PLP members discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the reform struggle. We distributed CHALLENGE with a report from the Los Angeles teachers strike, and international news of class struggle to those who were interested and planned follow up activity after the strike. Many events in this strike showed that workers can oraganizr figure out how to run things for the benefit of the whole working class where humans strive to collectively build a world of equity; based on production for need, not for profit. That system is communism. A teacher reported on the strike at our PLP May Day celebration.

One of our goals was to support and expand on the class consciousness in the “common good” demands. At one school, an AFSCME member struggled with coworkers to honor the picket line. Students from a solidarity school joined the picket line with their own chants. This was an opening to bring up the history of Industrial Unionism. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was founded with the leadership of the Communist Party USA that organized for everyone in an industry to be in the same union. In Oakland in 1947, transit worker solidarity with striking retail workers sparked a general strike.

Such history helped develop an understanding of capitalism’s stratified wage system using racism, sexism and anti-immigrant ideology. This lowers wages for all. These ideas made sense even though some teachers had never heard of the CIO.

Imperialism and finance capitalism on display
Our PLP picket signs addressed the war budget, imperialism and privatization with charter schools increasing segregation. They were well received (see picture) and we had many conversations about the decline of U.S. capitalism, imperialist wars with rivals, mainly China, over control of labor, natural resources, markets, and even the threat of replacing the dollar as the world currency.

We brought up that finance capital has been moving into the public sector to secure tax money to make up for shrinking profits in other areas. Privatization includes charter schools, the testing industry, and an army of “private” consultants and NGOs (non government organizations).

The Wall St Journal directly attacked the teachers and belittled the “common good” demands: “the teachers’ union strike that is holding children hostage in the name of climate and housing for the homeless…  How about “remedying the enormous learning deficits the union has caused by protecting bad teachers and closing schools during the pandemic?” (WSJ, May 9).

We explained that the WSJ represents finance capitalists who understand the danger when workers move away from business unionism or electing Democrats to develop working-class solidarity social justice unions. This can unleash the united working class to challenge capitalist rule; like back in the day when communists developed class solidarity against capitalism and fought for communism.

The role of liberal reformers                                                                                                           
During the strike, we had the opportunity to discuss the role of the liberal reformers who led the vicious attack and echoed the call to exclude common good demands from the contract. Many teachers agreed that voting for a leader who is a lesser evil, has personal credentials including identity politics, is a deadend when that individual accepts the limits set by capitalists’ budgets.

Superintendent of OUSD Kyla Johnson-Trammell (salary $452,500/yr)  grew up an Oakland student, taught 25 yrs in OUSD, agreed with WSJ:  teachers “should not hold children’s learning hostage or deprive students of the services that schools provide.” One teacher told us that a poster exposing Kyla was controversial since she is Black.

President of the Oakland School Board, Mike Hutchison, promotes himself as an “OEA Baby,” product of Oakland schools with his mother aOUSD teacher, and an organizer fighting school closings/ budget cuts. He attacked “items that are outside of the scope of the contract, which are basically compensation and work conditions, are not going to be negotiated…Common Good proposals... do not belong in the contract language…” (The Oaklandside, 5/8).

We discussed: Why do liberal politicians and leaders end up attacking working-class teachers and students? Is it personality? Ego? Many teachers recognized that the memorandum of understanding makes the OEA leadership a partner with OUSD to administer shrinking tax dollars that will continue to produce failed solutions to the issue of housing, school closing, community school funding, and racist conditions. We agreed with the activist teacher organizers that such a partnership would try to stop direct rank-and-file actions, like future wildcat strikes, or port shutdowns.

These partners could use corporate laws to justify firing, jailing, and legal suits for damages and school closures. Capitalism in decline won’t provide the money for an equitable education for the working class.
                                                                                                  
Capitalism attacks those who dare to struggle. Class solidarity and revolutionary potential grow when we dare to win!

The following is part 1 of a report given at the Abolitions Conference (May 6-8) in Washington, DC.

As a Metro transit worker in DC and a member of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 representing over 10,000 bus operators, train operators, mechanics, custodians, landscapers of Metro, and hundreds of paratransit workers, I wanted to share thoughts about building a revolutionary movement in my workplace.

I was a shop steward and executive board member at my bus garage for six years and a member of the Progressive Labor Party, a revolutionary communist organization. We workers have been frustrated for decades in fighting racism, sexism, and exploitation in our industry. The system we face is rigged against us at every turn. That’s why we have to go beyond reform and join and build a revolutionary party that can both strengthen the labor movement day to day while developing the movement and institutions to overthrow the entire capitalist/imperialist system and build a communist world of equality and collectivity.

For many, this idea seems far-fetched. Some feel that capitalism cannot be defeated in the U.S. But never forget that famous comment from Rosa Luxemburg, the German revolutionary: “Before a revolution happens, it is perceived as impossible; after it happens, it is seen as having been inevitable.” Capitalism is an inherently unstable system, generating wars among the imperialists like today’s increasingly volatile conflicts among the U.S./NATO, Russia, and China and economic crises savaging workers’ well being globally. Communism is the solution to all of capitalism’s attacks.

The contradictions of the labor movement
The labor movement in the U.S. has historically embodied the conflict between reform and revolution. The 19th century Chicago Central Labor Council favored the abolition of capitalism and at the same time campaigned for the 8-hour day. The Haymarket Affair, with a general strike and substantial militancy, was attacked by the police, and the leading revolutionary figures of Chicago’s labor movement were executed by the government for fighting against capitalism. But their example inspired the launch of May Day as the international working-class revolutionary holiday a few years later and inspired global revolutions involving billions of workers.

Other parts of the early labor movement also took a revolutionary approach, including the International Workers of the World (IWW), the early Socialist Party, and the Communist Party USA, through its powerful leadership role in the new industrial unions of the 1930s. But then as now, unions function within a capitalist framework and their leaders often refuse to go beyond simple business unionism. We must return to the days of labor militancy and create an open communist presence that points the finger at capitalism as the racist, sexist, killer of workers that it is.

Transit unions and struggle
The ATU is in a period of growth as more workers are joining us to secure collectively bargained contracts through strikes and other labor actions. We communists are trying to use today’s momentum to build communist leadership in the labor movement to abolish capitalism/imperialism with communist revolution.

Unions as creatures of the capitalist system are structurally limited to negotiate the terms of workers’ exploitation. So even if you do that militantly and in an antiracist fashion, if you aren’t also about building a party to destroy capitalism, then all you are doing is trying to get better terms for your exploitation.

Consider, though, both the potential power and limitations of the labor movement. The workers in major industries such as transportation have the power to stop production and the flow of profits to the capitalists and with communist leadership can galvanize the entire working class to seize power from the bosses.

This power has been recognized and feared by the ruling class. They have dealt with this by agreeing, in key industries, to pay higher wages and give better benefits, reducing to some degree union workers’ material interests in class struggle. The ruling class has also passed laws making it harder for unions in this country to strike through no strike clauses and no solidarity (“secondary boycotts”) strike clauses. Similarly, the capitalist system encourages union leadership positions to be paid much more than other workers, and are seen by some self-interested workers as a way to get out of driving a bus or turning a wrench.

Workers’ power has thus been dramatically hurt by the lack of communist leadership. Efforts by the U.S. ruling class to channel workers outrage into the Democratic Party has weakened class consciousness and militancy. Union leaders have largely abandoned serious strikes. When workers demand strikes, the union leadership and politicians undermine these efforts as quickly as possible. Without disciplined communist leadership, such rank-and-file movements get misdirected and sold out. Without a class analysis of companies extracting profit from the workforce, unions can be quick to settle for “good enough” contracts. Without fighting racism and getting involved in larger societal issues, unions can end up supporting the idea of more police to enforce fare evasion. Without a broader analysis of international politics, unions can be won to supporting imperialist war efforts.

Communists are key to reversing union reformism
A determined core of revolutionary fighters can turn this around. They can make unions become leaders of multiracial fight back, a key to abolishing capitalism.

Based on over a decade of organizing at Metro, I know that workers can be won to the analysis that a disciplined party is necessary to overthrow capitalism. In fact, as a result of our Party’s engagement in decades of militant campaigns and strikes (that are the subject of next issue’s part 2 of this article), we have been able to swell the ranks of our Party group in our transit union. Despite the setbacks in the struggle for reform due to conservative union leaders, we have succeeded by painstakingly building the core of an organization at Metro that can respond to the looming crises of capitalism. We will respond with more militancy, more antiracist unity, and more leadership for communist revolution in the U.S. that will crush our exploiting bosses and their state – permanently –with communist workers power.