No Nutrition! No Tuition! This was the slogan that our student club adopted as we built a campaign to bring a cafeteria to our campus. It’s been more than 15 months since the previous vendor left and the racist administration has done nothing but offer excuses for why our majority Black and Latin student body and campus workers have not had anywhere to buy food. While our particular scenario plays out in the Bronx, this is what higher education under capitalism looks like more generally. Especially now, as U.S. imperialism continues to falter, the bosses will work overtime to get workers, especially Black and Latin workers, to accept racist austerity, cutbacks and attacks on our class. In our small, but meaningful way, we are fighting back! 

For the entire fall semester, we distributed a petition demanding a cafeteria, eventually collecting more than 1000 signatures, almost 15 percent of the student body. Every week we stood outside where the cafeteria was supposed to be and listened to the anger and frustration of students and workers. We encouraged them to direct their anger at the administration and to join our club. As finals approached, we adopted another slogan:

“We help us.” We recognized that our administration, instead of getting the job done and getting us a cafeteria, would just continue offering excuses. So in the span of one weekend we organized a “People’s Pantry” to provide food to students. Everyone pitched in and brought food and signed up to work the table. And for the entire finals week, we gave out fruit, granola bars, yogurt, oatmeal and other healthy snacks. While doing so, we highlighted the failures of our administration and how it’s up to students and workers to make a better situation for ourselves. We knew that we were the only ones who would serve our class! Discussion around the table linked the situation at our campus to class struggle: capitalists will never provide what workers and students need and so it’s up to us, first to make a communist revolution, then to run society in our interests. 

Identity politics are poisons for the working class

The president of our college is Puerto Rican and the administration is almost entirely Black and Latin. But that hasn’t stopped them from imposing racist conditions on campus. We are learning and teaching in classrooms that are falling apart, with holes in the walls and exposed wiring in some rooms. Campus offices, like financial aid and the registrar, are severely understaffed, meaning services are delayed or denied. Advisors and counselors are overworked, so students don’t receive guidance and help they need. And of course the majority of classes are taught by part-time instructors making very low wages. 

The community served by our campus feels the full weight of capitalist racism: 89 percent of our students are Black and/or Latin and 15 percent come from households making less than $15,000 per year. Half of students suffer from food insecurity and yet for 15 months they’ve been forced to buy overpriced garbage from vending machines, or travel off-campus to the nearest deli! 

We can see very clearly that nationalism and identity politics are dead-ends for students on campus.  It doesn’t matter which racist borders our administrators were born within or what “race” they are. The most meaningful identity that our so-called leaders have is “administrator,” which identifies them as excuse-makers and managers of racist austerity. It means they will attempt to crush student fight-back as we saw last spring in the Gaza encampments. 

Boldness is necessary

The boldness of our students was demonstrated when we took petitions to the president’s holiday party to confront him about his failures. In front of dozens of faculty, staff and students, we pressed him on why it was unacceptable that we still did not have a cafeteria, when the cafeteria would be restored, and the lack of respect his administration showed to students and workers. His defensive and bullying response proved that his role is to manage racist austerity and to force students and workers to accept more oppressive conditions as capitalists attempt to prepare society for more war and fascism. But the brave students in our club will refuse to go quietly into this future. They are showing that if we’re united and willing to stand up, then we can take on campus mis-leaders directly and fight for what we need. 

Our fight is not over. We are certain that we will not have a cafeteria at the start of the spring semester and we are already planning on our first-day-of-class actions. We intend to increase the pressure, knowing that only class struggle can hope to improve our conditions. CHALLENGE newspapers will be there, bringing the idea that only class struggle, led by communist politics and a revolutionary outlook, can improve the conditions for all workers around the world. Linking our situation with racist treatment of migrant workers, discussions have also already started about being prepared for a Trump-led increase in racist attacks on immigrants and what we should do if ICE or other immigration kkkops attempt to come on campus. CHALLENGE  newspapers will be there, bringing the idea that racism can only be defeated by destroying capitalism and replacing it with a communist society. 

La lucha continua! 

Newly re-elected U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Mexico and deport millions of migrants reflect the development of open fascism in the main imperialist power and the sharpening of rivalry with China, its main competitor for control of the world. The consequences for the working class worldwide and in Latin America in particular, are more racist attacks and nationalist traps for workers to fight and die for “their” countries of origin. Workers must confront these attacks with the struggle for international solidarity, the abolition of borders and communist revolution led by the mass Progressive Labor Party (PLP). 

The Mexican government, headed by new President Claudia Sheinbaum, promotes nationalism to confront Trump’s threats. It raises a call for defense of national sovereignty and has undertaken a diplomatic and legal strategy to defend migrant workers from Mexico currently within the U.S. They say they are prepared to receive workers who are deported to offer them employment alternatives and integrate them into their communities. 

This scheme pretends that conditions that caused the workers to migrate in the first place had changed, such as mass unemployment, precarious and super-exploited jobs, and the criminal and systematic violence of the cartels that act as paramilitary groups at the service of the Mexican government. 

We workers must not fall into the nationalist trap; we must organize ourselves to confront racist attacks by uniting our struggles across the border to support our class siblings on both sides. This cannot be expected to happen spontaneously – we must fight to build PLP day and night as the revolutionary solution to the failures of this profit system!

Racist capitalism forces workers to migrate

The cynicism of the U.S. imperialists has no limits. Historically and in the present, the U.S. has used super-exploited migrant labor to cement its economic development and obtain higher profits, while racist bosses like Trump falsely paint them as criminals. A recent example is the case of the Uihlein family, second largest financiers of Trump’s campaign, who used migrant workers in warehouses of their company Uline, knowing that they did not have documents that would give them protections around working conditions and wages in the United States (La Jornada Veracruz, 12/23/24). The racist attacks of the Trump faction, which compete with the Deporters in Chief Barack Obama and Joe Biden, will no doubt increase migrant exploitation. But mainly, it will give a boost to the fascist discipline that U.S. imperialism needs to face the challenges of its rivals and maintain control of the working class.

In addition to being cynical, the U.S. imperialists distort reality and history. They’re the ones who have caused the migration of millions of workers in Latin America. They have sown chaos for decades throughout this region to ensure access and control of mineral, oil and agricultural resources. They use many strategies to do this, not least by promoting gangs and cartels. While they are financing these gangsters they claim to be fighting them, many times destabilizing entire governments and, in several cases, imposing bloody military dictatorships. 

The U.S. capitalists have long turned Latin America into a source of raw materials and cheap labor to supply their profit-driven empire. All these actions together have created weak and unstable economies in the region, incapable of generating sufficient jobs and safe living conditions. This is at the core of why they are forced to migrate to the north. This is how capitalism and imperialism work, and why neither are any good for the working class. A communist revolution is necessary and vital to rebuild the world on new foundations, free from exploitation and unemployment.

Inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies at workers’ peril

Capitalism creates an interconnected economy, which is why the U.S. bosses cannot apply tariffs without it backfiring to their own companies. This is particularly the case with Mexico, its biggest trading partner. The main objective of the U.S. is to start a trade war with China. The drive to undermine the Chinese bosses is why many of Trump’s threats will become reality, with devastating economic consequences for workers, increasing the pressure to migrate.

Local bosses certainly play their role in attacking workers and profiting off the inter-imperialist rivalry. The liberal government of the so-called Fourth Transformation (4T), of previous president Andres López Obrador, deployed the National Guard and the army to contain and control migration from the southern border of the country, a racist assault. At the same time and in the same region, it began the development of three megaprojects: the Interoceanic Corridor (CI), the Mayan Train and the Dos Bocas refinery. These projects have investment from the U.S. and China, potentially becoming an area of imperialist conflict. They will also use cheap migrant labor from South America and southern Mexico. Both strategies of the 4T are part of the cards that Sheinbaum and Obrador use with the U.S. to control migration through Mexico, in which workers are only pawns to increase the profits of local and imperialist bosses.

Build PLP to overthrow capitalism

Beyond the horrific mass deportations that destroy working families, the greatest threat is the support of fascism by the working class inside and outside the U.S. empire. Our Party’s role is key in uniting the working class as one in the world to confront these attacks and eventually take the offensive to end capitalism through communist revolution. Workers in Mexico have demonstrated a strong will to build solidarity with migrants. Our Party’s role must maintain that solidarity and turn it into revolutionary consciousness, to prevent it from being flooded with racism by the fascist groups operating in the country and to advance the struggle to overthrow capitalism.

CHICAGO, December 7 –"I recommend that everyone be involved in a study group, because we’re learning from each other. The Party works as a collective, and we have to build a society based on collectivity. Right now we are a small Party, but we are not all. And we have to grow.

This leads to the question: How do we see ourselves fighting back as a working class? We have to be in groups to motivate people – We know that the Party, we’re not as big as we’d like to be to affect change, but to win people to the Party we have to be where the masses are so we can work to think collectively and creatively on solutions… We need to talk to our co-workers, organize our workplaces and even our neighborhoods around class struggle.

We should be workers united, teacher, parent, child, helping each other, because we’re all workers, we’re all working class, we should be united, we should be protecting one another. We cannot permit the system to divide us. We can’t see each other as rivals.”

These were direct quotes from participants during the share-out portion of Progressive Labor Party’s (PLP) post-U.S. election forum today. A multiracial group of close to 30 workers and youth gathered to socialize and strategize on the most revolutionary and communist path for the working class as the capitalist system continues to slide into worsening racism, sexism, and wider war.

The second election of fascist Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency creates many dangers for our class, but also many opportunities. Although Trump represents a continuation of the deadly capitalist and imperialist policies of fellow fascists Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, his vile threats of mass deportations and alliances with white nationalists have shown to motivate the working class to fight back en masse. Interactive events like this forum help us better understand the politics of the moment and make our plans for how we approach them with the goal of building communist revolution!

Gallery walks and table talks

Directly inspired by the articles in CHALLENGE of our comrades in Los Angeles and New York having post-election events, our local collective knew we had to organize our own. We were especially excited about the idea of using a gallery walk of different articles, pictures, and memes to help us understand and discuss political ideas with other workers.

To this end, we designed four large poster boards, each focusing on a different key part of the Party’s political analysis. These included 1) fighting fascism; 2) class struggle being what creates social change and NOT voting; 3) liberal bosses being the main danger to our class; and 4) the need for the working class to violently take and wield state power. Each board had a PLP member acting as a “docent” or guide to help introduce the political messages and stimulate questions and discussion.

We then gathered into smaller groups for table discussions centered around specific questions to understand the moment and guide our actions. At the different tables, facilitators helped to strike a balance in the conversation about our visions of the egalitarian communist world that we want to build as well as how we practically build the mass movement in the present day. 

We then wrapped up by sharing our ideas and vision with the wider group. Drawing from the earlier presentation on the state (government, education, culture) and who it’s designed to serve (the capitalists or the workers), different speakers emphasized the need for workers to take power and run society. By building PLP for the goal of taking state power, we can defend our gains earned through the struggle and keep advancing towards an egalitarian world.

On the path to revolution

It was inspiring to see friends new to the Party and veteran members alike gaining a lot from the forum. The racist and sexist capitalist bosses work overtime to dull the anger and militancy of our class with their ridiculous elections. They push fear of other workers, and the belief that our future lies in the balance of choosing fascist candidate A or fascist candidate B.

But as communists and workers we know that the seeds of a world actually worth fighting are planted in rooms where we gathered today, sharing experiences and making plans with the interests of our class front and center. Onward to a future of fighting back on the path to revolution!

Comrade Ira Wechsler died on December 9, 2024, at the age of 75. Ira was part of a host of young people who were attracted to the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in the late 1960s. He attended the State University of New York at Stony Brook and was part of the worker-student alliance Students for a Democratic Society ( SDS) there. He hated capitalism, racism, sexism and imperialist war. Ira not only talked, he walked the walk.

He was a fighter and was arrested for making “good trouble.” He joined the PLP to fight for the world he wanted to see: an egalitarian communist world built and run by the international working class so all humanity will benefit and flourish.

After graduating, Ira became a welfare worker in New York City. He fought for worker-client unity. He was active in his union, becoming a shop steward for Local 1549, DC37 and later CWA 1180. Later  Ira became a hospital worker. He brought that same passion to his work at Woodhull Hospital. He believed in participating in these organizations. He was an 1199 steward as well. Throughout, Ira never shied away from a fight.

Ira loved to sing. He loved to update songs with lyrics about current struggles. Taking a bus back and forth to work, he would sing his updated songs. In doing so, he hoped to strike up conversations with his fellow riders.

After Ira retired due to a stroke, he continued to be active in community issues like fights to stop the closings of Brooklyn Hospitals (Downstate, Long Island College and Kingsbrook Jewish Hospitals) and against racist police terror.

Ira is survived by his wife, Yvonne, daughter Daneeka, son Adam and granddaughter Saniyah. He leaves his brother Bruce and numerous friends and Comrades.