MINNEAPOLIS—Progressive Labor Party has spent decades fighting racist ideas in health and raising class consciousness within the American Public Health Association (APHA). This year was no different. PLP members with members of the Palestine Health Justice Working Group (PHJWG/a committee within APHA) worked on policy statements about the apartheid, occupation, and genocide in Gaza. We posted comments about the need to fight racism and imperialism. We submitted abstracts and gave presentations at the conference.
The APHA is a 25,000-member organization of public health professionals. There is an annual conference attended by at least 10,000 members every year and this year it was in Minneapolis. Last year at the same conference, the APHA became the first and one of only a few professional organizations to pass a statement about a ceasefire in Gaza, return of the hostages, and allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. This statement passed because 120, mostly young, public health workers attended the APHA Governing Council debate where the issue was voted on (See CHALLENGE, 12/13/23). Ninety percent of the Governing Council voted in favor of the statement, which allowed it to remain the official position of the APHA for one year.
Our experience shows how important it is to have a fighting Party like PLP in the organizing of young workers to confront the APHA leadership. At this year’s annual conference there was a walkout and demonstration on the opening day that PLP and other APHA members organized. There was also a march within the exhibit hall on the third day of the conference led by a young PL comrade and a militant Palestinian worker from the PHJWP. We also distributed 900 “APHA CHALLENGEs” to conference and rally goers–a beautiful four-page leaflet with our analysis and contact information.
Liberals welcome fascist repression within APHA
This year, another draft of the statement on Gaza was due so that the Association would be able to debate and adopt it as a permanent policy. Despite the authors (one of whom is in PLP) following all the rules for policy statements, the APHA Executive Board decided to prohibit discussion of the ongoing genocide in Gaza at this year’s meeting. The authors submitted a second statement about the genocide and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon as a late-breaker policy statement and this was also not allowed for debate by the membership.
Throughout the year, APHA leadership also opened multiple investigations for “code of conduct” violations into members who are against the racist genocide and said so on public platforms or responded professionally to Zionist trolls in the organization. The APHA leadership’s intimidation tactics involved never telling the accused what the supposed violation was, and not allowing any transparency when they decided to punish members for “unprofessional” actions. Both the refusal to allow discussion of a racist genocide and the weaponizing of the code of conduct process, show the fascist face of the liberals who run the APHA.
It’s crucial that we are clear about the fact that liberals are the main danger because they oversee the most ruthless empire in recent history. A few people we were organizing with thought that the leadership personally agreed with us but were caught in the middle, or were constrained by the rules, or some other pitiful excuse to be on the wrong side. This is a serious underestimation of our enemies and we need to be clear about that–APHA has ties to large healthcare corporations, the Democratic party, and the U.S. military. On the positive side, there were many whom we were organizing and sharing ideas with who completely agreed that the liberal misleadership of APHA was not to be trusted and that we had to challenge them.
Antiracist actions met with enthusiasm by workers
The walkout and rally on the first day of the conference that was organized by PLP, Healthcare Workers for Palestine—Twin Cities (HCWP-TC), and the PHJWG was a wonderful success. There were 120 workers from the conference and the city who came to the demonstration just outside the convention center. Speakers denounced the repression and censorship of APHA, the links between racist state violence here and in Palestine/Israel, and the importance of fighting back against fascist mask bans aimed at protestors and that put all workers (but especially immunocompromised ones) at risk of illness.
A PLP speaker gave one of the closing speeches that persuasively described how U.S. support for Israel was over control of the Middle East trade routes and oil reserves. Naming and explaining the inter-imperialist rivalry between the U.S. and Chinese ruling classes with facts, stats and clarity had many in attendance nodding in agreement. And later conversations with our base showed that they agreed with that analysis. The collaboration with the HCWP-TC group was also exciting to see: the working class showing up for each other. The HCWP-TC comrades scouted locations around the conference center, recruited speakers and attended multiple planning meetings. They provided the sound system and a great banner, and helped publicize on social media. Their work against the genocide in Gaza locally for the past year meant that they were ready and experienced in helping plan actions. This demonstration would not have been nearly as good without their collaboration.
The PHJWG pushed to get APHA members to the Governing Council to watch whether they voted to discuss a short statement about the genocide in Gaza. When that motion was not allowed by the APHA Governing Council, we led an initially silent protest in the gallery of spectators by holding up hands with red gloves on them symbolizing the blood of Palestinian workers. When that protest became more vocal, the gallery was cleared and we led a march of over 35 workers through the exhibit hall chanting: “APHA you can’t hide, Stand against Genocide!” With signs from the earlier rally, this group marched through the exhibit hall and the lunch area.
People left their booths to clap and cheer, and a dozen joined the march. A PLP member who has been attending APHA for 40 years and has done multiple marches over the years in the exhibit hall said it was the best reception from those watching that they had ever seen.
Another notable event at the conference happened when a young Black public health student and friend of ours ditched his speech on asthma and instead decided to spend his allotted time giving a short talk about Gaza and then scrolling a list of the Palestinian workers who have been murdered since last October. After about three minutes of this, he was told to stop and members of the audience protested in support of his action. He walked out of the session with ten other attendees following him. The conversation about how to organize within public health continued outside.
The bold and brave actions of public health workers at the conference this year shows that workers are disgusted by the racist genocide of Palestinian workers and children and the unending material support for it from the U.S. ruling class. We left the conference with many new contacts and a renewed confidence in communist leadership to oppose racism and imperialism in every setting.
