NEW YORK CITY, February 7—Retired Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and teachers inside United Federation of Teachers (UFT) continue to expand our Party’s work, turning our decisive upset in last year’s union election into the Retired Teachers’ Chapter (RTC)—70,000 retirees!—into part of a movement to build workers’ power. Nurturing antiracist connections—between retired and active workers, union and non-union, documented and undocumented, workers and youth—is vital to demonstrate how intimately our interests are CONNECTED, and a key part of our strategy in building a working-class movement for an egalitarian, communist world.
Expanding our fight, and our limits
While the health care fight that inspired our victory—the backroom deal that attempted to privatize/cut our retiree health benefits (what we call Medicare “Disadvantage”)—continues to be our focus, in a few short months, our movement has expanded considerably.
For years, the union (mis)leadership meticulously cultivated a passive role for retired workers inside the union. They’ve curried favor with a small coterie of retirees, just enough to get their votes and acquiescence for union-wide policies that went against our interests and hurt the working class. With our new leadership, we have already succeeded in turning that opportunism on its head. Instead of sparsely attended union meetings with bureaucrats droning on about meaningless drivel and stifling any opposition, attendance has soared and meetings have become marked by open discussion and debate on important issues of the day.
We have already leveraged resolutions passed in the RTC and brought them to the union-wide Delegate Assembly, where they have passed by overwhelming margins (no longer held back by bribed retiree delegates). This has reduced the old leadership caucus to either embarrassing catcalling from the sidelines or jumping on the bandwagon and trying to claim credit after the fact.
Building workers solidarity one action at a time
This transition has not been without contradictions, and we should have no illusions working inside the mass movement. When a retiree raised a resolution supporting striking Amazon workers—a pro-worker and antiracist action supported by 80 percent of the body—the new leadership failed to bring the motion to a vote, sending the message that Amazon workers “aren’t that important.” But PLP members have been working to build commitment and capacity to follow through on such plans, and we did successfully organize multiple Amazon support actions before and during the strike, and our criticisms lay the basis for future struggle.
One important new initiative inside the RTC is a Labor Solidarity Committee, which has attracted scores of members and led to two successful actions in only a month. We have also created a “Self-Education” study group that aims to educate ourselves and others on labor history.
Build retired/in-service alliances and student-teacher-parent unity!
The fascist immigration crackdown has generated the desired racist terror in immigrant, working class communities, but also a tremendous desire among workers inside our union to fight back! Many retired and in-service teachers and workers in the community have been attending training and meetings to strategize. We have a great opportunity right now to unite these forces and show the power of our line of student-teacher-parent unity: inside the schools, in the communities, and in the unions!
Smash capitalism—Join PLP!
The lesson of this fascist crackdown is that the whole capitalist system has got to go! The liberal (big) fascists ushered in this period by covering up capitalism’s violent and exploitative nature with the fig-leaf of “democracy.” The exploitation of immigrants; imperialist foreign policies in places like Gaza, Israel, and Ukraine; destruction of the environment: these are SYSTEMIC problems of capitalism. Workers have been fooled into supporting Trump precisely because the liberals have provided no answers to workers’ needs. Capitalism HAS no answers for workers, only bosses’ profit interests. Workers of all stripes MUST learn this crucial lesson and help build a movement that CAN finally answer our needs. That movement is COMMUNISM, where all wealth is shared, where exploitation, racism, and sexism are against the law. Where the bosses’ borders become archeological ruins of a failed system and the immense potential of workers and youth is unleashed for the common good.
We in PLP have a crucial role to play. We must continue to wage class struggle, push for our line inside these mass organizations, and lead numbers of workers into our movement, into our Party! We must show this newspaper to our friends and co-workers and write for the paper about our experiences. If we care about our world, we must become professional revolutionaries committed to saving our planet for human life. It’s that simple.
