BROOKLYN, NY April 20 — “SAVE LICH, NO MORE CONDOS FOR THE RICH!” That was the chant on April 7, as more than 200 Long Island College Hospital (LICH) workers and residents of the Red Hook housing project, marched together from the project to the hospital. They were demanding the hospital remain open, despite the fact that the SUNY Board of Directors voted to close it on June 18. (LICH was recently taken over by SUNY Downstate Medical Center.) The march united hospital workers and those we serve. The chants were loud and militant as workers and residents made a powerful statement, marching together through housing project many LICH workers had never been to before, even though many LICH patients live there. Every worker who attended talked about it for days.
The racist police presence was heavy. In contrast, the same 76th Precinct assigned just two unarmed Auxiliary officers to a march of 75 mostly white residents two weeks earlier, through the wealthy Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. Uncertainty reigns on all sides as to whether or not the hospital will actually close. But the past month has seen promising activity fighting the closure and building the PLP.
One of the biggest victories has been winning workers and youth from Red Hook and LICH to see this struggle as a fight against racism. On March 13, a community group called the Red Hook Initiative (RHI) hosted a meeting of 35 mostly black and Latino women residents, along with LICH nurses, doctors and paramedics. Militant young volunteers distributed hundreds of flyers for the meeting across the sprawling housing development, the largest project in Brooklyn. We discussed how there are an average 60,000 ER visits a year and over 100,000 patients receive specialized care at LICH annually. The proposed closing will mean certain death for Red Hook residents, making the hospital closing a vicious racist attack. The response was overwhelming, but we did not have a clear plan of action that everyone could begin organizing for.
After this meeting, the unions representing LICH workers, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) and 1199SEIU, held a joint union/physician coalition “leadership” meeting. The union leaders follow the bosses’ playbook that relies on paying for publicity in the bosses’ media and closed-door meetings of hand-picked “leaders.” But a paramedic brought two militant Red Hook youth to speak about the hospital closing as a racist attack. In the end, NYSNA, 1199SEIU and the LICH physicians group scheduled the April 7 march.
The struggle to bring some of these fighters to May Day is afoot, although complicated because CHALLENGE readers are busy working second (even third) jobs as they brace for losing their primary income. More work lies ahead in building PLP in Red Hook, and every experience selling CHALLENGE has been positive. We know that bigger racist attacks are on the horizon as the U.S. gears up for growing imperialist wars. The children of Red Hook and LICH workers will soon be called on to kill and be killed while our families face poverty, overcrowded hospitals, schools and prisons. The struggles that we have participated in over years here have planted the seeds. This struggle will nourish them. We will greet this May Day a little stronger than last year, and with some momentum.