PHILADELPHIA, PA, May 7 — “Here we go again!” Venetta said as 50 Local 1199C Hospital Workers Union retirees marched spontaneously to Jefferson Hospital demanding the hospital bosses stop their attacks on our union Benefit and Pension Funds. We’re older now so we marched a little slower, several with canes, several with oxygen tanks.
Forty years ago Venetta and many of these workers broke the law and filled up buses headed to jail to bring in this union and its benefits. Now retired, Venetta and the rest of us don’t want to give up pension and health benefits that we worked for and that help keep us alive and out of complete poverty. But as many of us see it, the capitalist economic crisis is deepening and all the small wars promise to become bigger ones.
Because the capitalist class rules the government, no matter who’s in the White House, all the improvement Venetta and our class fought decades to achieve are being taken back. Here we go again! What could be more important or a more organic part of this fight — not an outside issue — than PLP’s call for the working class to get off the capitalist merry-go-round and fight for communist revolution, where the working class runs the government for an equal society?
Our initial plan was to confront a Jefferson boss from Personnel. However, Personnel relocated to a more secure building away from the hospital. Its previous location was easily accessible and the target of many past marches. Is that why Personnel’s now on the ninth floor of a guarded building? Personnel refused to allow the 50 of us up to their office and refused to come down to meet us. So, we held a meeting in the lobby.
Then we decided to march to Jefferson Administration in the main hospital building, enabling 1199C members at work to see us. Apparently Jefferson security is a little rusty because as slow as we moved — and although we had to wait while everyone went to restrooms (remember we ain’t young!) — we still beat Security to the Executive Administration offices and filled the waiting area and hallway outside.
A Jefferson Vice-President came out to reprimand us but quickly regretted that decision. The retirees shouted him down. One retiree in particular, Jewel, all five feet of her, simply yelled in his face, “I need my medicine! I need my medicine!” repeatedly and loudly until the over-six-foot Vice-President actually seemed about to cry. When another Security Lieutenant rushed into the office, Jewel spun around and yelled, “I know your mother! I know your mother!” The security officer retreated. After a period of yelling and screaming, the Vice-President promised to arrange a meeting and took contact numbers for the retired shop stewards who led the march.
The stakes in this fight are dire. Our union is multi-racial — black, white, Asian and Latino. We’re all hurting. But this attack is particularly racist and sexist because this union is predominantly black and women, who suffer the worst health and healthcare under this system. If Jefferson and the other hospital bosses succeed in destroying our Benefit and Pension fund it will kill many union members and amount to outright murder.
Venetta’s declaration of “here we go again” demands that we get out of capitalism’s losing game. The capitalists run the government, they hold state power with a dictatorship of the bosses. We need a workers’ government, a dictatorship of the working class. Our future actions in this fight must have the long-term goal of workers joining PLP to build for communist revolution, for a society that abolishes wage slavery. We need a society where older workers, all workers, don’t suffer poverty and starvation, where workers get the medicine they need simply because they need it! (To contact PLP call 267-319-3515.)