Trenton, NJ, June 26 — Over 100 people traveled here today for a Day of Action to demand that any state budget deficit be paid for by the bankers and billionaires, whose capitalist system caused the 2008 crash. The aftermath of that crash has seen permanent racist budget cuts for the working class worldwide, even as capitalists have received trillions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks.
At the initiative of local legal services workers, a War Against Poverty Coalition (WAPC) was formed earlier this year to spread the struggle against the budget cuts to more workplaces, schools and communities. Workers began organizing for the Day of Action right after May Day. WAPC intensified its efforts to gain more support from several community and union-based organizations, including a caucus in a local teachers’ union. There were debates inside the coalition about relying on the masses of employed and unemployed workers instead of on politicians and media coverage.
Two months ago, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration announced that projected revenue for his proposed 2014-15 budget was supposedly $807 million short. Christie immediately reneged on the 2011 deal he made with Democratic Party leaders to have the state put over $3.85 billion into the underfunded state workers’ pension system. Instead, he slashed the contribution to $1.37 billion. When angry state workers demanded action by their unions, their leaders chose instead to merely sue the governor. Christie threatened to make further cuts in funding for schools, hospitals and social programs if he lost the lawsuit. The court supported Christie.
Union Leaders Sell Out
When we arrived in Trenton, our multi-racial group marched about a mile from the parking lot to the Statehouse building rally site. Our spirited chants of “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”; “Politicians say cut back, we say fight back!”; and “The workers united will never be defeated!” echoed through the streets. As we approached the Statehouse, scores of surprised teachers and other workers already there began loudly applauding us.
At the rally, several speakers (including a teachers’ union vice-president) supported the Democratic Party budget, which included a short-term “millionaires’ tax” and a slightly higher tax on corporations, and also made the promised pension payment. This is the same Democratic Party whose leadership collaborated with Christie in 2011 to impose huge increases on workers’ contributions to pension and health care payments in return for supposedly guaranteed state pension contributions. Senate leader Steve Sweeney, who engineered the deal, hypocritically asked the Republicans, “What about damn fairness?” Any union leader who leads workers to rely on these tools of the bosses is leading our class over a cliff.
One earlier speaker told the crowd that only “revolution” could solve the problems of the working class. While PLP agrees with that assessment, there is more that must be said. As we see it, no set of reforms can meet the needs of our class. Any reform can be taken away by the bosses. For example, all of the past gains by state workers in pension and healthcare benefits are rapidly being eroded. But even reforms that last longer will not lead to a system where racism, inequality and exploitation are abolished. Only communist revolution can do that.
Legal System Shuts Out Workers
Another speaker told a moving story about a legal services client who had to be turned away because the local office has suffered a 60 percent cut in staff attorneys and is now working a four-day week. This client had worked her whole life. When her unemployment benefits ran out, and she needed help, she was callously told that her niece’s payment of her rent made her ineligible for assistance. The speaker attacked a “criminal system” where the bankers have all the best lawyers money can buy, while we have to turn away our mainly black and Latin jobless brothers and sisters who face destitution and homelessness.
There are valuable lessons to be learned from the struggles workers here have undertaken in the past nine months. One is that it is important to have a long-term outlook. Many workers who had been quiet and unassuming have stepped forward in the course of the fight. The collective struggle in our meetings has resulted in several workers rising to the challenge of these hard times.
Another lesson is that communist leadership is crucial in this period. That leadership extends far beyond the day-to-day organization of the class struggle. More important to our efforts is the confidence PLP has in the working class. Many workers are disheartened by the constant cutbacks faced by our class. They see no alternative to the capitalist system of profit for the few. The small pockets of struggle led by our Party can encourage those workers to join the fight back and expand the number of workers open to revolutionary solutions to attacks by the bosses. As we head into the next phase of the struggle, we plan to increase the circulation of CHALLENGE and to spread communist ideas in our workplaces.