NEW YORK CITY, December 5—Over the past few years, conditions at City University of New York (CUNY) campuses have gotten progressively worse, tuition has steadily increased and CUNY is chronically underfunded. CUNY students, 56 percent of whom are Black or Latin, are the primary targets of this racist underfunding. Not surprisingly, CUNY part time faculty (adjuncts) work for poverty wages. At the same time as the CUNY bosses and their politician stooges, along with the weak union leadership, are preparing to shove a racist, austere budget down the throats of the 26,000 faculty and 250,000 students, many faculty are organizing to strike. As we organize to strike, let’s talk about getting rid of this whole, damn, racist capitalist system.
Poverty wages for college faculty
Adjunct professors teach more than 50 percent of the courses at CUNY, yet most of them work for poverty wages. They make as little as $3,200 per course, meaning a part-time instructor teaching a full load of courses per semester makes $25,600 a year. New York City is one of the most expensive cities in the world; so many adjuncts must work extra jobs such as Uber drivers, or get public benefits and/or are homeless (“Professors in Poverty,” YouTube).
CUNY has been running on the super-exploitation of these adjuncts, many of whom are Black and Latin, while the union has only given lip service to the demand for a raise ($7K per course) but provide no leadership. It’s become apparent to many that winning this demand can never happen as long as we have “business as usual” and we follow the laws and rules that capitalism has created. And even if we win such a modest demand, this capitalist system will continue to destroy the lives of workers and students everywhere, from Yemen to the migrant caravan to the students and staff at CUNY.
Strike against poverty wages; break the bosses laws
At seven campuses, union meetings were held to discuss various strike resolutions. At all seven campuses; resolutions were passed unanimously declaring that chapters would fight back, up to and including striking.Especially significant is the willingness of rank-and-file union members to challenge both the city bosses and their union leadership. In New York State, it is illegal for public employees to strike, thanks to the Taylor Law. More importantly, is that many workers have voted in favor of striking despite opposition from the union leadership, whose favored method is to beg so-called “progressive” politicians and CEOs for crumbs and to, ultimately, take what we are given. Instead of building student-worker solidarity or putting the organizational weight of the union behind preparing for a strike, they cozy up to Democratic politicians like Bill DeBlasio, who turn around and agree to hand over $2 billion to Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, so that Amazon can move in and gentrify a neighborhood in Queens. Two billion to Bezos, poverty wages to adjunct faculty and tuition increases to students. Really, “This whole damn system has to go!” (Ferguson rebels, August, 2014)
Students and staff unite!
Some students have been present at union meetings to support this 7K, demand for raises and to put forward the demand of free tuition. More and more they are taught by teachers struggling with insecurity, homelessness, anxiety and all the other ills that capitalism visits on workers. At a union meeting in the Bronx, one student commented- “I want to become a teacher. This is my fight as well!” Another student added, “Many of my professors encourage us students to fight back and organize –we have your back!”
At the same time, many students at CUNY hold down jobs, and some work full time to pay for the tuition that once free. So, this student-worker alliance is absolutely critical. We have the same enemy and the same fight!
Strike for decent pay, strike for a communist future!
Members of the communist Progressive Labor Party have stressed that we can go only so far under this capitalist system. When there is a strike vote, faculty express that they are willing to put themselves on the line. But there are many more struggles that we will face in the future. In one chapter meeting, a comrade challenged the local union leadership about how they plan to lead the strike. They don’t.
We have to lead any strike and many more battles in the future. At another meeting, teachers were asking–”Where are those strike stickers”? These teachers are the people that will lead a strike, and they must join us in the longer battle for a better world. Those of us at CUNY, whether studying, teaching, or working –we have a tremendous opportunity now to sharpen this struggle, build a worker-student alliance, fight racism, and challenge capitalism.
The Progressive Labor Party salutes the teacher-workers who are making this militant struggle at CUNY and welcome the sharpening of the class struggle and the possibility of a strike. For students and teachers, when it comes to learning the lessons that are needed to destroy capitalism, the picket line is better than any classroom. Join us and fight for communism!
NEW YORK, NY, December 1—As many as 8,000 working-class families mostly from Honduras are traveling by foot to the southern U.S. border. More than 3,000 are already in Tijuana and many more are passing through Mexico City. They are fleeing poverty, corruption and violence that is largely the result of more than a century of domination by U.S. imperialism. This was most recently displayed in the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew the democratically-elected liberal reformer Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, forcing a mass exodus to escape poverty, crime, drug trafficking and police violence. They join more than 60 million refugees around the world, from Africa to South Asia, from Syria to Somalia, trying to escape the horrors of war and terror. This is the fruit of world-wide imperialism. Workers of the world need communist revolution.
President Donald Trump targeted the refugees with fiercely racist diatribes, calling them everything from criminals to disease carriers to Middle East Muslim terrorists. Trump has deployed more than 5,000 active-duty troops to the border, in addition to an army of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Patrol agents and fascist vigilante militias against unarmed poor people, mainly families with children. The U.S. govern building the concentration camps that could house the refugees for some time to come.
Organizing across borders
Progressive Labor Party is organizing solidarity for the refugees on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. We are one Party and there is only one international working class. We have reached out to the refugees in Mexico City and in the U.S., we have started raising money in our unions. We are working on many levels within the New Sanctuary Coalition (NSC) to bring thousands of workers and students to witness, aid and accompany our Central American sisters and brothers into the U.S. We are working with hundreds of volunteers, training to go to the border, work in support capacities, and raise this issue in our unions. So far, many unions have shown an interest and the NSC Call to Organized Labor has gone out to tens of thousands of NYC workers and others and we are heling to organize delegations from these unions to go to the border.
These include workers in 1199, IBT (International Brotherhood of Teamsters) Joint Council 16 (who declared themselves a Sanctuary Union after one of their members was deported), a number of UAW (United Auto Workers) locals, PSC (Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York), NYSNA (New York State Nurses Association) and others. You can sign on at www.sanctuarycaravan.org/labor.
PLP says, “Working People Have No Nation!” This is now true for at least 60 million refugees around the world, and the numbers are growing every day. Imperialism cannot meet the needs of the working class. And the bosses are using the refugee crisis they have created to build mass fascist movements that scapegoat the migrants as the rulers prepare for wider wars.
This crisis requires everyone’s participation at whatever level you can contribute. We cannot sit this out. If you want to help greet the caravan at the border, or in Mexico City and escort the caravan to the U.S., now is the time to get involved.
HAITI,November 18—Every year on this day, we celebrate the Battle of Vertière, the last battle before the declaration of independence from France on Jan. 1, 1804. This year, however, was significantly different as tens of thousands of workers and students all across Haiti took to the streets to join the battle against massive corruption in the PetroCaribe scandal (where the bourgeoisie has pocketed billions of dollars meant to fund education, infrastructure, etc.). Demanding the ousting of Jovenel Moïse, in whom they have no confidence to find and punish the guilty, the masses barricaded the streets. Their bosses responded by sending out all of its armed might, including hooded thugs known as cagoulards, who murdered at least a dozen protesters.
Many understand that this battle is not easy to win because, just like exploitation, corruption is a disease in the lungs of the capitalist system, and to defeat the disease we have to get rid of the entire system itself. We have to replace it with one that serves the interests of the working class.
In one provincial town, there were only a dozen Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends on the street some people were afraid to participate in the marches because the government is running a campaign of terror; in fact, there were more police than protesters. Yet in spite of police presence, our action was a success, and we continued the planned course. Although our numbers were small, we persisted with signs in hand, and we chanted without stopping. The message was clear: “the bourgeoisie and its state are anti-worker, anti-progress, and anti-well-being and they must go.”
The theft of the PetroCaribe funds is awakening Haitian workers and students. We can take advantage of this situation to strengthen our fight. The fight against corruption is a fight against capitalism.We are engaged in it! La lutte continue (the struggle continues)!
New York City, November 28—Our justice and peace coalition dramatically indicted mayor Bill deBlasio and the New York Police Department (NYPD) for Racist Murder! We hosted a press conference organized by workers and Hawa Bah the mother of a police murder victim. In 2012 Bah’s desperate call to 911, for her mentally ill son Mohamed would prove deadly. That’s because when the police arrived, they brushed her aside, kicked in the door of her son’s apartment, and executed him with seven bullets! The movement for justice for Mohamed,whose life was senselessly snuffed out by the kkkops two years before of his thirtieth birthday, finally won a civil court victory after a relentless six year struggle.
Now de Blasio is appealing the judgment in order to reinforce a law permitting any cop to actually execute an already disabled victim if the cop deems to be in danger. This would further expand the fascist police terror the working class already experiences, and proves deBlasio to be just another craven, racist politician. It highlights that violence is the lifeblood, of this racist capitalist system, and it best protected by the leadership of liberal racists. Thus explaining that liberal politicians are the main agents for developing U.S. fascist oppression is one of the Progressive Labor Party’s (PLP) major duties. We are now advancing this analysis by pointing out that deBlasio’s new “Crisis Prevention and Response Task Force” will simply serve as a safety valve to deflect rising fury at police killings in the same way the Kerner Commission Report was meant to quell ghetto rebellions in the 1960s.
Our project in the coming weeks is to bombard the Task Force with demands for fundamental change, including diverting funds from the NYPD in order to build up effective mental health treatment in every neighborhood, and to mandate that all first responders be trained mental health personnel NOT kkops . The speakers included clergy representing three congregations in three boroughs, and leaders of six other organizations, including the American Public Health Association.
A petition drive has been launched, both online andon paper. We will use this as an organizing tool to bring more and more anti-racists into action. Opportunities for struggle will increase in January when the Task Force presents its recommendations to the mayor.
Then during the rest of the winter and spring we will sharpen the fight as we expose how the liberal politicians will try to compromise with the NYPD’s open fascism.Most exciting is that our organizing effort includes men and women of all races.We also have an increasing opportunity to work with college-aged young people. One of them is now joining one of the churches the Party has been building work in for years!The life and death challenge for us is to share Challenge more widely and to redouble our efforts to build personal/political ties with the newer people we are getting to know. The test of this work’s success of course will be how we are able to swell our marching ranks come May Day. In the face of expanding fascism and war, communist revolution is the only solution!
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Victory against racism at public health convention
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- 09 December 2018 80 hits
SAN DIEGO, CA, November 14—Last month the working class won a victory against racism at the American Public Health Association (APHA) convention as we organized to pass a resolution condemning police violence as a public health problem.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends have attended APHA conventions for several decades, but for the last three years we have been involved with this young multiracial group of public health workers and students to organize this fightback, and get this resoultion passed. PLP made it clear to our friends that the entire capitalist system and the cops who protect it must go.
These antiracists are committed to the idea of rejecting liberal reforms of the police such as body cameras, implicit bias training, or more Black and Latin cops. The group’s focus and the policy statement were about limiting the role of the police in workers’ lives and divesting from the police in favor of investing in communities.
Try try again
For two years, the APHA policy board rejected the resolution, always demanding this or that change, but really fearing to make an anti-police statement. Once they even suspended their own rules to delay a vote, which was not suprising, as the APHA leadership aims to function as an ally of the Democratic Party Neverthless we steadily escalated the struggle:leafleting, defending the resolution at open hearings, getting the support of many sections and holding demonstrations for the past two years.
At our action this year on the morning of the vote on the resolution we led chants, speeches, and testimonials from authors and organizers were made on the bullhorn.
A PLP member encouraged a young mother to talk about the need to support policies against racist violence internationally when countries like U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, target healthcare workers in war zones or when immigrant children are separated from their parents. Another comrade led chants and encouraged speakers to come forward.
This year the resolution organizers held a well-attended off-site conference, where the historical role of the police as agents of social control of the working class, especially Black and Latin workers, was illuminated. Ways to fight back and organize at the grass roots level were also discussed by a diverse panel of activists from California.
A protracted political struggle
Working closely with this group led to sharp struggles and conversations about political ideas, such as explaining how racist super-exploitation hurts and divides all workers versus idea that white workers benefit from racism. We discussed the need to end capitalism, and strategies for operating within a liberal organization such as APHA.
Understanding that the liberals are a significant danger wasn’t difficult when the liberals were the ones who kept the policy statement from passing in years past. Most of the authors consider themselves police and prison abolitionists, but abolition of the police and prisons is a pipe dream under capitalism. The police are the armed, violent henchmen of the ruling class, who will never allow the workers to control their own lives without police interference. We need to talk about destroying capitalism and how to accomplish that.
During the convention, comrades also attended many sessions to learn and to express our views. As we do every year, we wrote a special Challenge supplement, focusing on why excellent health for all can only be achieved under communism.
This year we emphasized immigration and the migrant caravan. During the playing of the Star Spangled Banner at the opening session, we and our friends knelt in the aisle, to the delight of many onlookers. Comrades also held our annual Troublemakers’ Breakfast for our friends.
In other sessions about health inequities in the U.S. and around the world, most speakers and many audience members tended to support liberal democrats or social democrats as the solution.
We raised the necessity for revolution to overcome capitalist inequality and imminent war.
We also publicized related struggles, such as demanding that mental health workers rather than police respond to crises of the mentally ill in New York City or opposing forced confinement of homeless people with psychological problems in San Francisco.
This gathering, like that of many organizations with progressive memberships, provides an excellent forum for advancing revolutionary ideas. A protracted outlook and a plan to advance particular issues over several years provides a way to connect with organizers over a long period and to consistently raise, communist ideas. It’s a good way to struggle with workers and students to become communist revolutionaries.
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LETTER
Utilize resolution to fight violence against homeless & mentally ill workers in the Bay
I am from the Bay Area and was at the American Public Health Association (APHA) Conference this year. I participated in the struggle to pass the Police Violence resolution in APHA for three years. Now that it has passed, I’ve started forcing the issue by using the resolution to oppose a local plan to confine and forcibly treat homeless people who are frequently sent for psych observation by the police, and whom authorities say refuse housing or treatment. In fact, people wait months for just shelter beds or monthly mental health visits, which only assure medication compliance. The plan has no money for improved housing or services. City officials behind the plan are servants to real estate developers who only want clean streets and high profits.
I have only recently started working with Public-Health-Justice, the Bay Area group that pushed hard to get the Police Violence resolution passed at APHA and put together the off-site shadow conference. I intend to become more active and involve others in the group. Outrageous wealth and dire poverty stand side-by-side in San Francisco, and gentrification has driven thousands from their homes. Seventy percent of SF’s homeless once rented in the City. A system that throws millions of potentially productive lives into the streets does not deserve to exist.
