CHICAGO, July 23—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined over 100 multiracial hospital workers downtown to protest racist and sexist working conditions promoted by the bosses’ healthcare industry. They led chants and blocked traffic, directly challenging the profit-hungry hospital bosses. This action planted seeds for future revolutionary communist struggle.
Workers organize to confront the bosses
The action was months in the making, organized through the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare local. Our main target was the downtown office of the Illinois Hospital Association (IHA), a powerful lobbying group of hospital bosses from all over the state. These bosses regularly meet to scheme on how to influence local government bosses and collectively agree upon the lowest standards of pay and benefits for hospital workers across the board. These mainly women workers make poverty wages under disgusting working conditions, despite serving and saving patients’ lives every day.
Comrades in working at a nearby hospital have been active in a campaign to unionize with our co-workers, and therefore have been connected with SEIU and were able to help plan this action. Workers decided to include an element of surprise against the IHA. Clearly visible were the hospital workers gathering in front of the IHA’s corporate office to hold a press conference; what the bosses didn’t expect were the workers and organizers on the edges of the lobby inside waiting to strike!
Black workers key to revolution
At the given signal, twenty hospital workers swarmed into the lobby and linked arms in a circle. A PL’er helped lead a mic check in the center of the circle, calling out the IHA for its racist, anti-worker attacks. Some Black women workers issued the collective demands of the hospital workers throughout the city area: a $15 per hour minimum wage, the right to unionize, dignity and respect on the job, and affordable health insurance from the bosses.
The scant building security was unprepared. They tried to break up the protest with intimidation, but the workers just locked arms tighter and chanted louder. The most inspirational moment came when dozens of hospital workers who had been standing outside spontaneously rushed the front doors to completely crowd the lobby and demonstrate working-class solidarity.
The demonstrators then spilled out into the street. They marched across the Adams Street bridge, temporarily blocking traffic. It ended at the nearby Presence Health System corporate office, which despite raking in millions in profits, was recently given a $5.5 million dollar handout in tax money from the racist city council (Chicago Sun-Times, 1/17). These are the same hospital systems that try to claim that they’re broke when workers ask for raises, new equipment, and more staffing!
A woman worker took to the bullhorn to detail the sexist working conditions that she faces while working for Presence Health, including intimidation from the bosses and wage freezes. Personal stories like these really drive home the rotten nature of the capitalist profit system.
Understanding reform limits and revolutionary change
Practically everyone who participated in the action came out of it feeling fired up. It’s important to analyze the balance of forces at play, and what signifies a lasting victory for the working class.
Even at their most militant and progressive, the role of trade unions under capitalism is to negotiate the terms of workers’ exploitation by the bosses, and to put a cap on any workers’ struggles that seek to directly challenge the existence of such an exploitative system. To achieve true workers’ power and an egalitarian society, the struggle needs a revolutionary mass movement led by the communist PLP to completely destroy the profit system.
What’s more, if the bosses were to provide a $15 per hour minimum wage, they would use their state power over the capitalist economy to regain those lost profits through charging more for our living essentials, such as housing, education, and medical care. In other words, what the bosses give up with one hand, they take away with the other.
We will continue to share ideas like these with our working-class sisters and brothers as we build the fight not only against our specific hospital bosses and the IHA, but also against the entire racist and sexist capitalist system. Black and Asian women hospital workers have been among some of the most active and outspoken organizers in the campaigns in which we’ve been involved, reinforcing our Party line that these sections of the working class have always represented a key revolutionary force.
Today, reform may have won. With struggle we will win our class to understand how workers create everything of value, and that communist revolution is the only way to ensure our needs are met.

MEXICO CITY, August 8—A multiracial, multi-generational group of Progressive Labor Party comrades intensified the contradictions at a mass youth conference for the Summer Project here. We struggled with people to break away from venomous identity politics with the antidotes of internationalism and multi-racial unity.
The conference was advertised as anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and democratic.  PLP met young workers and students from across the world. Participants included delegations from Mexico, the U.S., El Salvador, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Turkey, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and more. Each day the conference featured a central panel discussion on various topics such as fascism, imperialism, democracy, women’s liberation, self-determination and education.
PLP stood out from the rest of the groups, sharing the revolutionary idea that poisonous identity politics such as nationalism and feminism only serve the bosses.
Education under capitalism serves capitalism
PLP members presented our communist analysis to the conference as a whole and various groups facilitated workshops and panels. During the education panel, we stated that all education serves the bosses under this capitalist system, so long as we are taught racist, sexist, and nationalist ideas that prepare the working class for war. For those youth who are too broken by capitalism, there is a school to prison pipeline so the ruling class can find another way to profit off the backs of the working class, since jobs can never be guaranteed under capitalism.
Our words were well received, and we were able to distribute over 500 DESAFÍOs, leaflets, and Road to Revolution IV (Progressive Labor Party’s manifesto). We could have distributed more, but we ran out! This reflects the long term work that the Party once had on the host campus.
Project participants also met up with a group of friends from Puerto Rico that we met during a summer project on the island (see letter below).
No need to settle for socialism
During a workshop on “Capitalism in Crisis,” a debate arose on the topic of socialism as a necessary stage to go through before advancing to communism.
During that discussion, we realized that many of these “left” organizations attending the conference do not have confidence in the working class. They argued that the workers of the world were not capable of going directly to communism because they are so backwards after living under capitalism for so long.
PLP members argued that all workers can understand communist ideology and use the science of dialectical materialism and political economy to destroy capitalism and create a true workers’ state under communism, without a cult of personality or a vanguard.
Though many disagreed with our comrades, there were some who agreed that what we were saying was the correct analysis of what went wrong in the old communist movement.
Confidence in the working class
Bilingual PLP-led study groups on dialectical materialism and political economy with friends of the Party provided a sharp contrast to the conference workshops. At the conference, “experts” presented at length, leaving little time for people to speak on their experience, to debate, and to ask questions.
In contrast, Party study groups were facilitated in circles, where each participant was encouraged to speak and share their experiences. That is the difference when facilitators believe that the working class can truly lead society.
We simultaneously translated for a Black comrade from the U.S. who came because PLP is serious about one international working class, one party and one world. Simultaneous translation is difficult, but PLP members and our base were up to the task in breaking the language barriers caused by the bosses (see letter, page 6). Under communism, workers around the world will not be barred from communicating with each other. We will break the bosses’ racist borders and their divisive languages.
PLP has confidence in the working class that we can learn dialectical materialism, no matter where we are in the world, as opposed to revisionists who believe only a vanguard elite can learn the science of communism. Workers are smart enough to produce what society needs so we can also learn the science we need in order to arm us with ideas that will help us take our world back from the bosses’ death grip.
Struggling to break down gender roles
At the first study group, we were welcomed with delicious home cooked food made by several women. Two of the male comrades offered to contribute in the kitchen. The women refused, indicative of how prevlaent sexism is in this bosses-led world.
In the evening we traveled to another house where we studied political economy while eating delicious pastries and drinking coffee to fuel our discussion. The studygroups were held in two different houses with different workers. Intense as it was, it was met with enthusiatic participation.
In both studygroups, workers from Mexico and the U.S. discussed struggles we were involved in, from uniting teachers and students in Oaxaca, Mexico City, LA, and NY, to organizing on the job and in our neighborhoods.
Internationalism
Participants discussed the horrible working conditions that our class suffers around the world, including slavery in many parts of the world. We discussed attacks on our class, from the bosses ideas to the systematic murder of our working class sisters and brothers. We discussed communism as the only salvation for the workers of the world, where we will run society for the benefit of the many, not the few elites.
Exhausted & hungry, we all ended the night with pizza for dinner. A comrade indicated how important these study groups are, because the entire working class needs to break with capitalist ideology and free themselves with communist ideas in order to have a revolution.
We all felt honored to participate in the project, and hope to get together again soon. Smash racist borders! Fight for communism!

*****

Friends from Puerto Rico debate PL politics

The friends that Progressive Labor Party made in Puerto Rico (see CHALLENGE 8//8) joined the Mexico project. They are a strong young group of fighters trying to improve the quality of education on their campus, as well as the living conditions in their community.
We met them for lunch at a local diner where we discussed the party’s line. They said they agreed with most of our politics.
The diner was closing so we went back to the college campus where we sat on the ground, underneath a tent to continue our discussion. It seemed that we were having a disagreement on feminism. We made the point that feminism, like Black nationalism, is dependent on unity across classes—that means the oppressor and oppressed workers and bosses. We must never make this mistake because the ruling class by the nature of this system must exploit and oppress the working class to function. Some agreed with this while others explained that feminism doesn’t have the same meaning in Puerto Rico as it does in the U.S., that it wasn’t a unity with the bosses. They’re may have been some traces of nationalist ideas.
The friends said they are very new to these ideas and has yet to become consolidated as a group. They also disagreed among themselves about feminism and nationalism. As a whole, the group looks promising because they practice criticism and self-criticism.
All members of the working class must struggle through these ideas. Because they choose to struggle, they have earned our respect. They expressed that they would like to collaborate because they recognized similar struggles the working class is facing in the U.S., Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
This is inspiring and a small leap for the international communist movement. We concluded our discussion with hugs and promises to link up soon. We look forward to continue the process of struggle and growth with these new comrades.

PAKISTAN, August 6—A wave of coercion from the judiciary, military, and inter-service intelligence agencies has rigged the general elections in favor of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its leader Imran Khan. The PTI has 174 seats in the parliament, effectively forming an absolute majority. The bosses’ infighting is played out on the backs of the working class here. Pakistan, a nuclear power and the world’s sixth most populous country, is positioned at the crosshairs of a U.S. and China rivalry (see editorial, page 2). The country’s outcome has ramifications for the international working class.
Progressive Labor Party is putting our revolutionary line of “don’t vote—revolt” before the masses. The working class needs organize under our red flag to get rid of this barbaric capitalist system by fighting for an international communist revolution.
Terror against working class
Different groups are executing terrorist attacks. Two hundred innocent people have been killed in just the first 15 days of July. It is not uncommon for the losing party to accuse the winning party of rigging the election and to foment violent protests in the streets.
These murders have provided the military grounds to deploy 371,000 troops in order to ensure a “fair and free” election.
“The army was hell-bent upon securing Khan’s victory and even encouraged political parties with overt ties to terrorist groups to field several hundred candidates, alongside some 1,500 candidates tied to Pakistan’s right-wing Islamist parties” (Foreign Affairs, 7/27).
The military has arrested and threatened political rivals, including the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), in the months leading up to the elections. They have also worked to disqualify PML-N candidates from running. The PTI represents the capitalists, feudalists, religious clerks, and retired officials supported by the state.  Left with few options, the army cultivated Khan and his PTI party.
No good capitalist party
Capitalist bosses try to spread the illusion that “capitalism is good but the ruling party is bad so people need to bring a new party to rule them.” But we in Progressive Labor Party are exposing the bosses’ intentions to keep the capitalist system intact by blaming one or other ruling party.
There was censorship of the newspapers, social media and TV channels. The level of interference and political engineering is unprecedented,” said the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan official. The National Accountability Bureau has been described as being used by the state to bring politicians in line by threatening to bring corruption cases against them.
The PML-N’s campaign material was allegedly ripped apart by authorities while leaving PTI campaign materials untouched. There have been suggestions that candidates belonging to PML-N have been coerced to switch parties.
Punjab is the most populous province and remained key to elections. On the last day of scrutiny of nomination papers, seven PML-N candidates from Southern Punjab returned their tickets leaving no option for PML-N to field replacement candidates. This move prevented them the opportunity to win those seats. There have also been reports of election engineering in all provinces. This is nothing new; it happens in every election because capitalists always manipulate elections and manage their parties according to their interests.
Capitalism makes everyone in the ruling class rotten. The system only produces exploitation, poverty, inequality and injustice. Only communist revolution is a way out of this hell and PLP is striving to win the masses to the idea that elections are not a solution for our problems.
Courts protect ruling-class terrorism
The courts and the intelligence agency have been working with the military to elect Khan. In 2017, a corruption investigation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was launched. In response to this, the Supreme Court ousted Sharif disqualified him from holding office under Article 62 of the constitution.
The authorities have also launched an anti-terrorism investigation against PML-N leaders and opened criminal cases against nearly 17,000 party members.
The PTI recently gave 300 million rupees to Madrassa e Haqqaniya, a religious school which is a factory of terrorists. It produced all the terrorists who fought against the USSR and now it is producing “good terrorists” to kill the progressive and working-class people. Terrorism is of course supported by the state. Three terrorist political parties are expected to side with Imran Khan.
Don’t vote—revolt!
Comrades are explaining that the Pakistani state is under the control of brutal capitalist bosses. That’s why nobody can talk against the narrative of terrorist organizations; nobody can raise a question about the internal and external security issues; and nobody is allowed to talk against the false ideology of Islamist organizations. Workers have no right to discuss communism or to criticize capitalism or to talk secularism. But fundamentalists have the right to kill anybody, anywhere and at any time. There is no security for the working class—they are being killed by extremists to spread terror across the country.
We are speaking against the elections with the slogan “Don’t vote—Revolt” in order to convince the masses to forge a struggle for an international communist revolution under the red flag of PLP.
Capitalist bosses are confusing the working class by giving them an opportunity to vote to change their masters. No boss has an agenda to bring prosperity, equality and justice in the lives of workers. Comrades are bringing the working class closer to our line by exposing the reality of elections and the necessity of revolution. Long live international communist revolution and PLP!

BROOKLYN, July 21—On a crowded hot Saturday, sixty antiracists took over the corner of Church and East 18th Street in commemoration of the five-year fightback for justice for Kyam Livingston.
In what was a powerful message against this racist system, three families of victims of police murder, along with antiracists, united to indict the New York Police Department. The working class needs more examples of Black women leadership like these. Progressive Labor Party fights for the ultimate justice for our class: communism.
This is what solidarity looks like
Students, teachers, local families, workers, youth and elders—Black and white—rallied together. We distributed flyers and CHALLENGEs. The loudspeaker was in constant use by people speaking about Kyam’s life, Kyam’s death, and the horrors of racism and capitalism. Anita Neal, Kyam’s mother, as usual, brought tears to people’s eyes when she spoke of how her daughter died in that filthy police holding cell.
Among the speakers was the sister of Shantel Davis, a 23-year-old woman murdered in 2012 by Black kkkop Phillip Atkins, known by the neighborhood as “Bad Boy Atkins” for his infamous brutal treatment of residents. The father of Saheed Vassell was also present. Saheed, 34 and mentally ill,  was murdered by the police just this past April.
This level of long-term solidarity is a threat to the ruling class. When the racist thugs in blue murder our sisters and brothers, they are also unwittingly connecting a constellation of families ready to fight back and expose this system. When the next killing happens, that family will have a growing network of Black women-led fightback to turn to.
A speaker talked about how the system is unequal, particularly for Black and Latin workers.  Some of the speakers connected gross injustices here in the U.S. to those in Israel-Palestine, Syria, Turkey, and South Africa. These inequities are caused by the drive for profit, while racism and sexism divide workers to maximize it.
Passersby stopped to listen, thank the crowd for fighting back, take literature, and even join the rally, including one person who felt particularly upset by his arrest and abuse at the hands of the police.
Take the streets for Kyam
The rally went on for about two hours and then we engaged in direct action in the form of chanting, “If we don’t get it – shut it down!” We went out into the middle of the intersection and stopped the traffic while continuing to chant. Anita said she misses her daughter and thinks of her every day. We then released balloons into the wind.
They drifted up first against the buildings and then up and up into the sky. There were a few
coppers across the street. They didn’t dare to stop our rally or our takeover of the intersection. Why? Support for the continuing struggle against racist police murders in this neighborhood allows us to push the limits of what the police will allow.
It was a hot day. Still,  the angry crowd gathered to remember Kyam and to call for justice for her and for all those who suffer under the system of police violence in U.S. capitalism.
This is just one struggle in the battle to end racism, sexism, and capitalism. Only a communist system, that needs all workers involved in building a world for each other instead of separating workers to maximize capitalist profits, can really end these oppressions.

*****

Killed by racism

Kyam Livingston was a 37-year-old Black woman who was killed in a crowded cell at the Central Bookings jail on July 21, 2013. She had been arrested after a family dispute and became gravely ill as she was waiting to be arraigned.
Kyam, and the other women in the cell with her, cried for medical attention for 7 hours only to be disregarded and told to shut the f*** up. The arrested people were threatened, “Shut up before we lose your paper work and you won’t be seen by a judge.”  
She was killed by racist medical neglect and cruelty inherent in this “land of freedom” for the rich. The NYPD robbed the family of a loved one. Kyam’s then-21-year-old son Alex will not know justice under this system. He said, “It’s not right for somebody to beg and plead for hours to get help. Who knows how much pain she was going through.”
This was the fifth anniversary of her death. Kyam’s mother Anita Neal and antiracists in the committee held rallies on the 21st day of each month for the four years after Kyam’s murder.
To date, Anita has set up a small scholarship fund in her daughter’s name to fight for social justice at a local junior high school.
We are also calling for a sign in Kyam’s name to be put up on the corner of Church Avenue and E. 18th Street to honor this woman who became another victim of the racist violence inherent in capitalism.