NEWARK, NJ, January 20—It rained, and we marched. PLP members worked with a developing Newark-based organization that has sprung up largely in reaction to Donald Trump’s racist immigration policy, to organize a rally, a march, and a general assembly to coincide with now President Trump’s inauguration.
While it literally “rained on our parade,” this rain did not dampen our revolutionary optimism in the face of the potential for a fascist Trump regime to lobby a laundry list of ruthless policies against the economic interests of the working class across the globe.
The rally was held at Independence Park in the Ironbound section of Newark, and it boasted about 60 people in attendance. The event was scheduled to coincide with a walkout planned at East Side High School at 2 pm.
East Side students did not walk out, as they were possibly demoralized—their action to oust Superintendent Cami Anderson did not result in reversing the move towards the privatization of public education in the city. However, many joined the rally and march after school let out at 2:40pm. A representative of the Newark Student Union speak to the crowd, encouraging students that this is not the time to lay down. Instead, he shouted, “It’s time to fight back!”
During the rally and the march, PLP members played significant roles in engaging Newark students and residents, encouraging people to join the march and moving the conversation to the left. When a PLP member took the bullhorn, he emphasized that Trump is simply “a manifestation of capitalist ideologies,” connecting the content of Trump’s rhetoric to a criticism of the capitalist system that perpetuates this type of discourse. The audience responded well to this analysis and the argument that Hillary Clinton is not a favorable alternative, citing the racist and sexist policies that she has endorsed throughout her political career.  When PLP members had the opportunity to lead chants during the march, these truncated articulations of our line worked to energize the protestors, moving them away from popular liberal slogans, such as “dump Trump” and “Donald Trump has got to go,” to chants that promoted the power of global working class solidarity against the reactionary nationalism of a Trump administration. Marchers quickly got on board when PLP members shouted “If Trump wants massive deportation, we say working people have no nation;” and “Asian, Latin, Black, and White, workers of the world unite!”
The march was capped off with a general assembly held at Rutgers-Newark. By this point, much of the crowd had dispersed, and representatives of the various groups that sponsored the march primarily populated the room. PLP members bringing out our communist line. While one group promoted socialists to run for elected office, PL’ers accurately cited the failure of electoral politics as a vehicle to bring forth revolutionary change. That said, the political direction that this new Newark-based group will take in the coming months is not yet clear. It is up to the PLP working within the organization to bring forth an analysis of the state’s relationship to the ruling class power.
Our demonstration in Newark may not have been the size of those in other cities on this day, but it did represent the start of something here on the ground. In The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) Marx wrote, “irrespective of the fact that it is always the bad side that in the end triumphs over the good side. It is the bad side that produces the movement which makes history, by providing a struggle.”
Trump, and the fascist regime his administration represents, will intensify class struggle around the world. PLP will fight alongside working people, engage with them politically, learn from their experience, and share our communist line. We cannot be the “tail that wags the dog.” We cannot wait for students and workers to come to us to learn that the only solution is communist revolution.

LONG ISLAND CITY, NY, February 2—While tens of thousands of workers and youth were protesting at JFK and other airports against the racist travel ban on Muslims from seven countries, the NY Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) called a one-hour strike on travel to JFK. This bold act of international, anti-racist solidarity was delivered by an immigrant, mostly Muslim workforce, and enjoyed widespread support.
Uber, on the other hand, tried to make a quick buck by quadrupling their rates on fares to and from JFK. The one-hour strike further exposed Uber as a strike breaker, union buster, and price gouger in the midst of an international crisis. A “Delete Uber” campaign erupted as thousands deleted Uber apps from their smart phones.
Today about 200 members and supporters of the NYTWA rallied in front of Uber headquarters to protest their actions during the strike, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s plans to join Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors. Support came from other unions and community and immigrant rights groups A speaker from the National Writers Union said, “The answer to fascism is not to go back to the way things were before Election Day, but to move forward to a world with no bans, no walls and no borders; a world based on equality and in the interests of the international working class.” This is a good goal but it is unreachable as long as we live under this capitalist system of profiteering and exploitation. In order to get there, we have to stand shoulder to shoulder with workers and youth who are fighting back, and win them to see that this fight requires the long-term struggle for communist revolution.
Just hours before the rally, Kalanick told Trump, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to try to reverse Uber’s sinking fortunes of the past week. While Kalanick may have been forced to give up his seat at Trump’s table, he and Trump and all attack immigrant and Muslim families and make billions by forcing workers to work for less than the minimum wage and destroying other basic worker protections.
Speakers for NYTWA made clear that the solidarity strike was meant to escalate the fight against the racist Muslim ban, and exposed Uber as a corporate collaborator with the rise of fascism. Support for the strike also showed Uber bosses that drivers have mass support. Let’s up the struggle from worker solidarity to working class power. Join us in building a revolutionary movement for communism, a society run by and for the working class!

WASHINGTON, DC, January 30—Progressive Labor Party members protested with 25 other workers and riders outside the headquarters of Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) as the transit bosses held a public hearing began on raising the fare and cutting service.
Over 300 workers and riders attended the hearing. Ninety workers spoke out, condemning the cutbacks in transit service and the proposed increase in fares. The next day, the transit bosses claimed to have found some money to reduce their estimated deficit.
The Metro transit bosses claim that they are facing a budget deficit of $290 million starting with the fiscal year July 1, 2017. We know that this deficit is artificial. It exists because the corporations and developers near Metro transit stations refuse to pay taxes for the services they receive from the transit system. All local politicians are united in opposing a business tax to cover Metro’s “deficit”, calling instead for a sales tax on workers to finance the system and for eliminating 300 jobs to save money.
In the days before the hearings, thousands of workers and students rallied and marched in response to Trump’s executive orders attacking immigrants and refugees and restarting the Keystone pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline project. Trump attacks some of the most vulnerable people in the world with these orders while hastening global destruction associated with global warming by these orders.
Progressive Labor Party members have been involved in all these activities, trying to increase the militancy of those involved and make the struggle an attack on the capitalist ruling class as a whole, not just Trump.  We have reached hundreds of people with Challenge newspaper and many people have provided us with contact information for followup.
The Progressive Labor Party’s strategy is to unite these forces of resistance in a common struggle against racism, sexism, imperialism, and capitalism. Many of the workers and students at these events agree with this approach, but they do not yet see the need for a party, in particular the PLP, to make this happen.  Overcoming this barrier mainly by fighting anti-communism is our central task now. 
  We must be there to lead them into the streets and eventually into our party, which has a strategy of relying on the working class to destroy capitalism and replace it with a communist system of equality.

NEW YORK CITY, January 20—At our campus’s main entrance, dozens of multiracial, multigender, students, faculty and staff held a militant rally supporting undocumented immigrant students. Much organizing and struggle led to this rally and there is much more to come. The antiracist marchers chanted “Racism means… We got to fight back!” at a line of confused and intimidated campus police. Tensions rose.
As we approached the campus entrance, a young woman Muslim student declared, “Okay I’m skipping class and staying. This is way more important and my professor should be out here anyway.”
Near the scared line of campus police, we hesitated. We didn’t realize it, but the cops were afraid the militant rally would shut down the main campus entrance. But we backed off, and several cops breathed audible sighs of relief.
That moment symbolized the strengths, weaknesses, and potential power of our growing movement of students, workers and faculty. The potential to shut down the racist and sexist business as usual on our campus, but also to build a revolutionary movement to shut down capitalism itself, with communist revolution.
Moments before, this crowd had shouted down the college president in a mass meeting, challenging him on why he wouldn’t support the many immigrant students by declaring our campus a “sanctuary campus.” But the undocumented immigrant students, who led the meeting and rally, have shown that the working class here isn’t taking racism and sexism lying down.
Members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been in the thick of these struggles, helping to organize, selling CHALLENGE newspaper, and building communist leadership. Our growing base among students, workers and faculty has impacted the campus with the politics of militant antiracism and multiracial unity.
Black Workers Lead
This recent upsurge in communist organizing began when some Black, campus maintenance workers invited some PL’ers to their mass, union meeting. The separate unions of the faculty and campus workers were negotiating new contracts. The maintenance, building, and clerical workers represented are mainly Black, immigrant, and women workers. They are low-paid, work extremely difficult hours, and endure racist and sexist white male supervisors, who often refer to the Black workers as “slaves.” The majority are purposely scheduled less than a forty-hour workweek, denying them full-time benefits. Many have worked for years and routinely work above and beyond their job descriptions to provide the best possible learning environment for the mainly Black and immigrant students.
At the workers’ mass union meeting, two union organizers tried to pacify the workers, after five years without a contract. Some workers heckled the misleaders, others walked out in disgust. A PL’er stood up and denounced the union misleaders for making backroom deals instead of fighting the racist city bosses. He denounced his own union misleaders for selling out the adjunct faculty and staff, and called for class solidarity across both unions. When the PL’er called on the workers to “fight like Ferguson” and build antiracist working class unity, the union hacks called the campus cops.
Despite being thrown out of the meeting and banned from future meetings, some Black maintenance workers, led by a former Marine, approached the comrade and exchanged contact information. This marked the beginning of several new friendships.
Organize With Friends—Discuss Communism
More recently, we approached some student clubs, including the Muslim Student Alliance (MSA), to screen the antiracist film PROFILED. The clubs agreed, but it was still a struggle to get the film shown. We spent lots of time with our friends, navigating the campus bureaucracy, assembling a panel, etc. It was quite a learning experience, but we succeeded!
Meanwhile, PL’ers organized many CHALLENGE discussion and study groups. Many staff and students read CHALLENGE and lively discussions are everywhere. Students come from our classes and from campus clubs. Former students who had traveled with PLP to the antiracist rebellion in Ferguson also attend.
PROFILED Sharpens Antiracist Politics
The culmination of our semester was the screening of PROFILED to over 100 mostly Black, Latin, Muslim, and immigrant students, workers and faculty. At a panel discussion, students spoke movingly about their personal experiences being profiled by racist cops, and about racism on campus. A Black, Muslim student panelist was moved to tears describing his dual struggles with anti-Black and anti-Muslim racism.
A Black woman student asked if the film’s director, a white woman, was trying to “speak for Black people.” The response was that the Black women featured in the film, who became inspiring antiracist fighters, spoke for themselves. A Latin woman student wondered if workers were divided by skin color in order to control us, then the solution must involve all skin colors uniting in multiracial unity. A vibrant debate ensued. Finally, a Latin immigrant student suggested that capitalism itself was the problem. He left us with the question, how do we build a revolution to overthrow it?
The sponsoring student clubs gathered over 80 contacts of interested students. An antiracist faculty worker, whose class came to the screening, informed the audience that a “sanctuary committee” was forming on campus. The sanctuary movement to protect undocumented immigrant students is growing on many U.S. campuses. The screening of PROFILED provided a boost for this committee. One Black student asked the film organizers “if they’d ever heard of PLP.” His high school teacher was in PLP, and the forum reminded him of his teachers’ discussions about multiracial unity and communist revolution. He was put in touch with the PLP group on campus.
Small Steps Toward Revolution
There is a lot of positive fightback. Student clubs, a sanctuary committee, campus workers and faculty are all stepping up. Our Party, the Progressive Labor Party, continues building communist leadership and uniting all these struggles to fight for a better world: communism! Join us!