NEW YORK CITY, October 27—Forty students, joined by church and community groups and members of Progressive Labor Party, rallied to protest the exploitation of campus workers at Columbia University, a wealthy ruling-class school with a long history of attacking the working class.
Student Worker Solidarity has been organizing for three years at Columbia, which pays students about $9 an hour while hoarding a $9.6 billion endowment and lavishing its president, Lee Bollinger, with a salary of more than $3 million a year (businessinsider.com, 12/16/14). At today’s demonstration, students told of how they earn so little that they cannot afford both food and books. One student noted that vital positions—like sexual violence hotline counselors—are not paid at all.
Only a system based on wage slavery would force workers to pay for the bare necessities of life. Under communism, work will be organized according to the needs of society and the commitment of the individual. There will be no money or wages. Incentives will be political, not material. We will work to serve our class.
Today’s demonstration culminated in a march into the office of the provost, the university’s number two official, with the group chanting loudly all the way.  After the provost failed to respond to their demonstration on October 13, as one student put it, the protesters had “no choice but to escalate” the class war.                   
Under the profit system, all businesses—from fast-food chains to hospitals to colleges—attack workers on a daily basis. As an elite educational institution, Columbia helps develop next-generation leaders for U.S. capitalism as the rulers move toward broader war and rising fascism. That’s an important job, and Columbia will crush anyone who gets in its way. In recent years, Columbia students have sided with community residents against police sweeps of adjacent, mostly Black and Latin public housing projects. They have exposed the university’s racist designs to displace long-time neighborhood residents in campus expansion schemes.
Reform Struggles, Revolutionary Ideas
Fifty years ago, when PLP was founded, it undertook a strategy to inject revolutionary content into student anti-war and anti-racist movements. A worker-student alliance was born.  PLP’s early growth among students was rooted in the conviction that capitalism was the real enemy, and that only a revolutionary party could lead workers to a communist world that will liberate us all.
During the Vietnam War, anti-imperialist campaigns at Columbia and other campuses, along with PLP summer projects, inspired students to take jobs in factories and transit. This Party-led movement produced committed revolutionaries who dedicated their entire lives to overthrowing the whole rotten capitalist system.
Students in Student Worker Solidarity are becoming accomplished organizers as they recognize the need to unite with workers. The next step is to deepen our understanding of the limits of capitalism, a system than can never provide a decent standard of living for most workers. In fact, as international competition for markets and resources intensify, and inter-imperialist conflicts inevitably follow, cuts in wages and services will only get worse. Ultimately, capitalism has got to go! And that means joining PLP to create a world of work without the exploitation of wage slavery.

THE BRONX, November 11 — Worker-student alliance leads the way across City University of New York campuses. Drawing inspiration from the striking college students in South Africa who shut down universities and roads in response to a tuition fee, hundreds of students here were involved in teach-ins or rallies to challenge capitalist ideas.   
Regular classes were suspended at some campuses, as professors brought their classes to teach-ins. These included panels about the fight against racism, the role of contingent labor, the exploitation of part-time faculty, tuition hikes, the history of CUNY and historic struggles for open admissions and free tuition.
At one teach-in, over 60 students saw a presentation of the video “Professors in Poverty” and discussed why so many are living below the poverty level (see page 5). We discussed the need to fight back and follow the lead the students in South Africa. In the biggest student protest to hit the country since the end of Apartheid in 1994, students fought the cops’ stun grenades and water cannons with working-class violence. The mainly Black students say they cannot afford fee increases and have even rejected a government bribery to restrict increases to 6 percent.
Meanwhile, CUNY bosses have planned to continue to implement tuition hikes at $300 per year, before fees. This is in addition to the five-year hike that’s already in effect! Some student discussed the struggle to survive, balance work, and travel costs along with tuition and book expenses. Like South Africa, these hikes are racist and hit Black students the hardest. CUNY Students are planning a protest against tuition hikes November 12 (see next issue).
At one campus, students and faculty set up tables in the cafeteria to make signs about the CUNY crisis. Many signed up to be part of a fightback committee.
At one community college, an all day teach-in was organized that drew over 200 students. Panels included a discussion of the militant struggles of students in 1989, where protests shut down campuses, forcing then Governor Mario Cuomo to withdraw a $200 tuition hike. Another lesson we can learn from this is that no reform is safe under capitalism.
PLP in the House
We have an important lesson to learn from students in South Africa, whose parents had fought Apartheid and were dished Black capitalism and reconciliation. Not only do we need to fight back, we need to arm ourselves with communist politics as our weapons.
Progressive Labor Party is experiencing some success in bringing communist ideas to our campuses. Our analysis about what the ruling class is up to in its drive towards war and fascism resonates with many students and faculty.
From the Bronx to Brooklyn, PLP is raising the red flag of communism (see Medgar Evers article). In the Bronx, we are continuing last year’s study group with students and faculty. We discuss CHALLENGE, campus issues, and how to fight.
One professor uses CHALLENGE regularly in his class and is meeting more students who want to get involved. Last year, Bronx students were involved in a number of struggles including supporting workers in the neighborhood who were being underpaid, helping to organize a mass teach-in about Ferguson, and leading a walkout against police terror. The attacks on CUNY students are part of the ongoing systematic exploitation of the working class. As the U.S. gears up for more war, the working class must gear up to fight back and fight to win!

NEW YORK CITY, November 4 — “No Contract, No Peace!” Today, 800 workers and students rallied outside of City University of New York headquarters demanding a raise. This struggle is intensifying the contradiction between union leadership and the need for communist leadership.
The cops made a mass arrest of 54 workers who staged a planned act of civil disobedience by blocking the entrance of the building (see letter). They are part of the Professional Staff Congress union (PSC). We salute our sisters and brothers and respect their willingness to put themselves on the line.
This rally had many strengths: the spirited leadership by workers, the multiracial and intergenerational unity. The chants included calling for a strike and calling to shut down the city. College students played a leadership role in the march and called for a massive student march next week. One worker in PSC said, “We will need some uncivil disobedience.” While civil disobedience can bring public attention to the CUNY crisis, they can also build the illusion that workers can negotiate within this capitalist system.  
Don’t Negotiate, Fight Back!
What kind of leadership do professors and students need at CUNY? The limits of leadership under union president Barbara Bowen are high and lead us down a path of negotiation with oppressors. What we need is communist leadership leading us on the path to revolution. Let’s go on a strike against racist attacks on our class with other city workers and students to shut this city down.
It is no surprise that 25,000 have been working without a contract for six years at a university system that teaches 500,000 students. Clearly, putting the emphasis on contract negotiations has not borne fruit. The union itself described the latest contract offer as a “severe disappointment.”
We can push the limits of this struggle. PSC failed to unite with its natural allies: campus workers. The largest labor union in the city, DC 37, also has been working without a contract. These are some of same workers who keep the college campuses running. Professors and staff at PSC should unite with workers from DC 37, who are mainly Black and Latin manual laborers.
We also need to politicize our campuses about the nature of capitalist education and racism. The fight for high wages cannot stay an economic one. It must be the one and the same fight against tuition hikes and police on campuses. A lesson we are learning here is not to underestimate what the working class can do when they are mobilized.
It’s our job to continue to build inside the PSC and transform the fight for our daily needs into the fight for communist revolution. PLP members hope to win many union members to become communist organizers. Moving forward, we must discuss the historical role of unions in global capitalism.

 *******

Whose CUNY? Not Our CUNY

CUNY, like all schools, is a place where capitalist ideas are driven into the minds of the working class. From kindergarten, we are taught that competition is better than cooperation; some people are smart and others dumb; the rich and poor deserve to their place in life; racism and sexism have always and will always exist; and the individual is the most important thing. We have all been told that capitalism, even if it’s not the best society we can think of, is the best society we can hope for. And just in case we don’t quite believe it, they add a large serving of anti-communism and lies about the Soviet Union.
So, it’s no surprise that all of the racism, sexism, exploitation and union-busting are on full display at CUNY. The faculty and staff are engaged in the fight for a better contract against the Board of Trustees and Governor Cuomo (see sidebar). More and more classes are taught by adjuncts, which have zero job security, little benefits, and earn literally starvation wages. One out of every four adjuncts lives at or below the poverty level, and are in a government assistance program like Medicaid or food stamps (The Atlantic, 8/15/15).
CUNY is a racist institution where Black, Latin, and South Asian students are shuffled into community colleges and Reserve Officer Training Core (ROTC). The senior colleges are increasingly white. This segregation divides students and leads us to blame each other for the failures of capitalism. The CUNY bosses just approved continuation of annual tuition hike! Yet, the rulers want to rally support for war from the same students they alienate. After decades of sharp struggle to kick them out, ROTC programs have returned to two campuses. David Petraeus, former head of the CIA and military commander in Afghanistan and Iraq has been teaching at CUNY, despite protests against his appointment. There is a lot to be angry about.
But, schools are also a place where thousands of working class students come to study in the hopes of improving their lives and learning about the world. It has a tradition of fightback, including the huge student movement for equal access to education for Black and Latin students. CUNY has attracted many progressive workers who want to serve and fight with the working class.
Ultimately, CUNY is not “ours” to take back. The University does not belong to the working class. Like all institutions under capitalism, it belongs to the capitalist rulers. But it is a battleground for communist ideas. Let’s fight the good fight!

*****

Who does Andrew Cuomo Serve?

Like all politicians, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo serves the ruling class, never working people and students. The following facts show how Cuomo attacks the working class and takes his marching orders from the bankers and bosses:
Cuomo earned $2.5 million in a three-year period after he left the Clinton Administration working for Andrew Farkas, a wealthy real estate developer.
Farkas and his associates contributed over $800,000 to Cuomo’s election campaign, with billionaire David Koch also contributing a large sum.
As soon as Cuomo took office, he promised to cut taxes on the wealthy and reduce benefits to public employees, promises he made good on.
Cuomo coerced two state unions (CSEA and PEF) to accept contracts that included a three-year salary freeze, nine unpaid furlough days, and higher payments for health care premiums.
In March 2012, Cuomo pushed through a state pension plan that provides lower pension benefits and raises the minimum retirement age.
In his first budget, Cuomo reduced state spending on education by $1.3 billion, forcing statewide layoffs of teachers and larger class sizes. What a racist attack on these already under-financed schools!
Cuomo allowed the “Millionaire’s Tax,” a tax on households earning over $500,000 a year, to expire. This tax had provided hundreds of millions of in-state revenue.
Cuomo has been the most powerful New York cheerleader for hyper-segregated charter schools. It’s no coincidence that he collected $800,000 in campaign contributions from bankers and businesses that back these schools.

Members and friends of our Party have been hurt to learn of the death of comrade Gene Zbikowski on October 31 from a sudden heart attack at age 62. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his wife Noémie and their three children. Gene had been our correspondent in France for well over a decade, writing articles about workers’ struggles there and throughout Europe. He also translated editorials and articles into French for Le Defi (the French edition of CHALLENGE) which were very useful for the Party in Haiti. He also sent us a stream of translations of exposés appearing in the French press.
Gene joined the Party in Minnesota in the early 1970s. He later settled in Nantes, married and raised a family while teaching at a community college from which he recently retired. At one point he discovered CHALLENGE on the Internet and contacted our then-editor, comrade Luis Castro, who suggested he write for the paper. Gene said he had always wanted to be a journalist and told us, “Now I have my chance!”
Over the years Gene covered the many strikes and rebellions raging in France, sent us pictures of the workers’ fightbacks and their May Day marches, exposed the phony French “communist” party, the pro-capitalist Socialists, and the ruling class’s spread of anti-Muslim and anti-Black racism. He especially stripped bare the sellout nature of the pro-boss trade union misleaders. He would often intersperse the writings of Marx and Lenin where applicable in his reports on the class struggles in France.
During one nation-wide strike, he invited a Party comrade to Nantes where he was warmly greeted as he brought solidarity greetings to sanitation workers on the picket lines there.
Comrade Gene’s contribution to the international communist movement being built by PLP will be deeply missed. His legacy will be everlasting in all his reports of workers’ class struggles that will become stepping stones in the march towards communist revolution.