CHICAGO — A hospital on the west side promotes itself as a “national model for urban health care delivery,” but is chronically understaffed. Understaffing and speeding up workers helps the bosses save money, but they also undercut the medical care workers provide to patients. Since most of the patient population is black and Latin in this part of Chicago, understaffing helps continue racist oppression. But workers here are fighting back!
A letter was circulated that explained how understaffing and a lack of equipment are risks to patient safety, and it requested that additional staff in the Respiratory Care Dept. be hired. Over sixty workers signed the letter, which was given to the chief operating officer and board of directors at their annual meeting.
The bosses were angry and embarrassed that workers dared to present grievances at their board meeting. They were more concerned about being exposed and humiliated than about the rotten conditions faced by workers and their patients every day. They subsequently decided to interview all the signatories to the letter and question each person as to how inadequate staffing levels could be solved. Most workers responded by telling them to hire more workers.
It’s no secret that the hospital is understaffed and lacks adequate equipment, but they wanted to frighten workers who signed the letter. Instead, they found out how passionately workers felt about patient care and the lack of staff. As a result, a couple of positions were opened, but many workers are doubtful that conditions will improve much, because of how bad things have been for so long. Yet workers have expressed approval for the bold action in confronting the bosses.
The workers’ response to this struggle shows how workers can be organized to fight back against abuses. It is the job of the Progressive Labor Party to point out that the capitalist system is always abusive, and conditions will continue to worsen without a communist revolution. More workers are taking the Party’s ideas more seriously. The more workers that read and distribute CHALLENGE, the closer we’ll be to solving inadequate staffing and a lack of equipment.
THE BRONX, November 20 — One of the many capitalist lies that we are force-fed is that workers are essentially selfish and lazy, looking out for only ourselves. But we don’t need to look far to see that despite the barrage of individualist ideas from the media and schools, workers are usually ready to stand together and fight back.
A multiracial group of 20 students and professors showed this capitalist lie for what it is at the Bronx Community College (BCC) today. Led by Progressive Labor Party, and a campus club of mainly black and Latin students, the group demonstrated against the racist murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the disappearances of 43 students in Guerrero, Mexico. Every student left with a copy of CHALLENGE and some even signed up to travel to Ferguson!
In response to “natural” (read: caused by capitalist inequalities and racism) disasters or racist police murders, we can witness solidarity among workers at an international level. The bosses’ biggest lie, that workers can’t run society and communism can’t work, is laid bare in these situations.
We marched in front of the campus and down University Avenue, chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, racist cops have got to go!” and “How do you spell racist? N-Y-P-D!” In fact, many of the chants were about the racist NYPD, which speaks to another truth that workers and students know: cops in New York are the same as cops in Ferguson, in Chicago, in Mexico: racist, vicious, and ready to kill workers and students. Passersby nodded their heads, honked their horns in solidarity, and took CHALLENGE.
Rely Only on the Working Class
No one in the crowd was from Missouri or Mexico or knew Mike Brown or any of the missing students. But here was the solidarity of workers that emerges all over the world. The attack is on the same class everywhere. We felt compelled to march because, as one speaker put it, we know that only we the working class can make change. The cops aren’t going to do it, the politicians aren’t going to do it. It’s up to students and workers. Some spoke of being optimistic, despite our relatively small numbers. “This is just the beginning,” said one speaker. “Every big movement started out small,” said another.
A professor reported about a concurrent demonstration at Hostos Community College, another City University New York. This Hostos rally was held after professors heard about the boldness of students at BCC. Everyone agreed that we would be ready to demonstrate again the day of the grand jury’s verdict about whether or not to indict Darren Wilson.
This club, full of revolutionary potential, is an incubator for the kind of fightback that we need to build a communist movement. The key to winning is to organize black, Latin, and immigrant students on campus, those who bear the brunt of the bosses’ attacks. PLP is working to bring more and more students around to see that the fight has just begun, and that abolishing racism means abolishing capitalism.
LOS ANGELES, November 6 — Nearly one hundred students participated in forums to discuss the mass deportations of immigrant workers under the Obama administration. It was organized at University of California Los Angeles and a nearby Cal State University. This discussion took place in the build-up to Obama’s announcement of an executive order to grant approximately five million undocumented immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportations. Students from the Progressive Labor Party participated in these discussions and are building a base for the Party’s ideas among other students. This includes inviting Ezell Ford’s (25-year-old black man killed by the cops on August 11) family to speak at a future event on campus to discuss how students can build a multiracial response to racist police terror.
The main speaker at the campus forums argued that mass deportations and the building of a police state are symptoms of capitalism in crisis and the need for compliant, flexible and disposable labor, both U.S. urban centers and in Latin America. PL students drew the connection between the racist killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the police terror experienced by immigrant families fearing deportation.
From Debate to
Demonstration
In the weeks following these forums, PL students involved in immigrant rights groups have helped organize regular weekly protests. They “chanted down the walls” outside of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center demanding the release of undocumented immigrants being processed for deportation. As protestors rally outside the detention center, immigrant workers who can be seen through their cell windows wave back. Last week, students connected the fight against anti-immigrant racism to solidarity actions in support of the 43 Ayotzinapa college students who were disappeared. An outdoor teach-in and rally was held on campus. Later that day students participated in a mass mobilization of approximately 500 people who occupied 6th street in front of the Mexican Consulate and McArthur Park in solidarity with Ayotzinapa.
Connecting the racist policing of immigrant workers, black youth and our working-class sisters and brothers in Mexico is critical during this period. We need to encourage students and workers to fight against the oppression of global capitalism, as exemplified by the working class in Ferguson and Ayotzinapa. As we continue to build the Party, our abilities to move masses of workers into battle against the root of the oppression in both places will bring the day when we can abolish racism and borders for good!
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Capitalism Kills From Mexico to Ferguson Solidarity From NYC to San Francisco
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- 28 November 2014 60 hits
San Francisco, CA — In solidarity with rebellions in Mexico, over 400 workers and students marched in San Francisco’s main commercial center. PLP members joined the demonstration with signs and flyers linking State Terrorism in Mexico to the systematic, state-sponsored racist imprisonment and murder of black and Latin youth in the U.S.
PLP is organizing for another demonstration on Dec. 3 to build international working-class unity. The crowd was mainly young and Latin without delegations from “traditional” non-governmental organizations or immigrant-oriented unions.
There is no “democracy.” There is no justice — there’s just us, the working class. Only a revolution against capitalism will get these murderers out of power. That is the goal of the communist Progressive Labor Party. Join us!
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NEW YORK CITY, November 21 — “Ayotzinapa vive, vive, la lucha sigue, sigue!” (Ayotzinapa: lives, lives! The struggle continues, continues!) So chanted over 100 black, white, Asian, and Latin workers picketing at the Mexican consulate with signs linking the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri to the murder of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, Mexico in a loud and spirited demonstration. This event was the product of weeks of planning and organization by professors, students and other members of the Progressive Labor Party, who organized through their participation in several different mass organizations. By linking the struggle in Ayotzinapa with the struggle in Ferguson, PL’ers and friends exposed capitalism as the root cause of the murders in both places and called for internationalism as the answer.
Organizing to Fight
PL’ers organized in multiple mass organizations to build for this demonstration:
PLP educators in one union sent comrades in a different union a copy of the resolution which they had attempted to pass, calling for teachers to come to the November 21 demonstration at the consulate. PLP students and teachers then discussed the rally in their classes and with their coworkers, helping guarantee the makeup of the rally to include black and Asian youth as well.
At another teacher’s union monthly meeting, a PL’er managed to get the resolution placed on the day’s agenda, including a call for the leadership to invite the entire membership, which amounts to tens of thousands of workers. While some union misleaders attempted to bait the members with thinly veiled anti-communism, it did not sway the membership and it passed unanimously.
PLP members spoke in three different union committees calling for solidarity with the 43 kidnapped and murdered students in Ayotzinapa. We exposed the connection between the government, police, the army and drug cartels there. We connected the racist attacks in Mexico to racist police terror in Ferguson, Missouri to Brooklyn, and Staten Island, New York to applause from members and friends of the group.
PL’ers and our friends who meet in a study group translated and distributed 200 flyers in various meetings. One comrade used the leaflet in English class to talk in English about the protest and to invite interested students to a discussion after class. Another comrade from Mexico described the history of rural schools for teachers like the one in Ayotzinapa which has a long history of revolutionary struggle in farming areas.
In one community organization, we worked hard and enthusiastically. As a result, 25 people of all ages came to the protest with signs they made. They also chanted and leafleted. It’s ties like the ones we are building at our jobs and community organizations that give us the opportunity to know many people over a long period of time and win more of them to internationalism and other elements of our analysis, even though illusions about reforming the system persist.
March and Build for Internationalism
The bullhorn was kept hidden in a bag until it was time for speeches. One speech in Spanish portrayed how corrupt the Mexican government is. Another speaker from PLP linked the whole murder to capitalism and imperialism, and the increasing attacks on the working class; the cartels are a key part of capitalism. The final speech was from a professor who had just returned from the protests in Mexico. She discussed how inspiring they were and how they sparked a great amount of rage. PLP will continue to build our Party in the midst of the struggles in Mexico and the U.S.
One union misleader showed up and made sure to get a photo opportunity with the protest as the background. But it was the collective organization of PLP that gave leadership to the protest and distributed hundreds of leaflets and over 100 CHALLENGEs.
Returning to our neighborhood the participants were upbeat and eager to continue the struggle. To reach hundreds more with the message that only communist revolution could end the constant misery of fascist disappearances of young people, some members and friends plan to read a message in their churches in order to call for plans to show solidarity and support for the struggle to build resistance and communist revolution in Mexico. ¡La lucha sigue!
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MEXICO CITY — The murder and disappearance of our 43 student-teachers in the the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College of Ayotzinapa that have shocked workers worldwide is the product of a capitalist system that has nothing to offer our youth. The massive protests in Mexico show that this crime is a painful thorn stuck in the heart of the international working class. The murders indicate the increasing development of fascism in Mexico, where in addition to using liberal misleaders and electoral politics to control the working class, the bosses rely increasingly on open violence and terror. Only under a system where exploitation has been eliminated — communism — will we ever have justice and an end to fascist police terror. We must not expect justice from the same capitalist state that murders our youth!
Guerrero is predominantly rural and one of the poorest states in Mexico, with a long tradition of insurgent movements. For this reason the ruling class has set up in this state a sophisticated repressive apparatus involving the police, the military and drug lords. These groups, some of them trained and financed by the U.S. with support of the local Mexican bosses, are responsible for the murder and disappearance of our youth.
According to the World Bank, 60 percent of youth in the world lack education and job opportunities. In Mexico that number is 70 percent. Conditions for the remaining youth are not much better: existing jobs are precarious, with miserable salaries, no benefits, long and exhausting work hours, with some working 12-hour days, seven days a week. Mexico is one of the countries in which the working class works the most hours per year.
The electoral political parties would have us believe that the local mayor of the town of Iguala, José Luis Abarca, the Governor of Guerrero state Angel Aguirre, or President Peña are the ones responsible for the disappearances, and that if we get rid of them and elect different politicians, all our problems would be solved. That’s a lie! They will not lead the working class to overthrow the capitalist system because they serve it. Capitalism killed and disappeared our youth, and for that we must destroy it.
For decades, rural teachers have earned the sympathy of the working class because of their commitment to educating working-class youth in these impoverished communities. For this reason the bosses of liberal NGO Mexicanos Primero and the capitalist media like Televisa and TV Azteca have publicly accused rural schools of being “guerrilla training places” that must be eliminated. But the real aim of this campaign was the approval of the lucrative education reform, which will generate huge profits from turning education into more of a commodity and which will benefit the groups promoting it.
Ayotzinapa is
Mexico’s Ferguson
Ayotzinapa is not an isolated case of police terror. Countless number of unarmed black and Latin youth are killed by the police from Ayotzinapa to Ferguson, Missouri. On the other side of the world, immigrants in many European countries face mass deportations and are terrorized and massacred by the police.
The top imperialists in the world, the U.S., China, Russia, and the European Union, are preparing for world war, and aim to push our youth to fight their war. We workers must win our youth to fight against the capitalist system which can only offer working-class youth oppression, unemployment, and death. We must win them to become organized in our international communist party, the Progressive Labor Party, to lead a communist revolution to put an end to fascism, capitalist oppression and war.
Michael Brown. Kajieme Powell. Vonderrit Myers Jr. Shantel Davis. Kimani Gray. Roshad McIntosh. Eric Garner. Rhamarley Graham. Ezell Ford. Kyam Livingston. Reynaldo Cuevas. Tyrone West. Omar Abrego. Most recently the cops killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland and 28-year-old Akai Gurley in Brooklyn.
The racist police murders of our black and Latin youth will continue since the grand jury failed to indict Darren Wilson, butcher of Michael Brown. It’s evident that kkkop Wilson murdered Mike. That’s how capitalist justice works! Cops and bosses can get away with murder while the working class gets terrorized, deported, disappeared, starved, and killed — all legal under capitalism.
There are many demands: indictment, community policing, civilian complaint review boards, black and Latin cops, federal investigations. That’s like asking the fox to guard the henhouse! Going through the courts is a pacification method. The ruling class owns the courts, the cops, and congress: the whole state.
Police killings will continue because it’s profitable for the bosses. These increased killings are part of rising fascism: the capitalist system in crisis. It is becoming more evident that there is no future for our youth under capitalism, that we are living in a decaying system. So the bosses terrorize the working class into accepting a future of mass unemployment and wars. Expect more racist killings. Racism is the cutting edge of capital, producing superprofits for the bosses and a divided working class.
Rebellion Now!
The working class in Ferguson has shown another path to justice: rebellion. Led mostly by youth, the rebels have shown us all what’s possible when workers fight back! It’s time to stand up to the National Guard, tanks, tear gas and riot cops again. Defy Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama, who all rushed and will rush to put out the fire and keep racism going. Our class needs to follow the leadership of Ferguson and continue to fight. We call on everyone to carry on the fightback that at your schools, at work, in your churches, in your unions, and into the streets!
Capitalism is the Real Criminal
The ruling class tries to paint black, Latino and immigrant workers as criminals. In reality, it is the bosses who are the real criminals, closing hospitals and schools, as well as murdering workers and children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. They got money for bombs and the military, but never for food and medicine.
Everywhere, capitalism kills: through ISIS and U.S. air strikes in the Middle East; Ebola in West Africa; the UN goons in Haiti. In Mexico, 43 students were disappeared after protesting against the state. Capitalism fails our sisters and brothers every day. What we need in response to this global crisis is a global communist revolution.
Communism Abolishes Racism
Only a communist society where the working class has state power can rid the world of racist killer kkkops. Justice is a world without bosses, profits, cops, or borders. A communist world needs the unity of the working class to succeed and will destroy the economic basis for its existence: money and profit. Workers and youth can society run by and for themselves!
The communist movement is the only way to guarantee that the bosses won’t get away with racist murder ever again. No matter how long it takes, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) will lead the working class to smash the bosses’ cops and courts and establish a communist society worthy of every worker. Join PLP and build the revolutionary communist and build an international multiracial movement to crush racism from Ferguson to Gaza to Mexico with armed revolution!
