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NJ Day of Action: ‘Politicians Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back!’
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- 03 July 2014 59 hits
Trenton, NJ, June 26 — Over 100 people traveled here today for a Day of Action to demand that any state budget deficit be paid for by the bankers and billionaires, whose capitalist system caused the 2008 crash. The aftermath of that crash has seen permanent racist budget cuts for the working class worldwide, even as capitalists have received trillions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks.
At the initiative of local legal services workers, a War Against Poverty Coalition (WAPC) was formed earlier this year to spread the struggle against the budget cuts to more workplaces, schools and communities. Workers began organizing for the Day of Action right after May Day. WAPC intensified its efforts to gain more support from several community and union-based organizations, including a caucus in a local teachers’ union. There were debates inside the coalition about relying on the masses of employed and unemployed workers instead of on politicians and media coverage.
Two months ago, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration announced that projected revenue for his proposed 2014-15 budget was supposedly $807 million short. Christie immediately reneged on the 2011 deal he made with Democratic Party leaders to have the state put over $3.85 billion into the underfunded state workers’ pension system. Instead, he slashed the contribution to $1.37 billion. When angry state workers demanded action by their unions, their leaders chose instead to merely sue the governor. Christie threatened to make further cuts in funding for schools, hospitals and social programs if he lost the lawsuit. The court supported Christie.
Union Leaders Sell Out
When we arrived in Trenton, our multi-racial group marched about a mile from the parking lot to the Statehouse building rally site. Our spirited chants of “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”; “Politicians say cut back, we say fight back!”; and “The workers united will never be defeated!” echoed through the streets. As we approached the Statehouse, scores of surprised teachers and other workers already there began loudly applauding us.
At the rally, several speakers (including a teachers’ union vice-president) supported the Democratic Party budget, which included a short-term “millionaires’ tax” and a slightly higher tax on corporations, and also made the promised pension payment. This is the same Democratic Party whose leadership collaborated with Christie in 2011 to impose huge increases on workers’ contributions to pension and health care payments in return for supposedly guaranteed state pension contributions. Senate leader Steve Sweeney, who engineered the deal, hypocritically asked the Republicans, “What about damn fairness?” Any union leader who leads workers to rely on these tools of the bosses is leading our class over a cliff.
One earlier speaker told the crowd that only “revolution” could solve the problems of the working class. While PLP agrees with that assessment, there is more that must be said. As we see it, no set of reforms can meet the needs of our class. Any reform can be taken away by the bosses. For example, all of the past gains by state workers in pension and healthcare benefits are rapidly being eroded. But even reforms that last longer will not lead to a system where racism, inequality and exploitation are abolished. Only communist revolution can do that.
Legal System Shuts Out Workers
Another speaker told a moving story about a legal services client who had to be turned away because the local office has suffered a 60 percent cut in staff attorneys and is now working a four-day week. This client had worked her whole life. When her unemployment benefits ran out, and she needed help, she was callously told that her niece’s payment of her rent made her ineligible for assistance. The speaker attacked a “criminal system” where the bankers have all the best lawyers money can buy, while we have to turn away our mainly black and Latin jobless brothers and sisters who face destitution and homelessness.
There are valuable lessons to be learned from the struggles workers here have undertaken in the past nine months. One is that it is important to have a long-term outlook. Many workers who had been quiet and unassuming have stepped forward in the course of the fight. The collective struggle in our meetings has resulted in several workers rising to the challenge of these hard times.
Another lesson is that communist leadership is crucial in this period. That leadership extends far beyond the day-to-day organization of the class struggle. More important to our efforts is the confidence PLP has in the working class. Many workers are disheartened by the constant cutbacks faced by our class. They see no alternative to the capitalist system of profit for the few. The small pockets of struggle led by our Party can encourage those workers to join the fight back and expand the number of workers open to revolutionary solutions to attacks by the bosses. As we head into the next phase of the struggle, we plan to increase the circulation of CHALLENGE and to spread communist ideas in our workplaces.
Brooklyn, NY, June 21 — The first anniversary of Kyam Livingston’s death is on July 21. As members of the Progressive Labor Party who work within the Committee for Justice for Kyam, we have to be mindful of what is primary: to build the Party and continual struggle and eventual revolution for a society led by the working class.
Today, a month prior to the anniversary of the murder of Kyam, we held a demonstration to commemorate her death. There were many good speakers, and two hundred CHALLENGEs and hundreds of leaflets were distributed. People were gathering across the street to listen to the speakers as the cops shoved them away. All spoke in one way or another about the inhuman system of capitalism. Some addressed the shock troops of capitalism, the racist police who bring terror wherever they go.
Kyam was murdered because of racist neglect of a human being suffering behind iron bars in a holding cell. The only words of comfort she heard were from her working-class cellmates. From the police authority all she heard was, “Shut the f… up or we’ll lose your paperwork.”
While all of the speakers spoke the systemic murder of workers by the system, one from the Progressive Labor Party pointed out that the only way to deal with these murderers is to end their system with a communist revolution.
The demonstration was larger than the one last month. Kyam’s mother is determined to keep fighting for justice, even on her birthday. After the demonstration she hosted a picnic on the sidewalk outside her building.
Two close friends of Kyam’s sang an upbeat “Happy Birthday” at the picnic. There was much joy mixed with the anger and sorrow of the moment. As communists become intimately involved with the lives and struggles of our fellow workers, we will gain the numbers and experience needed to overthrow this capitalist system. The road to get there is often difficult. We must never allow the rulers to forget their murder of Kyam Livingston.
WASHINGTON, DC, June 23 — Hundreds of low-wage women workers of 50 federal subcontractors walked off their jobs today to demand the right to form a union. The one-day strike and rally at the National Zoo was aimed to coincide with President Obama’s Summit on Working Families at the White House. “We do not make enough money to survive,” said a woman who works at the zoo.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts, grants, loans, and property leases go to low-wage companies, fueling the low-wage economy and growing inequality. And women hold over 70 percent of low-wage federal government contract jobs. The vast majority are black, Latin and immigrants.
Today’s action, organized by Good Jobs Nation, comes a year after it filed a complaint with the Department of Labor that accused food franchises at federal buildings of violating minimum-wage and overtime laws. They want Obama to sign an executive order requiring federal agencies to contract only with companies that engage in collective bargaining.
The union leaders pulling the strings behind Good Jobs Nation are the same people who got us into this mess in the first place. Most contract jobs used to be full-time union jobs, and the unions did nothing to stop the bosses from eliminating them. Now the unions are trying to rebuild their ranks among low-wage workers who replaced their former members. We need to abolish wage slavery with communist revolution. And the struggle between reform and revolution must be waged within struggles like this one.
A small group of CHALLENGE readers traveled to a farming town in California to view The House I Live In, written and directed by Eugene Jarecki. There was a mix of young college students, teachers, and older workers. The film’s subject was the “War on Drugs.”
The “War on Drugs” has never truly been about drugs. It is a racist war on young black and Latin men and a means of filling up the prisons for profit. This film depicts the horrific and devastating effects of this war on the black and Latin working-class communities. The U.S. incarcerates more of its domestic workers than China or Russia, 2.3 million prisoners behind bars. In large part they are there for non-violent and drug-related offenses.
Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, makes a clear and poignant point when she states, “There are more African Americans in jail or on probation and parole than were enslaved in 1850.” The racist nature of this war on drugs is revealed by these stats: black Americans are 13 percent of the population, 14 percent of the drug users and 56 percent of those incarcerated for drug-related crimes.
During the discussion after the film, one CHALLENGE reader pointed out that capitalism is the culprit and the driving force behind the “War on Drugs.” To end this racist war on our black and Latin youth, we must end capitalism. After the discussion, one youth came forward to say he liked what was said about capitalism and that he had been studying Marxism. He gave his contact information.
The prison guard and other principals in the film, who were portrayed as sympathetic, said the prisons needed to be changed but they had no idea of what to do. Under communism all workers will have useful work to do and will divide the products and wealth of society according to their needs. Prisons will be reserved for ex-capitalists who wish to return to a system of exploitation.
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Detroit Water Shutoffs: ‘Every Day We’re Shown that Black Lives Don’t Matter!’
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- 03 July 2014 63 hits
DETROIT, MI June 25 — “There are people who can’t cook, can’t clean, people coming off surgery who can’t wash. This is an affront to human dignity…Every day, we’re shown that black lives, black quality of life, black communities, don’t matter.” That’s how an organizer of the Detroit People’s Water Board described the latest case of mass racist terror as the Detroit Water Department shuts off water to those who owe $150 or are two months behind on their bill. More than 150,000 customers (as many as 300,000 mostly poor and black residents), are late on bills that have increased 119 percent in the last ten years. They are targeting as many as 3,000 homes every week!
Denying water to almost half the population of Detroit in a blistering summer comes after almost 170,000 homes with children and the elderly went without heat during the brutal winter of 2013-14. To add to the racist terror, state welfare authorities can take children from any home without running water.
Meanwhile, more than half of the city’s factories and office buildings, including the Detroit Lions’ Ford Field, the Redwings hockey arena at Joe Louis Arena, and the Palmer Park Golf Course owe a total of $30 million. No one is shutting their water off.
This is not about unpaid bills. The shutoffs are intended to drive people from their homes so developers can buy up the land dirt cheap, while making the Water Department more attractive to a private investor. Privatizing the Water Department has been on the agenda for the past two decades.
These attacks are the result of the decline of the U.S. auto bosses, the UAW’s (United Automobile Workers) total submission to their billionaire masters, and a financial crisis that left millions jobless and homeless. The racist character of these attacks is stark and indisputable.
People are parking their cars over water valves to prevent shut-offs and teaching each other how to turn the water back on. Community groups even filed a human rights complaint at the United Nations, demanding an end to the shutoffs. The Detroit Water Brigade, an Occupy-type group, is collecting supplies and trying to serve those in need.
Just weeks ago, the UAW held its national convention here with more than 2,000 delegates. The water shutoffs was even mentioned. Instead of a brief photo op at a nearby hotel organizing drive, the UAW could have led thousands out on strike and seized the Water Department, ending any shutoffs and demanding that the auto billionaires pay the bill. But it didn’t. And it won’t.
As home to millions of industrial workers, Detroit was once a center of communist-led, anti-racist struggle. In 1932, after six workers and youth were killed by company thugs at the Ford Hunger March, 100,000 workers marched behind the red-flag-draped coffins singing the Internationale. Five years later, workers seized the GM factories in Flint, Michigan and established the UAW. And in 1967, the armed uprising against racist police terror shook the bosses and was probably the greatest single act of solidarity with the Vietnamese in defeating U.S. imperialism.
Today, as Detroit workers face winters without heat and summers without water, they are organizing mass militant actions against the water department. What w we win is temporary as long as the bosses hold power. The main lesson of the Detroit water shutoff is that we need to build a mass PLP to destroy wage slavery, with communist revolution. Then, “dark night will have its end!”
