Washington, DC, February 20 — Today Muriel Bowser, a DC city council member and board member of Metro/WMATA (the DC Regional Transit Agency), held a hearing about getting Metro to change its policy on background checks. Thanks to PLP members, friends and many workers, the issue has gotten sharper throughout the city and politicians like Bowser feel they must address it.
Several people testified, some who work at Metro or others who have tried to get hired. One mechanic testified that he and his co-workers are very concerned now about what will happen if they have to take leave of more than 90 days and go through a background screening when they come back. Another, a contractor who for years built Metro bridges, tunnels, and railways, said that he has not had work from Metro since the new policy went into effect because of his record, which is decades old.
A lawyer from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund testified that his organization is currently representing four people in cases related to this issue and is willing to take on more. She highlighted the racist effect of the policy, excluding more black and Latino workers than others because they are arrested and convicted at higher rates.
Racism is endemic to capitalism; that is how the bosses divide and superexploit workers to maximize their profiits. In a communist society run by workers, the economic and political basis for racism will be demolished.
Two union officials showed up. The current Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 president testified that her union opposed this policy from the beginning (even though she did not fight Metro when they changed to the stricter policy in 2011). She again avoided mentioning the racist character of Metro’s background check policy.
A former president of the union and PL’er testified that the policy was racist in its differential impact on black and Latino workers. The policy, he argued, was implemented without any investigation or study to see if ex-offenders were more or less likely than others to commit crimes while at work at Metro, and was simply a biased racist policy that had to change.
The vice president of the union echoed what we’ve been hearing from Metro workers for months: to the riders, the face of Metro is black, and now the Metro administration seems to be trying to change this while stigmatizing the current workforce. In fact, in an area where 50.1 percent of the population are black, Metro hired only seven D.C. residents out of the 1,300 people it hired in 2013!
When Bowser questioned the head of the DC Department of Employment Services (DOES), he testified that DOES was warned by the federal Department of Labor not to work with agencies that have discriminatory practices. So even the U.S. Department of Labor seems to suspect that Metro’s background check policy is racist.
Finally, Bowser called Richard Sarles, the General Manager of Metro to speak. He argued that Metro has to protect its riders (including children and handicapped riders) and that only violent offenses automatically disqualify someone from working at Metro. Like much of what he said, this is a lie, and is directly contradicted by the testimony that workers had submitted. He admitted that Metro has no data to prove that workers with criminal records are more likely than anyone else to commit crimes on the job.
It’s clear that the Metro board and management are feeling the pressure.  We need to keep up the fight, and not get distracted by politicians like Bowser. She may have called for the hearing, but we are the ones who made it happen.

Los Angeles, February 25 — At a Progressive Labor Party forum attended by about 30 workers and students, the stark statistics of deportation sparked discussion on the role of racism in immigration policy under capitalism. In the U.S., undocumented Latinos are more likely to be deported than undocumented Asian or European immigrants, by a factor of 8-16 to 1, depending on what countries are compared.
The absolute number of deportations jumped sharply in 1997, following a law signed by President Clinton appropriating more money to immigration enforcement. The next major increase in deportations came with the creation and funding of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) under the Homeland Security Dept. in 2002, under Bush. Under Obama, deportations have been pushed higher still. As of now, Obama has deported two million people — more than all previous presidents combined. “Removals” of long-time U.S. residents now outnumber those turned back at or near the border.
U.S. workers face unemployment, reduced wages and benefits, and police harassment and brutality. U.S. bosses are trying to direct workers’ rage away from themselves and against immigrant workers, claiming they’re “stealing our jobs.”
The bosses even try to divide undocumented immigrants against each other. Obama and some congressional Democrats promote the Dream Act, legislation that would provide a path to permanent residency for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. They would have to be of “good moral character,” have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, have a high school diploma, and go to college or join the military for at least two years. To apply for permanent residency, they would have to obtain a bachelor’s degree or, in typical cases, serve an additional four to six years in the military, creating a large pool of war-ready soldiers. So far, no version of the federal Dream Act has passed.
A participant in the forum said that the Dream Act would improve the lives of some undocumented immigrants, and asked whether PLP supported it. A Party member responded that we don’t support plans of any section of the capitalist class, but we do participate in reform movements such as the “Dreamers.” Within those movements we fight alongside those who want the reform, at the same time trying to win them to fight for communist revolution.
It is PLP’s goal to win these students and workers to see their future as members of the working class, united to fight against the capitalist class’s racism and exploitation and to organize for a future where differences in skin color, national origin, language and culture are meaningless, where people are valued for their commitment to organizing a communist society.

NASHVILLE, TN, February 20 — Much is being written about the loss suffered by the UAW in the union election at the Volkswagen (VW) assembly plant in Chattanooga, TN. The plant is one of only three non-union VW plants in the world (the other two are in China). This campaign was the key to a strategy of organizing a number of foreign-owned auto plants, including BMW in South Carolina, Mercedes in Vance, Alabama, and Nissan in Canton, MS. (The State of Mississippi passed three anti-union laws just days after the VW vote, targeting the UAW Nissan campaign). The UAW has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), challenging the interference of Tennessee’s top elected officials, but that could linger for years before it is resolved.
The election reflects just how far down the road to fascism the U.S. has travelled, and how workers are caught in a crossfire between right-wing, Tea Party union-busters and a union leadership that sees its main job as guaranteeing the bosses’ profits.
VW and the UAW signed a neutrality agreement, where the company agreed not to oppose the union campaign and the union agreed to “maintain VW’s competitive advantage.” In other words, the UAW promised to maintain the same anti-union advantages that the right-wing politicians gave to VW in the first place! This was the result of many trips to Germany to meet with the company and with IG Metall, the German metal workers union.
There was a very active union committee inside the plant. VW workers from around the world were brought to Chattanooga to meet with workers and show international solidarity for their campaign. The union was confident. Yet, on the 77th anniversary of the victory of the Flint Sit-Down Strike, which won union recognition at General Motors after a 44-day plant takeover, the UAW lost the VW vote 712-626. A swing of 44 votes would have changed the outcome.
Along the way, the UAW ran into what John Logan (Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University) called, “a firestorm of interference” from a fascist coalition led by Grover Norquist. In an openly racist appeal to the mostly white workforce, billboards referred to the United Auto Workers as the United Obama Workers, and pictures of abandoned Detroit factories were displayed as the work of the UAW.
One racist group even compared the union campaign to a Civil War battle in Chattanooga where the Union Army was defeated. “Let’s stop them again,” was the message. Anti-union town hall meetings were held in the area and the top elected officials threatened the loss of jobs if the union won. These threats, made during the voting, are the basis for the UAW’s NLRB challenge to the election.
This reflects one of the fault lines in the U.S. ruling class, the anti-tax, anti-union billionaires, led by the Koch brothers vs. the liberal rulers who want to maintain some safety net and raise the minimum wage. This struggle reflects that, at least for the moment, the more open fascists have a mass base and a plenty of clout in the South.
But even more important, convincing workers that bosses and workers have the same interest, and our security lies in the bosses being fat and rich, is also leading the workers to fascism. In a period of growing imperialist rivalry, trade wars and the growing threat of shooting wars, unity with the bosses will lead to going to war against other workers to guarantee markets and profits for “our” bosses.
The fact is, workers and bosses have nothing in common! The bosses profit from our exploitation. We can only secure our future by abolishing wage slavery and building a communist world, where we produce for the needs of our class, not the profits of the shareholders. We should view these organizing campaigns, from auto to fast food workers, as opportunities to sharpen the class struggle and to win more workers to PLP.

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Bowing to Bosses Brings UAW to the Brink

The UAW has been collaborating with the auto bosses for over 60 years, especially in the 1970s, again in the financial crisis of 2008 and the auto bailout of 2009.
Anti-Asian Racism Rampant
The more U.S. auto bosses were threatened by international competition, the more the UAW came to their defense. Instead of “Workers of the World, Unite,” the slogan was “Buy American!” In the 1970s, anti-Japanese racism was rampant; local unions would charge $1/shot to smash an imported Japanese car with a sledge hammer. The racism hit a fever pitch when a young Chinese student, Vincent Chin, was beaten to death in a Detroit bar by two Chrysler employees who thought he was Japanese! Foreign cars were banned from UAW parking lots, and tires slashed.
Meanwhile, the UAW forced through billions in wage and benefit concessions to help U.S. bosses compete against the “foreign competition.” While factories and union halls closed, the palatial UAW/GM Training Center was being erected on the Detroit River. The threat moved from opposing imports to Asian and European auto bosses building factories in the U.S., mostly in the South, where they still enjoy a huge labor cost advantage. The UAW has failed to organize any of them. The union became so tied to the auto bosses that they would share their fate.
Then in the economic crash of 2008 and the auto bailout of 2009 the UAW agreed to the “restructuring” of the industry, meaning that 70 years of hard won gains would be wiped out for new workers. As the UAW shrunk from 1.5 million members to 380,000 (only half of that manufacturing), the union became the target of the growing anti-union Right to Work (RTW) movement. With the GM, Ford and Chrysler (Fiat) contracts expiring next year, over 50 percent of the UAW membership is in RTW states, including Michigan (60 percent if Ohio goes). When these contracts expire, union membership will be voluntary. Thousands of new workers, doing twice the work for half the pay, with diminished health care and no pensions, may very well leave the union.

BROOKLYN, NY, February 19 — Sixty friends and PL’ers shouted down the military recruiters at the Medgar Evers College (MEC) town hall meeting today. While the administration and recent recruits claimed the program was a way to “provide opportunities and diversity,” the protesters successfully exposed its imperialist agenda. There is potential in turning this anti-war struggle into a fight for communist politics.
PLP hung up Wanted Posters of war criminal David “drones” Petraeus, who is now a professor at one of the university campuses, directly linking these military recruiters to “warrior scholars” like Petraeus they partially aim to produce. CHALLENGE was well-received by all, including the student recruits.
ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps), a college program recruiting youth to a hyper-sexist and racist institution of war — has illegally circumvented the college council and installed itself on this nearly all black and Latino campus where 75 percent of the students are women. One PL student declared that ROTC’s presence at this particular campus is no accident. “This is the same community where Shantel Davis, Kyam Livingston and Kimani Gray were killed [victims of NYC cops]. Essentially you’re trying to recruit black and brown youth — who are policed and killed here — to kill black and brown people across a fake border. That’s a racist agenda!”
Several students agreed, referring to the antiracist spirit of Medgar Evers as they pointed out ROTC’s “dishonorable” tactics. MEC is named after the fighter against segregation in Mississippi and Alabama. He was murdered by the Klu Klux Klan and White Citizen’s Council. Black and brown students are still targets of racism in this era of the new Jim Crow. No matter what the bosses say or try to do, they cannot be antiracist. Perpetuating racism is built into their system. Racism — the economic exploitation, ideology that justifies it and the bosses’ institutions which enforce it — is the backbone of capitalism.
Medgar Evers is not ROTC’s sole target. York College, another branch of the City University system, also an overwhelmingly black, Latino and female college, has also installed the military program. The bosses have been complaining that the third-largest university system in the U.S., CUNY, had no ROTC program. During the anti-Vietnam War era, students and faculty kicked ROTC off campuses. The bosses are concerned about an all-white Southern male military. Think tanks such as American Enterprise Institute worry about the “dangers of a military disconnected from the civilian population.”
Another concern for the bosses is related to the military’s sexist nature. In 2012, soldiers were 15 times more likely to be raped than to be killed in combat. Already, a half million women and men have reported sexual assaults in the past 22 years. One panelist at the town hall meeting was a female combat Iraq veteran, who stated she was “lucky not to have been assaulted.” CUNY is welcoming a sexist institution onto a majority-female campus. Sexual violence is a weapon of imperialism — towards both its soldiers and the civilians it is attacking.
Leadership for Which Class?
Behind the rhetoric of an “opportunity to succeed and diversify” is a buying of working-class youth to a war agenda. Some ROTC recruits argued, “Why are you trying to get rid of ROTC if it helps us with our dreams. It has provided me [a young black woman aspiring to be a doctor] with room and board and schooling [scholarships].” ROTC is exploiting the desperate conditions of students. The ruling class itself has created these conditions of racism, sexism, unemployment and underemployment.
Another ROTC recruit cited “pride, respect, leadership and discipline” as his reason for joining. While the students are genuine in their aspirations, what is left unchallenged is discipline to do what — be cannon fodder? Pride in what — shoot their own class interests in the back?  Leadership for which class — the imperialists thirst for oil or the workers fight for class liberation? One PL’er encouraged the ROTC recruits to aim their guns at the warmakers by organizing their fellow cadets and to read CHALLENGE. Newly gained contacts are open to such a struggle.
As one faculty comrade stated, “Are the functions of college and army compatible? The military is organized violence of the state. And colleges can reproduce those ideologies. Or college can be a site of struggle.”
MEC is a site for exactly that. This event may rekindle friends from past years to wage a fight. One brought friends from their campus club and others joined us for a study group later in the week to discuss the first chapters of Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism: Highest Stage of Capitalism (more next issue).  
A growing number of students and faculty are fighting ROTC’s racist and sexist nature in particular and amplification of imperialist agendas on campus in general. This was evident last semester in our fight against Drones Petraeus as a professor on campus (see
CHALLENGE, 9/18 to 12/25). Our friends at the College of Staten Island have already successfully pushed back against ROTC. We must carry on the fight.
Why ROTC? Why Now?
As the previous CHALLENGE editorial (2/26) illustrates, the main threat of another world war seems to be between the U.S. and China, and the bosses are debating the best tactics to win such a conflict. The ruling class understands the need for youth to pledge allegiance to the bosses’ “national interest,” both as soldiers and political supporters. In 2012, the Council on Foreign Relations published a report on U.S. Education Reform and National Security, stating students need to be trained to “safeguard America’s future security and prosperity.”
The ROTC move and the Petraeus hiring have exposed to some students the CUNY Administration’s function of enforcing class rule. To extend the fight from exposing to destroying these capitalists, PLP and the long march for communism must grow.