BALTIMORE, MD, March 13- The West Wednesday Coalition (WC) marched and held a rally at Baltimore City Hall and the Baltimore City Police (BPD) headquarters against racist police terror. The night was in honor of Tyrone West and all victims of state-sanctioned police brutality. This makes 555 Wednesdays which the coalition has tirelessly dedicated to calling out the fake liberal bosses and their politricks—as they were described by WC. Nine members of Progressive Labor Party and 3 friends of the Party attended. We led sharp political chants and distributed our newspaper CHALLENGE to enthusiastic attendees. 

It’s now been over 10 years since 17 killer KKKops murdered Tyrone West and then covered it up. “… [T]wo plain-clothes officers in an unmarked car pulled Tyrone over in a residential neighborhood for an alleged minor traffic infraction. Witness statements indicated that he was pulled out of his car and attacked by the police. Several residents and witnesses in the neighborhood where this happened tried to intervene and were told by one of the officers (Bernardez-Ruiz) to ‘back the f— up’ and go into their houses or the same thing would happen to them (westcoalition.com).” Baltimore City government has passed lackluster reforms over the last 10 years, but the killer pigs in blue have still not been put behind bars. 

Tyrone West deserves to be here, among his family and friends, creating more of his beautiful art and inspiring others to care for one another. But the BPD took that away—a man who was the light of his sister’s life. Tyrone, like many working-class people, is a testament to the underappreciated and long-ignored beauty in a city that is victim to a criminally vile system founded on the historic oppression of working-class people of color. 

But the movement is still strong! It’s become increasingly militant! 

While a few workers who spoke promoted working within the system to enact substantial change for workers, the majority blamed capitalism for police terror, and many even called for a revolution. Speeches pointed to our need for multiracial unity against the cops and their crooked institutions. They may terrorize Black and Brown workers at drastically high rates, but they terrorize our white class siblings, too. One strength of our rally was pointing out the connection between police terror and imperialist war. During the speakout, a worker called out Baltimore City’s fascist funding of the genocide in Palestine, pointing out that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) butchers have been working in tandem with Baltimore City counterparts to learn new tactics for terrorizing workers into submission in this period of developing fascism.

With the Party’s help, the coalition has become more anti-capitalist, but we are continuing to sharpen the struggle against police terror. A comrade argued that workers all over the world need to join together, that the struggle against genocides in Palestine, Congo, Myanmar, and abroad is our struggle too, and that we need a society ruled by and for the workers—communism!

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA, March 6—Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU 689) workers celebrated improvements in wages and benefits after a solid 15-day strike against Transdev, the contractor providing bus service to county residents. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined the 650+ workers at rallies and on picket lines. We brought the message that communism is the long-term solution to our needs for a decent standard of living globally for all workers, an end to the bosses’ wars, and a solution to the climate crisis. The bosses won’t help with any of those things!

The new contract is still deficient in pensions and other benefits, but it approached parity with the much larger WMATA transit contract that covers the rail system and most of the bus system. Transdev was forced to make such concessions since almost no worker scabbed on the strike (CHALLENGE, 3/13).

The successful strike struck a blow against racism. Virtually all of the bus drivers are Black, mostly immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. Transdev has relied on the old colonial approach of super-exploiting such workers, but had no choice but to back off in light of their militancy and solidarity. But until we succeed in building a revolutionary movement to topple the profit-hungry capitalist system, we will be faced with constant efforts by capitalists to use racism to push back and reduce the standard of living of all workers so they can line their pockets at our expense.

Intensified struggle looming

A series of relatively small transit strikes over the past months in Washington, DC and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs has set the tone for the “main event” – the coming expiration of Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA’s) contract with over 9,000 transit workers on June 30. These Metro workers have increasingly come to realize that only antiracist class struggle has any chance of defending and advancing our interests. Workers are increasingly “strike ready!”

But WMATA is facing an operating deficit of $450 million – they will try to take this out of the hide of the working class, both those employed by Metro and those dependent on its service. Recent public hearings have shown Metro’s intent to cut workers back everywhere to solve its deficit crisis. Now is the time for workers to join the PLP to develop a collective strategy for fighting this looming battle while gaining ever greater understanding of the impossibility of capitalism to meet our needs. Trust no politician, turn to the multiracial working class for solidarity and a revolutionary communist future!

NEWTON, MASS, February 2, 2024—“When we fight, we win!” was the bold chant from the 2000-member Newton Teachers Association as they won their heroic 11-day “illegal” strike. Ninety-eight percent of the teachers picketed every day. Demands were for more social workers and behavioral therapists (needed for many students!), pay increases and work-rule changes. An excellent strike demand was for bigger pay raises for the lowest-paid staff, more of whom are Black and immigrants. It helped create unity among the various staff units. Under a communist system, we would abolish all inequality: we’d abolish money, and the working class would decide on the distribution of goods based on need.

It was the longest teachers' strike this century in Massachusetts. As in any struggle for reforms, the battle for better schools that would educate all youth will continue after the strike. Politically, we also need to be sharper as communists in exposing the role of capitalist schools in maintaining class inequality and promoting fascism and U.S. imperialism. Self-critically, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP)  played only a minor role in the strike, picketing and distributing over 150 leaflets to teachers and parent supporters. But we did make some new friends and introduced them to PLP’s ideas and literature.

The mayor and school committee controlling Newton schools claimed: “There's no money”. Yet, the affluent City of Newton had $55 million in surplus funds (for a “rainy day”) -- a parent said “It’s raining!” Newton schools have been under-funded for years with many Newton teachers not earning enough to buy a home in Newton or, in many cases, to rent here. Two Newton educators sell blood plasma or turn off heat to make ends meet. Even the raises won by the strikers won’t cover the increased cost of healthcare. 

All of the Newton city politicians serve the capitalist class, not students, workers, or educators. The strike stopped the city from busting the teachers union. It also showed how professionals’ living standards in the U.S. are being driven down—as Karl Marx predicted, the professionals are being proletarianized.

The courts work for the capitalist class

Communists always point out the role of the State (the capitalist government) in strikes. Massachusetts is one of 37 states with laws against teachers’ strikes. The courts first ordered an injunction against the strike and then fined the teachers' union almost  one million dollars during this strike, an extraordinary amount. Injunctions like this are part of developing fascism today as the crises of capitalism generate increasingly sharper attacks against workers in general. The Newton mayor published lies every day in her emails to the residents. The corporate media published their own fascist, blame-the-teacher lies. For example, a Boston Globe (2/5/2024) article gave space to a single anti-union businessman who attacked the teachers. Many parents and students actively supported the strike as did many other unions and individuals.

PLP attacked war, fascism, and the underfunding of education

Our leaflet pointed out how the U.S. Federal budget has roughly $1,000 billion for war and only $81 billion for education. The extra money Biden wants to give to Ukraine and Israel right now is equal to the total yearly federal education budget. Why, in the affluent suburb of Newton, does the city choose to under-fund the schools? Why, in this richest of all countries, isn't there enough money for schools, healthcare, food, or decent housing for all? The problem is the crisis of the worldwide capitalist system, with wars from Ukraine to Gaza killing hundreds of thousands. Competition among capitalists continues to intensify. Historically, capitalism in crisis did lead to fascism and war.

Today we see U.S. capitalists and their politicians, including liberals such as the Democrats, acting increasingly fascist ways.

We called for a Worker-Teacher-Parent-Student Alliance against sexism, racism, wage cuts, and imperialist war– against capitalism. We need a massive fightback, not just to win strikes, but to end the entire profit system. We need an egalitarian society. We need to support all working people internationally. We need a new political and economic system. Not the fake "communism" of today's China under Xi Jinping, but real communism: an end to the profit system and its inequities and exploitation.

Kevin Bayuk, a leading organizer and a generous, selfless mentor to younger members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP), died on March 3 in Calvary Hospice in Brooklyn after a long battle with malignant lymphoma. In the days before his death, Kevin was still visiting with friends and comrades and listening to Paul Robeson. He was a courageous and militant fighter who believed that the Party had to be a fighting organization to seize the moment. He would say that the three most important things in his life were family, friends, and communism.
Kevin was the youngest of four children born to working-class parents in the Bronx. He was an excellent swimmer his entire life and competed in citywide high school tournaments. Kevin was attending Colgate University when his sister Mary, a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital, became a Party member. Mary and her husband recruited Kevin to the Party. 

Kevin went on to Simmons College in Boston, where he graduated with a degree in social work. He then worked at a mental hospital, and was an active union organizer there and at his subsequent jobs. Wherever he worked, Kevin built a strong political base and brought colleagues and clients around the Party. 

Kevin made friends easily. His loyalty to the Party was matched only by his loyalty to his friends. He was nonjudgmental in his friendships, many of which lasted for decades. This same long-term outlook enriched Kevin’s base-building.

Bold antiracism in Boston

In the early 1970s, PLP in Boston was composed mainly of white middle-class college students who were attracted by the Party’s bold and militant anti-imperialism against the war in Vietnam. In the same period, a violent, racist, anti-busing organization, Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) arose in Boston. The Boston PLP leadership was frightened and intimidated by these racist South Boston thugs and refused to engage in militant struggle against them. When pushed to do so by the central PLP leadership, they split from the Party, taking almost all of the student members with them. But Kevin and a few other mostly working-class and Black comrades remained loyal to the Party. 

In September 1974, the Boston school year began under a U.S. federal court ruling to integrate the city’s public schools. The ensuing opposition by racist white parents was every bit as violent as any seen in the U.S. South. Kevin and a few other Party members bravely stood up to the thousands of racists outside South Boston High School. They called for Black and white working-class unity in the fight for better schools and working conditions.

For the following May Day, in 1975, PLP’s national leadership organized a march in South Boston, the heart of the racists’ home turf. With thousands of Party members and supporters in the International Committee Against Racism converging on Boston, the Party organized a contingent of fighters to protect the march. When the racists prepared to launch their attack against the marchers, Kevin and his fellow fighters charged up a hill and caught them by surprise. The ROAR thugs were forced to retreat. While some PLP fighters were injured, the march was protected and proceeded without further incident.

That summer, the Party held a summer project in Boston. Although the Boston Party was still small, Kevin and the other remaining members provided an important nucleus of organizers for more than two hundred volunteers who came from around the country to participate. After a group of Black bible salesmen were savagely assaulted by racists at segregated Carson Beach, PLP and the Committee Against Racism were the first to call for a demonstration. During the violence that ensued at the march, Kevin played a leading role in protecting several comrades.

A compassionate caregiver

Kevin eventually moved to New York and became one of the first physician assistants, a pioneer in the healthcare wilderness. He was a compassionate caregiver who worked at the Morris Heights Community Health Center for thirty years and touched thousands of lives. He took his medical van to homeless shelters and to the boardwalk at Coney Island, where he would crawl underneath to coax homeless people to get medical attention.

In Kevin’s later years in the Party, he concentrated on building a base and mentoring younger comrades, working closely with a college club in the Bronx.

Kevin continued to swim regularly throughout his life and competed in senior swim races. He also included his family in his other favorite activity—fishing. A devoted parent, he took his children, nephews, and eventually his grandchildren on regular fishing trips and developed deep ties with younger family members.

Kevin’s internationalism

In 2011, Kevin went with his partner to Haiti, where the Party conducted a freedom school and a health clinic. He later returned to Haiti for the Party’s work with union members, and to meet with striking workers at a local hospital. As always, he infused his base-building with calls for action.

Kevin also went to Puerto Rico with the Party, where he was instrumental in organizing the PLP contingent after Hurricane Maria's devastation. There he continued his committed base-building and demonstrated by his words and deeds that the Party was an organization of action and participation in the mass struggles of the international working class.

He established ties with  organization led by a veteran communist fighter and close friend. With rare consistency and dedication, Kevin demonstrated what it means to build a mass communist party.

A fighter all his life

After Kevin was found to have two cancers, he continued meeting with his club and mentoring and nurturing the younger members. He always emphasized the importance of developing lasting friendships and base-building. He urged the younger members to have confidence in the working class. He taught them the importance of distributingCHALLENGE. He never wavered or compromised in advocating the fight for communism.

As one of his closest friends said, “Kevin exemplifies what a revolutionary and communist is and should be. If we want to pay tribute to Kevin, the best way to do so is by recognizing his courageous commitment to communism. We should emulate his fight for communism and continue fighting against all types of racism and exploitation. He was a noble, just, humble, and brave human being as well as a dedicated comrade.” Kevin, the friend said, was best described by this verse by Bertolt Brecht:

There are men who fight one day and are good.
Others fight for a year and are better. 
Some fight for many years and are very good. 
But some fight all their lives; those are the essential ones.