NEW YORK CITY — In early February, while the sky was bleak and the air cold, some 60 workers and youth assembled to participate in the development of working-class culture. The work of the last three years culminated in the gathering of six seminal groups to explore creating different forms of working-class art — video, script writing, acting, music, poster design and poetry.
An initial plenary session discussed basic ideas over breakfast after which people moved to their chosen areas of interest. Expectations pervaded.  Most of the six leaders wondered if this first exploratory session could create groups from which some working-class communist forms could be developed.
Of course, working-class art in its many forms have already been produced during the period when working-class influence was ascending and when our class was under threat. Communists have always fought to try to galvanize art, much as sometimes they’re galvanized by the singing of the working-class communist anthem, “The Internationale.”
Both the leaders and the groups’ members had undergone uneven development in their cultural interests and experiences, leading to some struggle for basic understanding. Actually, the video that was made during the day of the different sessions seemed to draw all the groups together. The video group interviewed individuals about what they were creating.
There were people from many different working-class backgrounds. Multi-racial interaction and work led to growing relationships and a very professional attitude for what was being created that day. In one class, a baby sat on her mother’s lap, seeming to take part in the workshop with mama. This was fun for the group and helped create a family feeling. Several workshop participants now want to organize others to produce communist culture. 
Poetry and Hip-Hop plumbed political commitment and revolutionary culture in the life of working people. As one young man said, “Working-class culture is powerful.”
The poster art session compared a poster for a capitalist product and one for Bolshevik ideas with their own creation depicting demonstrations and life. The layout was produced collectively which excited the participants.
One question asked by the creators of the video was, “What music or culture inspired you?”  In the music session, a large group worked on old songs and a new song which is currently evolving.
At the end of the afternoon all groups gathered together with each one performing or displaying a small piece of what they had been creating and learning. It was a wonderful kaleidoscope of words, songs, pictures and acting. The result almost left one breathless. Creating working-class art always has a future, but now we’re part of that. See working-class culture this May Day!

OAKLAND, CA — The ruling class, through its politicians and the collaboration of union leaders in California, has moved to steal billions from the working class by decimating the future of retired workers.  Governor Jerry Brown, with the assistance of Democrats who control both houses of the legislature, has passed the Public Employees Pension Reform Act (PEPRA). It could go into effect at AC Transit as early as July 1, when our contract expires.
This “reform” hurts new hires immediately. While current workers don’t face changes yet, after 2018 all of our pensions will be affected. First, PEPRA mandates that all new workers pay a minimum of half their pension costs or 6.75% of wages. That’s a wage cut of $3,000 to $5,000 a year. AC Transit workers took lower wages in the past to maintain their benefits.
Second, it bases pensions on 40 hours per week, while the average work-week of a bus driver is actually closer to 50 hours, due to split shifts and long hours in the seat. Lastly, it reduces the compensation schedule at the end by as much as 35 percent. At 55 years old, a current pension is 2 percent per year of the average of your top three years times years worked. Under PEPRA, it’s 1.3 percent. With all the changes, the pension could be reduced by almost half. Since AC has no cost-of-living allowance in its pension it means a meager pension, will be worth even less in years to come. 
While Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 192 called a special meeting of over 300 members to “fight” this attack, its strategy mainly revolves around relying on lawyers to argue that PEPRA violates federal law, or on legislation from the same state Democratic politicians to exempt transit workers. It refused to organize any mass protest at a recent Board of Directors’ meeting, which voted to adopt PEPRA.
Further, there has been no coordination among other transit unions — especially at BART, the regional subway system — whose contract also expires July 1. At the same time, AC Transit bosses plan to raise fares again on July 1st, as much as 33 percent for monthly passes for youth, seniors and disabled riders. 
PLP has put out the only information about the attack.  Our Transit CHALLENGE focused on the message “It’s up to us, the working class!” No law, no savior politicians and no “special exemptions” will rescue us! Unity across the whole Bay Area and a fight for the whole working class is our strategy. We have engaged transit workers to join with community groups to reach out to youth to fight these outrageous higher fares and service cuts. 
The membership of ATU Local 192 also passed a resolution to demand Justice for Alan Blueford, an 18-year-old high school student murdered by Oakland cops last May. The resolution flies in the face of a mass media campaign to make youth violence and crime in Oakland a “State of Emergency” with the implication that “effective community police” is the solution. The media campaign does not address continual racist police actions (four officers were involved in the shooting on the weekend of 03\01\13 in the Bay area) and massive racist unemployment among black and Latin youth.
This resolution is a small step to making a fight for the whole working class, tied to immediate issues that face our membership. Transit workers attended the March 5 rally to stop racist police terror and demand prosecution of cop Masso who shot the unarmed Blueford. The Governor, the Legislature, the cops, and the media are all part of the bosses’ system of capitalism and its state apparatus whose laws enforce profit-making by exploiting the working class. The months ahead will offer us many opportunities to struggle over the need for a communist society without exploitation and racist terror.

AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, FRANCE, March 9 — Over 2,800 striking auto workers have paralyzed the Peugeot plant in this Paris suburb since January 16. They’re protesting company plans to close the factory next year, which will eliminate 8,000 jobs. On March 8, nearly 200 strikers occupied the Paris offices of the bosses’ metal trades association.
“We are workers, we aren’t vandals, the bosses are the vandals,” chanted the workers in the hall of the seat of the metal trades bosses.
 “We’re not coming out until our demands have been heard,” one union steward told Reuters. “We want a permanent job for everyone and early retirement for those 55 and over.”
An agreement signed by several union officials was rejected by the rank and file. “We are determined,” declared Mohammed Diver, a worker at the plant. “We want a guarantee of employment.”
The bosses have hired two rent-a-cop strike-breaking outfits to intimidate the workers. They have also threatened to fire some of the strike leaders. Meanwhile,the Peugeot bosses who claim they must close the plant and wipe out 8,000 jobs because they can’t make a profit from this plant are paying themselves handsomely. Peugeot’s CEO tripled his salary in 2010 to to $4.2 million; two directors doubled their’s to $1.62 million; and a director stationed in Asia raked in $1.75 million — altogether a total of nearly $10 million a a year for just four bosses!
The Peugot workers are also supporting the struggles of other workers, including those at Renault who are experiencing the same problems. On january 28, they stood in soldiairty in front of the French Natonal Assembly in a united demonstration with workers from Goodyear, Air France, Virgin and Sanofi.
However, the CGT union has undercut the workers’ position by accusing the government of “mak[ing] itself management’s accomplice” for refusing to name a mediator. No doubt the government is in bed with the bosses, but mediators will not win the workers’ demands. Only the power of the rank and file to shut off the bosses’ profits can have any chance of achieving that objective. Instead of depending on mediation, the workers must try to spread the strike across the metal trades industry since all workers will be suffering under the austerity program being promoted by the Socialist government.
The Peugeot bosses claim they must dump the workforce because they can’t make a profit from this plant. But this just exposes the need for the working class to exterminate capitalism, a system based on exploitation for the profit of the few sucked out of the labor of the masses that produce everything of value. Only a revolutionary party composed of millions of workers can accomplish that goal.

The Peugeot strikers are asking for financial support, donations to be sent to:
Association de soutien aux salaries
de l’automobile du 93
19-21 rue Jacques Duclos
93600 Aulnay-sous-Bois, France 

U.S. ruling-class politicians, both Republican and Democrats, seem now to have decided to work together to implement the immigration reform initially proposed by President Obama. They’ve given few details, and perhaps never will, but the proposals under consideration are well known and predictable. One must just read between the lines of the statements by those driving the reform.
(1) Seal and militarize the border. “Immediately reform border security with new technology,” i.e. drones; ramp up both military and border agents’ presence on the border; increase the legal processes which control border exits and entrances.
(2) Legalize and contain immigrant workers as a segregated sub-class in slave-like working conditions. “At the same time as we reform the border security, those immigrants here ‘illegally’ must register with the government.” They must pass background checks and pay back taxes and fines. Immigrants will then receive a “period of legal probation” during which they can live and work legally in the U.S. but will be ineligible to receive Federal benefits. This is a rehash of the “guest worker” program under which immigrants remain in the U.S. at the whim of their bosses.
(3) A path to citizenship? Some Senators are demanding a mandatory program to check the legal status of all new employees throughout the U.S. (Expansion of E-Verify). These “reformers” also insist that immigrants who get “legal status” under this legislation and pass their period of probation must then “go to the back of the line” behind those who have come through legal channels and are seeking citizenship. This could take decades. It also leaves these “guest workers” subject to the manipulation of visa and citizenship quotas due to country of origin or education and job skills. So-called “permanent residency” and “citizenship” are at the end of a long tunnel. Many will never find their way out.
(4) Arrange for a large number of young people to join the military. While many politicians and government think tanks know this could provide a path to citizenship for many younger workers, those who hold power in the U.S. understand the need for a bigger war machine to defend their empire in a period of continuous wars. What better way to get “willing” recruits than to dangle the potential for citizenship before many young immigrants? The so-called Dream Act incorporates this process.
The rampant segregation of immigrant workers concerning their work location, residence site and their cultural and political life, leaves many immigrants vulnerable to the false promises in this movement for immigration reform.
But there’s another side: Workers worldwide have always fought back and continue to fight for a better life. However, if we just see ourselves as immigrants, we lose. If we just see ourselves as citizens, we lose. The bosses win when immigrants and their supporters organize to fight back on “their issues.” Immigrants and citizens belong to only one class — we are the producers of all the world’s riches. When we unite as one class, which does not recognize the rulers’ borders or ethnic\heritage\“racial”\gender differences, this unity immediately puts us on the offensive against the attacks by the capitalist class.
March on May Day, May 1, for the unity of the international working class.