RAMLA, PALESTINE, July 26 — After more than a month of struggle, the eviction warrant placed at the al-Aju family compound was finally revoked. This victory was met with celebration by family members, neighbors and activists — both Jewish and Arab, workers and students — who supported the struggle. This small victory and others like it are a signal, not that capitalism can serve the needs of workers, but that a united working class has tremendous power and that we are moving toward exerting that power in communist revolution.

This struggle has deep roots in the recent history of Palestine. In the 1948 war, the al-Aju family — originally Arabs from the nearby town of Lydda (Lod) — was deported from their homes by the Israeli military. However, unlike many other Palestinian refugees, the family managed to remain inside the so-called Green Line and has settled on the land of another Arab family that had been driven off its land by Israeli bosses. As its original owners were no longer present, the Israeli state took over the land, and managed it through the national housing company Amidar.

For over sixty years, the al-Aju family lived on the land as tenants, paying rent in full to the landlords, Amidar. The family’s men are municipal maintenance workers, working hard for a low wage; some, especially of the younger generation, couldn’t find a job at all. As apartments are rarely marketed to Arabs in Israel, the entire family had to build their homes on the same plot of land, with over 70 people, including dozens of children, living in that cramped space with minimal infrastructure.

However, this situation was not profitable for the Amidar bosses. Looking to sell this land off to a real-estate developer who would build upscale apartments, Amidar tried twice to evict the al-Aju family from its land, both in April and June-July of 2011. However, the family did not surrender to the racist court’s orders, and fought back.

Helping the al-Aju family was the Solidarity organization, a broad coalition of Jewish and Arab left-wing activists (mostly students and workers), ranging from liberals to anarchists to communists, who are fighting against the racism, apartheid and fascism of the Israeli regime. At the eviction date in April, Solidarity activists held a rally against Amidar and the cops, and managed to stop the eviction attempt.

In early July, the court issued a “flexible” warrant for a whole month, meaning that Amidar and the cops could evict the al-Aju family from its home, children included, with no notice. To defeat this, Solidarity — in which several PL’ers are active — organized shifts of volunteers to sit at the al-Aju compound, give support to the family, and quickly call in help from additional activists in case the Amidar thugs and the cops showed up.

On July 25th, a large rally was held near the al-Aju compound, where the family’s father said over the bullhorn that he will stay in his house no matter what, and that “the revolution starts from the al-Aju compound.” An activist leader said that the family would be evicted only over his dead body, and a PL’er made the point plainly: “a system that can’t provide everyone with a roof over their heads has to destroyed.”

On July 26th we achieved a victory when the District Court decided to revoke the eviction warrant until further notice. This action gives us a glimpse at the power of the working class, when we are united across boundaries. This was a great training session for what we will need to do to finally defeat the landlords, the cops and the racist courts. 

We call it a training session because this victory, like all reform victories, has an expiration date. The bosses have the ultimate trump card, state power, that they use to undo the major and minor advances that the working class wins. The warrant was revoked “until further notice,” which means that this battle will have to be fought again. But all is not in vain: a family has a little more security in their home — no small thing! But perhaps more importantly, communist ideas have been injected into the struggle. The al-Aju family and Solidarity know that communism is not dead, that there is a Party focused on the day when we will graduate from fighting evictions to fighting against the system that throws working-class families out into the streets.

BROOKLYN, N.Y., July 29 — “So what they’re talking about doing here is building a whole working-class movement, beyond our union,” stated one Brookdale worker to another at a home visit by PLP members. Despite torrential rain, we met to discuss the ongoing struggle at Brookdale Hospital, which foreshadows the even bigger racist cuts coming from the Obama-Tea Party circus, such as the $655 billion federal cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Brookdale Hospital and its 3,500 workers, in the majority black and Latino working-class Brownsville neighborhood have been stripped bare by the racist bosses of MediSys. The misleadership of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU  — see previous CHALLENGE, 8/3).

Workers expressed their disappointment that the fight hasn’t escalated further, regardless of the militant sit-downs and picketing. “When we go outside now to march, we tell everybody in our department, ‘hey! You all should take your lunch break and come march with us!’“

After the previous months of struggle and confrontation between the workers and bosses, these workers didn’t hide their frustration with the declining militancy, and exasperation at how the hospital bosses are getting away scot-free. “We were telling the union for months what was going on here.” Another worker declared, “but they kept telling us to wait until the legal people did something.” The 1199 leaders are out for their own interests; it’s time to call upon new leadership, ourselves.

The MediSys-owned Peninsula Hospital, located in the borough of Queens, announced last week it is closing. This news was received with surprise and anxiety at Brookdale. The union Local 1199 leadership, is not only uninterested in fighting back at Brookdale, but uninterested in fighting back at all! Peninsula Hospital is closing due to the same series of attacks MediSys has made on Brookdale. Union leadership does not have the workers’ interests; as workers we need to unite and fight for our class interests.

A PL’er asked, “Why didn’t the union, which was aware of Peninsula’s troubles for months, organize any solidarity events between Brookdale, Peninsula, and every union member in the city with it’s 250,000 members?”

“Because our union’s in bed with the bosses!” shot back a worker.

PLP isn’t building some union or electoral party, but a fighting, revolutionary communist working-class party.

CHALLENGE, unlike all other media, is the working class’s paper and shows capitalism as the root cause of our current problems. Brookdale workers are learning that PLP is with them shoulder-to-shoulder. A major aspect of our struggle with the Brookdale workers has been trying to keep a long-term outlook. Strike or no strike, “win” or “lose” this round, the bosses’ racist class war rages on against the working class; the struggle continues.

Distribution of CHALLENGE to Brookdale workers, struggling with the workers over the ideas in the paper, making new friends, and uniting our lives through our struggles are the orders of the day. Communist revolution is necessary, and can happen as growing CHALLENGE networks make PLP’s ideas mass ideas.

STRASBOURG, FRANCE, July 7 — Exploiting the give-backs agreed to by the unions last year has spurred GM to further attack the workers at its plant here. This has sparked fierce resistance by the workers. The company claims union secretary and shop steward Roland Robert’s deafness makes him unable to perform work and wants to transfer him to a job over 800 yards away from the factory. But the independent occupational physician assigned to the plant says many jobs exist inside the plant which he could hold down.

In less than two days, 503 fellow workers signed a petition protesting GM’s attack. Yesterday evening, over 100 union reps attended a support meeting. The four trade unions at the plant jointly condemned “management’s maneuvers to isolate…Roland Robert from the shops.”

The Strasbourg GM workers are asking workers everywhere to send support messages to: CGT General Motors, 81 rue de la Rochelle, 67100 Strasbourg France.

GM’s aim is clear: to isolate a union leader, silence worker grievances and weaken the unions at a time when the company continues to envisage closing the plant. More broadly, GM is attacking union rights won through generations of struggle, but that’s the way capitalism works — the bosses, through their control of production and the state, eventually wipe out reforms won by workers’ past battles.

A continuing struggle against last year’s give-back agreement is the background for the enormous pressure on the workers to realize the company’s business plan. The company is pushing for 198 workers to take “voluntary retirement.” The 60 temporary workers in the plant are a constant reminder that nobody’s job is safe.

GM’s Strasbourg plant employs 1,040 workers who produce 270,000 gearboxes a year, half for GM and half for BMW. The average gross monthly wage is 1,800 euros (US$ 2,500).

On March 28, part of the GM workforce here struck against those working conditions and against the July 20, 2010 give-back agreement that resulted in the current wage freeze and abolition of the 35-hour week. (See CHALLENGE, Sept. 8, 2010) The strike was backed by the CGT union but opposed by the sellout CFDT trade union, which includes the majority of workers. The strike ended on March 31 with the CGT saying that “through our strike we have won…a written promise from management on an improvement in working conditions.” But that 2010 agreement on a wage freeze and ending the 35-hour week remains in force and GM’s “promises” are worthless.

GM’s attack on its workers here is one more proof that as long as bosses and their system with its drive for profits exists, workers will always be under the gun. Only a communist society run by and for the workers can end this exploitation.

CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 26 — Among the 4,000 people attending a nationwide Unitarian Universalist convention here, there was sharp debate over issues that directly affect the working class: support for an upcoming supermarket strike, scapegoating of Muslims and withdrawal from Afghanistan.

One resolution called for support for 62,000 Southern California supermarket workers, who will probably go on strike. This would be the biggest labor action in the U.S. since the last Southern California supermarket strike, in 2003 — the biggest fight-back against the notion of “shared sacrifice.” A few objections arose: that boycotts might hurt unionized workers not on strike or that not shopping in certain areas would be impossible. These arguments were countered by one speaker, saying that this detracted from viewing the action as class struggle. The vast majority of delegates voted to support the strike in a variety of ways.

One issue that caused debate was whether representative Peter King’s hearings attacking the Muslim community were related to pressure for continued war in the Middle East. Most attendees agreed racist, hate-inspired King’s assault must be stopped. However, many weren’t prepared to support the idea that the “war on terror” is in reality one of control over resources. With that clause removed, the resolution passed. But all delegates present had been exposed to contradictions in Obama’s promises for withdrawal. The issue of CHALLENGE with an editorial on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline as well as an article about demonstrating at King’s office was sold to 99 delegates.

The resolution on ending the Afghan war was opposed by those who felt it was not of immediate concern (resolutions are categorized as “Actions of Immediate Witness”). The retort came quickly that getting out NOW gave the motion immediacy! While that resolution didn’t receive the 2/3 vote necessary, the specter of this longest war put all else in perspective.

The final plenary voted on an attempt by the trustees to eliminate all Actions of Immediate Witness completely. If it had not been defeated, the most significant debate would have been abolished, along with the chance for delegates to bring issues to the floor. Top-down forces are still at work to divert anti-racist and pro-working-class struggle from even appearing on the agenda.

Historically, there has been movement to organize caucuses into all-black and all-white groups, with emphasis given to “multicultural” ideas. This has been countered by a consciously multi-racial caucus that called lunchtime meetings to strategize our anti-racist presence.

Next year, much business as usual will be set aside when we meet in Phoenix, AZ, with the intent on making the immigration issue primary. While the sentiments of many church-goers are on the side of support to immigrants, what actions are taken on the streets of Phoenix most certainly will be led by rank-and-file members.

This is a vital point. The last act of the last plenary was a neo-fascist move by the moderator to appoint an Accountability Committee to assure that no unapproved actions take place. What makes this committee so dangerous is that two members have been appointed from the Allies for Racial Equity (the all-white group) and the Diverse Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (the “people of color” group), both led by racist, anti-communist misleaders. These two groups have been instrumental in fighting against multi-racial Unitarian Universalism. We have bad news for them: we will organize forces for street actions of immediate witness right there in Phoenix.