PHILADELPHIA, June 15 — On May 9, a racist Philadelphia cop murdered a 19-year-old unarmed black worker, Albert D. “Audi” Purnell, Jr. This young man was shot in cold blood after he had followed police orders and raised his hands in the air and surrendered. He was shot in front of a number of witnesses. The KKKops claimed he had a gun and “fit the description” of a suspect they were searching for. The witnesses have all declared that the police murdered him.

Audi’s father, Albert Purnell, Sr., a hospital worker and friend of PLP, and his mother Tracey are demanding justice for their murdered son. Hahnemann hospital workers are mad as hell and supporting this struggle against the racist cops.

Audi had just graduated from high school and begun working in the mechanical engineering section of the Department of Welfare. He was the father of a young daughter whom he loved dearly. He was on his way to visit his fiancé and their daughter when he was killed. The police and district attorney are doing everything they can to cover up this racist murder, including arresting and trying to intimidate the witnesses and seizing any video surveillance cameras in the area. They’re refusing to reveal the names of the cops and other details of the investigation.

Since this police murder, they have shot seven more black men in Philadelphia, including a SEPTA bus driver. PL members, along with their friends among the hospital workers, are taking an active part in the growing movement against this racist police terror. (More details in future issues.)

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, June 13 —  Bravely refusing to buy into the rhetoric of “shared sacrifice,” 62,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike against the three major Southern California supermarket chains: Ralph’s, Albertson’s, and Vons.

The workers’ contract expired in March, and a strike could start in June or early July. It is critical for workers throughout Southern California, the United States and the world to support this strike. Progressive Labor Party should take the lead in organizing support from workers in other unions and from non-unionized workers, from community organizations, churches, schools…everywhere.

The supermarket chains are out to take another bite out of workers’ health benefits and pensions, as they did in 2003. That was when they introduced a two-tier wage system, which divided workers and gave the bosses an incentive to get rid of better-paid veteran workers. The workers’ willingness to strike is especially noteworthy given the defeat they suffered in the five-month strike/lockout in 2003.

When members of our church talked to workers at a nearby supermarket, they were excited to hear that we wanted to support them on the picket line and serve meals to striking workers at the church. Activities such as these could build class solidarity and create an environment in which we can win workers to the need for communist revolution, which would be the most important outcome of this strike.

This outlook is the opposite of the approach of the UFCW leaders. The union helped elect Jerry Brown governor of California by donating members’ money — which should have gone into their strike fund — and by organizing telephone banks. Brown wants to shore up the declining capitalist economy by pushing “shared sacrifice,” meaning working people sacrifice while bosses take more and more. (The LA Times reported that UFCW Local 770 President Rick Icaza was paid $273,404 in 2002—the last year his salary was made public.) Furthermore, it looks like the UFCW leaders, along with the Los Angles County Federation of Labor, are ready to replay the strategy that led to the 2003 defeat:

• No national union strategy to counter the national strategy of the supermarket chains, which used profits from stores throughout the U.S. to continue despite losses of $2 billion locally;

• Too little too late in organizing local support from other unions and community organizations;

• Allowing supermarkets to operate with scabs (who were paid almost double the wages of union workers). With mass support on picket lines, workers could have prevented access to the stores or even occupied them and shut them down;

• Returning to work despite the chains’ firing of over 600 militant workers for “misconduct” during the strike.

Icaza has repeatedly said that he thinks strikes are old-fashioned and should no longer be necessary. A few months ago he said in a radio interview, “I think the employers are gonna look at this and say to themselves, ‘We have the authority to go forward,’ and instead of what they’ve been doing in the past — stalling — they’re gonna sit down and bargain in good faith.”

On June 11, Icaza said, “We compromised on the pension issue. Now is the time for management to compromise on health care.” In other words, the union leadership has already agreed to give-backs on pensions in return, so far, for nothing. In fact, the supermarket chains are demanding give-backs in healthcare that could cost each worker $7,000 a year. No doubt Icaza is getting ready to announce a “victory” — workers will lose “only” $1,000 or $2,000 in healthcare benefits.

The average veteran full-time supermarket worker makes less than $30,000 a year — barely enough to live in high cost-of-living Southern California. Most workers make far less, as they get only 24 hours of work per week. Many keep their jobs only because of the health benefits.

This is a great chance for us to support and build class struggle and working-class unity. We can use this struggle to win workers to the real solution to their problems: dumping capitalism, with its profits and bosses, with communist revolution.  Let’s get out to the picket lines (or supermarkets outside Southern California) — with our friends — and support our fellow workers!

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, June 15 — “These cuts make one wonder whether the Cook County Board of Health is malicious or just incompetent,” a physician stated at a recent hearing.  One of the latest budget-slashing moves by the Cook County bosses is to not re-apply for WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program.  Mostly funded by federal money, WIC provides nutritional support to pregnant women and their infants or small children. Yet the Board is aiming to literally take milk away from babies!

At a recent hearing on this issue, pediatric healthcare providers spoke out against the cut.  One pointed out that it was racist because it will affect mostly black and Latino children.  A hospital board member felt compelled to criticize the use of words like “racist” or “Nazi” (a term used by the public to characterize the board at previous hearings). This time around, the Board voted down this particular cut. But keep in mind that these Board members are the same people who are going all out to try to close two of the County’s three public hospitals. They may yet scuttle the WIC program when they meet again on June 24.

Under instructions from recently-elected Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, a liberal Democrat, the Board of Health has advanced a plan to close Oak Forest and Provident hospitals, which serve primarily black and Latino patients on the city’s South and West Sides.  Multiple hearings on the closure of Oak Forest have brought out many residents to demand that the hospital remain open (see CHALLENGE, 5/11).  After the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board (IHFSRB) denied permission for the closure, Preckwinkle pushed a bill through the State Senate to close the hospital without IHFSRB approval. The bill failed to reach the House floor before the General Assembly adjourned this spring. 

Despite this stay of execution, Oak Forest services had already been drastically decreased. Only about a dozen patients are slated to remain at the hospital. There will be no surgeries, no intensive care, no acute rehabilitation; the “hospital” will be a glorified emergency room.  And there is no guarantee that it won’t be completely closed in the near future.

The bosses explain that these cuts are necessary to keep the state fiscally solvent, even if it means targeting the workers at the bottom. But budget shortfalls do not exist in a void.  According to Joshua Holland of U.S. Labor Against the War, “Forty-six states face budget shortfalls in this fiscal year, totaling $130 billion nationwide. The supplemental requests for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan this year add up to $170 billion — that doesn’t include the Pentagon’s base budget, nukes or Homeland Security.”

The priorities of those ruling the U.S. have nothing to do with providing decent healthcare or pensions to workers, the two items most often blamed for the state’s budget woes. This past year, the County allocated $126 million in their capital budget to build administrative offices at the old Cook County Hospital — enough to fund inpatient care at Oak Forest for more than five years. At every level, capitalism is full of disconnects between its relentless drive for profit and the basic needs of workers for a decent life.

Despite the cutbacks, there are positive aspects to this struggle. A number of dedicated and principled people have come out repeatedly to try to save what’s left of healthcare in Cook County. Their example is inspiring, and none of our minor victories could have happened without their speaking up and banding together.  In addition, everyone involved has learned some important lessons from the fight over Oak Forest, which has lain bare the illusions of voting and “democracy.”  Preckwinkle was billed as “more competent” and “less corrupt” than her predecessor, Todd Stroger, but she is fighting tooth and nail to strip the County of healthcare services.

Finally, it has become clear that capitalism is at the root of these problems. A system that
places profits before people requires imperialist wars to be funded above all else, leaving workers in the cold.  Although we will keep fighting to keep our hospitals open and our children fed, we know that only the complete destruction of this capitalist system will lead to healthy outcomes for all.

GREECE, June 21 — The working class in Greece is under a severe attack by the capitalist ruling class, and they are fighting back. Taking a lesson from the workers in Spain, thousands of Greek workers are occupying Syntagma Square outside of Parliament in Athens. Like the Spanish and Egyptian workers, they are setting up assemblies to discuss what actions to take against the coming cuts and layoffs. Although the workers are braving severe state repression in these acts of defiance, the assemblies are just as reformist as their Spanish and Egyptian counterparts, pushing for reformist and pacifist positions (see CHALLENGE, 6/08).

When the assemblies decided to peacefully blockade Parliament as part of a general strike against the Socialist Party-led government that approved the cuts, the state did not “turn the other cheek.” The kkkops attacked with clubs and tear gas, and the ultra-nationalist fascists in Greece began attacking many of the protestors, supporting the kkkops as paramilitary forces. So much for pacifism being anything other than a pathologically suicidal position designed to get workers to passively slaughter themselves for a pathetic “moral high ground.”

The economic aspect of imperialism is that foreign capital subjugates the national interests to the needs of the creditor states in the name of profit — and there is a lot at stake for the Greek ruling class, and capitalists around the world. The German ruling class that is behind the bailouts demands privatization of Greek resources, such as ports and utility companies. This will not only lay off thousands of workers while driving down wages, but it will also open up Greece, and thereby Europe, to their imperialist rival bosses in China and Russia, who are looking to buy ports in Thessaloniki and gain a foothold in the energy market. In addition, France, the U.S.’s closest ally in the European Union, is now in danger because a major international credit agency, Moody’s, said it might downgrade the three largest banks in France because of their exposure to Greek debt.

With a mass revolutionary communist PLP based in the native-born and immigrant Greek working class, dedicated to revolution and a communist society, the rolling strikes and looming general strikes could indeed be transformed into insurrections for state power. Unfortunately, there were a lot of Greek flags at the protest because many leftists and workers have fallen into the trap of believing that they should support their national bosses against the international bosses in the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  Unlike the old communist movement, the Progressive Labor Party believes nationalism is a dead end for the working class, and fights to organize internationally amongst all workers as a class.

Without the Party there can be no revolution.  The brave workers of Greece are inspiring to the international working class and are illustrating internationalism by learning from their class sisters and brothers in Spain and Egypt and refusing to lie down and be trampled by the bosses, but we need to build a revolutionary PLP to go all the way and seize power!