BROOKLYN, NY — “They [the Department of Education — DoE] are segregating kids again. Just like the Jim Crow laws. Blacks and whites were separated: different schools and different water fountains. There’s barely a difference.”

One student wrote this in response to reading the last issue of CHALLENGE, highlighting the sharp struggle in our school. The truth is that under capitalism, the school system will only serve the needs of the racist bosses. The only way that we can truly serve our students and community is by getting rid of the bosses and their schools. Then, under a communist society, we will have true education for our students.

The DoE has released an “Educational Impact Statement” which lays out its plans to put in a new selective school in our building. While they claim they want to provide “all students” with a “high quality education,” the academic requirements of the new school will leave behind most low-income black and Latino students, especially special education students and English-language learners.

They contradict themselves by saying that the building is under-utilized while eliminating two of the middle schools in the building to make room for the new Brooklyn Millenium School.

The DoE told us there will be $3-5 million in capital improvements made to the building, but only if the new school comes in. That sum seems like a lot, but the building is in such disrepair that it would take much more money than that to make the building clean and safe.

Some parents and teachers are skeptical that the new school will attract enough white students, since middle-class parents have been made to fear sending their students through metal detectors to  a majority black and Latino building.

There is talk about taking out the metal detectors to attract more students to the new school. One student wrote, “Why take out the metal detectors now that the new school is coming? We have been asking for this for years. I find that really racist. They treat us like criminals with the metal detectors.”

Since last issue, we have had a combined union meeting with all the schools in our building and one parent meeting. As we go to press, we are preparing for a follow-up parent meeting and a debate panel presentation and rally.

At our parent meeting, we had a slightly larger turnout than last meeting. We definitely need to work harder on building a deeper base with parents and students. We have many things to do before the public hearing — write to the media, get as many facts as possible, but mostly organize, organize, organize!

At our combined union meeting, we discussed different issues in the struggle, and why we need to fight back. One comrade rightly pointed out the historical example of how communists fought evictions by moving those evicted back into their apartments during the 1930s U.S. Depression.

The union meeting brought out more teachers than our regular fight-back meetings, and we heard from more people. The union district representative called himself a union flunkie, and in the doublespeak that union hacks and bosses know how to use so well, described in the same breath why we should vote for politicians and why politicians do nothing for us.

Many teachers have said our campus might not win this fight to keep out the new school. One teacher said it best: “We might not win this, but we have learned much through struggle. The silver lining is that fighting beside and with parents, students, and fellow teachers has forced us to get to know everyone in a more authentic way.” This non-communist teacher was expressing our belief that revolution is born out of class struggle.

In the upcoming weeks, we need to continue to build with parents, students, and people in the community. We need to make sure that CHALLENGE is the paper of record in our struggle, our flag. We need to introduce as many people as possible to the Party’s ideas.

Through this struggle, the Party is becoming a real presence in our school, with more students, teachers and parents exposed to communist ideas. “Is this our school newspaper?” one debater asked when a Party member distributed CHALLENGE at a debate team practice.

Our actual school newspaper just published its inaugural issue full of articles about the situation. The students and teachers responsible for the newspaper were not afraid to address the racism of the DoE’s plans. The articles have been picked up by neighborhood blogs, drawing both racist and supportive comments, expanding the debate.

Our big chance to stand up in unity against the bosses’ plans is coming soon. The DoE is required to hold public hearings before making changes to any schools, and our’s is on January 11. While we know that these hearings usually serve as rubber stamps for decisions which have already been made, we are planning to attend in full force, parents, teachers, students and community members, to fight back. Even if the DoE follows through on its plans, we will have learned, and hopefully grown, a lot from this struggle. J Join us at the public hearing. Show the racist Department of Education that we won’t take this lying down!

Date: January 11th, 2011

Time: 6pm

Location: JohnJay Campus, 237 7th Ave,   

                Brooklyn, NY 11217



OAKLAND, CA, December 13 — The results of the “neutral” arbitration between AC Transit (mass transit in SF Bay Area)  and ATU 192 have come back: major sacrifices for bus drivers, mechanics, and maintenance workers.  Topping the long list is an unprecedented 6% pay CUT in the first year of the contract.  Also, the company will no longer pay workers for the first day off when they call in sick. Sick workers will have to come in to work, if they can’t afford to miss a day’s pay. For parents who are holding  a whole family together on one paycheck — and there are many among us — this is blackmail. 

These are the results of the supposedly “neutral” arbitrator.  But how can the process be called “neutral” when transit workers have to bail out the transit agency?  We didn’t cause the crisis, the banks did! Yet the banks and corporations don’t have to pay extra, even though the transportation WE provide adds value to THEIR real estate and allows THEIR businesses to function. 

Without a Fight

At a special meeting in July, the International union representative said, “I believe AC management is scared to go to arbitration.” Scared?!  Management wasn’t “scared” of arbitration.  They only opposed arbitration because they knew the union leadership was not prepared to strike.  They punked the union — and our President had the nerve to “thank” the arbitrator!  As recently as November’s union meeting, the local President still called the Arbitration a “victory.”

Many drivers say, “What they’re trying to do is  break the union.” 

OK, question: Who needs to “break” the union, when management is already able to cut our pay without a fight?  The union is broken already — from the International on down. 

Out of the Woodwork

Now that the damage is done, workers are upset.  Most of the blame is placed on our local union leadership, and many workers want to replace them.  In this situation, people start to pop out of the woodwork, and talk about running for union office. 

These people have organized nothing over the past several years.  No protests, no newsletters, no nothing.  Many don’t even go to union meetings.  Some are ex-union officials who have been in hibernation since they got booted out last time, and want to hold office again.  Others are people who like to pretend like they have all the answers, and if only they were president, they would be “smart” enough to “get things done.”

Need a Movement

As much as people might want to believe that electing the right person could solve our problems, what we need is a mass movement.  The history taught in school in this capitalist society tells us that the leader is everything, the masses are nothing.  But communists don’t buy it — we know that masses of people make history, especially through protests, strikes and revolutions.

Instead of focusing on who the next President will be, we need to get started building a movement that involves rank-and-file union members.  We have a lot of work to do: produce a newsletter, protest at the Board Meetings for the re-hire of our laid-off co-workers, and prepare for future job actions.  This is going to be a hard, long process.  But it’s the only way for transit workers to get a taste of the real power that we have: power in numbers, power to shut down transportation, power to shut down the capitalist economy.  That’s a lot of power! 

Workers power’ is a “dirty little secret” that the bankers and CEO’s don’t want us to find out about because once we do, we might use it to make a revolution!  That’s why Progressive Labor Party is organizing a Political Economy class in the Bay Area.  Any transit workers who would like to understand more about how capitalism works are invited.  Once we are conscious of our true strength as a working class, nothing can stop us! J



HARTFORD, CT., December 10 — The struggle at four nursing homes owned by Spectrum Health Care continues (see CHALLENGE, 12/1), with the bosses locking out the workers and the city government breaking the picket line.

The strike, which began in April over wages, holidays and harassment of union workers, became a lockout in August when the union, SEIU-affiliated District 1199, agreed to return to work with no conditions attached. However, since then the Park Street facility here has re-called only about 10 workers of the total work-force of 100, an average of three per month, and not according to seniority.

Furthermore, the jobs are far short of the original ones. All but one are per diem; previously most workers had 32- or 40-hour schedules. Both company actions are Unfair Labor Practices. A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing on Spectrum’s many previous Unfair Practices, originally scheduled for November 2, was postponed until January 25. (NLRB decisions are notorious for screwing workers.)

Meanwhile, the City of Hartford has broken the workers’ picket line, ordering them off the street, thereby taking the company’s side (as all government’s generally do). It is now a “stand around.”

The City claims salaries for three cops at the picket line is “too expensive” so they’ve lowered it to two, charged with barring workers from forming a picket line on the street. They must stay on the sidewalk or be subject to arrest. 

Last week the CHALLENGE correspondent brought the movie “Salt of the Earth” — about a New Mexico zinc-miners’ strike — to the workers. They watched the film with obvious enthusiasm.

Afterwards, standing around the fire barrel on the sidewalk, people were talking about the call-backs. One woman said the company “should call everyone back to work together, just like we went out together.”

Another added, “They’re trying to split us up.”

“Just like in the movie,” said the first.

When told that the current CHALLENGE had no article about their struggle, another worker took the paper saying, “That’s okay.  I like to read other stories, not just about here.” 



PHILADELPHIA, December 13 — Since the 1980’s the bosses have been attacking workers’ pensions in South America, Africa, and Asia. They have had plenty of practice that they can now use against workers in Europe and the U.S. Philadelphia hospital workers are now facing this same attack.

Bosses’ View of Aging Workers: Garbage

What should happen to working people when they are too old or too sick to work anymore? The bosses believe that this is not their problem. Throughout the history of capitalism they have shown that they will use workers to make profits and then discard us like garbage when we are no longer productive.

Capitalism organizes society to make profits for a tiny minority of rich people at the expense of the vast majority of working people. But workers create all wealth. Therefore communists believe we have the right to be taken care of in old age after spending our lives contributing to society. Communism would organize society to fulfill the needs of the working class.

Why then do we have pensions and Social Security in this capitalist society? Only because the labor movement fought for many years to limit the cruelty of the bosses. Social Security was won during the Great Depression of the 1930’s because of the violent united struggles of employed and unemployed workers, often under the leadership of the old communist movement.

Unfortunately these battles only reformed the capitalist system instead of doing away with it. Now capitalism is failing again around the world. In order to survive in this competitive world each capitalist must drain as much profit as possible from the workers. They no longer afford to let us have pensions and social security in our old age.

Stocks Down = Pensions Down

Due to layoffs and wage cuts, less money has been going into the pension here. Also, the pension fund lost money on the failing stock market and must be reformed to meet government regulations. The bosses want to stop putting any money into the pension. The Pension Protection Act, a law passed by the fascist Bush, will allow them to do this.

The capitalist labor leaders in 1199c are proposing an eight-point plan which involves concessions to the bosses to keep workers’ pensions. This is a losing strategy. These “leaders” made countless concessions to the bosses over the years and the living conditions for the workers have grown steadily worse. If we make concessions to the hospital bosses they will whittle away at the pension until it is gone.

We must fight for our pension and prepare for a strike in 2012! Millions of workers have struck in France against the governments’ attack on their pensions. We must have this same fighting spirit. Philly hospital workers are organizing a rank and-file movement to lead this battle.

But even if we win in 2012 we will still be under attack. Workers already won pensions and Social Security many years ago. But because we live in a capitalist society, a dictatorship of the bosses, all of our victories are only temporary. The bosses can always use their control of the government to take back what we win.

If we are ever going to win the true victory, the liberation of the working class, we must fight to get rid of capitalism forever. We must fight for communism, a society that will use the wealth we create to fulfill human needs. We can build a world where the aging workers are respected and cared for after their long years of work; where the young can use their labor to build a bright future rather than to line the pockets of the rich.

Join the Progressive Labor Party in this fight for a better world! 

To contact Philly PLP, Call: 267-319-3515