PLP Disrupts Clinton, Exposes AFT as Bosses’ Union

ST. PAUL-MINNEAPOLIS, July 21— Setting a militant tone of fightback from the first hours of the American Federation of Teachers convention, the Progressive Labor Party disrupted an arch-enemy of the working class: Hillary Clinton. A multiracial group of PL’ers took positions in the convention hall with a concealed banner that urged, “DON’T VOTE, REVOLT.” When Clinton mentioned Philando Castile, the Black education worker murdered by a cop in a St. Paul suburb twelve days earlier, PL’ers started chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot! Fists up, fight back!” We unfurled the banner and marched toward the stage. As we chanted, “Democrats, Republicans, all the same; racist terror is the name of the game,” Clinton became visibly upset and raised her voice to try to be heard over us. We continued our demonstration through the hall until security and the U.S. Secret Service surrounded and escorted us outside.
While Clinton is famous for her dishonesty and hypocrisy, it was an insult to every worker when she invoked Philando’s name. Alongside her husband, former president Bill Kkklinton, Hillary Clinton was instrumental in the passage of the monstrously racist 1994 crime bill. The Clintons’ “tough-on-crime” policies put 100,000 more cops on the street, expanded the racist death penalty, funneled nearly $10 billion to build more federal prisons, and led directly to racist mass incarceration (see page 4). Mad-dog cop Jeronimo Yanez pulled the trigger on Philando, but the Clintons—and the big bosses they represent—turned Yanez loose.
The AFT, one of two national unions of education workers, is a vital component of U.S. capitalism. The ruling class knows that the cannon fodder for their coming imperialist wars will pass through the public school system. The bosses have a vital interest in tightly controlling the AFT misleadership and guaranteeing that the union supports their pro-imperialist agenda, from the voting booths to the classrooms.
With more and more workers seeing that the system isn’t working, the rulers are more desperate to keep them tied to capitalist illusions and the big lie of electoral “democracy.” The convention appearance by Hillary Clinton was heavily promoted and carefully choreographed. But the AFT misleaders didn’t anticipate four days of political challenges from PLP. Our Party fought to break the union heads’ ideological hold over the more than 2,000 convention delegates. It took planning and hard work to distribute daily bulletins and hold meetings with delegates and friends, and it was worth it. PLP became an alternative voice to the AFT leadership. We showed the possibility of a communist alternative to a world with shoddy schools, racist borders, police terror and imperialist war.
Dare to Plan, Struggle and Win!
We built for the first-day action with a leaflet titled, “Walkout on Hillary Clinton.” Initially, there were angry reactions; some delegates argued we were helping Trump, and that whatever her flaws, Clinton at least was better than him. But many others agreed that Clinton was no friend of workers and students. The AFT and the liberal bosses—who represent finance capital, the dominant wing of the U.S. ruling class—foster the idea that there’s no alternative to electing the “lesser” evil. But communists understand that no capitalist ruler can ever meet the needs of the working class. In reality, liberal capitalist bosses like Barack Obama and the Clintons are more dangerous than open racists like Donald Trump. They disarm working-class fightback and pacify resistance by co-opting workers’ anger and channeling it into boss-led movements and unions. They are the wolves in sheep’s clothing.
In Minnesota, it was essential for PLP to show that a working class under attack cannot accept “business as usual.” AFT President Randi Weingarten is one of the capitalists’ most important agents in leading workers into the arms of Hillary Clinton—and the deadly embrace of U.S. imperialism. In the guise of fighting sexism, class traitors like Weingarten and Clinton defend the source of all sexist oppression and exploitation in the world today: capitalism.
Fight Back for Philando
On the second day, building on our protest of Philando Castile’s legal lynching, St. Paul teachers, parents, students and a local community organization, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, led the way in a multiracial march from the convention to the doorstep of U.S. Bank. Inside the hall, the lying Weingarten paid lip service to the “struggle for racial justice.” But when push came to shove, she tried to limit participation in the march by extending the general session. Many delegates ignored her and walked out to march with the thousand protesters.
Throughout this action, PL’ers connected with fellow workers from Philando’s school. Our leadership reached a high point with chants like, “Shut this racist system dwown,” and a rousing series of “Fight back!” chants that drew local drummers, dancers and marchers into a unified mass of militancy.
Education Workers Gain Confidence in PLP
By the convention’s closing session, after three days of consistent Party leafleting, education workers were eagerly taking our bulletins. Many approached us to find out what PLP was saying. We continued to call out the AFT misleadership’s collaboration with the capitalist bosses and their racist cops. We linked them to the section of the Mexican teacher’s union that has worked with the government to attack and kill teachers in Oaxaca.
This bulletin led to conversations with workers about education workers’ need for international solidarity. We have far more in common with workers in Mexico than with the AFT bosses inside the U.S. We found that ,many workers agree that standing with our class brothers and sisters, and particularly with our students, means we can never collaborate with the police unions that terrorize and murder us.
PLP Poses Threat to AFT
After four days of our disrupting the convention, the union chiefs finally sent security to kick us out of the hall. This was a victory for PLP: We’d become too big a threat to their ideological control of their rank and file. Too many workers were resisting! As security tried to rush us out, a PL’er made a speech about why we were being ejected: We’d exposed the misleadership’s racism and their role as a tool of the bosses.
Then we went back inside with a single copy of our leaflet. We loudly announced that Weingarten and her fellow stooges were so scared that they’d no longer allow us to distribute literature, and so we had returned to read it to the workers. About two paragraphs in, AFT officials came running to stop us, terrified of being even more exposed. They insisted that our ejection was all a misunderstanding. As we handed out hundreds more leaflets, several workers thanked PL’ers for standing up to the union misleadership.
Workers Can Break Bosses’ Hold
The AFT convention powerfully showed to all the union misleaders’ traitorous service to this racist, imperialist, blood-soaked profit system. Even more important, PLP showed our potential to weaken the bosses’ ideological control—the foundation for capitalist state power. Workers can be won to see communism as workers’ only alternative. By developing deep ties with workers and building a communist political base, the Party can break the bosses’ death grip on our class.  
Members and friends of PLP must take these lessons and sharpen the struggle to organize within the bosses’ mass organizations, including unions and reform groups. When we share our lives and communist ideas with our co-workers, and fight alongside them in open class struggle, workers who seem passive today may be moved into battle tomorrow. This work will be crucial in leading our class to make the ultimate break with capitalism, build for a communist revolution, and create a world run by and for the international working class.