CHICAGO, October 24 – Over a dozen multiracial workers and union organizers gathered in front of Holy Cross Hospital on the city’s south side this morning to protest against racist cutbacks in healthcare. Days before, the owners of the hospital, Sinai Health System, announced drastic reductions to its services, including cutting the number of beds by more than half, closing units, and laying off workers.
Given the fact that Holy Cross is located in a majority Black and Latin working-class community, these cuts are racist to the core. They reflect the capitalist bosses’ use of healthcare as a profit-making industry, one that makes decisions ultimately based on money and influence, not on workers’ needs. Only by smashing the racist profit system of capitalism through a mass communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) can we ever guarantee the level of health the working class needs and deserves.
They say cut back, we say fight back
On October 21, the racist Sinai bosses sprung the announcement on hospital workers about the cuts. They announced reducing the number of inpatient beds from 264 to just 110. They have indefinitely suspended the obstetrics and gynecology services. According to the bosses, the hospital has been operating at a monthly loss of $2 million dollars since the summer. Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital, also part of Sinai, is facing a similar mass reduction in beds (Chicago Tribune, 10/22).
Many of the Holy Cross workers reported being taken by surprise by the announcement. Some even said that they learned about potentially losing their jobs second-hand, through their
coworkers. Some workers are being offered severance packages, while others will now be forced to travel to other Sinai locations just to keep their jobs.
At the main Sinai Hospital campus on the city’s west side, many workers learned about the cuts to Holy Cross during contract negotiations with the bosses. A few hundred hospital workers here are organized through the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) healthcare local, including some PLP comrades. The bosses at the table just acted like it was no big thing, like having dozens and dozens of workers shuffled around to other buildings wouldn’t affect the hours and job status of other workers.
SEIU scrambled to put together a press conference, but it was clear to it was too little, too late. There were more union organizers and press there than hospital workers. What’s worse, they brought out some of the usual liberal politicians and religious misleaders who only care about making pretty speeches and securing some votes, but are always short on action when push comes to shove.
In contrast, those of us in PLP have been using the cuts as a rallying cry for workers on the necessity to build the struggle against the racist bosses and their attacks. Although it’s Holy Cross and Schwab facing cuts today, if we as workers aren’t organized, it could very well be the rest of us in the crosshairs in a month or year from now. Our coworkers are receptive to this line, as are they open to receiving CHALLENGE as we prepare for a potential strike of Mount Sinai and Schwab workers on November 11th.
Fascism and war threats grow
Sinai’s decision to make the cuts at Holy Cross is part of a larger trend under capitalist healthcare. Throughout the U.S, larger hospital networks such as Sinai are buying up more local community hospitals, then imposing drastic cuts and even shuttering them altogether. When they bought Holy Cross in 2014, the Sinai bosses announced that they were going to convert it into a Level 1 trauma center that still remains desperately needed on the city’s south side. Fast forward five years, and it now stands at risk of closing. To this end, it joins the ranks of MetroSouth and Westlake Hospital, two safety-net hospitals in the area that have faced closure within the last year (Patch, 7/29).
When the larger  wealthier hospital systems cut services on a local level, they are forcing workers and their families to travel greater distances to receive care. These larger systems could then be less likely to accept public insurance such as Medicaid used by low-income workers, effectively cutting off much of their healthcare entirely.
From 2009 to 2014, the number of announced hospital consolidations in the U.S. doubled (nihcm.org). A hallmark of fascism (capitalism in crisis) is increasing amounts of monopolization among major industries. This, paired with the bosses’ politicians of all stripes slashing social safety nets for workers in favor of funding their imperialist war machine for upcoming war against rivals China and Russia, could spell a very deadly future for workers.
Fight for a communist future
But fortunately for us, the future is not yet decided. By learning through our fight against the racist hospital bosses, we can build our fighting PLP and crush capitalism and its racist profiteering off workers’ health. In its place, we can organize a collective communist society where we run all hospitals and clinics based on our needs.