Retirees support immigrant workers, fight nationalism

Washington, DC, 7/23 - Worker’s struggles have no borders! That was the sentiment that led members of NYC’s District Council 37 Retirees’ Association (including a Progressive Labor Party member) to bring a strong resolution of support for immigrants facing “racist, cruel and uncaring” policies to the nationwide retiree council of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The world’s capitalists are ramping up racism and nationalism in preparation for more and bigger wars. Workers all around the world must sharpen our efforts to smash all borders with multiracial unity as we build a revolutionary movement for communism.
At the retiree association meeting, our more immediate and limited goal was to encourage each of the council’s participants to “join efforts, with others in the labor movement as well as with community and religious partners, in support of immigrant rights.” 
We pointed out in our motion that immigrants around the world are forced to migrate “due to a combination of political and religious persecution, government repression and narco terrorist gangs and the lack of jobs and economic opportunity…” We also argued that these problems were based on the history of colonialism and imperialism around the world. That’s why, as we fight to support our immigrant sisters and brothers, we must build the understanding that the entire worldwide imperialist system has to go.
Prior toa the vote most of the voting representatives were spoken to and were supportive of our intent. The motion passed overwhelmingly, reflecting the disgust felt by most at the treatment of immigrants and their children at the southern U.S. border.
  Our actions in Washington grew out of the “Lights for Liberty” rallies held on July 12th. In NYC, there was, at best, modest participation from organized labor.
This raised the issue of trying to bring support for immigrants into our unions. The following week, at a small gathering of retirees of one city union, an immigrant from El Salvador was invited to explain this issue. He told of his forced migration to the U.S. He had been on a death list in the late 1970s. His story personalized the general story of the dangerous but necessary trip many are taking today.
 He galvanized the resolve of several retirees who would be attending the retiree council to take action there. Prior to going to Washington for the AFSCME retiree council meeting, a member of PLP joined with other retirees to craft a resolution to present there. We understood that a resolution wouldn’t by itself change much. Nor would AFSCME likely act on the resolution. We felt that local union chapters, however, could cite this resolution in calling together union and community coalitions.
If actions like ours were replicated in other mass organizations, then demonstrations like those on July 12th would take on a different character. We could raise the ideas of smashing all borders, of fighting racism with multiracial unity, and of building a revolutionary movement for an egalitarian communist world. Today, facing a “dark night” of limited class struggle, a lot of work must be done to win workers to these communist politics of the Progressive Labor Party.