Delivery workers demand Sage restaurant serve justice

BROOKLYN, April 30 – Early this month delivery workers made a brave decision to stage a protest and work stoppage against their racist bosses at Sage, a Thai restaurant in the Williamsburg neighborhood. These mostly Latin and immigrant workers had been meeting with a Bushwick-based community organization, in which Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is active. The racist bosses at Sage have stolen $500,000 in back pay from their workers (Eater New York, 4/3). The workers are also seeking paid overtime and sick leave. Capitalism exists to extract profits from all workers, and superprofits from our class’ most vulnerable members. These working class fighters are starting to realize they have the power to change their condition. PLP is working to move them even further, to fight for a world free from all exploitation—communism.

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Oakland celebrates May Day

OAKLAND—Progressive Labor Party comrades and friends held our annual May Day dinner tonight for the Bay Area and the Davis/Sacramento area. In the tradition of this workers’ holiday, we gathered in solidarity with the international working class to celebrate many struggles over the past year that have developed multi-racial, multi-generational, working-class unity.
This unity was in full display among the 60-plus participants at our event. It was set up and moderated to encourage active participation from everyone.  There were “Question and Answer” and “table talk sessions”, as well as poetry. We made plans to participate in various May Day activities such, as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down of the Oakland Port and a coalition march. We ended with singing the working-class anthem, The Internationale, and a collective clean-up of the room.

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China’s cyber fascism

Having state power means controlling the government, military, police, schools, and other institutions. It also means controlling mass technology—as China’s capitalist bosses are now demonstrating as they implement full-blown fascism. From artificial intelligence to various phone apps pushing ruling-class ideas, the Chinese bosses are both attacking and mobilizing workers to serve the bosses’ interests while crushing dissent within their own ranks.

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There’s nothing socialist about Venezuela

In flagrant violation of the Donald Trump administration’s threats, the Venezuelan oil bosses are planning on welcoming two more Russian imperialist military planes with supplies to support the government of Nicolas Maduro (Buzz Feed News, 4/15). The latest  support for the desperate Maduro government comes after the Russian bosses already sent supplies and 100 troops aboard two Russian military planes to Venezuela late last month(CBS News, 4/4).

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Puerto Rico trip affirms working-class solidarity

PUERTO RICO, April 15 —Two years after Hurricane Maria, the capitalist disaster that ravaged Puerto Rico’s working class, six young Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members from New York and New Jersey returned to the island earlier this month (see letter on page 6).
The trip was organized as a follow up to last year’s summer project, the Puerto Rico Brigade, with the purpose of reinforcing our bonds of solidarity, and delivering PLP’s internationalist message to our working-class brothers and sisters surviving there.

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Grad students expose rotten university system

CHICAGO, April 5—Graduate workers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) along with their supporters gathered for a rally on campus today to mark the end of their three-week strike against the racist university administration. The Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) Local 6297 union, representing some 1,600 workers, secured a tentative contract guaranteeing annual raises and a decrease in parasitic university fees.
The strike has been instrumental in further exposing the exploitative working conditions for graduate and teacher assistants, which inevitably translate into inferior learning conditions for the university’s predominately Black, Latin, and international student population.

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NYPD targets antiracists, workers expose liberal fascism

THE BRONX, April 15—The police picked on the wrong family when they arrested Yajaira Saavedra. She and her family own La Morada restaurant, a place of antiracism and fightback for undocumented and immigrant workers. As racist cops carried out business as usual in the South Bronx, terrorizing Black and Latin workers, our class was ready to fight back.
The family called a community press conference. Progressive Labor Party particiapted and recognizes it as part of a bigger fight against capitalism and racism. “I was under the impression that I was in a sanctuary city, but more barriers are being placed by the mass policing that targets unjustly the working class like my family and local street vendors,” Natalia Mendez, the mother of the family, told the press (Civil Eats, 1/18). Clearly, sanctuary is no protection for workers.

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Transit workers and riders unite!

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) controls all of New York City’s public transportation. Over a year ago it proposed a 15-month complete shutdown of the L train subway line, in order to complete much needed repairs. Just four months before the repairs were to begin, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo played the hero role and announced a new plan so as not to “inconvenience” the riding public. That’s a big lie, typical of all politicians. The transit system was built to get workers to work. The trains function for the “convenience” of the bosses not the workers.

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Free Ramsey Orta, working-class hero! Jail racist murderer Daniel Pantaleo

STATEN ISLAND, NY, April 16— On May 13, a phony NYPD departmental “disciplinary” trial will be held for Daniel Pantaleo, the racist cop who murdered Eric Garner on July 17, 2014, using a banned chokehold. While Eric was being murdered, Ramsey Orta, a neighborhood resident, turned on his cell phone and took a video of the murder of his friend. Ramsey filmed the killing while seven other callous cops and Emergency Medical Techincians watched and did nothing as Eric said, “I can’t breathe” eleven times.

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Turn collective reforestation into communist revolution

In 2010 a terrible earthquake killed 3,000 workers in Haiti. After years of U.S.,Canadian, French and other foreign corporations exploit Haiti’s resources, the workers of Haiti were left vulnerable to this capitalist-made disaster. Every year since then the Haitian non-profit FEDASE, along with members of our church, have been organizing an annual fundraising dinner to support the efforts of grassroots organizers in Haiti.

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