Baltimore: Protesters force top cop nominee to withdraw

BALTIMORE, January 5—A nearly unanimous “No way!” was the powerful answer to the confirmation of Mayor Catherine Pugh’s nominee, Joel Fitzgerald, as Baltimore’s next police commissioner. He would have been the City’s fifth top cop in less than four years since the Freddie Gray rebellion in 2015, which put fear in the hearts, and instability in the decision-making, of the local ruling class.
Several days before the City Council hearing, 11 West Wednesday protesters participated in the third monthly CHALLENGE Readers’ Discussion Group. (West Wednesdays are the continuing protests in response to the murder of Tyrone West in July 18, 2013.) One of the topics was about organizing speakers at the hearing, which we succeeded in doing!

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Letter: Tijuana, ground zero for fascism vs. refugee workers

I recently returned from a week in Tijuana, Mexico, responding to a call by the New Sanctuary Caravan to lend moral and other support to our brothers and sisters fleeing from Central America. Their bold call was a pro-internationalist to president Donald Trump and the U.S. ruling class’s racist divisiveness.
Tijuana is one of the largest ports of entry in the world, and even though the vast majority of migrants/refugees are from Central America, they are also from many other countries, like Haiti, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Russia, and Mexico itself, fleeing the poverty and instability that the system of imperialism produces.  And the U.S. embassies refuse to grant them visas to the U.S. (So much for the argument that “They should come ‘the right way’”). 

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Ruling class dispute shuts down workers

WASHINGTON D.C, January 20–There is one thing the now 29 day old government shutdown shows for sure; neither Donald Trump nor his Democratic opponents have any concern for workers, the main victims of this power game between the main imperialist wing of the ruling class and the domestically oriented, Republican Trump supporters.

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Union election reveals collusion of MTA & sellout union

New York City, January 20—As the dust settles on the recent TWU local 100 (largest transit union in the country) elections the uncertainty that permeates the U.S., and is now is reflecting itself within the union and its members. This past election was held in the midst of pressure on the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) bosses to answer for unreliable service and mounting debt. The bosses’ answer has been a threat to raise fares, impose a hiring freeze, harsher discipline, and to cry broke.
The reality is that the best fix for the transit system is to do away with politicians and the MTA bosses. A worker run society will put the needs of the working class first about what and where service is needed. Under this capitalist system service needs are determined by what benefits the billionaire bankers and business owners. The working class ridership and MTA workers united against the politicians, real estate moguls, MTA bosses, and ultimately their masters the banks, is the only force than can win a better subway system in the short term and a better world, communism, in the long term.

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Mexico organizes education conference for masses

The collective of an industrial zone of the State of Mexico, together with friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), presented a report on the “Special Economic Zones” and the “Law of Internal Security” in a private preschool near where we live. In that school the director, partners, teachers, and parents have shown interest in the Party’s line and have supported us in all the political and cultural activities that we have carried out. The collective has openly presented itself as members of PLP, an international communist party.
The school principal convened the mothers and fathers of the children to attend the session. At the beginning of the talk we made a presentation about PLP in the classroom, and 27 people participated in the discussion.The information presented dealt with current issues concerning the political climate which affect the entire working class.

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PL & friends protest against Amazon takeover

NEW YORK CITY, January 20– A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is very involved in the struggles of workers around housing, health, racism and workplace exploitation. As 2019 began, we have been active in support of the Central American Caravan and against the invasion of Amazon, one of the largest companies in the world, which will be building its second headquarters in Queens.

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Van Dyke jailed; politicans exploit Laquan’s murder

CHICAGO,January 18—Judge Vince Gaughan sentenced racist killer cop Jason Van Dyke to a pathetic 81 months in prison for his brutal murder of Black teenager LaQuan McDonald in October of 2014. The day before, three other racist cops from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) were cleared of all charges in connection to their role in covering up for Van Dyke in the aftermath of LaQuan’s murder (Chicago Sun-Times, 1/17).
These outcomes are perfectly in line with the long history of racist legal inequality under the capitalist system, spanning centuries. The reality demonstrates time and time again that the working class cannot expect justice to come from the bosses’ legal system, which ultimately can only defend the state power of the capitalist class.

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U.S. in Syria—Liberal terrorists and the next war

Declaring “victory” against ISIS, U.S. President Donald Trump recently and suddenly announced the withdrawal of all 2,200 U.S. troops from Syria and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan. In reality, U.S. imperialism is losing ground to Russian imperialism in Syria, and also opening the door to regional enemy Iran and its client Shiite militias there (foreignaffairs.com, 1/8). Pronounced splits among the U.S. bosses are sharpening as their empire crumbles.
Meanwhile, the outraged opposition to Trump’s planned pullout among fake leftist and liberal Democratic Party politicians has exposed them as dedicated servants of finance capital, the main wing of the U.S. ruling class, which is led by the likes of ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup.

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Los Angeles Education Workers—STRIKE!

LOS ANGELES, January 9—Thousands of education workers are preparing for a strike! Progressive Labor Party is preparing to bring communist solidarity to the picket lines. These strikes can be schools for class-conscious ideas and practices.As CHALLENGE goes to press, the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union has postponed the strike from tomorrow to Monday because of “uncertainty over whether a judge could order the union to wait” (Los Angeles Times, 1/9). The union was hoping for a negotiated settlement, making the legal jockeying and courtroom glitches irrelevant. 

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The wildcat underground: Workers & students defy school bosses and union

Oakland, CA—At least 75 out of 90 teachers, students, and community members defied both the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and the Oakland Education Association (OEA) union.
Oakland High School workers and students led the charge, demanding high wages, smaller class sizes, and more student services (The Hill, 12/11).
 They are fed up after years of stalled negotiations and shenanigans between OUSD and OEA. They called themselves the “Wildcat Underground,” wildcat being the name of the school mascot.
They held a rally in front of the campus to publicize the demands, and then marched to the school district headquarters in downtown Oakland, chanting loudly along the way. The administrators refused to come out to meet with them, or even make a comment.

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