HAITI: Garment Workers on the Move

Port-au-Prince, December 28 — The call to students and militants came over our emails very early Wednesday morning, December 11:

Get cracking! This morning at 7 am, the workers are hitting the streets to demand a minimum wage of 500 gourdes [$11.30 per day]. Every student activist is expected outside the industrial park. We did it in 2009 [last big national struggle for the minimum wage], we can do it in 2013. Pass on the message!

It was the second day of workers’ demonstrations in Port-au-Prince for a minimum day’s wage of 500 gourdes ($11.30), a third of what a family of three needs for a subsistence living.

Click to read more ...

Masses of Black Migrants Denounce Israel’s Neo-Nazi Dictatorship

Tel Aviv, January 15— Over 30,000 black migrants have been on strike for over a week against Israel’s racist Anti-Infiltration Law and fascist living conditions, bringing businesses to a halt. They chanted “we need asylum” and “Yes to freedom, no to prison!”
More than 60,000 undocumented migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, are the superexploited workers of Israel. One man from Darfur said, “All of us are fleeing genocide, fleeing dictatorship regimes. Looking for protection.” What they get is social murder: “open facilities” in which they are separated from families, required to answer roll call three times a day, prevented from seeking work, on lockdown at night, and surrounded by a fence of razor wire; detention centers in the Negev desert; imprisonment; racist living conditions; mass deportations; disregard of asylum applications.
The Zionist state, and any state for that matter, are racist apparatus installed by rulers to divide and control labor based on an artificial concept of borders. This foments discrimination based on documentation, or the lack thereof. Undocumented workers — be it in England, United States, China, or Russia — must unite with documented workers, in this particular case, Jewish and Palestinian workers, to smash the bosses’ dictatorship. The strikers in Israel serve as an inspiration for workers everywhere, for they provide a glimpse of the potential of workers’ power.

Haiti, Dominican Republic: Fight Apartheid Law Aiming to Divide Working Class

On September 23, 2013, the Dominican Republic Supreme Court issued a ruling that strips citizenship from over 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian ancestry. It applies retroactively to anyone born after 1929 who does not have at least one parent of “Dominican blood.” Those affected can no longer get birth certificates, attend school or college, marry, travel, or obtain jobs legally.
This act has galvanized the anger of Dominican and Haitian immigrant groups around the U.S., in Haiti, and in the D.R. itself. Far from dividing them, many are standing together to protest this ruling. In the U.S., they see how similar racist, anti-immigrant laws have affected all of them. Many protesters blame Dominican political and judicial leaders for creating the climate that paved the way for this ruling. We in the Progressive Labor Party believe that all borders need to be smashed so that all workers around the world can unite as one class.

Click to read more ...

Demand Justice for Kyam Livingston

BROOKLYN, NY— In the past few months CHALLENGE has been covering the racist murder of Kyam Livingston, a 37-year-old worker and mother who died in a cell in Brooklyn Central Booking on July 21, 2013. She was ill and crying out in pain for over seven hours while her pleas, and the pleas for help from people in the cell with her, were ignored.  
Her family is demanding answers: the surveillance tapes of the cell, the names of the jailers who callously allowed her to die, the prosecution of those jailers, and a real and thorough investigation of conditions in Central Booking to change the culture of cruelty and indifference to the working class.
The next event in this campaign for justice will be a Community Speakout to air other stories of racist treatment and dehumanization under the “justice” system of U.S. capitalism. All are invited to attend and add to the event.
Community Speakout on Tuesday, January 21 from 6:00-9:00 PM
Flatbush Dutch Reform Church
890 Flatbush Avenue (at Church Avenue)

Capitalism: The Original American Hustle

“We all hustle to survive.” That’s not just the reality of the millions of unemployed discarded by capitalism, it also the tagline for the new Golden Globe winner film American Hustle. It is the latest in a series of David O. Russell films about survival and self-reinvention — cornerstones of capitalism’s big “American Dream” lie. These themes speak to millions in the working class who struggle to survive and who hold on to the hope that one day they will be able to reinvent their lives to escape the daily grind of capitalism.
However, in this current period of economic crisis and imperialist competition, U.S. capitalism appears unable to offer the working class anything other than continued misery. Conditions for the working class are becoming visibly worse: mass deportations, mass unemployment, slashing of food stamps and unemployment benefits, prolonged war in the Middle East, and a growing National Security Agency (NSA) security state.

Click to read more ...

Ukraine: Battleground for Russian and U.S. Rulers

As the rivalry between the U.S. and Russia is seemingly moving closer to open conflict, Ukraine’s strategic importance is re-emerging. In mid-December, Russian President Vladimir Putin successfully pressured cash-strapped Ukraine into remaining in Russia’s orbit and canceling its planned alliances with the U.S.-leaning European Union (EU) and the U.S.-run International Monetary Fund (IMF). Putin bought off Ukraine by pledging a $15 billion loan and a 33 percent cut in gas prices. In return, Moscow gets control of Ukraine’s energy pipeline network. But the stakes here run beyond economics. They have everything to do with military preparations for future wars.

Click to read more ...

Antiracist School Struggle Communist Ideas Hit the Mark

Newark, NJ, December 18 — “You know, all this stuff going on with the schools is really making me think more about capitalism,” said one teacher involved in the class struggle here. He isn’t alone. Over the past few months, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been more openly discussing capitalism and the need for communist revolution. These discussions are framed by the fightback against Superintendent Cami Anderson’s racist attacks on schools in predominantly black neighborhoods.
At a recent rally led by misleaders of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and a local Newark group, New Jersey Communities United, over 200 workers and students protested these attacks. The leadership focused the blame solely on Anderson and ignored the contradictions within capitalism that cause schools to fail the working class. But PLP was there to offer our communist analysis. We distributed CHALLENGE and had good discussions with teachers who were unfamiliar with the Party.

Click to read more ...

Rulers are the Real Child Abusers

I recently attended a mandatory meeting establishing (new) requirements for teachers regarding the reporting of suspected child abuse.  A key part of the presentation was the idea that “the authorities” would rather see over-reporting of non-child abuse cases as opposed to under-reporting of actual child abuse cases.  Now the ruling class certainly doesn’t care about child abuse.  Cutting food stamps,  intensifying racism,  denying disability benefits, and using drone strikes to kill children are legal and beyond reproach. 
It is now illegal for a teacher to not report suspected child abuse.  In other words, they can now claim that you were “negligent” in not bringing to your supervisor’s attention that you “suspect” something is amiss, even if you never witnessed the supposed suspicious behavior.

Click to read more ...

‘Justice for Ronel Désir!’ Haiti: Rip Cops’ Maiming of Student

Port-au-Prince, November 21 — Ronel Désir is a third-year student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Teachers College) in the Haitian capital, site of demonstrations for the removal from office of the right-wing President Michel Martelly. Like hundreds of other students from the campuses of UEH [Université d’Etat d’Haïti, State University of Haiti], Ronel took part on November 18 in a mass protest mostly organized by Lavalas, the organization of former President Aristide and current politicians like the outspoken senator Jean-Charles Moïse.  Many students have no faith in Lavalas or bourgeois politicians like Moïse but took part anyway, with other left and liberal groups, because they have been fighting Martelly ever since the U.S. embassy helped him gain power.

Click to read more ...

Woman Worker Reveals Sexist Exploitation

Brooklyn, NY, December 15 — Today workers from a community mass organization in Bushwick had a march in the neighborhood to publicly inform both workers and the bosses about the updated law that has been passed in New York State, which will raise minimum wage to $8 an hour from $7.25. This so-called achievement is being praised by the community organization as another win for the workers. PL members have constantly reminded the workers that these reforms are only “bread crumbs” and will never be enough, because the bosses will always attack workers’ standard of living by increasing the price on rents, food and fares and that only a revolution can free us from this vicious cycle. The organization leaders always respond that something is better than nothing.

Click to read more ...