May Day 2011: WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

PLP Must Spark Revolutionary Opportunities from Crisis Hitting the Working Class

May Day is the day the international working class reviews its forces, assesses the struggles over the past year and marks the beginning of a new year of struggle against the dictatorship of the capitalist class. The international working class faces its worst crisis in decades, but within every crisis is an opportunity. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is using it to unite the working class to smash racism, sexism and nationalism with communist revolution.

PLP has mantained the tradition of marching on May Day and calling for the dictatorship of the proletariat (working class)  for 40 years, since 1971, picking the red flag up out of the mud where it was dropped by revisionists — fake “communists” — who abandoned the fight for revolution. Despite weaknesses, PLP is in motion, leading and participating in struggles around the world.

Fighting Racism Is A Key Struggle

Racism is capitalism’s lifeline because it is both the source of super-profits and the primary weapon against the international working class. Racism, along with its twin — nationalism (advocating unity of all classes in subjection to the bosses’ flag) — divides and pacifies our class from unity.

 Anti-immigrant racism is the cutting edge of racism today. Bosses worldwide hope to build nationalist loyalty among workers to fight their imperialist wars while simultaneously building anti-immigrant racism.  This intimidates both “legal” and “undocumented” workers into passivity.

Capitalists worldwide use racist immigration laws to do this. In the U.S., workers from Latin America are mainly targeted; in France, workers from northern Africa; in Germany, workers from Turkey; in China, workers from Southeast Asia. In many countries, Muslim and Arab workers are also especially terrorized. In an address to members of the German Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) on October 17th, 2010, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared the German “experiment in multiculturalism” had “utterly failed,” stating non-Germans, particularly Arabs and Muslims, were incapable of living “side-by-side” with the German people.

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How U.S. Rulers Decide: Where the Oil Is, Make Wars

U.S. imperialism needs to control militarily whatever it can of the world’s energy supplies. This hard fact underlies U.S. rulers’ selective response to uprisings and crackdowns across North Africa and the Middle East, and enables us to make sense of these responses.

Libya contains 42 billion barrels of oil and over 1.3 trillion cubic meters of gas. Testifying before the Senate on April 6, Richard Haass, president of the Rockefeller think-tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) representing the dominant wing of U.S. capitalists, said: “U.S. interests in Libya simply do not warrant such an investment [of ground war]…” But nevertheless, Libya’s oil and gas resources do make it worth killing Libyans from the air — invoking a phony “responsibility to protect” Libyan citizens — while saving U.S. resources for strategically more important areas.

Meanwhile, hypocrite-in-chief Obama stands by as Syrian ruler Assad slaughters protesters — even mourners — since that country possesses little oil and gas. U.S. imperialism’s top oil source, Saudi Arabia, holds a hundred times more crude than Syria. So, when demonstrations in neighboring Bahrain — where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed — threatened to spill over the Saudi border, Obama, instead of “protection,” saw a “responsibility to suppress.” The invading Saudi troops that shot Bahraini protesters got a White House green light.

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PL’ers, Workers, Students Force Nazis Out of Worcester, Mass.

WORCESTER, MA., February 23 — Members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) helped force the Nazis out of Worcester. The North East White Pride had been using the Worcester Library for their monthly meetings, violating Library policy about groups holding monthly meetings as distinct from educational events.

When anti-racist forces here recently found this out, we began to organize to stop the Nazis. Clark University students initiated this effort and PLP joined with them, calling for an anti-Nazi rally at the Library. Within hours of PLP’s organizing efforts, the Library — at the Mayor’s request — told the Nazis they couldn’t meet there due to “public safety concerns.” They did this in order to reduce the number of people at the anti-fascist rally but we still held it.

Over 60 people came — workers and students, Asian, black, Latino and white. We served notice to the bosses that Worcester would not become fertile ground for racist, sexist and fascist ideas and actions. We also sent a message to the Nazis that if they returned there would be strong opposition. We urged all workers, students and soldiers to unite and fight back against these fascist ideas and to build an egalitarian world.

Many people indicated their reasons for coming. One cited the war at home and abroad and explained that we all have a stake in fighting this capitalist profit system, from Wisconsin to Worcester. He said the bosses use racism to divide us and we can’t let that happen here. He connected conditions in Haiti to attacks on workers in the U.S.

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Black and White Workers in NJ Back PL’ers’ Anti-Nazi Protest

TRENTON, NJ, April 16 — The Nazis of the National Socialist Movement celebrated Hitler’s birthday in Trenton and Progressive Labor Party was there to protest their celebration. New Jersey Governor Christie continually prattles on about not having enough money for schools, health care, or any of the other services that the working class needs. However, he had the funds to protect the Nazis with SWAT, attack dogs, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and other elements of the state apparatus. This is a clear slap in the face to the mostly black working class of Trenton. 

PLP changed tactics on the ground after surveying the area in which the state would permit us to protest. The KKKops had set up a metal detector and a cage and were not allowing  any signs or bullhorns. They wanted to set us up in an isolated area, many blocks away from the working class, and with a canal to our backs.

This was too dangerous a scenario due to the fact that we would be in the cage with the anarchists and the New Black Panther Party, whose beliefs are just as racist and destructive as the Nazis. We would not have been able to get to the Nazis who were demonstrating their “freedom of speech” to push hate and genocide, protected by the KKKops. But there was a big chance that the black nationalists would have attacked us for our belief in internationalism and multi-racial unity. 

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Beware of Bosses’ School ‘Reform’ Schemes Philly Rulers’ Attack on Teachers Will Hit All Workers

PHILADELPHIA, April 20 — Workers across the country are being forced to supposedly “share” the sacrifices by giving up raises,  benefits,  pensions,  and even their unions!  There are some differences among the ruling class as to how the attack should be carried out (out-right smashing of unions as in Wisconsin vs. using the sellouts to “only” roll-back wages and benefits) but in the end,  all of the ruling-class plans will be devastating to workers.

Here in Philly,  the main brunt of the attack is on teachers.  Teachers are being blamed for lousy test scores and the general deterioration of education.  The offensive against teachers is more than “just another group of workers being singled out for punishment.”  They are a key part of the bosses’ anti-communist arsenal.  The schools both teach and reinforce all of the anti-worker lies that the ruling class wants the next generation of workers to learn:  (1) anti-communism,  the bosses’ trump card in destroying worker fight-backs,  (2) racism,  the key to worker disunity,  (3) individualism,  the basic philosophy of capitalism,  and (4) patriotism, loyalty to the ruling-class government.

While the bosses need the schools to miss-educate the working class,  they can no longer afford the expense that requires.  As a result,   it is vital that teacher salaries,  benefits,  and pensions be drastically reduced.  Here are some of the ways this is being done in Pennsylvania (and Philadelphia in particular):

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France: Bosses’ Divisive Strategy Victimizes Hard-Hat Strikers

PARIS, April 15 — Construction workers here have won an illusionary “victory” against Eiffage Construction and Eiffage Public Works, two subsidiaries of the country’s third-largest construction company. A two-week strike brought an overall 2% wage “increase,” which is no increase at all given a 2% inflation rate over the past year, which meant a wage-cut for those workers awarded a 1.7% hike.

The strike froze work on a score of construction sites in Paris and on the 282-million-euro (US $385 million) Great Stadium in Lille. It came within legally-mandated annual wage negotiations.

“It’s the first time that a strike has gone on this long against this company, which makes fat profits but never gives anything to its workers,” said a union spokesman.

The workers had been demanding an 85-euro (US $115) across-the-board hike, averaging to a 3% increase. (An across-the-board pay hike narrows the gap between the highest- and lowest-paid workers, whereas a flat percentage raise widens the gap. Unions here generally demand across-the-board increases.)

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Join the PLP and make a RED entrance at…

MAY DAY 2011

NYC MAY DAY 2010

Los Angeles: Sunday, May 1^st at 11:00am

W 12^th street and W Broadway  

San Francisco: Sunday, May 1st at 11:00am

24th  Street and Mission St

New York City: Sunday, May 1^st, 2011 at 12:00 PM

Chatham Square (intersection of Bowery and Park Row)

Chicago: Sunday, May 1^st, at 2:30pm

Union Park (intersection of Lake St And Ashland Ave)

PLP’s Ideas Inspire Workers from Senegal At Harlem Protest

NEW YORK CITY, March 19 — “Abdoulaye Wade, dictator!” and “Wade, degage!” [Wade, get out!] rang out through Harlem. Over 100 Senegalese workers, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, participated in a demonstration of their own against the flagrantly corrupt president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade. Since the PLP convention last August, our PLP club has built a small presence in the West African community of Harlem. A comrade and I were at a Senegalese cafe in the neighborhood when we heard the commotion about the demonstration forming at 116th Street and Lenox Avenue.

Abdoulaye Wade was elected president in a coalition of electoral parties called the “Sopi Coalition” [“Sopi” is Wolof — an indigenous language spoken by many workers in west Africa — for “Change,”] in 2000. Eight years before Barack Obama ran for president in the United States, Wade promised sweeping reforms after 40 years of the corrupt, governing Socialist Party.

Steals $3.4 Billion

It was recently revealed that over the past ten years since the election, Wade stole over 1.6 trillion francs (about $3.4 billion USD) from the government treasury, including $400 million for a new private jet that previously belonged to French president Nicholas Sarkozy, who upgraded to a better jet himself. Wade, who is 84 years old and sick, refitted the jet with a state-of-the-art hospital clinic staffed by French doctors and nurses and (perhaps wisely) insists that only French pilots be allowed to fly the jet.

The workers at the demonstration added to the list of abuses under Wade. According to a recent article, when a journalist recently accused him of looting the government treasury, Wade retorted, “at least I admit I’m using the money!” Wade’s son, Karim, is Minister of State for International Corporations, Minister of Regional Development, Minister of Regional Transportation, and Minister of Infrastructure. Meanwhile, other attacks include:

2.5 million workers in the capital, Dakar, suffer electricity blackouts for four hours a day;

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Imperialists vs.Tea Partiers: Bosses’ Budget Brawl Masks Rulers’ Dogfight over War Needs

Obama averted a government shutdown on April 8 by brokering a flimsy budget compromise between two increasingly hostile camps of U.S. capitalists.

One is composed of imperialists who need ever-expanding and more costly U.S. wars. This faction’s power and wealth depend on forcibly reasserting its once almighty control of the world’s energy trade. Until 1975, Exxon, Mobil and Chevron — descendants of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil colossus — (along with ally Texaco) legally owned all of Saudi Arabia’s unsurpassed oil reserves. But today, rival oil and gas barons in China, Russia and Iran, unrest in the Arab world, and al Qaeda threaten the empire headed by U.S. flagship Exxon Mobil.

So, from Libya to Afghanistan, the U.S. war machine seeks to rescue the Rockefeller-Exxon wing of U.S. capitalists, at a cost of trillions of workers’ tax dollars; 27% of everyone’s federal taxes go to pay for these wars, which consume more than half of the Federal Budget.

On the other side of the split stand smaller, domestically-oriented bosses like oil billionaires Charles and David Koch, who consider war taxes an unnecessary burden. They rally popular support by bankrolling the anti-tax Tea Party. Koch Industries’ big new project, a proposed 900,000 barrel-per-day pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Texas won’t require paying one dime for a single aircraft carrier, bomber or soldier. By contrast, Exxon’s newfound gushers in Iraq [see box] help explain why U.S. “Defense” chief Gates “suggested that American troops could remain [t]here for years.” (San Francisco Chronicle, 4/10)

Each side in this ruling-class divide, highlighted by the budget battle, employs think-tanks to organize opinion among fellow capitalists and mislead the working class. The Cato Institute, founded and funded by the Kochs, decries the U.S. invasion of Libya; calls for halving the Pentagon’s financing; and supported the government shutdown Obama sidestepped. The U.S. war machine does relatively little for the Kochs and allied minor-league bosses.

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NYS Teachers Convention: Rank and File Ready to Fight — ‘Leadership’ Not

NEW YORK CITY, April 7 — The hall was packed with 2,500 New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) delegates, many from districts plagued by budget cuts and layoffs. Usually soft-spoken union President Ianuzzi opened the assembly by leading chants of, “This is what democracy looks like!” and “We are all Wisconsin!” But Ianuzzi & Co. have no plans to lead workers in fighting back.

He proudly showed pictures of himself speaking in Wisconsin but New York labor leaders did not organize the rank and file to support that struggle. When he reported that 180,000 NYSUT workers (one-third of the membership) from Buffalo to NYC were working under long-expired contracts, someone yelled, “Well, what are we going to do about it?”

The main speakers at the convention and at a Saturday outdoor rally spoke about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer but made no criticism whatsoever of billionaire Mayor Bloomberg or millionaire Governor Cuomo! 

A weekend highpoint was a workshop, “From Wisconsin to New York — Building the Struggle,” organized by the American Federation of Teachers Peace and Justice Caucus. The main speaker, a teaching assistant from Madison, Wisconsin, gave a detailed report about the attacks Wisconsin public workers faced and how they organized the occupation of the Capitol.

Two NYC school workers reported how parents, teachers and students were fighting the privatization of public schools, noting its racist nature, given that the students were overwhelmingly black and Latino and suffering disproportionately from these attacks.

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