Mass Action Needed: AC Transit Union ‘Victory’ Cuts Workers’ Pay

OAKLAND, CA, December 13 — The results of the “neutral” arbitration between AC Transit (mass transit in SF Bay Area)  and ATU 192 have come back: major sacrifices for bus drivers, mechanics, and maintenance workers.  Topping the long list is an unprecedented 6% pay CUT in the first year of the contract.  Also, the company will no longer pay workers for the first day off when they call in sick. Sick workers will have to come in to work, if they can’t afford to miss a day’s pay. For parents who are holding  a whole family together on one paycheck — and there are many among us — this is blackmail. 

These are the results of the supposedly “neutral” arbitrator.  But how can the process be called “neutral” when transit workers have to bail out the transit agency?  We didn’t cause the crisis, the banks did! Yet the banks and corporations don’t have to pay extra, even though the transportation WE provide adds value to THEIR real estate and allows THEIR businesses to function. 

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Gov’t Aids Bosses’ Lockout of Nursing Home Workers

HARTFORD, CT., December 10 — The struggle at four nursing homes owned by Spectrum Health Care continues (see CHALLENGE, 12/1), with the bosses locking out the workers and the city government breaking the picket line.

The strike, which began in April over wages, holidays and harassment of union workers, became a lockout in August when the union, SEIU-affiliated District 1199, agreed to return to work with no conditions attached. However, since then the Park Street facility here has re-called only about 10 workers of the total work-force of 100, an average of three per month, and not according to seniority.

Furthermore, the jobs are far short of the original ones. All but one are per diem; previously most workers had 32- or 40-hour schedules. Both company actions are Unfair Labor Practices. A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing on Spectrum’s many previous Unfair Practices, originally scheduled for November 2, was postponed until January 25. (NLRB decisions are notorious for screwing workers.)

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Hospital Bosses Attack Pensions; Philly Rank-and-File Fights Back

PHILADELPHIA, December 13 — Since the 1980’s the bosses have been attacking workers’ pensions in South America, Africa, and Asia. They have had plenty of practice that they can now use against workers in Europe and the U.S. Philadelphia hospital workers are now facing this same attack.

Bosses’ View of Aging Workers: Garbage

What should happen to working people when they are too old or too sick to work anymore? The bosses believe that this is not their problem. Throughout the history of capitalism they have shown that they will use workers to make profits and then discard us like garbage when we are no longer productive.

Capitalism organizes society to make profits for a tiny minority of rich people at the expense of the vast majority of working people. But workers create all wealth. Therefore communists believe we have the right to be taken care of in old age after spending our lives contributing to society. Communism would organize society to fulfill the needs of the working class.

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Holocaust Looming? U.S., China Imperialists Clash Over Korea

China’s puppet North Korea’s yet unchecked attacks on U.S.-occupied South Korea make direct military conflict among rival global imperialists ever more likely. Flaunting a growing nuclear arsenal, the North’s fake “communist” dictatorial monarchy reportedly torpedoed a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors (see box). Late last month, North Korean artillery shells killed two marines and two civilians on one of the South’s militarized islands.
Obama responded to the March sinking rather meekly, calling for no more than an “international investigation.” This time around, however, Obama has sent a U.S. Navy carrier group into the Yellow Sea, which North Korea threatens to make a “sea of fire,” if U.S. vessels violate its waters.
The imperialists’ sharpening Korean impasse highlights the interplay between the actual and the potential, a key category in communist analysis. At present, hostilities remain at a relatively low level. But, given the forces the rival bosses can deploy and the peninsula’s strategic importance to them, an all-out conflagration threatened by both sides could explode at any time.

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Parents, Students, Teachers Unite: Confront Bosses’ Racist School Plan

BROOKLYN, NY, November 18 — “No matter how much you want to pretty this up, you can’t fool us; it’s racist!” shouted an angry parent towards one of several cronies the Department of Education (DoE) sent to pacify angry students, parents and teachers at a meeting of parents from two of the building’s schools.
As reported in CHALLENGE (10/28), our school campus, which now houses four schools, is slated to house a 5th one next September. This new school is in response to a mostly wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood’s desire for a school within the immediate area. The students currently attending all the schools are black, Latino and Asian working-class youth from surrounding neighborhoods.
The new school will only accept students who received the highest marks, 3s and 4s, on their eighth grade exams; require a writing sample; will not have special education students or English Language Learners; and will receive millions of dollars in start-up costs.
At a school leadership team meeting, a DoE representative said the new school will replicate a pre-existing screened high school, a highly sought-after school with a mostly white population. If this new school is as popular as the first one, it’s expected our school’s current population will be forced out to accommodate such growth and the wealthy white people will get what they’ve always wanted — black and brown students out of their neighborhood.

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Boston Students Fight Racist Police Brutality

Boston, November 3 — The spontaneous march on October 29th against the vicious police beating of a 16-year-old black youth at Roxbury Community College (RCC) (see
CHALLENGE 11/3/10) brought together students and faculty who were committed to advance the struggle against police brutality.  Since then, a core group of activists has  organized a mass response. A student petition condemning the police attack was circulated throughout the college community, and a letter condemning the college administration’s silence was distributed among faculty and staff. A mass meeting was called for November 2 to mobilize a bigger march two days later.
Although the meeting was held on Election Day at an election site (the college), voting was completely ignored. It’s no wonder that 60% of eligible voters regularly stay away from the polls. Working-class issues like police brutality, unemployment, foreclosures and cutbacks don’t get voted on. Direct action is the only meaningful way for workers to assert our power.

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Expose Imperialism’s Rape of Haiti at Church Forum

BROOKLYN, NY, November 6 —  “While demonstrating for education for all Haitians outside the Ministry of Education in Port-Au-Prince, a teacher was killed by the Haitian militia.”  There was a gasp from the audience as the details of the assassination were described.
As the speaker made clear, even though it was a cop’s bullet that ended the life of Louis Jean Filbert on October 9, 200 years of racist imperialism are as much to blame. Haitians have never been forgiven by the rapacious capitalists of the world for freeing themselves from the yoke of slavery. As the speaker finished, it was clear that viewing the current catastrophe as simply the result of a geologic event was seriously one-sided.
This speaker and others were part of a forum called “Haitians Abandoned,” attended by 80 people, which was held in the chapel of our congregation. Communist ideas are present in this church through our social justice group, which organize activities such as the forum.
There was an air of expectancy at the beginning of the event. The forum had been collectively organized between the Haitian community and the church community. The event was a success in that there was a great response from the Haitian community. In fact, they outnumbered the church community, clearly pointing out that we have to organize better in our church.

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Workers can never be illegal Marchers Unite for Jobs, vs. Anti-Immigrant Racists

STATEN ISLAND, NY, November 13 — “Wherever we live no one is illegal because people can never be illegal!” These words echoed across Staten Island, a place that has seen the ugly face of capitalist racism. In response to more than 17 violent attacks against immigrants in the area over the past year, a multi-racial, multi-generational group of church members and peace activists had come together.
In the march, PLP’s vision for the future was clearly present: a society where all labels that are assigned to us by the racist, capitalist system will be eliminated. All of these categories: “Black or white,” “citizen or immigrant,” “legal or illegal,” “employed or unemployed.” will disappear in a society where borders are abolished, racism is outlawed and everyone will contribute to society in some form.
At the first rally a worker from Colombia spoke about the racist media that portrays Colombians as drug pushers and criminals. She said what many workers know to be true: that immigrants are looking for a job, a place to live, and peace. She stood as a figure of strength, not bowed down by the problems she faces.
The next speaker was the daughter of a worker from Mexico who had been severely beaten in a racial attack. She stood with her child in her arms to speak out against the brutality towards her father and to thank everyone present for standing up and speaking out. She said that all they ever wanted was to work and to live.

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PL’ers Challenge Anti-Immigrant Racism at Public Health Association

DENVER, CO, November 10 — Over 10,000 members of the American Public Health Association (APHA) met this year around the theme of “Social Justice.” Members and friends of PLP, with support from various groups in APHA, challenged the organization to live up to its theme. Our proposed APHA policy statement, “Opposing the Exclusion of Undocumented Immigrants from Health Reform,” hit a raw nerve and triggered a small struggle in the association.
The liberals who run the APHA don’t want to take any public position critical of the Obama administration. But rank-and-file members, most of whom work with underserved populations day in and day out, have less interest in currying favor with politicians and more gut-level commitment to justice for the communities they serve. APHA bureaucrats used their control over a key committee to block our anti-racist resolution.
Anticipating resistance from the association full-timers, the APHA members who wrote the resolution (“the troublemakers”) started circulating drafts in the weeks leading up to the annual meeting to all APHA sections (Epidemiology, Medical Care, Maternal and Child Health, etc.) The Black Caucus was specifically targeted through the friends we have made there fighting against racism in previous years. They gave their support as soon as they read it.

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Mexico: CHALLENGE’s Exposure of Flood Risk Draws Rulers’ Wrath

MEXICO — Around 120 families in the 12 districts to the east of Valle de Mexico are at risk of flooding. The area where we live sinks about half a meter a year, because of the extraction of water from the subsoil through the fourteen wells installed in the area since the 1980s. The ground has sunk 15 meters from its original level and by 2020 may sink up to 19 meters. 

The politicians did not want us inhabitants to know about the problem, so they tried to sabotage meetings and to discredit CHALLENGE when it informed us about the risk. They sent agitators to break up the neighbors’ meetings. They paid for advertisements on buses warning the population about “an organization that is trying to deceive them and manipulate them.” They weren’t successful, since it was clear that CHALLENGE serves the interests of the workers.

Because of the constant attack from the bosses against our class, we have to be organized in a party that is not electoral, a party that unites and leads millions of workers to a communist revolution. Electoral parties only look to benefit the bosses that sponsor them and the politicians that lead them. Elections are a fraud for all workers and will never lead us to a change that will benefit us.

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