PL Part of Miners’ Militant History

PLP has long been active supporting and participating in miners’ struggles, both in the U.S. and abroad.

‘Communism Comes To The
Mountains!’

One of our first actions — six months after having launched the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) — was to support a 1963 strike of 500 wildcatting rank-and-file miners in Hazard, Kentucky. The armed miners went from mine to mine, routing scabs and dynamiting scab mines. PLM members organized a Trade Union Solidarity Committee and shipped truck- and trailer-loads of food and clothing to the militant miners while collecting money from workers outside factory gates in NYC, Buffalo and San Francisco. Our effort transformed the strike into a national issue.

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Need D.C. Worker-Rider Unity vs. Racist Metro Bosses’ Attack

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 1 — A bloc of Metro transit workers challenged the Metro board during public hearings tonight as the bosses continued to give workers and riders the choice between losing an arm and losing a leg, i.e., either support cuts in service and layoffs or an increase in fares.

The Metro workers joined dozens of riders in condemning the public hearings as a charade to pretend that the politicians, bureaucrats, and managers who run Metro care about riders and workers. On the contrary, they turn a blind eye to the on-the-job deaths of workers from unsafe conditions and somberly intone that some sacrifices (by workers!) will be needed. Their strategy (supporting the big capitalists) demonstrates that to create a safe workplace and decent standard of living, our class must smash their state and create a communist, worker-run society that serves only working class needs and dismantles all forms of capitalism.

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Fight for Patient Safety: Bosses’ ‘Gag’ Order Triggers Temple Hospital Nurses’ Strike

PHILADELPHIA, April 5 — One of the cherished notions that the bosses push in defense of their capitalist system is that workers have the right to freedom of speech. Nurses and allied professionals at Temple Hospital are learning that this “right” can disappear quickly when it interferes with the bosses’ profit-making.

During contract negotiations Temple bosses insisted on a “gag clause” that would allow them to fire nurses for speaking out publicly against poor quality care. One nurse was told by a boss, “if you want your constitutional rights you will have to go somewhere else.”

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Exposé of Racism Spurs Students to Action

This year I decided to go on the offensive at my high school in politically organizing my students. I chose the book “The Farming of Bones,” by Edwidge Danticat, about the racist genocide against Haitians in the Dominican Republic in 1937. This could help me intensify a contradiction in my largely Dominican school and neighborhood, raise important aspects of the Party’s line and bring a larger contingent of students to May Day.

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French Train Strike Signals Fighting Spirit

PARIS, April 7 — Launching of a national train strike here today indicated that workers’ fighting spirit is growing. They’re demanding 2,000 new jobs and an end to restructuring. A relatively high number of train drivers and conductors — over one-third — are participating in a renewable 24-hour strike against the national train company.

This indicated that worker militancy may
finally be forcing the union misleaders to organize more than symbolic 24-hour strikes. For decades, workers’ capacity to shut down industries here has been frittered away on “symbolic” strikes.

The strike is limited by the small number of non-train crew workers involved, and respect for the government-imposed minimum service, which has kept 75% of the high-speed trains and 60% of other trains rolling.

When rank-and-file workers take control of a strike, it can be a step in upping the ante of class struggle, which, with the development of communist leadership, could lead to a revolutionary movement to end capitalism with communist revolution. 

Forum Links Afghan War to Cutbacks At Home

Along with 20 other churchgoers, I attended a forum on the effects of the war in Afghanistan on U.S. workers. A teacher described the impact of the war economy on education; a nurse practitioner detailed the effects on medical care; and a lawyer presented the consequences for immigrants. The forum’s moderator leads the congregation’s anti-racist committee.

Nobody was unsympathetic, but many different views were expressed on the war’s effects here. Time limits precluded dealing with the terror and war’s impact on the Afghan people, who identify strongly along tribal lines. However, some serious aspects of imperialism were dealt with.

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We’ll meet riot cops face to face…’ France: Workers Seize Factory, Fight for Jobs

LA-SEYNE-SUR-MER, FRANCE, April 10 — The 120 workers at Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) have occupied their factory and are threatening to burn it down if the government does not step in to save their jobs. “We’ve made molotov cocktails and we’ve put highly inflammable materials at the factory gate,” said union steward Eric Mariacci.

“We’re not going to play the fool any more,” added Ryad, a production worker. “If they send in the riot police, we’ll meet them face to face.”

The workers have made bonfires of pallets and tires and dumped thousands of silicone breast implants to block the factory entrance. A thick black smoke envelopes the industrial zone.

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Mass Multi-Racial Action Stops Immigrant’s Deportation

LYONS, FRANCE, April 1 — Hundreds of parents of Lyons students fought the threatened deportation of 45-year-old undocumented Angolan immigrant Guilherme Hauka Azanga and forced the government to free him.

Azanga, who has lived in France for eight years, was arrested in front of his family’s four children, one of whom attends Gilbert-Dru elementary school. Shocked parents held a spontaneous demonstration on March 25 at the school. Two days later, in a show of multi-racial, international working-class unity, several hundred marched in downtown Lyons demanding his freedom.

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Japan’s Fake Leftists Betray Revolutionary Novel

The economic meltdown that has hit Japanese workers and students in the last decade has led to an intriguing trend: the renewed popularity of Takiji Kobayashi’s proletarian novel Kani Kosen, translated as “The Factory Ship” (or “Crab-Canning Ship”).  Takiji’s work is considered a staple of the Japanese Proletarian Literary Movement, which flourished from around 1920-1930, and included figures such as Shigeharu Nakano, Fusao Hirabayashi, and the anti-imperialist and anti-militarist novelist Kuroshima Denji.

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30,000 Building Workers Prepare To Strike

NEW YORK CITY, April 13 — An angry, militant and festive sea of about 10,000 doormen and apartment building workers — black, Latino and white, women and men, citizen and immigrant — marched up Park Ave. today, warming up for an April 21 strike against the real estate bosses. They’re members of Service Employees International Union Local 32 B-J.

The bosses want to cut sick days, vacations and healthcare, and end pensions for new hires. The workers voted overwhelmingly to strike to defend their living standards and protect new hires.  A strike by the 30,000 workers could be one of the city’s biggest in a while. PLP will mobilize city-wide support, while struggling to make such a strike a school for communist revolution, the only thing to secure our class’s future.