Students, workers, parents—sickening schools mean fight back!

NEW YORK CITY, September 8—As a new school year begins, working-class students and families are again faced with dangerous lose-lose conditions created by capitalism in crisis. Rising numbers of Covid-19 cases, crumbling school buildings, and a demand to return to business as usual threaten the lives of students, their families, and education workers. This is unfolding as the shortcomings of U.S. imperialism in Afghanistan, next door to their main rival China, are on full display to the world (See Editorial, page 2). This school year, let’s continue to build student-worker-parent solidarity and turn crises into opportunities to build a culture of fightback for communist ideas and culture.

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PL’er helps fired co-worker beat back racist bosses

NEW YORK CITY, September 5—A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) struggle in the MTA's NYCT division (Metropolitan Transportation Agency/New York City Transit) to help a fellow train operator with a wrongful termination lawsuit has resulted in the agency rehiring her with full back pay. A year and a half after the racist transit bosses allowed its mostly Black and Latin workers to die from Covid-19 (The Guardian,  4/21/20), this is a critical development. While a win in the bosses' legal system is far from real working-class justice, it puts our fightback in public transit on the right track to organize workers for communist revolution.

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Letters of Sept 22

Retiree raises solidarity funds for workers in Haiti
I’ve been politically active in a large union for over 50 years as a worker and a retiree. I have led struggles on the job and tried to connect those struggles to events around the world and to build solidarity with workers’ struggles around the world.

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Debacle in Afghanistan: a step toward world war

As the bigtime terrorists of U.S. imperialism suffer another humiliating defeat and leave Afghanistan to the small-time terrorists of the Taliban, the world is witnessing in real time the waning of a once-dominant empire. Thanks to flawed intelligence, decades of failed strategies, and one blunder after the next by their latest incompetent president, the U.S. bosses are currently unable to guarantee safe passage for the evacuation of their own citizens, let alone the translators and interpreters and women leaders whose lives are now in jeopardy. Wrenching photographs and reports are flooding out from Kabul airport: men plunging from departing U.S. military planes; at least seven people—including a two-year-old girl—trampled to death by a panicked crowd; desperate parents handing their babies over barbed wire fences to U.S. soldiers inside the perimeter. The profit system’s  contempt for human life is on full display.

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Bury the bosses with communist revolution

HAITI, August 23—On August 14 at 8:30 in the morning, the sun is struggling to rise as worker’s problems pile up: Coronavirus, five million starving, no functional institutions, no government.
At 8:31 am, the earth began to shake like it did a little more than a decade ago. The departments of the South, Nippes and Grand-Anse are the most affected. The numbers are mounting of dead, wounded and especially displaced.

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U.S. CAPITALISM: RACIST MURDER, INC.

 Summer marks the anniversary of many multiracial rebellions against police terror, from Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson (2014) to George Floyd (2020), and many more. These rebellions serve as inspiration for workers everywhere, but also begs the question: why do kkkops murder with impunity?
Anti-Black racism is at the foundation of the racist treatment and division of all workers. While racist violence hits Black workers hardest, it harms our entire class. State-sanctioned terror has propped up capitalism since the days of the slave trade. The super-exploitation of non-white workers nets the bosses super-profits and enables them to lower wages and living standards for all.

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Fight racist housing, oust the bosses

HYATTSVILLE, MARYLAND, August 11—Braving 99-degree heat, senior residents of Friendship Arms apartments held a spirited rally to demand that SHP Management Corporation (SHP) fix the roof, restore air conditioning and eradicate mice in the walls. Under capitalism safe housing is a dream for much of the working class particularly for some of the most vulnerable workers and super exploited sections of our class—disabled, retired, Black, Latin, Asian workers. Run down and unsafe housing is what the working class perpetually endures under a system where housing is a commodity to be bought and sold, and where landlords must provide as little maintenance as possible to maximize profits.

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Racist exploitation baked into capitalism—Nabisco strikers need communism

CHICAGO, August 21—As the deadliest pandemic in history continues to wreak havoc on the international working class, U.S. food bosses seized the opportunity to capitalize on our classes’ despair, churning out sugary and salty goods, while raking record profits on the backs of overworked and underpaid workers.
 The latest example is the Nabisco factory workers strike. As many workers worldwide know from direct experience, racism, sexism and exploitation are baked right into this profit system. Just as dough needs yeast to rise, capitalism needs exploitation and racist divisions to function. Communists from the international Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought revolutionary politics to striking workers outside the Nabisco factory on the city’s southwest side. We distributed CHALLENGE newspapers, held signs, made conversation, and brought food to the multiracial group of picketers.

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From Alabama to Colombia to Haiti CUNY students, faculty build international solidarity

NEW YORK CITY, August 25—CUNY students and faculty from three campuses are responding to the recent earthquake and hurricane in Haiti, and the four month-long coal miners’ strike in Brookwood, Alabama. Over the summer, members and friends of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held weekly organizing meetings and political discussions with students and coworkers, in preparation for the fall semester.

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Cadre school: grasp & own communist ideas

CHICAGO, August 15—Communist ideas belong to the working class, not a few special people. Our local collective held a communist cadre school this weekend to strengthen our political understanding and organizational unity. A dynamic mix of members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and close friends came together over two days to socialize, engage in rich political discussion, and share in collective responsibilities such as food preparation and cleaning.

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