Maquila bosses put profit over workers’ health

CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO, April 29—Throughout Northern Mexico workers organized, protested, demanded safety, and refused to continue producing profits for U.S. companies as their class brothers and sisters died. As Covid-19 continues to spread internationally, capitalism has forced bosses to choose between making money and workers’ lives. But in an effort to take back control of their health and safety some of the most super-exploited workers have ignited a wave of protests.

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Haiti: Workers organize for reform and revolution

HAITI, April 28—In a small town, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is actively organizing among workers  to do what the local government is unable or unwilling to do in order to protect ourselves from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic that is hitting the working class . It is a good example of how we would rely on workers under communism to share both abundance and privation. Of course, we are in the stage of sharing privation now because we live under the most racist, exploitative system the world has ever seen. This is how we are responding to the crisis.

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East Africa: Witch doctors and politicians ruin workers’ lives

EAST AFRICA, April 29— Progressive Labor Party (PLP) here blames capitalist government misleaders for the criminal management of the pandemic. They insist that people continue to work, minimizing the danger of the disease while the infections continue on a daily basis. Initially, they closed the schools and universities but, illogically, told people to go to church, and kept the borders and airports open.
In some countries like Tanzania, President John Magafuli called for three days of national prayers to defeat the coronavirus which he described as a very small disease. Since April 22, when he talked with the head of the military, no new updates of cases or deaths have been reported. The government is covering up the numbers of infected and dead and where the disease has spread. Tanzania has only one laboratory in the country and only Arusha and Dar es Salaam have the capacity to test and treat Covid-19 patients. Officials in those cities are burying the victims at night, to maintain the cover up.

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Colombia: capitalism is fatal

COLOMBIA, April 30—As everywhere else in the world, workers are sufferings amidst the pandemic. Those of us who still have a job do not get any guarantees from the government or the boss, no minimal safety measures or protective equipment. The bosses fire, suspend or lower our wages. Making our already slaving working conditions more precarious.

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West Wednesdays go viral, antiracist solidarity grows

BALTIMORE, April 6—The West Wednesday weekly protests in Baltimore against police terror are not derailed by Covid-19. Named in honor of Tyrone West, the rallies have moved from the streets to the screens, streaming to Facebook Live. This shows the creative and resilient spirit of the working class in the face of crisis. The struggle also shows the growing anti-racist movement open to communist ideas.

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LETTERS

Covid-19 exposes roots of exploitation
A PLP comrade in a transnational factory in Mexico reports that 10 percent of their workforce; healthy workers over 50 years old, or with a chronic disease such as diabetes and/or hypertension are being laid off and sent into quarantine. Even if the company guarantees the minimum wage during the quarantine, it means a reduction of wages. These workers, in order to make ends meet, have to work overtime, or double shifts, and now they can’t do that.

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Rest in power, Harry!

CHALLENGE readers from the Midwest, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit and also NYC and LA joined in mourning the untimely death of Harry Mcallister on April 19, 2020. Harry died of the coronavirus and was on a respirator in Minneapolis. It is especially tragic that he died of the capitalist scourge of Covid-19; it is capitalism that Harry fought against his entire life.
We salute him as we remember his activities in the International Committee Against Racism (INCAR), Minneapolis Chapter, from the ‘70s through ‘90s. INCAR was then a mass organization of the Progressive Labor Party. Together we rallied, marched, had panels, and partied. Harry was a great dancer. Harry was in the action when the temperature was sub-zero and we protested the University’s involvement in South Africa’s Apartheid and we stood on the picket line at Hormel’s meat packing plant supporting the P-9 workers.

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Death to the fascists, powers to the workers!

April 28 is the 75th anniversary of the execution of Benito Mussolini, the fascist Italian dictator, by communist partisans. As World War II ended the Italian communists rid the world of one fascist, but they allowed capitalism to continue just with a ‘democratic’ façade. It’s not just Mussolini or Donald Trump or Joe Biden, we have to get rid of the whole damn capitalist system, to paraphrase some of the young Black rebels who fought against racist police murder in Ferguson, Missouri. Let’s rebuild a communist movement that will finally put the working class in power all over the world and put all the capitalists and their racist system in the rash heap of history!

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Covid-19 exacerbates rulers’ racism

Covid-19 has laid bare the lethal racist inequalities of the profit system. From the United States to Africa, from Latin America to South Asia, workers everywhere are suffering unnatural deaths from the disease of capitalism. The choice between capitalist decay and an international communist future has never been clearer.
Viruses are a product of nature, but the disaster of Covid-19 is anything but natural. Capitalism depends on the superexploitation of Black, Latin, and undocumented workers as its lifeblood. Those of us who have the least under this system will always endure the harshest attacks. The latest pandemic has made this fact of capitalist life only more obvious.

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Haiti: Workers confront politician’s racist disregard

HAITI, April 9—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is at the center of efforts to deal with the coronavirus in general, in the Southern region and one provincial town in particular. We are giving political and tactical leadership.
As of this week, there are 60 officially confirmed cases of coronavirus and two deaths. There is virtually no testing, and little equipment to deal with the eventual surge of the pandemic here. All of the underlying health issues that affect Black workers around the world exist here as well, and we can expect the infection rate and death toll to be catastrophic.

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