CHICAGO, June 25—A multiracial group of over a dozen Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) workers and supporters rallied at a busy station today for a spirited “Hour of Power” demonstration. We are fighting for equal pay for equal work, rights and benefits for the growing ranks of part-time CTA workers and to organize more workers to fight the sellout union misleaders of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU). Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members are also fighting for the idea that workers can run all of society without profiteering bosses and their puppet politicians. That’s communism—working class power.
We rallied near a busy transit stop and then marched down the streets to the Howard Street maintenance shop where workers leaned over the concrete wall to check us out. They discussed the rally all day. More people discussed  the need to strike. As we were wrapping up our rally in a nearby park one of the women workers said, "We should do this again next week!" Later, another worker said she was proud to be there.
A bus driver and a rail mechanic have organized two previous rallies, but this was the largest one. Black women workers, who make up the largest group of lower-paid, part-time workers have added militant leadership to this fight! Their leadership has clarified how the workers, armed with
class-conscious politics can and will overcome the bosses’ efforts to divide us. Through our own experience fighting back, the class struggle becomes illuminated. We see that capitalism needs racism and sexism to exist, so we can only smash these inequalities by smashing capitalism.
Members of the international PLP have been at all three rallies selling CHALLENGE, handing out fliers and leading chants. We are helping to create opportunities for the Party to grow and to spread communist ideas among more workers.
Reject all capitalist misleaders, steer towards communism
The CTA and the ATU use the part-timer workers for the money they save the company and the dues they pay the union. Many of them are part of the so-called “Second Chance” program, meaning that they have previously been deemed guilty by the bosses’ racist injustice system for non-violent offenses.
Under this label, the transit bosses try to rationalize a higher rate of exploitation that is inherently racist. The rank-and-file union members in fact voted down this program during negotiations around five years ago, only for the union hacks to turn around and still include it in the contract! For this, we have included in our demands that all CTA workers be offered full-time positions to push back against their divide-and-conquer attacks.
What’s more, the union mis-leadership wants us to rely on the politicians, but these ruling-class parasites will never serve our needs. Decades of relying on the liberal bosses in Chicago has led to nothing for workers here but evictions, layoffs, closed hospitals and schools, and racist police terror.
More union members are beginning to believe that it is the international working class who has the power to fight back against the politicians, bankers and billionaires. After all, it was our class that has kept the world running as we risked our lives during this deadly pandemic. We have the potential to create a worker-led communist society that abolishes racism and money and puts our needs first!
Board the train to workers’ power
All workers, part-time and full-time, are seeing our paychecks shrink as the cost of living continues to rise. The CTA and the ATU have worked overtime to create divisions among the membership. As a consequence of their efforts some full-timers unfortunately have been won to believe that the part-time workers don't really have it so bad. But all workers – part-time or full-time, employed or unemployed—can do so much better than what this racist, sexist profit system has to offer!
The struggle in front of us is difficult, but what we do today counts. Rank-and-file organizing and arming the working class with communist politics and a fighting mass PLP will slowly but surely build the revolutionary movement that finally buries the bosses and their rotten system. Board the train to workers’ power – Join PLP!