NEWARK, NJ, September 8— Members of the Newark Firefighters Union, Newark Fire Officers Union, Newark Fraternal Order of Police, Newark Police Superior Officers Association, and a union called Newark Council 21 held a protest to oppose a vaccine mandate ordered by Newark’s nationalist liberal boss, Mayor Ras Baraka. This debacle is between different factions of the local Newark ruling class. One side is represented by liberal racist Baraka against the gutter racist, opportunistic police department unions backed by their fascist kkkops on the other side.
When Baraka ordered all emergency workers and police to be vaccinated or face termination, the misleaders of the Newark Fire Department’s firefighter and captain’s unions were quick to assume a lead role in organizing the protest, arguing that the mayor has no right to terminate them for being unvaccinated.Both factions pit Black and white workers against one another and prevent multiracial working class unity, with both factions playing different versions of identity politics.  In a gross misappropriation of the liberal slogans of the movement for women’s reproductive rights, the anti-vaxxer protest was mostly white male emergency workers and kkkops, who marched around Newark City Hall yelling “MY BODY, MY CHOICE!”
Meanwhile, communists are fighting to build a multiracial workers’ movement led by the Progressive Labor Party to expose the hypocrisy of both sides of Newark’s local ruling class. It’s time for serious class struggle around issues that matter, rather than the red herring of the bosses’ vaccine mandate!
Emergency workers: exploited by insurance finance capital
For years, Newark Fire Dept’s union leaders have taken the path of least resistance when it comes to fighting to improve conditions for firefighters. For example, a fully staffed crew that is assigned to put out a fire normally consists of one captain and four firefighters. Because liberal misleader Baraka and his administration refuse to pay overtime, firefighters have for years been forced to fight fires while understaffed. This means a crew to extinguish fires has one captain and only two firefighters. This routine short staffing was exacerbated by the sick leaves due to firefighters getting sick from COVID-19, leaving many firehouses further understaffed.
One solution would have been to pay overtime to fill the roll calls, but the Baraka administration would let firefighters work in already life-threatening conditions while understaffed rather than pay overtime. All the while, the union hacks stand back and stand by while this happens, rarely organizing any collective fightback to defend workers. Instead, the firefighter’s union joins with the police unions, as in this recent anti-vaxxer protest, creating confusion within emergency workers’ ranks over whose side their class interests lie: with the racist kkkops who kill protecting capitalism, or with the international working class?
Modern fire departments began after the 1666 Great Fire of London, which burnt down 70,000 of the city's 80,000  workers’ homes and killed unknown thousands. For the rising British capitalists, it cost insurance underwriters hundreds of millions of pounds in destruction to commercial property. Private fire departments owned by rival insurance companies spread to what became the U.S. to protect capitalist property, eventually consolidating into the system the U.S. has today. As recently as 2013, nineteen firefighters were killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. Tragically, the town had already been evacuated— the fire overran them while they battled to protect commercial property in the empty nearby town (Tucson.com, 6/29/18).
Communism: our class, our only choice!
As far as the department leadership is concerned, they see us as ‘lazy’, ignoring the toll that working 24 hour shifts and fighting fires while wearing 100 lbs. of extra gear takes on our bodies over time. In fact, they have recently even added medical duties to firefighters without properly training or paying them. Many firefighters have internalized the bosses’ lazy worker narrative by blaming and shaming one another for not being “tough enough” to handle the workload instead of uniting to attack the bosses.
The firefighter and captain’s unions fought the added medical mandate by filing an unfair labor practice charge. After an initial ruling in the firefighter’s favor the dispute went up to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the city. The unions cancelled the protest when they lost the court decision, giving up and leaving us workers out to dry instead of using our collective power as workers to take a job action.
Firefighters must begin to see that capitalism and its managerial staff of opportunist politicians and union fakers are the real enemy. They must also understand that any alliance with the police is a dead end, as the police are the security force for capitalism and mortal enemies of the working class. Instead, firefighters should ally with other workers and students in the communities they serve and deepen their ties with them, building fightback alongside them on the way to worker’s power and revolutionary communism.