Newark, February 28––“I am a worker!” These words were echoed again and again throughout the Coalition of Rutgers Unions’ day long “Take Back the University” event at the college’s Newark Campus. The three-part day of protest, which marked the beginning of the faculty union’s strike authorization vote, included two teach-ins about solidarity and striking, as well as a rally aimed to disrupt the meeting of the university’s Board of Governors (BOG).
On the heels of the Take Back the University day of protest, and after months of fruitless negotiations with the bosses, the 8000 academic workers of Rutgers AAUP-AFT faculty union have officially authorized a strike. Many reforms are on the table, including pay equity, health care, maternity leave, and job security for adjunct professors and graduate students. Though these reforms would certainly benefit those who receive them, strikes are best measured by their ability to mobilize and raise the consciousness of the working class.
Despite freezing rain and fresh snowfall, and the university bosses’ last minute cancellation of in-person classes and the BOG meeting, nearly 200 people made it out. While union misleaders spoke in support of electoralism and the bosses’ capitalist system, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members provided key political leadership by consistently pushing discussion and chants beyond the specific problems facing Rutgers’ faculty and graduate students, and toward communist ideas of class consciousness and multiracial unity.
Cowardly bosses are a no-show
The night before the Rutgers AAUP-AFT “Take Back the University” day of protest, Rutgers’ Board of Governors announced that it would be switching its only meeting set for the Newark campus this year to Zoom. The Newark administrators also took advantage of the light snow conditions and moved all classes that day from in-person to virtual. They claimed this was for the safety of students and workers, and yet janitors and dining hall staff still had to come into work despite the weather. This differential treatment by the bosses, meant to divide and isolate the members of the working class from each other, was the subject of the first teach-in of the day.
PLP members made clear connections between the shallow identity politics the university and unions advertise, and the neglect, displacement, and mistreatment of the Black and Latin working class in Newark. Our members explained about the university’s role as a capitalist institution, one that exploits Black and Latin maintenance workers while also conditioning students with the nationalist and identity-based ideas needed to recruit our class to fight in WWIII. Our comments were then quoted by other workers in their rally speeches. The bosses’ cowardice was not shared, and workers were present, receptive, and encouraged by this communist-led action.
Cult of personality on display
While unions offer workers an important tool for organizing our class against the bosses’ racist exploitation, they also contain contradictions that cannot be overlooked. Like all reformist organizations, they ultimately work to prolong the lifespan of capitalism.
By endorsing liberal politicians and negotiating “in good faith” with our exploiters, unions work to win our class to this terrible world order. This was clear at the Rutgers day of protest, where Association of Flight Attendants president Sarah Nelson lied on stage about receiving a phone call from liberal misleader Bernie Sanders, and falsely declared that “workers can control capitalism.” Amazon Labor Union president, Chris Smalls was also in attendance, and only repeated the same played out phrases about union work being a “marathon, not a sprint,” and arguing bureaucratic union density is our class’s most important fight.
Both Nelson and Smalls played on their own notoriety by taking selfies with fans and starting chants disparaging Jeff Bezos and other billionaires. They both advocated for the replacement of famous bosses but not their total defeat. These are opportunist lines for those looking to advance their political careers.
Members of PLP helped to shift the dialogue away from these misleaders’ talking points, moving the chants away from specific U.S. bosses and toward multiracial unity, at one point having everyone in attendance shouting, “Asian, Latin, Black and White, workers of the world unite!”
Our Party refuses to lean on the cult of personality and lie to workers this way, arguing that our class already runs the world, and that agreeing to the terms of our exploitation at the bargaining table only helps the ruling class keep us under their boots longer. The only solution is a communist revolution!
Strikes are schools for communism!
More than 50 Rutgers workers and supportive community members received copies of CHALLENGE at the union event, and our Party is committed to continuing to provide leadership to our class on the picket line if a strike is called. PLP views strikes as schools for communism. Striking is an important first step in understanding our power to fight back against the bosses’ exploitation, and the more workers–inside and outside academia–that come to understand their class position, and the power we have when we work together as a united, multiracial, and international communist party, then we can finally begin to come out of this dark night and one day win the world. Join us!
