CHICAGO, June 11–Class struggle between hospital workers and the racist capitalist bosses here in Chicago is on the rise! Members of the international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined close to 100 workers, union organizers, and community allies for a one-day picket today at St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital to support the fight and spread communist politics.
The nurses here at St. Mary have been organizing to form a union to fight back against worsening conditions for staff and patients alike, made worse after the hospital was bought by California-based Prime Healthcare a little over a year ago. Tensions have reached a boiling point after six nurses were fired last month for their efforts in organizing the union, spurring today’s one-day strike (Block Club Chicago, 6/11).
The pathetic retaliation on the part of the bosses has only added fuel to the fire. As revolutionary communists, we are committed not only to show up in solidarity with the picket but to expose how this rotten profit system can NEVER fundamentally meet our needs as workers! By building the mass PLP through our participation in these fights, we can get closer to the worker-run communist future that we truly need.
On the front lines against capitalist oppression
Our comrades arrived at the picket to meet a lively and multiracial group of workers in front of the hospital. It was immediately clear that women, particular Black, Latin and Asian women workers were in leadership of the campaign. Most of the workers were eager to take a copy of the CHALLENGE newspaper, particularly with the front-page headline “POWER TO THE WORKERS!” As we distributed the issue, we took the opportunity to discuss the front-page article about the recent NIPSCO lockout, connecting that fight to this struggle and battles against capitalist exploitation everywhere (see CHALLENGE 06/17).
The nurses were ready to share their experiences and passion too. Practically everyone we talked to had horror stories about how Prime was attacking them, their patients and their families through poor staffing, failing to replace necessary equipment, and cutting charity benefits for lower-income patients. They all understood that if they didn’t organize to fight back, the attacks would just keep on coming.
Through heightened moments of class struggle like union campaigns and strikes, the nature of capitalism is exposed more clearly to our class. The bosses take the mask off to show the extremes they are willing to go to protect their profits and power, including firings and using repressive state forces like police to intimidate and attack us workers. But these strikes are also schools for communism, where our class learns of our own power and collectivity and how we don’t need the bosses! Having the mass PLP in more of these kinds of struggles everywhere is key to reinforcing that truth and building real worker power through a fighting party.
It’s not just Prime, it’s capitalism
Although Prime Healthcare is making waves as a particularly abusive corporation, the awful conditions of healthcare and worker health under capitalism run far deeper than any one bad actor. Like everything under this system, healthcare is treated like a commodity to sell and make the bosses profits. The bosses are only interested in our health so far as we can keep showing up to work each day and keep the system running. As such, we suffer from many preventable diseases, and the racist inequality baked into the system makes sure that Black and Brown workers suffer the worst.
Organizing into a union is one of the most obvious ways for workers to fight back under capitalism, but they are hardly enough. Most often, unions exist as a means for us to negotiate the terms of our exploitation with the bosses, while keeping the overall structure of capitalism safely intact. What’s more, the misleaders who run the largest unions push passivity and voting down our throats, lining us up behind the same capitalist politicians who are responsible for the miserable conditions we deal with today.
Communism represents the path for our class to secure our healthiest existence possible. In past revolutions in the Soviet Union and China, the working class under communist leadership was able to secure radical gains in life expectancy, maternal and public health, and mental wellbeing. PLP fights to build upon that legacy by rebuilding a mass international revolutionary movement and a society freed from the chains of profit, exploitation, and class inequality.
Communism means workers’ power
We salute the bold nurses of St. Mary as they continue their important struggle. Our plan in PLP is to continue supporting and organizing our class while deepening our personal connections to win the masses to communism and our Party. Workers make society go, so we should be in charge of it! Down with the bosses and capitalism – all power to the working class!