CHICAGO, August 21—As the deadliest pandemic in history continues to wreak havoc on the international working class, U.S. food bosses seized the opportunity to capitalize on our classes’ despair, churning out sugary and salty goods, while raking record profits on the backs of overworked and underpaid workers.
 The latest example is the Nabisco factory workers strike. As many workers worldwide know from direct experience, racism, sexism and exploitation are baked right into this profit system. Just as dough needs yeast to rise, capitalism needs exploitation and racist divisions to function. Communists from the international Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought revolutionary politics to striking workers outside the Nabisco factory on the city’s southwest side. We distributed CHALLENGE newspapers, held signs, made conversation, and brought food to the multiracial group of picketers.
Our message to the striking workers is that regardless of what temporary crumbs the union can wrest from the bosses filthy bargaining table, it’s not enough. In the end, exploitation and its attendant ills- racism, sexism, long hours and ill health- are necessary for the capitalists in their quest for maximum profits.
PLP is proud to stand with striking workers in Chicago and everywhere in order to reject the sell out unions, toxic nationalism, capitalist misleaders and pitiful reforms in favor of an international communist future.
Exploitation under capitalism is how the cookie crumbles
Here at the Chicago plant, 300 workers have refused to keep enduring the grinding, racist, and deadly exploitation of the capitalist bosses. They are joining with hundreds of other Nabisco workers in other U.S. cities such as Richmond, Virginia and Portland, Oregon who are fighting back against unpredictable and long shifts, increased health insurance costs, and dangerous understaffing.
The relentless competition of their system forces the bosses to squeeze us as much as possible, at the cost of immeasurable worker suffering. During a pandemic, the company recorded profits of over $3 billion as a number of plants closed, while at others workers were forced to put in 16-hour shifts (CBS News, 8/20). Many worked six to seven days a week for several months. Now, they are being forced to give up overtime pay and concede to a two-tier healthcare system, which will reduce benefits for new workers and cut overall wages.
A number of workers view cutting wages and benefits as a betrayal, but for the bosses, these are necessary decisions based on profit. Under capitalism, all wage work is theft (see letter, page 6). This wage slavery must be abolished.
Pandemic exposes racist horrors
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has further exposed the horrors of the capitalist system. On top of the millions of mainly Black and Latin workers who have already died from a mostly preventable illness, we have seen some of the world’s wealthiest capitalists and companies collectively add $1 trillion to their total net worth since the pandemic began (Washington Post, 1/21). This sickening calculus demonstrates that bosses wealth is made possible by racism and sexism.
Horror stories of inhumane working conditions have surfaced in media reports. They paint a picture of how workers are treated amid a traumatic pandemic: from an injured Nabisco worker falling off her chair and being forced to work with a broken ankle (The Grio, 8/21), to Frito Lay workers dying of heart attacks on the factory floor (Washington Post, 7/21).
The strikers that we met on the picket line today, many of whom were Latin, Black, and women workers, shared their own personal stories of racist and sexist attacks from the bosses. They also shared their strong commitment to maintaining the strike and fighting on.
Labor fakers bake a toxic recipe
The union that officially represents the Nabisco workers, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) has some of the most reactionary politics that have come to represent the boss-led unions. They could hardly be bothered to mobilize the rank and file as the bosses shuttered plants, eliminated pensions and laid off hundreds.
They waited until the workers were on the ropes to finally call for a strike (Common Dreams, 8/20).They are also spreading the poison that is nationalism by painting Nabisco workers in Mexico as rivals who “took jobs” from workers in the U.S. Pitting workers from different countries against one another for the problems the profit system creates is a completely racist ideology that only serves the ruling capitalist class. Workers have every interest in uniting across the bosses’ artificial borders in a global fight against capitalist exploitation.
BCTGM or any other union will never call for this internationalism because they all seek to work within the confines of the capitalist system. To advance the needs of our class everywhere, we need a clean break with bosses, misleaders, and reformists. We need a mass PLP, fighting for communism and workers’ power!
Fight like Stella D’Oro, join PLP
PLP has supported and given leadership to countless strikes in our history because we understand them to be potential schools for communism. It is in the act of refusing our exploitation - withholding our labor from the bosses - building working-class unity that we grasp our own power and the vision of a worker-run society. Strikes also reveal the need for a revolutionary communist Party. We urge Nabisco workers to join us to help build the Party into a mass fighting force capable of destroying this rotten, crumbling system once and for all.
Supporting the Nabisco workers in their fight against racist and sexist attacks brings back memories of another strike that the Party supported, that of Stella D’Oro bakery workers in New York between 2009-10.
Majority immigrant and women workers maintained a two-front fight for 11 months against both bosses who wanted to close the factory and the treachery of the same BCTGM union hacks.
We don’t know how long the Nabisco strike will last, but we do know the PLP will continue to fight alongside our class to advance our struggle for a communist world where workers run things, and never need to settle for the bosses’ crumbs.

NEW YORK CITY, August 25—CUNY students and faculty from three campuses are responding to the recent earthquake and hurricane in Haiti, and the four month-long coal miners’ strike in Brookwood, Alabama. Over the summer, members and friends of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held weekly organizing meetings and political discussions with students and coworkers, in preparation for the fall semester. And our campuses are kicking the fall semester off with antiracist and anti-imperialist politics at the forefront of our organizing (see CUNY, page 5). These struggles are opportunities to build international working-class solidarity, which can build confidence in the working class to run society. We need to struggle with everyone involved in these fightbacks to commit to joining Progressive Labor Party.
Solidarity with students and workers in Haiti
Our local PLP club has been involved with the #SOSColombia movement against racist police terror in Colombia, with several members attending a rally in Washington, DC (see CHALLENGE, 6/10). We also followed the fightback in Haiti that began in 2018, sparked when the now-assassinated former President Moïse raised prices on fuel by 50 percent. To kick off the fall semester, we plan to hold a demonstration for international solidarity and connect the fightback in Colombia with the ongoing fightback in Haiti.
At Kingsborough Community College, our organizing has brought us into struggle alongside students from Yemen, Palestine and other Muslim-majority countries. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, this picked up again with the recent fascist Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Some Students fighting against Israeli terror expressed interest in supporting the workers in Haiti and Colombia. Haiti, Colombia and Palestine—the appearance may seem different in language and culture, but the essence is workers fighting against capitalist terror and exploitation.
“We are choking on nationalism”
Our club’s planning meetings for this solidarity demonstration have been spaces for sharp and enriching political discussion and debate by friends brand new to our Party. During one meeting, a veteran fighter in the struggle in Colombia and new to PLP noted how little they or many know of the history and struggle in Haiti. She noted, “We are choking on nationalism. So many groups only focus on Colombia and don’t want anything to do with internationalism. These borders are not real. Haiti was the first to resist colonization, and we need to make this connection.”
The connections between workers in Colombia, Palestine and Haiti run deep. The Israeli racists have been training the racist Colombian police and paramilitary forces since the 1980s (Al Jazeera, 6/5/03) and have been deploying and training the Haitian police fascists since 2010 (Jerusalem Post, 12/23/10).
The fact that workers are fighting back in all three areas is an opportunity for communists to build international working-class solidarity. Our club is growing with new friends and has moved into high gear since the earthquake and hurricane struck our sisters and brothers in Haiti. On September 4, join us in Brooklyn at Church Ave and Nostrand Ave at 12pm for an internationalist, anti-imperialist rally.
Solidarity with striking miners, Amazon workers
Our club is sending a delegation of students and faculty to Alabama to meet with striking miners of the Warrior Met Coal company. Since April, a multiracial group of 1,100 miners have been on strike for higher wages, benefits, and time off after the company broke off negotiations with their union, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Striking miners have been attacked by scabs and company goons on the picket lines, right down the road from Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, where 3,215 workers were recently intimidated out of voting for union representation.
One of Warrior Met Coal’s owners is BlackRock, a major investor in private, for-profit ICE detention centers along the U.S.-Mexico border. BlackRock’s CEO, Laurence Fink, is also a New York University trustee, and in 2019 was an honored guest at a CUNY-Hunter College event. Same enemy, same fight! Workers of the world unite!
After Contacting striking miners, we received an invitation to a rally in Alabama. We began reaching out to our base of CHALLENGE readers. We received very positive responses and pledges to help raise money and awareness about the strike, and connect our struggles at CUNY with the coal miners and Amazon workers. More in the next issue. Stay tuned!

CHICAGO, August 15—Communist ideas belong to the working class, not a few special people. Our local collective held a communist cadre school this weekend to strengthen our political understanding and organizational unity. A dynamic mix of members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and close friends came together over two days to socialize, engage in rich political discussion, and share in collective responsibilities such as food preparation and cleaning.
Cadre schools are one of the main ways the Party develops communist mass organizers, guided by a dialectical materialist (scientific) understanding of history and the Party’s collective experience. Without regular evaluation and struggle, the political line that guides our work can risk stagnating and becoming diluted. By discussing key aspects of the Party’s political analysis, we reach a higher level of understanding which allows us to be sharper fighters for communist revolution and the international working class.
The three main political subjects that we covered over the weekend included:
Nationalism, a weapon used to divide our class. There is no such thing as revolutionary or progressive nationalism. Any idea dependent on treating one set of workers as special over another group of workers undermines our inherent interest in internationalism. For more, see PLP’s document, “Revolutionaries Must Fight Nationalism.”
Democratic centralism, the way decisions get made in the interest of the whole working class. It is the best expression of the most freedom for the working class of the world, and it is the best form of human relations—making an agreement and sticking to it. For more, see PLP’s document, “For Communist Economics and Communist Power.”
Revolutionary violence, a necessity to abolish capitalism. Under this system, “non-violence” means the working class accepts violence by the state and is not allowed to retaliate. We are against individualistic violence. We cannot destroy capitalism and liberate our class without an organized violent revolution. See PLP’s document, “Reform and Revolution” and Lenin’s “State and Revolution.” All PLP documents are at www.plp.org under the “Key Documents” column.
Our choices for discussion were directly guided by our conversations and political work in recent months with new Party members and close friends. While capitalism relies on ignorance and complacency, PLP has confidence that workers can be won to the highest level of understanding and commitment. We need everyone to own these ideas and fight to make them a reality.

Here are four impressions from the weekend:
As someone who's been around the Party my whole life, joining seemed like an easy step to take. But after attending a few meetings and joining a book club, I realized I had many questions about what the Party is and does. How are decisions made? How is the Party structured? The cadre school did a great job at starting to answer these questions, and gives you a good foundation to start to help you feel more confident in being involved in the Party.
I've been a part of PLP for over a year now and this was my first cadre school ever. I didn't know what to expect coming in, but it was a very much needed experience. Not only were we able to take a deep dive, discussing politics but we also got to build unity and camaraderie within our party through these discussions. It didn't matter if you've been a member of the PLP for 20 years or two months, your voice and opinions were heard and that's something I always appreciate about Progressive Labor Party. Overall, the cadre school provided me with the tools to become a better communist and Party member and I'm eager to take my learnings and spread them within my community.”
“I wasn't sure what to expect with my first cadre school. Discussions in other settings can be hit or miss. However, it didn't take long for the group to get involved in the discussions. The term “school” seems wrong because we weren't just sitting down taking notes, but having challenging conversations and working together to understand the subject more. The cadre school was an open place for us all to share our thoughts and participate. I've learned a lot from the facilitators but also my other comrades, and have a new appreciation for having a space where we can all talk in person and work together to formulate our ideas.
The recent cadre school proved that our political and social interactions with new and potential comrades continues well after the event. The camaraderie during our time together strengthened the existing relationships in our local collective. It showed that our line and dedication to the Party is beyond the collective with whom they most typically interact. The cadre who attended are continuing the conversations initiated there and are raising the struggles that happened. Additionally, our mass work involving those who were present can be positively affected and increased. The discussions also helped to renew the political involvement of existing comrades, which is always necessary.

The Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong said, “We should check our complacency and constantly criticize our shortcomings, just as we should wash our faces or sweep the floor every day to remove the dirt and keep them clean.” Cadre schools and active struggle build stronger communists and a stronger PLP.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, August 16—A small but committed group of workers seized the opportunity to distribute Progressive Labor Party (PLP) leaflets in protest against a fundraiser hosted by the Board of Trustees’ President at the City College of San Francisco (CCSF). PLP have been active with campus groups that have been critical of the massive program cuts at CCSF and the following Monday, on the first day back to school, a similar contingent of workers and students attended a press conference to call out the CCSF administration for their lack of health preparations as students, faculty, and CCSF staff return amidst a raging pandemic. The CCSF cuts further demonstrate that capitalism and its education system was not designed for working class students.
Our main contribution to the struggle was to raise our political line and deliver a speech with a message that would inspire students to demolish capitalism  and fight for communism to secure their future. The main lesson we learned today is that capitalist education is not about “educating” students to think critically, solve interpersonal or societal problems, nor does it help them become well-rounded and better human beings; instead it is the total opposite. Not only is university education a diploma mill designed to extract tuition and in debt students, but it drills anti-working class ideas and other harmful ideologies into our students.
On the other hand communist education not based on profit or competition means that  lifelong education and learning be available to everyone. It would be an education where we support and learn from each other so we can build lives that better not just ourselves but also for the collective health of fellow workers and society.
Class politics are in session
With about 28 percent of the CCSF students returning to in-person classes, our group distributed PLP literature at both events, getting out 50 leaflets and 60 copies of CHALLENGE. Hitting the pavement as a collective gave us the opportunity to meet fellow workers and classmates that we had only previously met on Zoom screens.
Much of our club’s work on campus has been directly tied to the shifting course offerings. CCSF used to have programs for LGBT workers, senior citizens, ex-felons, ex-soldiers, and the mentally challenged. The school promoted a curriculum that treated workers and their education a little more than just capitalist programming. It provided a bit of a supportive community for people and had a history of successfully preparing university bound students.
But today, it is a shadow of its former self. CCSF used to have 90,000 students, but now has 35,000. Its prior 90 classes for senior citizens have now been cut to just nine. Its faculty is mostly composed of part-time teachers (called adjuncts) who have all the qualifications of a full-time professor but who receive less pay, have no health care, fewer classes, no offices and no job security. They often have to teach classes at different colleges to pay their bills. (That is why they are called “freeway flyers.”)Members of our Study Group attended both actions and gave political leadership. A PL’er delivered a speech in an effort to bring some politics to the forefront of this struggle. In our speech we highlighted that one of the most important roles of capitalist education is to inculcate our students with liberal ideas about the market being the only solution to human progress, and that all other alternatives, including communism are misguided fantasies. The CCSF’s Board of Trustees’ decision to slash these programs is a reflection of this role. The latest attacks against CCFC students is a teachable moment, revealing that students must uphold the capitalist agenda of austerity, privatization, and exploitation in order to prosper under capitalism.
Thankfully today’s demonstration shows that students and teachers protesting these cuts not only reject the bosses' solutions, but they also reject the bosses’ toxic market ideologies undergirding these attacks. The Party member closed out the speech by calling for communist revolution as the only solution to transforming our unequal, and mediocre education system.
PLP members active in this fightback understand that our struggle right now is one of reform, but until we are able to wave the red flag high and smash this racist, sexist, capitalist system our working-class sisters and brothers must be supported.
Now our task is to continue to build the fightback, to deepen our relationships with the people in our group and those we connected with this month. We will continue to distribute CHALLENGE consistently and to meet students at school with the aim of inviting them to join our study groups and ultimately PLP. Join the revolution for communism!