THE BRONX, April 15—The police picked on the wrong family when they arrested Yajaira Saavedra. She and her family own La Morada restaurant, a place of antiracism and fightback for undocumented and immigrant workers. As racist cops carried out business as usual in the South Bronx, terrorizing Black and Latin workers, our class was ready to fight back.
The family called a community press conference. Progressive Labor Party particiapted and recognizes it as part of a bigger fight against capitalism and racism. “I was under the impression that I was in a sanctuary city, but more barriers are being placed by the mass policing that targets unjustly the working class like my family and local street vendors,” Natalia Mendez, the mother of the family, told the press (Civil Eats, 1/18). Clearly, sanctuary is no protection for workers.
Harassed by police
On January 11, Yajaira Saavedra, daughter of Natalia, saw the New York Police Department (NYPD) carrying out a sting operation outside of La Morada and began filming the incident. She was unaware that three plainclothes cops were inside the restaurant. One demanded that she stop recording. After revealing that he was an undercover cop, he ordered her to shut down the restaurant. When she demanded a warrant, he replied “I don’t have a warrant, but I have a badge and a gun and if you don’t do as I say, I’m going to flip the restaurant around,” flashing his gun as he spoke.
After Yajaira demanded he leave the restaurant, the officer returned with more members of their gang to arrest Yajaira. Without reading her rights to her, they threw her into a black van and brought her to the precinct. Yajaira’s sister, who was also threatened with arrest, had a panic attack and had to be treated by Emergecy Medical Technicans. Community members mobilized immediately and demanded Yajaira’s release, which occurred three hours later (Civil Eats, 1/18).
Safety in fightback
Yajaira is a holder of DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Barack Obama-era program that delays deportations of undocumented immigrants who came here as children. She could’ve been easily deported as a result of this arrest.
The Mendez-Saavedra family is known for their fightback against racism. Yajaira started an advocacy group that promoted education access for undocumented immigrants. Her brother Marco has infiltrated detention centers three times, most recently with the Dream 9, a group of undocumented fighters who left the United States and re-entered to document and expose the fascist conditions of the of U.S. immigration system during the Obama administration (The Independent, 1/12/18).
Yajaira was correct when she said, “As an undocumented immigrant, we are always on our toes when it comes to immigration raids and police raids. They both create terror.” The bosses’ mass terror campaign deports immigrants daily on charges as minor as driving without a license, possession of marijuana, shoplifting, or violating probation (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 12/21/16). Liberal reforms like DACA, which only delay deportations on the condition of being passive to the system, keep workers in limbo and in a permanent state of fear.
While workers are told again and again to shut up and not resist, we in the Progressive Labor Party say, the only possibility of security is in fighting back. To take it a step further, joining a worldwide struggle against police terror, racism, and capitalism is the only real protection workers have.
Gentrification, a war on workers
Yajaira’s arrest occurs in the wake of intensifying gentrification in the Bronx. As rents rise and new real estate pops up, long-time residents face eviction. Gentrification, enabled by racism and police terror, is sown into the fabric of capitalism—a system in which the ruling class’ profits always come before the safety and well-being of workers
Gentrification depends on increased police terror against Black and Latin working-class people. The city is building a new $68 million facility for NYPD’s 40th precinct, the current location of which is just a few blocks from La Morada (ABC News, 7/10/18). In 2013, the precinct’s Deputy Inspector was caught on tape instructing cops to specifically stop and frisk “male Blacks 14 to 21” (Daily News, 3/21/13). The police are continuing a current-day War on Drugs in the area. Earlier this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered sweeps in the neighborhood targeting homeless people and people who use drugs, a move that he called off after much public criticism (Politico, 1/13). Crackdowns do not address addiction, and instead are a cover for violence against mainly Black and Latin workers. It is significant to note that all of this is happening in a “sanctuary city” under the Democratic Party.
Liberal politicians are the main danger
Liberal politicians offer no real solution to fascist violence against immigrants, and are not on the side of the working class even though they pretend to be. At the Saavedra-Mendez family’s press conference, attended by Progressive Labor Party, workers rightly expressed suspicion of the liberal establishment, calling into question the concept of the American Dream and police accountability. “American Dream, American Promise, the only promise that America gives is that you’re gonna get whipped as a Black and brown person,” said one resident.
Just as many workers cannot be won to the blatant anti-immigrant racism of the right, neither can we be pulled into liberal attempts to redeem electoral politics through multicultural patriotism. In response to Donald Trump’s overt attacks on immigrants, liberals have supported so called “sanctuary cities” to protect immigrant workers. What good is a “sanctuary city” if residents can’t pay rent and get terrorized by police daily. Folks live in fear of being snatched and separated from their loved ones. Similarly, policies like DACA and the NYS DREAM Act offer temporary and insufficient reforms, while at the same time increase workers’ buy-in to a multicultural American Dream.
Any movement that’s under the bosses’ leadership will serve those bosses’ interests. A sanctuary movement under the liberal bosses serves the longterm needs of  the U.S. ruling class.As the bosses gear up for World War III, multicultural patriotism will be used to build an army willing to fight for the U.S. empire.
The comments made at the press conference give us confidence that workers will resist these liberal narratives, and we must continue to struggle with all workers to ensure this is so.
Rather than liberal reforms, we must fight for revolutionary change. We must abolish borders and create a safer world for all of us by fighting for communism.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) controls all of New York City’s public transportation. Over a year ago it proposed a 15-month complete shutdown of the L train subway line, in order to complete much needed repairs. Just four months before the repairs were to begin, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo played the hero role and announced a new plan so as not to “inconvenience” the riding public. That’s a big lie, typical of all politicians. The transit system was built to get workers to work. The trains function for the “convenience” of the bosses not the workers.
Actually, the MTA abuses two groups of workers, the riding public and the transit workers, members of the Transit Workers Union (TWU). Both of these groups of workers should come together to fight the capitalists who see the MTA as their tool and not a service for working people. The L train shut down is a prime example that shows the transit bosses’ real purpose, to make capitalists’ profits. The initial shut down proposal  would have cost businesses a lot of money so Governor Cuomo dispatched his own set of expert engineers to declare it a bad plan (NYcurbed.com, 1/3). The new plan is to shut the L line down during off peak hours, during the weekend so it doesn’t affect the bosses’ bottom line.
Moreover, Cuomo doesn’t actually care about the health risk the construction project poses to workers(NY Post, 3/11).Workers traveling to work on weekdays will likely inhale the toxic dust left off from the weekend work. But what’s a little silica dust in the name of capitalism? It’s nothing to the bosses. What about the TWU workers that work in these L trains stations? They too will face exposure to the silica dust just like the workers riding to work.
Meanwhile the TWU has not made a public outcry about these working conditions. It’s a contract year. The union tells the rank and file members that the riders are not their friends. The union makes sure the workers are divided. The capitalist-controlled media makes sure the riders hate the TWU members who ensure these riders get to work. The media makes it seem that train and bus delays are the product of lazy workers and not bad management, the same bad management that would allow the workers, both riders and service providers, to live with silica dust. And neither the media nor the politicians blame the billionaire business owners and their capitalist system.
What can be done?  The same thing that always needs to be done. Workers need to fight back! This could be an epic win if the riders and transit workers fought this together. The bosses keep us divided, but if we fought together we could win. A win against silica would be great. However, how many more battles would we have to fight? Fighting for small but important battles is crucial, but the ultimate solution is a communist revolution, where the workers run everything. Only then will we work and ride in safe conditions.

STATEN ISLAND, NY, April 16— On May 13, a phony NYPD departmental “disciplinary” trial will be held for Daniel Pantaleo, the racist cop who murdered Eric Garner on July 17, 2014, using a banned chokehold. While Eric was being murdered, Ramsey Orta, a neighborhood resident, turned on his cell phone and took a video of the murder of his friend. Ramsey filmed the killing while seven other callous cops and Emergency Medical Techincians watched and did nothing as Eric said, “I can’t breathe” eleven times.
These criminals with badges have not been  charged with any crimes yet, and they certainly have not been fired. Mayor Bill de Blasio allowed current and former police commissioners to permit  Pantaleo to continue to working (and even make an excessive amount of overtime). The trial is phony because it only makes a recommendation to the Police Commissioner.
SiaraPB (Staten Island Against Racism and Police Brutality), formed after Eric’s murder, will demonstrate for justice for Eric Garner and demand criminal charges against Pantaleo at the NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza at 9am on Monday, May 13.
Ramsey Orta’s journey through prison system is not over
Because Ramsey Orta made sure the video was made public, workers all over the world became aware of the racist brutality of the New York Police Department. This created an international firestorm and made Ramsey a target of the police. We won’t forget that if it were not for Ramsey’s courage, we would not clearly and vividly know the truth about Eric Garner’s death. There are many other cop murders of unarmed Black and Latin people, but their details are not known because they are covered up by the police and the media—there is no video.
Yet, Ramsey was released and arrested many times after the video went public. Two of the charges led to his imprisonment and he is now serving a harsh sentence of close to four years. As an essentially political prisoner, Ramsey has been treated very badly during his time in prison: he has been transferred six times to different prisons very far from New York City, where his family and friends live;he is frequently harassed, given violations for minor infractions, and even put in solitary for very minor infractions.Siara PB and the Progressive Labor Party have organized to help people visit Ramsey. We continue to support him. He will be in prison serving until July, 2020 and will likely face police harassment when he is released.
Anti-racist struggles help build communism
 One of the things we’ve learned participating in anti-racist, anti-killer cop movements in the last few years is that many, many workers and students talk about the fact that we must change the whole system, usually meaning reforming the police and judicial system.  Our job as communists is to help them understand that the capitalist system needs racism to divide the working class and make more profits and that the cops and the courts are part of the state apparatus that keeps the capitalists in power. Only by destroying capitalism and by the working class taking power under a mass communist party will we be able to abolish the capitalist injustice system. Bringing workers and students to that level of understanding is our job as members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party. Join us on MAY DAY!

In 2010 a terrible earthquake killed 3,000 workers in Haiti. After years of U.S.,Canadian, French and other foreign corporations exploit Haiti’s resources, the workers of Haiti were left vulnerable to this capitalist-made disaster. Every year since then the Haitian non-profit FEDASE, along with members of our church, have been organizing an annual fundraising dinner to support the efforts of grassroots organizers in Haiti.
Planting the seeds of communism through class struggle
The money collected during this multiracial evening will go towards planting trees in Haiti. A decision was made to plant fruit trees because there is less incentive for workers to cut them down to make charcoal, which is a source of income for the them. If the trees bear fruit, the fruit can be sold and/or eaten. As these trees grow and bear fruit, let’s make sure that revolutionary communist ideas also grow.
We need the workers in Haiti who are organizing collectively without any government aid to become the future organizers of a communist world.Our ties with the Haitian organizers are strong and the evening is always one of music, food, and good feeling. Everyone participates in the singing of songs in Kreyol and English. Photos from the work on the ground in Haiti are shown in a slide show while music from Haiti and other places is enjoyed.
This year a poem was read in two languages, Kreyol and English,by a member of the church and a member of FEDASE. A member of the Haitian group wrote the poem, which talks of struggle and comradeship against imperialism and exploitation.
The evening was followed by an after church discussion on reforestation in Haiti. The discussion opened with a history of the exploitative reparations imposed on the workers of Haiti by the French after the first successful revolution against slavery and imperialism in the world in 1804.
The French demanded payment for the Haitian people’s freedom, because they were now deprived of the lucrative profits of slavery. Ever since then corrupt governments dominated by imperialist powers have worked to keep the workers of Haiti without resources while super-exploiting their labor. One such exploiter is the Clinton Foundation, which built a low-wage garment factory, which by 2016 produced only 8,000 of the 100,000 jobs they promised.
Bosses destroy, workers create
As one example of the vicious exploitation of Haiti’s natural resources, multinational corporations have cut down most of the natural hardwood forests. As a result of this theft,there is now only two percent of the tree coverage that existed previously. Lack of trees and plants exacerbate the mountainous terrain and leads to soil loss and mudslides endangering all residents.
FEDASE is working with students to plant trees and fund their schooling in an effort to combat this problem. Working together with these workers and their students we must build a communist world through collectivity and multi-racial unity, without corrupt governments that serve the capitalists. Power to the workers!