NEW JERSEY —“Our working conditions are your learning conditions!” Under this unifying idea, graduate students and faculty have been organizing and moving towards a strike over the past few months here at Rutgers University, building mass student support and solidarity along the way. The causes of the strike include:
- Bloated salaries of administrators (many making more than $250,000 a year)
- Low salaries for faculty; sexist, unequal pay for women and men professors.
- Administrative neglect of promises to racially diversify the faculty.
- Different salaries among the three campuses of Rutgers, with lower salaries for faculty working at the Newark and Camden campuses where there are many more Black, Latin and immigrant students
- Near-starvation wages of graduate students.
- Job insecurity for non-tenure track full-time lecturers, who have twice the teaching load of their tenure-track counterparts, and earn one quarter to one third as much income.
- Student - teacher unity has been prominently on display during the fightback, as this growing movement is organizing to ensure gains are made by every sector of the students and faculty, and not just the tenured faculty.
An injury to one is an injury to all
While the leadership of the union (AAUP) bargained “hard.”It was mainly for the tenure-track faculty, as they saw the biggest gains. Graduate students—many of whom are paid so poorly that they have to visit the campus food bank—did not win a badly needed retroactive pay increase for this year. After four years, they will be earning a mere $30,000, an unlivable wage in the state of New Jersey. Some non-tenure track, full-time lecturers will gain longer contracts, but still not guaranteed tenure. This means that they face continuing job insecurity in the academic “gig” economy.
The real elephant in the room, though, has been the situation of Part-Time Lecturers (PTLs), most of whom make a minimal $5,100 per semester course, have no health benefits, are hired from semester to semester with little prior notice, and can be fired without cause. PTLs are, moreover, excluded from the AAUP bargaining unity, representing tenure-track faculty and graduate workers. The increasing use of PTLs rather than full-time faculty at Rutgers is the scandal of higher education throughout the U.S., where “adjunctification” has become a weapon by the U.S. capitalist class for dismantling tenure, which decades ago was a hard-fought reform victory.
The meaning of “victory”
The AAUP leadership misleads this growing movement of student-teacher unity in proclaiming the outcome of recent contract negotiations to be a “historic” victory. This union misleadership has given a stamp of approval to the structured inequality destroying living and learning standards across Rutgers University and increasingly prevailing in higher education throughout the U.S. Moreover, the kinds of gains won for tenure-track faculty will be wiped away if they do not unite in a single union with faculty who are lower in the teaching hierarchy.
Our real victory consists in the movement of solidarity that has developed over the course of the academic year. Members of the Board of Governors routinely encountered large and militant picket lines chanting “Shame! Shame!” Students—burdened by debt and headed into the “gig” economy themselves–joined the picket lines and formed groups to support faculty and grads in the event of a strike. Members of the campus janitors’ union did not remove posters plastered around the campus. Construction workers in a nearby building ceased using their loud equipment when rallies were taking place. Other unions marched in support. Members of one Steelworkers Union traveled from as far as Pittsburgh to express solidarity. Faculty from colleges in New York and New Jersey spoke at Newark campus rallies in support of a strike at Rutgers.
Strikes can be schools for communist revolution
Lenin, a communist revolutionary who helped lead the working class to build the world’s first workers’ state, the Soviet Union, once wrote that strikes are “schools for communism.”
Lenin did not mean that the economic gains won are gradual stepping-stones toward communist revolution. He meant that participation in class-conscious reform struggles can open workers to the revolutionary idea that the international working class needs to run the whole of society. Members and friends of PLP, intimately involved in the strike movement at various levels, have continually brought CHALLENGE and the words “capitalism,” “communism,” “revolution,” and “class struggle” into the conversation—and received big cheers. We have learned valuable lessons about how to put forward a revolutionary perspective in the midst of a reform struggle. Our ranks are expanding. Beneath the cynicism and passivity seemingly prevailing on college campuses these days, there exists a tremendous potential for building a revolutionary communist movement.
Los Angeles, April 27- We celebrated another year of the fight for communism with a lively May Day dinner. Over 60 students, teachers, health care workers, church members, friends, and family came together to share a potluck meal, speeches, collective art, discussion, struggle, and music.
Once again,our emcees were a Latina student and a Black teacher from our base. They kept everyone engaged and excited throughout the night. Our main speech talked about the Los Angeles teachers’ strike as a school for communism. Even though the union sold out the teachers, the more important aspect was the teachers, students, and other workers coming together to fight. There were two UTLA teachers in attendance who received a strong round of applause, from the audience for their brave fight back.
Table talk
In small groups we had lively discussions about the current 2020 presidential election candidates and whether we thought they could keep their reform promises under capitalism. Some people said they didn’t know much about who was running so far.
Others had heated discussions about how far reforms could go under capitalism. One example given was a small business owner who tries to give their employees a living wage and benefits but found out that even by doing unpaid labor themselves, they could still not break even.
Other comrades argued that even if something like reparations for slavery were instituted, the ruling class could easily take them away when they needed. These discussions will continue when we return to our schools and workplaces
Racism at the border and beyond
Throughout the dinner there was a slideshow presentation of scenes from the Tijuana, Mexico/United States border and examples of health care advances made in China after the revolution. Progressive Labor Party(PLP) has made numerous trips to the border and brought workers with them to join the fight against borders and the treatment of migrant workers. A Latin medical student and a health care worker spoke about their experiences traveling to the border to give medical aid to migrant workers there, making comparisons to Mao’s “Serve the People” campaigns in China. The comrade and student spoke about their motivations for making the trip: solidarity and not charity and in a small way dismantling the bosses’ borders by building internationalism.
Another Black student, a future healthcare worker, talked about his participation in the fight against racist police murder. He had joined comrades and friends at the annual public health conference, so his speech highlighted this trip and how he aims to stay involved in a local fight against new jail construction in the city. These two speeches were a step forward for us as this was our first time in a long while that we had close friends of the party giving speeches at our May Day dinner.
Working class art
One of the highlights of the night was the collective art piece. Fourteen Black and Latin high school students enthusiastically contributed to the painting of a mural depicting the working class joining together to make one fist to dismantle the system. The painting was labeled May Day 2019 and will start a collection of future May Day art pieces.
As always, we closed with a call to action before singing The Internationale: join PLP, march with us on May Day, come to the summer project, read and distribute Challenge. All of these are steps towards building the mass, communist party we need to destroy this oppressive, capitalist system and replace it with a communist workers’ state.
CHICAGO, May 1—Today we celebrated May Day, the true workers’ holiday celebrated by the working class internationally. Over 80 of us gathered at a local hall on Chicago’s west side to talk about the history of how workers at Haymarket Square in Chicago fought back against capitalist exploitation by holding a 300,000-strong general strike on May 1, 1886 that sent shockwaves around the world. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is carrying on the tradition of workers at Haymarket through international communist struggle to destroy capitalism, with an emphasis on Black workers and youth being the key to revolution.
What Day? May Day!
The event kicked off with a scavenger hunt that accompanied a gallery walk of photos and facts about communist struggles through the years and May Day history in particular. There were many teenagers who attended, and they quickly moved around the hall, answering questions to try to win the scavenger hunt. These youth were present as a result of our continued growing work in local schools. This group activity was followed by an inspiring speech by a comrade who is helping lead political work in the community and on his job at a west side hospital, where they are trying to get a union to counter the bosses’ sexist and racist attacks.
It was encouraging to see a handful of these workers become motivated during the program to come to the microphone and speak about the capitalist horrors of their jobs and express interest in getting involved again. One works as a counselor in the jails, and mentioned how the system of capitalism has destroyed the lives of many of the incarcerated people where she works. Another announced that the charter school where she works is planning to go on strike on May 1st, the third wave of charter school strikes in Chicago in five months. Two new members gave speeches on why they joined the Party. The first of which was a younger comrade, who spoke to the Party’s strength in exposing the liberals as the primary threat to working-class people. She talked of continuing to build a base among youth, who regularly get funneled into the misleading hands of the Democratic Party but really are in need of the revolutionary PLP to change the world in our interests.
The second new comrade to speak was a working mother, who was won recently to the Party through our work in an anti-deportation reform group. Her speech, which was delivered in Spanish, spoke to how she had always been a fighter and learned to organize workers at a very young age, but it wasn’t until she met the Party that she really felt at home in the U.S. She ended her speech with the words, “The bosses are afraid of the working people who have no fear.”
We sang our May Day standards “Bella Ciao” and “The International” in both Spanish and English. Although a late spring snowstorm had forced us to cancel our rally and march, we held a rally indoors at the hall in which we shouted the Party’s anti-racist and anti-sexist revolutionary chants, with practically the entire hall on their feet and engaged.
Chicago’s west side: a story of police terror, and poor healthcare
The reason we celebrated May Day on the city’s west side is because of our history, past and present, of fighting racism in the area. In North Lawndale, there have been many murders committed by the hands of the racist Chicago Police Department. Michael Elam, Rekia Boyd, and Steven Rosenthal have all been murdered by the fascist kkkops in the neighborhood in recent years. We as a Party were active in many of the actions organized to protest their racist murders. Continuing to build a base among other anti-racist fighters in the neighborhood remains exceptionally important as the racist city bosses move ahead with their plans to build a $95 million dollar new police academy nearby (See CHALLENGE, 4/3).
Racist health outcomes are also a harsh reality to workers here. In mostly-Black West Garfield Park, average life expectancy is around 69 years, compared to around 85 years in the wealthier downtown Loop (westsideunited.org). In west side hospitals such as Mount Sinai, mostly Black, Latin, and Asian women workers are short-staffed on the units and thus unable to provide safe and adequate care to their mostly Black and immigrant patients. Many comrades and friends have taken a leading role in organizing against sexist and racist attacks like these on our jobs in west side hospitals and university campuses and will take the inspiration from our May Day event to strengthen our efforts.
We have a world to win
The comrade who gave the main speech during the dinner challenged those present to see their own struggles as part of a larger, international battle against the world’s bosses. As pro-capitalist sellouts such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seek to dupe the masses and lead them into more fascism and imperialism, our Party and communist revolution remain the only real path out of a daily nightmare for billions.
On this May Day and every day, remember: We have a world to win, and nothing to lose but our chains!
Israel is again becoming overtly fascist. Gone are the liberal masks of the 1990s and the early 2000s. Now, government officials openly advocate for annexing the (already occupied) West Bank and establishing an open apartheid regime where Palestinian residents will be forced to live under Israeli rule. The government increasingly censures the press, and uses libel lawsuits to silence criticism. Openly sexist, and - of course - racist politicians will likely be ministerial appointees in the next administration.
The Israeli Defense Forces have killed 182 Palestinians and wounded 9,204 while suppressing anti-siege protests on the Gaza border. Many more were killed as “collateral damage” in Israeli bombings of Hamas targets in Gaza in response to rocket fire on Israeli towns. Per UN data, 38 percent of Gazans live in poverty. There is 26 percent unemployment in Gaza, and 38 percent of the youth are unemployed. Fifty-four percent of Gazans are food insecure and over 75 percent are aid recipients. Gazan workers protested these conditions earlier this year, but Hamas - the religious movement in control of Gaza - repressed the protests with brutal force.
Given our limited resources, we mainly participate in two struggles. The first is the National Coalition for Direct Employment. It’s a multi-racial, women-led organization of workers fighting against “contract” bosses. These bosses are modern slave traders, who hire workers and then “rent” them out to various firms and government offices. A PL’er, a housekeeping worker in a mall employed through a contractor, leads one of the struggles.
The other struggle is against racism in southern Tel-Aviv. Thousands of Black asylum seekers have come to Tel-Aviv in the past two decades, fleeing fascism and genocide in their home countries. Local racists, encouraged by government officials, leading a campaign against them, claiming the asylum seekers are “rapists and murderers” who “destroy the neighborhoods”. This racism helps “developers” who want to evict tenants from these poor neighborhoods and build luxury apartments. We join with local community fighters, led by working-class Black and Jewish women, to fight these fascist scums and build worker unity.
We are all struggling with capitalism’s horrors. We need communism now more than ever! We will overcome these difficulties and continue the class struggle, together with our sisters and brothers in Israel-Palestine and the whole world.
To comrades around the world—Here we are in the month of May just like that of 1886. A May that reminds us of the bitter victory of our class: the work day had been cut to 8 hours, but many workers and union leaders died, were jailed, wounded, or were hung for their efforts.
Yes, May is a month that marks us, and we will mark it as well, after the end of the bosses’ rule. This is the moment that we will celebrate. We won’t be celebrating our lives only as workers, but as revolutionaries.
Let us deplore that, in spite of the struggles carried out, all the demonstrations and marches against the exploitation of our class by the bosses, our working conditions are often worse than in most of the countries in the world. And it is this sad reality which pushes us to unite as a class, to build, under the leadership of the Progressive Labor Party, a communist revolution. Communism, a system where workers rule in their own interests as a class, is the only solution to all the horrors of capitalism – racism, sexism, nationalism, unemployment, exploitation, poverty, imperialist wars, and all the rest.
Today, comrades in New York and around the world, the working class of Haiti, and the PLP of Haiti, salute you as we march together for our needs as a class. We in Haiti are fighting against many of the forms of capitalist exploitation that infect the rest of the world. Tens of thousands have been in the streets protesting against the bosses and their politicians, all of whom line their pockets at our expense. In Haiti, we are fighting against the corruption embodied in the PetroCaribe oil scandal, against the atrocious poverty under which many Haitian workers and their families rarely find one decent meal a day, in a country where over 70 percent of the workers are unemployed.
Mass marches in large Haitian cities on May 1, as well as other political activities, show that our class is on the move. We are fighting to build the PLP as the leadership of the working class in Haiti.
We shout out to you today: ON TO VICTORY!
