The MTA bosses have yet another worker’s blood on their filthy, racist hands!
Conductor Moet McCullum, a 41 year old mother of three and probationary employee, was working as a construction flagger on the subway tracks when a train struck and killed her on September third in The Bronx.
While the train operator was apparently found to be operating his train at higher speeds than he was supposed to, after a warning from a flagger at the previous station, McCullum’s death is another example of how little the MTA’s head stooges care about worker safety, while lying they do.
McCullum was helping to set up lights (“flagging”) that would alert train operators to workers performing maintenance work on the tracks. Days after her death, MTA management, more concerned with making train “service” than protecting its workforce, reimplemented rule changes to hold back trains when flaggers are setting up the light arrangements. While this has been a policy the Transit Authority bosses used in the past, it was done away with in the years before McCullium’s death. Why? Because MTA is in service to capitalism, a system that prioritizes profits over safety and workers’ lives!
This is the first such death in the system since track worker Hilarion Joseph in 2023, and another in 2016 with conductor Louis Gray Jr. Both workers were also struck by trains. After Gray’s death, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the Operations Control Center (OCC), which oversees subway trains, failed to notify train dispatchers that Gray’s team of flaggers would be on the track.Transit bosses had also failed to develop a risk assessment strategy for flagging that could have prevented Gray’s death.
To any worker down here, the failure of the OCC to safeguard workers is no surprise. They routinely order mostly Black and Latin train operators and conductors to “isolate” train cars containing human waste, without proper protective equipment, a known safety violation. They also regularly order workers to investigate other dangerous conditions, such as armed workers. for example.
The NTSB’s audit found that Transit’s repeated failures to provide adequate safety for its workers lead to a 58 percent surge from 2022 to 2023 in what are called “near misses,” which are incidents which could have resulted in worker injury or death.
In summer 2025, the Federal Transportation Authority called out the MTA for repeatedly failing to submit proper safety risk assessments aimed at protecting workers.
TWU Local 100–which represents MTA NYCT workers–is complicit in McCullum’s death. They talk a tough game, but have allowed Transit to consistently drop the ball with protecting workers, and they collude with MTA bosses.
A day after McCullum’s death, the union bosses failed to have mental and emotional support services available for workers who needed it. A 24 hour “safety stand down” took effect, where management temporarily suspended non-emergency track work to have employees review safety protocols, the same ones that failed McCullum in the first place!
Communications Based Train Control, a computer based system that enforces train speed limits, could have been another way to prevent this from happening. However, the MTA bosses are taking their time installing the technology systemwide and are more focused on paying off their exorbitant debt to Wall Street than anything to keep workers secure.
While it is a worthy fight to struggle for better flagging rules to protect workers on the tracks, only communism can ensure that as many safeguards as possible can be in place to stop these tragedies from happening. Under communism, regard for protecting workers would be primary and not making as much dirty, blood soaked money as possible. We owe it to McCullum to continue to struggle with coworkers on the job that a better world is possible!
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Letter - Conference: workers seek communist ideas
- Information
- 03 October 2026 317 hits
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends in Chicago participated in the Socialism 2026 conference in Chicago on Labor Day weekend. This event was being held in the context of words like socialism and communism being weaponized against liberals as epithets. The multiracial attendees came from several places in the U.S. and outside the country. We attended the event to introduce our line to the many people who came to the conference who were open to our revolutionary politics of creating a communist, not socialist world. We were able to engage in many productive discussions and obtained contact information from a few dozen people.
Despite the many talks at the conference, the main issue of how to get rid of capitalism was not addressed. We attempted to propose a session that presented how to do this, but it was unsurprisingly rejected by the leadership of the conference. Just the title of the conference, “Socialism,” helps understand why: they do not have a coherent plan to create a worker-run society without money, communism.
There was a general agreement that capitalism is failing, but a clear path to getting rid of this rotten racist system was not present. The implied answer from the liberal and revisionist conference organizers was to put our faith in Bernie Sanders or similar frauds. Speaking of revisionists, our table was ironically positioned by conference organizers right next to that of the CPUSA (Communist Party USA). In talking with them, it became clear that changing capitalism, from their standpoint, required reliance on electoral politics. They had dozens of books about socialism or communism and other literature at their table but did not have a realistic understanding of what is needed to get rid of capitalism.
Still, the attendance of a few thousand people indicates that workers are looking for alternatives to this murderous profit system. We in PLP are pushing to cut through all the noise to unapologetically offer our mass international Party and violent revolution as the path forward for our class.
Correction
The article titled “Lessons from Marquette Park: Organize to Win, Smash the Fascists!” published on August 27th contained errors. It stated that participants ambushed a truck at the Nazis’ setup location and used the opportunity to get inside their office. In fact, there was no truck ambush. Participants gathered outside the building, and entry was gained through the front door.
During the action, one comrade was separated from the group and was turned over to police by the Nazis. She was the only person charged.
If you have experiences that add to the memory of Marquette Park, or would like to suggest corrections to future articles, please email
Sharing your fightback story matters
I just want to put in a plug for folks to write more about their struggles. The last issue was great for our work in Maryland. The lead article about protesting police during their NIGHT OUT event fit right into our new fight for justice for Tawfiq Bernard who was killed by the Prince George’s County police – another shooting into a car. We were at a press conference with 200 other residents and were able to share CHALLENGE with several folks who were interested in the idea of mobilizing rather than relying on lawyers. The Quantum article was timely as I leafleted with a student group at the University of Maryland to protest Quantum’s career fair and next week there is a national symposium at UMD that we will protest. And our article on our fight about ICE getting a permit for a neighborhood building was used at our rally this week and, while our analysis could have been sharper, the conversations were at a higher political level. One of our friends was delighted to see the article and came to one of our gatherings. The series on Haiti has also been useful in our basebuilding. Showing our work around the country and linking it to our local struggles builds respect for the Party and improves our distribution.
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Bryan and our class deserves communism
On Sunday Sept 13th Progressive Labor Party members, community members, family members of victims of police brutality, and others joined the Bostic family as they marched to commemorate the sixth month anniversary murder of Byran Bostic by the Inglewood Police Department. The march began at Hillcrest and E Nutwood St where Bryan was detained by Inglewood Police on the night of March 10, 2026. The march began at 10am and by 10:30am dozens of workers were in attendance carrying posters stating; “Justice for Bryan Bostic”, “A traffic stop should not result in death”, “Honk for justice”.
Some of the chants by community members included “What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like.” But I kept asking myself how does the wrongful killing of another member of our community look like democracy? I am sure she was referring to all those of us in attendance marching but the question still stands. How is marching on these streets chanting the names of those murdered by police democracy?
I think she meant to say that this is what communism looks like. Communism looks like the multiracial, multi-generational, mass mobilization of workers fighting back against fascist attacks of brutality that capitalism offers us. These sentiments were echoed in a speech given at Inglewood city hall by one of our Party members.
He stated that the death of our comrades is not only felt by their families alone but by the whole community. Alex Flores, killed by Newton Police station in 2019, was a kind man who would walk neighborhood kids home. Our goal is not to elect another mayor in hopes that he will offer us another solution. Like our comrade stated, “The system is working exactly as intended”
A young man there said “His story hits me because that could’ve been me. That could’ve been anyone, one of us.” It reminded me why I fight for communism everyday - so that workers no longer have to live with the daily fear of when or how capitalism will take them out. I will continue to fight until we see the world that our class deserves: communism.
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Club discusses Haiti
The leaders of our Spanish-speaking Progressive Labor Party club and study group meet monthly to discuss our work and the state of the world.
The following letter was written as part of a collective discussion. We wanted to clarify our position on the history of Haiti and the key leadership of Black workers, and to make sure we always fight racism and the racist divisions of our class, building unity among our friends in our immediate base and in the broader working class.
For centuries, the working class in Haiti has suffered colonization, invasion, and plunder at the hands of imperialist rulers. France never forgave Haiti for making a revolution and becoming the first country with an independent state governed by Black people, one that later helped many countries in the Americas, including the United States, by sending fighters to help win their independence. In 1825, France forced Haiti to pay for winning its independence, and the related debts were not fully paid off until 1947. Some economists estimate the true financial cost amounts to tens of billions of dollars. This was compounded by a cruel dictatorship led by the Duvaliers, father and son, who massacred and terrorized Haitian workers for 29 years, until it fell thanks to the militancy and fightback of our class siblings in Haiti. That decades-long struggle cost tens of thousands of lives.
Haiti also endured repeated U.S. invasions, including a 19-year military occupation from 1915 to 1934. For generations, Haiti’s forests and timber were depleted for foreign profit, leaving the country deforested and devastated and turning it into the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Haiti has also had to endure the presence of United Nations peacekeeping troops, who repressed the population. The peacekeepers have been implicated in sexual abuse, and they infected Haitians with cholera, which set off an epidemic that killed many people because Haiti’s public health and water systems had been left in ruins. Then came the earthquake, which Haitian officials say killed more than 300,000 people, destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, and left millions adrift.
These catastrophes, the cruel racism against Haiti’s people, which is inherent to the capitalist system, the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and the criminal gangs now ravaging the country have forced many Haitians to flee. Many went to Cuba, where they have found solidarity; to the Dominican Republic, where racism and persecution against them run deep in society and where they are deported en masse; and to the United States, where they had obtained Temporary Protected Status (TPS). This summer, after a court fight, the racist and fascist Trump administration ended TPS for Haiti, putting more than 300,000 people at risk of losing their jobs and being deported. Now many Haitian workers have lost their jobs and live in terror and fear, hunted and deported. After being deported back to Haiti, many are robbed and murdered by criminal gangs.
Our Party has always stood in solidarity with Haitian workers, and we have a club in a city in Haiti. Despite extremely difficult conditions, this club has carried out its work of organizing, helping, and advancing the Party’s line. In spite of the situation, we continue to support the Haitian people, especially its working class.
That is why we firmly oppose and condemn any racism toward Haitian workers. We will not tolerate a racist attack on our class siblings under any circumstances. Every May Day, we march in Flatbush, where there is a large presence of Haitian workers, in solidarity with them. We distribute hundreds of copies of CHALLENGE, which are well received in this neighborhood. Our Party’s line is, and always will be, that Black workers are called to be the leaders of the communist revolution, wherever they are from, because for many centuries they fought, and still fight, against the horrific slavery they were subjected to and the racism that still persists.
COMRADES, LET’S BE AWARE THAT RACIST, CRUEL CAPITALISM TRIES TO DIVIDE OUR WORKING CLASS IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.
LET’S NOT FALL INTO ITS GAME AND ITS RACIST PROPAGANDA.
WE WILL BE MUCH STRONGER THE MORE UNITED WE ARE AND THE MORE WE GROW THE RANKS OF OUR PARTY, UNTIL IT BECOMES A MASS PARTY THAT LEADS THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION AND THE SEIZURE OF POWER FOR THE WORKING CLASS.
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Sorry if you weren’t invited to the White House for dinner last week
Politico, 9/21–OpenAI President Greg Brockman is expected to attend President Donald Trump’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House this week…Brockman was not included on an initial, partial list of tech and business leaders that a senior U.S. official provided to reporters on Friday. That list of expected attendees included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and former Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Immigrants in South Africa await deadline with unease
Al Jazeera, 9/28–Bishop Raphael Bahebwa is in hiding, afraid he could be attacked for speaking out for the rights of foreigners in South Africa. “I am in hiding now because they say they are going to kill me for speaking about the rights of foreigners,” he told Al Jazeera. Bahebwa has lived in South Africa for 26 years, after arriving as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In that time, he has watched antiforeigner sentiment flare repeatedly in the country he came to call home. But he says this year feels different. A September 30 deadline declared by March and March, an anti-immigration movement that has led protests across South Africa this year, has renewed fears of violence among migrant communities.
War in Ethiopia and Tigray restarts
France24, 9/28–Ethiopia’s army commander on Sunday accused Eritrea and Sudan of backing armed groups fighting its troops in the north of the country. Heavy clashes have resumed between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the federal government since Wednesday, raising fears of a return to a 2020-2022 civil war in which an estimated 600,000 people died. The TPLF has seized airports and launched attacks into the neighbouring states of Afar and Amhara, saying they were engaged in a “defensive war” against the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Gates calls for what capitalists always need: regulation
The Guardian, 9/28–Bill Gates has called on the U.S.’s federal legislators and law enforcers to regulate the development of artificial intelligence (AI), saying in an interview airing on Sunday that the technology left unchecked could cause “a billion deaths” and “no one thinks self-regulation is enough.” “You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like,” the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist said to Kristen Welker, the NBC Meet the Press host. “And that has to be a required thing.”
Pakistan’s bosses find ways to limit protests
New York Times, 9/27–[In] Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad…police sealed off the city with more than 1,500 shipping containers ahead of a protest planned by the main opposition party. Two rows of colorful containers snake along the road leading to the prime minister’s house and Parliament, pushing the representatives of the Pakistani people out of sight and out of reach. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the opposition party, had called on its supporters to march peacefully on Islamabad to demand the release of its leader…prime minister Imran Khan. He has been imprisoned since 2023 on corruption charges that he and his party describe as politically motivated…The government has not yet said how long it will keep Islamabad in a state of quasi lockdown. But the containers have so far been the most visible sign of the government’s effort to quell widespread discontent over the repression of dissent and the crackdown on Mr. Khan’s party.
Protesters demand reinstatement of protections for Haitian workers
LA Progressive, 9/27– “Going back to Haiti means a very likely death sentence. The U.S. State Department itself says if you’re going to Haiti, before you go, you should make out your will and register your DNA, just in case we just have a body and we have to identify it,” said Stephanie, one of 13 speakers protesting the forced deportation of 350,000 Haitians on the National Day of Protest on September 24 in support of the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for Haitians by demanding the reestablishment of the program that has been terminated by the Trump administration…Haitians were initially granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the aftermath of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in January 2010 that saw over 200,000 people killed and more than 300,000 people injured. The program offers survivors safe shelter allowing them to remain temporarily in the United States until conditions in their home country make a return safe…
