TRENTON, NJ—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined a multiracial group of over thirty protesters who marched through the state’s capital chanting “No Cops—In Our Schools” to protest the racist A1114, “Police Respectability” Bill.
In response to police murders and subsequent protests, the bosse are fearful of working-class youth armed with class consciousness. They are trying to pass a bill aimed to fool workers into believing the police are on our side.
A1114 will force all schools—from elementary to high school—to create courses that teaches students how to “interact” with cops, essentially putting the responsibility of an arrest, shooting, or murder on the victim rather than the police force. According to the bill, the class will give students information on “the role and responsibilities of a law enforcement official in providing for public safety; and an individual’s responsibilities to comply with a directive from a law enforcement official” (NJLEG). This bill is fascist, as it aims to build all-class unity between class enemies—working-class kids and ruling-class forces.
To smash racism, we must smash capitalism. Only a revolutionary communist PLP can bury this racist system once and for all. Many protesters received CHALLENGE and responded warmly to discussions about capitalism and communism.
‘Respectability’ Politics Kill Youth
The politicians primarily sponsoring A1114 primary were all from Essex County (highest percentage of Black workers in New Jersey), including Sheila Oliver, the Black candidate for lieutenant governor running with Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy. It easily passed through the Assembly 76-0 seemlessly. This bill shows that relying on the Democratic Party to fight against the openly racist Trump administration is a dead-end for workers.
The racist bill going to clear the Senate until young antiracist fighters got word and responded with protests. Labeling the protest “Good Kids, Bad Cities,” the antiracists not only addressed the conditions of the cities, but they also challenged what students should be learning in schools.
Fascist Police Bill Exposes Capitalist Role of Schools
Since schools are factories for reproducing capitalist ideas, it is clear that students will not be taught the truth about the roles and responsibilities of cops. They will not be taught about the origins of the police from slave catchers, or the role that they played in attacking striking workers during the 19th and 20th century fightbacks against the bosses. “Slave patrols to hunt down escaped slaves were the original police in the South…They [police] were created to protect the new form of wage-labor capitalism that emerged in the mid to late 19th century from the threat posed by that system’s offspring, the working class” (LAWCHA, 12/29/14).
Our children must not pledge allegiance to the Ku Klux Klan in blue—yesterday’s Klan members are today’s cops (and judges, politicians, and bosses).
Aiming to Build an Obedient Workforce
By teaching students that they have “responsibilities to comply” with police, they are doing two things. First, this A1114 implies that most men and women murdered by the cops died because they didn’t comply. “If only they complied they would still be alive.” We know that this is the furthest thing from the truth. Philando Castile (Minnesota, 2016) is just one example of many who did everything he was “supposed to do.” He was murdered and the killer cop still walks free.
Second, this bill looks to create a more compliant working class—one of the main functions of education under capitalism. When workers fight back—whether against racism, sexism, or imperialism—the police suppress it. A compliant working-class youth taught to always obey cops is good for the bosses, as it lessens the chance of militant fightback, let alone revolution. Militant fightback led by Black and Latin youth is extremely threatening to the rulers (i.e., Ferguson and Baltimore).
A speaker at the NJ rally spoke about the need for cops under capitalism. He surveyed the crowd to see how many protesters were under the age of 30. More than a majority raised their hands. He then asked if they knew someone who is unemployed or underemployed. All of the protesters raised their hand. As inequality becomes more visible and revolutionary ideas spread through the population, the system itself is in trouble, and the ruling class is searching for ways to discpline the working class with police force.
Throughout history, we have seen the physical force that has ben used by the cops and military to suppress workers’ uprisings. While the ruling class will never hesitate to use this force to keep the workers in line, they prefer to control our ideas. It is a much easier way to maintain their capitalist system. That is why PLP joined these young fighters in protesting Bill A1114 and others like it. We have a lot to learn from the working class. We also have a lot to contribute to the movement. Possessing a communist analysis is key for our victory. We don’t just want to see this bill die; we want to see this capitalist system die.
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Students, Workers Win Fight to Change Racist School Name, Struggle Continues
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- 11 August 2017 31 hits
FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA, July 27—To thunderous applause from over 70 supporters in the room, the Fairfax County School Board (FCSB) voted 7-2 with two abstentions to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School, capping a campaign of over two years. The struggle was launched by a multiracial group of current Stuart students, the Students for Change, who declared in 2015 that having their school named for a Confederate general, with his image adorning some walls, was not acceptable.
The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) salutes the brave antiracist student fighters of Fairfax County, Virginia! Workers and students throughout the nation are tearing down Confederate statues and renaming schools, and Fairfax County has joined this process! This struggle is an important victory that can add momentum to the antiracist struggles against Confederate monuments nationwide.
As in every struggle for reform under capitalism, there are limitations and challenges ahead, such as the opening left for the neo-Confederates. They have lost this round but are not out, as we shall see.
The U.S. Civil War
In 1861, southern U.S. states seceded and launched a war to create a purely slave-based nation. The U.S. government ultimately defeated the Confederacy after over 200,000 Black workers joined the Union Army, marching south with their white and immigrant comrades to liberate their sisters and brothers still enslaved.
J.E.B. Stuart, originally a U.S. Army officer, became a Confederate general to defend the slave system of Virginia and the rest of the South. He led raids into the North to capture Blacks in Pennsylvania and bring them back into slavery during the war. He was finally killed in the Battle of Yellow Tavern in 1864 by Union soldiers.
Naming the High School in 1958
Why would any school honor this racist slaver in the 20th Century? The Fairfax County School Board (FCSB) named the high school (originally designated “Munson Hill High School”) in his honor in 1958, during the period of massive resistance to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered the end of segregation in schools. The government of Virginia and FCSB members fought against the Brown ruling, refusing to allow Black children to attend formerly all-white schools.
In response to a racist citizens’ group objecting to the School Board even having a committee named “the Committee on Desegregation” in 1955, the Board quickly and unanimously changed the name to the Committee on Segregation. Robert Davis, School Board chair, said that the purpose of the committee was “…to equip ourselves with facts so that we can intelligently fight desegregation if we have to” (Washington Post, 9/21/1955). Despite successful lawsuits by Black parents, the School Board defiantly kept County schools almost entirely racially segregated until the mid-1960s, over ten years after the Brown decision.
Naming the school for a Confederate general was a logical action for a racist School Board, determined not to allow school integration. If putting a sign up blatantly saying “whites only” was now illegal, they had the next best thing with racist icon “J.E.B. Stuart” High School.
Two Years of Struggle
Today, the FCSB is made up of nine Democrats and 2 Republicans. Given the lip service that the Democratic Party pays to anti-racism, one might assume that the body would quickly agree to change the name of the school once students brought it to their attention. Students at the formerly all-white high school are today about 50 percent Latin, 24 percent white, 10 percent Black, 14 percent Asian, and 2 percent two or more races. The advocates for change had secured over 35,000 signatures on a petition to make the change. Even the Board’s very limited and biased poll of families in the area of the school showed that over 30 percent were offended by the name and wanted to see it changed.
But in the summer of 2016, after more than a year of struggle, the School Board member who supported the change was unable to get a majority in favor of the change. To buy some time, she secured agreement from the Board instead to form an “Ad Hoc Committee” of citizens to supposedly research the issue more fully and revisit the issue the following school year.
The Ad Hoc Committee was made up of those who favored the change. Those who opposed the change were called “Keepers” (also known as “racists”), and a few who initially were undecided. The high school students on the Ad Hoc Committee played a vital role in continuing the fight to change the name even in the face of some of the elite adults on the Committee (including the former Chief of Staff of the Republican Congressional Representative) who belittled them and spread lies about them as bullies in the school. The Ad Hoc Committee’s subcommittees ultimately submitted strong reports in favor of change, while the Keepers submitted their own reports opposing change.
Students Take The Lead
The Students for Change refused to back down. They continued to testify at School Board meetings (see CHALLENGE, 6/28) and organize other students to support the struggle. Meanwhile, parents and others who supported the students carried out media campaigns and lobbied school board members to take the right stand.
Finally, the night of July 27 arrived. Would the School Board reinforce the 1958 action and allow the racist name to stand? Or would they vote to change it? Desperately trying to round up enough votes to pass the change, the school board member from the J.E.B. Stuart area agreed to a compromise that could prove fatal.
In addition to stating clearly that the name “J.E.B. Stuart” had to go, the resolution encouraged the community to adopt the name “Stuart” instead. No particular association with any historical figure was suggested. The stated purpose was to save money on changing sports uniforms since “Stuart” was already the only designation on them. On its face, this name would be absurd. Would each student decide which “Stuart” he/she liked? More dangerously, such a designation would preserve at some level the heritage of J.E.B. Stuart, and not represent a full rejection of racist Confederate values.
Our struggle continues today into a “community input” process for the new name. The Students for Change and their supporters insist that “Stuart” be completely eliminated, and that a more inspirational name be selected.
Students, PL’ers Fight Side By Side
A resolution to postpone the decision for many more months almost passed (5-6) before the motion to change the name came up for a vote, thanks to two school board Democrats, who then abstained on the main motion to change the school’s name! The Democrats were clearly worried about how their action might play out among their voters, while the two openly racist Republicans were happy to simply vote against the name change.
The working class cannot rely on such opportunistic politicians like the Democrats or open racist Republicans for any kind of leadership in the class struggle. It was only because of bold leadership from students who refused to back down that the School Board finally agreed, however ambiguously, to change the name.
Our struggle continues. PLP members have been involved in this struggle for well over a year, working hard to win the name change while discussing with students to carry on the struggle against racism to communist revolution. Renaming a school from a known racist can be an important step to building working class consciousness and preparing for larger battles against capitalism, armed with communist ideas.
CHALLENGE is read by several students who are interested in our Party, and who want go beyond a name change for the school and change this entire racist capitalist system. We will continue sharpening this antiracist struggle and keep building a movement that can take our class all the way to communism!
CHICAGO, July 29—In San Antonio, ten people were dead and 20 hospitalized in dire conditions after found in what was essentially an oven and gas chamber on wheels—100 migrant workers and children crammed into a tractor trailer in searing Texas heat without water, food, light, or fresh air.
The workers trapped were as young as 15 years old and one was the father of 5. These workers came from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Most were fleeing increasing capitalist violence or horrible economic conditions.
Some escaped the hospital to avoid ICE agents and the threat of deportation. Those who survived asphyxiation and heatstroke now face deportation. Among the death-via-deportation list are migrants who are now permantely disabled with irreversible brain damage. This is a murder case of 100 members of our class by capitalism.
Capitalism Guilty of Murder
The racist capitalist bosses have these workers’ blood on their hands. These horrendous conditions are what pass for human migration under capitalism. While the bosses courts may potentially charge only person, driver James Matthew Bradley. Progressive Labor Party charges the whole system with murder (see protest photos in Chicago and Brooklyn).
Obama, Clinton, Trump = All Part of Racist Plan
Donald Trump built his campaign on anti-immigrant racism, but the liberal bosses Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were just as vicious against our immigrant sisters and brothers. For example, Clinton militarized the US-Mexico border by doubling the INS (ICE’s predecessor) budget; he also doubled the number of Border Patrol agents and the amount of fencing and other barriers. Obama then outdid all other presidents, becoming the Deporter-in-Chief by deporting 3.2 million immigrants, more than any other in history.
The racist bosses attack our immigrant sisters and brothers to make super-profits by lowering their wages. In a similar way, they super-exploit Black and women workers by paying them less. Capitalism is built on the racist super-exploitation of Black and Latin workers. The more they divide us, the weaker we all are and the more we suffer.
Communism Will End the Horrors of Borders
Only by rejecting the bosses’ racist and sexist divisions as a unified international working class can we ever hope to escape the misery of capitalism. By means of a mass communist Progressive Labor Party, we can smash the bosses and their system and avenge the victims of San Antonio and countless others.
When the international working class rules society through a mass PLP, we will end this capitalist horror show. We will plan human migration, political and cultural life, and the economy to meet the needs of our class. There won’t be workers and children dying daily in the desert, or drowning in boats in the ocean! We will tear down the borders that divide our class.
Our motto, “Workers of the world, unite!” will lead the way. The future is belongs to us, if we choose to fight for it. Join and build Progressive Labor Party today to smash all borders.
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Chicago: Working-Class Unity Revs Up Auto Mechanic Strike
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- 11 August 2017 32 hits
CHICAGO, August 5—A strike of 1,700 auto mechanics from 130 car dealerships is now in its second week. Workers are demanding that the Chicago Automobile Trade Association (CATA) give workers what they deserve after the last two contracts have given concessions to the bosses.
The workers represented by Automobile Mechanics’ Local 701 are fighting for a guaranteed 40-hour work week, better schedules, higher apprentice wages, and a reinstated 4-year apprentice program in place of an 8-year one. They have said that mechanics have not been paid for all the hours they work, and that bosses are making it more difficult for apprentices to find their way into the industry.
PL’ers went to the picket lines to support the striking mechanics, and to bring a long-term, communist alternative to the crumbs thrown to us by the bosses. We brought the workers water and held up their strike signs with them with pride. We led chants such as, “shut it down, shut it tight—the bosses can’t profit when the workers unite!” The workers thanked us and welcomed our presence and support. We distributed CHALLENGES and got into many discussions.
One worker we spoke to came from Vietnam and was a neighbor of a PL member, and it turned out he went to the same ESL school that another comrade taught in. He thought that revolution was going a little too far because he did not like war and his dad suffered a lot in Vietnam and died in a camp. It is important to win the working class to see that the ruling class will never, and has never, handed over power willingly. For the international working class to win a world run by and for workers, revolution is a must—communist revolution.
Another young worker was an immigrant from Mexico, who came here when he was eight. The racist system has held him back in many ways—first, he couldn’t start mechanic school until he was a permanent resident, so he had to wait until years after high school. Now, the bosses are holding him back in an 8-year apprentice program.
Worker Solidarity vs. Individualism
In an important show of solidarity, experienced workers are standing strong in this strike, though key aspects of the struggle are for better conditions and better pay for newer, less experienced mechanics. One striker was quoted saying, “It took me two years to become a journeyman back when I started in this business, and they’re asking these guys basically to give up eight years of their lives to learn the trade” (CBS Chicago, 9/1). Capitalist ideology and media are used to convince workers to look out for themselves only, and not get involved in others’ battles. That ideology is losing here!
When we visited workers on the fifth day of the strike, their spirits seemed high. We in PLP must continue to build support for these workers, as they should be setting the mood for all workers. At the same time, we must bring forward the understanding that unions and contracts will never end the wage exploitation that this capitalist system is based in. Union leadership misleads workers into thinking the system can be reformed to work for us—but only a worker-run communist world will truly benefit the working class. Support striking mechanics and spread the fight back! Long live the international working class.
MISSISSIPPI, August 4—“It’s the beginning of a war!” That’s how one Nissan worker responded to his co-workers voting 2,244 to 1,307 to reject union representation. The United Auto Workers union (UAW) has led a 14-year campaign at the Nissan plants here to unionize the workers. Nissan has 48 auto plants around the world and all are unionized except for those in the U.S. This most recent vote is another disappointing defeat for union organizing across the southern U.S., following similar setbacks at Volkswagen in Tennessee and Boeing in South Carolina.
Unlike the other campaigns, this one was particularly antiracist. Of the 6,000 workers in the Canton plant, over 75 percent are Black. The pay rate averages about $3/hour below that of the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tennessee that is majority white workers. Almost half of the Canton workers are temp workers employed through Kelly Services, working across the line from the permanent workers for about half the pay. This represents the racist exploitation that is standard under capitalism. All workers are exploited, creating profit for the bosses. Racism is a dangerous tool used by the bosses to keep workers divided and to try to convince white workers to not fight back, to protect their “better” wages.
The UAW organized the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan (MAFN), a coalition of student groups, clergy, community, and civil rights groups. They used civil disobedience to win back the job of a worker who was fired for pro-union activity, and organized the more than 5,000-strong March on Mississippi last spring.
Despite all of this, the union still had only a slim majority of workers signed up when they filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Nissan bosses worked hard to make sure of that. Once the vote was scheduled, the bosses forced thousands of workers to sit through one-on-one hour-long meetings that were used to bribe and threaten them while Nissan ran anti-union videos in the plant as well as TV ads. Some were told they would lose their special employee rates on new cars while others received long overdue raises and new car deals.
Nissan had plenty of ammunition by pointing to the UAW’s inability to defend its members and asking, “Do you want Canton to become another Detroit or Flint?” They also used the unfolding scandal of a former UAW-VP in charge of Chrysler and the Chrysler VP for Labor Relations allegedly stealing millions from a training fund for Chrysler hourly workers while they negotiated UAW-Chrysler contracts.
Most workers realized they might lose this round, but saw it as the beginning of the next phase of what has become a long-term struggle. The NLRB has charged Nissan with Unfair Labor Practices, including threatening to close the plant, cut wages and benefits, and interrogating workers. If these charges are upheld, the NLRB could order a new unionization vote within six months.
Unions are really not the long-term answer for the working class, though. Unionization on the job is a means to unite workers and secure some reforms under the system, but won’t smash racism or end capitalist exploitation. The Nissan campaign underlines how the UAW’s strategy of relying on politicians and the bosses’ laws and courts has brought the union to the brink of irrelevance. It is crucial to win workers to see beyond those reform struggles to fight for an end to this deadly system.
The main challenge for PLP is to be more involved in struggles like this. As one worker said, “I don’t take this as a loss because I have learned so much…during this process.” By being in these battles we can learn from the workers and help them to see past the misleaders who seem to offer so much, but won’t deliver.