LENNOX, CA, October 25—Tonight, fifteen tenant organizers, led by the Lennox-Inglewood Tenants’ Union (LITU), confronted a racist and abusive landlord at her house. With the mostly Latin immigrant tenants backing him up, a LITU member handed the owner a letter demanding that her harassment of the five tenants who live on the property stop immediately. The letter also listed the repairs that she has failed to make and told her that, from now on, LITU will be monitoring everything that happens between her and the tenants.

CHALLENGE readers will remember that Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been actively working within LITU. We have consistently raised the need for solidarity between workers— locally, nationally and internationally. At a recent tenants’ meeting, a PLP member talked about and distributed an article from CHALLENGE describing the struggle led by our comrades in Kentucky against slumlords and the criminalization of homelessness. Our member pointed out that working class people facing displacement around the world have the same interests- to be rid of all these racist and abusive landlords. This can only happen when we build an international working class movement for communism to build a world where housing, no longer being a commodity bought, rented, and sold to make someone rich, will be safe, plenty, and free for all because we will abolish the profit system that creates housing crises.

Working class tenants on the move 

This action was organized on short notice. It came out of the continuing work that LITU has done to organize a separate 40-apartment complex in Lennox. With LITU’s assistance, tenants there have formed a Tenants’ Association (TA) that has regular meetings, collects dues, plans united actions against the scumlord at that building, organizes court support for tenants who face eviction, and plans and holds socials. Several of the active tenants there have told their friends, who don’t live at the complex, about LITU’s militancy and consistency. A number of those friends have attended the regular TA meetings and have spoken about their own struggles where they live. The TA has heard these tenants out and agreed to back them up. That is what led to this action.

Racist housing conditions

The atrocious conditions that the tenants we supported tonight have been subjected to are typical of what LITU sees in apartments where Black and Latin immigrant workers live. Mold in the bathroom, toilet and bathtub leaks, holes in the walls and floor, and roach and mouse infestation are only some of those conditions. When one of the tenants reported a gas leak to the Fire Department, the racist landlord appeared at the tenant’s work site, yelling at her in front of her customers.   

When LITU confronted the landlord, she first refused to accept the letter and went inside her house at the rear of the property. A few minutes later, she came outside, took the letter but did not read it, accusing the tenants who live there of lying about how she treats them. She then repeatedly denied that she was still the property owner but insisted that the tenants continue paying rent to her. We told her she had no right to any rent money. As her husband pulled her inside the house, we loudly chanted “los inquilinos unidos, jamás seran vencidos” (“The tenants, united, will never be defeated”). 

The struggle continues 

Afterwards, we celebrated this victory for solidarity in the front yard of one tenant’s apartment. As expected, the landlord called the cops. However, we had a plan on how to deal with that eventuality, and our police liaison, backed up by the tenants, made it clear to the cops that there was no basis to detain or arrest anyone. The cops returned later, after most of us had left. However, the tenants told the cops that they know what their rights are. The cops told the tenants that, in the future, they would personally deliver any letter they had for the landlord!! Of course, this was total BS, and the cops knew it.

Under capitalism, working class tenants pay huge rents for rattrap apartments. Bourgeois law protects private property, the profits of the owners and the banks who are behind them. Homelessness stalks the working class as rents squeeze our low wages. Under communism, rents would be abolished. Housing would be shared according to need. That is a world worth fighting for. Join PLP to bring that world about.

EAST ORANGE, NJ October 21-23- “We declare justice to keep all teachers, social workers, and counselors. We need to take a stand to avoid cutting the staff that truly care about us everyday. We do not deserve to experience this. We are the future of East Orange…We must unite all together. Just imagine all of us taking a stand,” these are the words three courageous 4th graders delivered to a room with hundreds of multiracial students and parents fighting back against the East Orange Board of Education’s firing of 93 Black and Latin education workers a mere few months into the school year. This is on top of education workers having their salary level frozen for the past three years. Members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) spoke out at  the recent school board and town council meetings, fighting within these meetings to show the connection between this local fight and looming war and fascism. 

Linking the cutbacks to the war budget is an important lesson, but we as communists must win workers and students to see that the ultimate goal is to eliminate capitalism and replace it with a world run by the working class - communism. This reform struggle is also an opening for the working class to realize their power when fighting collectively, as well as teach us the roles that the politicians and union leaders play in trying to keep us passive.

Greater war and fascism means money for genocide - not for students

These cutbacks are just part of a growing attack on workers to accept less as the U.S. ruling class prepares for World War III. Using a $25 million deficit as an excuse for the layoffs, East Orange’s newly hired Superintendent, Dr. Christopher Irving, has used the threat of a “state takeover” of the district if education workers don’t play along. It is the state of N.J. consistently underfunding the East Orange school district that put them in this mess to begin with!  

At  the recent Board of Education meeting, one teacher boldly pointed out  that there's money being given to Israel’s genocide, while not funding education. Since October 7 of last year the U.S. has sent at least $17.9 billion to Israel, not even taking into consideration additional U.S. military spending considered “essential” (PBS, 10/7). This teacher continued, “manipulating staff that is already overworked and children who already need more resources to sacrifice more, and do more with less because the budget money has disappeared, shows us you are the local foot soldiers of a national government who continues to fund genocide from Palestine to Haiti instead of funding our schools.” The room erupted in applause. 

Grounded in the knowledge that money will always be there when it comes to protecting the interests of the capitalists, workers refused to buy into excuses and proposed “solutions.” Instead, workers are beginning to understand that for capitalists funding a genocidal war to protect oil profits is more important than educating working class children.

They want us pacified? We say fight back!

After the cutbacks were announced, the union leadership sent a memo to tell workers to keep working, trying to suppress the rage felt by workers and students. These union hacks want to stop an organized mass movement that wins workers and students to save workers and students. Their fear mongering was an attempt to keep workers disorganized and keep them from seeing that they can fight back against the bosses’ laws. That was how an illegal three-day strike by teachers in Massachusetts got a 60 percent wage jump for lower-paid instructional assistants (EdWeek, March 16, 2023).

Despite the union and local leaders' attempts, many workers organized a mass sick-out and protested at the board meetings. This response from a worker embodied the instinct of the masses toward these cowards, 

I have come to the sobering fact that there is no help on the way…There is no help to calm my anxiety and fear about whether my job is suddenly going to change overnight. Unless we save ourselves, I will continue to work 3 jobs and suffer from stress-inducing insomnia for 10 months out of every year. You play with our emotions, guilting us at times to continue to come to work without a contract [for 3 years] , day in and day out for the sake of the children…but it can no longer be at the expense of our mental health, our children, and our families.

From the masses to the masses: Communist leadership blossoms

When a worker became aware of this attack, they decided to look to a friend for support. The comrade, and member of PLP,  saw this as an opportunity to strengthen their bond and fight alongside the district worker. 

During the initial school board meeting, racist police tried to invoke fear by escorting the comrade out of the meeting after their speech, and asked questions because they distributed CHALLENGE.

This attack did not stop members of the PLP.  We saw this as a key moment to bring more comrades and members of our base to the next city council meeting .We distributed CHALLENGE, and worked collectively to create a leaflet connecting the attacks to sharpening war and fascism. Workers attending the board meeting eagerly took our leaflets. It was clear that many of them were being exposed to communist politics for the first time. We look forward to joining them as future actions are being planned.

Even though this struggle is in its early phases, we  were able to win the confidence of our base by showing that there is safety in  numbers and that we fight back like our lives depend on it.

SEATTLE, October 24 - Today 33,000 Boeing Machinists voted to continue their 40-day old strike with 64 percent voting NO to a proposed settlement (and $7,000 signing bonus) negotiated by the Biden/Harris administration’s Labor Secretary, Julie Su. The workers, who build passenger jets and freighters, began their strike on September 12 after 96 percent voted to reject the tentative agreement between the company and the union. Boeing cut off strikers’ health care at the end of September.

The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) supports these workers in their strike against one of the most historically profitable companies on the planet and a critical node for the imperialist war machine. We invite all workers and supporters on the Boeing picket to join the fight to advance communist revolution as the way to crush all the exploiting bosses and their genocidal profit system.

Boeing bosses rakes in billions by killing workers 

Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace corporation and fourth-largest defense contractor, valued at over $100 billion. Boeing makes the navigation system that guides the 2,000-lb. bomb that assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and many others in the middle of a crowded Beirut neighborhood. In partnership with Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas, Boeing has provided F-15 fighter jets, “Apache” helicopters, and hellfire missiles.  Over the past 75 years, it’s safe to say that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed by Boeing’s weaponry (CounterPunch, 5/24).

But that’s not why Boeing workers are on strike. Workers are demanding a 40 percent wage increase, restoration of their pensions, and an end to forced overtime. Starting pay is $20 an hour, just above the area’s minimum wage, and it takes six years to reach top pay in your classification. There has been a high turnover since the pandemic, with about 40 percent of workers with less than five years seniority. 

So far, the strike has cost Boeing a staggering $6 billion for the quarter and Boeing announced layoffs of managers and canceled parts orders to conserve cash. On October 11, Boeing announced it would eliminate 17,000 jobs in its worldwide work force.

The company has benefitted from the largest tax break in the state’s history, a decade of concessions on wages, pensions, and healthcare costs, and more than $6 billion in stock buybacks for shareholders and company executives. This underinvestment in the workforce and product development led to two deadly 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 350 people and a door panel flying off in midflight this year.

Build a worker-student alliance

The campus-based movement against the growing Middle East war has raised antiracism and anti-imperialism but has lacked the power to significantly impact the war. Striking workers on the other hand, are at all the pressure points and have the power to bring this war, and this whole imperialist system to end, but they lack the political consciousness. 

Our most urgent task is to build a communist-led worker-student alliance, to bring political consciousness to bear on the class struggle. The objective meeting the subjective. Striking workers are opening the door to this possibility. Discuss the strike at work and in class. Confront Boeing recruiters on campus. Build the movement for a worker-run society through communist revolution!

PLP’s history of fighting back war maker, strikebreaker General Electric

During the Vietnam War, General Electric (GE) was a major war profiteer and tens of thousands of GE workers went on strike. The PLP-led Worker-Student Alliance of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized strike support around the slogan, "Warmaker, Strikebreaker, Smash GE!" At a major anti-war mobilization in Washington, DC., SDS led a breakaway march of thousands to the Department of Labor in support of the striking workers. Lyndon Johnson pleaded with the workers to return to work because they were hurting the war effort. At a GE plant in Schenectady, NY, the workers chanted “F–k the war effort” on the picket lines.

This past October marked the 88th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street in London’s East End. In 1936, under communist leadership, British and immigrant workers broke through the police lines that protected the fascists, effectively thwarting their attempt to march and organize in working-class neighborhoods. In 2024, this history remains more relevant than ever. 

Once again, fascism is on the rise, marked by a surge of racist and sexist attacks on the working class, imperialist wars, genocide, anti-Muslim attacks, scapegoating of migrant workers, and the resurgence of open fascist movements with their leaders seizing power in governments across the U.S. and the EU. 

This summer, in the UK, fascism reared its ugly head as fascist groups such as the English Defense League, led by anti-migrant thug Tommy Robinson, and neo-Nazi elements, organized a racist rampage where they burned attacked migrants and Muslim workers. Fortunately, these racists were confronted by hundreds of multiracial, antifascist workers in a battle that lasted six days. Antiracist and antifascist workers and organizers linked arms to protect migrant shelters and fought back against the fascists.

Just a few days ago, a group of fascists took to the streets again to hold a rally in support of their imprisoned co-conspirators. 

Once more, antiracist, antifascist workers rose up to make it clear that fascism and racism are unwelcome. The only way that workers can defeat the fascist onslaught is by rebuilding the communist movement everywhere—the only movement with a proven record of stopping fascism dead in its tracks—and smashing capitalism once and for all with communist revolution. 

Red-led organizing prepares the battle ground against fascists

The constant communist-led, antifascist organizing over many years led to the understanding and empowerment of the working class. This battle also shows that the working class should never give in to nationalist leaders. Both Jewish and Irish community and religious leaders tried to convince the masses not to fight the fascists, fearful of “causing more problems.”

For 300 years, the East End of London had been the home of poor working class immigrants. In 1936 the area’s population was largely Polish and Russian Jewish, Irish Catholics and non-immigrant English workers.

In the midst of a severe depression, Sir Oswald Moseley’s Blackshirts movement (BUF, British Union of Fascists) was growing among the unemployed, white-collar workers and small businessmen. Moseley sent committed fascists into the East End to beat up and terrorize Jewish-made scapegoats for the economic crisis. On the streets, fascists would scream “kill the k….” (racist insult against Jews)

Ruling class funds the fascists

Many of Britain’s upper and ruling class funded the BUF. Some of Britain’s big newspapers, such as the Daily Mail, Evening News and Sunday Dispatch, promoted the BUF. The recently crowned King Edward VIII had wealthy fascist friends in Britain, France and Germany. The police often turned a blind eye to the fascists’ beatings of Jewish workers.

Moseley decided to show his strength by marching 10,000 uniformed Blackshirts and thousands of supporters directly through the Jewish/Irish neighborhood. The police commissioner Sir Philip Game ordered his cops to support the march.

On October 4, 10,000 cops were assigned to protect Mosley’s fascists. The official Jewish “leadership” advised Jewish workers to stay indoors and not show aggressiveness towards the cops.

But up to 500,000 people from the East End and other parts of London came out to stop the fascist march. Communists and trade unionists, many themselves Jewish, led the attack on the fascists in the streets. At Cable Street, the police, armed with nightsticks, attacked, while mounted police charged the crowd. Horses stumbled because children were hurling marbles under their hoofs and bursting bags of pepper under their noses. Women threw the contents of chamber pots from windows.

The fascists screamed derogatory names for Jewish workers. But the people chanted, “They will not pass!”

Jewish, Irish dockworkers unite

The masses erected barricades. A truck was turned on its side to block the street; old mattresses, bricks and pushcarts were thrown on top. An Irish antifascist bus driver drove his double-decker bus across the road, forming a barricade between the police and the antifascists.

The army of fascists demanded the police escort them through the masses of workers. At Cable Street, the massive wall of workers held their ground and only backed off to pick up bricks or bottles to throw at the cops and fascists.

The fascists were under a constant hail of bricks, bottles and stones. Despite arresting over 100 anti-fascist fighters, still the police could not move the masses as they held the cops in a vise grip.

Eventually, the Police Commissioner canceled the BUF’s march. But now the police had to save them from being killed by the crowd. They attempted to escape. But the antifascists, waiting for them, shouted, “Get them!” and crashed through the police lines. They then chased the fascists out of London’s East End.

For days, people celebrated throughout London. The fascists continued to try to organize, but it was clear that workers wouldn’t be easily won to fascism.

Dare to struggle — Dare to win!