New York, May 29–Recently a subway conductor for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) got stabbed while sitting on a bench in his uniform.  Meanwhile, toxic silica dust will be released during major repairs of the L Train subway tunnel and will affect both transit workers and riders. To top it off, the MTA bosses just raised the fares.
The billionaire capitalists who run New York City and control the MTA blame the workers for these problems.The MTA’s plan is to try to drive a wedge between transit workers and fellow workers who ride the train. The vast majority of transit workers, have resisted their attempts, by not playing into the bosses’ fear mongering. They don’t fear the riding public, and are eager to help whenever they can. Similarly most riders do not blame the workers for train delays or unsafe conditions.
Mental health
Actually, the stabbed conductor was closer to the truth: ”What’s going on is that there’s a heavy mental issue … And I think this really needs to be dealt with... Someone like him, he’s possibly a victim of mental illness … so it’s something that we have to take care of” (abc7news, 4/22).
This “heavy mental issue” is capitalist exploitation of the working class, so bosses can make maximum profits. It is the job of communists in the Progressive Labor Party to not only fight for safer working conditions, but also to unite workers to fight against the whole capitalist system.
Mental health is a major issue in this country. The stressors caused by racism and exploitation are the main drivers of mental illness. Many workers never receive the care they need, due to the closure of mental health hospitals. “The disappearance of long-term-care facilities and psychiatric beds has escalated over the past decade, sparked by a trend toward deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1950s and 1960s, says Dominic Sisti, director of the Scattergood …”(NPR 11/30/17)
Silica dust kills workers, as bosses profit
At a recent Transit Workers Union (TWU) meeting it became clear that the bosses and the union have the same “solution” to the silica dust health problem:“Educate” workers about the health risks it poses, while scheduling workers for routine medical evaluations. As for the health risks to riders, the bosses have no answers and the union says, “We’ll get back to you.” This is how the working class is treated in liberal New York City with a Democratic mayor and governor.
Progressive Action is a group of transit workers organizing against the dangers from silica dust. They also held a march to City Hall to demand that Transit Authorities take action against the assaults on transit workers. Unfortunately, this march has led to demanding more police to ‘protect’ transit workers, which is a dead end. Kkkops will more easily harass Black and Latin transit workers; no MTA badge will change that. This “solution” will also send more workers with mental illnesses to prison. “The Treatment Advocacy Center reported American prisons and jails housed an estimated 356,268 inmates with severe mental illness in 2012 ... That figure is more than 10 times the number of mentally ill patients in state psychiatric hospitals in the same year—about 35,000 people” (The Washington Post, 4/30/2015).
Fare hikes
But wait! The bosses want to squeeze the workers some more by raising the fares. Then they can get the media to blame the lack of money for transit repairs on fare beaters.There was a big media blitz about how workers don’t pay the fare on the busses and jump the turnstiles to ride the subway. That won’t be a problem under communism as public transportation will run everywhere and it will be free. Here the MTA bosses and the TWU union sellouts have a “disagreement.” The bosses want more cops to go after workers who apply for too much overtime! But the union, and even the Progressive Action group within the union, want more cops to supposedly protect the transit workers. They want the cops to protect the transit workers from other workers. When asked what the union was doing to improve the relationship between MTA workers and riding workers, union reps replied with, “y’all ain’t got to worry about that because no one’s gonna want to fight with a guy swinging a Jerry [slug hammer].” This was probably the most callous, and individualistic thing heard from the union misleaders. The union member responded that he cares about the safety of all workers, not just those in his division.  
Then the media went after workers who worked “too much” overtime. “The study found MTA workers are putting in so many extra hours … that the agency spent $418 million on overtime last year (CBS New York, 4/23).”With over 50,000 transit workers, a majority is required to work seven days a week. These workers are not rolling in the dough. There is lots of overtime because the MTA bosses refuse to hire more workers.
All things change
After the union meeting a PLer had a lunchroom discussion with his coworkers. At first they were afraid he would lose his job for criticizing the company. Many felt it wouldn’t change anything raising the issues with the union. They were right about the sell-out union. One worker mentioned how hard it would be just to get the workers to a union meeting, himself included. The PLer’s response was that all things change. The PLer also proposed a flyer to pressure the union and to address mental illness. The workers are in the midst planning a struggle.
So what do the MTA bosses, politicians, and media lackeys have in store for the working class? More fare hikes and pay cuts in workers salary overtime. Not to mention, exposing workers and riders to toxic silica dust. We need to fight back with a united working class and eventually seize power with a communist revolution for the working class.

Newark, New Jersey, May 6 – About 75 people in this working class, mostly Black and Latin city, attended a forum whose key purpose was to alert neighborhood residents about the ongoing lead contamination of their water. Progressive Labor Party(PLP) alerted residents to the destructive nature of capitalism that destroys our environment and all aspects of our lives, from working conditions to education to healthcare.
 Many of the forum’s organizers were critical of the city administration’s initial failure to address the crisis and their attempts to lie their way out of public criticism. PLP members have consistently pointed out that capitalism’s insatiable demand for profit is the source of racist attacks on the working class such as lead poisoning. Only communism, a society run by the working class, can end these atrocities and build a world where profiting from the sale of toxic products will become a distant memory.
Liberal misleaders
Electing “progressive” politicians like Newark’s Mayor Ras Baraka can never end these racist attacks. As one of the forum panelists said: “I tell my students that politicians running for president in 2020 promise us they will fix the system; but I ask my students why we, as working class parents, teachers and students, couldn’t run things much better than the politicians and the rulers behind them do.”
The forum opened with a short statement summarizing the 20th century history of corporate use of lead products. In the 1920s, the oil, auto, chemical and lead industry bosses conspired to promote lead in gasoline. Even before that, the lead industry was successfully campaigning to convince city administrations to use lead pipes to transport water. While raking in billions in profits from the sale of products containing lead, these capitalists were well aware of their lethal toxicity. Years later, cities like Newark were left to deal with the murderous consequences of long-term exposure to lead.
The panelists included one of the attorneys currently suing Newark over the lead contamination, a scientist who specializes in the effects of chemical contamination, and a Newark high school teacher actively involved in the fight to rid Newark’s water of lead. The panelists discussed the centuries old history of the human use of lead, the deadly long-term consequences of lead exposure, and the current status of the lawsuit.
The environmental attorney pointed out that lead poisoning disproportionately affects cities with large Black and Latin working class populations. As with Flint, Michigan, Newark’s lead testing in 2017 and 2018 showed that almost 20 percent of measured households had levels above the federal action limit, and both cities measured elevated amounts among children (nrdc.org). Just as racist unemployment, police brutality, gentrification and skyrocketing rents have plagued former industrial cities like Newark and Flint, so have environmental catastrophes.
Several residents accused the city administration and Mayor Baraka of lying about the safety of Newark’s water. In July of 2017, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection gave the city six months to develop a plan to address the problem of lead leaching into the water system. The city only commissioned a further study, doing nothing to remedy the problem.  
In February of 2018, Newark’s own consultant advised the Water Department that preliminary results also showed that corrosion control was ineffective. But, in June of 2018, the Water Department Director issued a statement proclaiming that the water was completely safe, accusing the environmental lawyers of “outrageously false” charges. Ras Baraka said the same thing during his 2018 reelection campaign, with mass Robocalls and mailings, claiming the water was safe to drink. The city did nothing until October 2018, after the lawsuit was filed, when the final results of its study showed conclusively that the corrosion control in one of the two city reservoirs was not working.
Workers need clean water and communism
Several media outlets, including the Newark-based Star Ledger, have reported extensively on the lead crisis. All of these outfits have their own motives for exposing and controlling Mayor Baraka, including keeping gentrification on track in Newark. Also, the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit has already made it clear that she thinks the city’s belated remedial actions absolve it of legal responsibility for the problem. Both the bourgeois press and the rulers’ courts serve the capitalists and their lackey politicians and have little care for the interests of the working class.   
PLP members and friends are actively fighting for clean water. We want the local bosses and developers to pay the entire cost of the lead clean-up and we want workers and students to join us in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow this racist, capitalist system. Then we can end capitalism’s environmental disasters behind and focus on building communism, a healthy and productive world for the working class.

COLOMBIA—For 27 days 13,000 organized peasants blocked traffic on the Pan-American highway (the region’s biggest roadway). This struggle persists despite the Colombian bosses’ racist terrorism which has killed more than 600 local workers in the last two years. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in Colombia is organizing the only solution to this class struggle: communist revolution.
These peasants organized themselves in
indigenous rural collectives and descended from different locales and blocked the road in several points such as Cauca, Nariño, and in other towns. They were protesting and angrily demanding from the racists Ivan Duque and Alvaro Uribe (current and former Colombian presidents) an agrarian reform, resources for hospitals, schools, housing, roads, drinking water, sewerage, not spraying their crops with glyphosate and stopping the murder of social leaders and local peasants.
On March 13, the workers blocked nine miles of the Pan-American Highway and the bosses, instead of discussing their just demands, sent the ESMAD riot squads, the army and the hordes of paramilitaries that attacked the native population using tear gas and excessive force. The workers defended themselves with their only weapons: clubs and stones.
Never stopped fighting
The bosses’ forces left eight peasants dead, more than 80 injured and 30 arrested. Despite the state terrorism characteristic in Colombia in recent decades and despite the paramilitary barbarism, which has resulted in thousands of deaths, disappearances and exiles, the workers of the countryside and the city, and students have not stopped fighting. Practically all the peasants and oppressed people are proletarianized. The vast majority have no land or means of production, so they are forced to fight for higher wages and shorter work hours to save their lives.
The previous 1,300 treaties that were agreed upon during the past 30 years were totally or partially broken by different governments. This has left  3.5 million people in this area living in poverty, misery and unemployment. In addition, armed groups kill, threaten and persecute them. They are displaced from their lands, which are now dominated by companies owned by landlord mafiosos and thieving politicians. These bosses want thelands for mining, cattle raising, and to plant coca, African palm, and sugarcane.
Historical materialism teaches us to recognize the oppressive and lying nature of the Colombian bourgeoisie. We know that they will again fail to comply with what was agreed to. Alvaro Uribe rejected an agreement 10 years ago of a similar struggle, and then massacred the peasants. Thousands of indigenous workers in the public square of Caldono waited in vain to meet Ivan Duque as promised, but that never happened. The corrupt prosecutor Martinez invented the lie that indigenous groups would attack this fascist president.
In PLP, we see racism as a class problem. We understand that the capitalists use it to super- exploit and divide the workers (today the indigenous population tends to be more urban than rural in many parts of the world). Racism is a political weapon used by the bourgeoisie to obtain super profits and divide the proletariat and prevent a struggle by a united working class to defeat capitalism.
PLP’s communist and anti-racist politics offers the true answer to the indigenous question from Colombia to Mexico to Peru to Ecuador. Under communism, proletarian internationalism will create a new society where production will be according to the needs of those who produce all wealth, and where any form of racism, sexism, will be fought using workers’ power and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The following story has been reprinted from Wally Linder’s Life of Labor and Love.
In June 1964, the Progressive Labor Movement decided to print an eight-page weekly newspaper; CHALLENGE was born. Our search for a printer led us to an outfit in Trenton, N.J. After laying down a deposit, the printer looked at the first issue and told us that would be the last one he’d print.
We called up the Harris offset press manufacturer and asked for a list of newspaper printers to whom it had sold web offset presses. That’s how we found the Sun Publishing Co., located in the Chinese community on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. We showed our first issue to the owner, Mr. Chan, and he agreed to print our newspaper. His wife and kids helped with various tasks. Milt Rosen, PLM chairperson, and I packed the papers into boxes for pick-up.
As it happened, later that month the Harlem rebellion erupted, during which the rebels were holding the front page of CHALLENGE as their flag while marching. This prompted the NYPD Red Squad to visit Mr. Chan and warn him that if he continued to print our paper he would be in for trouble. Chan told them he was within his rights to print any newspaper brought to him. “What about freedom of the press?” he shot back at the cops’ threat. He was not about to abandon his only account. Years later, when Mr. Chan retired, our search for another printer led us to Brooklyn and Ballan Printing, a company that printed many small community and campus papers—and a huge number of pornographic ones that had sprung up since the 1960s. (The Mafia, in collusion with the owners, had coerced the workers into a local union it controlled.) But neither the owners nor the Mafia counted on the workers’ rebelliousness.
The workers read our paper and saw the various exposés we wrote about the lousy working conditions that profit-hungry bosses were pushing on workers throughout the country.
When we went to pick up the paper, the workers showed us the horrible condition of what passed for their bathroom and asked us to write about it. Our editor Luis Castro wrote an exposé for the next issue, which the workers read with enthusiastic approval. When the bosses saw the article, they went wild. They told us it was all lies and one-sided and challenged us to print their side, “the truth.” We told them that there was only one “truth,” the “workers’ truth,” which made them even crazier. From then on, they scrutinized every issue. Soon afterwards, the owners renovated the bathroom into a halfway decent condition. The workers attributed that improvement to the article we had written.
When a pre-May Day issue came out, we printed the words of the workers’ anthem, “The Internationale.” When we went to pick up that issue, a pressman suddenly leapt up the two flights of stairs to the top of the huge web press and in a clear, loud voice began singing “The Internationale.” As the strains of the final words, “the International working class shall be the human race,” drifted across the pressroom, the workers spontaneously burst into applause.
We never found out how this worker knew the song’s melody, but news of the performance soon traveled to the far reaches of Brooklyn. We are now in our 55th year of publishing CHALLENGE, and have never missed an issue.

*****

Don’t Undersell it!
Sometimes, we think that Progressive Labor Party’s modest size and modest distribution of our literature limits our influence to a few close friends.
  While it is true that PLP needs to grow tremendously to be in a position to take state power away from the ruling class in any area of the world, the mass character of the response to our May Day March in Flatbush, Brooklyn bears out our line on concentrating our forces and bodes well for the future.
  For quite a few years now, hundreds of people along the route of the march intently watch our march, honk in support, put thumbs up, dance to our chants, or otherwise show support for our march. Thousands take CHALLENGE newspaper. This year, near the end of the march, one comrade on the outside of the line of march told me she had seen exactly one negative response from those watching us.
  I drove in from New Jersey with a full car. As soon as the closing rally ended, I headed for my car so that I could come back and pick up my passengers. As I was about to reach my car, I noticed two young Black men on bikes riding in the street. They had obviously been observing the march because I distinctly heard one of them say to the other “The big problem with capitalism is that it keeps us all separate.” I marveled at the effect our communist march had on these young men, who probably just happened to be riding near Flatbush Avenue when we marched by.
No doubt the determination and perseverance of our Brooklyn comrades to expand the party and its ideas is being duplicated in other PLP concentrations all over the world. This is an important step on the road to communist revolution and workers’ power.