WASHINGTON D.C, January 20–There is one thing the now 29 day old government shutdown shows for sure; neither Donald Trump nor his Democratic opponents have any concern for workers, the main victims of this power game between the main imperialist wing of the ruling class and the domestically oriented, Republican Trump supporters.
78 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck (CNBC, 1/9).Now 800,000 federal employees and hundreds of thousands of contractors, who are 40 percent of government personnel, are without one, whether or not they are being forced to work. To understand the devastation, we must know that 21.2 percent of U.S. families have no savings, including over 32 percent of Latin and 37 percent of Black families. 40 percent of all families have less than $400 in available cash for emergencies, according to the Federal Reserve. What more proof need there be that workers cannot afford to live under this capitalist system?
Indigenous workers living on federally funded land have been hardest hit. Snow covered roads are not being cleared, ambulances are not running and a 60 percent unpaid healthcare workforce devastates medical care. Some of the other concrete effects of the shutdown, which disproportionately affects Black and Latin workers, are: food stamps, used by 38 million people, were given out early for February and will no longer be available; federal cash welfare for $34 million is gone and being temporarily replaced by states; USDA loans and federal rent subsidies for low income rural dwellers will end by 2/1; food inspections have markedly decreased; approvals for opioid drug antagonists (drugs that counteract narcotic overdoses) cannot be had. If workers have not already died from these measures, some soon will, and it is certain that widespread effects of the stress and deprivation will continue long after the shutdown ends.
Why make a crisis out of immigration?
Trump pretends that there is an “immigration crisis,” but illegal border crossings have dropped from 851,000 in 2006 to approximately 62,000 in 2016, and both documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than the native born and have a lower unemployment rate (NYT 1/11). Most illegally imported drugs are smuggled through legal ports of entry. Given the falling fertility rates of native-born Americans, the U.S. would need to admit more than a million immigrants a year until 2050, more than double the current number, just to maintain current levels of production (NYT, 1/15).
What the maintenance of legal barriers to immigration does accomplish is to keep this large body of workers in a state of constant fear, drastically limiting their ability to demand higher wages or organize. By branding immigrant workers as dangerous and criminal, racist and nationalistic divisions are also sown between them and other workers, including Black workers and legal immigrants or their descendants.
Why is this happening now?
There may be no better explanation than that Trump is a bumbling politician, without any stable advisors representing the usual ruling class forces. He sees himself as beholden to his most racist and reactionary base to fulfill a campaign promise to “build the wall” and earn his racist and nationalist stripes. However, there should be no illusions that the Democrats or liberals who oppose him have any interest in treating immigrants with humanity. Since a century ago, Presidents Wilson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, both Bush’s and Obama have set up draconian barriers to immigration and increased deportations. Obama deported more immigrants than any president ever (about 3 million), and Democrats have built more of the existing wall than Republicans. Workers should not only fight against this racist border wall and this racist government shutdown; we should fight for a world without borders – communism.
The Democrats today, representing the main finance wing of the ruling class, are anxious to weaken Trump, who is destroying years of policies that strengthened the U.S. ruler’s international military, political and financial alliances. They are horrified by his general undisciplined behavior. They fear that his withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan, and threatening to withdraw from NATO threatens their worldwide, imperialist empire. They also oppose his total destruction of environmental regulations, overt racism, and destruction of “free trade,” all damaging to the reputation and sway of America’s large corporations and their international imperialist alliances.
Ultimately, workers must rise up collectively to defend ourselves from both parties. Mass sickouts among airport workers are already happening and may spread. Although federal workers are legally banned from striking, job actions are needed to fight for survival as all the bosses ignore their needs. Once again it is clear that capitalism cares naught for workers’ lives and that we need, in the end, to be fighting for a society we control–communism.
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Union election reveals collusion of MTA & sellout union
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- 25 January 2019 504 hits
New York City, January 20—As the dust settles on the recent TWU local 100 (largest transit union in the country) elections the uncertainty that permeates the U.S., and is now is reflecting itself within the union and its members. This past election was held in the midst of pressure on the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) bosses to answer for unreliable service and mounting debt. The bosses’ answer has been a threat to raise fares, impose a hiring freeze, harsher discipline, and to cry broke.
The reality is that the best fix for the transit system is to do away with politicians and the MTA bosses. A worker run society will put the needs of the working class first about what and where service is needed. Under this capitalist system service needs are determined by what benefits the billionaire bankers and business owners. The working class ridership and MTA workers united against the politicians, real estate moguls, MTA bosses, and ultimately their masters the banks, is the only force than can win a better subway system in the short term and a better world, communism, in the long term.
The union sellouts’ misleadership regained power for many of the top union spots, while in the subways division (Service Delivery) of the union they lost almost all of their leadership posts to fake progressives. These ‘progressives’ talk about building morale amongst members and getting the union strike ready, all the while looking for friendly politicians. Their ultimate strategy still relies on using the bosses’ media, lawyers and arbitrators rather than workers powers’.
This union misleadership has been ruling the union by pitting one division against the next, bribing workers in buses by controlling their overtime etc., while neglecting the needs of others outright. They back anti-labor Governor Cuomo, the boss of the MTA, without any criticism.
The subway is the cash cow of the MTA, moving over 5 million workers a day, but the life of subway workers is not easy. The average workday of the predominately Black and Latin workers ranges between 10-12 hours a day. Newer workers start with the worst schedules and very little certainty about where and when they work. Every Friday they must call to see if their days off have changed for the next week. The crew (screw) assignment section controls your life.
Bosses neglect subways–blame workers
The neglect of the subway system by the MTA bosses and politicians has left the subway workers to make do; making do with malfunctioning signals, no time to eat, and short to no recovery times between runs. Antiquated radios make communication impossible, leaving both ridership and workers in the dark about delays and other problems.
There has been a steady rise in operating crew discipline with little to no fight-back from the union. The best answer you receive from the union when fighting the MTA on discipline is to get your own lawyer. The latest round of news on the MTA is that they are aiming to speed up service by fixing broken signals. Immediately workers ask if there is going to be a lawsuit to win back lost jobs, wages and benefits for all the workers that have been disciplined for running into these malfunctioning signals. Starting from training you are told to do about 5-10 mph less that the posted speed when you encounter a time signal. But if you hit the signal doing less that 5-10 mph of the posted speed it’s your fault because you were “inattentive.” With the news that the MTA is now fixing these signals, they have finally admitted they are not working as they are supposed to. The union has been silent on the issue.
Workers must fightback!
The main organized resistance to the current union sellout leadership is coming from the subways division (Conductors, Train Operators, Tower Operators, Cleaners).This division has been under attack for about two decades and even more so under this new move to modernize. The resistance now is mostly angry talk, exposing the union misleaders backroom deals with management.
The election exposed many underhanded deals that the current union leadership made with the MTA bosses. They issued body cameras to spy on subway crews more than to prevent assaults. The cell phones policy is vague leaving workers open to harassment and disciplining. Recently, the MTA has installed cameras in work train cabs without a word to crew members who know this wouldn’t be possible without agreement with the union, but the union has been silent about this new camera program.
The coming election has emboldened more members to speak up and get involved but many still see allying with politicians as the only way we can make progress. We must have more confidence in ourselves, the working class, both transit workers and the riding public. Relying on politicians or the media builds cynicism.
Let’s turn our anger and discussions on the job into action. Let’s go to union meetings and confront our do-nothing misleaders. Let’s go to the bosses’ offices and confront them when they try to discipline one of us. Let’s reach out to our brothers and sisters who ride the trains and busses. Let’s build a stronger, fighting, strike ready union before the May contract deadline. Join with the Progressive Labor Party in the long-term fight for a world run by the working class: communism.
The collective of an industrial zone of the State of Mexico, together with friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), presented a report on the “Special Economic Zones” and the “Law of Internal Security” in a private preschool near where we live. In that school the director, partners, teachers, and parents have shown interest in the Party’s line and have supported us in all the political and cultural activities that we have carried out. The collective has openly presented itself as members of PLP, an international communist party.
The school principal convened the mothers and fathers of the children to attend the session. At the beginning of the talk we made a presentation about PLP in the classroom, and 27 people participated in the discussion.The information presented dealt with current issues concerning the political climate which affect the entire working class.
The teacher friends of the party described the critical geographical areas of interest to the capitalists. In this way, they contextualized the law of internal security with the violence of the country in relation to the needs that bourgeois democracy demands.
The teachers were emphatic in that the information produced in the universities should be shared widely. All that knowledge must be transmitted in a way that the whole working class can understand, and analyze how this system works. This is necessary for us to develop critical thinking and to break with the capitalist ideas that infect our thinking.
Most participants were attentive during the talk; three people reacted negatively. After the talk, we invited those who were interested in continuing and deepening this conversation to come forward and share their contact information.
At the end, some parents who expressed their doubts, later exchanged opinions in a friendly manner with the teachers who gave the report. The teachers were kind and accessible to the concerns of the parents.
Today, more than ever, the working class needs a communist party to organize itself. Imperialism is much more cynical in showing its claws; it uses hunger, violence,and sexism, racism to confuse and divide us. It isolates us in the factories, in the office, with the need to maintain our jobs, to maintain and add more misery to our lives with overtime. The system attempts to make us forget, that all together we can achieve more and fight against the system. We must not let capitalism advance much more. We must sharpen the fight wherever we are.
NEW YORK CITY, January 20– A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is very involved in the struggles of workers around housing, health, racism and workplace exploitation. As 2019 began, we have been active in support of the Central American Caravan and against the invasion of Amazon, one of the largest companies in the world, which will be building its second headquarters in Queens.
Amazon has colluded with city politicians (Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo, both Democrats) to establish itself in NYC and win billions in subsidies, but the community is against the plan, knowing full well that Amazon’s presence will lead to a rise in housing costs and to congested trains, buses and schools.
At the end of November 2018, we took part in several protests against Amazon sponsored by a community organization we are active in. At one event, a Party comrade spoke to the protesters, denouncing Amazon for exploiting its 560,000 workers around the world,with low wages and dangerous working conditions, all to enrich the chairman of the company, Jeff Bezos – the world’s richest man, who earns more than eight million dollars per hour while his workers have to work overtime just to survive. (One-third of warehouse workers in Arizona are reportedly receiving SNAP benefits – food stamps.)
Our comrade pointed out another reason to oppose Amazon: it is a major contributor to the U.S. repressive state apparatus. The company is in negotiations with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to sell its facial recognition software (Rekognition), which would help ICE deport even more undocumented immigrant workers (our class brothers and sisters).
Employees at Amazon have opposed the contract with ICE, horrified at the agency’s separation of families at the border with Mexico. Besides ICE, for years Amazon has supplied Rekognition to police departments, which can use the technology to identify and create a database of protesters. Amazon also has a $600 million contract with the CIA, notorious for its record of overthrowing progressive governments (Guatemala, Chile, Zaire, the list goes on), installing repressive regimes and running secret detention centers, where torture is normal.
The community organization we work in wants to force Amazon to either pay billions of dollars in taxes or not come to the city, which doesn’t get to the heart of the problem. There are other liberal organizations in the anti-Amazon coalition that recommend boycotting Amazon and supporting small businesses–ones threatened by Amazon’s arrival–instead. But we cannot indulge in the nostalgia of the “good old days” of family businesses. Amazon started out as a small company and is now a mega-corporation. Meanwhile, most small businesses fail because of high rents and competition. Capitalism needs to be overthrown, not reformed.
The encouraging news is that Amazon workers are fighting back. Angry at low-wages, constant pressure to work faster, extreme heat leading to dehydration and collapse, and the high numbers of injuries in the warehouses, workers are organizing. Somali women held rallies outside the Minneapolis-area warehouse to protest speed-up and disrespectful treatment. Workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, NY are unionizing. Recently, Amazon workers in Spain, Italy, Germany and Britain organized walkouts, shutting down production to protest low wages and lousy conditions.
Amazon’s treatment of its workers, and the way in which politicians cater to its needs is a clear example of how capitalist owners care only for profits and use their tremendous wealth to buy the loyalty of government officials. That’s why we need to end the profit-system and work towards communism, an egalitarian system whose goal is to create a better life for the working class. We dedicate 2019 to that goal.
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Van Dyke jailed; politicans exploit Laquan’s murder
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- 25 January 2019 763 hits
CHICAGO,January 18—Judge Vince Gaughan sentenced racist killer cop Jason Van Dyke to a pathetic 81 months in prison for his brutal murder of Black teenager LaQuan McDonald in October of 2014. The day before, three other racist cops from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) were cleared of all charges in connection to their role in covering up for Van Dyke in the aftermath of LaQuan’s murder (Chicago Sun-Times, 1/17).
These outcomes are perfectly in line with the long history of racist legal inequality under the capitalist system, spanning centuries. The reality demonstrates time and time again that the working class cannot expect justice to come from the bosses’ legal system, which ultimately can only defend the state power of the capitalist class.
The international working class can only expect true justice to be delivered when we organize ourselves to take it by force. By building the international Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and communist revolution, we can destroy capitalism and its legal system designed to protect property and profits. Justice comes when workers collectively run society, with laws based on protecting the needs of our class!
Racism codified into capitalism
Van Dyke’s shameful six-year sentence represents another blunt reality check to the idea that the bosses’ courts will give any real punishment to racist and sexist cops for their crimes against workers. Even a quick glance at the outcome of the many high-profile racist police murders from recent years in the U.S. drives this reality home:
- Dante Servin, who shot and killed 22 year old Black woman Rekia Boyd on the west side of Chicago in March 2012, found not guilty in 2015
- Darren Wilson, murderer of 18 year old Mike Brown in Ferguson, not indicted by a grand jury
- Timothy Loehmann, who shot and killed 12 year old Tamir Rice in 2014, found not guilty by a grand jury
- Daniel Panteleo, who choked Eric Garner to death in New York City in 2014, still not officially indicted on charges Jeronimo Yanez, who shot and killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop in 2016, found not guilty of second-degree murder charges
The creation of race and racism was instrumental to the rise of capitalism, with the capitalist class using its state power over the legal system to write and enforce countless racist laws to maintain its rule. From colonial laws that prohibited interaction between white and Black workers, to the U.S. constitution acknowledging Black people as only “three-fifths of a person” and therefore property, to fugitive slave laws, to obscene inequalities in sentencing for drug and weapons offenses in the present day, racism has always been ingrained in capitalist law.
The courts show such leniency to the killer cops because the cops are a chief force responsible for carrying out racist capitalist law. Although the bosses may try to make an example out of a particular cop here and there, overall they know that the police are essential to their needs of dividing and conquering the working class to maintain their system.
Racist politicians cynically exploit LaQuan’s murder
From the moment the dashcam video of VanDyke firing 16 shots into LaQuan was made public in 2015, racist politicians of all stripes jumped on the opportunity to exploit his death for their own ends, whether to deflect criticism from themselves or to attack their rivals. In light of the recent Van Dyke trial and an upcoming mayoral election in Chicago, these despicable efforts have sharpened.
Long-time liberal Chicago boss and current mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle has shamelessly inflated her role (she was city medical examiner at the time of LaQuan’s murder) in the efforts to get the dashcam video made public, an obvious appeal to win votes that has backfired against her. Garry McCarthy, who was fired as police superintendent by racist Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the wake of the exposed video, has used the murder and the legitimate backlash against the racist CPD to promote his own “law and order” campaign for mayor.
Community “activist” William Calloway, who was promoted by the bosses’ media as the spokesperson for the grassroots struggle on LaQuan’s behalf, has responded to the recent court decisions with, “We’re not gonna protest and take to the streets. We’re gonna go to the polls” (Chicago Sun-Times, 1/19). Calloway has unsurprisingly made a campaign to run for an alderman position.
By backing any of these racist lowlifes, workers are choosing a losing strategy. Regardless of who ends up in office, we can expect more of the general trend of intensifying gentrification, the closing of more schools, increases in the cost of living, and racist police terror throughout Chicago and beyond. Nothing short of a mass communist-led workers’ movement can challenge that.
What we do counts
Although Van Dyke’s punishment hardly fits his crime, and is a racist slap in the face to LaQuan’s memory, anti-racist fighters should take pride in the fact that it was their mass anger and actions up to this point that made sure that the bosses felt it necessary to give him a sentence at all. The Black Friday demonstrations that blocked Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, the shutting down of major intersections and highways, the demonstrations within and outside the courthouse, and the march upon Van Dyke at his own home – all these bold actions forced the bosses to act out of fear to our working-class anger.
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has been proud to be a part of many of these actions, and honored to provide leadership to the movement whenever possible. We will continue to fight alongside our working-class sisters and brothers against racist capitalist injustice, always advocating for communist revolution and a worker-run society as the only real way to guarantee justice for our class.
