LOS ANGELES, June 14—HIV treatment has become a multi-billion dollar industry that includes medication options as simple as one pill a day with very few side effects. Treatment and cure is limited to what is profitable for the bosses, not what is necessary for working-class health. Due to the inherent nature of capitalism, the benefits of any medical advances are countries where these drugs can be purchased at a profit. The bulk of the world’s workers most afflicted have no access to these medications.
Today, there are drugs that can prevent HIV infections. Yet in the U.S., the world’s most vicious imperialist empire, mini-epidemics occur which disproportionately affect the Black and Latin communities. Because of capitalist problems — unemployment, underemployment, homelessness, drug use, mental illness and the sexist oppression against homosexual workers combined with the destructive force of racist mass incarceration of the Black and Latin communities — HIV/AIDS makes caring for those newly infected with HIV or already in care particularly more difficult.
This is why co-workers and a communist from an HIV clinic organized a patient-staff dinner and showed a movie “Straight Outta Compton” where we raised anti-racist politics.
Our organizing has been ongoing modestly at our clinic. Throughout nearly two years, our clinic raised money for the family of Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old Black man murdered by the LAPD the same time as Mike Brown in Ferguson. His mother visited our clinic and brought us sandwiches. Since then, conversations around racism, police murder, the elections and capitalism are commonplace. Two co-workers came to Progressive Labor Party’s recent May Day dinner.
Another co-worker who attended a pre-May Day cookout helped organize a recent patient- staff dinner and movie night. Twenty patients and four staff came. More had originally signed on to come but unfortunately it coincided with an award ceremony for our medical director. Nonetheless, it was a great first start for an ongoing series cementing patient-worker unity!
Build Multiracial Patient-Worker Unity
Research has shown that when patients are active in their social networks providing more positive interactions (no drug use, no oppression against homosexual people or HIV-related stigma), patients tend to solidify their HIV care. The empirical evidence has caught up to what communists have been building from the get-go: multiracial patient-worker solidarity.
Despite its reformist politics, we chose the movie “Straight Outta Compton” (see CHALLENGE 9/30/15), it’s pertinent to many of our patients who were raised, and still live in the same area, grew up on the music, and have been dealing with the same racist police terror. The communist in the clinic made a short introductory speech, drawing connections between the Ferguson rebellion and the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion following the racist acquittal of the cops who brutally beat Rodney King, a Black taxi worker.
Many patients related what they were doing during the rebellions. All related to the plight in the movie of Eazy E who dies of HIV/AIDS (HIV is the immunodeficiency virus that can lead to the AIDS syndrome and interfere with the body’s ability to fight infections.) After a brief discussion we enjoyed each other’s company and everyone was thankful for the event. Patients were asked to write down activities we could do together. We all bonded a little bit more, beginning to break the divide of “staff” and “patient.”  
Racist, Sexist Politics Breeds HIV
There should be a huge difference between those infected with HIV today and those who were infected decades ago. Prior to antiretroviral therapy, a cocktail of drugs used to prevent the growth of the virus, HIV infection meant death from some obscure infection or cancer as their immune system inevitably declined. Even with the first generation of antiretroviral drugs, saving lives came with multiple drug toxicities that caused organ damage and included taking up to 25 pills a day, which now have netted billions for the pharmaceutical bosses.
Cure the Working Class of Capitalism
At our clinic in South Los Angeles (between Watts and Compton counties) there are hundreds of mostly Black and Latin men, women, young and old, infected and newly infected individuals. Like many HIV clinics, in addition to clinicians, we have a medical staff of social workers, case workers, therapists and psychiatrists who address numerous social issues. Most can be handled on a case-by-case basis. However, this rarely leads to any long-term changes never has societal effects.
Social work helps save lives, but the blame for HIV/AIDS is always heaped on the individual. The focus of attacking HIV/AIDS should be geared towards attacking capitalism. Its constant exploitation and racist, sexist oppression leaves working-class bodies vulnerable to disease.
No matter how hard we work for our patients, as long as capitalism exists our individual efforts will always fall short. Best-case scenario for our patients: we retain a patient in care; they stay on HIV medications and thus improve their immune function so that they don’t die of AIDS.
However, we’re finding that while some don’t develop AIDS, as our patients live longer, they will not only be victimized by other preventable medical ailments — from heart disease to cancer — they tend to get these illnesses at younger ages. Less than 25 percent of those we know to be HIV positive remains in care, and even less controlled on HIV medications.
Ultimately the disease of capitalism wins out if we don’t organize to overthrow it. Our movie showing and dinner was a step towards building the kind of working-class relationships necessary to eradicate HIV/AIDS and capitalism. It’s one and the same fight!

Back in December I wrote an article on “Base-Building and Resilience” based on work at my job, a bottling company. Today I write as an unemployed worker who coordinated a walkout.
After months of late nights and exhausted days, my coworkers and I had had enough of the lousy working conditions. We had won back being provided with free water and got the company to make minor repairs to our workplace, but many were still frustrated. Since December, many workers had been fired or had quit after finding “better” jobs. A workforce of 19 had dwindled to 9; only 4 of whom had been on the job 5 months before. This low amount of workers caused the bosses to panic. They started to speed up productivity using threats and lies and kept people on the job 12 to 16 hours a day to get the trucks loaded.
As for myself, I had been injured on the job so was only supposed to do 6 hours of work; yet I was forced to stay longer working the forklift since the bosses had the forklift drivers doing the loading. Although many of us were written up, we struggled against these attacks. When the bosses insisted that they were looking into raises for us, “the hard workers who stuck it out,” we would all just laugh and say “yeah right.”
So one Wednesday the bosses had a meeting where more lies were fed to us, and instead of eating them up, one of my co-workers stood up and said, “Bet if we walked out we would get some raises.” The supervisor immediately called the meeting off and sent us back to work. I started asking everyone their opinion on the action, how they would react, if they would join, and what they would like our demands to be. This was over a span of 3 hours. To my surprise, everyone was in agreement on two demands, a raise and more manpower, whether it be temps or hurrying the hiring process.
Keep in mind, nobody working in the plant at this time was receiving CHALLENGE and none of these workers knew of my communist politics. Suddenly we were all called into the office and challenged. The supervisor told us to drop the talk of walking out and get back to work. We refused, voicing our criticism and demands. They told us to be realistic. We insisted that we were. We demanded the head of the whole plant be there within an hour to hear our demands or we would walk. So we waited. An hour passed, and we regrouped on the work floor discussing the demands and our allegiance to each other. Everybody was pumped and ready to get this done.
We noticed the branch manager in the office. So we marched in with our heads high and our ambitions even higher. Then it happened. Many who were chosen to speak to our demands froze. It turned into me and one other guy arguing back and forth with the bosses. They kept saying that they couldn’t do anything: it was too late in the day; the demands weren’t realistic; maybe it would be possible, but it would take time; months or years. I immediately changed the situation and said we were walking out. Four of us walked out of the office, but five held back. I turned around and said “let’s go” to the others, who had earlier said they were going to walk, but all I got back was “I don’t know.” I turned my back and left with the 3 workers who didn’t hesitate.
We got outside and waited for the others, but they didn’t come out. While we waited we talked about how happy we were to stand together and how strikes were truly the only way workers could get respect. I gave them CHALLENGE, and we all shook hands and left. An hour later, I received a phone call from a co-worker who had stayed in the plant, and he informed me that four more, including him, had walked out a little later. They had gotten scared, but realized that walking out with us was the right decision. I expressed my agreement and the importance of solidarity between workers.
The next morning I went to work. On my way in, I was intercepted by the head of HR who informed me that I had received two write-ups, that I was no longer needed, and that I had to leave. This was what I expected. I contacted a co-worker who had not arrived yet; he had come in a little later, and informed that no one else returned to work that day so he left. But on Friday everyone but me was back; so I was the only one fired. I did stick out, leading the fight for the water and repairs and initially the walk out, but that was a risk worth taking to demonstrate working-class power.
Though the walkout didn’t succeed in getting our demands completely met, a large group of temps were brought in to help with the long days being worked. This walkout was too spontaneous and poorly coordinated. Other departments within the plant weren’t consolidated and no plan was made on how to push it further. Another weakness was me being the only one in a position of leadership since now that I am gone, the bosses will work to erase any trace of my influence over the workers.
I plan on maintaining contact with those who walked out to the best of my abilities. For my next step, I’m not too sure. I was already in the process of moving into another industry. In the meantime, base-building and increasing the membership are my main goals, which never changes.
A small dim light has shown itself at a bottling plant in Texas. The dark night will not live forever. The working class is strong, we just need to be organized enough, mass enough, and ambitious enough to show it to them. Here’s to the international struggle for communist revolution! Till the next time my comrades.

NEW JERSEY, June 11—At the Veterans of Foreign Wars center in Irvington, New Jersey, my acting group and I performed the play, “A System of Profiling.” We portrayed the lives of the four men—Daniel Reyes, Leroy Grant, Rayshawn Brown and Keshon Lamonte—who were shot by kkkops on the New Jersey Turnpike in April 1998. The system unsurprisingly failed these Black and Latin men—within a year of finding the cops guilty, New Jersey prosecutors acquitted them of all charges. The play was meant to send the message that these men and countless others will never find justice under capitalism.
Kkkops Kill on Bosses’ Cue
The play demonstrates how, from the training of polices to the courts and the popular media, capitalism is built and maintained with racism.  It doesn’t matter that these men were on their way to achieve basketball scholarships at a university in South Carolina. This system thrives on the total disregard of the lives of all working class people.
Sexism was also a theme of the play. In it, we depict how bosses permit the police to get away with abusing women. One of the kkkops abused his then girlfriend for many years. Yet, he was allowed to keep his job!
The play stresses that we must and will fight back against racism and sexism. It ends with the four youth becoming committed fighters against the racist system, by “any means necessary.” They raise their fists in unity with the women, their attorney and the kkkop’s former girlfriend.  This racist and sexist system will not divide us.
Back Drop of Racist Murders
After the play, the moderator posed the question of how to end racism. The audience was specially asked whether racism could be abolished by voting for Hillary Clinton or by fighting for a system in which racism will no longer exist. The men and women veterans in the audience agreed that voting was essential. The writer of the play, however, stressed that voting only serves to maintain the interest of the capitalist class. She pointed out the devastation that Hillary’s husband wrecked on the working class by slashing welfare—an action that decimated the neighborhood in which she worked for a school nurse in Newark, New Jersey.  
To further the point that voting means replacing one war mongering capitalist stooge with another, the writer mentioned how she supported Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s because she believed his anti-war platform, only to be disappointed with his decision to escalate the war in Vietnam. Two men, however, chimed up that “war is necessary” for the capitalists.
The question was then asked if the men, women, and children in Iraq and Vietnam asked to be killed by the U.S. bosses. They answered that war was good for the economy. There ensued a discussion as to who rules the political economy, and who benefits from those decisions. There was disagreement, especially on the need of voting to resolve problems. Our play and discussion about racism won over in the end because our group was asked by the veterans to return in August.
In getting this play off the ground, we learned that theater is a collective process from writing critiques to casting to finding a venue to directing and rehearsing. We also learned that it is a great way to highlight the ways in which the capitalist system beats us down every day. More importantly, it is a great way to bring communist politics to the masses. We will continue to use theater to let the workers know that there is a better system out there—communism.

NEW YORK CITY, June 12—A red salute to the 40,000 brave Verizon workers whose six-week strike against the largest U.S. telecommunications company ended. The strikers’ militancy and unity cost the company over $200 million and gained widespread support despite a virtual total media blackout. The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party salutes the Verizon workers for their militancy and determination.
In this period, the international working class faces capitalist attacks from all sides, from racist police terror, to millions of our sisters and brothers displaced as refugees worldwide, to the growing threat of wider imperialist wars. Amid all this, the Verizon workers dared to fight, and showed a glimpse of the working class’s potential to flex its muscle within a vital U.S. industry.
The misleadership of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the entire fake left are calling this a major victory. While modest, it was the workers’ militancy that held the picket lines which won any reforms. However, despite what was won, whatever concessions the bosses gave up are at risk of being taken back. Capitalists stick to their golden rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules.
Victory is not in the immediate reform gains, but in the steeling of class-consciousness. In a period of relatively low class struggle, the winning is in the fighting. For the international working class, a strike’s larger significance is the impact the Verizon workers had on working-class fightback. Communist PL’ers, and our friends at Verizon, must continue organizing and sharpening the struggle against future bosses’ attacks, while organizing red study groups to win workers to fight for revolution.
What Workers Won, and Lost
Verizon underestimated the workers’ willingness to fight. Some workers were able to shut down the scab supervisors doing union work. Ultimately, the four-year contracts the workers fought for and won will add 1,300 unionized call center jobs. Those call centers threatened with closing, except two, will remain open. The workers will get an 11 percent raise over four years, and 65 unionized workers at Verizon Wireless stores won their first contract. The strike also killed a proposal that would have forced workers to be relocated out of state for up to two months.
The bad news is the bulk of their raise will cover hundreds of millions of dollars in increased health care costs which the union bosses had actually agreed to before the strike. And Verizon will increase the pension 1 percent each year as an incentive to offer annual buyouts to senior workers, to be replaced by new hires whose pensions the union leadership sacrificed in the previous contract. If Verizon workers were able to see the limits of unions, and the pro-boss union mis-leadership, and they continue to organize towards challenging, and eventually overthrowing capitalism, then indeed they will have won.
Struggles Ahead
Under capitalism, no matter how militant the struggle and no matter how many reforms the workers can wrench from the bosses’ grasp, reforms will never lead to destroying the capitalist system which daily attacks our international class. Reforms will never lead to revolution and the creation of a communist world, or the abolishment money, borders, racism and sexism, where workers lead every aspect of society. The rank-and-file power built by the Verizon workers can grow into the seeds of a mass communist movement that can seize power and end the imperialist wars raging worldwide.
The Verizon workers have contributed to a more militant mood, reflected in the movement against racist police terror and the recent anti-Trump actions. And it could be spreading. In New York City, over 25,000 City University of New York education workers and about 15,000 Consolidated Edison utility workers have recently passed strike authorization votes. Building this movement means organizing study groups to discuss communist ideas, how to fight back on the job and to reading and selling CHALLENGE. If workers and youth are in a fighting mood, we have an opportunity to expose how the bosses use their politicians, cops and courts, and how to build the revolutionary communist PLP.