For over 60 years, members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have marched, rallied, walked picket lines, and donated food and money to striking industrial workers to help intensify the class struggle. This year marks a huge number of striking workers across the country. PLP believes that strikes can be schools for communism and can build antiracist class consciousness. Strikes often reveal the true colors of union bosses like Sean O’Brien (President of the Teamsters) and liberal politicians like Joe Biden who claim to be on the side of the working class but really serve the bosses’ interests.
In August, 340,000 UPS workers were ready to strike. O’Brien set up “practice” picket line schools across the country. He spouted fiery words to encourage UPS workers to strike. But days before the strike was to happen, he announced a tentative contract with UPS claiming it was the best contract in UPS history. This announcement dashed the hopes of many UPS workers and other workers wanting to pressure the bosses to give up some of their profits.
What the workers told us
PL’ers spoke to many UPS workers on practice picket lines and elsewhere. They told us that there had been two contracts to vote on: a Master and a Supplemental that varied by geographical region. For example, Virginia and Maryland fall under the Atlantic region. Not all supplementals contained the same provisions. The Western and Central have big bumps in pensions as opposed to the Atlantic. The New England supplemental gave part-timers a way to become full time—by working at least 30 days for eight hours during a 60 day period. Local 705 in the Chicago area had negotiated a provision that for every four new full time jobs, three will go to a part timer and one to a full timer. This could be a real game changer.
The Atlantic supplement does not have that provision. Angry workers questioned union leaders during meetings as to why such a fractured negotiation had happened. Some part-timers have worked there for 24 years!
Part-timers bear the worst schedules with no regular hours. They may be on the schedule to work from 4pm to 8pm, but have to call in every day to see if they have to come in earlier, say 10:30 am or noon. If part-timers have a child or an elderly family member to care for, their partner, spouse or significant other takes most of the responsibility for care taking, doctor appointments and sick days.
There are “full-time combo” jobs that in theory they can apply for, but even with twenty-four years seniority, they cannot jump over a full-time person with a year’s seniority for the position.
The standard lunch hour has been reduced from an hour to thirty minutes. A worker needs to request an hour lunch break two days in advance!
At one UPS distribution station in Virginia, the union leaders recommended that the rank and file vote Yes on the Master and No the supplemental. Many workers voted No on both agreements, but nationally the contract was approved.
What is to be done?
PL’ers will continue to help UPS workers understand the nature of capitalism. Bosses will always place profits ahead of workers’ needs. Union bosses and liberal politicians get perks under capitalism and do not want to change the system. Voting for politicians is a dead end. Reading CHALLENGE, discussing these ideas with their coworkers and joining Progressive Labor Party to fight for communism is the best way forward on the road to workers’ power!
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‘Tout moun se moun’: Study capitalism, build communist optimism
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- 07 October 2023 89 hits
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in Haiti organized a cadre school in September for 26 participants, members and friends, workers, and teachers, but mostly students from working class backgrounds. Study is an important aspect of understanding how the capitalist system works and why it cannot be reformed and must be replaced by a revolutionary communist egalitarian society.
Our goal is that study will be incorporated into class struggle on campus and beyond, and our Party will grow into a force to be reckoned with in Haiti and beyond.
In Haitian Creole, we say "Tout moun se moun" meaning that workers need a system where they will be treated as human beings--the human race. That phrase is often included in the following excerpted letters (see all letters at www.plp.org)
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In the cadre school, we studied several texts over the course of three days: The Principles of Communism by Marx and Engels, Jailbreak and Build a Base in the Working Class by Progressive Labor Party, among others. We learned about what communism is and what capitalism is. We also learned how each system is organized, and about the position of each person in that system. We learned about how to build solidarity among our class.
The capitalist system is concerned primarily with making and keeping profit—making money. It doesn’t concern itself at all with seeing working class people as human beings—as long as workers can reproduce themselves in order to go to work another day to make more profits for the bosses, then the capitalists are satisfied.
Communism is a system where we see that production is organized for the good of the working class, so that workers can live like human beings. Each member of our class will have the right to an education that serves our class, and will have the right to free and decent health care that meets our needs.
This is the kind of world that I would like to live in, for myself, my family, my town and my class. In order to achieve the goal of communism, we need to build an organization capable of leading the fight, which unites all members of the working class, from Haiti to everywhere else in the world.
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I was happy to participate in the cadre school where we learned a lot of thing. I learned about how the capitalist system wants me to think only about myself—that success in life means becoming part of the capitalist machine, rather than what’s good for the vast majority of society.
We looked at the world situation, for example, the war going on in Ukraine, and discussed how that war is part of the rivalry of the big capitalist countries to gain a bigger control of the world and its profits. I think we have to destroy that kind of a system, and that we need a communist revolution to do that, and a communist party to lead us. Then we can establish a communist society…to share in building that society and reaping its benefits equally, according to need. A world without racist discrimination.
But in order to arrive at that goal, we have to do the work in a way that builds the collective consciousness of workers and students, rather than the individualist consciousness that capitalism fosters. I believe that this cadre school helps us move forward in the correct direction….We here can be an example to show how to do this…
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Ayibobo—greetings comrades. The cadre school helped us understand more about the functioning of the capitalist system.
The capitalist system is one in which we are forced to live under [unfavorable] conditions…exploitation in the factories and the fields; unemployment; racism; inferior houses, education and healthcare.
And now there are gangs that control Haiti and make daily life even more miserable for us. We shouldn’t have to live in such misery and fear every day! It’s a good thing that workers living in some neighborhoods controlled by the gangs have been fighting back. We need more of that!
But we also need to understand that the gangs are only a symptom of a decaying capitalist system and the way to get rid of the gangs is to get rid of the capitalist bosses who profit from them, once and for all.
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What I learned from the cadre school is that everyone should be able to live like a member of the human race—decently, without racism, poverty, and the misery this system creates. In a different—communist—society we won’t look at and put a value on people based on their appearance. If we understand the importance of building solidarity within our class—both here in Haiti and elsewhere around the world, that will help us in the fight against the capitalist system.
In the capitalist system, the bourgeoisie appropriates all wealth from the labor of the working class; this is basically unfair, because if you create something, why should someone who did nothing profit from it?
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Editorial: Only communism can smash racist borders
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- 07 October 2023 155 hits
As refugees from Central America, Africa, and the Caribbean swell in number at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Joe Biden agreed to grant 472,000 work permits exclusively for those coming from Venezuela. Seen as a kind gesture by some, the U.S. bosses are creating a racist divide as they fumble to address a disaster they themselves created. Workers without permits will be deported, and those who stay will be super-exploited, just as the Black working class has been for centuries.
Denver and San Diego and other cities run by liberals have “welcomed more than they can handle” and are reducing the length of stay for asylum-seekers to 14 days (CBS News Colorado, 10/2). These “progressives” have joined the open racists from Texas and Florida in busing migrants to Chicago and New York. Migrants trek to the United States for an opportunity to work and live stable lives, yet the reality is something harshly different. Most are met with racist insults from fellow workers and fascist crackdowns from the capitalist bosses. To discourage new arrivals, New York City Mayor Eric Adams began evicting migrants from shelters amid widespread flooding (Politico, 9/22). Fake leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has offered nothing but lip service for the refugees’ plight.
The imperialist rulers, set on preparing for world war, will not provide decent lives for the international working class. Work permits and tent cities won’t fix this appalling situation. Only a communist revolution led by Progressive Labor Party can give workers the world they deserve. The global migrant crisis is a symptom of a deeply racist system that must perpetuate inequality, nationalism, and exploitation to exist. We must combat the rise of fascism and fight to destroy capitalist borders that serve only the bosses.
Venezuela: a crisis made by capitalism
For two decades or more, the working class of Venezuela has been stuck in the crosshairs of inter-imperialist competition. President Nicholos Maduro has stayed in power largely with the help of China and Russia, which are paying the bills to keep his regime from collapsing. In recent months they have also deepened military ties with Venezuela, much to the dismay of the U.S., the longtime bully of the Americas (Dialogo Americas, 1/21/22)
In response, to force Maduro’s fake-left leadership into submission, the U.S. and a number of European countries have battered Venezuela with economic sanctions on products entering the country. Because of the resistance of the bosses behind Maduro (and behind Hugo Chavez before him) to diversify the economy, Venezuela relies heavily on oil exports. As oil prices dropped in recent years, the country’s economy collapsed.
Suffering from one of the highest rates of hyperinflation in the world, workers in Venezuela cannot afford basic necessities. There are shortages of food and medicine and even electricity and clean water. In 2019, as the country teetered on the brink of civil war, the economic crisis was heightened by civil unrest and violence.
Worldwide, as they flee war and extreme poverty, workers and their families are traveling through jungles, deserts, large bodies of water, and territories infested by ruthless militias and gangs. But there are no safe havens for workers in a capitalist world, least of all in a racist stronghold like the U.S. The current U.S.-Mexico border crisis reflects the desperate conditions for the working class throughout the hemisphere and beyond.
For the imperialist bosses fighting over Latin America’s resources, workers' lives are cheap.
We cannot fall for the divide-and-conquer game of these exploiters, whether they are Trump MAGA racists or liberals who defend the racist Democratic Party. In the current period, with fascism on the rise, the work of communists is especially critical. Where the bosses energize the gutter racists, communists inspire multiracial unity and help organize internationalist workers to be bold and fight back.
Workers on the move met with fascism
The last decade has seen a mass upheaval in the lives of workers across the globe. At present, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an estimated 117 million people are forcibly displaced by violent civil unrest, political repression, and economic instability (UNHCR.org, 2023). Climate change, another product of capitalism, has led to disastrous forest fires, droughts, hurricanes, floods, and rising sea levels. In the Global South, livelihoods for millions have grown unsustainable. Hundreds of thousands of workers fleeing Africa are stranded on the Italian island of Lampedusa, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. They are being held there indefinitely in wretched conditions under the guns of Italian soldiers (NPR, 9/23).
The capitalist-controlled media propagates racist narratives about migrants, provoking fear and division within the working class. Workers get manipulated into perceiving undocumented and asylum-seeking migrant workers as threats to their livelihoods. This strategy serves the bosses’ interests by diverting attention from the true cause of this crisis–capitalism! Disgruntled workers in U.S. cities have organized small but heavily publicized anti-immigrant rallies to stoke fear and nationalism. In Chicago, migrating workers were physically attacked and police officers were accused of raping and impregnating underage migrants in holding cells (Chicago Tribune, 7/23). Super-liberal Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has proposed a multimillion-dollar tent city–essentially a city-run refugee camp–to house migrants (NBC Chicago, 9/23).
Communism will smash all borders
Borders are simply made-up lines created to signify where one boss's profits begin and another’s end. Never have they served the interests of the working class. Borders reinforce racist ideas that “other” workers are dangerous, untrustworthy, and out to steal jobs. Forcing workers to sleep in shelters, police stations, and tent cities is a racist travesty. We must fight back for migrating workers, and for the liberation of our entire class exploited and oppressed by the profit system.
Under communism, there would be no profits to fight over. The means of production would be controlled collectively. The factors that now drive workers to become refugees would cease to exist. Internationalism demands solidarity among workers worldwide. It calls for the dismantling of the structures that perpetuate inequality, beginning with borders.
The struggle for a better world must be a unified one, where workers from Chicago to Latin America to every corner of the globe stand together against the exploitative forces of capitalism. Only by breaking down the barriers that divide us can we hope to build a society where all workers are afforded dignity, freedom, and the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives. Join Progressive Labor Party as we organize to make this world a reality!
U.S. agents struggle to keep Colombia in the fold of their decaying empire
Foreign Affairs, 9/13–For many observers of Colombia, it is hard to imagine that a former member of M-19, the guerrilla group that waged war against the state for nearly two decades, could attain the presidency. Yet in 2022...Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 organizer…ascended to the country’s highest office. Despite Petro’s populist and at times anti-U.S. rhetoric, the Biden administration has since made overtures to the new president…the United States may be hoping to prevent Colombia from falling into China’s orbit. But as Petro begins his second year in office, Washington’s charm offensive is yielding diminishing returns. For one thing, Plan Colombia, a security and antidrug cooperation package that has been the linchpin of the U.S.-Colombian relationship for nearly a quarter century, looks increasingly obsolete. Signed in 2000, the joint initiative helped quell Colombia’s guerrilla war and arguably prevented the country from becoming a failed state, and it has been backed by more than $12 billion in funding…But Petro has opposed Plan Colombia since its inception…
Haiti-D.R. diplomacy rises to level of guns and tanks
Al Jazeera, 9/14–The Dominican Republic will close its entire border with neighbouring Haiti later this week, President Luis Abinader has announced, as a conflict over the construction of a canal from a shared river worsens. “Unfortunately, they left us no alternative but to take drastic measures,” Abinader told reporters…He added that even if the Haitian government…could not control the construction of the canal, his country could. “We have been prepared for weeks, not only for this situation but also for a possible peace force in Haiti,” Abinader said.
Officials in the Dominican Republic say the project will divert water from the Massacre River, which runs in both countries, and violate the 1929 Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Arbitration…Haiti’s government had said on Wednesday that it met with Dominican officials in the Dominican Republic that day to try to resolve the canal dispute…On Thursday, the Dominican Republic said the looming border closure was set to include all land, sea and air routes. It also said it deployed a further 20 armoured vehicles to a military camp on the border.
U.S. and Chinese bosses continue fight over who gets Pakistan
The Intercept, 8/9–The U.S. State Department encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept. The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Khan was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges and taken into custody for the second time since his ouster…The sentence also blocks Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician, from contesting elections expected in Pakistan later this year.
French bosses back down slightly on mission “Occupy Niger”
France24, 9/14–"France welcomes the liberation of Stephane Jullien," said a spokeswoman for the [French foreign] ministry. Jullien, a businessman long based in Niger, had a role representing the interests of French expatriates at the French embassy. He was arrested on September 8 amid deteriorating ties that followed a coup in the former French colony in West Africa. France had announced his detention on Tuesday and called for his "immediate release". Relations between Niger and France went swiftly downhill after the July 26 putsch, which ousted French ally president Mohamed Bazoum. Paris, which has about 1,500 troops deployed in Niger…has stood by Bazoum and declared the post-coup authorities illegitimate. There has been speculation that France will be forced into a full military pullout from Niger, with a French defence ministry source saying last week that the French army was holding talks with Niger's military over withdrawing "elements" of its presence.
Fight vs anti-migrant racism grows
As reported in the last CHALLENGE, racists have been demonstrating against the housing of refugee asylum seekers in a former Catholic school on Staten Island. Led by attention-seeking “patriot” Scott LoBaido and supported by Staten Island politicians of both parties, the racists have been verbally attacking the refugees-many from Latin American and West African countries- with vile epithets, frightening some of them so much that they asked to be moved to a different shelter.
After a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member learned on Monday, August 28th, of the hate rally to be held on that evening, he notified the Party leadership, who quickly organized a pro-migrant support rally to confront the racists. More than 30 comrades and friends, including a couple of antiracists from the neighborhood, marched to the shelter, formerly St. John Villa School, chanting loudly in support of the refugees. Outside the shelter, we spoke on a bullhorn to let the migrants know that we were there to support them, not to attack them. We let the racists know that we were communists, and that we would be back in growing numbers.
The racists announced another hate rally for Tuesday, September 5th. Some Party members learned about the racists’ march from friends in Peace Action Staten Island (PASI). PASI endorsed the next migrant support rally to counter the racists. A leaflet was quickly disseminated. Antiracists from Staten Island and Brooklyn gathered at a predetermined location and marched to the rally point at the shelter. Again, we shouted encouragement to the refugees.
One of the talking points of the racists had been that there was a school with girls very near the shelter, and that they could be in danger from the male migrants. We discovered that an alumna of that school, St. Joseph Hill, had garnered over 200 alumni signatures on a petition supporting the migrants and condemning the racists. Then, on Thursday, September 7, a group of immigration organizers and leaders of faith-based organizations attempted to hold a press conference outside the shelter in support of the refugees. According to news reports, the racists drowned them out so that few of them could be heard.
So, it appears that support for the migrants is growing on Staten Island, but the racists still dominate the scene. What is clear is that if it had not been for us communists in PLP, the racists would have had a clear field for their hate. We were the spark. Whenever racism and fascism rear their ugly heads, communists must organize to chop them off. To paraphrase what one of the participants in the latest rally said, “I just want to be able to come back with more numbers than they have!” That is what we will continue to build on Staten Island - an antiracist movement to shut the racists down.
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Big Fascists undermine workers’ education
At a community college in rural northwestern New Jersey, Sussex County Community College (SCCC), self-styled “progressive” administrators actively undermine front-line faculty members who fight for workers to receive a decent education.
In a resignation letter from the start of the fall semester, an accomplished student counselor outlined the problems at SCCC: 1) The condescending racism that the Latin counselor faced from his supposedly enlightened liberal colleagues, 2) Disconnected senior faculty and administrators who didn’t listen to faculty “below” them who actually interacted with students on a daily basis, 3) The lack of initiative to solicit student feedback — all pointing to one conclusion. Senior level faculty and administration at the college, who claim to be enlightened progressives, are more interested in their own careers than helping students.
This counselor had struggled heroically to keep working class students in school in spite of the horrendous material conditions that capitalism imposes on them. He succeeded against all odds -- only to have his more senior colleagues undermine him at every turn.
In a classic example of bourgeois individualism, other faculty members grew jealous of the relationships that he had worked so hard to cultivate with students. These more senior faculty demanded that he send more of his students to them for future counseling needs — regardless of who the students themselves actually wanted to talk to. When he refused, his supposedly “progressive” bosses at the College stripped his position of any student-facing activities, relegating this talented counselor to administrative busy work.
This, combined with the lack of support for front-line faculty who directly help students, the racism shown by more senior faculty towards an increasingly diverse student population, and the smug and condescending attitude towards his important mission to help working-class students, was too much for him to bear and he resigned.
While it’s sad to see such a talented staff member leave due to egregious burnout, his resignation letter points to a silver lining. It is the students and frontline faculty and staff themselves who can carry the struggle forward and secure decent education for workers in rural New Jersey. If they are unified in their cause and armed with the Party’s level of analysis and dedication, they will be unstoppable!
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Firefighters die defending the bosses profits: A tribute to Augie and Bear
On July 5th, two firemen from the Newark Fire Department were trapped and killed fighting a fire that started aboard a cargo ship bound for West Africa from Port Newark, NJ. The cargo ship was filled with over 1200 new and used cars and approximately 157 shipping containers (NJ Spotlight News).Augusto “Augie” Acabou and Wayne “Bear” Brooks entered the ship along with their captain and other firefighters. They reportedly found and extinguished the fire, but upon their way back out Augie and Bear became disoriented and trapped, and died. The ship’s crew had been completely evacuated prior to the firefighters entering. There were no lives in danger aboard the ship, but firefighters were still sent in to risk their lives to protect burning cars that will likely be replaced. The families want answers.
At a tribute to the firefighter’s lives held at a shopping mall New Jersey on August 8, Bear’s widow stated “He went in there to put out a fire to save materialistic things, not a person, not a human being - materialistic things. And he never came home” (Abc7ny.com, 8/23).
Urban firefighters are sent in to risk their lives to protect the bosses’ property and businesses. In cities like Newark, fires occur predominantly in Black neighborhoods, many of which are neglected due to decades of class war against Black workers and gentrification led by self-serving politicians like Newark’s fake leftist mayor Ras Baraka. Meanwhile, in wealthy communities, fire suppression systems are relatively efficient and adequate.
In a society led by and for the working class - a communist society - workers can take the lead on building the safest housing conditions to prevent fires from starting in the first place. Workers can discuss how to approach extinguishing fires with minimal loss to human life and the damage to the environment.
Only a revolution led by the working class can bring about the freedom to do this. For all workers like Augie and Bear, for the countless firefighters that die every year protecting the property for the blood sucking landlord class and banks, workers must build a dedicated party whose primary objective is to smash capitalism and rid society of the profit system that will gladly exterminate the workers to preserve their wealth.
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Natural disasters or capitalist genocide?
Reading the editorial on the Maui fires, there seems to be a link between the wildfires in the forests of Canada. While these fires are labeled as ‘natural’ disasters, but the real issue is the capitalism and it’s continual genocide of indigenous workers. Corporations and their sugar plantations played a large role in depleting the water sources, as sugar is a very water intensive crop. Water is crucial to Hawaiian cultural practices and they believed that water couldn’t be owned, that it belonged to all. I am seeing a connection between the fires in Maui and Canada and the forest fires that occurred in Brazil and Australia a few years ago. These fires led to the displacement of many indigenous communities. In the case of Brazil, the burning of the Amazon forest was set by the Brazilian ruling class to make way for their agribusiness. Prior to that, an Amazonian tribe had won a court case to halt the cutting down of the Amazon forest. If we’re going to discuss climate change, we need to include the role of indigenous workers and the ongoing legacy of colonialism into these topics.