NEW YORK CITY, April 20—Dozens of former students, parents, colleagues and friends have been filling the hearing office every day at the “trial” of a New York City educator under attack on false charges, ones of which he’s already acquitted in criminal court! Despite that, the city bosses are trying to take away his licenses and keep him from ever serving our kids again. Even parents from the school he was removed from almost two years ago have come to support him and report back to others.
The whole building has been buzzing about the support, and we’ve been keeping the chairs filled as a team of Department of Education lawyers tries to suppress evidence, exclude spectators and lie their way to victory. But they’re having a hard time of it because they’ve used only the same discredited witnesses from the court trial.
The ruling class’s attack on the working class, and especially Black and Latin children, takes many forms, including poverty, poor housing, poor healthcare and the capitalist education system. That includes crowded classrooms, pathetic reforms, attacks on teachers, and the just plain lies and ruling-class ideas our kids are taught.
This case involves an elementary school principal, with a long distinguished record as an early-childhood teacher and teacher coach He found that he’d became principal of a so-called “failing” school in a building that also housed a charter school which wanted the space. The pushing of charter schools into already existing schools’ spaces is a divisive ruling-class tactic. Appealing to parents’ desires to provide the best for their children, they pit parent against parent and teacher against teacher to convince us to blame each other for the failings of the bosses’ schools. The charter school movement also pacifies parents who might be won to fight for better schools by pulling them away and convincing them there’s a better alternative. But there is no such thing as a good school for the working class under capitalism!
This makes it especially important to organize within the schools to fight the attacks by the Dept. of Education (DOE). When parents, teachers and students unite, the nature of the system is laid bare. This unity scares the bosses. When the principal began to rally the school staff and parents to rebuild the school and fight for the resources his students need, he was arrested on fake charges of physically attacking a student.
Even though he was acquitted of the charges in court, colleagues and friends now face a new fight against the DOE, which is still trying to take away his license and his ability to fight for our children.
When our friend became principal, the school was down to under 100 students, student results were poor and staff and parents were demoralized. The charter school, which belongs to the high-profile “Success Academy” profit-making chain, wanted it to fail and leave so they could take over the space. Although the school had a lot of technology, the DOE had left it drastically short of support services for students, a third of whom needed special services.
Within his first weeks as principal, things began to turn around. He helped teachers begin to work together more, worked with staff to recruit more students (increasing by 25 percent) and started to develop new ties with parents. These moves were important, because getting everyone together is necessary to fight for what our children need, against the system’s racism and neglect of working-class kids. He also fought to keep the charter schools from taking away two classrooms needed for special education students.
So it was no surprise that when the principal took action to protect a disturbed third-grader, and—according to Department rules—prevent him from rushing out of the building and into the streets, the charter school bosses twisted it into being the principal’s attack on the student and pushed to have him arrested on false charges. In court, the principal proved that the charges, the testimony and the whole case were a fraud. The judge acquitted him the minute the trial ended.
His acquittal was positive. But what’s even better is that it led to more fightback, with support from dozens of parents, colleagues, former students he taught years ago and more. He has reached out to people throughout the area, and spoken at many churches, community groups and other gatherings, receiving strong response. Many people said they couldn’t believe this kind of attack against a committed pro-student educator. Many have contributed to legal costs and said they will come to support him at his hearing.
That kind of unity is needed to win more than the new fight for his licenses and future as an educator; we know that the ruling-class attacks on our children and those who support them won’t end here. No matter which kind of schools our working-class children attend, charter or public, they are being taught ruling-class ideas, not the knowledge, skills and class-consciousness they need to make a revolution and a new society. No matter what school reforms the rulers institute, they cannot provide jobs for all the students who leave the schools, with or without diplomas. Racism gives the majority of Black, Latin and immigrant youth the “choice” between racist unemployment or fighting in the bosses’ imperialist wars.
It’s important to broaden this struggle into more than a fight for our friend: it must lead to one that ends the whole system that miseducates and abuses our children and our class. The only system that will provide a quality education for the world’s working class—that will produce the thinkers and doers that can run this world for the working class—is communism! That is why we must win parents, teachers and friends that have shown up to support this comrade to join us at May Day on April 30, and to continue the struggle onward!
BROOKLYN, April 13—Up and down the east coast, Verizon workers are on strike. This is the largest strike in the United States since Verizon workers last walked off the job in 2011. PLP salutes Verizon strikers who are defending gains won over the last 50 years of struggle not only for themselves, but also for all workers!
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All
36,000 thousand workers are taking on a huge and powerful capitalist enterprise whose profits are between $1.5 to $1.8 billion per month. Hundreds of members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) marched in downtown Brooklyn chanting, “They say cut back? We say fight back!”
Starting conversations on the line, we had asked what the issues were. The workers raged at the Verizon bosses. While the top five executives earned over $250 million over the last few years, the workers face no raises, increased costs of health insurance, transfers from one job site to another away from their families and layoffs caused by outsourcing.
Several PLP members joined the picket lines in downtown Brooklyn. Our solidarity was warmly received and we had lively discussions. Most of the strikers here are Black women workers who were giving lively leadership to the picket line. They led the chants in time to the beat of conga drums. It is Black women workers who are hit the hardest by bosses’ attacks on the job and in communities where they live and it is Black women workers who fight the hardest against the racist profiteers. Many were checking out the latest issue of CHALLENGE we passed out on the line.
Verizon workers face the same attacks as workers in industries around the world. As long as capitalism rules the world, the greed of one set of bosses or another will suck the very blood from our veins.
Verizon Workers Fight For All Workers
One question we asked: why weren’t the Verizon wireless workers unionized? When wireless phones first came out, the CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) did not unionize the wireless workforce to allow Verizon to be competitive with other wireless service providers. This was a sellout idea. Now, keeping Verizon competitive against Sprint and AT&T is given as the reason that the unionized workers are faced with cuts. The Verizon “wireline” workers fighting for their non-union sister and brother wireless workers exemplifies a principle of communist leadership: an injury to one is an injury to all.
When their corporate attorneys aren’t hitting strikers with their Porsches like they did in Gaithesburg, Maryland on April 16, the bosses are outsourcing jobs, closing call centers, cutting the “wireline” workers, and hiring and super-exploiting low-wage, non-union contractors. All these cuts drag the unionized workforce down closer to the pay and benefits of the non-union wireless workforce. All in the name of capitalist “competition.”
Verizon and U.S. Imperialism
Where are their profits going? Not to the working class! Military spending is 56 percent of the U.S. budget and that number isn’t going to budge with more than 750 U.S. military bases worldwide, and escalating military tensions between the U.S. capitalists and their Chinese and Russian rivals from Syria to the South China Sea. The bosses’ servants, from Sanders and Clinton to Trump, Cruz and Kasich, may disagree on taxing the rich and taxing corporations, but wider imperialist wars mean higher taxes are on the way.
These escalating war costs and rising taxes are rippling throughout the U.S. economy. Competition between bosses in every sector of the economy is intensifying, including telecommunications. Verizon bosses know it- that’s why they’re attacking unionized workers now, to build a war chest of profits to take on their rivals as the costs of U.S. imperialism continue to rise.
For Verizon workers and all workers, our survival means we have got to fight back. On April 30, in Brooklyn, PLP is holding a May Day demonstration and March. We called on strikers to join us and to tell their story of struggle against the racist capitalist Verizon bosses. We invite them to learn from communists in PLP of the world we can win where racism, sexism and exploitation are ended forever- through communist revolution!
click image for leaflet
The 36,000 Verizon workers currently on strike are fighting for the entire international working class. With mass racist unemployment the rule in the U.S., the Progressive Labor Party salutes such courage to strike! The working class will need a lot more of it to turn the coming period of crisis at home and widening imperialist wars overseas into their opposites- and make a revolution for workers’ power.
Racist, Sexist Verizon Bosses Aren’t Broke!
The racist and sexist Verizon bosses make around $1.5 billion per MONTH right off the backs of the workers – mostly Black women and many with families. Verizon has paid its top five executives over $250 million over the last several years and their cutbacks to “wireline” services profited $8.9 billion in 2014.
When their corporate attorneys aren’t hitting strikers with their Porsches like they did in Gaithesburg, Maryland on April 16, they’re outsourcing jobs, closing call centers, cutting the “wireline” workers, and hiring and super-exploiting low-wage, non-union contractors. All these cuts drag the unionized workforce down closer to the pay and benefits of the non-union wireless workforce. This will help keep Verizon “competitive,” according to the bosses.
When wireless phones first came out, the CWA and the IBEW unions both failed to unionize the new workforce that was hired, supposedly to help Verizon stay “competitive” with other non-unionized providers. Verizon bosses are using the same arguments against unionized workers. An injury to one is an injury to all: sticking together is our only winning strategy.
Black workers at Verizon, especially women, are being hit hardest – and as the Verizon workers are showing over and over, they’re fighting back the hardest!
Biggest U.S. Bosses’ Agenda: Pay For Wider Wars
Where’s the money going? Not to the working class! Right now, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are running for President of U.S. imperialism. Military spending is 56% of the bosses’ budget and that number isn’t going to budge as U.S. imperialism under Obama has expanded to Syria, Libya, sub-Saharan Africa, and the South China Sea. Drones are murdering mainly innocent workers in more than twelve countries. All the bosses’ servants in DC, from Sanders and Clinton to Trump, Cruz and Kasich, may disagree on taxing the rich and taxing corporations, but wider imperialist wars mean higher taxes are on the way.
These escalating war costs and the rising taxes are having ripple effects throughout the U.S. economy. Competition between bosses in every sector of the economy is intensifying, including telecommunications. Verizon bosses know it- that’s why they’re attacking unionized workers now, to build a war chest of profits to take on AT&T, Sprint and other rivals in years to come as the costs of U.S. imperialism continue to rise.
No Lasting Victories for Workers Under Capitalism
As long as the capitalists hold state power, they will use their courts, politicians, laws and police to change the rules to ensure their drive for maximum profit. They will launch more wars against their strengthening Russian and Chinese imperialist rivals overseas.
Verizon workers are showing the working class the way forward. They’re striking against capitalist bloodsuckers, defending gains won over fifty years of bargaining and striking. And they’re fighting back for their non-union sisters and brothers.
MARCH ON MAY DAY!
We need a system where the profit motive that drives the bosses to attack workers and launch wars is abolished. Communism means smashing capitalism and racism, sexism and imperialism. Under communism, workers run society. Verizon workers already know they don’t need the bosses to run operations! A strike can be a step toward communist revolution, and the boldness of the Verizon workers is the kind of boldness our class needs to take our struggle all the way. PLP invites Verizon workers to march on May Day with us, the only holiday for the international working class. FIGHT BACK!
- Information
Brazil’s Elections Part of China-U.S. Imperialist Rivalry
- Information
- 09 April 2016 326 hits
Brazil’s ongoing fight to impeach President Dilma Rousseff under charges of corruption is being touted as an effort to restore “democracy” from the political and economic turmoil that the country finds itself in. But make no mistake: Brazil’s current political and economic dilemma represents the inherent failure that is capitalist democracy. So why is congress really trying to impeach Rousseff? Like in capitalist democracies everywhere, Brazil’s ruling classes are fighting neck-and-neck to shift the country’s alliance along pro-U.S and pro-China imperialist lines. But no matter which capitalist calls the shots, Brazil’s working class is always the target. Neither Dilma Rousseff’s phony left party or its opposition serve working-class interests.
In fact, workers in every part of the world should be wary of the political parties and politicians that brand themselves as the savior of “democracy.” Democracies can never benefit the working class because they exist entirely to full the pockets of capitalist bosses, whether the bosses be pro-U.S. or pro-China. From U.S.’s Bernie Sanders to France’s Marine Le Pen, politicians have one goal in mind: to maintain the profit system of capitalism that benefits a few and exploits the masses. Their tactics are different but the goal remains the same. The Progressive Labor Party is the only party that represents the true interest of the working class. Our goal is to smash capitalism and rid the world of fail systems such as democracies, which pay lip services to the international working class. We champion a communist world where racism, nationalism, sexism, poverty and wars are no longer the seeds that workers reap.
Dilma Rousseff along with members of her left-leaning Workers Party (PT) is facing accusation of corruption that might possibly hand the reins of political power to the equally corrupt right-wing conservative parties. The accusations stem from her alleged role with the now financially strap energy company, Petrobras. Rousseff, once chair of Petrobras, is believed to have accepted bribes from the energy company to finance her presidential campaign (NYT 12/03/15).
Mass streets protests along with judicial hearings make the call for impeachment seem like a call for justice. However, the demand to impeach Rousseff is a racist call by Brazil’s upper class, which is majority white, to turn economic tides in their favor. Their racist sentiment mirrors that of U.S. presidential candidate, Donald Trump and his supporters to “Make America Great Again.” Above all, calls for Rousseff impeachment represent the struggle between pro U.S. and pro-China forces for control of Brazil and Latin America’s rich resources.
U.S. Tries to Counter China’s Pivot to Latin America
Brazil’s conservative parties along with its’ U.S imperialist backers are envious of China’s political and economic influence under Rousseff’s administration. In the subsequent years after the PT first took power championing economic and political influence for the masses of Brazil, Brazil’s trade with China soared while its share with the U.S. plunged. Shunning U.S claim to the Latin America, Brazil and China continued to develop deep ties, manipulating workers’ anti-U.S. imperialism into supporting a capitalist “multi-polar world” with China as its’ imperialist master. China’s influence remains intact to this day: in 2015, China and Brazil signed a series of investment and trade deals that totaled billions of dollars (The Guardian, 05/19/2015).
U.S. capitalist bosses’ imperialist quandaries extend beyond Brazil to include Latin America as a whole. They are on because China is engulfing Latin America into its’ imperialist sphere of influence. China’s investment in Latin America, for example, increased more than 20-fold, from $12 billion in 2000 to $285 billion in 2014 (NYT 10/3/2015). As a result, the U.S. ruling class is reconsidering its’ imperialist ambitions to focus entirely on countering China’s influence in the Eastern Pacific. In a recent report titled: “Expanding the Rebalance: Confronting China in Latin America,” Daniel Morgan, a senior military officer argue:
The growing cooperation between the governments in both regions and China presents political, economic, and military challenges that call for the incorporation of the Western Hemisphere into an Asian-Pacific Strategy… without a trans-Pacific strategy a U.S. regional approach will only create strategic risks and enable China to draw on its influence in the Western Hemisphere to support its interest elsewhere.
It is no wonder that U.S. capitalist bosses and their lackeys in Brazil are up in arms to out China and its’ servant, Rousseff.
Brazil: Infested with Racism, Sexism
Rousseff and her allies do not have the answers to stop U.S. imperialism, so workers should not heed their screams of injustice. While advocating economic reforms for the Brazil’s working class, the PT has partnered with big businesses. For instance, it has wasted tremendous money and resources to hold the money laundering 2018 World Cup, while many workers continue to live in abject poverty. Black workers in particular continue to suffer under the PT’s reign. Black workers, for example, represent 70 percent of those living in poverty. Like their U.S. counterparts, they are more likely to be murdered by killer cops. They are also shut out from leadership positions. A glaring example is President Rousseff’s cabinet: all except one minister is white (03/23/15).
Women and indigenous workers have also felt the brunt of the PT’s imperialist policies. Instead of focusing on these workers, the PT has been concentrating on Brazil’s imperialist rise rather than environmental and social objectives which disproportionally affect these workers. The PT is just a phony-leftist party playing the imperialist game. Brazil’s working class along with the entire working class of Latin America will be the pawns in this game for world domination.
March on May Day!
Like the political parties in Brazil, political parties and their puppet politicians in the U.S. and elsewhere are ploys to channel workers’ anger into support for different capitalist bosses. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Dilma Rousseff and others want to maintain the chaos that is capitalism. Voting for politicians thus remains futile because no real change can come from a system that is not meant for us.
That is why the Progressive Labor Party say: Don’t Vote, Organize! A communist system built for and by the international working class is the only system that will truly represent our interest. Join PLP has we marched on April 27th to demand a better world for workers: a communist world. On this day, May Day, we affirm our connections with workers around the world in the struggle for a communist world free of sexism, racism and imperialist war. Join PLP in making this world a reality.
