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May Day Marchers Blast Anti-Immigrant Detention Center
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- 21 May 2015 193 hits
DILLEY, Texas — Over 500 anti-racists from all backgrounds, including PL’ers, marched to protest the horrendous conditions at the South Texas Family Residential Center here which houses immigrant women and children fleeing the dangerous conditions of drug-related violence brought to Central America by U.S. imperialism. The government ruling Honduras in collaboration with wealthy landowners has been cracking down on small farmers, murdering and disappearing those struggling for land rights.
Miguel Facussé, a biofuel boss and cocaine importer known by the U.S. State Department, works closely with the Honduran police and military which receive generous funding from U.S. bosses under the pretext of the “war on drugs.”
Racist Attack on Women and Youth
Most of these immigrants are women workers and youth. Roughly one million migrants have come from Honduras, one of the most dangerous places in the world outside active war zones. While they flee the sexist and racist terror of their home country, more sexism and racism awaits them here. Many stay in the facility only to be deported back to their deaths. The racist detention center is the largest in Texas and can hold up to 2,400 detainees. It is run by the profiteering Corrections Corporation of America, a private company.
We had planned to go to Dilley on May Day to bring our message of communism, anti-racism, class struggle and revolution to the other organizations that had planned the march. While there, we passed out flyers calling for communism to nearly everyone at the march and to those watching, and distributed 50 CHALLENGES. We explained that capitalist-created borders are the problem because they only serve the bosses’ need to exploit workers and keep us ideologically divided.
The protesters were mostly positive in their response. People were curious to find communist literature in a town with a racist detention center.
During the march our contingent was the most vocal. We led militant chants while flying our banner. We had passed by a prison built right next to the detention center. Pointing to both buildings we chanted, “Show us what fascism looks like, this is what fascism looks like!” Many people were on board with our chants. A whole group chanted with us, changing “Si Se Puede” (Yes we can!) and other meaningless lines. We shouted, “Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras!” (“Workers have no borders!”) We kept the energy high the whole distance.
After the march, we returned to where we met our friends and presented a skit about racist police terror, how it affects the working class, and why we should fight back against all forms of racism. The skit portrayed police murders as efforts by the bosses’ state to keep us in fear in order to divide and weaken us. It also explained that inter-imperialist rivalries compel the bosses to intensify murders by racist cops and mass deportations domestically to discipline the working class into submission.
Near the end some comrades gave emotional testimonials about why they joined the Party, describing the horrors of capitalism in a very personal manner which moved our friends. The skit provoked many conversations about smashing capitalism. In closing we sang Bella Ciao and The Internationale.
This May Day was the most productive in a while. By reaching out to people in other cities as well as our own, we strengthened our forces and helped spread the message of multi-racial unity among the working class. By changing a dull and fruitless march to the tune of anti-racism and pro-communism we promoted a solution to capitalism’s woes. Having an overwhelmingly positive response to the presentation at our May Day celebration from our friends and an effective march has inspired us for the year ahead. From now until the next May Day we plan to work even harder in the fight for multi-racial unity, anti-racism, anti-sexism and communism.
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Colombia: Anti- Capitalist Rule, Pro-Communist Ideas!
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- 21 May 2015 329 hits
Bogota, Colombia, May 1 — We celebrated one more International Workers’ Day on May Day. Early in the morning, close to 40,000 workers from the countryside and the city prepared their banners and got ready to march.
PLP distributed more than 150 Challenges and 3,000 revolutionary flyers that explained our communist line. We carried red flags symbolizing workers’ power and chanted slogans that generated curiosity amongst participants. Our chants included: “Against capitalists’ rule, advance communists’ ideas!” and “Peace between classes only serves criminal bosses!” Many others chants were vocalized by dozens and dozens of enthusiastic comrades, friends, and supporters.
Unlike the chants of reformist groups and politicians, our slogan, “The history of the working class is not a carnival parade,” was well received by the participants. Many trade unions called for peace, social justice and economic reforms, and members of the phony left presented themselves as saviors, to which we responded that “Peace is capitalist rule, we must organize communist revolution!”
There was a strong state military repression to suppress and provoke the participants. They broke the march with tear gas and truncheon blows, and injuried 16 protesters. Many were also arrested. We responded to these attacks by chanting, “Against the fascist state, communist revolution!” We remained together as a group until we reached Bolivar Plaza, where we folded our banners and separated, given that union leaders took over the stage with nationalist and reformist speeches in response to our slogans, “Down with capitalist nationalism, long live communist internationalism!”
We met a good number of people who asked us about the racist fascism against our Black, Latin, Asian and migrants sisters and brothers in the United States and worldwide. We met a group of beer factory workers who, tired of their bosses’ abuses, organized a trade union and gave us their addresses so we could send them our literature.
Afterwards, we evaluated this great experience in order to continue forging the unity of the international working class around the line of PLP and its revolutionary program that aims to to crush the current capitalist dictatorship and build a new communist society.
FAISALABAD, Pakistan, May 6 — Today, thousands of workers were here to welcome home seven power loom workers who were released from the Central Jail after serving four-and-a-half years. The workers led a mass march through the main streets and industrial sections of the city, from 10am to 8pm, ending in a mass rally with militant chants to welcome the freed workers home.
Six others remain in prison. In all, 14 workers were convicted by the Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) and sentenced to a total 490 years on various charges. Their only crime was organizing power loom workers to demand a government wage increase in all Faisalabad industries, especially for low-wage power loom workers. One young leader, Raja Arshad, went underground to escape arrest, and experienced many hardships. He died three months ago of a massive heart attack.
The conviction was challenged in Higher Court soon after the ATC draconian order. After a long legal battle, the court ordered the immediate release of the workers but refused to waive the fines against them. So far, we have raised enough money to win the release of these seven. We are on a campaign to collect enough money to pay for the release of the remaining six or they will face another 17 months in jail. We decided to first win their release, and then challenge the fines in the Supreme Court.
This is a significant victory, and shows that workers will not be terrorized into submission. Workers here have been caught in the crossfire of US imperialism’s “War on Terror”, and are about to find themselves in the midst of the inter-imperialist rivalry, as China challenges the US for influence here. The only way for workers to meet the challenges of fascist terror and imperialist war is to build a mass PLP and fight for communism. We will have more news of workers’ struggles in future CHALLENGEs.
OAXACA, MEXICO, May 1 — Among the thousands of workers that participated in the May Day march in Oaxaca today, the presence of our Party, the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) stood out.
This was because of our militancy and the messages of the communist slogans we chanted as a group and with great energy such as: “For a Communist and Proletariat May Day!” “We Must End Electoral Farce!” “We Struggle, We Win, Power to the Working Class!” “In Our Communist Struggle, Capitalist Criminal, You’re in Our Crossfire!” “The Crisis of the System Has No Solution, the Only Solution is Revolution!” “One Class, One Party, Workers of the World Unite!” and “Long Live Communism, Death to Capitalism!”
We distributed 2,000 flyers to the CNTE teachers that belong to Local 22. A PLP member, with the help of some of his friends, distributed 500 flyers to a group of health care workers. The flyer denounced the fascist policies of the Mexican ruling class oppressing working class under the guise of structural reforms and it exposed the electoral farce. It also invited workers to join PLP and explained the need for a communist revolution to overthrow the capitalist class that controls the world. We are taking advantage of the approaching imperialist war to build a communist society, which is the only answer for the interests and needs of our class.
We carried the red flags that represent the international working class and a banner calling for workers to join PLP to destroy the corrupt and criminal capitalist system with communist revolution.
These activities and the fighting attitude against the policies of the corrupt, oppressive and criminal capitalists motivate and inspire us to continue our revolutionary communist work with full commitment. The current labor stoppage by the health care workers and the strike that some trade unions and organizations are planning, represent opportunities we must use to promote the growth of PLP.
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May Day Marchers Hit Bosses On Homelessness, Low Wages, Racism
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- 21 May 2015 218 hits
Newark, NJ, May 1 — Fifty people, chanting “Power to the working class, kick the bosses in the ass”, “Jobs yes, racism no, police brutality has got to go”, and “Baltimore means, we got to fight back” marched along Broad Street here in the second annual May Day march in this city. The chanting was loud and continuous. Several workers joined in as we passed by. Progressive Labor Party members distributed over 150 CHALLENGEs to the marchers and and passersby.
The period leading up to march saw worsening conditions for the working class in this area. As more and more workers have come under attack by the capitalist system, especially since the financial crash of 2008, we have seen skyrocketing evictions and foreclosures. The end of unemployment benefit extensions, and time limits on emergency assistance for shelter and rent payments have driven unemployed workers into the street. Small “tent cities” have sprung up in numerous urban areas in New Jersey. These tent cities are inhabited by unemployed and employed workers who simply don’t have money to pay rent anywhere.
This past winter in the Northeast was particularly brutal. Because local shelters and warming centers were only open when night-time temperatures were expected to go below 15 degrees, tent city residents were frequently sleeping outside in below-freezing temperatures. One of those residents, who had mental health issues, and been recently cut off Medicaid. One January night, she died.
Wages for workers in many New Jersey jobs are at, or barely above, the minimum wage of $8.38 per hour. The mainly Black and Latin airport workforce, in particular, has been fighting back against these low wages. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions in tax credits have been given to Prudential Insurance company and other corporations who are gentrifying downtown Newark.
The organizers of the march highlighted the connection between low wages, unemployment, racism and homelessness. The themes of the march were, “We are One Paycheck Away From Homelessness” and “We fight to End Racism and All Forms of Oppression.” A tent-city resident spoke at the opening rally and thanked the marchers for coming out in support of their homeless brothers and sisters. He vowed that we would not forget our sister who died, and that we would continue to expose the conditions of homeless people.
Another speaker from a group advocating a $15 per hour minimum wage said the real problem facing workers involved in all of these struggles is the capitalist system itself. He said we should fight back against all the attacks, but also said winning higher wages or other reforms alone will never solve the problems faced by the working class.
Several speakers said that the recent actions to fight police murder in Baltimore, Maryland was rebellion against racism. One said that the charges against the cops involved in the murder of Freddie Gray would not have come without that uprising. One spoke about the growing movement in Newark to fight poverty and racism in the midst of corporate gentrification. The speaker said we had taken one of the punches that the bosses threw at us and redirected that punch “back to them with force”.
The day ended with a song, “The Internationale”, introduced as having been written by a transport worker condemned to death by the bosses after the crushing of what was then the biggest worker uprising in history, the 1871 Paris Commune. Many marchers joined in proudly singing, in both Spanish and English, this anthem to the working class. We in PLP will continue the struggle with our fellow workers to win them to fight for a communist world that would abolish homelessness, wage slavery, racism and poverty.