Los Angeles, October 26 —  Recently, nearly all of the healthcare providers of our HIV organization and dozens of our patients held our first public demonstration against the worsening “assembly line” working conditions in our clinics.  We are medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants. Additionally, we are threatening to strike to win union recognition.
We made a conscious effort to organize with our patients and had an integrated group of patients speak at our rally. Five of our patients gave powerful, heartfelt testimonies, moving many to tears. We distributed a
leaflet and CHALLENGE.
This small demonstration was organized in spite of the union. The union reps talk big, but at the end of the day wanted us to simply wait while the National Labor Relations Board decided on whether our petition is valid or not. Meanwhile, the bosses continue to intimidate workers and suspended one provider for three weeks without pay. The union did nothing to get his job back and if it weren’t so difficult for them to get a scab he would still be suspended! It is inspiring to work with such providers who do not back down. They correctly recognize the union double-talk and push for more actions.  
One friend and coworker who receives CHALLENGE and helped with this article always emphasizes the point that our reform struggle “is a war.”  She’s absolutely correct. However, the larger understanding that this union supports the politicians and ultimately the ruling class, our real class enemy, is still developing.  
For instance, the UN recently released a report on Syria stating that the Assad government is attacking hospitals in rebel-controlled areas and that this “denial of medical care” is “a weapon of war.”  The same is true in the U.S. or anywhere workers’ healthcare is at risk — it’s a declaration of war! As the ruling classes of the world move closer and closer to world war, the U.S. bosses need to maximize profits at home by allowing the insurance companies to set prices for coverage and drug companies to decide costs of medicines.  Building illusions is ever more important for the bosses, which is why unions and the Democratic Party are in bed together, already launching a missile attack on us!
Both sides of this reform fight produce a lose-lose situation for workers and patients. That is why we must do a better job writing for and distributing CHALLENGE, which has been reporting on other healthcare struggles involving the Party. Like our NY comrades, we are also watching movies about class struggle as a social event. We’ve watched and discussed Matewan and Norma Rae, and will recommend Salt of the Earth for our next one.
We are also trying to expand this struggle.  Just this week, a young teacher and comrade put forward a motion for her union to support our unionizing effort. At their House of Reps meeting, the teacher and healthcare comrades spoke briefly, comparing the attacks we face in healthcare and the effects on our patients to the attacks teachers face and their effects on their students. The union voted unanimously to support us.  While the unions have proven to be very valuable resources for the bosses to mislead workers, they are also full of workers open to communism if we work hard within them. 
We are now pushing our union to do more than symbolic one-day “strikes,” perhaps have sit-ins, where we keep the clinics open, get more workers and patients involved and continue to see our patients. But we can turn them into free clinics.
Within this reform struggle there is the potential to learn some valuable lessons such as providers learning from their patients, having confidence in each other that we as workers and patients can lead this struggle and we don’t need union hacks or bosses to run a clinic. This could produce a vision of the future, a vision of communism. More CHALLENGE readers AND distributors are crucial! Power to the workers and patients!

Los Angeles, October 26 —  Recently, nearly all of the healthcare providers of our HIV organization and dozens of our patients held our first public demonstration against the worsening “assembly line” working conditions in our clinics.  We are medical doctors, nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants. Additionally, we are threatening to strike to win union recognition.
We made a conscious effort to organize with our patients and had an integrated group of patients speak at our rally. Five of our patients gave powerful, heartfelt testimonies, moving many to tears. We distributed a
leaflet and CHALLENGE.
This small demonstration was organized in spite of the union. The union reps talk big, but at the end of the day wanted us to simply wait while the National Labor Relations Board decided on whether our petition is valid or not. Meanwhile, the bosses continue to intimidate workers and suspended one provider for three weeks without pay. The union did nothing to get his job back and if it weren’t so difficult for them to get a scab he would still be suspended! It is inspiring to work with such providers who do not back down. They correctly recognize the union double-talk and push for more actions.  
One friend and coworker who receives CHALLENGE and helped with this article always emphasizes the point that our reform struggle “is a war.”  She’s absolutely correct. However, the larger understanding that this union supports the politicians and ultimately the ruling class, our real class enemy, is still developing.  
For instance, the UN recently released a report on Syria stating that the Assad government is attacking hospitals in rebel-controlled areas and that this “denial of medical care” is “a weapon of war.”  The same is true in the U.S. or anywhere workers’ healthcare is at risk — it’s a declaration of war! As the ruling classes of the world move closer and closer to world war, the U.S. bosses need to maximize profits at home by allowing the insurance companies to set prices for coverage and drug companies to decide costs of medicines.  Building illusions is ever more important for the bosses, which is why unions and the Democratic Party are in bed together, already launching a missile attack on us!
Both sides of this reform fight produce a lose-lose situation for workers and patients. That is why we must do a better job writing for and distributing CHALLENGE, which has been reporting on other healthcare struggles involving the Party. Like our NY comrades, we are also watching movies about class struggle as a social event. We’ve watched and discussed Matewan and Norma Rae, and will recommend Salt of the Earth for our next one.
We are also trying to expand this struggle.  Just this week, a young teacher and comrade put forward a motion for her union to support our unionizing effort. At their House of Reps meeting, the teacher and healthcare comrades spoke briefly, comparing the attacks we face in healthcare and the effects on our patients to the attacks teachers face and their effects on their students. The union voted unanimously to support us.  While the unions have proven to be very valuable resources for the bosses to mislead workers, they are also full of workers open to communism if we work hard within them. 
We are now pushing our union to do more than symbolic one-day “strikes,” perhaps have sit-ins, where we keep the clinics open, get more workers and patients involved and continue to see our patients. But we can turn them into free clinics.
Within this reform struggle there is the potential to learn some valuable lessons such as providers learning from their patients, having confidence in each other that we as workers and patients can lead this struggle and we don’t need union hacks or bosses to run a clinic. This could produce a vision of the future, a vision of communism. More CHALLENGE readers AND distributors are crucial! Power to the workers and patients!

Los Angeles, October 17 — This week the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) House of Representatives passed a teacher’s motion to support healthcare workers fighting for union recognition at local clinics (see page 4). This effort is part of an ongoing struggle on a local high school campus to mobilize teachers, parents and students to fight against attacks on public education. These attacks represent some of the sharpest attacks on the working class as the ruling class continues to shove the crisis of capitalism onto workers who need education and healthcare.
Responding to these attacks is also an opportunity for our class to learn to fight collectively and to build class consciousness. Seeing how all workers are going through the same struggle is the first step to realizing that it’s the whole system of capitalism that’s the problem. Even though some bosses make things
particularly harder for workers, all bosses must exploit us to make profit.
For example, a new principal was recently hired at the local high school campus. Her immediate actions focused on escalating attacks on teachers and students at the behest of the school district. She is forcing the counselors to push students into the classes at exactly the class size limit set by the union contract. This means, when a student wants to change class there are no spots available because they are at their limit. They are eliminating Advance Placement classes or combining classes, effectively making teachers teach an extra class for no extra pay. The principal is doing exactly what the district wants because this is the best way to exploit education workers.
On a broader scale, the Los Angeles United School District (LAUSD) has spent an estimated one billion dollars on iPads for every student, which they are now in the process of taking back because students were able to crack their security codes.
Meanwhile, teachers and staff in the district haven’t gotten even a cost-of-living raise for more than six years. Thousands of teachers were laid off and displaced in the last few years, and very few are being hired back. Most are working as substitutes in the same position they previously filled as a full-time teacher! This is more of the same exploitation for maximum profit. The teachers and staff are fed up. A strike seems very probable this school year, but the district and union hacks are doing everything in their power to stall.
Union leadership has largely cooperated with the school district in facilitating the attacks on teachers and students.  PLP is stepping up attempts to mobilize students and teachers to fight back. At the school, a few teachers have begun distributing a newsletter highlighting the attacks and pointing out that all of this is exploitation. In the process, there has also been talk among the faculty about asking all teachers to participate in some form of civil disobedience, such as calling in sick all at once, or refusing to follow a fascistic “no-pass” policy. There are some attempts to get parents and students involved in the fightback, but all of this has been slow going.
Right now, students, faculty and alumni are working together to gather letters of support for a teacher who was unfairly dismissed. These are all just small steps in the process of building class consciousness and leading class struggle. Workers of all types, including healthcare workers, education workers and others, must learn how to work together to build working class power. Only then can we take on our true enemy — capitalism.

PARIS, October 27 — Vicious racism remains the hallmark of the National Front. The party’s candidate for the municipal election in Rethel, in the Ardennes, published a picture on her Facebook page comparing justice minister Christiane Taubira, a black woman, to a monkey, calling her a “savage.”
But this disgusting racism — which has always been used by the bosses to divide the working class — has not turned off many voters from the fascist party. The National Front won a recent by-election in Brignoles, in southern France, confirming the growing strength of the fascist party under Marine Le Pen, who succeeded her father as party leader in 2011.
Le Pen presents herself as the “French Reagan” and attacks “big government.” In 2012, she won 18% of the vote, the party’s best score ever in a presidential election.
It is becoming increasingly possible that the French fascists will be voted into national government legally, as has happened in governing coalitions since 2000 in Austria, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.
Fascist Party Growing Fastest
Le Pen has continually repeated the slogan “the National Front, the biggest party in France.” It appears to be becoming an electoral reality. In one opinion poll on voter intentions for the May 2014 European Parliament elections, the National Front won 24 percent of the vote. The right-wing UMP won 22 percent and the Socialist Party 19 percent. The Left Front, a coalition of the Party of the Left and the French “Communist” Party, won 10 percent and the Trotskyites 2%.
The National Front is the only party whose projected share of the vote is growing significantly. Support for the governing Socialist Party is collapsing; 50 percent of factory voters say they’ll vote for the National Front.
There is a widespread racist anti-immigrant movement in France, being pushed by the National Front and supported by many leaders of other parties. It blames immigrant workers — not capitalism — for the mass unemployment.
While the National Front is attracting millions of voters (over 6 million in the 2012 presidential elections), its membership remains relatively small, claiming 65,000 in 2013. The National Front is having a hard time finding enough candidates for the municipal elections. In a time of high unemployment (5,473,000 unemployed, a 19.3% unemployment rate in September), the chance of a job as city councillor will attract opportunists who in turn will boost the party’s ranks. The resulting dynamic could make party membership shoot up.
The three right-wing parties that support French “democracy” are credited with 33% of the vote. If nothing changes between now and the 2017 presidential elections, they will need to form a coalition with the National Front in order to form a governing majority — and support for this from right-wing UMP leaders is growing.
Fascists on Campus
Fascist organizations are now attempting to penetrate campuses nationwide. In early October, the National Front leafleted the university in Le Mans. Action française universitaire, a fascist youth group, pastes up posters at the University of Bordeaux.
 Action française universitaire proclaims on the front page of its newspaper that “the leftists now know that it’s a life-and-death fight if we catch them.” On June 5, Clément Méric, a member of Action antifasciste, was beaten to death in a clash with fascist youth in Paris. In one week in October, two Paris members of UNEF (a student union aligned with the Socialist Party”) were assaulted and threatened with rape by a fascist. In World War II, France succumbed to Hitler in six weeks, especially due to support for Nazi racist policies.
While there have been many militant actions and strikes by workers in France, including anti-fascist demonstrations, the absence of a real communist party pointing the way to smashing the fascists is evident. In World War II, communists led the Resistance movement against the Nazis. But since then the betrayal of the old communist movement, which collaborated with capitalists, has been devastating for workers here.
Only a revolutionary communist party can lead workers away from fascism. Until that happens, workers will continue to suffer the evils of capitalism. Fascism is the tool that the bosses turn to when they can’t solve their capitalist crisis. This underscores the need for a communist solution.