NEW YORK CITY, October 29 — The retiree association of District Council 37 voted today to support the activities of the Committee for Justice for Kyam Livingston who died in a Brooklyn holding cell on July 21. The association, which represents 50,000 retired NYC government workers, will help circulate the petition seeking Justice for Kyam and will accept contributions for activities backing the aims of that committee.
The retirees voted this support out of an understanding that what happened to Kyam could have happened to many of our members, their children or grandchildren. Our collective experience in the union movement taught us well the lesson that unity of black, Latino and white workers, men and women, is the only way we can move forward. Also, many of us understand that the principled fight against racist police violence is an important way to build real unity.

BROOKLYN, NY, October 21 — “Justice for Kyam Livingston — killed in a Brooklyn cell” echoed down the cold, darkening, windswept street outside 120 Schermerhorn St. here today. This is the courthouse that holds the local Central Booking, backing on to the Brooklyn House of Detention. The gathering of more than 120 chanting people was multi-racial, young and old, men and women. Although the street was dark and cold, the fire of the words burned against the walls of Central Booking.
A number of cops stood in front of the courthouse’s wide door as the chants continued. Several speakers talked about Kyam Livingston who had called out for medical attention for over seven hours from her cell. She received none and died there on a bench with only the other detainees to help and comfort her. That’s what gave her mother’s words such strength.
Holding up the urn with Kyam’s ashes, between anguished sobs, she told the story of how her daughter’s cries for help were spurned by the jailers. Kyam’s son also spoke about his growing understanding of the system that could callously do this to his mother. One young man emceed the gathering while two people kept the chants going between speeches.
The first hearing of the case against the City occurred in federal court earlier in the day. The City outrageously refuses to hand over the surveillance tapes of events in the cell the night Kyam died, or the names of the cops on duty at the jailhouse. Instead they questioned the family about Kyam as a person, as though she was the offending party. The arrogance and callousness of the system becomes more apparent every day.
This is where Kyam’s son learned a lot more about how the working class is officially oppressed. According to the official rules, Kyam should have been given medical attention when she was first in distress. Instead, all she and her cellmates received from the cops was the notice to “shut the f*** up or we’ll lose your paperwork.”
Kyam’s mother could not contain her sorrow. She walked up the steps between the cops and right into the courthouse where everyone could see her from the street. She tightly held the urn with her daughter’s ashes. She then walked out between the security people, went to the microphone and spoke of taking her daughter out of the jail. “Now you’re free,” her mother said. There were few dry eyes among the gathered supporters.
A teacher who works with the Justice for Shantel Davis Committee spoke, linking the system responsible for both deaths. Later another speaker told the group that the “elephant in the room is racism,” and that racism must be fought constantly. He led the chant, “Racism means, fight back!” which everyone took up. Another speaker challenged the security guards standing on the steps to think about what had happened, and about how people are treated inside that building. Other chants and speakers demanded release of the tapes, the cops’ names and for a thorough investigation of conditions inside the jail.
The Justice for Kyam Livingston Committee will continue to be active and hold demonstrations on the 21st of every month, the monthly anniversary of her death. The committee’s growth and those involved are a good sign of people refusing to accept the pat answers that capitalism gives us for the tragedies it causes. The sale of CHALLENGE during this demonstration was another good sign. The struggle may be long, but the goal is our future.

SOUTH TEL-AVIV, October 13 ­— Hundreds of workers of various ethnicities — Jews, Palestinians and African refugees — marched in the south of the city against the horrible neglect of their neighborhoods by the racist, capitalist city hall. They called for the dissolution of the “ghettos,” for an end to racial segregation and for power for the local residents. This working-class rally came a mere week after a racist march by fascists, also in south Tel-Aviv, against the “infiltrator problem” (what racists call the African refugees, who escaped genocide in Darfur or murderous tyranny in Eritrea.)
While the fascist thugs do the bosses’ bidding by dividing workers and blaming the victims for the horrid conditions of the working-class neighborhoods, today the working class fought back and placed the blame on the real culprits: city hall and its capitalist masters. The workers came in high spirits with signs and drums, and the cops didn’t dare to obstruct their way. Progressive Labor Party distributed an anti-racist flyer, as well as CHALLENGEs in Hebrew, Arabic and English, which were well-received.
The mayors of Tel-Aviv have been neglecting the southern part of the city, which is mostly working-class (both Jewish and Arab), for decades. While fat-cat mayor Ron Huldai authorizes the construction of fancy high-rise towers for the rich, the south suffers from failing infrastructure, bad public transit, pollution and massive crime. The area around the central bus station has a high concentration of drug pushers, striptease halls and brothels, where, in many cases, human trafficking victims are being exploited. Muggings of workers and rape of working-class women by criminals are commonplace. This has existed for decades, while the cops do nothing. The sewage runs in the streets and rats abound. All of this contrasts to the fancy, northern parts of town, where the mostly Ashkenazi (European Jewish) small-scale bosses and bourgeoisie dwell; there crimes are solved or moved to the south, and infrastructures are good.
In the early 2000s, thousands of workers fleeing East Africa went north to Egypt, where they were murdered by Egyptian soldiers (who, according to testimonies we have heard, get an evening off duty for every refugee they kill). Others are kidnapped by local criminals in Sinai and held for ransom while being tortured. So they flee further north to Israel, where the government intensifies these racist attacks by busing them straight from the border to the already overcrowded working-class neighborhoods of South Tel-Aviv. They rarely get work permits and are forced into the underground low-wage economy.
These refugees work at starvation wages for local contractors, who pay them as little as $3-$4.5 USD per hour, about half the minimum wage. They are further exploited by slumlords, who pack ten of them into a tiny apartment at high rent. Survival “crime” is common, as many refugees must steal in order to eat.
But of course the bosses’ government blames the refugees! The local fascist politicians accuse them of spreading diseases and crime, call them racist names. Slum residents are being taught by the government to blame the refugees for the neglect of their neighborhoods. But things are changing.
A working-class fighter whom PLP knows and used to hold strong racist ideas, said to us at the demonstration, “it’s a shame not many people from the slums come to this kind of demonstrations. It’s because of racism.” She is beginning to see that racism is the enemy of the working class.
Multi-racial working-class unity is the real way to change how South Tel-Aviv is being neglected by the government of the rich. By building working-class consciousness and eventually, building our revolutionary Party, we stand a chance of turning things upside down. When the communists liberated China 64 years ago this month, they ended slums, freed and rehabilitated the prostitutes, shot the pimps, pushers and slumlords and eliminated opium dens. For three decades they struggled to build a society free from those ills. While their achievements were eventually reversed, we can learn from their experience and build ourselves a new world from the ashes of the old. Join us!

PARIS, November 6 — A new wave of layoffs has hit France, where official unemployment is 5,473,000 (19.3 percent). Some are due to companies going under in the continuing Great Recession, while others come at profitable companies that want to boost their profits even more. It all underscores the anarchy of capitalism, where capitalists produce goods and services to make a profit — not to satisfy the needs of the working class — while millions suffer from joblessness and privation.
Five Companies Announce Layoffs
Fagor-Brandt, Europe’s fifth-largest housing appliances manufacturer, went bankrupt, dumping 5,700 workers worldwide, (1,800 in France, 2,000 in Spain). French union leaders pleaded for a French government bailout of the French part of the company, while throwing Spain’s workers into the streets.
The union misleaders follow a nationalist road hoping to win crumbs from “your own government.” This is why communists build international unity to fight the bosses and their governments.
Crédit Immobilier de France (CIF), a small bank specializing in home loans is winding down the company, laying off 1,500 while 700 will continue to manage the bank’s outstanding loans. CIF could have continued making home loans to workers, but the French Finance Ministry intends to grab at least part of its 2.4 billion euros in capital (US$3.2 billion) to help the cash-strapped French government pay off its sovereign debt to the world’s finance capitalists. Under capitalism, homes for workers are less important than cash for financiers.
The Alstom corporation announced at least 1,300 layoffs, mainly in Europe. The corporation is expected to make a net profit of 361 million euros (US$487 million) this year.
Telecoms operator Alcatel Lucent announced 10,000 layoffs worldwide, including 881 in France in 2014. More than 900 other jobs in France will be impacted by internal re-organization and the closure of some sites. On October 15, Alcatel Lucent workers demonstrated in Paris, Rennes and Toulouse to protest the planned layoffs. In 2012, the corporation lost 1.3 billion euros net (US$1.75 billion).
The Kering corporation plans 700 layoffs, 21 percent of the 3,300 workers at its mail order subsidiary, La Redoute, in northern France, in a region already hard-hit by the economic crisis. Kering plans to sell La Redoute, as the down-sizing makes it a more attractive purchase. About 6,000 jobs are linked directly or indirectly to Le Redoute.
In the first half of 2013 Kering’s profits rose 582 million euros (US$785 million). CEO François-Henri Pinault’s salary in 2011 was 3,000,000 euros (US$4,000,000). His father’s fortune totals 8.1 billion euros (US$10.9 billion).
Socialist Government’s Capitalist Response to Unemployment
The “lesser evil” Socialist government has three “answers” to rising unemployment: (1) bribe companies into not laying off workers; (2) “disappear” unemployed workers from the statistics; and (3) allow French capitalists to super-exploit workers from other countries under slave-labor conditions. Of course, none of this will solve the problem. As Karl Marx analyzed in “Capital” long ago, capitalism’s boom-bust cycle inevitably produces periods of mass unemployment. He demonstrated that even in the boom times capitalism produces the exact amount of unemployment needed to optimize profits.
Disappearing the Unemployed
Meanwhile, the government will be robbing the jobless of unemployment benefits with its “harmonization” of the rules, which includes a detailed list of the documentary evidence a worker must provide to justify missing an appointment or be struck off the rolls. Every month, around 41,000 workers are struck down, 90 percent for missing an appointment.
Super-Exploiting Immigrant Workers
Under European Union regulations, French bosses can pay social security to an immigrant worker’s home country (within the EU) at the local rate, which is one-sixth of the French rate. In 2011, French bosses imported an estimated 300,000 immigrant workers from Eastern Europe, mainly employed in the building trades, agriculture and transport. These workers are mercilessly exploited by the bosses, some becoming virtual slaves. The bosses withhold a large part of their wages for transport and housing costs, force them to work up to 60 hours a week without paying overtime, provide substandard housing and confiscate their passports.
This cheap, or even slave, labor divides the working class. Unemployed workers are told that “cheap foreign workers are stealing our jobs.” This partly explains the election success of the fascist National Front (see CHALLENGE, 11/13). It also drives down wages and benefits for all workers. In addition, the bosses make super-profits on the immigrant workers. The workers’ trump card is anti-racist international solidarity and their ability to stop production (see box).

****************

International Unity Wins Immigrant Workers’ Strike

Thirty-five undocumented, mainly Egyptian workers shut down the AF-Interlog plant, with the active assistance of the other, documented workers. AF-Interlog is a subsidiary of an Italian company, which is itself the subsidiary of an Australian corporation. The workers are immigrants from Italy. AF-Interlog repairs pallets for Coca-Cola and the retail giant Carrefour.
The company ordered the workers not to talk to the trade union steward who helps undocumented workers obtain papers. When they disobeyed, the company told the workers they had to produce papers or they would be sent back to Italy, where they knew they would be laid off.
When the workers struck, the bosses immediately contacted the prefecture (the local representative of the central government), who also sent the workers a letter demanding papers.
The workers held out, forcing the company to fill out paperwork retroactively, and forcing the prefecture to allow the workers to file for documents allowing them to live and work in France.
This inspiring success reveals the power of international unity and organized, combined action. And it points the way to the ultimate struggle: overthrowing both the bosses and their governments through communist revolution, in order to create a society where we all work collectively (without unemployment) to produce what our class needs.