PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI, June 29 — Led by Progressive Labor Party and friends, more than two hundred State University of Haiti (UEH) students took to the streets yesterday, turning a demonstration against fee hikes into a fight against imperialism and capitalist inequality.
The immediate struggle was sparked on June 24, when the UEH executive counsel announced a 200 percent fee hike for college entrance exams. Students quickly organized. Fifty people blocked traffic and broke gates and windows at the administration building. Students marched through UEH’s 11 metropolitan campuses, chanting, “The State University of Haiti will not be privatized!” They banged the gates of each campus to announce their arrival and painted slogans on walls as they marched through. U.S. students have much to learn from the militancy of these young fighters, and from their potential to build a communist movement.
At the medical school campus, protesters forced open the gate. Fifteen medical students in white lab coats joined the march in a show of unity against the ruling class. They shouted, “State University is of the working class; this is the result of the mass struggles!” They were referring to the long history of militant fightback at UEH, from an uprising against fascist dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier to the struggle against the United Nations’ “stabilization” troops (MINUSTAH) who brought cholera to Haiti.
Fraud 101
UEH is the main public university for Haiti’s working-class students. The entrance fee hike is an attack on rural and city workers and a move to exclude them from higher education. In a country where nearly half of all adults are illiterate, students already face intense competition to get into college. (At the UEH medical school, there are 100 seats for 6,000 applicants.) Those left out are at high risk of joining Haiti’s 80 percent unemployed and underemployed.
As they marched toward the administration building, students spray-painted every government vehicle in sight. They tore down the advertisement for the “Darling Mother” fraud, a phantom government program that diverts funding to pay off the bosses’ cronies. Students approached tents of street vendors, bus passengers, and passersby with a class-conscious message: “The working class can’t send their sons and daughters to college. We already have no work or wage. The government wants us to pay for their debts. Students are demonstrating once again they are aware that a fight against the state is a fight against the bourgeoisie!”
Arriving at the administration building, the students found that the bosses had shut the gates in fear. Protesters denounced the administration, threw stones, smashed windows, and broke open the gates. The courtyard was empty. The administrators had fled, but not before calling the cops. Students put large stones down the road to slow the police. As the protesters retreated from the cops, they kept chanting.
On their way, they ripped up a street poster of Haitian President Michel Martelly and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro visited the city this week to strengthen Haiti-Venezuela relations through the PetroCaribe fund, an alliance based on the exchange of food for oil. Under the agreement, Haiti has used millions of dollars from PetroCaribe to pay for fuel and repave the airport runway, renaming it after Venezuela’s phony-leftist late president, Hugo Chavez. Meanwhile, Martelly skimmed millions of dollars in kickbacks from funding for social programs. Be it Haiti, Venezuela, Bangladesh, or South Africa, the capitalist state can never serve workers’ interests. It uses its courts and police thugs to protect capital, legalize theft, pacify workers, and quell rebellions.
When the police caught up with the protesters, they threw tear gas and shot into the crowd, which threw rocks and tear gas canisters back at them. The cowardly cops targeted student leaders by shooting them in the back and neck with rubber bullets, and also kidnapped two women nearly unconscious from the gas. Protesters alerted the crowd and barricaded the streets, demanding the students’ release. After several hours of battle by the police station, they were freed.
Smashing the Bosses’ Schools
At a mass assembly the next morning, most students agreed the demonstration was successful. But some believed it was not militant enough, and most agreed the struggle should be expanded to the whole working class. Students made a list of demands, including refunds of exam fees to those not admitted, a more political curriculum, and UEH’s return to its bylaws to support “the community in the struggle for progress.” Others called for a more global analysis of the struggle against imperialism. A planning leadership committee was created.
So begins a potential long-term struggle. UEH students can be won to understand that all universities, public or private, are ruling-class institutions. No commitment to “progressive” bylaws can fundamentally change these factories for capitalist ideology. They must be destroyed. Our fight is not merely for reform, but to build a world where education is designed by and for the working class.
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Pakistan May Day: PL’ers Unmask ‘Nationalist Democracy’ as Capitalist Slavery
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- 04 July 2013 787 hits
The Progressive Labor Party’s growing membership in Pakistan was very active organizing for May Day. We struggled hard to bring all the trade union and student organizations to a single political platform and a large and united demonstration, a goal strongly supported by most workers and students. To some extent, we succeeded.
It became obvious that most of the trade union organizations are puppets of the International Labour Organization [the United Nations agency that promotes a false unity between capitalists and workers]. The bosses strongly resisted a unified workers’ holiday. So did some anti-communist student leaders who are affiliated with various nationalist parties.
These opportunist student leaders fear that PLP will attack their reactionary ideas of “national democracy.” They’ve been angry since last year’s May Day celebrations, when our comrades stressed the need to build an international revolutionary communist party and to create a new political, social, and economic system. This time around these so-called progressive nationalists helped the state identify communists fighting for revolution. As a result, one comrade was attacked by “unknown” people on a busy street of a big city.
PLP participates in reform struggles to educate the masses that this capitalist system cannot be reformed, and that it can only be changed by communist revolution. In the May Day celebrations, comrades criticized the right-wing political parties that use the term “revolution.” As our comrades pointed out, these parties are invested in the status quo. They are trying to sow confusion and deter people from real revolution. We must use the word communism to distinguish ourselves from the misleaders.
We also launched a massive effort to educate Pakistan’s poor working class about the bosses’ elections. At rallies and big public meetings, we distributed thousands of leaflets and flyers to let people know that these elections are designed to preserve the capitalist system. Capitalist “democracy” frees the bosses to exploit the working class by in part, sucking workers into voting and supporting candidates rather than fighting. The bosses’ parliaments are set up to protect the interests of national and international capitalists and to provide legal cover for the murderers and exploiters. Rich people use elections to gain more control over the state apparatus. They get the “right” to use the police and the judiciary against their opponents, and against any workers who seek to challenge their power or exploitation.
Our printed material reminded workers of the false promises made by the bosses in the last elections. The former government vowed to provide electricity and employment and to improve hospitals and schools. It promised to control inflation and to curb the terrorists and fundamentalists. It pledged to strengthen labor laws to protect factory workers and to get rid of contractual labor. It promised free health and education services for workers’ families, along with comprehensive health insurance.
But in the inflated economy, prices rose as much as 100 percent. Electricity shortages increased from four hours to 18 hours per day. Hospitals had the same poor equipment and costly medicines. Meanwhile, school enrollment declined because poor workers were forced to send their children to work. Teachers were selected not on their merit but for their political affiliations. Thousands of schools and colleges did not have water or sanitary facilities.
U.S. and Islamic terrorism is out of control. No place in Pakistan is safe. On an average day, 15 to 20 workers are killed in terrorist attacks. In the city of Karachi alone, 7,500 people have been killed in the last 27 months.
More than 800 workers lost their lives in factories last year alone because of owner negligence, yet nobody was prosecuted. As unemployment went from 8% to 16%, contractual labor and child labor increased and the harassment of women workers worsened. Farm workers are treated like slaves. Over the last five years, about 10 million workers have lost their jobs.
All of this proves that the bosses use elections to ruthlessly exploit the poor masses and create illusions about the system. Their promises are just election slogans to dodge workers’ anger. As communists, we must fight to smash the capitalist election system and to build a communist society where leaders serve the working class, not the rich bosses.
Now teachers and clerical, railway, and postal workers are demonstrating to protest price hikes and wage freezes. PLP is organizing more strikes to bring more people into the streets. We are informing the working class that only communist revolution led by a single international communist party can bring prosperity, justice and equality.
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Legal Services Strike Ends, Militance Signals Future Struggles
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- 04 July 2013 520 hits
NEW YORK CITY, June 24 — Today members of UAW Local 2320 the Legal Services Staff Association voted to end their six-week strike and return to work. With the deck stacked against them, and knowing that this offer was “as good as it’s going to get” for now, the 270 lawyers, para-legals and clericals accepted a concession contract and resumed representing their poor, mostly black, Latino and immigrant clients. During the strike, PLP was welcomed on the picket lines and dozens of workers were introduced to CHALLENGE.
The workers waged a militant fight. All strikers participated on local strike committees, and the local established a Hardship Fund to cover strikers’ rent, utility and other bills in an emergency. Women played a leading role in the strike. The International UAW paid the strikers’ health insurance after the millionaire corporate lawyers that run the NYLSC cut them off retroactively and without notice. While this was a great help to those on strike, it also gave the International union tremendous leverage in leading the workers to accept concessions.
The UAW’s strategy was to rely on Democratic Party politicians, especially mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn, to win a contract loaded with concessions, although less than what the union-busting bosses had hoped for. Letters of support came from New York City’s Congressional delegation and a long list of City Council members. But that “support” was used to get workers to pay more for their health care, and anticipated layoffs in the coming year. “Layoff equity protections” with management (there is one manager for every three staff) almost guarantees layoffs, as long as some managers are laid off too.
With all this “political clout,” why wasn’t there a no-layoff guarantee? Why are we contributing 1% of our salary to health care premiums? Because these are the same politicians that have overseen a drastic reduction in staff and the closure of several neighborhood offices over the past several years. These cutbacks, while costing our members jobs, are mainly aimed at the unemployed and working poor clients we serve. They are racist to the core. They are part of the destruction of the old social contract, the so-called safety net of social benefits such as unemployment insurance, social security, and medicaid. More cuts are on their way to pay for the bosses’ widening imperialists wars.
No strike or contract can stop war and fascism. Only communist revolution can do that.
The contract is retroactive to July 1, 2012, and will expire in July, 2014. More than a few who voted to accept this contract are also talking about walking out again a year from now. But most important, we need to build a mass PLP among legal service workers and clients.
LOUISVILLE, KY, June 20 — The Progressive Labor Party brought ideas of revolutionary change and communism to the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), attended by 3,500 people from across the U.S. The weekend’s highlight was an open Party forum that drew several dozen people who’d received a PL leaflet. Their thoughts on the need for communism and a mass party ranged from hostile to curious and receptive. A few thought that real change could come through the capitalists’ “democratic” process.
There was a lot of discussion about whether violence was necessary, and how the state apparatus maintained power for the ruling class. Eventually, the talk prompted a young worker to express the need for a violent overthrow of the capitalist system.
We made many contacts through this forum and felt a real expression of interest from many others who were unable to attend. To build on this success, we are planning another forum at next year’s General Assembly.
One highlight of the Assembly is the Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) process. This allows attendees to bring a pressing social issue to the body and ask the UUA to organize around it. UU’s from New York spearheaded an AIW condemning the racist harassment of black and Latino youth, in particular the stop-and-frisk policy and racist murders by New York City police.
The work to enlist support for this proposal and bring it to the floor was a collective effort among Party members, and others who supported the AIW after hearing it introduced. Discussion ensued about growing fascism in the United States as the ruling class builds for war against its imperialist rivals. We explained how racism hurts all workers, and how we must build a multiracial fight-back against racism. This kind of give-and-take with people among our friends offered a great opportunity to advance the Party’s ideas.
Over 200 CHALLENGEs were sold outside the convention center. The issue’s back-page article addressed the UUA’s core principles and explained that they could be achieved only through communist revolution. The convention delegates’ hopes for a fair and equitable society, one that recognizes the inherent dignity and worth of all people, is simply not possible in a system based on profit instead of people’s needs. The article sparked conversations about the need for a communist society and a Party to lead the working class.
The weekend made it clearer that activity in such organizations is critical to the growth of PLP. The point is not to build the reform movement but to build principled struggle with working-class people who want a better society. When we share our lives with our class brothers and sisters, we can see more clearly that a revolutionary future is possible.
BOSTON, June 12 — President Obama campaigned in Roxbury today for liberal Ed Markey, candidate for a seat in the U.S. Senate. The campaign rally was held in Boston’s main black neighborhood in order to take advantage of Obama’s appeal among black workers. Of the many thousands who lined up to hear Obama speak, more than half were black, Latino and/or immigrant. In a silent vigil, a small group of environmentalists held up signs protesting the Keystone oil pipeline, but it was left to a small but bold group of PL’ ers and friends to directly attack Obama as the manager of racist U.S. capitalism.
We held a banner and passed out a leaflet that exposed Obama for maintaining racist unemployment and mass incarceration of black workers and youth; increasing the deportation of immigrants; killing and terrorizing civilians with unmanned drones in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan; continuing to kill for oil and bailing out the bankers while working-class families lose their homes.
Although the people who had come to hear him were not a representative cross-section of the population, there were large numbers willing to read our leaflet and consider the merits of our politics. Most of them, however, continued to defend Obama as having well-meaning intentions. Several dozen reacted with hostility, crumpling the leaflet or returning it to us. One woman was personally offended when we called Obama a “tool of the U.S. ruling class,” a puppet rather than a free agent. Her black nationalism and racial pride prevented her from seeing that Obama is no different from any other president, except that he has a slicker cover. An old friend waiting on the line said that when Obama was elected, she was able to feel proud of being an American for the first time in her life. This revealed the ruling class’s real purpose for backing Obama — to win more people (especially black and young people, two of the most potentially revolutionary groups) to actively or passively support U.S. imperialism abroad and vicious anti-working-class attacks at home. The broad acceptance of the fascist lockdown after the Boston Marathon bombing shows that to a large degree the ruling- class’s strategy has been successful.
What we did today took courage, especially for the two young black women students among us who had voted for Obama. Armed with a class analysis, our multi-racial group was able to penetrate the patriotism and nationalism that fuels the hero worship of a dangerous enemy of the international working class. We introduced many people to the truth about Obama and U.S. capitalism, thereby loosening the grip that the ruling class has over working people. We communists need to seize every opportunity to do this until we can directly challenge the bosses’ rule in a working-class revolution.
