Public transportation is the life blood of every major city globally, and millions depend on it. It is also a major employer of Black workers who make up about 40 percent of the U.S. transit industry, and 47 percent here in New York City (Gothamist, 2/28/23).

Racist transit bosses can't fix subway

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s New York City Transit fare has risen to $2.90, as a way for the transit bosses to gouge more money from workers. Which isn’t only a racist attack on workers by harassing and profiling Black and Latin workers, but it also stands as a method to divide transit workers and the ridership. This method has led to the anger towards this capitalist system to be directed at transit workers. When capitalism is in crisis, the ruling class has no real answer to the racist unemployment, lack of housing, mental health, and drug addiction ailments their system creates. In response to the bosses’ lack of safety after a conductor was brutally slashed in the neck, train operators and conductors stuck back by refusing to operate their trains in February, causing mass service disruptions on several subway lines for a day (New York Times, 2/29)!

Union hangs workers to dry

The bosses used their state power to deploy 1,000 state police and National Guard to patrol the subway in response to these anti-social attacks (Politico, 3/7).The Transportation Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 saw this as a victory and requested more cops to patrol the platforms in the stations. This has only led to more attacks on our class. In September, transit cops shot four people in a Brooklyn subway station over a Black worker not paying $2.90. One of the bystanders shot now has permanent brain damage. This proves two things: when workers want safety, the bosses will only use that safety to protect their rule and the racist cops they claim are here to protect are prepared to kill workers to protect that rule.

The transit union has a long history of leading workers into the bosses’ hands, which is the path into further poverty. Our current contract has left us with 3 percent raises which don't keep up with inflation and a new way to deduct money from workers if they are sick and want to work overtime, but worst of all they have changed our medical insurance once we retire. Medicare Advantage is what the bosses have instituted to replace traditional Medicare. Medicare Advantage leaves retired workers paying more into their medical with hidden fees. The workers now are also the majority under Tier 6 which  caps what we can earn towards our pensions. On top of all of this, many of us in different departments have had our overtime cut, and there has been a surge of non-unionized subcontract workers doing the jobs that were once ours.

Direct engagement with workers

I have recently joined with a union opposition candidate running for union president against the current leadership. I’m trying to see how I can use this as a way to organize workers to strike back and  hopefully fight for a communist revolution. 

Running against the TWU union leadership  has reminded me of lessons from past struggles I've learned:  No one running for union president can be trusted. If you're choosing to fight back, you can't leave anything for the union or bosses to use against you. Working with the aspiring union leadership makes workers question your motives, but campaigning has offered an opportunity to organize the workers.

Over the course of the last 7 years all these attacks and struggles had been slow and frustrating. Our transit comrades have been base building and struggling with other workers to take action. As our union election comes to an end we have been bringing our line to the forefront of organizing by incorporating the U.S. presidential election result. Stating to the workers that the ruling class only cares about their interests and they will use us however to achieve their goals however wins. Which is the same for this union election. 

We are in a great position now to organize the workers. This will be the first anti racist anti sexist transit worker meeting with over 40 members willing to join. The plan is to start in one department and bring all the other departments close to a dozen into the fold, sharing information, struggles and actions! This is very inspiring and exciting and it's only the beginning. 

I've been going out to different quarters collecting names and numbers of workers willing to fight back by starting  workers’ meetings. I've gotten close to 40 contacts so far, with the enthusiasm ranging from “I don't give a f***” attitude to “Thanks for bringing the hope.” Many workers are very cynical and  don't trust me, at least not until I give them a reason to. I've told them that these meetings will be built on antiracism and antisexism with the purpose of getting strike ready. I've told the candidate who I’m campaigning for  that during our campaigning we need to fight for the workers now and not wait until later. She said,”We Can't do anything until we get into power.” Spoken like a true scheming boss. So I've made it a point to tell the workers it doesn't matter who wins this election; if we're not organized, then we’ve already lost. The election results are due back by the end of the month. Worker meetings will kick off in January. I'll keep y’all updated. Power to the working class!

NYC, December 1 – Trump was elected in large part, on the promise of carrying out mass deportations of migrant workers and their families, refugees seeking some safety from terrorists, civil wars, climate disasters, drug cartels and more. Basically, seeking higher ground from the perils of imperialist rivalries. While Obama and Biden have carried out their own mass deportations, and Biden and Harris sealed the border and told refugees, “Don’t come here,” Trump’s “America First” campaign of open racism and xenophobia won the votes of more than 75 million people, a big goose-step on the road to fascism straight out of Hitler’s playbook. 

This affects us all directly, from high school teachers and students, college students and professors, workers on almost every job.  Every Progressive Labor Party collective must prepare to confront mass deportations and the use of the military with international solidarity, boldness, and bravery in the face of fascist terror.  This is “how the steel is tempered.”

Small Fascist Trump to out-goosestep Obama’s deportation plan?

Trump appointed Tom Homan as "border czar" and Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff. These two were the architects of Trump’s previous family separation policy, which involved tearing children away from their families at the border. This time, they are promising to cancel the temporary protected status for millions of immigrants from Haiti and Afghanistan, and use the National Guard to carry out mass arrests of immigrants, confining them in military camps as part of an "historic deportation operation." Although he once proposed ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects young people brought to the United States, Trump—both a Small Fascist and a big hypocrite—claims he is open to working with Democrats to preserve the law, even as he threatens to overturn birthright citizenship. This would mean that children of immigrant or migrant workers born in the U.S. would no longer automatically receive citizenship (AP News, 12/9).

Recently my union, the National Writers Union (NWU), set up a committee to respond to these threats, based on what we were able to do during Trump’s first term. Back then journalists covering the border crisis in Mexico had their devices seized and copied before being allowed to return to the U.S. NWU organized an International Committee and sent members directly into the fight. At the time we were in UAW Region 9A, and this became an issue among its 45,000 members. The UAW leadership tried to get in front of this and decided to subsidize travel for any member who wanted to go to the border to help in the crisis. 

Labor united against anti-immigrant racism 

We worked closely with New Sanctuary City and participated in escorting workers to their asylum hearings, helping to fill out asylum applications, and took part in mass rallies to close the immigrant detention centers and stop deportations. When Trump threatened to target sanctuary cities, NWU convened a meeting of representatives from ten unions, including RWDSU, LiUNA, 32BJ, PSC, NYSNA, 1199 and others to develop a labor rapid response to any mass roundups in NYC. We are going to try to renew and expand this work to Los Angeles, Tucson, and Springfield, Ohio, raising the issue within other local unions and Central Labor Councils. 

Some Party collectives are already immersed in mass organizations doing this kind of work. We can all learn from them. Every Party collective must develop a plan, a way to respond to the coming crisis. The workers are not going to roll over and play dead for Trump, he is in for a fight. The more we are involved in this struggle, leading with our revolutionary politics, the more we can build PLP and become more of a force in the class struggle. All hands on deck!

CHICAGO, November 16 - “I will build for revolution by fighting racism.” “I will build for revolution by fighting for unions to be led by communists.” These were a couple of the pledges that workers shared during the conclusion of our annual Bolshevik Revolution celebration this evening in a local fieldhouse. This event celebrated the first time in history where workers, with communist leadership, seized state power from the capitalist class in the year 1917. Its monumental impact spread far and wide, as other workers around the world were inspired to rise up and fight back. We are still seeing the inspiration and power of the Bolshevik Revolution today and carry on its revolutionary fight through the international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP). 

Revolutionary lessons, past and present

It was an inspiring program, kicked off with a comrade reading the classic poem “Good Morning, Revolution” from communist artist Langston Hughes. Next came a skit where Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was transported to the present day to offer advice to youth on the daily work and discipline needed to build the mass movement for revolution.

We heard about historical class struggle inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution, including when soldiers refused to continue fighting for the German imperialists as well as an uprising by workers in Egypt that won them independence from British colonial rule. There were enthusiastic table discussions about inspiring collective action that workers had taken part in. Young workers who happened to be passing through the fieldhouse after a nearby event even stopped to check out the program, liking what they heard!

Workers come together for fightback 

Comrades who have been facing censorship in the American Public Health Association for speaking out about the genocide in Gaza did a report back on their bold action during this this year’s conference (see CHALLENGE, 11/27). Led by comrades from the PLP, workers from across the country organized to protest outside the convention and march through the convention hall. Other workers who happened to be in the hall were inspired to join the march. Workers are ready to join a movement that will fight back. These comrades showed our fellow workers that following the bosses’ rules will never achieve anything meaningful and the importance of banding together with other workers.

With attacks on workers from all sides and the ruling class moving us closer to an imperialist war, the lessons of the Bolshevik Revolution and knowing what workers taking state power can accomplish are more important than ever. In their keynote speech, a veteran PL’er offered wisdom and inspiration:

“I want to focus on the beauty of revolution. Many times we think about death, destruction, misery, or pain and yes, that’s a part of it but it’s what we do it for. Why would we go through such a thing and the Bolshevik Revolution showed us. The aftermath of that revolution showed us what a glimpse of what the world could be if the working class was in power under communist principles and leadership.”

“Women were given the right to divorce. Racism was outlawed in the Soviet Union. They created new art forms to promote pro working-class culture. The Bolsheviks focused on unifying the workers. We have to commit ourselves to rebuilding the only movement that can get our class free, a communist movement, a movement led by Progressive Labor Party that will get our class liberated from the terror, from the genocide, from the racism, from the sexism of global capitalism. The capitalists are taking our world to hell in a handbasket and there is not a lesser evil. That means we have to commit ourselves to be the alternative. We have to join Progressive Labor Party if we are not in it yet and if you are in it, we have to recommit ourselves to building an army to take state power once again, so that our class can once again experience the beauty of communist revolution.” 

Communist culture inspires the masses

We capped off our celebration by singing the communist anthem “The Internationale,” which got the multiracial crowd of workers and youth on their feet. While the racist bosses want to spread fear and division among the international working class, we communists want to spread revolutionary culture that motivates the masses to unite, stand up and fight back – Join us!

A mixed group of Johns Hopkins students and community members gathered Wednesday evening to protest Johns Hopkins University's (JHU) Police Accountability Board meeting. This group would oversee the private police force of JHU, which students, faculty, and community members have been strongly against since 2018.

One member of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and a friend to the Party joined the rally in front of the university's Public Safety Office. We continued with a march around the neighborhood that ended at Wyman Park. The official meeting was hosted on Zoom, which was decided based on claims of death threats to board members. The panelists droned on about community-based policies and feedback, but the protest's organizers had a clever plan. Speakers could use pre-made speeches to call out the board's hypocrisy and link to oppressing workers through this proposed police force. Some spoke freely, whether giving their personal experiences on campus with profiling or stating that a private police force echoes the use of police across the world: protection of property and worker suppression.

The West Coalition, an organization fighting for police accountability and the end of police violence, joined later. Tawanda Jones, the group's lead organizer, also bashed the board's claims of community safety and gave specific examples of police terror in Baltimore. She laid out her personal battle with the city's government since her brother was killed by 17 officers in 2013. Capitalist fact is truly stranger than fiction. Tawanda's experience with the (in)justice system proves that working in the system is as threatening as working against it. Any opposition to police terror is only met with more attacks and threats to our safety.

One organizer made a clear reflection of the meeting, saying, "[E]very time we attend one of these meetings, their brazen complicity with a plan that will undoubtedly lead to terrible violence is even more and more obvious."

PLP supports and recognizes the bold actions of the Hopkins student-led protests over the years. Tonight clearly showed that there are people in our community with political consciousness. It is our job as builders of a communist movement to sharpen that into a clear class consciousness. That is what's needed to shut down any of JHU's attempts to create a private police force of terror and build toward a broader shut down of Baltimore's capitalist thieves.