NEW YORK CITY, September 26 — “Part-time, Full-time Faculty Unite, Same Struggle, Same Fight!” More than 500 City University of New York (CUNY) professors and students picketed outside the Board of Trustees meeting to protest the Board’s racist vote to take away health care for adjuncts (part-time professors) by next year.

CUNY is a working-class university system. Its make-up is mostly Latino, black, and immigrant workers and students. This cutback would affect over 10,200 people across the CUNY system.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing CUNY faculty and staff, called the protest. A delegation of 70 or so workers and students also went inside to present a petition signed by thousands calling on CUNY to provide adequate funding for adjunct professor health insurance.

This large and spirited rally was an inspiring demonstration of unity between full-time and part-time professors, and a growing realization that the two-tier system of labor at CUNY is a threat to all workers. Adjunct health insurance was won in 1986, and like all reforms, it is now being taken back.

The reliance on 11,450 adjunct workers, who now teach more than half the classes, has increased dramatically in recent years. These workers are the lowest-paid with the least job security. They receive an inferior health insurance plan compared to full-time workers. The two-tier system was set up to fail, as only 13% of adjuncts receive health insurance to begin with. The proposed cut will make healthcare even more unattainable.

CUNY has refused to boost its contribution to the PSC Welfare Fund, which pays for adjunct health insurance. Though the cost of insurance has increased 400% of its cost in 2002, very few workers are receiving healthcare.

PLP professors and students came to the rally with friends from campuses all over the city. Students distributed 50 CHALLENGEs and 300 fliers entitled “Fight for Adjunct Health Insurance, Eliminate the Disease of Capitalism.”  A professor read the headline and said, “Yes, capitalism really is a disease that needs to be eliminated.”

Many friends at CUNY are realizing the futility of reforms and agree that capitalism will not provide the basis for real education. “The public university system is broken,” said one professor from Hostos Community College, “and we can no longer believe in the false promises of the CUNY trustees or the system as a whole.”

More CUNY workers and students are witnessing the contagion of capitalist crisis and crippling austerity regimes imposed on workers worldwide, causing tremendous misery. Such discussions must be at the forefront in our classrooms in conjunction with the building of worker/student solidarity inside the university and the surrounding communities.

CUNY Chancellor Goldstein announced at the trustee meeting that he would bring up funding from NY State to save adjunct healthcare. PSC leadership saw this as a victory. But all unions serve to make compromises with these bosses, and continue to provide cheap labor. PLP must continue organizing at CUNY to fight for more than measly scraps the bosses toss at workers.

Clearly, this does not signal a victory but a chance to discuss how capitalism thrives off  inadequate health care, the exploitation of part-time professors, and job insecurity — what Marx called the reserve army of labor that is integral to capitalism. As our flyer said: “The longer capitalism survives, the more people will suffer from joblessness, homelessness, hunger, and low wages, and the more countless thousands will die or be maimed in imperialist wars.

As professors and students we should resolve to tell those in our classes and on our campuses the truth: that capitalism needs to be treated like smallpox or malaria, a disease we need to eradicate. Our homework should be to organize for an egalitarian society — communism — that makes capitalism a relic of the past. Progressive Labor Party is working toward that goal. Please join us.”J

PHILADELPHIA, October 3 — The continuing fight against cutbacks and firings at a large teaching hospital shows how long-term communist basebuilding can stretch and change the limits in our battles. On the surface, the odds in this fight seem stacked against us. The nurses, largely white, are non-union and handicapped by divisive ideas like elitism and professionalism. The workers in the union, who are largely black, are themselves split into two groups: those who work directly for the hospital and those who work for two notoriously exploitive contractors.  There is also longstanding tension between the nurses and the union members based on racism and nationalism.

But that’s just one side of the equation. On the other side are the many years of communist basebuilding by Progressive Labor Party at the hospital, the countless conversations about the need to overthrow capitalism with communist revolution and the need to join PL. Many, many friendships have been built.

Hundred of Challenge-Desafios have been circulated through networks and hand-to-hand distribution. Home visits and social activities helped non-union nurses and unionized blue-collar workers overcome their divisions with multi-racial unity. Fights big and small, even if they weren’t successful, helped forge significant solidarity.

As a result, workers were determined and enthusiastic in the meetings after the hospital bosses fired nurse activist Wesley on trumped-up charges of ‘diverting narcotics’ (see 10/5 Challenge-Desafio). A defense fund is being organized. Union members volunteered to fight to get their union to support Wesley. Workers also volunteered to arrange for Wesley and other fired workers to speak at their churches. A flyer was written to reach out to unions, churches and neighborhood organizations. We also made plans to continue the fight within the hospital against the firings and patient care cutbacks.

The firings are painful and difficult, and the elimination of nursing assistants deadly for patients. It can be difficult to keep our focus when time must also be spent on figuring out how Wesley is going to survive and how the lawyer is going to be paid. Nonetheless, we are struggling to make the growth of PL and Challenge-Desafio our primary goal and central to all our activities.

The confidence that we can solve these problems comes from our confidence in our base. After decades of communist basebuilding, workers in our base are stepping forward to play significant roles in the current fight. The obligation of PL members in this struggle is to intensify the struggle for these workers to join PL and distribute Challenge-Desafio.

The Party’s newspaper is in everyone’s hands at our meetings. We are working on guaranteeing and expanding the existing Challenge networks as we advance the fights inside the hospital. We need to improve how we integrate communist ideas into our many meetings and conversations about the issues of the moment.

If you would like more information about making a donation or inviting fired nurse Wesley and other hospital workers to speak to your union, church, or neighborhood organization, or even a group of friends, please leave a message at 267-319-3515.

“Wow, you’re here again for us…Now I know for sure that the community is with us if we go on strike!”

This was the response from workers at a local supermarket that we met as part of the Community Education for Social Action (CESA), a community organization working in the greater East L.A. region. Class consciousness — workers supporting and standing with other workers, regardless of their job, “race,” or country of origin — is an absolute necessity for organizing a force for communist revolution. Building this consciousness was our task as we set out to support supermarket workers who were considering a strike in response to an unjust healthcare proposal their bosses were offering.

The plan first began with getting to know the store we “adopted” in East L.A. CESA members, along with students from a nearby State University, selected one day out of the week and the time to go to the store to meet and talk to the workers, develop their contacts, and follow up with them to build a relationship. For an entire month, the group was at the supermarket on Mondays at 5:00 PM, split into groups, and talked to the workers and customers about the unfair contract and opportunity for a strike.

We also discussed how capitalism is based on exploiting workers and how the entire working class is under severe attack in the form of cuts to benefits and wages at work, cuts to education and social programs that provide critical services, and the racist mass unemployment that especially afflicts black and Latino working class communities.

Building class consciousness, class confidence and the Party takes time. We knew that we couldn’t show up once, pass out a CHALLENGE, and expect the Party to grow. This is a long-term project, and we found we were up to it. Over many weeks we made friendships. One worker remarked, “Wow, every time you come here to visit you always bring a group of people.” The student worker felt a great support from CESA members and community allies. We were also able to build a close relationship with a veteran female bakery worker.

As weekly visits continued, trust was being established and recognition of the genuine support was seen. We hit a high point when we brought a group of 17 people to enter the store chanting, carrying signs and delivering a student resolution supporting the workers to management. We saw many smiles as we left because she did not expect such a large body of community residents to arrive.

We still have a  lot of work to do. Class consciousness and good feelings among workers will not, in and of itself, bring on the revolution and communism. We’ve made a good start, but we have to continue to support the workers we met, even though they have accepted the new contract. We still live under a capitalist system. The workers will continue to be exploited.

To that end, we are organizing a Labor Forum with student groups at a local community college. We’re inviting grocery workers and also local transit workers — who recently also had to negotiate a new contract — to talk about their experiences with the union, the company, and the community. We will continue to bring awareness about how capitalism destroys the working class but how we need to fight for communism.J

NEW YORK CITY, September 25 — Today  90 workers — black, Latino and white, men and women, immigrants and citizens, young and old, employed and unemployed — came together in a conference to fight for jobs. The room was alive with workers’ solidarity and strength. Our goal is to build a mighty movement, worker by worker and action by action, to confront capitalist unemployment, exploitation, racism and war. “Our movement is based on workers’ power, not the politicians,” one speaker said. “We say, ‘Make the bosses and bankers pay.’”

Workers stood and applauded as a striker from the Central Park Boathouse described how they’d organized their strike and won a victory (see page 3). Conference participants will send a letter of congratulations and solidarity. We also pledged support to the Boathouse workers in their future confrontations with fascist immigration enforcement, job insecurity, layoffs and racist and sexist treatment. Any “victory” for workers can only be temporary until the working class takes state power.

A woman worker from Harlem talked about their fight-back against racist Columbia University, which is building a new satellite campus in West Harlem. After promising jobs to workers in the community, Columbia has hired only two. The conference pledged to turn up the heat on the university by marching in Harlem on October 10.

Then a woman stood and greeted the conference. We soon realized that she was the boss of a group of homecare workers in attendance — whom she owes thousands of dollars in back wages! With one voice, we chanted “Get out!” and “Paque lo que debe!” (pay what you owe). The boss took notice and is now offering part of what she owes. The fight will continue, with the conference pledging support for these workers and a demonstration when they need it. A leader from the Stella D’oro strike last year emphasized the need for workers’ determination and boldness as we fight back.

Before we divided into small groups, five workers in Progressive Labor study groups gave short presentations about unemployment and its brutal impact on the working class. They helped us reach a clearer understanding of why unemployment is both inevitable and necessary under capitalism, how it is essentially racist, and how it relates to the anti-immigrant movement and the accelerated U.S. move toward war. The reports also emphasized the need for workers’ unity in a period of rising joblessness.

In our small groups, we discussed what we’re doing to fight for jobs. We have made a good beginning, but need more specific plans. We need to struggle with our friends to build a stronger base for the Party with their families, friends, co-workers, neighbors and classmates.

As the conference ended, we enjoyed a delicious meal of Mexican chicken, rice and salad prepared by two women who volunteered their time and labor for us.

Workers Speak About
the Conference

“I was happy. I never experienced a meeting like this.”

“I want to participate in this fight.”

“We should have more events like this.”

“I was surprised. I missed an opportunity to invite more workers.”

“I like your ideas, how you live and give leadership.”

When asked why workers had such a positive reaction to the conference, a comrade organizer responded, “Because we were talking about workers’ real issues, real solidarity and fight-back for the working class, not about politicians, laws and legislation.”

The conference has moved the Party forward in several areas, and will enable PL to widen and deepen the workers’ fight-back. As PL members continue to build a base in the working class, especially in capitalist-led organizations, they will distribute more CHALLENGE and win other workers to do the same. They will organize more Party study groups to help workers understand the role of communist ideas and leadership. In turn, more workers will join and lead PL in the long march toward revolution and a truly communist, egalitarian society.J