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    Protests Mount Against NYPD’s Racist Terror

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    25 May 2012 286 hits

    On Sunday June 17 (Father’s Day), thousands of people angry at the recent murder of two young black men, as well as the daily humiliation of the NYPD’s racist stop-and-frisk tactics, will march down Fifth Avenue to the townhouse of “Mr. Wall Street” — billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 

    Bronx PL’ers have joined the fight against the fascist murder of unarmed teenager Ramarley Graham, shot by NYC cops in his own bathroom (see adjoining article). 

    More recently, NYPD officers used their police car to strike and kill a 27-year old bakery worker, Tavon Robinson, who the cops allege was stealing cobblestones in front of his home. Residents of the Bayview Houses in Brooklyn were outraged at the killing of this popular young man.

    In 2011, the NYPD stopped more than 685,000 people, 87% of whom were black or Latino. Although black and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24 are only 4.7% of the city population, they were 41.6% of the people stopped. The vast majority of those stopped and frisked (94%) were innocent of any crime, and the small numbers of arrests were generally for victimless crimes like marijuana possession.

    The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program has been aggressively promoted by NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg, with the numbers of those subjected to stops rising from 97,000 in 2002 (Bloomberg’s first year in office) to what it’s projected to be in 2012: 800,000.

    Constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches go out the window when it comes to black and Latino men and women, the racist targets of the NYPD who are far more often humiliated by being spread-eagled while being searched.

    A coalition of groups has called for the Father’s Day march: Local 1199 SEIU, the NAACP, and the National Action Network (Al Sharpton’s organization). All three are closely tied to the Democratic Party, and are doing their best to tame the anger of workers in NYC and divert it from their real enemy — the capitalists who profit from the racism.

    • The original plan was to have the march leave from 125th Street in Harlem, which was changed to begin at 110th Street and march through mainly the wealthy neighborhoods on 5th Ave.

    • The marches in the Bronx and Brooklyn against police terror have been loud and angry, but the organizers of the June 17 march want it to be a silent procession!

    • Rather than have a militant rally or picket line when we reach the Mayor’s townhouse, the organizers want the marchers to immediately disperse. This is because they don’t want to antagonize a billionaire who still might endorse and fund the campaign of President Obama.

    • A dozen or so Democratic Party officials — members of the city council and NYS assembly and senate — are part of the coalition leadership. Their approach is to pass laws limiting stop-and-frisk tactics, rather than rely on actions in the streets to force an end to it. 

    The organizers of this march, and the Democratic Party they serve, will never tell the truth about racist police brutality or the terror the police impose on black and Latino communities. Racism, including a racist criminal justice system, will never end under capitalism. In fact, racism is intensifying. 

    The recent recession took a greater toll on black and Latino men and women than any other group. Black unemployment is twice that of whites. The median wealth of white households went from being 11 times that of black households a few years ago, to being 20 times that today. 

    From 2005 to 2009 — largely because of foreclosures and falling housing prices — the median real wealth of black families fell by 53%, while the median wealth for Latino families fell by an astonishing 66%. And last year, there were 168,000 stops for young black men by the police, which is more than the number of young black men who live in NYC!

    The stepped-up police presence and harassment in black and Latino neighborhoods in NYC is intended to send a message to its residents that rebellion against the deteriorating conditions of capitalism will be met with force. White workers should understand that the daily terror faced by black and Latino workers is what’s in store for them in the not-too-distant future. 

    Unless we build a multi-racial movement against racist police repression and capitalist austerity, we’ll never have the class unity necessary to stop the capitalists from slashing our wages, health care and pensions, or to prevent what happened in Germany, Italy and dozens of other countries around the world — the rise of fascist regimes using terror to impose their anti-working class program of lower living standards and imperialist war.

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    MAY DAY: CALIFORNIA

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    25 May 2012 300 hits

    May Day in Stockton, California was celebrated mainly by immigrants and Occupiers. Two PL’ers distributed leaflets in Spanish and English. It stressed the importance of internationalism and how we needed a society without borders or the wage system. We also stressed the importance of not relying on politicians; we must depend on the international working class. No unions were present. We’ve had brighter May Days here and we will see them again.

    Stockton Reds

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    MAY DAY: BOGOTA

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    25 May 2012 285 hits

    Approximately 50,000 workers participated in this well-attended march, defying bad weather and police threats. They occupied both sides of Seventh Avenue and adjacent streets, harassing and frisking workers. Union leaders carried signs with no messages, and whined about a better functioning capitalism. Peasants and indigenous groups denounced the genocide, against them during the last 50 years, because of the bosses’ thirst for maximum profits. 

    There were groups of retirees fighting against the reduction of their pensions, neighborhood mothers fighting for their jobs, workers marching with whistles and horns and all types of opportunists cackling about peace, sovereignty and social justice. 

    PLP arrived early. We distributed our literature, sold CHALLENGE and let marchers know about our revolutionary program. A Coca-Cola worker we knew and some veteran operators of Bavaria beer, encouraged by our meeting, introduced us to their co-workers and invited us to attend their meetings and to inform our readers about their conflict with their bosses. We chanted our slogans against wage slavery and for a worldwide communist revolution. We explained that while capitalists get richer from our sweat, we’ll be the ones who’ll bury them. Then we organized our group to raise our flag and chant our slogans as we marched. 

    Some youth and workers joined our group as a comrade called out the slogans and directed the group with a bullhorn to help us chant as a single voice: “Democracy is a capitalist farce, Let’s organize a communist revolution,” “One working class, One communist world, One Progressive Labor Party,” “Don’t support any capitalist, We offer communist leadership,” and 30 other slogans. Our chants generated interest amongst the marchers because we rejected reformism, wage slavery, fascism, nationalism, electoral politics, the capitalist dictatorship, racism, imperialism — always presenting the internationalist communist revolution as the solution.

    We marched with revolutionary pride, with raised fists, demonstrating our hatred of the class enemy, finally arriving at Plaza Bolivar, where we sung the Internationale. We highlighted the organization and discipline of our comrades and their active participation, and left in well-organized groups to prevent arrests by the bosses’ repressive apparatus.

    At the end of the march 160 people were arrested, some youth severely beaten and local businesses damaged. Shock bombs, pepper spray, water cannons and explosives emptied the Plaza. The march was also reduced by arrests of dozens of youth before it began, starting from different points in the city, in Soacha, Bolivar, and Restrepo.

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    MAY DAY: WASHINGTON

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    25 May 2012 323 hits

    WASHINGTON, DC, May 1 — “1, 2, 3, 4, We declare class war, 5, 6, 7, 8, Smash the system, smash the state!”

    Three hundred Occupiers and friends marched to the White House with red flags flying high to condemn the racist, capitalist system and politicians like Obama and Bush who foster imperialist war and the exploitation of the working class. Workers alongside the march saluted the May Day marchers with clenched fists of support and applause. 

    With the bullhorn cranked up to the maximum and pointed (illegally) towards the White House, the May Day marchers rattled the windows of the White House with revolutionary chants. The Labor Committee of OccupyDC vigorously organized all sections of Occupy to join this march. It was a smashing success, overcoming the fragmentation of the movement and demonstrating that the struggle that began with Occupy Wall Street last fall continues stronger than ever.

    Highlights included speeches by a Metro transit worker, calling on Occupiers and Metro workers alike to unify against the system, especially as fare hikes and attacks on workers both intensify on July 1; a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union organizer calling for ever bolder attacks on capitalism; a moving poem in the tradition of Langston Hughes written by a college student; a series of dramatic readings of May Day speeches from historic figures; several labor songs from the Labor Chorus including the Internationale in four languages;  and a final rally featuring grassroots labor leaders from Bangladesh, Honduras, and the Philippines providing solidarity messages.

    The PLP May Day march in New York and the Occupy May Day march in DC made many people realize the possibilities for revolution.  At a recent PLP club meeting, two marchers pledged to join the Party, and two others pledged to continue to march with the Party through next year.

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    CAT Workers Reject Boss-Union Pact; Walk Out on May Day

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    25 May 2012 275 hits

    JOLIET, IL, May 19 — About 800 Caterpillar (CAT) workers, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 851, struck at 12:01 a.m., May Day morning, after rejecting a proposed six-year contract that includes pay cuts and almost doubled healthcare costs. CAT made $1.5 billion in first-quarter profits.

    “You can only bend people so much until they can’t take it anymore,” said one striker. “Put it this way,” said another. “Under their proposed contract, I wouldn’t be able to afford to take my kid to the doctor.” 

    CAT wants to determine starting wages for second-tier new hires on a “market-based” formula allowing the company to pay even less than the current $13/hour. CAT also wants to eliminate guaranteed healthcare for current retirees, key seniority provisions and put workers on unpredictable schedules with shifts that change every week.

    Despite increasing profits by 44 percent over last year, CAT is stepping up attacks on its international work force. And while the workers have taken a bold a step by walking out, they should have no confidence in the pro-capitalist union leadership.

       • In January, CAT locked out 465 members of the Canadian Auto Workers union at a locomotive facility in London, Ontario, after they refused to accept a 50 percent wage cut. CAT then closed the plant and moved the work to a non-union plant in Indiana. 

       • Last year, 840 IAM members at a Honeywell plant in Kansas City and almost 200 IAM union members at Manitowoc Cranes in Wisconsin struck against concessionary contracts. After a few weeks, both strikes collapsed in the face of scabs, and then strikers, crossing the picket lines. 

    Similar things could be happening here. It underlines the need for revolutionary communist leadership, with the goal of leading the workers to power to abolish wage slavery, as opposed to hanging on at any cost to keep the dues money rolling in.

    The current International leadership is mainly concerned with making sure the bosses are profit-healthy and then, at best, hoping workers can “share” in the profits. These pro-capitalist union hacks are looking out for “their” country, “their” company and “their” factory, and then “their” workers. While it works for the bosses, it’s a dismal failure for the workers. 

    Red leadership would have shut CAT down internationally to keep the Ontario plant open.  And while the whole U.S. labor movement has been focused on Wisconsin for two years, it did not defend the 200 Manitowoc Cranes strikers in that state, even as they gathered one million signatures to recall Governor Walker.

    These union sellouts are marching the working class into the bosses’ electoral circus, away from sharpening the class struggle and supporting striking workers. We have our work cut out for us.

    1. Immigrant Worker’s Questions Stir PL’ers’ Thinking
    2. Class Struggle Heating Up Workers Strike Against Lockheed War-maker
    3. Mockingjay; Defeatist Finale: Workers Rebel, Win, But Nothing Changes
    4. Obama or Romney’s Goal: War and Corporate Profits

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