PORT-AU-PRINCE, November 13 — Up to 15,000 students and striking teachers marched through the capital today, their battle cry, “The  only solution is revolution”  filling the streets.

The march stopped at over a dozen public and private schools, with students and teachers swelling the ranks at each one. At many schools, large metal gates locked by administrators to keep students inside and marchers out were forced open by persistent students banging on and climbing the gates, signaling to the students and teachers inside that the strike was here to pick them up. Soon the gates were flung open and a flood of students poured out into the march. The demonstration was carried along on the energy and vitality of students chanting: “Schoolchildren today, university students tomorrow.”

Strike Spreads

In the militant march, tires were set afire and eventually the police shot into the crowd, essentially made up of schoolchildren, while the UN force MINUSTAH lobbed tear gas into the march for hours, including at the public hospital. Several students were arrested, several hospitalized for tear gas inhalation, and one injured when the police shot into the crowd. Strikes and walkouts also took place in other cities — St. Marc (where 2,000 marched), Gonaïves, Jeremie and elsewhere. 

This mass mobilization in Haiti, in the tradition of the only slave revolt ever to end slavery in the western hemisphere and establish a state, was called by UNNOH, a union of many public school teachers who struck against the horrendous conditions in the schools.

Three days before the strike university student Damaël D’Haïti was murdered by an off-duty cop (see CHALLENGE, 11/28,) and the rage of an entire community fueled the march, swelling the numbers of youth. UNNOH denounced the murder and took on the struggle of the youth as its own.

A multiracial group of PLP communists and friends participated and gave crucial leadership to the militant demonstration. Hundreds of copies of DEFI (the local edition of CHALLENGE) and an independent PLP flyer analyzing the limits of reformism and calling for communist revolution were distributed. More students stepped forward to provide leadership. Several will become DEFI readers and will be asked to join a Party study-action group.  

Capitalism Can’t Be Reformed

Before the march some students discussed the strike movement with PL’ers. The students were rightfully disillusioned by how often unions and reform movements fail, and by the fact that even when they succeed in extracting a few crumbs from the bosses’ table their success is often short-lived. As long as the system which profits from the exploitation of working people still exists, these ills will persist and reform struggles will continue endlessly. PL’ers spelled out the need to destroy the very capitalist system that’s responsible. A Party flyer explained how strikes can become schools for revolution, when PLP can lead our class to take state power. 

 As CHALLENGE has indicated previously, amid capitalism’s global crisis, workers’ living conditions in Haiti are worse than the already intolerable conditions of workers in the U.S., France and other imperialist countries. In Haiti, the imperialists control half the national budget. They are, in fact, responsible for the 70% unemployment rate; for the mere 10% of schools being publicly funded; for the classrooms crowded with up to 250 students; and for the pittance teachers receive as salary.

The international bosses’ plans are for war, not for alleviating the suffering of millions of workers in Haiti and worldwide.  The racist violence against the working class in Haiti, the UN troops in MINUSTAH, killer cops, union-busting and the cholera epidemic are all only a taste of the ugly reality that capitalism offers our entire class. Reform is not on their agenda. Meanwhile, imperialist “aid” organizations pour workers’ donations into luxury hotels like the one built by the Red Cross.

The Potential of United Workers

The strike and mobilization did succeed, however, in forcing the government’s Minister of Education to negotiate with the teachers’ unions, with talks scheduled to open November 23. Still, no demands have been granted. UNNOH vowed to maintain the pressure and put teachers on the alert if the talks did not quickly produce real results. Their two-day strike, supported by student and worker groups, showed what potential workers have when they’re united.

Demands include a living wage of $1,250 a month (they now average about $150, while rent for a small apartment in Port-au-Prince exceeds $100 a month); back pay (some teachers are unpaid for years and only come to work because of their dedication to their students); better conditions for students; hot meals for students and teachers; vaccination against cholera in all schools and colleges; and repeal of the 2% supplementary tax levied only on workers’ income, not on the bosses’.

Greater efforts are needed to spread such militant demands and strike action to other groups of workers in Haiti who unfortunately did not appear in large numbers to support the UNNOH strike.  That includes workers in the sub-contractor textile plants in free-trade zones like the one being built in Caracol in Haiti’s north. These zones are hailed by Hillary and Bill Clinton and the Haitian ruling class, but in reality use aid funds for the profits of the factory owners.

International Support

This strike had an international dimension. UNNOH thanked other teacher unions and their members from North America who supported the strike by sending letters, funds and organizers to Haiti. PLP members and friends helped build this support.  The international delegation on the march was protected from the police and MINUSTAH by comrades and friends.

Workers and students crossed borders during the months of organizing together, going from school to school throughout the country in recent weeks, building strike committees and winning student support. Workers’ struggles transcend all borders. Rebuilding international solidarity, in the great tradition of the communist movement, is an important step towards communist revolution. These modest efforts demonstrate that as we build internationalism in workers’ mass organizations, PLP is truly becoming an international Party.

BRONX, NY, November 17 — Tonight a crowd marked our weekly protest and march against the NYPD’s racist murder of 20-year-old Reynaldo Cuevas. The next time the police peddle their sick lie that their job is to “protect and serve,” we must remember Reynaldo’s murder and how they gunned down another innocent youth whose only “crime” was “living while Latino.”

On September 7, Reynaldo and his uncle were finishing work at the family bodega when they stumbled upon a burglary. Three armed robbers forced them to the floor. When the cops arrived, the two workers seized the moment to flee for safety. Or so they thought. Rey’s uncle ran outside with his hands up, with Rey right behind him. Surveillance video clearly shows Reynaldo fall onto the sidewalk in an attempt to avoid cop Ramysh Bangali. Bangali pounced on him, pointed the gun at his head and fired, killing him.

This was no accident. It’s part of kkkop Training 101: treat every black and Latino as a criminal, especially youth. This bosses’ terror is used to force black and Latino workers to accept poverty wages. For all the fake tears and excuses by Mayor Bloomberg and Police Chief KKKelly, Reynaldo was viciously gunned down, as an uncle uttered bitterly, “like a dog.”

But the racism doesn’t stop there. Ana Cuevas, Reynaldo’s mother, is still grieving the loss of her husband who, two years ago, was gunned down in the Dominican Republic (DR), an innocent victim of another burglary. That case too is saturated with racism. The DR is a virtual colony of U.S. imperialism, where it promotes tourism, drugs and prostitution for cheap profit. Some desperate workers turn to crime and the entire working class pays the price for a system that runs for the maximum profit of a few bosses while exploiting and reducing the overwhelming majority of workers to poverty. The Cuevas’s “American Dream” of a better life in the U.S. has been exposed as a racist nightmare.

In their grief and rage, Reynaldo’s family has courageously taken up the banner of protest. Drawing lessons from the Ramarley Graham and Shantel Davis struggles, the Cuevas family and supporters have been holding weekly protests and marches to the 42nd Precinct, one week for every year of Reynaldo’s life. During our last protest, several workers, women and men, stopped us to share their own stories of racist beatings at the hands of the cops and to scream obscenities at them outside the precinct.

The Cuevas family is rightly demanding that Bangali be indicted for Rey’s murder. But even as they chant, “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police!” they must also recognize that the fight is bigger than one murdered youth. We must view these protests as part of building a movement to destroy the very roots of racism: the capitalist system and its absolute need to super-exploit black and Latino workers for profit.

Progressive Labor Party has been — and will continue to be — involved in these struggles to offer comfort, support, and the political leadership necessary to wipe out racist police terror once and for all with communist revolution. JOIN US EVERY SATURDAY from 5-8 PM! Corner of 169th Street and Franklin Avenue in the Bronx.

New York, November 17 — Over 200 workers and students attended a conference to make plans to fight racism with multiracial, international unity. The goal of the day was to unite seemingly unconnected struggles into an antiracist army. Attendees were drawn from movements fighting back against the racist police murders of Ramarley Graham and Shantel Davis; fighting the layoffs and closing of Downstate Hospital; Hurricane Sandy victims and volunteers; immigrant workers’ rights organizers; workers organizing on their jobs; organizers of the anti-Cholera campaign struggle in Haiti and U.S.; as well as high school and college students and teachers.

The conference began with messages from representatives of these movements. The keynote speaker set the tone for the day when he called for workers and students to walk out if kkkop Richard Haste, Ramarley Graham’s murderer, was acquitted. Organizing a walkout isn’t easy, he said, but if we start building now in all our organizations then “if Haste walks, we walk,” could become a reality.

Particularly moving were reports from the teachers’ strike in Haiti, the campaign to end Cholera there and the emotional history of people’s fight to survive Hurricane Sandy. All this is occurring amid the racist treatment they faced from both governmental and Red Cross/Salvation Army-type organizations. Eleven hundred dollars was raised on the spot to help these displaced workers and their families.

Over lunch and later in numerous workshops, we shared experiences in organizing fights against racism. We discussed how racism is the bosses’ main tool to divide the working class from fighting back while super-exploiting brown and black workers around the world.  Therefore the main class to benefit from racism is the ruling class. 

We discussed the need of a multi-racial group to fight racism wherever it rears its ugly head.  

Out of these rich discussions, we agreed to participate in some specific anti-racist actions:

Plan and participate in a mass march against police violence from 1 Police Plaza to City Hall during the Martin Luther King weekend. 

Support the retired Downstate Hospital worker on December 4, 2012 at Brooklyn Criminal Court. He was arrested while supporting an anti-layoff struggle. 

Attend the December 11, 2012 trial of kkkop Richard Haste in the Bronx Criminal Court to show support for Ramarly Graham’s family while demanding that Haste be convicted.

Use petitions and a power point presentation to build the fight against the Cholera epidemic in Haiti. 

Most importantly, we agreed to bring these plans to our churches schools, jobs and the various organizations we belong to in order to build a mass response to racism.

WASHINGTON, DC — MARYLAND

Washington, DC, November 23 — Over 400 workers took to the streets here to protest slave-labor conditions at Walmart, the world’s largest retailer and third largest corporation. Walmart has branches around the world and over two million wage-slaves working for them. Fiercely anti-union, Walmart systematically keeps workers as low-wage part-timers to avoid paying any benefits, forcing workers onto food stamps and Medicaid to survive. If black and white workers fought a civil war to end racist chattel slavery over 150 years ago, it is high time to fight a revolutionary war for communism to end racist wage-slavery!

Such a revolutionary line was not, however, the order of the day except for the message brought to various rallies in the U.S by the Progressive Labor Party and its friends, distributing CHALLENGE to participants in the various actions around town and making several new contacts interested in revolution.

Marchers Confront Bosses, Cops

In the largest action in the DC area, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 organized a fleet of six buses at 7:30 a.m. to take unionists, community residents, and students to the Landover Hills Walmart in Maryland. This Walmart serves largely black and Latino residents and has fewer products and a lower quality than other Walmarts, typically how capitalist chain retailers treat their customers in a structurally racist manner. Marchers circled the store, chanting boldly against the mistreatment of its workers. They were quickly met by Walmart managers, backed by over 10 squad cars of police. 

The bosses declared that everyone would be charged with trespassing if they didn’t leave right away. Marchers responded with a brief prayer circle and then a march back to the buses in too quick a retreat, given their numbers. 

One bus travelled to another Walmart in Severna, Maryland where over 30 activists infiltrated the store and, at a given time, came together inside the store for an Occupy-style mic check. They loudly denounced Walmart. The workers were all smiles and the customers were very supportive — and then management and the cops aggressively intervened to throw out the activists. 

Workers Refuse to Back Off

In a separate action at the Walmart in Germantown, Maryland, over 25 unionists (machinists, teamsters, transit, and food workers) arrived to pass out leaflets and secure signatures on petitions. The UFCW again insisted on no confrontation, even instructing UFCW staff to take pictures of anyone “creating a disturbance” (i.e., getting militant against the boss) and report them to the police! The managers streamed out of the store demanding that the protesters leave, but the workers refused and continued their protest. The police said, in this case, that, since workers were not doing anything illegal, they would not move against the small group. Again, CHALLENGEs were distributed and new contacts made.

Finally, at the Clinton, Maryland Walmart, a team of three including friends of the PLP arrived to see if there was any action there. The cops were ready and primed at this site, aggressively confronting the team with hard stares. We were obviously guilty of SWB — Standing While Black. When one of our team approached the door, the manager came out with his walkie talkie blaring, so fearful was he of any possible labor action and fully determined to aggressively push back against any opposition, however slight.

Only a handful of Walmart workers participated in any of these actions. If the UFCW and its OUR Walmart organizing group expect to make progress in unionizing Walmart more broadly, a strong base must be built on a grassroots basis, store by store.  

Unionized or not, workers need to fight the entire system of capitalism and its racist structure. Unionized workers are being savagely attacked by a gang-up of the bosses and the union misleaders throughout the country, so bolder revolutionary organizing is a must in the face of severe economic crisis.  From the contacts made today and the reinforcement of the relationship of PL’ers with their friends in the grassroots of the unions and Occupy DC, a growing revolutionary struggle will be possible in the coming period.

CHICAGO

CHICAGO, November 23 — A coalition of unions with the acronym OUR Walmart, (Organization United for Respect at Walmart) organized several hundred workers to picket at various Walmarts on Black Friday. Over the years, Walmart workers in the U.S. have tried to unionize but have met with fierce resistance. The bosses have consistently responded with reduced hours, firings and other hostile retaliation. In the face of this abuse, workers valiantly organized a strike action on the biggest shopping day of the year, without an official union.

Many corporations operate in the red (losing money) all year until Black Friday, when companies start to get into the black (turning a profit) because millions of workers begin their holiday shopping.

Lower Prices = Super-Exploitation

Each member of the Walton family (owners of Walmart) has amassed billions in wealth by paying retail workers poverty wages and international factory workers even less. The average Walmart worker only makes $8.81 an hour, and as many as 80% need food stamps. In many states, Walmart workers are the top recipients of Medicaid. Meanwhile, Walmart receives more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land and other government “handouts.” If that wasn’t bad enough, Walmart factory workers in China and other countries face deadly working conditions for unlivable wages and no benefits (NY Times). Walmart is also notorious for using child labor abroad.

Turn Black Friday Into Red Friday

The Progressive Labor Party supports Walmart workers in their struggle for livable wages and acceptable working conditions. Unfortunately, calling for the unionization of one corporation is not enough to end the racist, sexist exploitation that is the foundation of capitalism. Workers must see this and other strikes as opportunities to train ourselves to fight our class enemy, the capitalists. Other workers should honor the Walmart picket lines, discuss the fight back with others and call for other workers to strike in solidarity. Ultimately, a revolution must occur where workers seize state power from the murderous, profit-driven bosses. When we establish communism, each worker’s labor and input will be invaluable in the advancement of society. Join PLP.

LOS ANGELES

Los Angeles, November 23 — When the Walmart workers arrived, the anticipation turned to excitement. Weeks prior, PL comrades met insurgent Walmart workers who had organized a walkout at their Southern California store (see CHALLENGE, 10/31). After several visits, PL organized a BBQ for them as they prepared for the “Black Friday” strike actions that took place last week. These Walmart workers striking against the world’s largest retailer and private employer create the opportunity for PL to build class consciousness, an important step towards developing a communist outlook. 

A comrade welcomed the workers and began the discussion by linking their struggle to that of teachers, students, airport workers, bakers, miners and all workers under attack by capitalism in crisis. When the workers spoke, our group of about 25, who participated in the BBQ despite the rain, learned first-hand about the retaliation Walmart unleashes on their “associates” who are told they are a part of the Walmart “family.” 

Workers have been written up, fired, harassed and had their hours cut, all publicly for customers and coworkers to witness. “It all happened out on the floor of the store, not even in the manager’s office,” said one of the workers. 

Building up to the Black Friday strike, part of a strike wave against the giant retailer, Walmart took an aggressive stance. In addition to their policy of humiliation and intimidation, the company also filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, calling the workers’ actions illegal and sent out a memo to managers that advised them to threaten protesters who “trespass” with arrest. 

A Latina worker central to the organizing asserted: “We make Walmart work! Without us there would be nothing! And to be treated like this?” Another shared that many coworkers, including her, are unable to afford healthcare costs due to part-time hours, low wages and expensive co-pays. Workers with chronic illnesses, women, and black and Latino workers bear this disproportionately.

The week following the PL BBQ, several hundred workers (including warehouse workers from the Inland Empire where this fight was initiated), students and community members attended actions, including pickets, marches and civil disobedience, that were organized by various labor unions in front of three different Walmarts in Southern California. PL participated in these actions, providing water and offering healthcare support for the picket, in addition to a communist analysis of the fight against capitalist exploitation. 

These recent actions against the giant Walmart can serve as an inspiration to workers everywhere. Through militant strikes and walkouts, working-class people become aware of their collective power and learn that fighting back against exploitation, racism and sexism in the workplace works. Organizing together and fighting together works. Communists agree, but we extend that analysis to all of society. One worker stated, “I can defend myself and speak for myself. But I am not heard. It is only when we stand up together that we are heard and make a difference.” More than anyone, communists agree.    

BOSTON

Boston, November 23 — Six members and friends of the PLP, including two students, leafleted and distributed CHALLENGE in the Walmart parking lot, mostly to customers. The response was generally supportive. The team renewed relations with an old friend who was shopping there and who had marched on May Day with PLP a few years ago. He was eager to get back in touch. Other responses from the people the team met included “Yes, it would be better if workers ran everything” and “Yes, we need to kill all those bosses”. Many customers, knowing how abused the workers were, nevertheless felt trapped by having to shop there.