ASTORIA, QUEENS, NEW YORK, October 9 — Over 200 people rallied in a church this evening to discuss preventing the Greek neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn from opening an office in this largely Greek neighborhood. A number of people from Greece were there, including one of the former leaders of the Stella D’Oro strike in the Bronx, as well as teachers, students and labor activists.
The meeting began with a panel of six speakers, who provided a history of Golden Dawn — a group that uses Nazi symbols, celebrates Hitler’s birthday and has a record of attacking and beating immigrants and leftists. Fortunately, the latter have often defended themselves and “shown the fascists the pavement.” This is the only response thugs like the Golden Dawn respect.
Speakers also reasoned that Golden Dawn has gained some support in Greece, 7% of the electoral vote this year, because of the capitalist crisis that is also driving millions of workers there into poverty.
Golden Dawn, with origiins in Greece, pretends to be against the fascist austerity programs demanded by the Athens government and the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund. However, when workers fight back with a general strike or surround Parliament in protest, Golden Dawn is nowhere to be found!
Capitalism has left the Greek economy in terrible condition: one-quarter of the population is unemployed, and half of all young workers are jobless. Real wages are plummeting, poverty is rising and the recession is growing worse. The Greek government owes European and U.S. banks tens of billions in loans, so the bailout money it receives from the European Union goes directly back to those banks. As one speaker astutely pointed out, “This is a bailout of the big banks, not the people of Greece, who are suffering!” If the government fell, the banks would lose a source of stolen profits. It is in this painful crisis that Golden Dawn is helping the Greek and international ruling classes by winning workers to blame immigrants, Jews and leftists for the problems caused by the wealthy business interests. Appealing to nationalism, Golden Dawn frames the issue as one of “defending Greek sovereignty” rather than the working class fighting to defend its interests.
Older workers remember what fascism meant to them. In World War II, the German and Italian occupation of Greece killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, some by torture and execution, others by starvation. The communist-led Resistance movement heroically fought and defeated the occupiers and their Greek collaborators. They were later supressed by the British Army. In 1947 U.S. forces, under the global anti-communist Truman Doctrine, replaced the British military. From 1967 to 1974, a right-wing military junta brutally suppressed the working class, abolishing their unions and their political parties, forbidding demonstrations and subjecting tens of thousands to torture and/or prison. In 1974 the junta was overthrown and the new government tried and imprisoned the junta leaders.
During the 1980’s, the eventual leader of Golden Dawn, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, became friendly with some of the imprisoned former colonels from this junta and was encouraged to form a new fascist party. Today, the Greek police actively support Golden Dawn — 50% of them cast their vote for the neo-Nazis. The cops stand idly by while the racist goons attack immigrants and leftist rallies.
One of the speakers at the meeting pointed out that Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf, that the left had the opportunity to crush the Nazis in Germany in the 1920s when they were small. By 1933 it was too late, and the fascists proceeded to put leftists — especially leaders of the working class — into concentration camps. We can’t make the same mistake.
Progressive Labor Party members and friends plan to be active in the committees that were formed to continue organizing against Golden Dawn. We will emphasize two things:
• Multi-racial unity: The meeting was mostly white. We need to broaden our base of support, by participating in anti-racist and pro working class struggles throughout the city. Although no one mentioned it at the meeting, NYC cops recently murdered Noel Polanco, a 22-year-old young man who worked in Astoria. Mr. Polanco was stopped in his car and unarmed when a policeman shot him without any justification. We will join community protests, spreading the idea that we need working-class solidarity to win.
• Communism: While anti-fascist protests are great, we need to remember that capitalism has always — and will always — produce fascist groups to do its bidding. In the midst of the worst economic crisis in eighty years, not to mention the billions who are always facing grinding poverty, we need to build a revolutionary communist answer to capitalism while we organize against the fascist thugs that it gives life to.
NEW YORK CITY, October 12 — Members of the End Cholera in Haiti Organization (ECHO) came out today to rally at the UN in ECHO’s first public action in NYC, building on a petition campaign. This will be a long struggle with many such actions. We joined a protest with other Haitian groups and international activists against the continued stationing of UN Minustah troops in Haiti.
We highlighted the demands of our campaign to end cholera in Haiti: universal vaccination, beginning with schoolchildren; a country-wide network of treatment centers; and most fundamentally, a modern infrastructure for clean water and sanitation.
Comrades from Progressive Labor Party were there distributing CHALLENGE and explaining how capitalism continually causes these preventable water-borne diseases. It is an example of the gross racism of the imperialist system towards workers in places like Haiti or West Africa where these epidemics are allowed to spread.
It was Minustah who brought cholera to Haiti via their troops from Nepal who carried the disease. In October 2010, human waste from their base near the Artibonite River was dumped into the river. The first case of cholera in Haiti since the 1700s occurred just downstream of that Minustah base. The strain of bacteria in the resulting epidemic was found to be the same Asian strain that the Nepalese troops carried.
The disease spread like wildfire after that, infecting 600,000 and killing over 7,400, and crossing into the Dominican Republic where hundreds also died. Because of the continuing lack of access to clean water and decent sanitation in Haiti, the epidemic is far from over.
Earlier this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted that at least 100,000 more Haitians would become infected in 2012. Despite the consensus in the international health community that Minustah was guilty of introducing the epidemic to Haiti, the UN has yet to take responsibility and move decisively to stop the spread of this deadly disease.
In many parts of the world cholera is endemic or entrenched in the population. In such areas people carry the disease and continually spread it, making it very difficult to eradicate. Some health experts fear that this is already happening in Haiti. Cholera outbreaks continue to be on the rise globally, currently affecting 3-5 million people and accounting for 100,000-120,000 deaths yearly, according to the WHO.
These statistics will only worsen with the increasing trend toward the privatization of water. In fact, access to clean water and proper sanitation is the only real way to control this disease. That is why ECHO’s most critical demand is to force the rulers to come up with the billion dollars required to build a clean water infrastructure for the people of Haiti.
Although the area outside the UN where the rally was held was not as busy as hoped, it was most inspiring to see the enthusiasm of young ECHO members who chanted and picketed with posters and banners. One high school student of Haitian background, an ECHO leader, came forward and addressed the rally. He sharply made the point that the U.S. imperialists and the UN/Minustah troop occupation have brought only misery and death to people in Haiti. Another college student, who learned of the campaign only a week before, collected pages of signatures and expressed interest in joining the campaign steering committee.
Nearly everyone at the protest who was asked signed the ECHO petition. Several demonstrators noted that ECHO was not merely there to protest, but was attempting to build an international struggle and gave us their contact info to learn more. We work in concert with the campaign in Haiti itself, where another in a series of demonstrations is planned for October 19.
Judging by the response to our message thus far, we are encouraged. ECHO members have already begun speaking to student, union, church, health and community groups and have plans to reach out to more. Next time we return to the UN it will be in substantially greater numbers to put forward our demands more forcefully. PLP members working in the campaign argue that this vital effort should also be linked to building a revolutionary communist movement internationally. Joshua Horn’s book Away with All Pests tells the story of how communists in China eradicated diseases that capitalism has never been able to, such as syphilis.
For PLP fighting cholera is part of a struggle for a world which banishes the ultimate “pest,” capital itself, a world in which workers will never again be allowed to die of racist neglect.
On October 3, a strike by more than two million factory workers in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta brought the city to a halt. They’ve taken to the streets across the country to protest the government’s slave-labor wage policy. The minimum wage for a 6-day week is below $80 a month (see CHALLENGE 10/17).
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DC Transit Rank and File Sharpen Anti-Racist Contract Fight
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WASHINGTON, DC, October 16 — The bosses and their union misleader allies continue to attack Metro Access workers here. These drivers handle special trips for the disabled and elderly. In most major cities, such para-transit systems are generally treated as stepchildren of the mass transit systems, with wages and benefits far below regular bus and train operators. The bosses rely on private contractors to provide these poverty-level jobs and on racism to super-exploit these mainly black workers.
Here Metro Access is operated by MV Transportation, a contractor that is barely represented by ATU Local 1764. One DC Metro Access worker contacted a PLP member known for his long-time activism in the Metro transit union and said the workers wanted to leave their local because it didn’t serve their needs. However, the PL’er said it would be better for workers to organize a their own fight around a new contract for January 2013, including preparing to strike.
A group of eight workers met to map out such a contract and prepare for a strike. They made a priority elimination of the two-tier wage system which is dividing the workers. Nobody receives a decent wage. Under the current contract senior drivers make $17/hr while new employees are capped at $12/hr.
The group also discussed the issue of anti-communism since PLP is involved in this effort, and copies of CHALLENGE were shared with the workers. The campaign has just begun. MV Transportation has over 800 workers at two locations. The workers have organized a strong committee, but need to approach the entire workforce. They launched a web site to help in this effort: http://www.roaddawgsonline.com/ and prepared a flyer for mass distribution
So far the union leadership has refused to meet with this rank-and-file committee. They’ve told the workers they should disband because the union president will “take care of the contract.” Exactly! Another sellout! That’s the problem! Let’s get organized to sharpen the anti-racist class struggle of these workers.
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Community Fights Boss-Gov’t Anti-Immigrant Gang-up
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OAKLAND, CA ,October 16 — The coalition that organized the May Day March in the Bay Area is now mobilizing to support workers at the Mi Pueblo supermarket. PLP members are participating and joining the community boycott and picketing here on October 20.
Mi Pueblo has 21 stores and 3,200 employees, the majority of whom speak Spanish or are bi-lingual. The owner, Juvenal Chavez, expanded and got rich by selling traditional products from Latin America at high prices in immigrant neighborhoods while paying workers substandard wages. Many, both women and men, fought these conditions and have been fired. Meanwhile, Local 5 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union is trying to unionize this workforce as part of a state-wide campaign, the Mercado Workers Coalition, aimed at non-union, immigrant supermarket workers.
In August, Mi Pueblo announced the voluntary implementation of the Federal E-Verify program to check the immigration status of new employees. Recently Mi Pueblo revealed that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security is carrying out I-9 audits, called “silent raids.”
E-Verify, I-9 and ICE are all part of the fascist federal apparatus which is destroying the jobs, wages and living conditions of ALL workers in the U.S. It may appear to be aimed only at immigrants. Some politicians have argued that these “reforms” will open up more jobs for citizens. However, the experiences at Pacific Steel (over 200 fired; see CHALLENGE, 3/12), at Able Building Maintenance (450 fired) and at American Apparel (2,000 fired) show how “legal” citizen workers are hurt. Bosses like Juvenal Chavez can cooperate with ICE to fire long-time, “illegal” workers and then turn around and hire new “legal” citizen workers, currently unemployed and desperate for work, at an even lower wage.
If we accept divisions among workers based on ethnicity, gender, national origin or migration status, we lose. However, when we recognize ourselves as one international working class and develop multi-ethnic unity and internationalism among all workers, we gain! Workers’ struggles have no borders! An attack on one worker is an attack on the whole working class.
PLP believes that the boycott and pickets can mobilize and help organize this struggle. The boycott might force Juvenal Chavez to make concessions and a union contract might give some immediate relief to arbitrary firings.
However, both are not sufficient to get at the root of the problem, the capitalist system, of which Juveal is a willing, profitable part. Underlying this struggle is capitalism’s creation of massive racist unemployment, massive migration around the globe, repressive laws, discrimination of all kinds and institutional racism. In the long run, we must organize to destroy capitalism, even as we fight for relief from today’s oppression.
Join with us to build a new society, led by and for the international working class.
Communist revolution opens the door to abolishing racism, sexism and national borders if we make international working-class unity part of today’s battles. In a truly communist society there’s no money, no production for sale and profit and no wages to create differences among workers. This is a world that finally realizes the potential for all to participate according to their ability and receive according to their needs, sharing the value the working class collectively produces.
