BROOKLYN, May 26 — Nurses, maintenance staff and clerical workers occupied the lobby of the Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center. These workers are Fighting against a pattern of racist hospital closures and cutbacks affecting workers in nearly 500 hospitals. The 3,500 workers in this hospital in the Brownsville neighborhood have lost their health insurance coverage because Brookdale has fallen behind in paying $23 million to their benefits fund.

The Brookdale administration claims that it fell behind on payments over the past six months due to its well-publicized financial struggles. But apparently the hospital’s parent company, MediSys Health Systems, had enough money to bribe State Senator Carl Kruger and Assemblyman William F. Boyd, Jr.

In March, federal prosecutors unveiled a criminal case against CEO David F. Rosen, who received millions of dollars in state and city grants and other favors in exchange for giving the politicians fake but well-paid “consulting” jobs. MediSys is also the parent of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, another major hospital close to bankruptcy. This obscene corruption is nothing new under capitalism, and will remain the norm until workers remove profits from healthcare entirely by smashing it with communist revolution. The fight-back at Brookdale can be one step in that direction.

Brownsville is one of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods, and is 96% black and Latino. For insurance, the community relies primarily on Medicaid, which was cut this April by $2.8 billion. According to a May 2010 study by the Fiscal Policy Institute, unemployment here is 15% to 20%, or about twice the city’s 9.2% average.This excludes from the unemployment rate : the overworked, underpaid, and job-hunters, and those who’ve given up.

The infant mortality rate is on par with Mexico’s —  at 16.7 deaths per 1,000 live births — whereas the U.S. national average is 6.3 deaths per 1,000 births. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, only 32% of the population has a high school diploma, and the neighborhood contains the highest concentration of public housing projects in the United States.

In addition, Brownsville residents suffer epidemic proportions of chronic, racism-induced conditions like hypertension, asthma, diabetes, and obesity, more than double the rate of white workers just a few miles away in Long Island.

As they face the brunt of the current economic crisis, black and Latino workers depend on Brookdale as the sole provider of health care in the entire community. Now the hospital’s bosses, after receiving millions of dollars in political favors, cry that they’re too poor to insure their own workers.

In a city where eight hospitals have shut down in the past five years, these racist attacks on Brookdale Hospital workers and the community of Brownsville are being done deliberately to increase profits. (See box.) But since healthcare costs continue to spiral as more workers suffer capitalist-induced diseases, workers are forced to swallow the bitter pill of worse care in fewer available hospitals and clinics At the same time, healthcare providers’ wages and benefits are driven down. The Brookdale bosses demonstrate that healthcare under capitalism — whether it’s labeled “Obamacare,” “single-payer,” “non-profit,” or “for-profit”— will always fail the working class and unleash racist misery, especially on black and Latino workers.

The union representing these workers, Local 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, is no friend of those it claims to serve. While trumpeting its legal victory for the occupation after Brookdale attempted to get a court injunction, 1199 has followed the footsteps of the UAW for years, negotiating wage-cut contracts while refusing to mobilize its more than 260,000 mostly black and Latino members in the city againsts a single hospital closure.

Instead of relying on union misleaders, our PLP club is mobilizing its members and CHALLENGE readers within 1199 SEIU and the hospitals and communities. We’re working to support an informational picket in front of Brookdale Hospital on June 15. By making contacts and distributing CHALLENGE, we plan to help fan the flames of anti-racism in this fight-back and continue strengthening our growing work in area hospitals and communities. We encourage all Party members and friends to distribute CHALLENGEs and join us on June 15!J

The Reality Behind the ‘Non-profit’ Hospital

Many hospitals in the United States refer to themselves as “non-profit,” or (in an an older term) “voluntary non-profit.” They are, however, just as profit-driven as their “for-profit” counterparts. The biggest difference is that “for-profit” hospitals pay taxes while “non-profit” hospitals do not because they supposedly perform a “community benefit.” According to a March 12, 2007 article in the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal-Gazette:

“…some of the things that non-profits count as community benefit are things that for-profit [hospitals] consider the cost of doing business...”

“A non-profit tax expert [says]... there is no standard for what constitutes a ‘community benefit.’ That allows nonprofit hospitals to set their own rules.”

“This core myth that non-profits exist to serve the poor was never true. ...it was never the historic reason for it... they’re not required to serve the poor, they’re not required to lose money, [and] they’re not required to underpay their employees.”

“The people united will never be defeated!” rang through the main street of Massapequa Park, outside the office of Rep. Peter King, the U.S. congressman who is building racism and xenophobia by holding hearings on Muslims. Eighty people chanted after one of the keynote speakers spoke of the need for unity of all people against bigotry, racism and hatred. By providing communist leadership to this movement, we can demonstrate that racism is a tool of the larger, systemic problem that is capitalism.

People from peace groups, church groups and others united to speak out against King’s poisonous ideas and to help build a new and growing coalition. There were many different ideologies within the circle of demonstrators chanting on the street that day. But almost everyone joined in chants like, “Muslims, Christians, Jews unite. We’re all in the same fight.”  There were cops on the street and a handful of King supporters who were shouting their usual garbage about demonstrators “not being Americans.”

The various groups that are working to develop relationships and build the movement against racism and xenophobia face a long and uphill struggle. A number of cars drove past; some people hooted at us while others supported us. About half the demonstrators and some passers-by took CHALLENGE.

The church group that sponsored the demonstration also organized a march against AgroProcessors for their abuse of Mexican-born workers, as well as a march in Staten Island against racist attacks on Latinos. These were other examples of uniting people against racism. All of these struggles grew out of church forums to educate members and friends about the particular manifestations of racism. We are getting better at developing these actions. We will do more and become stronger as the struggle continues.

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA, May 1 — Over 60,000 people participated in the May Day march, commemorating the day of the International working class. There were courageous youth who hissed and ridiculed harassing cops and politicians claiming to be the saviors of the working class. There were trade union misleaders demanding more crumbs from the capitalist system, and groups of peasants and indigenous communities, displaced by violence, denouncing state and paramilitary crimes.

There were relatives of the disappeared demanding justice, workers in low-paying jobs denouncing their abusive bosses, groups of teachers and students rejecting the privatization of public education. Doctors and nurses denounced the enormous theft of healthcare resources. Opportunists of every shade and color sabotaged the event with loud whistles and without any slogans, dancing as if in a carnival.

Members of PLP began the distribution of more than 3,000 revolutionary fliers and the selling of CHALLENGE very early. Comrades and friends, women and men, arrived in small groups to avoid police harassment. We organized ourselves behind our signs and proudly raised the red flag with the distinctive symbols of our Party.

We all, workers and students, enthusiastically chanted:

 “Changing presidents, kings or dictators do not free us from the yoke!”

“Democracy is a capitalist farce, organize communist revolution”

“Reject every capitalist option, Always lead with communism!”

“One working class, one communist world, and one Progressive Labor Party!”

“Against capitalist usury, a communist worker state!”

“Take advantage of capitalist wars to organize communist revolution!”

Several groups participating in the march chanted along and joined our contingent, which grew to almost a hundred strong. A group of workers insisted on sharing their lunch with us to express support for the revolutionary politics of PLP.

During the march, we advanced as far as Plaza Bolivar, where we sang the Internationale, but soon after, as is often the case, we had to face police brutality in the form of tear gas, stunt explosions and water cannons.

We made many contacts with the workers and students we had met. We plan to take advantage of this capitalist crisis to politicize workers’ struggles and direct them towards an international communist revolution.

The New York Times (NYT) reported on May 31st that housing prices fell for the eighth straight month and hit the lowest level since the current depression began. According to ShadowStats, the actual unemployment rate has crept back up to 22.3%, despite a brief dip down to 22% in March as seasonal employment began to pick back up. Consumer spending has remained flat as wages continue to fall, despite a small spike due to rising gas and food prices.

The April index of pending deals (a measurement of anticipated home sales) dropped well below a predicted 1% dip to a collapse of 11.6%. With continuing high unemployment and mass wage-cuts, workers are in no position to buy a house in a market flooded with foreclosed homes.

According to the NYT (5/22), banks currently own 872,000 foreclosed properties and in are in the process of foreclosing on one million more. As long as this massive shadow inventory of homes exists, housing prices will continue to fall.

In his blog, economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman (5/25) proposed that the U.S. is entering a third great depression, less like the Great Depression of the 1930s and more like the Long Depression that dragged on for four decades, from 1873 to the start of World War One. Workers should be warned that both the Long Depression and the Great Depression were worldwide crises in the capitalist imperialist economic system, and that they were “alleviated “ only by world wars.

A blogger writing on the continuing depression comments, “Congress just doesn’t seem to ‘get it.’ They don’t understand what people are going through” (Mike Whitney, Counterpunch, 5/27). Yet the facts are so obvious and the government’s effort to confuse it is so thorough that one would be hard-pressed to conclude that the capitalist class and their political minions don’t “get it.”

Capitalists Use Crisis to
Attack Workers

Capitalists are predictably using this crisis as an excuse to launch an attack on workers in the U.S. that is unprecedented in the modern era. Using national and state debt as an excuse, legislators have begun to undo the last vestiges of the social safety net that capitalists reluctantly put into place under the New Deal. These 1930s reforms were aimed to deflect the anger of workers who were organizing mass protests and industrial unions with Communist Party leadership.

Unemployment and welfare benefits are being cut when they are needed most. The recent attacks on government workers’ unions have largely finished off what remained of the right of workers to organize. At the same time, banks have been granted unprecedented power over workers’ financial livelihoods and bosses given huge leeway in their right and ability to abuse and exploit their workers.Capitalism survives on workers’ blood. This parasitic system will continue to breed sexism, racism, poverty and imperialist wars.

The working class can only combat this blatant capitalist attack by organizing for a class war of our own. Multi-billionaire Warren Buffet was correct when he said, “There’s class warfare, alright, but it’s my class that’s making war, and we’re winning” (NYT 11/26/06).

PLP urges workers to join with us in organizing a mass, revolutionary communist party. Only such a party, with a communist analysis of the capitalist system, can lead the fight to smash capitalist exploitation once and for all.