PARIS, February 24 — “Everyone here is a worker who has no rights,” declared Mahamadou Doucansy, among the undocumented immigrant workers who have been striking to win “legal” status. “They have been working in France for years, paying into social security, paying taxes and not one has documents,” continued Doucansy, who has been working here in construction since October, 2001, for the minimum wage. He is one of 250 strikers occupying the premises of the Job Training Insurance Fund since February 2. They are preparing for a police attack to evict them.

All told the cops have violently removed sit-downers from 50 occupied sites during the four-month strike, but the thousands of immigrant workers are holding fast. The solidarity from other workers and students here and from abroad has helped sustain them. (See letter to CHALLENGE, 3/3.)

This strike defies the bosses’ policy of super-exploiting such workers, holding them hostage to poverty wages under threat of deportation but without whose work whole industries could not function. It brings to the fore the bosses’ anti-working class and racist attacks based on borders established by national ruling classes.

Citizen-worker support for these immigrant strikers has international political significance since it helps to raise sharply the need of workers worldwide to smash the bosses’ borders. This kind of unity is essential to prepare workers to take the only road that can free our class from capitalism exploitation, the road to communist revolution. 

PARIS, February 27 — A demonstration of 7,000 people demanded the abolition of the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity and the “legalization” of all undocumented workers. They linked France’s treatment of undocumented workers to its history as an imperialist colonial power. They chanted “Besson, Sarkozy, it’s over, the time of colonies.” Besson is the minister of immigration and “national identity”; Sarkozy is the president of France. Eighty-five organizations supported the march to the Immigration Ministry building.

The demonstration was part of the “anti-colonial week,” February 19 to 28. Patrick Farbiaz, one of the organizers, declared, “We would like to show that there is a link between the colonialism of yesterday and that of today in the way that the descendants of immigrants and undocumented immigrants are treated.”

An environmental service worker at a Brooklyn hospital, known to his coworkers as “A.D.,” passed away at the age of 54 on December 28, 2009. His life, shortened by the capitalist health care system, was spent in service to the working class. He was on the frontline of making the hospital a safe and clean environment for the working-class patients. He gave his time and energy to PLP as well, helping to distribute CHALLENGE in the hospital and cooking food for May Day celebrations.

In mid-December, he began complaining of severe pain in his knees and so took time off and visited his doctor. As a diabetic, he was concerned about his blood uric acid, high levels of which can lead to gout. The day after he visited the doctor he had a stroke and was rushed to the very same hospital he gave many years of dedicated service. In the emergency room, the care he needed was not immediately given.  From the emergency room, he was admitted to a floor.  Even on the floor, the care he needed was not provided.  A.D. suffered another stroke; this time a code was called, summoning emergency attention from doctors and nurses, but it was too late.

At A.D.’s funeral service, a delegate from the hospital gave a passionate speech, reflecting on A.D.’s short life.  He spoke of his dedication to the job and his hope that he could provide a healthy environment for the patients. He will be sorely missed by his comrades here. 

NASSAU COUNTY, NY, February 20 —

Grievances and labor laws or class struggle? How do we win co-workers who have been temporarily co-opted by the bosses’ games of favoritism, racism and sexism? Can white workers be won to understand that racism hurts them? How is the goal of communist revolution connected to these problems?

These are some of the questions threaded through meetings of hospital workers as we try to organize against the bosses’ attacks.

One meeting several weeks ago began with a hospital worker passing out a recent CHALLENGE article written about the workers’ fights. Then he made sure everyone got the newest paper. From there began a lively debate about how to fight the hospital bosses.

In the weeks before the meeting a flyer mysteriously appeared all over the hospital. It publicized the attacks on workers in various departments. In many cases these attacks were clearly racist, since they appear to be restricted to black workers. Several housekeeping workers were just fired and workers from another department had been written up and suspended. The flyer called on workers to organize to fight back.

After the flyer, the fired workers were reinstated. The workers did involve the union with their terminations, but the assessment at this meeting was that the flyer definitely played a role in the bosses reversing the firings. At the same time the bosses and the union leaders began threatening anyone they suspected was associated with the flyer.

The rehiring of the fired workers and the reaction from the bosses and union leaders fueled a lively debate. Some of the workers wanted to understandably focus on the write-ups and the technicalities of the grievance cases. Other workers connected these attacks to the bigger things going on around us like the capitalist economic crisis, widening wars and deeper fascism.

The workers who had received write-ups do see the disciplines as racist and are dissatisfied with many of the union delegates whom they view as either in the bosses’ pockets or unwilling to fight militantly. From this point the debate began between the ideas of fighting the bosses mainly by union grievances and the bosses’ labor laws versus developing class struggle against the attacks and building to communist revolution. That first meeting ended with the consensus that the workers would work on the grievance cases at the same time we’d work to build a rank-and-file fight.

At another meeting we heard reports that the threats from the bosses and the union leaders continue against the suspected “trouble-makers.” Also, another worker was fired. The debate continued between relying on grievances and labor laws versus class struggle and communist revolution. Another point of discussion this time was the need to win white workers to understand how racism hurts them.

The workers at this meeting made plans to continue the fight against the racist firings and write-ups. Several of them want to join a PLP study-action group. It’s no surprise since many of them are part of CHALLENGE networks