CHICAGO, IL, January 28 —  “THEY SAY CUT BACK, WE SAY FIGHT BACK!”; “THE WORKERS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!”; “WE NEED OUR JOBS!”; These chants shook the halls outside a budget hearing as militant black women workers from Cook County and Provident Hospitals could not get into the packed hearing room. The commissioners were deciding how much money will be cut from each department, including hospital services and jobs. Our voices were heard loud and clear, inside and outside the hearing.

Driven by the war budget and the Great Recession, the bosses plan to sub-contract the jobs of hundreds of housekeeping, dietary and other workers.  These mostly black and Latino workers have historically been the mass base for PLP here. The bosses and bankers are also closing Provident and Oak Forest Hospitals, and have not restored the hundreds of jobs cut in 2007. The County health system is already more closed than open and more patients will die, all run by Democrats and in Obama’s backyard.

One doctor, a veteran anti-racist fighter, told the board that closing these hospitals was racist murder, comparing these cuts to what happened in Nazi Germany’s medical system prior to WW II. Someone also exposed short-staffing. It’s a scientific fact that complications — including death — increase sharply when the nurse:patient ratio exceeds 1-to-5 on medical-surgical units. At Stroger Hospital, nurses on these wards are routinely assigned 7 or 8 uninsured patients. Across the street at the University of Illinois Hospital, which only takes insured patients, proper staffing ratios are used.

The board did not respond and tried to carry on with their agenda when someone interrupted and said, “Start talking about patient care and these murderous cuts!”  The stunned directors actually did!  They asked the nursing supervisor to speak about the staffing ratios.  She admitted they were unacceptable and unsafe. They asked the human resources lackey what could be done to fix it. Not much it seemed. They didn’t discuss the hospital closings, but eventually ordered security to remove the worker who had interrupted them.

Furious and Fearful

Workers are furious over these deadly racist cuts. But that fury is dampened by cynicism and fear. For the past four years we’ve been subjected to mass layoffs, ward and clinic closings and reduced services when there is a growing medical need for more than one million uninsured workers in Cook County. Through it all, the unions have assisted the bosses in their dirty work and most workers don’t see a way out.

A nurse from Oak Forest Hospital said that the long-term care patients, some on ventilators and many who are paralyzed, were told they had to find a new nursing home by the end of January.  Some of these patients have been living at the long-term care unit for decades! She also said that the 38,000 patients who use the emergency room every year will be forced to go elsewhere when the hospital closes.  Many will likely try to go to Stroger Hospital which has seen an increase in its ER visits from 350 to over 500 patients every day.  Many others, who can’t make it to Stroger, will surely die. 

Our PLP County club is searching for ways for workers and patients to break the grip of fear and cynicism. The key is developing a mass base for CHALLENGE while always trying to up the ante against the racist rulers and their union misleaders. Fighting these murderous racist attacks on patients and workers can help build the revolutionary movement 

Open violent struggle has erupted in several North African and Middle Eastern Arab nations, inspired largely by the massive uprising of workers and students in Tunisia. That revolt has driven out President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who has fled to Saudi Arabia, reportedly with over a ton of stolen gold.

Workers are boldly fighting their bosses. In company after company —  airlines, insurance, petrochemical — workers are seizing management headquarters and demanding, with some success, that the bosses be fired. Workers are conducting regional and city-wide strikes nation-wide. In the cities of Sfax and Sidi Bouzid, mass workers’ organizations have actually seized political power, running out the mayor and city council and establishing direct organizational control over all city agencies.

These workers’ councils could develop a national network and seize power from the decrepit National Unity Government (NUG). But they don’t yet advocate expropriating the capitalists’ property and building a collectively-run communist society. Without bold communist leadership, they will fall victim to the illusion of “fair-play capitalism.” But revolutionary potential remains.

The sustained worker-student struggle continues to confront the remaining ministers from Ben Ali’s regime, including prime minister and self-proclaimed leader of a “National Unity” government Mohamed Ghannouchi.  Continued protests are demanding that all ministers of the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RDC) party be kicked out as simply being “Ben Ali light” who would maintain the same corrupt capitalist clique in power.

Embarrassed by the sustained mass, militant worker-student opposition to the phony NUG, both Ghannouchi and the interim president; the representatives of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) (trying to maintain their mis-leadership of the workers); the minister from the bourgeois Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberty; and the Progressive Democratic Party ministers are all abandoning the National Unity government, leaving it as an isolated rump. But no worker has been fooled by their transparent deception.

Workers’ Example Rapidly Spreads

Reflecting the explosive quality of the Tunisian rebellion, oppressed workers throughout North Africa and the Middle East are emulating these bold actions, with the major demonstrations against corruption, repression, mass unemployment and exploitation in Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, and Jordan. Saudi and Kuwaiti bosses are also quaking with fear.

Kuwait’s Mohammad al-Sabah recently told a foreign ministers’ meeting, “The Arab world is witnessing…unprecedented political developments and real challenges in…Arab national security….Countries disintegrate, people conduct uprisings...and the Arab citizen asks: Can the current Arab regime meet these challenges dynamically?”

In response to these workers’ rebellions, Egypt’s foreign investors are leaving in droves. According to Bloomberg News, “Overseas investors are reducing their positions because of the increased political risk stemming from what we saw in Tunisia,” said an executive of Cairo-based Acumen Securities.

THE TUNISIAN REVOLT

Motivated by massive youth unemployment, as high as 50%, poor prospects for the future, anger about the blatant corruption of the Ben Ali clique (and triggered by the desperate political suicide of a student without hope), a mass worker/student uprising challenged the Tunisian government. Ben-Ali’s offer of reforms and compromises were rejected by angry masses of workers.

Demonstrations, regional general strikes, occupations of government offices by angry workers and students continued and grew until Ben Ali could only flee. Ghannouchi, Ben Ali’s crony and prime minister over the past 20 years, took over but has also been rejected by the masses. The National Unity government is unlikely to remain. 

Desperate to save their skins, many of Tunisia’s leading figures, both traditional and reformist, have suddenly become the greatest “critics” of Ben Ali, despite having fed at Ben Ali’s family trough for decades. (Over half of Tunisia’s economic activity has been tied to Ben Ali’s family for years). Workers are having none of this.

Meanwhile, the police and army have become less reliable for the bosses because of rank-and-file soldiers’ sympathy for the uprising. Some soldiers were seen saluting demonstrators in a show of support. In the rebellion’s earliest days, Ben Ali actually fired the head of the military because he refused to order the troops to shoot down demonstrators.

The military leadership, using its newly-found credibility, is calling on students and workers not to occupy certain ministries or take “extreme actions.” Although rank-and-file soldier insurgency seems to be continuing in some places, the police and the military leadership have begun to clash with the most radical rebels. Youth throughout Tunisia are organizing “Liberation Caravans” to converge on Tunis, the country’s largest city and capitol, in order to take power. The police have attacked some caravans.

The forces of reaction are gradually trying to reverse the rebellion. Some reformists are calling for the ouster of the current government, replacing it with “reliable” leaders not implicated in the violence and corruption of the Ben Ali regime. These forces are attempting to mislead workers with the promise of “clean” — but still capitalist — government.

The working class’s potential power has been on full display in Tunisia, but the reformists, especially in the union federation, as always are deliberately holding back the struggle. Previously, rank-and-file workers have often occupied the union headquarters to force them to support strikes!

While a general strike to bring down the rump National Unity government and replace it with a workers’ government would be logical, that is not in the cards. Initially the UGTT tried to be part of the National Unity government rather than destroy it. Their role is similar to the AFL-CIO leadership in the U.S.: argue weakly for workers’ interests while promoting patriotism and “national unity.”

The Role of Phony ‘Leftists’

The Communist Party of the Workers of Tunisia (CPWT), whose leader Hamma Hammami was arrested early in the rebellion and subsequently released, has been immersed in the street battles and ministry occupations. The CPWT, however, is squandering this opportunity, calling for “democracy,” not workers’ power and communism.

Specifically, its January 15th nine-point program states, “The democratic change, with its political, economic, social and cultural dimensions, requires the real end of the repressive regime,…forming a provisional government…[with] executive powers,…organizing free elections for a Constitutional Assembly which would establish the basis of a real democratic republic…[consisting of] freedom, social equality and national dignity.”

Towards Communist Revolution and An International Party

The PLP supports the bold militant actions of Tunisia’s workers and students there and will support this rebellion internationally as concretely as possible. The sharp actions of Tunisia’s working class and its allies demonstrate conclusively that capitalism, with its exploitation, racism, corruption and wars, must be eliminated everywhere on the basis of workers’ internationalism and replaced by a communist society.

We don’t need bosses, and we shouldn’t be deceived by those who want to maintain a “cleaned-up” version of capitalism, markets, wage labor and money. We call on our brothers and sisters in Tunisia to consider our vision that so perfectly reflects their aspirations in the current struggle and build PLP there as well as worldwide!

U.S. and Tunisia’s Rulers: Partners in Terrorism

Ben Ali’s Tunisian police state has been an important U.S. ally in its imperialist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. A UN report lists Tunisia as having secret detention facilities where prisoners are held without International Red Cross access. Tunisian Intelligence Services have cooperated with the U.S. efforts in the “War on Terror” and have participated in interrogating prisoners at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan and in Tunisia. The U.S. State Department boasts about the active support the Tunisian security forces receive from the U.S. in spite of the Ben Ali’s government record of serious human rights violations. According to the Department’s website:

“The United States and Tunisia have an active schedule of joint military exercises. U.S. security assistance historically has played an important role in cementing relations. The U.S.-Tunisian Joint Military Commission meets annually to discuss military cooperation, Tunisia’s defense modernization program, and other security matters.” [Background Note: Tunisia, U.S. State Department, 13 October 2010: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5439.htm#relations 

 The U.S. has signed $349 million in military sales agreements with Ben Ali’s government. Last year the Obama administration asked Congress to approve a $282 million sale to  Tunisia of 12 “excess” Sikorsky military helicopters, with war-maker GE engines.

CALIFORNIA, January 17 — This last weekend forty students and workers went to central California to a communist school on Political Economy. Five high school students came from one city, traveling six hours there and six hours back just to study with us. We discussed what creates value, how the wage system works, and what creates capitalism’s crises. Here are some things that the high school students had to say about the school:

“My experience was fun. I learned about why certain jobs get a certain amount of money, but I don’t understand why they don’t take money from the rich people. Instead they take it from the people that can barely get by with the money they do have.”

“My experience today was quite interesting. I learned many new things as well. I learned how the system works more in depth, and where the value of certain things comes from. Everything was explained very well, which is a good thing because it gives me a better understanding of what’s going on. I heard many personal stories that involved the system and how they do things to profit off of their employees. Ultimately, the experience was very beneficial towards my understanding of political economy.”

“My experience was amazing. I learned the difference between socialism, capitalism, and communism. It was nice. I don’t understand why the government takes more taxes from us and less from the rich.”

“Something I learned from the cadre school is that the people that work for the fast-food places just throw away the leftovers and sometimes pour bleach on them so that no one can eat it. I was interested to know if it was the bosses’ fault, or if the bosses were just okay with the employees doing that. I learned that the bosses tell the employees that they have to do that because they are selling food, not giving it away. That’s the way capitalism works; it starves people.”

Participants all agreed that the bosses pay the workers a low wage and steal most of the value they produce in order to continue maximizing profit to compete against other bosses. Many linked the exploitation of workers’ labor by the bosses during the housing and dot.com crises to the continued enslavement of workers through tricks and the treachery of below-prime loans and stock market speculations.

Most people at the school agreed that crises will continue under capitalism and that the only alternative is communist revolution that will end both exploitation and money/wages. Only through communism can the working class organize and work for better conditions based on its own needs. This was the third communist school of a series planned on the West Coast, one each month. The next communist school will be in southern California, on democratic centralism. 

“Medical conditions like this just happen and that’s God’s plan. My sister had Lupus and she just died two days ago. It happened so fast. I dreamed about her last night. Why did God take her? That’s not for me to know…It’s a spiritual thing,” said a patient as she lay in bed.

Because of diabetes she had both legs amputated below the knees, and she suffered from hypertension and HIV. But in the housing project where she lives, her story is not unique. Recently another child died of cardiac arrest following a severe asthma attack, the third in a month for one Emergency Medical Service (EMS) crew. There’s nothing spiritual about heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, HIV and asthma murdering black workers and youth. It’s called racism and it’s the plague of capitalism.

On January 14, the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) released its “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” (MMWR), focusing on racial disparities in U.S. health care. Among the findings:

   • Babies born to black women are up to three times as likely to die in infancy;

   • High blood pressure is twice as common among blacks as whites;

   • Blacks die of strokes and heart disease much more commonly than whites, and die younger;

   • Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans, whether gay or straight, all have higher rates of new infection with the AIDS virus than whites, and the situation is worsening.

In 2007, the CDC reported that between 1979 and 2004, “Diabetes death rates for black youths were consistently higher than those for white youths. Additionally, whereas diabetes mortality did not change substantially for white youths during 1994-2004, death rates for black youths increased significantly.”

The U.S. Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality website reports that among pre-school children hospitalized for asthma, only 7% of black and 2% of Latino children are prescribed routine medications to prevent future asthma-related hospitalizations, compared with 21% of white children. The inequality in access to asthma medication is racist murder, considering that a routine asthma attack untreated with prescribed medication ends in death.

The increased deaths from diabetes and asthma are the racist results of mass poverty. The bosses tell us we need to make “better choices.” Michelle Obama exercises with poor kids and billionaire mayor Bloomberg wants to ban soda purchases from food stamps. Meanwhile, they offer mass racist unemployment, police terror, cutbacks and war. If they are so concerned, then we should have free medical clinics and decent supermarkets with fresh fruits and vegetables in every housing project and school. We’re not killing our children — they are!

The situation for workers in NY State grows even more desperate. The NY Post reported (1/22) that Governor Cuomo’s billion-dollar Medicaid cuts will force 10-12 more hospitals to close. Stephen Berger, a Cuomo advisor overseeing the cuts, cynically asked, “How many [hospitals] are really necessary?” Two paragraphs later the article reports: “Many of the hospitals teetering on the brink of financial collapse are located in the city’s poorer neighborhoods.”

PLP public health care workers are fighting for life. Our PL club is developing ties with, and spreading CHALLENGE to health care workers and those we serve, building anti-racist unity against murderous cutbacks and layoffs. Communist leadership is the antidote to the racist poison killing our children and destroying our jobs. In the course of this struggle we can build a Party organization in our community, at the nearby community clinic and hospital. The day the Post article appeared, hospital workers photocopied, posted and distributed 200 copies throughout the hospital’s Emergency Department, held informal meetings and made contacts to expand the fight-back.

As one veteran paramedic put it after reading the Post article: “This is war. Every worker in this city should respond to this attack by going for broke and shutting it down, so not a single thing moves. Nurses, bus drivers, teachers, everything. Everyone united. That’s how it used to be done and that’s how it should be done.”

Workers in the community and the hospital have been beaten and abused in every way by some aspect of this system. We are forced to sit and watch as our children are killed before our eyes by treatable diseases like asthma. In New York City, Port au-Prince or Gaza, building PLP means choosing life.