Newark, February 28––“I am a worker!” These words were echoed again and again throughout the Coalition of Rutgers Unions’ day long “Take Back the University” event at the college’s Newark Campus. The three-part day of protest, which marked the beginning of the faculty union’s strike authorization vote, included two teach-ins about solidarity and striking, as well as a rally aimed to disrupt the meeting of the university’s Board of Governors (BOG).
On the heels of the Take Back the University day of protest, and after months of fruitless negotiations with the bosses, the 8000 academic workers of Rutgers AAUP-AFT faculty union have officially authorized a strike. Many reforms are on the table, including pay equity, health care, maternity leave, and job security for adjunct professors and graduate students. Though these reforms would certainly benefit those who receive them, strikes are best measured by their ability to mobilize and raise the consciousness of the working class.
Despite freezing rain and fresh snowfall, and the university bosses’ last minute cancellation of in-person classes and the BOG meeting, nearly 200 people made it out. While union misleaders spoke in support of electoralism and the bosses’ capitalist system, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members provided key political leadership by consistently pushing discussion and chants beyond the specific problems facing Rutgers’ faculty and graduate students, and toward communist ideas of class consciousness and multiracial unity.
Cowardly bosses are a no-show
The night before the Rutgers AAUP-AFT “Take Back the University” day of protest, Rutgers’ Board of Governors announced that it would be switching its only meeting set for the Newark campus this year to Zoom. The Newark administrators also took advantage of the light snow conditions and moved all classes that day from in-person to virtual. They claimed this was for the safety of students and workers, and yet janitors and dining hall staff still had to come into work despite the weather. This differential treatment by the bosses, meant to divide and isolate the members of the working class from each other, was the subject of the first teach-in of the day.
PLP members made clear connections between the shallow identity politics the university and unions advertise, and the neglect, displacement, and mistreatment of the Black and Latin working class in Newark. Our members explained about the university’s role as a capitalist institution, one that exploits Black and Latin maintenance workers while also conditioning students with the nationalist and identity-based ideas needed to recruit our class to fight in WWIII. Our comments were then quoted by other workers in their rally speeches. The bosses’ cowardice was not shared, and workers were present, receptive, and encouraged by this communist-led action.
Cult of personality on display
While unions offer workers an important tool for organizing our class against the bosses’ racist exploitation, they also contain contradictions that cannot be overlooked. Like all reformist organizations, they ultimately work to prolong the lifespan of capitalism.
By endorsing liberal politicians and negotiating “in good faith” with our exploiters, unions work to win our class to this terrible world order. This was clear at the Rutgers day of protest, where Association of Flight Attendants president Sarah Nelson lied on stage about receiving a phone call from liberal misleader Bernie Sanders, and falsely declared that “workers can control capitalism.” Amazon Labor Union president, Chris Smalls was also in attendance, and only repeated the same played out phrases about union work being a “marathon, not a sprint,” and arguing bureaucratic union density is our class’s most important fight.
Both Nelson and Smalls played on their own notoriety by taking selfies with fans and starting chants disparaging Jeff Bezos and other billionaires. They both advocated for the replacement of famous bosses but not their total defeat. These are opportunist lines for those looking to advance their political careers.
Members of PLP helped to shift the dialogue away from these misleaders’ talking points, moving the chants away from specific U.S. bosses and toward multiracial unity, at one point having everyone in attendance shouting, “Asian, Latin, Black and White, workers of the world unite!”
Our Party refuses to lean on the cult of personality and lie to workers this way, arguing that our class already runs the world, and that agreeing to the terms of our exploitation at the bargaining table only helps the ruling class keep us under their boots longer. The only solution is a communist revolution!
Strikes are schools for communism!
More than 50 Rutgers workers and supportive community members received copies of CHALLENGE at the union event, and our Party is committed to continuing to provide leadership to our class on the picket line if a strike is called. PLP views strikes as schools for communism. Striking is an important first step in understanding our power to fight back against the bosses’ exploitation, and the more workers–inside and outside academia–that come to understand their class position, and the power we have when we work together as a united, multiracial, and international communist party, then we can finally begin to come out of this dark night and one day win the world. Join us!
BRONX, NY, February 16–“If you love CUNY so much, why don’t you take a pay cut?”
City University of New York (CUNY) students militantly challenged University Provost Wendy Hensel at her administration’s “Listening Tour,” a liberal sham of an event with the intent of squelching the rebellion of antiracist, working class youth. Along with students, CUNY professors and staff members are fighting back against tuition increases and racist austerity in the higher education system. One young comrade led chants for the first time, ensuring the administrators could hear us from outside.
This is the fighting spirit workers worldwide need to see, especially on International Workers’ Day, May Day! Fellow antiracist fighters at Kingsborough Community College joined with CUNY students later in the week to share their organizing experience against police terror on campus and in the streets. It’s important for the future of our class that students make connections across campuses as a way to gain confidence in our class’ ability to control our own education and labor.
Liberals: The wolves in sheep’s clothing
CUNY is a perfect example of liberal bosses being a greater danger to our class. Every political leader involved, from the president of KCC, the CUNY Chancellor, the mayor of New York City, to the governor of New York State (who is pushing for a raise in tuition at CUNY), are liberals. They are hiding behind their “identities,” planning to launch wave after wave of racist attacks while hoping to diffuse the anger of students and workers. Members and friends of Progressive Labor Party have consistently exposed these misleaders for what they are: agents of capitalism and enemies of the working class.
Capitalism is the deficit
According to the racist administrators of CUNY, the university system has a $194 million “structural deficit.” During the Covid-19 lockdown, the federal government provided hundreds of millions of dollars to CUNY – which they promptly used to cover previous deficits and to buy equipment they could use to push unproven online teaching practices. The torrent of federal funding did nothing to improve the education of the more than 200,000 primarily Black and Latin students at CUNY. Class sizes increased, despite the clear evidence that online courses need to be smaller for students to learn effectively (see study, Oregon State University, 11/1/2021). Furthermore, administrative offices such as the registrar and financial aid suffered a loss of staff that was not replaced. Now that these federal dollars have dried up, the racist austerity at the core of the entire system has reared its ugly head.
CUNY’s answer to this deficit is two-fold: the first is to fire as many part-time professors (adjuncts) as possible, and the second is to harass our students to pay the tuition that they owe. Capitalists always try to make us pay for the crises in their system. In this case, the University Provost, who makes $488,000, was there to explain why the students and workers of CUNY will have to tolerate even more racist cuts. We met her with a loud protest, highlighting that these rapacious vipers saw fit to give themselves 30 percent raises right before the cutbacks were announced! We stressed both the need for multi–racial unity to fight back and the need for students and workers to fight together. As part of our ongoing struggle within the group, we raised the question of whether education under capitalism will ever be willing or able to properly educate our class.
Fightback forum – KCC leads the way!
In the Bronx , workers and students have taken inspiration from our class brothers and sisters at Kingsborough Community College (KCC), who, as reported in the pages of CHALLENGE, have taken on the racist administration at KCC. Later in the week, the brave students of KCC visited our campus to describe the ongoing fight against their racist administration, which continues to target antiracist students and professors while giving an openly racist student a security detail as he moves about the campus. Forty students and professors had a chance to learn about organizing and fighting back against fascist attacks from the KCC administration, which happens to be Black and Latin. We discussed how to counter identity politics, how to maintain the fighting spirit after months of work, and how to build a multiracial group that can respond to every attack with strength. Students from both campuses got a chance to exchange ideas and experiences and also enjoy some delicious food prepared by the mutual aid kitchen, La Morada, which has been supporting workers in the South Bronx community with hot meals, clothing drives, and solidarity. The forum ended with a group photo – students and workers from across CUNY, fists up in solidarity, giving a glimpse of the power that our class possesses.
Another world is possible!
The students and workers of CUNY need communism. We need a system where workers can truly be educated on what’s best for our class and how to organize society around our needs. No more racist administrators protecting racist students, no more racist cuts in education, no more precariously-employed adjuncts scraping by before being unceremoniously dumped into unemployment. This week, students and workers in the Bronx were nudged closer to seeing this future as one they are willing to fight for. We hope to bring a large contingent to May Day and bring them even closer!
The following poem was written by the communist fighter, Langston Hughes (1938). Hughes refers to communist Angelo Herndon who was arrested and convicted of insurrection after organizing Black and white industrial workers in 1932 in Atlanta, Georgia. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were members of the German Communist Party. They were murdered for fighting against German imperialism and war.
This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.
Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Organizing workers
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together
Whites and Filipinos,
Negroes and Mexicans,
All kinds of kids will die
Who don't believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.
Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids
who die,
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets
and bullets
To frighten the people—
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of
the people—
And the old and rich don't want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don't want the people to get wise to their own
power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together
Listen, kids who die—
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Except in our hearts
Maybe your bodies'll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter's field,
Or the rivers where you're drowned like Liebknecht
But the day will come—
You are sure yourselves that it is coming—
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And joy, and laughter,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky—
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.
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Editorial: Latest crisis of capitalism: Blood sucking banks
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- 31 March 2023 119 hits
The collapse of Silicon Valley and Signature banks exposed the worst financial crisis to hit world capitalism since 2008. Even as the U.S. bosses rushed to protect the millionaires’ and billionaires’ deposits, and Europe’s financial bosses did the same for the giant Credit Suisse, a broader disaster is brewing. The instability in the world banking system is the direct result of the larger crisis of capitalism. It is driven by the decline of U.S. finance capitalism and the rise of the Chinese capitalist bosses. As worldwide recession looms, the working class is shouldering the pain. The bosses’ troubles can only get worse. Our liberation has one path: communist revolution.
Blood-soaked banks
Banks are one of the great crimes of capitalism. They produce nothing of value yet rake in trillions in profits. U.S. and European banks were born from slavery and built on racism. The banking system financed the ships that sailed to Africa and kidnapped workers. It grew by providing loans for the cotton bosses to buy more land and more enslaved workers to farm it. The banks valued these enslaved workers more highly than the assets of all the railroad companies combined. All of the bogus racist theories that divide workers today were created to justify the brutal exploitation of slavery and the banks’ grotesque, blood-soaked fortunes (1619 Project Vox, 8/16/19).
Latest crisis could rock the system
The current banking crisis reflects the boom-and-bust nature of capitalism. It was triggered by a brazen lack of bank regulation and a fall in the value of long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, a form of debt that is bought with a promise that it will be repaid at a certain interest rate. Today’s world capitalist system is drowning in debt, from deficit-ridden governments to over-borrowing companies to workers who can’t pay their credit card bills and still feed their families.
Since the mortgage crisis of 15 years ago, the U.S. has propped up its struggling economy with extremely low interest rates that encouraged banks, businesses, and workers to borrow heavily, invest recklessly, and spend freely. When inflation soared with the Covid-19 pandemic, and the U.S. Federal Reserve responded by raising interest rates, the banks’ lower-interest Treasury bonds lost much of their value. At the same time, many midsized and smaller tech companies—the dominant depositors at Silicon Valley and Signature—were forced to withdraw funds as their cost of doing business went up and their revenues went down. To pay these depositors, the banks were forced to sell off their bonds at a steep loss. Other depositors panicked and rushed to take out their money as well, setting off a bank run—a prime example of the anarchy of the profit system.
With as many as fifty other banks in crisis (CNN, 3/13), the U.S. rulers rushed in to reassure obscenely wealthy venture capitalists that their money is safe because the bosses’ government will guarantee it. On the other hand, inflation and high interest rates mean that tens of millions of workers can’t afford to buy a home. Millions have been foreclosed upon by the banks or evicted because they can’t afford their rent. With grocery prices skyrocketing, one of four U.S. adults now struggles to get enough to eat (CBS News, 3/21).
Tech industry crashing
The tech Industry, once hailed as the hope of U.S. capitalism, is the latest industry to suffer a plunge in profits--and to make workers pay with massive layoffs. Of the 144 publicly traded tech companies valued at over $1 billion, only 12 percent made any profit last year. Most of them will never overcome their cumulative losses (Market Watch, 3/25). The bosses’ greed and lack of discipline are coming home to roost.
Worldwide crisis drives move toward fascism
As the failing Credit Suisse was taken over by rival USB, central banks in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, and Switzerland rushed in to guarantee deposits and prevent the collapse of the entire international banking system (Business Insider, 3/20). But this short-term fix cannot stave off the threat of the next massive economic recession or depression.
The U.S. bosses’ main rivals, the Chinese capitalists, are better positioned to weather the coming storm. By contrast to the U.S., the Chinese bosses still make most of their profits from manufacturing—from the production of actual goods. In addition, they are much further along the road to full-blown fascism and direct rule, without the constraints of liberal democracy. They are better able to force their billionaires and bankers to put the interests of the entire ruling class first, even if it means that some of them will take big losses (New York Times, 3/27).
At the same time, China’s provinces are faced with slowing growth and as much as $9.5 trillion in debt. Strapped for revenue, local governments have slashed workers’ pay and health insurance. Hebei Province, bordering Beijing, cut off heating subsidies for natural gas during a record-breaking cold wave (NYT, 3/29). Wherever bosses are forced to balance their books, workers are sure to suffer most.
If the U.S. rulers hope to protect their profits and come out on top in the looming World War III, they will be forced to discipline their fellow bosses while viciously attacking the working class—and ultimately to slaughter millions.
Communist world is worth fighting for
Progressive Labor Party is fighting for a communist world. Under capitalism, buildings sit empty while millions are homeless; food is thrown away as people starve. The education, healthcare, and transportation systems are all failing. You can’t eat money. You can’t shelter people with hundred-dollar bills. You can’t treat diseases or educate children with Treasury bonds. Under capitalism, we are forced to sell our labor for much less than what it’s worth, and then to exchange money to get things we need. Money only exists because a system based on profit needs to track how much it steals from the working class. Money has driven workers apart by promoting selfishness and individualism. And when workers are too old or sick to be squeezed for more profit, a society based on money kicks them to the curb.
Under communism, all production will be organized through a communist party to serve the needs of the working class. There will be no profits, no money—and no bloodsucking banks. A communist society will be so much stronger because we will work collectively to run society. Without money to warp our priorities, everybody will be valued. Everyone will be helped to find ways to contribute. Capitalism is quickly going south, and there is no point in trying to save it. The time has come for the working class to say “Enough!” The time to fight for communism is now.
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CAPITALISM KILLS STUDENT: FIGHT BACK AGAINST PUSH-OUTS
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- 31 March 2023 132 hits
BROOKLYN, NY, March 29—When a neighborhood shooting took the life of a former student, a small school had two very different responses. The administration killed 17-year-old Claude* twice—once by pushing him out, and again by blaming him for his own death—while the students and education workers memorialized him again and again.
In doing so, the Department of Education exposed themselves as a racist child-hating system while the working class in this school of mainly untenured teachers is learning how to be pro-student. As his teacher and communist, I am learning how to win people to fight back and connect Claude to the violent nature of capitalism. A system that kills kids has got to go.
His life mattered
What can I say about Claude except that people loved him as much as he loved life and learning (see box). Three schools are mourning him—his primary/middle school, our school, and his transfer school. The union grief counselor remarked that he “never saw anything like it.” Claude was a neighborhood kid and everyone knew him or of him. He has left a senior and junior class in despair and anger, while the administration has left all the students and workers in the dark.
Instead of acknowledging the death and providing support to grieving students, the principal refused crisis support from the bigger DoE bosses. Instead of reaching out to the family, she smeared Claude’s reputation and character. Instead of holding a school-wide memorial, she reluctantly surrendered to a memorial wall, albeit deep inside the school.
This is the kind of leadership capitalist schools give—all done under a Democratic mayor in a liberal city.
Students organize vigil
We added photos and messages on the memorial wall. To counter the racist narrative, the academic and character awards Claude had received while at this school were posted as well. The poem “Kids Who Die” by Langston Hughes (see page 8) was also added and shared with participants.
Later in the week, two education workers and I called out of work to attend Claude’s funeral, which further angered administration. I delivered a portfolio of all the writings of Claude from his freshman year to the family. So many students showed up.
When we asked students what they wanted to do, some said, “at least a balloon release and photos.” So, that’s what we did. Two days after the funeral, students organized a vigil after school. A leaflet explaining that capitalism killed Claude was circulated.
Little did we know that while 24 students and 8 teachers were paying tribute to a clearly beloved student outside the building, a disgusting plan was underway on the inside the school. In true mafia fashion, when barely anyone was around, the memorial wall was disappeared.
Who tore down the memorial?
The next morning, students demanded to know who tore down the memorial wall. One thought it was a kid: “Did they catch him? Did they check the cameras?”
The criminal was none other than the DoE-darling, our Black Caribbean teacher-turned-principal who spends her days fudging data and terrorizing Black, Latin, and immigrant students. Reason for her crime?
“The funeral is over,” said the racist.
Learning to stand up
The utter disregard for a child’s life angered the students and workers. I asked the students, “What should we do?”
“Put it back up” they said, and so that’s what we did. After school, students from the Newspaper Club donated their bulletin board space and posted up a new memorial wall—near the main entrance this time. The administration do their dirty business in secret, but we workers and students must make our fight known. We spoke to every person who passed the halls: athletes in search of the finally-fixed water fountains, guidance counselors and students from other schools in the building, custodians sweeping piles of pencils. Every one of them expressed support for Claude.
The school day hadn’t even officially started the next morning, and the second memorial wall was already removed. People overheard the principal yelling, “Take this down now!”
The ruling class—as manifested in this administration—has put students and education workers in a position to take a stance. An angry meeting ensued with the educator workers’ union representative. I was also pulled out of class for 30 minutes to be disciplined. But, we walked out of the principal’s office with a tiny victory: she was forced to agree to put the memorial wall back up, but in the original less prominent location.
During lunch, a crowd of students and some teachers gathered to put up the memorial for the third time. “Every time she removes it, we’ll just put it back up. And make it even bigger.”
And that’s what we are doing. Working-class students are proving again and again that they can give leadership, and they don’t need the bosses and the overseers to run things.
Making Black boys disappear
Today, three junior boys said they were suspended and are now at risk of failing. When one parent asked to see the suspension letter, the school said they’d get back to them. The students were told to stay home, and weren’t allowed in the building without a parent. Not only did this DoE administration—more like a criminal gang—steal learning time away from the students, they also stole work hours and pay from working-class families who were forced into parent meetings after parent meetings.
Push-out of “difficult” (read: Black, Latin, and immigrant) students from schools is a racist policy. This is exactly what they had done to Claude.
Much like Success Academy—the charter school notorious for having a “got to go” list with names of kids who didn’t fit into their prison environment (New York Times, 10/29/15)—this public school disappears student to keep their graduation numbers and other scholastic data high. The principal loves to laud around her stacks of accolades in an unscreened Title 1 school with nearly 1 in 4 students with a special need. The secret recipe is racism.
At the union meeting today, we reported on the administration’s racist response to Claude and how it’s affecting students. I said, “what happened to [Claude] in the streets was violent, but what this administration is doing to [Claude’s] memorial is also violent…and whether or not you knew him, when one of us is attacked, we are all attacked…When students have an event, show up. When your student disappears, speak up.”
The workers responded with bravery. One new teacher suggested, “We can send a message by everyone wearing a pin.”
Another asked, “Do you have more photos of him that we can post in our rooms?”
Another added, “We need to find a way to incorporate this into our lessons.”
If Claude weren’t pushed out, would he have been alive to walk on graduation day in three
months? An administration that cares more about their 95 percent graduation rate than a
Black child has got to go. Claude’s killing has exposed a criminal policy that we need to
fight.
Claude was not a number. He was a member of the working class, and he deserved better. A
system that treats certain students as expendable DOES NOT deserve to exist. For our
students, shut this racist system down. The fight has only begun.
*The pseudonym Claude is inspired by the communist fighter and writer, Claude Mckay.
