Fighting my cynicism: ‘I’m glad I went!’
When I first heard about the climate march I have to admit - I didn’t want to go. I often get very cynical when I participate in these marches. However, the Party made a push for us to participate - and I am glad they did. As school started I began to talk to students and teachers about the march. Some of the teachers were excited.

One of the teachers asked why I would want to go to this. They had the same mentality as I did. We talked about how we need to rebuild the organizing culture in our school and this might be a good first step. She agreed. More importantly, we talked about how the politics of “End fossil fuels” was not enough and that we need to be there to inject more radical politics. I showed her our flyer and she enthusiastically agreed that capitalism was the problem, but she wasn’t sure that communism was the solution. In the end the Party’s push  to attend forced me to think more deliberately about how I am going to organize with coworkers at my school. I have to remember that even though the bosses right now control most of these marches, they give us opportunities to build our Party. One day we will be leading thousands to not just call for an end to fossil fuels, but call for an end to capitalism with communist revolution.

‘Looking for a political home’
After experiencing the Climate Change March through the communist contingent of Progressive Labor Party, as partners we exchanged some encouraging moments. We saw thousands of workers and students. One of us witnessed a dear comrade and PLP member fight through their fears of social anxiety and have a dialogue with a new person regarding the Pparty’s ideas of fighting back against racism, sexism and climate change, exposing truths and lies bred by capitalism.  This moment made us remember that strength comes from our sharp politics and the courage starts with us the working class.

The other one of us spoke with an unemployed worker in their late twenties who mentioned that part of why they came to the march was to identify fighting organizations they could join. People were walking up to us to grab a CHALLENGE or leaflet after they heard the politics of our chants explicitly calling the bosses out. That made us think that we were doing the right thing. So many more workers and youth like that worker are looking for a political home.

By putting this need of our class over our own fears of reaching out to more workers we will open the door for masses more to find what they are looking for to smash the profit system that makes us suffer: PLP!

Workers respond to communist ideas
Our PLP contingent was organized with great chants and vitality. A group of workers from a housekeepers’ union took our flier. One pointed to the PLP logo and the word “communism” and said, “This is good.”

One Challenge seller spoke with three demonstrators who all gave their names and phone numbers to be contacted by the Party.  

A contingent of Columbia University graduate student workers in the UAW chanted, “Up with the planet, down with the bosses.”
Our Party showed up and the demonstration was better for it.

About 13,000 GM, Ford and Stellantis workers are on strike in what is being called “the first strike against all the ‘Big 3’” and “the biggest auto strike in decades.” Yet, as of this writing, only 10 percent of the workers are striking and 90 percent are working with no contract (the expired contract was not extended).

Against the backdrop of 100,000 striking TV and screenwriters and actors in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, a spike in strikes and organizing around the U.S., the mood of the workers is changing. After the “summer of strikes,” the pro-capitalist union leaders and politicians have a tiger by the tail! In the recent contract struggles involving 120,000 railroad workers and 350,000 UPS workers, Biden and the union leaders were able to kill the strikes before they happened! Workers are not yet able to break away from the liberal politicians and union misleaders.

Joe Biden, who calls himself, “the most pro-union President ever,” was one of the architects of the 2008 bailout that reaped $250 billion in profits for the auto bosses while auto workers saw their real wages drop by 20 percent. These concessions helped GM, Ford, and Stellantis pocket $250 billion in profits over the past decade, with the three CEOs increasing their pay by 40 percent, with each one now making between $25-$29 million annually (Economics Policy Institute).

Biden recently forced a national contract on railroad workers that they had overwhelmingly rejected, and he quickly dispatched Labor Secretary Julie Su to Detroit to resolve the strike, reflecting the larger issues at stake. One, is the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Another is winning a loyal industrial workforce as the U.S. escalates the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine and prepares for a possible conflict with China.

The strike comes as the bosses are investing billions to develop EVs while facing stiff competition from Tesla and international challengers. China is the #1 producer of EVs in the world and Hyundai will soon build electric vehicles at a new factory in Georgia. John Casesa, who previously headed strategy at Ford said, “The transition to EVs is dominating every bit of this discussion.” (NYT, 9/16).

The transition from gasoline engines to EVs could affect millions of jobs as traditional auto plants that produce engines, mufflers, catalytic converters, fuel injectors and other components will be retooled or shut down. One of the main goals of the UAW is to get the auto bosses to agree to have the new battery and EV factories, many of them joint ventures with smaller companies, covered by the national labor contract. The union also wants to regain the right to strike over plant shutdowns.

The new “reform” leadership of the UAW, elected by an unenthusiastic 10 percent of the membership, has got a laundry list of demands they have no intention of winning, including a 40 percent wage hike, a shorter work week,  and abolishing the multi-tiered wage system. They say they want to reverse concessions that they and the old leadership gave up over the past decades in order to keep the auto bosses competitive with their international rivals. The auto companies have proposed a 20 percent wage hike over four years.

In 2019, the UAW led a 40-day strike at GM while the International President and a slew of national officers were either under federal investigation or on their way to prison for bribery and other corruption charges. Then as now, the strike is at least in part, an attempt to consolidate the membership around the leadership.
For our members and friends of Progressive Labor Party, the main lesson of this current upsurge is that we must not let this moment pass us by. We are watching too many of these class battles unfold from the outside. That must change. We are calling on more comrades and readers of CHALLENGE to get jobs in auto and Amazon, at UPS and in mass transit, so that we are better positioned to fight for the political leadership of the workers. At its core, this fight is reform vs. revolution.

As Marx pointed out in “Value, Price and Profit,” we cannot restrict ourselves to fighting over contracts and grievances, to what he called the “unavoidable guerilla fights,” that spring up from the ongoing class war.  “Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!’ [we] ought to inscribe on [our] banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolish the wage system!’”

OAK LAWN, September 6- A multiracial and intergenerational group of antiracist fighters, including members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP), gathered this evening to denounce the racist Oak Lawn Police Department once again. Chants of "Justice for Hadi," and "Justice for Murod," resounded throughout the neighborhood. Murod Kurdi, a 28-year-old Arab worker was struck & killed by a white drunk driver last June. His killer was given a traffic ticket and released by one of the KKKops that had beaten and nearly killed Hadi Abuatelah last year (See CHALLENGE, 9/20). The Oak Lawn Police is an example of a growing fascist movement that marginalizes and attacks mainly Black and Brown working-class communities and immigrant workers while being used to oppress all workers.

Inside the police station, Murod Kurdi's mother spoke about how her son was killed and how the drunk driver caller her lawyer, instead of 911 to seek help for the man who had just hit with her speeding car.  Her testimony was abruptly stopped after three minutes, and the kkkop board would not allow her to finish her testimony.  In fact, they stopped any further public comment and ordered the kkkops to escort us out of the building. Murod's mother's bravery is even more poignant in front of these appointed cronies who acted with malice and prejudice. We will attend the next court hearing in October of Murod's killer in solidarity with his family and friends.

There is a crystal-clear connection to the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist terror unleashed against workers here and on an international level. The imperialist bosses in the United States and across Europe have for generations murdered and displaced workers across the oil-rich Middle East to consolidate their power over resources, markets and labor. To achieve this, they have needed to promote a vicious racism against workers in that part of the world, to keep us divided against our common exploiters. Now as Russian and Chinese imperialists are encroaching on what was US and European bosses’ sphere of influence, they need to ramp up racist terror against Arab and Muslim workers even harder to try and keep their grip.

For the imperialist bosses fighting over Latin America and Middle-East resources, land, oil and industrial might, workers' lives are cheap, here and there. Let us not fall for their racist tactics, whether they are from Trump MAGA racists or liberals who defend the racist Democratic Party which even more culpable in causing workers to be displaced all over the world.

Under capitalism, there is no justice for the working class. Justice will come when workers revolt and smash the bosses and establish a communist society free from racism and exploitation. Communism will mean the working class and its communist party will outlaw racism, sexism, and exploitation. Join us.

This is the introductory article of a series on climate change. Worldwide climate catastrophe is having its biggest impact on the working class, especially Black and brown workers and youth. This issue is integral to the international working-class struggle against racism, sexism and imperialism and for the revolutionary transformation of society. This means building the fight for communism- here, there, and everywhere. Our lives depend on it.

This July's global average temperature of 16.95C (62.51F) was 0.33C (0.59F) higher than the earlier record set in July 2019, when the global average temperatures hit 16.63C (32F). From Phoenix, Az. (July, 2023 average high of 114 degrees, low of 90 degrees) to fires in Greece to Iraq (Baghdad average high was 119 degrees) and Pakistan (still damaged by floods that occurred in 2022), the build-up of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has led to scorching temperatures and massive flooding. Last summer alone, heat waves in Europe killed 61,000 people and in Pakistan 1700 people died from the worst rains in decades.

Capitalism Created the Climate Catastrophe!
Somewhere around 97% of all climate scientists in the world agree that it’s not by chance that one disaster after another has been occurring over the past number of decades. What is at the core of this rapid climate change? You guessed it. The unbridled, racist and unrestrained drive for profits, that is at the center of capitalism, has led coal, gas, and oil companies to continue their exploration and extraction of fossil fuels. The political lackeys in national governments and the financial institutions that “own” them, have all reneged on their pledges to reduce carbon emissions in the name of war (Ukraine) and profits. Most of the 59.1 million people internally displaced in 2021, (virtually all poor industrial workers, agricultural workers and often people of color) according to the United Nations, were victims of climate change events. China, to put the icing on the cake, has doubled down on the use of coal, which is plentiful in their land.

Millions March to Fight Against Climate Catastrophe!
The past year has seen 8 million people involved in protests and actions around the world demanding change. Will these demonstrations be enough? The answer is no. Leaving the decision-making to capitalist governments throughout the world is like asking a zebra to change its stripes. Much of the leadership of the environmental movement is linked with so-called liberal governments or fake leftists that will mislead people into the ballot box and not challenge the fundamental cause of climate catastrophe, world-wide capitalism.  The oil companies and all climate polluters have too much at stake to change course soon or at all. Future articles will discuss many aspects of climate change and discuss some possible solutions. However, one thing remains clear, as long as we allow capitalism to rule the world, we have little or no chance for a living and sustainable environment.  

The Progressive Labor Party worldwide, welcomes the task of providing revolutionary leadership to the climate catastrophe movement, connecting it to racism, sexism, imperialist war and the class struggle. The best hope for humanity is the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of communism throughout the world. Only then can we build a sustainable egalitarian economy that eliminates unchecked capitalist greed forever. Join us.