Another racist assault by kkkops on Black workers
Washington Post, 6/15–Six sheriff’s deputies responding to a report of drug activity at a Mississippi home in January deactivated their body cameras before forcibly entering the house…Once inside, the…deputies allegedly handcuffed two Black men and subjected them to a night of abuse. While Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker were subdued, the deputies beat them, hurled racist slurs and repeatedly used Tasers on the men…The deputies, who are White, also waterboarded Jenkins and Parker, pelted them with eggs and attempted to sexually assault them with a sex toy…The encounter ended nearly two hours later when a deputy placed a gun in Jenkins’s mouth and shot him, permanently injuring his face…Jenkins was transported by medics to the University of Mississippi Medical Center and received several surgeries, according to the lawsuit. Parker was arrested and transported to the Rankin County Jail on a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia…

Capitalism is always at war with workers
Al Jazeera, 7/3–The number of women who died within a year after pregnancy more than doubled between 1999 and 2019 in the United States, a new study has found, with the highest number of deaths recorded among Black women. The study, published on Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at maternal deaths between 1999 and 2019 — but not the COVID-19 pandemic spike — for every U.S. state and five racial and ethnic groups. There were an estimated 1,210 maternal deaths in 2019, compared with 505 in 1999, the researchers found.Overall, the number of deaths per 100,000 live births rose from 12.7 to 32.2 in that 20-year span, while the number of deaths among Black women increased from 26.7 to 55.4. The greatest jump over time was seen among American Indian and Alaska Native women, however – from 14 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1999 to 49.2 in 2009.

East Asia bosses realize fewer babies is a problem
Economist, 6/30–Ultra-low birth rates and stiff resistance to immigration produce shrinking populations: according to the United Nations, the four East Asian territories will see their combined populations shrink by 28% between 2020 and 2075. During the same period, their combined share of global gdp is projected to drop from 26.7% to 17.4%, according to Goldman Sachs…political leaders see families as an urgent policy priority.
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has promised “a national policy system to boost birth rates” and launched a national effort to promote “new-era marriage culture.” Japan’s low birth rate leaves it “on the brink of whether it can continue to function as a society,” according to its prime minister, Kishida Fumio…Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s president, called his country’s birth rate a “crucial national agenda” in need of an “emergency mindset.” Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, has called its declining birth rate a “national-security problem”... Mr Paul Chang, a sociologist at Harvard University argues: “The changes are driven by anxieties, social problems and social conflicts,” not the triumph of the individual.

Big Fascists rediscover need for centralized war production
Foreign Affairs, 7/3–Weeks after the fighting began, the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued that the United States and its allies are “serving as the ‘arsenal of democracy,’...But this lofty rhetoric does not match the reality on the ground. Shortages in production, inadequate labor pools, and interruptions in supply chains have hamstrung the United States’ ability to deliver weapons to Ukraine and enhance the country’s defense capabilities more broadly. These problems have much to do with the history of the U.S. defense industry since World War II…Back then, the industry was predominantly a government-run business. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal emphasized economic regulation and relied on “alphabet agencies” such as the Works Progress Administration to boost employment, paving the way for later wartime contracting. New Deal agencies inspired the creation of the War Production Board in 1942, which mobilized business and rationed resources for the battlefront…The government owned nearly 90 percent of the productive capacity of aircraft, ships, and guns and ammunition.

It’s been awhile, but we had our first Wine Tasting fundraiser since April 2019. We raised money for the Progressive Labor Party’s 2023 Summer Project and it was a rousing success! Over 50 comrades and friends showed up and it was quite a collective effort as many people stepped up and contributed to its success. As capitalism ravages the workers of the world more and more, it was inspiring to see a multiracial crowd of women and men committed to a better world for the working class. It was a little bit of the working class that under communism will run the world.

These Wine Tasting socials have always been fun events with a strong political component. They have helped to strengthen ties with friends that want a better world and with friends that are in struggles against racism and sexism and are also interested in that better world, communism. This year was a little different as we struggled with a short organizing timeline and also threatening weather. But the working class again came through as many people stepped up to help out. A friend collected money; she was  friendly but efficient, making an important task easy. Another longtime friend took care of an auction that was meant to raise a little money. Wandering through the crowd, joking and cajoling, he raised a lot more. The food was not only plentiful, but fantastic. And people committed to taking part in the Party Summer Project.

Fight racism - organize for communism
But, most important was who came and who spoke and what was said. Many old friends showed up, but also new comrades and friends came from recent struggles. And it was clear that capitalism cannot be reformed. Whether it’s racist harassment of students in Brooklyn or the horrible, intentional racism of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean, the whole damn capitalist system has to go!

At one high school where teachers and students fought to have a memorial for a Black student who was killed (see CHALLENGE, 4/12), the struggle goes on. The same principal who took down memorial posters is the same principal refusing to provide mandated services for English language learners. On the same campus, union misleaders are pushing a racist contract proposal and attacking teachers for merely asking questions (see CHALLENGE, 7/5). Some of these teachers came to the fundraiser. One of the teachers compared how the capitalist media is so concerned about some billionaires who died in a ridiculously lavish underwater excursion, while hundreds of migrants on a sinking boat (seeking refuge from the perils of imperialism) are allowed to die in the Mediterranean Sea with no effort to save them.  

Meanwhile some students and faculty from Kingsborough Community College attended. They spoke about the continuing harassment of students at their college by an administration led by liberals including a Black woman president (see CHALLENGE, 1/18). These liberals  are pursuing a baseless investigation of two faculty who defended a student who was tackled and arrested at the college for trying to stop a fight. They have forced students to drop out of school and they constantly harass students in the school cafeteria. The fightback has been active and ongoing with many students attending various actions and Party events.
At this fundraiser two students spoke about how this struggle has helped them see the power of the working class when we unite and fight back. They have both joined the Party.

Join the 2023 Summer Project
This fundraiser was a small step toward a successful Summer Project 2023. We will rededicate ourselves to building a revolutionary communist  movement, train new young leaders and welcome many more leaders into the PLP as we fight for an egalitarian,  communist world.

NEW YORK CITY, July 3—It's sellout contract season at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) New York City Transit Authority section (NYCTA). The boss-loving TWU Local 100 misleadership hurt the workers who keep the city's trains and buses running.

As with just about any "contract" under capitalism, this one is a racist slap in the face to NYCTA's mainly Black and Latin workers. It provides pathetic, below inflation wage increases, does nothing to improve the challenging time off process for some departments, forces employees to work even more hours, and joins up with the bosses' for profit Medicare Advantage scheme. With imperialist war with China and Russia impending overseas, the MTA must satisfy its Wall Street debt owners off the backs of both its ridership and workers.  Local 100 is all too happy to oblige them in that goal with this pathetic offering.

NYC subway workers, 170 plus of whom died from Covid-19 moving essential workers while the racist MTA bosses disallowed us Personal Protective Equipment due to fears of "public perception," must realize that there will never be a "fair” or just contract under a system that places profit over the working class. The only way for transit workers to get what they and all workers deserve is to join together to smash capitalism and fight for a communist revolution, on and off the rails!

Paying off debt on workers’ backs
Local 100 “leaders'' are performing their class role, working hand in hand with the MTA bosses, to repay the system’s $48 billion in debt to Wall Street bankers. Decades of neglect by the city’s bosses left the subway system in a decrepit state in the 1980s (Gothamist, 6/21). During this period, MTA leadership for the first time approached profiteering banks, all too eager to lend financial handouts. This ballooning debt has continually been used to finance new station expansions, train cars, buses and track, to be repaid through increased tolls, taxes and fares. Or in other words, by the working class!

Today, the amount the MTA will pay on this debt will represent 40 percent of its entire toll and fare revenue, a number that was less than four percent in 1984.

This means the bosses' banks have written blank checks to maintain the trains and buses in a barely good state of repair. And workers are perennially forced to endure the racist service cuts that come with this crushing debt. Those cuts are set to become even worse after ridership tanked during the pandemic, as the MTA admitted to its lenders in April (Gothamist, 6/21).

Now, with another racist fare hike on the horizon (New York Times, 5/22), which would bring in more money to finance bosses’ pockets and barely the system itself, Local 100 cannot avoid the contradiction inherent in every union today: it must partner in tandem with management to produce an agreement that harms both MTA workers and the ridership!

Forcing workers to toil more
The tentative agreement expands on an employee availability clause, introduced in a previous contract, to force employees to work an additional five days. Once this goal is reached, “the parties will implement gainsharing of any additional improvement,” according to the language. This means that the union will share these profits with the MTA bosses.

Employees who work in the Rapid Transit Operations (RTO) division, that includes train operators and conductors, already have to compete against their coworkers using an automated phone system 20 days in advance, just to receive a day off. Many times, these day-off requests are denied.

Many in RTO use their sick days–which are always granted immediately–as a workaround.  Management is directly responsible for many MTA workers being out, imposing harsh disciplinary suspensions and medically restricting them and making them go through hoops to return. Many workers were also out sick during the pandemic’s worst days (Spectrum News, 3/24/20).

But of course, this clause makes no mention of those factors. And as long as the trains run, why would the bosses care about the well being of those operating them? A common demand that we have repeatedly expressed to the union in years past was for more “mental” health days. Many of our trips lack sufficient recovery time and the environment we work in can be mentally challenging at times. With the agreement,  Local 100 not only is attacking the workers it represents, but the working class as a whole, as they will deal with a more tired operating workforce.

Contract privatizes Medicare for healthcare bosses’ pockets
The union is also joining city efforts to strip workers of government Medicare for the racist Medicare Advantage (MA) plan (see CHALLENGE, 6/10/21). The agreement,  if ratified, would eliminate the traditional option and force MTA retirees to choose one of two MA plans. In response to a backlash, union bosses have released statements claiming that the two plans will not result in diminished service and will be better than regular Medicare. But we know that Medicare Advantage places control in the hands of for profit private insurance companies that are known to deny care in several instances (New York Times, 4/28). The switch would also save the MTA money, as the government subsidizes Advantage plans more than the traditional one.

Flyers promoting the contract have said that it has no givebacks, but this effort to sell out mostly Black and Latin retirees (which was included in the document of the MTA’s proposals given to the TWU in May) clearly proves they’re lying to the membership!

Fighting back
Even with the strong likelihood that most departments will ratify the contract, as has been the case historically, many of our coworkers have denounced it on online Facebook groups and in our crew rooms. This is an opportunity to use that working class anger towards something even better than a better contract. Progressive Labor Party members in transit have been active in discussing the contract with coworkers, pushing them to vote no in higher numbers than usual, especially in the RTO department. These conversations also allow us to bring up the Party as the only way to win in the end.

The MTA workers who transport four of the city’s eight million residents daily are in a unique position to strike a blow against the bosses who generate billions in profit from our labor and tell us we need to give back more concessions, when we gave the ultimate concession during the pandemic’s darkest days: our lives!

But the union leadership will always strangle that  that potential, which is why we must fight for a workers’ world.

PAKISTAN, July 3—Pakistan is in deep trouble! Political instability, economic destruction, religious sectarianism, skyrocketing inflation, poverty, nationalism, racism and chaos are pushing the country on the brink of destruction thanks to capitalism, a system spiraling further into crisis, and escalating inter-imperialist competition. A former ruling party (PTI) was removed from the government through a vote of no confidence which resulted in tightened surveillance, state oppression, police torture and disappearances. Amid this political instability, PLP is trying to organize for communism.

Dangers of compromising with the bosses
Capitalist bosses are using various tactics to continue the exploitation of the working class. They use their puppets to scare the masses from even thinking about making a revolution. In the 1960s when the masses were angry with the capitalist system and trying to organize into a party (Communist Party of Pakistan) to overthrow capitalism, the soil was not ripe for a revolution and the party was very tiny.

So the bosses used their puppets to convince the party leaders that ‘it is good time to overthrow the government and make a revolution,’ which resulted in a failed attempt. Quickly all the leadership and dedicated members were arrested and blamed for conspiracy against the state.

Many of them were sentenced for life time imprisonment, some were killed and some left the country to find a safe place.

Again in the mid-seventies when the masses were fed up with the system, they started to join a newly formed phony Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), to bring change and get rid of exploitation. Progressive student leaders, union leaders, intellectuals and workers joined the PPP with the hope that these so-called progressive leaders will help them out of poverty, illiteracy and exploitation, promising land to the landless.
They were not revolutionaries; they just used the name of the working class and exploited the sentiments of oppressed people to take power but did not take any steps to ease the life of the working class.

The workers’ dreams of a prosperous and poverty-free Pakistan were dashed.

Today, as Progressive Labor Party (PLP) continues to spread communist ideas here, and continues to blossom, we are hopeful that one day we can destroy this rotten system once and for all, and replace it with a system where all workers are safe and can flourish.

Capitalist crisis and chaos
There is ongoing political infighting and crisis in Pakistan. Recently, when the political and economic conditions of Pakistan were calling on the poor working class to build a strong anti-capitalist movement, it was another bosses’ trap. The bosses galvanized Imran Khan and his followers to attack military installations, martyrs’ monuments, military and police vehicles and personnel.

This resulted in a strong retaliation from the state, attacking both the ruling class and the working class. The government banned internet services for several weeks and started to monitor every conversation over the phone or internet. Many innocent people were arrested because they had a telephone conversation with the people involved in attacking the military installations.

Imran Khan (IK) and his goons thought that attacking the military installations they could oust the military leadership, and they would get another chance to rule and bleed the working class dry. Firstly IK blamed the U.S. for “regime change” to get the sympathies of common people, but when he realized that U.S. bosses were angered by his  blame game, he changed his tune, and begged them again for help.

A few days ago it was exposed by the defense minister in a TV interview that a rebellion against new military leadership and the newly formed government, was unsuccessful. Many military officers involved in this conspiracy are held by security forces. Now almost all the senior leadership of PTI left the party.

Amid the chaos of the Khan faction versus Pakistan’s military establishment standoff, the PLP is striving for international communist revolution. We are preparing the soil to ripen into an international communist revolution by organizing workers, peasants and students in our rank and file. We believe that only the working class and their party, PLP, can get rid of exploitation, poverty, inequality, slavery and injustice by forging an international struggle against capitalism. Long live international communist revolution!