Strike: ‘we don’t need bosses or their system’
Last week I had the honor of participating in the Rutgers strike. It was great that in the very issue of CHALLENGE newspaper that was being passed out during the strike, there was an editorial on the protests in France which made the following point: strikes show us just a glimpse, just a small window into the panoramic potential of workers’ power when we run the world without answering to bosses. This  is the point that should have been the mass line that we spread during the strike, but it was not. Instead, we were so upset and worried at the sellout social democrats who were selling us short at the bargaining table, that we focused instead on pushing for the most radical strike possible as the penultimate show of workers’ power.

When I gave my speech, I should have made the point that striking shows us that we don’t need the bosses or their system. Instead, our strike under capitalism gets turned into a tool for bargaining for more power under the bosses’ system. And while it was an empowering week, inspiring even my colleagues next door at Essex County College (ECC) to become more militant, it did not and does not inherently lead to workers’ power.

It is our job to make that point as often as possible: the bosses need us; we don’t need them. So this is the point I will be continuing to push in my own union, New Jersey Education Association, and with my honest and hard working co-workers. In fact, many ECC full-time faculty teach at Rutgers part time just to make up the difference in our ridiculously low salaries, so we were in fact involved in the strike directly via some of our faculty members. Yes, we salute our fearless and militant colleagues at Rutgers!

We draw inspiration from you and learn the lessons of the victories from that strike–such as folks agreeing to come to May Day–as well as the pitfalls–such as thinking the most militant strike is the goal of our time and energy. Above all, we are inspired that the strike helps us see the necessity for building Progressive Labor Party and sharpening our fight for a world run by our class–a communist world!

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Rutgers strike gave us a chance to talk
The struggle at Rutgers is an important event for the working class to be part of.  It gives us the opportunity to talk to our coworkers, friends, and students about the importance of class struggle.

As a high school teacher I discuss the role of unions and strikes in class, but it is  actions like this that make it real for high school students. Some of my fellow coworkers joined me at the strike. They began to raise questions of fighting back and organizing within our own union. This led to a larger discussion with a coworker of the limitations of strikes - and more importantly - the dangers of focusing too much on individuals like Rutgers President Holloway while ignoring the larger capitalist system. This was somebody who has been reading the paper for over a year, but it was still hard for him to conceptualize how you build a revolutionary movement while still fighting for reforms. We discussed it more when we went back to school this past week.

Thank you to the Rutgers strikers for creating this opportunity to raise our line of reform and revolution in a period of relatively low class struggle in Newark.

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Teacher speaks out vs ‘profit nest’
Schools in Montgomery County need more funding to serve our students. As a teacher in the county, I spoke at a County Council hearing about raising taxes to do this. After hearing dozens of testimonies about student needs, I decided to change my 3-minute testimony from appealing to the Council and instead blasted them for listening to real estate developers who opposed the tax.

I remembered what a Progressive Labor Party comrade had suggested a few years ago: “You’re talking to the crowd of working class peers and comrades, not the politicians.”

The audience did include many teachers, bus drivers, education support staff, mechanics, public nurses, students and parents. As I spoke to the council, I turned and faced my real brothers and sisters. I asked them if their wages met the median wage in the county.

“No way!” rang out from the crowd!

I pointed out that the county council salaries go way over the median threshold and that there are five billionaires and 2,500 millionaires in the U.S. who could easily fund the needed budget. The County has 21 large real estate and/or construction companies. Are their interests really with keeping taxes low for the immigrant pursuing the “American dream” or the young couple buying their first house? Not at all. They just want to feather their own profit nests!

Here’s a thought: tax the rich to pay for our basic educational needs in the name of antiracist, equitable action and fund our schools.

I have no illusions that the bosses will “take the losses” on their own, but militant struggle to force such changes has a chance!

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CHALLENGE: It’s always a win when we can expose the bosses’ profit motive! But, the main-wing U.S. bosses do want their class to “take the losses” to some extent. In addition to exposing the rulers’ limits of reform, it is important to show workers that reforms of “shared sacrifice” and “tax the rich” are all part of the bosses’ fascist war preparations.

Paul Robeson, world-famous actor, singer, and fighter against racism and for communism, was born 125 years ago today, in Princeton, New Jersey.

Many are celebrating Robeson's birthday. But very few of them mention that Roberson was a communist. Only the anticommunists say it (e.g. the Washington Post, February 19, 2019).

In fact, Robeson was a "Stalinist" -- an admirer of Joseph Stalin as the leader of the worldwide communist movement and of the Soviet Union, where racism was outlawed.

Stalin was the last Soviet leader who insisted that socialism (as it was then understood) must steadily advance towards communism. He was working towards that goal after World War II. The Soviet advance towards communism was ended under Stalin's dishonest successor, Nikita Khrushchev, and Khrushchev's successors. The last of these successors, Mikhail Gorbachev, paved the war for the restoration of full-blown capitalism in 1991.

Immediately after Stalin died, on March 5, 1953, Robeson wrote this tribute to him. These last lines, quoted from another author, make it clear that Robeson looked forward to communism:

To you Beloved Comrade, we make this solemn vow
The fight will go on - the fight will still go on.
Sleep well, Beloved Comrade, our work will just begin.
The fight will go on - till we win - until we win.
* * * * *
To You Beloved Comrade
by Paul Robeson

There is no richer store of human experience than the folk tales, folk poems and songs of a people. In many, the heroes are always fully recognizable humans - only larger and more embracing in dimension. So it is with Russian, Chinese, and African folk-lore.

In 1937, a highly expectant audience of Moscow citizens - workers, artists, youth, farmers from surrounding towns - crowded the Bolshoi Theater. They awaited a performance by the Uzbek National Theater, headed by the highly gifted Tamara Khanum. The orchestra was a large one with instruments, ancient and modern. How exciting would be the blending of the music of the rich culture of Moussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khrennikov, Gliere - with that of the beautiful music of the Uzbeks, stemming from an old and proud civilization.

Suddenly everyone stood - began to applaud - to cheer - and to smile. The children waved.

In a box to the right - smiling and applauding the audience - as well as the artists on the stage - stood the great Stalin.

I remember the tears began to quietly flow. and I too smiled and waved. Here was clearly a man who seemed to embrace all. So kindly - I can never forget that warm feeling of kindliness and also a feeling of sureness. Here was one who was wise and good - the world and especially the socialist world was fortunate indeed to have his daily guidance. I lifted high my son Pauli to wave to this world leader, and his leader. For Paul, Jr. had entered school in Moscow, in the land of the Soviets.

The wonderful performance began, unfolding new delights at every turn - ensemble and individual, vocal and orchestral, classic and folk-dancing of amazing originality. Could it be possible that a few years before in 1900 - in 1915 - these people had been semi-serfs - their cultural expression forbidden, their rich heritage almost lost under tsarist oppression's heel?

So here one witnessed in the field of the arts - a culture national in form, socialist in content. Here was a people quite comparable to some of the tribal folk of Asia - quite comparable to the proud Yoruba or Basuto of West and East Africa, but now their lives flowering anew within the socialist way of life twenty years matured under the guidance of Lenin and Stalin. And in this whole area of development of national minorities - of their relation to the Great Russians - Stalin had played and was playing a most decisive role.

I was later to travel - to see with my own eyes what could happen to so-called backward peoples. In the West (in England, in Belgium, France, Portugal, Holland) - the Africans, the Indians (East and West), many of the Asian peoples were considered so backward that centuries, perhaps, would have to pass before these so-called "colonials" could become a part of modern society.

But in the Soviet Union, Yakuts, Nenetses, Kirgiz, Tadzhiks - had respect and were helped to advance with unbelievable rapidity in this socialist land. No empty promises, such as colored folk continuously hear in the United States, but deeds. For example, the transforming of the desert in Uzbekistan into blooming acres of cotton. And an old friend of mine, Mr. Golden, trained under Carver at Tuskegee, played a prominent role in cotton production. In 1949, I saw his daughter, now grown and in the university - a proud Soviet citizen.

Today in Korea - in Southeast Asia - in Latin America and the West Indies, in the Middle East - in Africa, one sees tens of millions of long oppressed colonial peoples surging toward freedom. What courage - what sacrifice - what determination never to rest until victory!

And arrayed against them, the combined powers of the so-called Free West, headed by the greedy, profit-hungry, war-minded industrialists and financial barons of our America. The illusion of an "American Century" blinds them for the immediate present to the clear fact that civilization has passed them by - that we now live in a people's century - that the star shines brightly in the East of Europe and of the world. Colonial peoples today look to the Soviet Socialist Republics. They see how under the great Stalin millions like themselves have found a new life. They see that aided and guided by the example of the Soviet Union, led by their Mao Tse-tung, a new China adds its mighty power to the true and expanding socialist way of life. They see formerly semi-colonial Eastern European nations building new People's Democracies, based upon the people's power with the people shaping their own destinies. So much of this progress stems from the magnificent leadership, theoretical and practical, given by their friend Joseph Stalin.

They have sung - sing now and will sing his praise - in song and story. Slava - slava - slava - Stalin, Glory to Stalin. Forever will his name be honored and beloved in all lands.

In all spheres of modern life the influence of Stalin reaches wide and deep. From his last simply written but vastly discerning and comprehensive document, back through the years, his contributions to the science of our world society remain invaluable. One reverently speaks of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin - the shapers of humanity's richest present and future.

Yes, through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage. Most importantly - he has charted the direction of our present and future struggles. He has pointed the way to peace - to friendly co-existence - to the exchange of mutual scientific and cultural contributions - to the end of war and destruction. How consistently, how patiently, he labored for peace and ever increasing abundance, with what deep kindliness and wisdom. He leaves tens of millions all over the earth bowed in heart-aching grief.

But, as he well knew, the struggle continues. So, inspired by his noble example, let us lift our heads slowly but proudly high and march forward in the fight for peace - for a rich and rewarding life for all.

In the inspired words of Lewis Allan, our progressive lyricist -

To you Beloved Comrade, we make this solemn vow
The fight will go on - the fight will still go on.
Sleep well, Beloved Comrade, our work will just begin.
The fight will go on - till we win - until we win.

BROOKLYN, NY, April 12—After a 17-year-old former student Claude* was killed in the streets, it forced the working class—students and teachers—of a small school to choose: fightback or passivity. While the final verdict is still out, the struggle has become a test for pro-communist ideas in the face of liberal fascism.
School, union, city: all gangsters for capitalism
The racist Black principal has been able to get away with blood on her hands (see boxed letter). When Progressive Labor Party says liberal fascism is the greater danger for the working class, this is what we mean. This principal—in a liberal city run by a Black ​​mayor Eric Adams—has successfully created an environment where students and education workers feel pressured to “lay low” and accept the expendability of Black youth as “normal.” This is one way the school stays one of “America's Best High Schools” in the U.S. News and World Report. To stay on top, the Black leadership throws out Black students like they’re trash.
But, it’s not just her.  The UFT District Representative—the educator workers’ union that prides itself on putting the needs of students on the back burner—was silent when one teacher had said, “The union needs to make a fight against these racist pushouts.”
This is the same district rep who spent what felt like hours detailing his diligence in keeping his teacher file up to date.
While this seems small, it’s a reflection of the limits of unions. The UFT leadership cynically puts electoral politics and teacher salaries over students’ learning conditions. This was no surprise considering the racist strike of 1968, when the UFT walked out as a response to the efforts of Black parents to exert community control over schools in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Ocean Hill-Brownsville. A union that sacrifices Black and Brown students is a racist one.
One tenet of fascism (an old capitalist system in crisis headed for world war) is the idea of accepting expendability.
As the future of capitalism becomes more uncertain (see editorial, page 2), the bosses need a tighter control of their class and the working class. Capitalist schools train us to treat our class as disposable—to accept that some youth will just be homeless, unemployed, jailed, killed in war, erased. The ones who can make this fascist argument most convincingly are the ones who present themselves as pro-worker. This is the same type of idea that threw workers into gas chambers.
We will always remember him
How do you respond when a Black principal makes it taboo to discuss and honor a victim of capitalism and pressures a mainly-white-teacher force and a mainly-Black-student force to simmer down?
Several teachers have stepped up in the reform struggle—one organized a card and funds for the family, another made photos of Claude, another printed the poem “Kids who Die,” and yet another helped blow up balloons for the third memorial wall. Every teacher also received a la​​minated tag, “we will always re​​member [Claude].”
Several have now made a small memorial with all these items inside their classrooms. Some have also folded Claude into their lesson plans.
Some teachers and students wore a button on their shirts or bags. It was made using printed text, clear packing tape, and a safety pin.
However, through one-on-one conversations, approved personal days, bending of some dress codes for “good kids,” and awarding field trips to previously banned students, the administration has pacified many staff and students.
One described the niceness as “the calm before the storm.”
The working class is not dumb. We understand the administration was threatened by the show of worker-student unity. And it will be our unity that the administration will come after. They will pit “good” students against struggling students, new teachers against tenured teachers.
This divide-and-conquer strategy will be no match for a politically conscious working class. That’s why linking this fight to capitalism and war is key. CHALLENGE readership has grown tremendously compared to its meager distribution before Claude, and building relationships with co-workers and students is needed more than ever. We need to win the masses to see the fight for communism as the only answer deserving of Claude’s memory. Communism means we serve ALL kids. No child is expendable.
Kids over capitalism
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 data and awards 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 pseudonym Claude is inspired by the communist fighter and writer, Claude Mckay.
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Letter: Fight to stop student pushout!

The following letter is written by a new teacher who became involved in the fight for Claude and against pushout.
As a person new to teaching and new to Brooklyn, the treatment of the legacy of a former student who was fatally shot near the school where I teach opened my eyes to not only how the school to prison pipeline functions, but to how treatment of working class students in a capitalist system kills.
When Claude was killed, the school that I work for not only did nothing to memorialize their former student, but fought hard against students and teachers who wanted to memorialize him themselves. Students created a memorial for Claude that was hung in the hallway. It was taken down by administrators the next day. When they hung it back up it was taken down almost immediately. Students overheard their principal admonishing Claude to other students and teachers, using racist rhetoric and accusing him of being in a gang in order to justify erasing his memory from the school after his death. The principal even antagonized teachers who took a personal day to attend their former student’s funeral.
This strange response can be explained by the fact that Claude was pushed out of our school. Our school boasts a 95 percent graduation rate which is very rare for our district, and one way that they achieve this is by pushing out students who threaten this misleading statistic. Student pushout is incredibly common in New York City, and this event has opened my eyes to how it unfolds in real time. Students are suspended with little reason, harassed by administrators, and working class parents are consistently asked to leave their jobs to attend disciplinary meetings at the school. Since forcing students to leave is illegal, employees of the Department of Education instead harass and bully children and parents until they decide that it is best to leave. Often administrators will convince parents that their students' needs would simply “be better met at another school.”
But this is not the truth.
Suspensions and push outs follow students, making it difficult to keep up with classwork, maintain good grades, and apply to college. It is already widely understood that suspensions, which is a critical aspect of the pushout process, are damaging to students and greatly increase their likelihood of being incarcerated. In a racist school system these practices disproportionately affect Black and brown students. So why do schools continue this practice?
Capitalism forces schools to compete with each other for scarce funding, resources, and even for students. Graduation rates and test scores are important to school bosses, and one way to keep high scores with limited resources is to get rid of students who threaten their scores. Instead of viewing students as fully formed humans, they are viewed as pawns to be traded, bargained for, and cast off. But schools don’t have to be this way!
Teachers should understand that this system not only harms students, but harms us as well. When we treat students like numbers, like problems, and pawns, we create a hostile environment that affects our lives too. We watch students that we care for be harassed, excluded from our classrooms, and disappeared from our schools without our consent. Teachers need to understand that this is a problem that is worth fighting about. Together, with parents and students we can fight for schools that care for all students, not just students who are willing to follow the status quo.
Parents, teachers, and students unite to end this violent, racist practice. Unite to end capitalism!

LOS ANGELES, March 23—“When students are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” This chant rang out on busy Los Angeles streets as workers from two unions, Services Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 and United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), parents, students, and members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) marched in solidarity. Literally hundreds of cars driving by honked in support. For the better part of a week, workers all over LA got to witness the power of a united working class; a working class that must one day overthrow the capitalists and rule the world.
Members of SEIU Local 99, composed of cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, and school support staff, called a three-day action to strike against unfair labor practices and retaliatory action by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school bosses. UTLA took to the picket lines in solidarity. Both unions have been in contract negotiations for over a year. Meanwhile, Los Angeles public school students are suffering from the chronic, racist understaffing of Special Education Assistants and other positions.
The pouring rain, which continued for most of this three-day strike, did not dampen the strikers’ enthusiasm. At one school, PLP members were welcomed on the picket line and helped lead chants. We brought a back issue of CHALLENGE headlined “Strike” which got the attention of many passing drivers, creating a cacophony of noise. Picket lines of close to a hundred strikers from both unions in front of the school continued for hours in the morning before school workers traveled to downtown LA for afternoon mass rallies.
Money for schools, not for cops
While these education workers have been fighting for crumbs, the military and police always have funds. Biden, with full Congressional support, has dispersed more than $75 billion over the last year to the war in Ukraine. Even after a huge antiracist movement demanding to defund the police, the Democratic mayor and city council of LA increased LAPD’s budget by $87 million. Karen Bass, LA’s new mayor, has already promised to hire more KKKops and increase their funding. This is because capitalism is not designed to benefit workers, but rather funds only what will continue to keep the ruling class rich and powerful. The racist and sexist nature of capitalism is also very clear as working-class Black, Latin, and immigrant neighborhoods take the brunt of the cutbacks.
Thankfully, Local 99 workers have realized that their strength lies in withholding their labor power through striking. This comes on the heels of an uptick of workers striking internationally, most recently seen here in the six-week strike by the graduate students in the University of California system. Except for working-class revolution or mass rebellion, strikes, more than anything else, bring fear into the hearts of the bosses.
This is why we approached this opportunity with urgency. We joined picket lines at the schools we have connections to and attended the larger marches with our literature. A hundred PLP flyers analyzing the strike, and 70 copies of CHALLENGE were distributed. We talked with education workers about standing united and firm in this battle. This is one of the few ways we can force the bosses to give students, their families, and neighborhoods a fraction of the education they deserve. But more importantly, it will be vital for workers, teachers, students, and parents to ultimately learn that any reform or crumbs given can   be taken away, so long as capitalism and its drive for maximum profit remains. This conversation led to May Day invitations as well.
Liberal leaders and politicians: no friends to workers
Another common conversation we had with workers is how liberals are the main danger to our class. UTLA leadership has put its faith in so-called progressive candidates to bring about change. They backed Karen Bass and a whole host of city council people and school board members in the last election, most of whom have been silent while Local 99 and UTLA members battled with LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho over the School Board’s $5 billion surplus.
Karen Bass in particular ran on a platform spotlighting the issue of unhoused folks in LA. Yet, before the strike, she was silent as Local 99 workers’ average salary remained below the poverty line and they were constantly under threat of losing their housing. She only inserted herself into the negotiations after it became clear the schools would be shut down because of the strike, and only then to pose as a “friend of labor,” get credit for ending the strike, and preparing to mislead workers in the future. She will no doubt expect the union leadership to continue to support her going forward. We cannot rely on liberals and so-called progressives to save us! Capitalism will always exploit its workers, but we can choose to organize to overthrow this system and replace it with communism where workers run society.
While striking is a crucial step in fighting for reforms and it makes clear the power of a united working class, it will never be enough to end racist and sexist attacks such as those on low-paid education workers. For that, we need a communist organization like PLP which is fighting to get rid of capitalism, the system that relies on unemployment, low wages, and part-time labor to maximize profit. In LA, we will strengthen the ties that we made on the picket lines and fight for this uptick in class struggle to lead to growth in PLP.