CHICAGO, July 22– A multiracial, intergenerational group of around 30 Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends gathered for a forum today as a means to educate and organize against capitalism’s worsening racist and sexist attacks on workers’ reproductive and family health. In the wake of the historically racist and sexist Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, building the Party and fighting for international communist revolution remains the only real path forward for liberation and optimal health for our class.
     As capitalism globally spirals deeper into crisis, the bosses’ need to resort to open fascism to salvage their profit system becomes more acute. Different factions of the capitalist ruling class seek to mobilize workers around the issue of abortion, but to follow their leadership guarantees only more misery, murder, and imperialist war.
     In a movement dominated by pro-capitalist ideals of individualism, voting, and “autonomy,” the international working class must instead choose collectivity and the power of a worker-run communist state as the solution. To be a part of PLP is to be the fighting alternative to build an antisexist and antiracist world!

Communist panel highlights real reproductive justice
The first half of the forum was a panel presentation from three PLP members. The first panelist, a veteran healthcare worker, gave a condensed history of centuries of racist and sexist attacks on workers’ health under capitalism in the U.S. She detailed how getting medical treatments such as abortion has always been determined by race and class, with Black, Latin, and Asian and white workers suffering from little to no access. She shared a heart-wrenching personal story as a young worker who witnessed an involuntary surgery on a Black woman, a consequence of racist medical violence.
     The second panelist gave an analysis of the political motives of the different wings of the U.S. ruling class regarding their approach to abortions and reproductive health. Of course the domestically-oriented, church-supported Small Fascist wing (see Glossary, page 6) of the U.S. bosses obviously deserve to be destroyed for their assault on workers’ health. But,  it is the openly-liberal, internationally-oriented, imperialist Big Fascist wing who in fact are more sinister and deadly. The panelist shredded these Big Fascists for not disregarding abortion rights over decades, but for their present and future plans to win our class over to imperialist war by offering some minor reforms.
     The final panelist concluded by pointing the communist way forward. She shared her own progression from chanting “My body, my choice” to her eventual conclusion that the individual “choices” that we make as workers cannot be separated from the overall political and socioeconomic structure of society. Since the capitalists dominate the economic and political landscape, their rotten influence infects all dimensions of our lives.
     She argued that we need to see ourselves as part of the entire working class and fight for collective solutions. She concluded that only a worker-run communist state could guarantee worker rights, safety, and health, such as when the Soviet Union became the first place on earth to legalize abortion in 1922.

“Fighting for communism is the best way I know to fight back”
After the conclusion of the panel, the forum transitioned to an engaging open discussion. Many comments and questions were made about the struggle between reform and revolution, individualism versus collectivism, and voting versus direct workers’ action.
One PLP member asked the panel about alternative actions for workers and the Party to take in the immediate sense, since voting has always been shown to be a dead end for our class. A panelist responded with the example of mostly women workers in Mexico in recent years, militantly squaring off and battling with riot police in different state capitols after the bosses there tried to roll back abortion rights. Because they organized in a mass way to confront the attack head on, the bosses were forced to retreat.
     Another forum participant stressed the importance of women workers educating others of the dangers of sexism and winning more people to be advocates on behalf of women’s wellbeing. One of the PLP panelists agreed, but advanced the argument further that as workers we need to be fighting to take state power away from the capitalist bosses. Similar to the points made during the presentation, only by fighting for working-class power everywhere can we create lasting solutions to our collective needs.
     Perhaps the most inspirational moment of the evening came from the veteran panelist when she shared what brought her back actively into the Party after some time away: “I just couldn’t keep away, based on what I know. Fighting for communism is the best way I know to fight back.”

Always fighting for communism
As we fight shoulder-to-shoulder alongside workers for expanded reproductive health access, childcare, and a thousand other reform struggles, we must never shy away from connecting these fights to capitalism. The working class continuously demonstrates an openness to communist politics when we advance them boldly and consistently. This forum was just one of the many ways to advance communist revolution in a mass way and motivate ourselves to fight back. Onward to more class struggle.

Landover, Maryland, August 1–Today over 170 Metro Access transit workers hit the bricks, striking against Transdev, a contractor for the Metro transit system in the Washington, D.C. region (see CHALLENGE, July 6, for an earlier rally). Transdev is a notorious multinational private transit company famous for screwing workers around the world. The mainly Black transit workers drive “on call” for people with disabilities or medical challenges. They are paid $17/hour, far less than their Metro counterparts. They are demanding a starting rate of $22.50/hour, rising to a top rate of $32, as well as a decent health and pension plan. Transdev has arrogantly dismissed their very modest demands. But Transdev is being hit with a fine of $1,000 per missed run, or over $100,000 a day, so they have an incentive to come up with a better contract offer. We’ll squeeze these bosses until they cry uncle!
     Several Progressive Labor Party members joined the bold militant picket line, distributing over 75 CHALLENGEs to the striking workers, and discussing how only a communist revolution that fights racism can get rid of the capitalist bosses and create a worker-run society. When communist ideas, combined with angry worker militancy, grip the working class, we will succeed in overthrowing the entire capitalist system of exploiters and imperialists!

NEW YORK CITY, July 17— “We are still going through the same madness about homelessness…I don’t know. Something’s gotta change…this is not working.” That’s what a formerly homeless worker said at a demonstration at Gracie Mansion, racist kkkop Mayor Eric Adams’ home. The rally called for an end to the City’s racist displacement and immediate permanent housing. He is exactly right, and demonstrating with him were 40 workers and Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members. The rally was,) sponsored by the Open Hearts Initiative.
     Mayor Eric Adams is leading the bosses’ efforts to clear New York’s streets of homeless workers by employing racist, fascist sweeps that try to force the homeless into shelters by destroying their street encampments. Yet many of these workers return to the streets because of the unsafe conditions in the shelters. Imagine that—homeless workers prefer the streets to the shelters! The revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party is fighting to organize the entire international working class to smash racism, sexism and imperialism and build a communist world. That means a world run by and for the working class, where things like healthcare and housing are provided on the basis of need, not on racist profits.

Capitalism creates racist homelessness
Racist profits, sharpening fascist attacks, and U.S. imperialism’s preparation for wider world wars are at the heart of the homeless crisis in cities, including the financial capital of the world’s top imperialist power. As inflation skyrockets hand in hand with capitalist profits (PBS, 4/12), more U.S. workers than ever are paying most of their income for necessities like food, housing, transportation, and heating.
     Nationwide, average apartment rents have increased 14.1 percent, and at least one in ten workers pay 55 percent of their monthly income on rent (Newsweek, 8/2). As “hot” real estate markets line the pockets of real estate capitalists, a 2020 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that for every average $100 increase in the average rent, homelessness increases an estimated nine percent (Washington Post, 7/3). Meanwhile in the past year, average rents have increased almost $300.
In New York City, May 2022 saw a near-record breaking 18,863 homeless adults and 15,432 children in the shelter system; 93 percent of these workers and youth are Black, Latin or immigrant (“Basic Facts”, coalitionforthehomeless.org). The bosses’ politicians’ response to homelessness is the same —whether liberal Big Fascist Democrat mayors like De Blasio and Adams, or the openly gutter Small Fascists running cities in states like Florida: they all rely on racist police terror to violently clear out encampments.
     With homelessness at the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s, PL’ers have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with homeless workers at the Lucerne Hotel from the beginning of the struggle and throughout the Covid-19 pandemic (see CHALLENGE, 7/21/20).

Lucerne workers expose Big Fascists
Homeless workers at Lucerne have been on the front lines exposing the Big Fascists’ politicians and their liberal misleaders for two years, and this was not their first march on a fascist mayors’ home (see CHALLENGE, 10/22/20). PLP salutes these workers’ militant leadership and experience, and we will continue fighting and struggling alongside them to earn their leadership into our ranks! At the same time, we are active in sharing and struggling over communist ideas.
     For example, one problem with today’s demonstration was that the primary goal of the organization sponsoring the march was to get coverage from the capitalist media. We are organizing and struggling with homeless workers on the grass roots level rather than relying on getting attention from the bosses’ media. Only in this way can workers build confidence in themselves and each other in working class leadership, not politicians or boss-led reform groups. Only in this way can our class organize a revolutionary communist PLP and smash racist homelessness once and for all. To do this, we distributed CHALLENGE at the protest, and talked with our friends and many of the participants.

Fight for workers’ housing, fight to tear down capitalism!
Winning workers to the fight against homelessness helps to tear down the wall of racism that separates us today. The only reason Adams is doing the sweeps is because the developers, landlords, and Wall Street are concerned about the “appearance” of New York City. Seeing homelessness is bad for business. Capitalism is incapable of solving this issue!
     As their economy sinks into another recession, the bosses would rather spend $54.6 billion on weapons manufacturers sending weapons to imperialist war in Ukraine, rebuilding Madison Square Garden, and building more luxury housing.  
     The Progressive Labor Party puts all confidence in the international working class. We fight in the struggle for workers’ housing against the bosses’ politicians and their racist police terror, and for a mass PLP that will lead international communist revolution. Racism and homelessness will only be ended by millions of workers united to fight for communism. JOIN US!

Washington, DC July 19—Racist Texas Governor Abbot has spent over $6 million to send over 130 busloads of migrant workers, detained after crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, to Washington, DC as a political stunt. The daily arrivals at Union Station have risen to four to five buses per day (Washington Post, 7/14 and 7/19). This is the reality of a capitalist system built on fake, profit driven borders.The working-class, however, NEEDS a world without borders. To fight back against this racist deportation and rising fascist state, members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have joined mutual aid networks to help our working-class sisters and brothers survive. As we fight back we also remember that reform struggles won’t stop rising fascism in the U.S. As the bosses struggle to regain control of their system in crisis we are watching the state continue to take more direct control and incite state terror (see page 6, glossary). But it is only with international communist revolution that we will smash our chains.

Migration myths of freedom
Forced to be economic pawns and political fodder at home, it is no surprise that workers from many countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Cuba and Nicaragua continue to gather at northern Mexico’s border with the U.S. Harrowing portrayals of their journeys to reach the border are peppered with inspiring accounts of working-class solidarity throughout North, Central and South America.  
     The response by the U.S. government to this forced migration has been brutal. It falsely claimed that there was a public health risk from Covid-19 and used Title 42 of the Public Health Law to keep workers in Mexico. Democrats won a reversal of the policy at the Supreme Court, but the Congress controlled by Democrats has kept this policy in play by refusing to release domestic funding. And the bosses’ media has gone silent.

The “American Dream” is a capitalist hellscape
Today’s oppression of migrant workers continues a long tradition of racist immigration policy in the U.S., always attuned to the needs of capitalism. If the bosses need cheap labor in agriculture or services, they bring in workers on a temporary basis. Or the bosses terrorize undocumented workers into accepting horrid working conditions and pay, simultaneously undercutting the employment and pay of other workers. When the bosses don’t need them, they beef up deportation. Democrats and Republicans alike dance to the bosses’ tune – remember that Barack Obama was decried at mass demonstrations as the “Deporter in Chief.” Donald Trump and Joe Biden have continued that racist tradition.
     Volunteer mutual aid workers have worked daily from 5:00 am until past midnight to find or secure housing and distribute food, a change of clothes, medicine for a cough, and a bus ticket to a desired destination. They have demanded government assistance for this humanitarian challenge. But Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Black woman politician in D.C. has rebuffed calls to tap into the city’s reserve funds, declaring that it’s a federal problem. Or perhaps she is telling these workers, if there is no bread, let them eat cake. Meanwhile, Covid-19 has sidelined many of the mutual aid workers while the pace of new arrivals increases.

The only solution is a communist revolution
Mutual aid cannot solve the big problems facing migrant workers. As more workers are pushed to destinations where they have at best tenuous ties, they are pushed to survive through spirit breaking, dangerous, and back-breaking means.
     As communists, we struggle over the political limits of mutual aid and other reform struggles even as we strive to support our class brothers and sisters in the here and now. We have shared CHALLENGE, our party’s newspaper, and our flyers with mutual aid workers and migrant workers.
     Capitalism’s immigration policy is not broken, it is operating just as intended to help capitalists maximize profits from the exploited labor of the desperate. It is an extension of capitalism’s institutionalized racism that for centuries has allowed capitalists to profit from super-exploitation and divide the working class to weaken the struggles of all workers for a decent life and ultimately liberation from wage slavery.
     The sinister capitalist system takes the energy of those trying to make change and funnels it into inevitably-limited service to others or drop-in-the-bucket reform that only reinforces the system. It is time to place our energy into the building of a disciplined revolutionary Progressive Labor Party whose members are deeply rooted in day to day workers’ struggles against racist capitalism. At the same time we will lay the foundation for the destruction of the capitalist system and its state and replace it with workers’ power, collectivity, and equality – communism.