Friday, June 7, 2019 at 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT

Lugar: Iglesia Holyrood Church/Iglesia Santa Cruz. Direccion: 715 West, 179 Street, New York, NY. 10033

On Facebook

New York, May 8 — “Hey hey, ho ho! All evictions have to go!” and “Evictions are violent! We will not be silent!” were two popular chants by protesters outside Stellar Management at 156 William St., near Wall Street!

This large protest denounced the worst evictors in New York City in 2018. Called by the Right to Counsel (RTC), this was one of four protests in three New York boroughs this week. The protest today was prompted by unfair eviction threats and evictions by Stellar’s Larry Gluck.

The RTC tells of Gluck destabilizing housing by inflating building and apartment renovation costs. Tenants protesting today spoke of their experience fighting Stellar Management via Larry Gluck. The militant protest marched into the building with copies of a “Notice of Eviction” by Manhattan tenants against Stellar Management. Greeted with threats of arrest by security, tenants raised their chant: “Evictions are violent!  We will not be silent!’

Bringing many tenants together, RTC holds their next protest tomorrow outside the Bronx Housing Court. Meanwhile, tenants are also organizing for universal rent control. A large tenant protest will be held in the state capital of Albany on May 14, which will draw tenant activists from across the state. As the multinational rally chanted today, “If we don’t get it, shut it down!”

The New York City Housing Authority has nearly 400,000 tenants living in 173,160 apartments. These NYCHA apartments are called public housing and “the projects,” making them the largest public housing project in the country.

NYCHA has neglected repairs for decades, as the city government says it cannot afford to pay for the necessary fixes. Instead, the city government has schemed with private realty companies, already giving them over a third of the public housing. The big real estate industry is now actively replacing low-income housing with so-called market-rate housing.

As earlier reported, the mostly Black and Latinx NYCHA tenants are fighting against this privatization of their neighborhoods. Pictured here is the May 4 demonstration at Fulton Housing. Tenants, in English and Spanish, insisted that “We will not be moved!”  Some spoke of having lived there for 50 years, some for generations. There is no affordable alternative to move to. The solidarity shown could be heard in an old but favorite chant: “The people united will never be defeated! ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”

New York — On April 27, Bronx tenants rallied on a vacant lot owned by the city of New York along East 152nd Street. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) was supposed to build affordable senior housing on the site. Mayor Bill de Blasio promised $500 million for the project when he spoke to tenant activists last year.

The money, and the project, have not materialized.

The Rev. Francis Skelly, a lifelong resident of the South Bronx and pastor of the mostly Latinx Immaculate Conception Church, seemed to speak for everyone in the crowd when he pointedly asked, “Where is the money?”  

Referring to the funds promised by de Blasio, Skelly declared, “We basically are calling him a liar!”

The next day, 100 tenants of NYCHA’s Fulton housing project in Manhattan gathered. Militant speakers denounced plans to sell 62,000 city-owned apartments to private realtors.

City officials call this RAD — Rental Assistance Development — and claim it would pay for many long-delayed repairs of NYCHA housing. But the working-class, mostly Black and Brown tenants see it as the beginning of privatization and the end of public housing.

Right next to the Fulton Houses, racist gentrification is rampant on Manhattan’s West Side for all to see. So Fulton tenants are demanding a voice in what is decided about their homes and tenants’ rights.

At the rally, some speakers proposed more taxes on big corporations to pay NYCHA costs.

Tenant representative Amelia Martinez insisted that ” We are not for sale!”

The Fulton tenants know how the working class has to struggle. They announced their next protest for May 4 outside their NYCHA office on West 18th Street.

It’s no secret that rental costs across the U.S. are out of control, and out of the reach of many workers. And New Yorkers already suffer some of the highest rents.

New York’s rent stabilization program, which sets a vital limit to how high rents can be raised and affects hundreds of thousands of tenants citywide, is due to expire on June 15.

Tenants groups are launching a citywide campaign to prevent the end of rent stabilization.

The struggle for housing justice continues!

Hundreds of people marched down Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. on April 11 in a Moral March for Housing. They shouted, “Housing is a Right! Fight! Fight! Fight!” and “Get up! Get down! There’s a housing crisis in this town!” They also chanted “¡Aquí estamos y no nos vamos!” (We are here and we’re not going away!), and other slogans in Spanish.

The marchers were Asian, Black, Latinx and white. They represented every family and individual who have been rent gouged.

While Andrew Cuomo has been the state’s governor, evictions have rocketed from 4 to 104 every single day.

Evictions can mean death. Sixty-six-year-old Black grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs was killed by two shotgun blasts fired by policeman Stephen Sullivan on Oct. 29, 1984, during an eviction in the Bronx.

Rally at Abyssinian Baptist Church

Police forced marchers off the street, but the people refused to be intimidated. They ended up at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Harlem State Office Building on 125th Street, where a rally was held.

Marchers had departed from the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, where at least a thousand people had gathered for housing justice. Tenant organizers, members of the clergy and elected officials spoke out against the massive ethnic cleansing that has driven hundreds of thousands out of New York City.

According to the Institute for Children Poverty and Homelessness, 28 percent of New York City’s tenants pay at least half of their income in rent. Behind even the biggest landlords are the banks and insurance companies that own the mortgages.

In the capital of capitalism, where a hedge fund billionaire recently bought a penthouse overlooking Central Park for $238 million, over 22,000 children sleep every night in homeless shelters.

Tenants and their supporters are demanding that nine laws be passed by the New York state Legislature to fight massive rent increases. Among these needed measures is universal rent control throughout New York State.

For fifty years, the number of rent controlled apartments in New York City has sharply declined through legal schemes to benefit the rent collectors.

At least 167,000 apartments have been removed from rent control by so-called Individual Apartment Improvements. Landlords will neglect a building, refusing to make necessary repairs. Then, they get state approval for a rent hike because the building needs repairs.

Building owners can also raise rents by 20 percent when a tenant leaves or is pushed out of a rent-controlled apartment. And when the rent rises to $2,775 per month, the unit can be taken completely out of rent control compliance.    

The Kushner family is among the big landlords that use these laws to drive out rent regulated tenants. One of the family members is Jared Kushner, a son-in-law of Donald Trump.

Many groups and neighborhoods represented

The rally at Abyssinian Baptist Church was like a people’s congress of tenants. People had come from throughout New York City and surrounding communities as well. Speakers addressed listeners in English, Spanish and Chinese.

Among the groups represented were the Metropolitan Council on Housing; the New York State Tenants and Neighbors Coalition; Woodside on the Move; the MinKwon Center for Community Action; the North West Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition; the Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association; the Morningside Heights Multicultural Tenant Organization; New York Communities for Change; St. Nick’s Alliance; and the West Side Neighborhood Alliance.

Tenants and their supporters have been betrayed over and over again by politicians in both New York City and the state capital in Albany. The Empire State’s politics are dominated by the banks and interconnected real estate interests.

But tenants have had enough! People are refusing to be pushed out of New York City. A mighty movement can sweep away every obstacle.

That’s what happened in Cuba and Venezuela. One of the first legislative acts of the Cuban Revolution was to limit rent and utility payment to no more than 10 percent of a family’s income.

The Bolivarian Revolution has built over two million homes for poor and working people in Venezuela. That’s another reason for all the Trumps and Kushners to try to overthrow the democratically elected Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro Moros.

People are planning to go to Albany on May 14 to confront the landlords and their stooges. Power to the tenants!

Members of Johns Hopkins Students Against Private Police and Hopkins Anti-ICE Coalition sit under a banner on April 4, 2019, in the university president’s office building after sitting-in overnight.

Hundreds march: No private police, No ICE contracts and justice for Tyrone West

Baltimore, April 4 — A couple hundred protesters voiced their opposition to a private armed police force at this city’s Johns Hopkins University. This outrage was sparked by new legislation that was passed on April 2 in the Maryland Senate 42 to 2 that would allow the private institution to have its own 100-member police force at its academic campuses and main medical campus here. The bill awaits the signature of Gov. Larry Hogan, who has been a strong supporter of a police occupation of the university.

The protesters marched from Wyman Park to the office of the university president in Garland Hall, where about 50 students decided to occupy the administration building. Students and supporters have held fast and strong for over three days.

For many, the issue is about racial profiling. “For me and for every other Black student at Hopkins and for every single Black community member, I want them to come home at night. No, I don’t want them to be terrorized by a police officer,” said Bentley Addison, a student at JHU.

An impressive sight was the solidarity and linking of issues that the students made.

New York — “Only the little people pay taxes,” bragged the late hotel boss Leona Helmsley. Capitalist politicians always prove her right.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wanted to give Amazon a $3 billion handout in return for building a new headquarters. Last year, this anti-union goliath raked in $11.2 billion in profits ― that’s $30 million a day ― while paying zilch in federal taxes.

Meanwhile, the New York state Legislature, with Cuomo’s and De Blasio’s support, has passed a series of new fees that will fall heaviest on poor and working people.

Karl Marx described the impact of these taxes 150 years ago in the book “Capital,” where he referred to the Netherlands during the 1600s:

“Overtaxation is not an incident, but rather a principle. In Holland, therefore, where this system was first inaugurated, the great patriot, DeWitt, has in his Maxims extolled it as the best system for making the wage laborer submissive, frugal, industrious, and overburdened with labor.”    

Already in effect is a $2.50 surcharge on yellow taxis picking up or dropping off fares in Manhattan south of 96th Street. ($2.75 for other taxis.)

This transportation tax will hardly make a dent in traffic, but is guaranteed to make life more miserable for disabled people who need to take a cab. Just one out of five New York subway stations have elevators.

It isn’t just rich folk who use taxis. Working people who can’t afford to own cars often need cabs in order to go shopping.

If Malaysia Goodson could have afforded a taxi, she wouldn’t have fallen to her death on Jan. 28. The 22-year-old Black mother died protecting her baby daughter at the 7th Avenue/53rd Street stop in Manhattan, another station without an elevator.

There are 100,000 cab drivers in New York City, many of whom work a 12-hour shift.  Five out of six New York City cab drivers are immigrants with probably a majority being Muslim.  

They’re calling the new fee “a suicide surcharge.” Last year, eight people in the city’s taxi industry committed suicide.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said that with this surcharge “taxi drivers would earn less and could have to cut back on food, medical care and other necessities.”  

Taxing paper bags

The oceans are choking to death with 150 million metric tons of plastic garbage. Another 8 million tons are being added annually.

Everyone should be upset at dolphins, whales and every other creature in the seas being poisoned. So why can’t the capitalists invent a biodegradable packaging material?

Following California’s example, New York state has now banned plastic bags, with the ban taking effect next March.

New York’s legislation also allow cities to collect a nickel tax on every paper bag used instead.

That’s even more unfair than sales taxes, which fall heaviest on the poor and should be abolished.

Paper can be recycled, with 68 million tons of paper being recycled in the U.S. And we can plant millions more trees to combat capitalist climate change.

Forcing shoppers at a bodega or a supermarket to pay a nickel for each paper bag is just another attack on poor people.

Paying a toll to enter Manhattan

Trump wants to close the U.S. border with Mexico. Cuomo and De Blasio want drivers to pay a toll to enter lower Manhattan.

“Congestion pricing” will force drivers coming into Manhattan south of 60th Street to pay $11.52 for a daily pass. Trucks will pay double. The money is in addition to bridge and tunnel tolls, as well as the outrageous prices charged by private parking lots.

With the closing of the High Line to rail traffic and the closing of all the railroad freight terminals on the waterfront, about 90 percent of freight coming into New York City is by truck. Forcing them to pay more may well jack up food prices all over the city.

The funds raised by congestion pricing are to be used for mass transit, with 80 percent going to New York City subways and buses.

Because of this pledge, both the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 and the Community Service Society support this legislation. We urge them to reconsider.

Mass transit has been starved since at least the 1940s. The subway fare has gone up 55 times since 1948, when it was a nickel.

Manhattan real estate is worth an estimated $1.9 trillion. But all of Gotham’s skyscrapers would be worthless without subways and buses and the TWU members who operate them.

It’s the landlords, and the banks and insurance companies owning the mortgages, that should pay for mass transit. TWU founder Mike Quill once called for the fare to be free.

That’s what we need to fight for.

Giving up their lunch breaks and a brief chance to relax, over 500 Brookdale Medical Center 1199SEIU union members rallied March 6. They gathered outside their hospital in below-freezing temperatures to show the working-class community of Brownsville their determination to stop Medicaid cuts.

Fiery speakers from 1199SEIU, the New York State Nurses Association and community supporters warmed up this crowd of self-sacrificing workers, who care for patients and their families. With a long history of struggle by and for mostly people of color, in this community with a large West Indian population, 1199SEIU members are prepared to struggle.

Health care workers and communities are uniting now to fight politicians in Albany, the New York state capital. 1199SEIU workers are holding rallies across the state.

The Trump administration’s federal tax cuts have left New York state with a budget crisis. That has Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other politicians trying to make up the difference with a proposed $550 million cut to promised state Medicaid funding. The loss of federal matching funds would mean that New Yorkers stand to lose $1.1 billion in Medicaid funds.

Rather than fight back against Trump or make Wall Street pay the difference, Cuomo and his cronies want to push their budget crisis onto the backs of poor and working-class communities. Health care workers are saying “No!”

Already, 26 New York hospitals face a funding crisis that puts them on a “watch list” for possible closure. These are hospitals serving people without insurance and the poorest who rely on Medicaid, including immigrants. In 2017, these facilities provided nearly 200,000 admissions and 3.5 million emergency room and ambulatory visits.

And, according to 1199SEIU, Medicaid cuts mean that “hospitals will have to cut community services. Hospitals are the biggest providers of care to Medicaid recipients and other vulnerable populations.” What discrimination against the poor and uninsured!  

Homecare workers and nursing home workers can’t afford any cuts either. Union speakers explained that there has been no increase in the funding of Medicaid in 10 years. “Hospitals and nursing homes need funding to provide quality care and to support record Medicaid enrollment,” says 1199SEIU.

As shown by today’s spirited rally, workers can unite to fight back when under attack. As the Brookdale workers chanted: “Protect our care! No cuts!”

The writer is an 1199SEIU retiree.

Photos by Anne Pruden

The Los Angeles conference entitled “Unity for Revolution and Socialism” set for March 16 and called by Struggle for Socialism-La Lucha por el Socialismo has announced that it will be shifting its schedule to participate and actively organize for a major protest and march to demand “U.S. Hands Off Venezuela!”

John Parker, one of the organizers of the conference stated: “We not only want to talk about revolutionary change, we also want to act to make it possible. The war on Venezuela is an emergency for all workers and poor people around the globe!  We are making this fight a priority. Therefore, we officially moved our conference opening to 1 p.m. so that we can organize and participate in a Hands off Venezuela protest.”

The “U.S. Hands Off Venezuela” protest in Los Angeles will gather at 11 a.m. at MacArthur Park to coincide with the March 16 national “No Coup – No Sanctions – No War” protest in Washington, D.C., initiated by the Answer Coalition.  We will march from MacArthur Park, the site of the rally, to the conference.

The organizations that will be gathering in MacArthur Park to demand no U.S. war on Venezuela will include AIM SoCal; Unión del Barrio; the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice; School of the Americas Watch-L.A.; CISPES-L.A. Chapter; the Eastside Greens of L.A. County; Radio Justice; the Humanity First Coalition; California for Progress; the International League of Peoples Struggles-ILPS Southern California; the People’s Power Assembly; the Democratic Socialists of America-L.A.; the International Action Center West Coast; SOA Watch-L.A.; and Struggle for Socialism-La Lucha por el Socialismo.

See Facebook event.

Conference will include a special ILWU and Black workers panel

Youth Against War and Racism organizer Miranda Bachman noted, “As youth we are excited that we will get an opportunity to listen to and learn from some of the veteran worker organizers like Clarence Thomas from the International Longshore Workers Union, who will be speaking on supply chain workers, ILWU history and the leading role of Black workers.

“I’m also personally, extremely excited that I’ll be able to hear about the recent teachers strike!”

Clarence Thomas, a veteran ILWU organizer, who helped to spearhead the “Million Worker March,” a movement led by Black workers, will address a special interactive panel where younger and older activists will have the opportunity to not only learn but also to ask questions that can help inform and shape current and future workers’ struggles.

The conference will highlight many of the international struggles along with burning issues for workers and oppressed here in the United States, including the epidemic of police terror against Black and Brown communities; prisoner rights and slave labor; the cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier; women’s, oppressed genders and LGBTQ2S liberation; teachers and Amazon workers fighting for workers’ power; the need to save planet earth from capitalist destruction, and other issues of importance and concern for the youth, workers, and poor and oppressed people.

There will be lots of time for interactive discussion from participants.  Please sign up so that we can provide adequate food for everyone. On Facebook.

Register now.

Dozens of tenants of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartments held a militant rally on Feb. 10 on the steps of City Hall. They chanted, “Keep public housing public!” In spite of freezing temperatures, they came out on this raw day to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to sell off one-third of NYCHA homes.

These 62,000 apartments are to be sold to private real estate developers. The mayor and his team claim their plan will “save NYCHA.” Meanwhile, thousands of the 400,000 NYCHA tenants, including children, have suffered for months without heat and hot water at the coldest time of the year.

Jazz, a resident of the Jacob Riis Housing Project who spoke at the rally, exposed how the lack of services has also led to thousands of children being poisoned by lead paint.

Local, state and federal politicians stall and make excuses for the lack of funds to repair NYCHA buildings. But tenants and supporters, like rally sponsor Progress New York, have presented alternative plans to pay for NYCHA repairs and improvement, such as increasing taxes on big businesses, or by redirecting $3 billion in subsidies offered to Amazon.com to build its new headquarters in New York and $10 billion planned to build new jails.

Another part of de Blasio’s plan calls for selling vacant lots owned by NYCHA to realtors to build more upscale apartments. But low-cost housing is what is desperately needed by the many working-class residents being driven out of their neighborhoods by gentrification.

The bill owed to the mostly Black and Latinx tenants of New York public housing is due. The tenants raised their voices loud and clear to demand “Fight for NYCHA!”

Photos by Anne Pruden