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	International Communist Workers Party
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Only a Communist Health Care System Can Wipe Out Deadly Epidemics & Infections

I have been a health care worker for more than 35 years.  In 1979, I started working at Harborview Medical Center.  Harborview is the county hospital of Seattle, but it is part of the University of Washington system of teaching hospitals. It is very highly rated for its Trauma Center and Burn Unit.
I worked with many patients who had severe burns and open wounds. Our department (physical therapy) was very careful to use strict universal precautions.

Healthcare workers in Madrid, Spain, furious at cutbacks and inadequate protection, throw surgical gloves at the prime minister after a nurse caring for an Ebola patient contracted the virus.

However, often during rounds, the attending physician, residents, interns and students would enter the isolation hydrotherapy room to observe a patient’s treatment. There were a few who would not gown up or sometimes even not use gloves. I reminded them nicely, as we were instructed. But they just brushed me off.
It turns out that this was just a part of a much bigger problem.
 Starting in June of 1980, a burn patient known to have MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, an infection which is resistant to known antibiotics) was transferred to Harborview. He died 12 days later. But MRSA swept through the hospital uncontrolled for the next 15 months. Only after 5 months did the hospital start systematically isolating MRSA patients, and a whole year passed before they started testing the staff for MRSA.
One nurse was a carrier, and she was removed and treated. In the end, 35 patients had become infected, and 17 died.
 The public knew nothing about it. Years later, it was revealed by families of these patients that many were never told their loved ones had MRSA, and it was never listed on the death certificate to be a cause of death.
Meanwhile, other US hospitals were experiencing MRSA outbreaks also. One, the University of Virginia Hospital, opted to actively find patients with MRSA or who were susceptible to infection, and isolate them. This is called Active Detection and Isolation, or, ADI. Almost immediately the infection rate dropped dramatically, and was totally gone within 6 or 7 months. Even then, they continued to use ADI. Other hospitals that adopted ADI had similar results.
Despite this success, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) did not make ADI mandatory. They only issued confusing recommendations and let hospitals pick and choose what they wanted.
In 2005, MRSA killed 19,000 people in the US. In 2007, the CDC issued a statement that rocked the nation. MRSA was now killing more people than AIDS.
Clearly, just as with Ebola, capitalist healthcare bosses know how to prevent and contain these outbreaks and epidemics. They choose instead to let people die while they spend billions on preparations for the next war.
The people served by Harborview are mostly poor, often homeless, disabled, or mentally ill. The people in West Africa are impoverished, starving, and have no health care. 
As the article about Ebola says, nothing less than a communist revolution will do. Only then will we have the power to establish a real collective worldwide health care system.
I invite you to contribute to this dialog, especially health care workers.  We need to publish more on this very important topic.

—Red Healthcare Worker

Everyone Should Contribute His or Her Grain of Sand
Hollywood movies show the life that exists for the ruling class and for their cronies. But the reality is quite different for the working class. In a class society the prosperity of the few comes at the expense and misery of the masses.
Many people who live in Africa think that everybody born in America owns a machine that prints money. I was born in Africa, and I have lived in the US for 35 years, in Texas, California and Oklahoma.
Regardless of the color of the skin there are many Americans who live in dire poverty, especially in small towns. This is a racist country that hits black-skinned people and immigrants the most and throws white-skinned workers out on the street. You can see white-skinned people pushing grocery carts on the streets and fishing for soda cans in the trash bins. This is the real life for those thrown out on the street by the system.
Only a society without wage slavery fulfills the needs and desires of the masses. That society is a classless communist society of collectivity and cooperation.
In order to help the activity of the party, every one of us should contribute what we can afford. We don’t have to think that the party will be funded only by workers and comrades in the US. It is our responsibility collectively to sustain the life of the party and its activities to organize and build the society we envision.  So it requires everybody’s commitment to continue the struggle. Everyone must put in his or her little grain of sand.

—Internationalist comrade

“Vote No” or “No Vote”
Years ago, before I was communist, I didn’t vote because Democrats and Republicans were all racist war-makers.  Then came a vote on denying the racist Philadelphia mayor a third term. It seemed like a chance to vote “no” against him without voting for another
disgusting politician. 
That was wrong.  Voting builds illusions in the bosses’ system. 
My co-workers may soon vote on a contract with a health give-back that erases small wage gains.  There won’t be a strike:  the union
changed its strike fund into a political fund years ago.  I need to explain to co-workers that this contract, like all contracts, ties us to capitalism.  Does “VOTE NO” or “NO VOTE” make this clearer? 
As Red Flag reported, Los Angeles bus operators approved a contract by a narrow margin, with many not voting.  Many workers influenced by our paper’s analysis voted NO.  Some bosses openly expressed fear of this!
I think that some non-voters were also influenced by our politics.  Maybe they correctly figured that voting down this contract would leave them with another set of chains.  Is this why we didn’t openly advise workers to vote “NO”?  Seems it’s why Boeing workers massively boycotted their last contract vote.
We called instead for a communist political strike against capitalism.  Such a strike would be illegal and wouldn’t necessarily be tied to a contract vote.  It could respond to racist police murders, or a fired co-worker, or in solidarity with African workers.  It would give voice to workers’ anger at wage slavery, their disgust with management and the union, and their
growing confidence in communism.
LA bosses feared a transit strike because it would hurt their profits and because they knew we’d take advantage of a strike to raise communist ideas amidst sharp class struggle.  To the workers who voted “no” because they welcomed this opportunity, we throw open the doors of our Party.  We extend the same invitation to those who boycotted the vote and even those who voted “yes.”
Opportunities to advance communism surround us.  They don’t depend on reform issues like contract votes.  The ICWP is your Party!  Help develop and carry out tactics that further the strategy of mobilizing the masses for communism!

Which do you want?
The Boeing bosses are at it again: handing out corrective action memos (CAMs) en masse. CAMs are the first step in a series of moves, which eventually threaten our jobs. Our initial response was to protect the new guys first.
Almost every veteran employee has got one or more of these things because mistakes are bound to happen. We all refused to discuss or speculate who made the initial error because the bosses would only use such information to dish out more severe punishment. Better to refuse to talk to the enemy.
The workers who got these CAMs represent hundreds of years of labor. They have already literally made millions for the company. Are we supposed to be ashamed because Boeing will have to remake some parts?
Under communism, errors would be used as opportunities for everyone to learn. We would be producing for our class, not the bosses’ profit. There would be no shame in making an honest mistake. Indeed, you can often learn more from your mistakes than your successes.
We did learn something from our discussions during this episode. Some veterans told the new guys that they were at a disadvantage because of how they were trained. Old-timers learned on the job from the get-go. We were able to learn from other workers’ mistakes. New workers are forced to go through a system of classroom work and expected to be able to produce error-free from day one.
But even old-timers’ training is very limited. Under communism machinists, for example, would learn metallurgy and structural mechanics. They could then not only make parts to prints, but would know why. They would then be able to tell what deviations are important and which are not.
“Take the CEO for example,” said one veteran. “If you asked him how jets fly he’d say first you get a bank loan and then the cheapest possible labor, etc. He really doesn’t know how it’s done.”
“Yeah, the CEO doesn’t know anything and he sure can’t use it,” commented another, “but he went to school for many years to learn finance so he thinks his exorbitant salary is justified.”
Fear and punishment are the watchwords of the capitalists. Collectivity and comradely help are our watchwords. Which do you want?

—Boeing Red

Communism is in my blood”
On October 3rd, I received news that many workers of Johnson Controls in the Uitenhage plant in South Africa lost their jobs. I asked an former Johnson Controls worker, “How did these workers lose their jobs and in such large numbers?”
She said it’s because Johnson Controls is forcing all of its workers to accept an employment agency rate which is half the normal rate that permanent workers were getting. Those who didn’t want to accept the new terms have lost their jobs. It is reported that many workers have lost their jobs.
The life of these workers was financially hard because they were getting the minimum wage before these new terms of the employment agency rate were introduced. Now it’s even worse: it is cut in half. So there is no way that workers can accept these new terms and as far as the union is concerned, they either didn’t fight for workers or they have lost the battle once again.
The capitalist system is making sure that workers are exploited beyond measure and have no say to these unfair labour practices. The situation for the working class is getting worse and worse by the day and workers don’t have a solution to this problem. These are
dictatorial practices by the heartless and cold capitalist system.
This is the time for the working class to join ICWP (International Communist Workers’ Party). Together we will destroy the capitalist system once and for all.  I have many friends who work for Johnson Controls and I am telling them all about communism and ICWP. They see that what we are saying makes sense. We have no other option but to build for communism. Communism is in my blood, I always think about it and I am very motivated to build our party.

—A South African Comrade

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