The struggle against national oppression and black bourgeois politics at Roswell Park Hospital
Posted: Tue Mar 26, 1985 10:13 am
The struggle against national oppression and black bourgeois politics
at Roswell Park Hospital
(From The Workers' Advocate Supplement, vol. 1, #2, March 15, 1985)
Roswell Park, where we have been concentrating our work for some five or six years, employs a significant number of black workers. In fact, the largest section of ordinary working people (that is, excluding the professional strata that a research hospital employs in large numbers) are black. These black workers are concentrated in the lowest-paid and hardest jobs, what are called the labor grades. And they make up roughly 80% of the membership of CSEA local #303, which is affiliated with AFSCME nationally. It's the state employees' union in New York. This makes Roswell Park one of the largest work places in our city [Buffalo] where black workers are concentrated. Thus, the struggle against the oppression of black people and the mobilization of the black workers for the revolutionary struggle has always been an essential and a day-to-day concern in our work at Roswell Park. And, in our concentration at Roswell Park, we have always had an invaluable base from which to address the city-wide and country-wide struggle against black oppression.
Furthermore, black bourgeois politics has always had considerable influence among the workers at Roswell Park. Indeed, at Roswell Park there is currently an organized social-democratic trend, a trend with a definite nationalist tinge, which is headed up by a bourgeoisified section of semi-professional blacks. This trend has direct ties with the most influential black politicians in the Democratic Party in our area. Most notably the trend is connected with Arthur Eve who is a rather important state politician in the Democratic Party from Buffalo. For years Eve was the chairman of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus in the State Assembly, and he's currently the chairman of the State Budget Committee. Thus we have had to contend directly with this social-democratic and bourgeois nationalist trend at Roswell over the years.
As this aspect of our work is not so well known, it will be valuable for us to discuss some of our experience in the struggle against national oppression and against this black bourgeois political trend. I will divide my remarks, roughly, into two sections. First, some comments about how we have approached the struggle against the oppression of black workers at the work place, and particularly the relation of concentration work to the general political movement against black oppression. The second half of my talk will be devoted to remarks about our approach and experience in the contention with the social-democratic trend headed up by black bourgeois politicians and petty-bourgeois elements.
Subheads:
[*]The Fight Against The Oppression of ... nd Low Pay[/url]
Full text at https://www.communistvoice.org/WAS8503RoswellPark.html
at Roswell Park Hospital
(From The Workers' Advocate Supplement, vol. 1, #2, March 15, 1985)
Roswell Park, where we have been concentrating our work for some five or six years, employs a significant number of black workers. In fact, the largest section of ordinary working people (that is, excluding the professional strata that a research hospital employs in large numbers) are black. These black workers are concentrated in the lowest-paid and hardest jobs, what are called the labor grades. And they make up roughly 80% of the membership of CSEA local #303, which is affiliated with AFSCME nationally. It's the state employees' union in New York. This makes Roswell Park one of the largest work places in our city [Buffalo] where black workers are concentrated. Thus, the struggle against the oppression of black people and the mobilization of the black workers for the revolutionary struggle has always been an essential and a day-to-day concern in our work at Roswell Park. And, in our concentration at Roswell Park, we have always had an invaluable base from which to address the city-wide and country-wide struggle against black oppression.
Furthermore, black bourgeois politics has always had considerable influence among the workers at Roswell Park. Indeed, at Roswell Park there is currently an organized social-democratic trend, a trend with a definite nationalist tinge, which is headed up by a bourgeoisified section of semi-professional blacks. This trend has direct ties with the most influential black politicians in the Democratic Party in our area. Most notably the trend is connected with Arthur Eve who is a rather important state politician in the Democratic Party from Buffalo. For years Eve was the chairman of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus in the State Assembly, and he's currently the chairman of the State Budget Committee. Thus we have had to contend directly with this social-democratic and bourgeois nationalist trend at Roswell over the years.
As this aspect of our work is not so well known, it will be valuable for us to discuss some of our experience in the struggle against national oppression and against this black bourgeois political trend. I will divide my remarks, roughly, into two sections. First, some comments about how we have approached the struggle against the oppression of black workers at the work place, and particularly the relation of concentration work to the general political movement against black oppression. The second half of my talk will be devoted to remarks about our approach and experience in the contention with the social-democratic trend headed up by black bourgeois politicians and petty-bourgeois elements.
Subheads:
[*]The Fight Against The Oppression of ... nd Low Pay[/url]
Full text at https://www.communistvoice.org/WAS8503RoswellPark.html