Leaving Workers World Party
By: Principled Proletarian
Tags: Communism, Capitalism, Housing, Communist Party, Workers World Party

Bossism in NYC Branch

A young queer comrade of color in the New York City branch began working for an anti-gentrification group whose leadership is a member of Workers World Party and the Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network in early April 2018, shortly before they graduated college. This comrade worked for this organization until September 1st, 2018. The leader of this organization offered a job to the comrade part time making 17 an hour. Upon graduating, the comrade would begin working 30 hours a week, and no more than that as according to leadership, there was no more money in the budget for more hours. The comrade in question accepted these terms and began to work for this anti-gentrification group.

Almost overnight, leadership of this organization became verbally abusive, calling the comrade hours late into the evening (at times 10 pm or later), demanding weekly schedules then changing that schedule at a whim guilting them into keeping their schedule open, insinuating they were not committed to the work because the comrade wanted to take weekends off. Anything and everything set leadership off, and the comrade was gaslit, verbally abused, belittled, and harassed. 4–5 texts and calls in a row were to be expected, if texts were not answered within a few minutes more would ensue (outside of work hours), or the comrade would just be lectured and yelled at the next day. Work leadership was extremely mercurial, his mood changing one second to the next and the comrade was expected to deal with this without any complaint or being able to defend themselves, even when they were screamed at for no reason.

In addition to the verbal abuse and harassment, the comrade was at work leadership’s financial mercy — getting paid whenever he decided rather than previously agreed upon dates (1st and 15th of every month). When the comrade asked workleadership to get their paycheck, they were screamed at and told “This is not a large non-profit! You can’t expect to get paid whenever you feel like it! It might take up to a week to get paid”. This happened nearly every single time the comrade was supposed to get paid to the extent that the comrade suffered extreme anxiety over trying to ask for money they had already done the labor for. The comrade in question was screamed at in front of other volunteers for asking to be paid on multiple occasions as as well. During the initial interview process, and even during the orientation process, the comrade was never told beforehand that there were money issues or that they should expect any delays getting paid. It was only mentioned that they could not work more than 30 hours due to budget constraints (which work work leadership frequently attempted to demand more than 30 hours, despite said issues paying the employee).

This was the comrades only source of income and the unpredictable schedule made the comrade unable to get a second job for more income. There were many times the comrade had to hop turnstiles to get to work, missed meals, and was forced to incur late fees on various bills because there was no real schedule to when or even if they would get paid. Everytime the comrade brought this up or asked for their money, their bossrade would yell at them and demean them implying they were not committed and were asking for too much. It finally hit a breaking point when work leadership left for a week long trip out of the country. At this point, he had hired another queer woman to work for the organization and was treating her in a similar manner. Work leadership assured them both before he left that he would be able to pay them despite him being out of the country. The comrade in question even asked if it was possible to receive half their check before he left so they did not have to bother him on his vacation. Work leadership was adamant that it was fine and he had arranged it all with his bank so they both could be paid. Sure enough when the 15th came, work leadership did not pay the comrade. This particular pay period, the comrade was absolutely broke, had run out of food in their apartment, and had to hop the turnstiles to get anywhere. When they emailed leadership to request payment, he again gaslit the comrade insinuating they were being impatient, unfair, and entitled and attempted to guilt them by saying he would have to take him out of his vacation activities to find wifi to pay them. This was the last straw for the comrade who had worked over the 30 hours the last few weeks and taken on a lot of extra responsibility in preparation for an upcoming action in September.

There was much overlap between Party work and the anti-gentrification work which caused the comrade to have to interact with their boss nearly every single day for most of the day, in multiple spaces. This paved the way for really exploitative and abusive power dynamics and unclear boundaries as the comrade felt any time they disagreed with their boss in Party spaces, it bled into the work environment. Work leadership would hold things over the comrades head and treat them as if they disrespected him. There was one day in particular where the comrade was disagreeing with their boss about party issues in a group chat before work, and when they came to work they made sure to let their boss know that they still respected him and they were not angry at the disagreement to address the issue before he could take it out on them. He began to get louder and louder, disagreeing with the comrade and acting extremely erratic. He eventually stormed out of the office and left the comrade standing there in shock. This was a regular occurence in the workplace. Work leadership constantly allowed party matters to bleed into the workplace while simultaneously chastising the comrade for being too involved in party chats and matters at work. He was also inconsistent in the definition of the relationship. He would call the comrade in question “comrade”, or “family” while at work, try to talk to them about personal matter in his life, question them about their personal life, etc. then randomly switch up and tell the comrade to “get back to work” if they tried to reciprocate and make general conversation. This made the boundaries very unclear and made the comrade constantly unsure of what was acceptable so they gradually became more reserved at work. When the comrade brought up their confusion about the boundaries and expressed their interest in “either being comrades or boss and employee”, they were gaslit and told that they were just not a satisfactory employee and they need to “manage up” and “handle” him and prevent him from getting upset, none of which had anything to do with the initial question of defining their professional relationship.Ultimately, the comrade decided to leave this workplace and raised the abusive workplace practices to the party leadership after finding out another comrade had worked for him briefly and he was abusive towards her as well. Because of the work leadership’s (bossrade) status and role in the party, party leadership refused to suspend the bossrade who had abused two comrades at work and then refused to suspend him again when one former comrade had written about being raped by him years ago. Party leadership’s excuse for this was “to be in solidarity with a black trans comrade” rather than those he had abused. The bossrade had turned rape allegations against him into a trans issue and began harassing the former employee for suggesting to other party members that he should remove himself from a commission focused on accountability in light of the rape allegations. In the dropbox, there are several email exchanges contained that reveal the responses of this bossrade to the suggestion he be held accountable. National leadership of Workers World Party was cc’d on these threads and chose to take the position that there were issues on “both sides”, rather than an abuser harassing a comrade and that comrade defending themselves. They chose to watch these emails go back and forth and offered no public solidarity nor did they ask him to stop harassing the comrade after the comrade requested that he leave them alone. Party leadership instead called the employee-comrade later, asked what they wanted to inform them that he has been enabled for decades by stating that “he has always been a controversial figure” in the party. Ultimately, the bossrade took a self-imposed leave of absence and then resigned to avoid accountability after several weeks of no action on behalf of leadership. (see dropbox files labeled 5 & 6).

Bossism in Durham Branch

While also participating in this eviction, Comrade A-Star, a single Latina mother, was forced into adminstrative leave from her job at the Southern Vision Alliance, a million dollar nonprofit on the board of which sits Comrades Elena, Peter, and J-Christ, for questioning Comrade Elena and her exploitative behavior as a boss. This also resulted in the termination of her son’s health care while she was on forced leave. This firing happened after over a year of gaslighting, manipulation, and abuse which several comrades have experienced, including Comrade [redacted], a queer Black comrade, who said they had to take multiple breaks throughout their candidacy due to Comrade Elena’s behavior impacting their mental health.

Comrade Elena has dodged accountability at every step along the way and has wielded her economic power over others in the branch time and time again, including the manner in which she invited Comrade [redacted] to quit his job and live in her basement to work full-time on party work before kicking him out and rendering him homeless which she and her husband Comrade Peter justified due to Comrade [redacted]’s criticisms of non-profits. More recently, Comrade M was terminated from her position as a paid organizer with UE150 because her paystub was funnelled through the government grants controlled by the Southern Vision Alliance. The issue of this matter is that Comrade Elena chose to tell Comrade M’s only white coworker that their contracts would not be renewed. How can we profess to be revolutionary Communists yet cater to the whims of a boardroom white supremacist and literal capitalist boss?

In a telegram thread between party leadership and the Souther Vision Alliance leadership (who are also part of party leadership), J-Christ (party and SVA leader) went on a rant against the comrades they helped fire as being “childish” and “unstable”. Additionally J-Cat (party leader and SVA scab) went on another rant asking to fight some of the fired comrades. (see dropbox files labeled 21–24)