The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) will host an online meeting on the way forward for the 15,000 striking New York nurses and the 31,000 striking healthcare workers in California and Hawaii at 7:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday, February 10.

Click here to register for the meeting.

The eruption of strikes by healthcare workers on both coasts is a response to the hospital systems’ relentless drive to obtain ever-greater profits. The strikes also reflect mass opposition to the federal government’s dismantling of public health, the spread of anti-vaccine propaganda and the resurgence of preventable diseases such as measles. But the trade union apparatus is determined to shut down the strikes as quickly as possible and impose the demands of management.

At the same time, workers and young people are leading mass demonstrations across the country to protest the mass roundups being conducted by ICE. The murder of Alex Pretti, a VA nurse, in Minneapolis shows the assault on immigrants is the leading edge of the ruling-class offensive against the entire working class. Through police repression, the invocation of the Insurrection Act and the “nationalization” of elections, President Donald Trump intends to establish a dictatorship on behalf of the financial oligarchy that he represents.

The opposition to these attacks is growing, and the potential for a united struggle to bring down Trump is enormous. But the most immediate obstacle that workers face is the trade union bureaucracy which seek to prevent any struggle against the capitalist system at the root of the crisis. They direct workers’ appeals to Democrats, who uphold the profit system and are collaborating in Trump’s rampage.

Workers must establish their organizational and political independence by forming rank-and-file committees at every workplace. Striking healthcare workers must unite with the growing movement against dictatorship. The wealth of the financial oligarchy must be seized and redirected toward healthcare, education and jobs for all.