‘Militant’ drive goes over the top as protests and workers’ fights spread
https://themilitant.com/2020/06/06/militant-drive-goes-over-the-top-as-protests-and-workers-fights-spread/
BY SETH GALINSKY
Vol. 84/No. 23
June 15, 2020
SWP presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy speaks with Angel Bernal
during shift change at JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado.
“Slowing down line speed should be permanent,” Kennedy said. “Workers
need to take control of production to ensure safe working conditions.”
MILITANT/BETSEY STONE
SWP presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy speaks with Angel Bernal
during shift change at JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado.
“Slowing down line speed should be permanent,” Kennedy said. “Workers
need to take control of production to ensure safe working conditions.”
Participants in rapidly growing protests around the country against the
cop killing of George Floyd are buying up copies of the Militant
newspaper and subscribing, purchasing books by Socialist Workers Party
leaders and other revolutionaries, and contributing to the Militant
Fighting Fund. This helped take us over the top in the spring
circulation and fund drives.
New readers of the socialist newsweekly will find its coverage of the
struggles of working people invaluable. It explains why police brutality
is endemic to capitalist exploitation. The paper is a tool for building
solidarity with the fights against police brutality and killings as well
as the other struggles working people are waging today against the
effects of the crisis-ridden capitalist system on our lives. Drawing on
the lessons of decades of revolutionary struggles, the paper helps
explain what working people can do to defend themselves and all those
exploited and oppressed by capitalist rule.
At a May 31 action of some 20,000 in Los Angeles, 17 protesters
subscribed to the Militant and 27 bought books by revolutionaries. In
Albany, New York, the day before, five subscriptions and five books were
sold. Members of the Socialist Workers Party and other distributors of
the Militant have found similar receptivity across the country and
around the world.
The interest in the paper at protests, strike picket lines and in
discussions with working people on their doorsteps in cities, towns and
rural areas has taken the international drive to expand the reach of the
Militant well over all its goals. More than 1,100 subscribed, over 950
books were sold and $134,000 raised for the Militant Fighting Fund.
Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president,
joined campaign supporters to sign up nine presidential electors and
raised the $1,000 needed to get her and running mate Malcolm Jarrett on
the November ballot in Colorado.
“The massive outpourings across the country demanding the prosecution of
the cops who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in
Louisville, Kentucky, and the vigilantes who killed Ahmaud Arbery in
Georgia are important for all working people,” Kennedy told a rally of
hundreds in Denver May 29. “The protests come at a time when the
government tells us we must stay at home and quarantine while millions
of workers have lost their jobs and we face growing depression conditions.”
Workers control of production
Kennedy and campaign supporters also talked with workers during shift
change at the JBS beef packing plant in Greeley, Colorado, May 30.
Workers said that under pressure the company had slowed the line speed a
little so workers don’t have to work so close together in the midst of
the coronavirus pandemic.
“Slowing down the line speed should be permanent,” Kennedy told Angel
Bernal, one of 17 workers who purchased a copy of the Militant. “Packing
workers have suffered injuries for years because of brutal speedup.
Workers need to fight to take control of production,” in order to
enforce safe working conditions.
“A lot of workers complain,” JBS worker Juan Avila told Kennedy. “I tell
them we can’t just complain, we have to do something.”
“Changes only come when we stand up,” Kennedy said, pointing to the
example set by fruit packers in Washington state who are striking for
better conditions and higher wages, and to the protests organized by
truckers fighting freight brokers who are refusing to pay drivers enough
to survive.
‘We need disciplined action’
Kennedy also pointed to the nationwide protests against police
brutality. “We need more disciplined actions, without the attacks on
stores and small businesses that hurt working people and provide an
excuse for the government to blame protesters for violence and go after
our rights.”
At a house meeting in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Kennedy noted that such
attacks make it harder to involve larger numbers of workers.
“You can be sure the police are behind some of the violence,” said
Eduardo Quiñones, a body-shop worker. “I know this from when I was in
Guatemala during the war against the dictatorship. The military actually
attacked the police and then blamed it on the movement.”
Learn from Cuban Revolution
“We need to rebuild and transform the unions, break from the capitalist
parties and build a labor party that can fight in our interests,”
Kennedy said. “This can put us on a course to use our power to do what
the Cuban workers and peasants did in 1959, make a revolution where the
workers take power out of the hands of the capitalists.”
“In Guatemala we had the Cuban doctors,” Quiñones said. “We called them
‘the doctors without white shoes.’ This was because they would go into
the most remote areas, with the rains and the mud, to treat the poorest
people.”
Quiñones bought Zona Roja, a book about the role of volunteer Cuban
medical workers providing on-the-ground, hands-on care to thousands
infected with Ebola in West Africa, that helped roll back the disease.
Their story shows the kind of people a deep-going socialist revolution
produces. He also got Tribunes of the People and the Trade Unions; The
Turn to Industry: Forging a Proletarian Party; and In Defense of the US
Working Class, along with a subscription to the Militant.
The spring drive is over, but members of the Socialist Workers Party and
other partisans of the Militant will continue reaching out to workers,
farmers and young people in cities and towns, large and small. To join
in see the distributors nearest you or email the Militant at
themilitant@xxxxxxx.
Betsey Stone in Oakland, California, contributed to this article.
Front Page Articles
Worldwide protests hit cop killing of George Floyd
Build powerful, disciplined working-class movement!
Back fights to defend wages, jobs, working conditions!
Protesters in Hong Kong say, ‘Beijing hands off!’
Thousands of autoworkers in Spain, France strike against plant closings
‘Militant’ drive goes over the top as protests and workers’ fights spread
Feature Articles
Cheryl Goertz: 55-year cadre of the Socialist Workers Party
Also In This Issue
SWP ‘stimulus’ appeal over $105,000 and growing
Workers resist clampdown on protests by gov’t in Chile
Yakima fruit packers fight for wages, hours, safety
Defend jobs, wages, working conditions!
Demand freedom for Jalil Muntaqim now
Campaign to expand reach of Militant,’ books, fund April 4 - June 2
(final chart)
25, 50 and 75 years ago
© Copyright 2020 The Militant - 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor - New
York, NY 10018 - themilitant@xxxxxxx
Cookies
This site uses cookies to improve your experience. Learn more.
Okay, thanks
--
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos