http://themilitant.com/2015/7940/794002.html
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Vol. 79/No. 40 November 9, 2015
(front page, SWP campaign statement)
Phila. SWP candidate: ‘New wind is blowing’
The following is a campaign statement by Osborne Hart, Socialist Workers
Party candidate for mayor of Philadelphia, run on the front page of the
Opinion section of the Philadelphia Inquirer Oct. 25.
Workers in Philadelphia, like working people around the world, are
facing a slow-burning capitalist depression with no end in sight.
The percentage of the working class with a job has fallen to a
decades-long low; temporary, part-time, and agency work is everywhere
from the Philly airport to our city’s schools; and wages are stagnant.
Philadelphia, the fifth-largest U.S. city, has the highest deep-poverty
rate of the country’s top 10 cities.
But a new wind is blowing. As a native of North Carolina and a longtime
participant in the struggle for civil and black rights, I joined in the
revulsion and dignified response among working people of all skin colors
to the political assassination of nine African Americans in the AME
church in Charleston, S.C. And I celebrated when the overwhelming
response forced the state’s rulers to pull down that symbol of terror,
the Confederate battle flag, from the grounds of the South Carolina
Capitol.
Young people in the Black Lives Matter movement, led by youth who are
African American, staged a mini-rebellion in Baltimore that forced
indictments and prosecution in the case of Freddie Gray, who died while
in police custody. These young protesters persisted despite being called
thugs by politicians and the media. In Philadelphia, I joined
demonstrations demanding justice in the police killings of Brandon
Tate-Brown and Frank McQueen, as well as the beating of Tyree Carroll.
As a result of our actions, the rulers have begun to rein in the police
and are pressed to bring more indictments.
Young fast-food workers, and those working for airport contractors, in
home health care, for Wal-Mart, and in other low-paid jobs, are striking
and marching. Immigrant workers are also standing up for their rights.
We are acting in solidarity, demanding $15 an hour, regular work
schedules, and a union. We are having an impact, forcing bourgeois
politicians in city and state governments across the country to raise
the minimum wage.
These workers and youth are inspiring others to stand up and fight —
serving as an example of the way forward for the working class as a whole.
On Oct. 1, for the first time in more than 30 years, autoworkers
rejected a national contract (Fiat-Chrysler) that would have left
standing a two-tier wage structure. I have joined the steelworkers’
union that is battling a lockout at Allegheny Technologies in Western
Pennsylvania.
John Staggs, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for City Council at
large, was in Quebec on Oct. 11 in support of rail workers who are being
unjustly blamed for an oil-train disaster there. As in Philadelphia,
which recently experienced the Amtrak crash in Port Richmond, these are
life-and-death issues when you have oil trains coming through
neighborhoods. We need to fight for workers’ control of safety on the
job and build unions strong enough to stop production until unsafe
conditions are fixed.
As mayor, I will use my office to fight for these immediate safety
measures: make it illegal for the railroads to operate without a minimum
crew of four; restore the caboose at the end of every train; mandate a
maximum train length of 50 cars; and immediately use double-hulled cars
to haul oil and other hazardous materials.
My party also proposes a massive, government-funded public works program
to put millions to work at union-scale wages — building housing, safe
public transportation, schools, child-care centers, recreational
facilities, and rebuilding roads and infrastructure.
The Cuban Revolution is a living example of what workers and farmers can
accomplish when they fight to take political power, transforming
themselves in the process. So we demand that Washington end the blockade
now and return Guantánamo to Cuba.
The Socialist Workers Party calls for breaking from the Democrats and
Republicans — the bosses’ parties — and constructing a labor party based
on the trade unions. Through independent working-class political action
we can chart a course to take power out of the hands of the capitalist
exploiters and establish a government of workers and farmers that joins
the worldwide struggle for the interests of the toiling majority.
For more information, email philaSW2015@xxxxxxxxx or visit
www.themilitant.com.
Related articles:
‘Workers need our own party, a labor party’
Socialist Workers Party campaigns in Phila.
Trump, Sanders, turmoil mark the 2016 campaign
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