https://themilitant.com/2018/08/11/swp-build-fighting-alliance-of-workers-and-farmers/
SWP: Build fighting alliance of workers and farmers!
Vol. 82/No. 31
August 20, 2018
The following statement by Róger Calero, Socialist Workers Party
candidate for governor of New York, was released Aug. 8.
The crisis facing working farmers and ranchers and the pressing need for
the unions to mobilize solidarity with their struggles was highlighted
by the conditions described at a July 24 meeting of dairy farmers in
Lairdsville, Pennsylvania. “Instead of making a living, you just make
debt,” Lycoming County farmer Ben McCarty explained. Others said what
they get from dairy processors for their milk simply doesn’t meet their
production costs.
These conditions are not unique. Grain farmers have confronted
plummeting prices from giant food monopolies for years. Most working
farmers also work jobs off the farm to make enough income to make ends
meet. They have to take out loans to pay for their inputs — seed,
fertilizer and feed. Many are shackled with a mortgage and monthly loan
payments on farm implement purchases. Farm debt has reached record
levels at a time when the government is raising interest rates and farm
incomes have plunged.
When ranchers fight for access to the land, especially in the west, they
come up against the government, the courts and the cops. Ranchers in
Oregon and Nevada are fighting the Bureau of Land Management’s efforts
to restrict their access to grazing land that they’ve used for decades.
And they’ve had to fight FBI harassment, frame-ups and imprisonment.
The problems working farmers and ranchers face are rooted in social
conditions inherent to capitalism and perpetuated by the capitalists’
parties that rule. They face the monopoly position and cut-throat
competition among the handful of giant capitalist food processors that
drive down the prices farmers and ranchers get; the banks that hold
their loans and foreclose on their farms and ranches; the rising cost
for machinery, seeds and other things they need to produce; and
regulatory agencies in Washington that operate in the interests of the
bosses.
With more working farmers facing ruin, the labor movement must demand
the government guarantee they receive their costs of production,
including adequate living expenses.
Millions of farmworkers — including many who face the threat of
deportation because they are without papers the rulers consider proper —
can be a key part of rebuilding the labor movement and forging a
fighting alliance with working farmers.
Workers and farmers, who produce all the wealth, are exploited in
different ways, but by the same capitalist families and their
government. We have a shared interest in forging an alliance that can
mobilize millions, overturn their rule and establish our own government.
There is much U.S. workers and farmers can learn from the revolutionary
program and course followed by Cuban workers and peasants in
overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
With leadership like they had, we can take our destiny into our own hands.
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In This Issue
Front Page Articles •SWP takes campaigns to workers’ doorsteps
•SWP: Build fighting alliance of workers and farmers!
•Workers have nothing to gain in US moves on China trade
•‘Militant’ files appeal against ban by Illinois federal prison
•New round of protests in Iran oppose impact of rulers’ wars
•US, NKorea denuclearization moves good for working class
Feature Articles •NY forum takes up crisis facing workers, farmers in
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Also In This Issue •Debate in UK deepens over Jew-hatred in Labour Party
•‘New York should stop trying to overturn verdict in Bah killing’
•Who were the combatants who began Cuba’s revolution?
On the Picket Line •Locked-out Quebec aluminum workers win solidarity
•British Columbia workers strike casino bosses over pay, dignity
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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