http://themilitant.com/2016/8048/804801.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No.48 December 26, 2016
(lead article)
SWP in LA: ‘Workers need to build our own party’
Militant/Deborah Liatos
Dennis Richter, left, SWP candidate for Los Angeles mayor, campaigns in
West Adams Nov. 19.
BY DEBORAH LIATOS
LOS ANGELES — “Workers face slow-burning depression conditions in the
U.S. and much of the world today,” Dennis Richter, Socialist Workers
Party candidate for mayor here, told Daniel Lopez, a 23-year-old UPS
worker in the Highland Park neighborhood Dec. 11. “We need to get
together and build our own party to fight for the working class and to
take political power. That’s what the SWP is all about.”
After more than two weeks of campaigning, knocking on workers’ doors and
introducing the party, the SWP got word from city officials that Richter
was on the ballot for the May election. Party members and campaign
supporters had gathered over 1,000 signatures, more than double the
requirement.
“Rents are going up and we’re getting kicked out of where we live,”
Lopez, a member of Teamsters Local 396, told Richter. He said that after
the elections he hoped something would be done to protect immigrants in
Los Angeles.
“It is in the interests of the entire working class to defend immigrant
rights and oppose deportations,” Richter said. “Attacking immigrants is
one of the ways the bosses and their parties — both Democrats and
Republicans — attempt to divide working people. We can’t depend on
politicians like Mayor Garcetti to give us ‘safe places’ for workers
without papers.”
The status of undocumented workers is a big question here. Some 1
million immigrants without papers live in Los Angeles County. Democratic
Party Mayor Eric Garcetti, running for re-election against Richter, has
said he and the L.A. cops will not search workers for their papers or
round up and deport those who don’t have them.
These workers will have “safe spaces and safe places” in Los Angeles,
Garcetti said Nov. 30.
“You can’t depend on the politicians in Los Angeles or anywhere else. We
have to do what working people did in 2006,” Richter said. “I was
working in a meatpacking plant in Chicago and we walked off the job and
joined the nationwide one-day strike of 2 million people on May Day and
killed the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill.
“This is a key fight for the working class,” Richter said. “The bosses
make billions off exploitation of immigrant workers.
“We need to organize all workers, those with papers and those without,
into our unions,” he said, “and transform our unions to lead the fight
against deportations, E-verify and all moves to scapegoat immigrant
workers and divide our class.”
“That’s right,” Lopez agreed, “everyone has to come together.”
“We need to have a revolution,” Richter said. “We need to get rid of the
dictatorship of capital.”
‘Build affordable, safe housing’
“Housing is another big issue,” Richter said. “For the landlords and the
government the only question is how to make it profitable.
“After the warehouse fire in Oakland, the city government blames those
who are forced to live in such dangerous structures,” Richter said. “But
the tenants aren’t responsible. It’s the owners and their agents who cut
corners to make money. Like all the bosses in this dog-eat-dog system.
We need to demand cheap, plentiful and safe housing be built.”
“It wasn’t safe but they’re going to blame the people,” Lopez said.
“That’s the way capitalism is.”
“There is an example for workers here just 90 miles offshore in
revolutionary Cuba,” Richter said.
“The press says everything is bad in Cuba but I saw the way the people
turned out there,” Lopez said, referring to the massive mobilizations to
honor Fidel Castro and defend the revolution there.
“Fidel said it was possible to make a revolution in the interests of
workers and farmers and then he led them to do exactly that,” Richter
said. “They’ve been defending it for over 55 years and advancing
solidarity to workers all over the world. We have to do the same thing
here.”
To join the Socialist Workers Party campaigning across Los Angeles and
around the country, discussing how to build a party that can unify the
working class and defend our interests, contact the party at
swpla@xxxxxxx or (323) 643-4968.
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