https://themilitant.com/2020/03/07/we-need-our-own-party-a-labor-party/
‘We need our own party, a labor party’
article
BY BERNIE SENTER
Vol. 84/No. 10
March 16, 2020
MILITANT/DEBORAH LIATOS Retiree Ernest Williams, left, in North Long
Beach Feb. 27, tells SWP candidate for vice president Malcolm Jarrett,
right, and
campaigner Bernie Senter that half his pension goes for medical
expenses. SWP calls for government-guaranteed cradle-to-grave health
care, Jarrett said.
figure
Retiree Ernest Williams, left, in North Long Beach Feb. 27, tells SWP
candidate for vice president Malcolm Jarrett, right, and campaigner
Bernie Senter
that half his pension goes for medical expenses. SWP calls for
government-guaranteed cradle-to-grave health care, Jarrett said.
MILITANT/DEBORAH LIATOS Retiree Ernest Williams, left, in North Long
Beach Feb. 27, tells SWP candidate for vice president Malcolm Jarrett,
right, and
campaigner Bernie Senter that half his pension goes for medical
expenses. SWP calls for government-guaranteed cradle-to-grave health
care, Jarrett said.
figure end
LOS ANGELES — The Socialist Workers Party candidates for president and
vice president, Alyson Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett, campaigned among
workers at
the Farmer John pork processing plant here Feb. 28 during shift change.
“It’s good you’re here in the community and I can meet and talk with
you,” said Roberta Young, one of dozens of workers who stopped to talk
with them.
Kennedy works as a cashier at Walmart and Jarrett is a commercial cook
in Pittsburgh.
“The rich and their parties — the Democrats and Republicans — think they
know what’s best for working people,” Jarrett told her. “The bosses they
serve
say they can’t afford to pay higher wages and then just want us to work
harder.”
MILITANT/DEBORAH LIATOS Pedro Albarran (with hard hat), Farmer John
worker and union leader there, introduces SWP presidential candidate
Alyson Kennedy
to co-workers during plant gate campaigning Feb. 28. He told them that
Kennedy and running mate Malcolm Jarrett “are workers like you and me.”
figure
Pedro Albarran (with hard hat), Farmer John worker and union leader
there, introduces SWP presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy to
co-workers during plant
gate campaigning Feb. 28. He told them that Kennedy and running mate
Malcolm Jarrett “are workers like you and me.”
MILITANT/DEBORAH LIATOS Pedro Albarran (with hard hat), Farmer John
worker and union leader there, introduces SWP presidential candidate
Alyson Kennedy
to co-workers during plant gate campaigning Feb. 28. He told them that
Kennedy and running mate Malcolm Jarrett “are workers like you and me.”
figure end
“I work in the bacon department and make $12.83 an hour,” Young said,
and that isn’t a wage you can live on.
“I just got back from Arizona where 1,700 copper workers have been on
strike against Asarco for five months,” Kennedy said. “After going
without a raise
for 10 years plus facing the bosses’ demand for another four-year wage
freeze and doubling or tripling of health care costs, they said, ‘No
more.’ It’s
an example of what workers need to do.”
While speaking with Josue Rodriguez, Kennedy noted that the way the
government is dealing with coronavirus shows how capitalism not only
can’t solve humanity’s
problems, but makes them worse. She pointed to the lack of accurate
information, inadequate testing and medical care, the bureaucratically
imposed lockdowns,
all implemented by the capitalist rulers the world over, which leave
people on their own.
Kennedy contrasted health care under capitalism — where it is a
commodity, sold to those who can afford it, to maximize profits — and
Cuba where it is
guaranteed to everyone.
Rodriguez knew about Cuba’s health care system. “Cuba is not scared of
the coronavirus because they have a system that takes care of people,”
he said.
“But in Mexico, the way they treat people there is the same as here. The
problem is the system. They exploit people.”
Pedro Albarran, a union leader at the processing plant, joined the
candidates and introduced them to his co-workers. “As workers we don’t
have representation
in government,” he told Zenaida Lagunas. “They are workers like you and
me. They are part of the fights for better conditions on the job, health
care and
fair wages.”
Lagunas said her health care insurance doesn’t cover medicine or
anything serious.
“The capitalist system can’t be fixed. It will take a movement of
millions to get rid of it,” Kennedy said.
“People need to stand up for themselves and become confident,” Lagunas said.
Victor Jarman was skeptical about the campaign. “Politics is just
another hustle. People in Congress and the Senate are some of the
richest people there
are,” he told Kennedy. “What specifically do you people want to do?”
“The two-party system is a trap,” Kennedy replied. “They try to make us
think we can make change by picking the least bad of candidates they put
forward.
It’s a scam.” The Socialist Workers Party 2020 platform says workers
need a labor party based on the unions, a party that organizes working
people to fight
all year round for the interests of all the oppressed and exploited.
Workers need to begin organizing in defense of their own interests.
“Workers need to bring solidarity to fights like the Asarco copper
miners on strike
in Arizona and Texas,” Kennedy told him. “And the ongoing fight in
Florida for the right of the formerly incarcerated to vote. A referendum
there to do
this passed by over 60% in 2018 but the state government is trying to
gut it.”
Workers they met at the plant gate bought two books by SWP leaders, 14
copies of the Militant and two subscriptions, and contributed $30.
Talking to workers on their doorstep
Jarrett met Ernest Williams while campaigning in North Long Beach Feb.
27. “I worked for the City of Long Beach,” Williams said. “Now that I’m
retired
I’ll have to pay half my pension, $1,200 a month, to have health care.”
Jarrett pointed to the campaign plank in the Militant that says, “Health
care for
all. Fight for universal government-guaranteed cradle-to-grave health
care, and retirement income for all.”
The SWP candidate told Williams that he had just returned from
participating in the Havana International Book Fair in Cuba. “I met
doctors who traveled
to Africa to help eradicate the scourge of Ebola. It’s an example of the
revolution’s internationalism,” Jarrett said.
Their attitude is similar to that of Malcolm X, he said, showing
Williams the book
Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power
by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes. “Malcolm X said you don’t have
to wake people up to their oppression but to their worth,” said Jarrett.
Williams
bought the book and one other, along with a Militant subscription.
Kennedy and Jarrett also spoke at a Militant Labor Forum Feb. 29.
“Cubans are very honest about the problems and challenges they face,”
Jarrett said, coming
back to his experiences in Cuba. “They have blackouts sometimes and a
shortage of gasoline, results of the U.S. rulers’ economic war on Cuba.
“But you see a determination to defend their revolution,” Jarrett said.
“One soldier told me, ‘We’ve faced this embargo for 60 years. We’ve had
to ride
bicycles in the past because of lack of gas. They’re not going to beat us.’
“The Cuban Revolution is an example for working people in the U.S. to
emulate,” he said.
Those at the meeting kicked in $2,381 toward the $25,000 campaign fund.
Deborah Liatos contributed to this article.
See directory
to contact party campaign office nearest you.
article end
list of 4 items
Audio version
Share
Email
Print
list end
RELATED ARTICLES
article
‘Workers need to rely on themselves in fight for safety’
OAKLAND, Calif. — Joel Britton, Socialist Workers Party candidate for
Congress in the 13th District here, campaigned Feb. 29 in West Oakland,
where trichloroethylene,
an industrial solvent linked to increased cancer risk, has been found in
the groundwater under McClymonds…
article end
article
SWP candidates tell Asarco strikers, ‘We’ll tell your story’
HAYDEN, Ariz. — During a solidarity trip Feb. 23-25, Alyson Kennedy,
Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, discussed politics and
the labor
movement today with striking copper miners. She learned more about their
fight against Asarco’s union-busting to share with…
article end
article
Socialist Workers Party 2020 campaign platform
This is the SWP’s fighting campaign platform to confront the economic,
social and moral crisis caused by capitalism: UNIONS/FOR A LABOR PARTY
Support workers’
struggles to organize to defend themselves, to use union power on behalf
of ourselves and all…
article end
IN THIS ISSUE
Front Page Articles
list of 6 items
• For-profit US ‘health care’ will increase virus threat
• Say no to US gov’t slanders against Cuban Revolution!
• Budget failure at EU meeting shows the bloc is unraveling
• ‘We need our own party, a labor party’
• Asarco copper strikers face a serious fight and deserve solidarity
• Syrian, Turkish forces clash in Idlib as 9-year civil war widens
list end
Feature Articles
list of 1 items
• ‘A US working-class party that is serious about socialist revolution’
list end
Also In This Issue
list of 7 items
• Campaign for women’s right to abortion launched in Argentina
• ‘Workers need to rely on themselves in fight for safety’
• SWP candidates tell Asarco strikers, ‘We’ll tell your story’
• Rafael Cancel Miranda
• Muslims in India protest attacks on citizenship rights
• Join 2020 May Day international brigade to Cuba
• Indigenous people debate building Canada pipeline
list end
Editorials
list of 1 items
• ‘Only working class can protect humanity’
list end
Books of the Month
list of 1 items
• As capitalist crisis deepens, workers need control of production
list end
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Corrections
main region end
© 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
--
___
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
