http://themilitant.com/2015/7926/792601.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 26 July 27, 2015
(lead article)
‘Workers need our own political party’
Socialist Workers launch Phila. ballot drive:
Help campaign get 2,300 signatures
Militant/Glova Scott
Osborne Hart, left, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Philadelphia
mayor, talks with Local 1199SEIU union member Ernestine Bristow while
campaigning at NAACP convention July 12.
BY JOHN STUDER
PHILADELPHIA — The Socialist Workers Party here announced July 12 it was
launching a drive to gather 2,300 signatures to put Osborne Hart on the
ballot for mayor and John Staggs for City Council at-large. The
petitions have to be filed by August 3.
“Workers need our own political party, a labor party to unite us in
action to defend ourselves against the capitalists’ attacks and to chart
a course to take political power out of their hands,” the socialist
candidates, who both work at Walmart, said in a statement July 13.
“The decision by the South Carolina state government to take down the
Confederate battle flag, a rallying symbol for racist thugs and
opponents of Black rights since it was unfurled over the Statehouse in
1961, is a powerful victory for all working people,” they said.
In the first two days of the drive 171 people signed to put Hart and
Staggs on the ballot.
“These politicians — I don’t care if its Democrats or Republicans — all
talk down to us,” George Bagby, a musician, told Staggs as he signed the
socialists’ petition in Germantown July 14. “The way they talk to us
about the economy, for example — telling us long explanations about how
‘it’s working.’ We know how the economy is working — it’s not.” He
volunteered to perform at campaign events.
“I can’t believe how people can get by today, especially younger
people,” Joanne Welch told Hart when he knocked on her door in the Port
Richmond neighborhood the same day. “After 18 years I was laid off by
Thriftway. Everybody spends time worrying about how they’re going to pay
their bills each week.”
“The capitalist system is in a crisis, and they don’t see any way to get
out,” Hart said. “They try and make us pay for it, put the burden on us.
“At Walmart we’re fighting to defend ourselves. We demand ‘$15 an hour,
full-time work and a union,’ just like people at McDonald’s and other
places are fighting for,” the socialist candidate said. “The victory in
South Carolina helps to unify the working class, it makes us stronger,
better able to fight.”
Socialist campaigners also discussed the crisis workers face around the
world. From Greece to Ukraine to Puerto Rico, the rulers are squeezing
working people, in the name of “paying debts” as their response to the
contraction of capitalist trade and production. Working people in the
U.S. need to stand with the toilers in these countries, up against the
same class enemy.
Deep attacks on education
Many workers wanted to discuss the disaster in Philadelphia’s school
system. Because of federal and state government refusal to fund the
schools, over the last four years the school district has eliminated
5,000 jobs, closed 31 facilities and slashed programs, cutting $1
billion from the budget. The schools are run by a state-ordered School
Reform Commission, with three members assigned by the governor and two
by the mayor.
The teachers’ contract ran out in 2013, but they continued to work under
its terms. Last October, the commission voted unanimously to throw it
out and impose health care costs on teachers. The union sued and won,
reinstating the old contract provisions, in January.
The cuts would be even deeper, but the rulers imposed new,
anti-working-class taxes — a 1 percent sales tax jump and a $2 per pack
cigarette tax increase.
“We are campaigning against these attacks on the teachers and the
rulers’ assault on the schools,” Hart said. “I also explain that the
capitalist rulers have no interest in working people becoming truly
educated. The most meaningful education we get comes when we fight
together, in the process transforming ourselves.” He recommends the
pamphlet The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud
of Education Reform Under Capitalism, by SWP National Secretary Jack
Barnes, to anyone thinking about these questions.
The socialist campaign plans to field petitioners every day for the next
two weeks to meet their goal. Volunteers gather at the campaign
headquarters, get their boards, campaign literature and copies of the
Militant, books about revolutionary history and politics from Pathfinder
Press, and head out. At the heart of the effort is knocking on doors in
working-class neighborhoods all across the city.
To join in, come to 3701 Pulaski Ave., or call (215) 225-1270, email
philaswp@xxxxxxxxxxx.
Related articles:
‘Removal of Confederate battle flag is victory for working class’
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home