https://themilitant.com/2018/11/03/workers-need-unions-solidarity-a-labor-party/
SWP SPEAKS IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE
Workers need unions, solidarity, a labor party
Vote Socialist Workers Party in 2018
By Maggie Trowe
Vol. 82/No. 42
November 12, 2018
Róger Calero, SWP candidate for New York governor, discusses how to
fight effects of capitalist economic, social crisis on working people
with Rosa Vasquez in Brooklyn. “Struggle is the road to build a labor
party,” he said.
Militant/Seth Galinsky
Róger Calero, SWP candidate for New York governor, discusses how to
fight effects of capitalist economic, social crisis on working people
with Rosa Vasquez in Brooklyn. “Struggle is the road to build a labor
party,” he said.
Socialist Workers Party candidates and their supporters are taking
advantage of the last days before the Nov. 6 midterm elections to step
up campaigning. They are presenting a course of struggle and independent
working-class political action for workers and farmers against the blows
inflicted on us by the crisis wracking the capitalist system today.
The SWP campaign stands in sharp contrast to the Democratic and
Republican parties, that try to convince working people that the
dog-eat-dog capitalist system is as good as it gets, and saturate the
airwaves with vitriolic attacks on one another.
The SWP appeals for workers’ votes, but, more importantly, encourages
them to join efforts to unify the working class by participating in
labor battles and struggles that break out today. The party calls for
building the unions, transforming them into instruments controlled by
the rank and file and used to bring together the entire working class.
Workers need our own party, a labor party, that can fight to bring
workers and farmers to power.
SWP campaigners are knocking on doors in cities and towns across the
country, engaging workers in discussion and debate about how we can
defend our class interests and become stronger and more confident in the
process.
The discussions with workers won’t come to a halt after Nov. 6. The
party, and sister Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand
and the U.K. are at the halfway point in an eight-week drive to sell
1,400 subscriptions to the Militant and 1,400 books by party leaders. As
part of the drive, the SWP is also working to raise a party-building
fund of $100,000.
Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, was one of a
number of party candidates who joined in vigils and protests against the
Oct. 27 anti-Semitic attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue. She spoke at a
vigil sponsored by the Dallas Peace and Justice Center the next day.
Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, speaking at
vigil in Dallas protesting anti-Semitic attack in Pittsburgh. “Unions
should speak out against Jew-hatred,” she said.
Militant/Hilda Cuzco
Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, speaking at
vigil in Dallas protesting anti-Semitic attack in Pittsburgh. “Unions
should speak out against Jew-hatred,” she said.
“We call on all working people and the unions to speak out against this
and all acts of Jew-hatred,” Kennedy told the protesters. “History tells
us that Jew-hatred rises in time of capitalist crisis. The bosses use it
to divert workers from fighting their real enemy — capitalism.”
Maria Pecina first met the SWP in Dallas when party members knocked on
her door and introduced themselves. Growing up she worked in the fields
with her parents and got to like the idea of workers standing up for
better conditions, which they did. She got a subscription to the
Militant and bought Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? by SWP National
Secretary Jack Barnes.
Kennedy set up a dinner with Pecina last week to see what she thought of
the party after reading about its views and activities, and to tell her
about the party-building fund. “I like to support people who want to
make a difference,” she told Kennedy. “I like that you stand for
something that you believe in.” She renewed her subscription, bought
Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Barnes,
and pledged $100 for the fund.
Róger Calero, SWP candidate for New York governor, and party member Seth
Galinsky talked with Rosa Vasquez, a retired preschool cook, at her
apartment door in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn Oct. 25. She liked the
SWP message about the working class fighting to defend its interests.
“She listened carefully when we said workers need our own party, a labor
party based on the unions,” Galinsky said. “And that we need to break
out of the framework of lesser-evil politics.”
Vasquez said that she intended to back the Democrats, but that she
really believed that none of the politicians are on side of working
people. “You have a point on these politicians all being the same,” she
said. She signed up for a Militant subscription to follow the party and
its campaigns.
Harry D’Agostino, a musician from Albany and the SWP candidate for
lieutenant governor of New York, stopped in Louisville Oct. 26 as he was
returning from a road trip. He joined SWP members to visit a picket line
of Teamster union members on strike against Allied Ready Mix.
“Earlier this month, my campaign supporters walked the picket line of
striking school bus drivers in Providence, Rhode Island,” D’Agostino
told Allied striker Derrick Rowe. “They won their fight against attacks
on their retirement. When workers fight back against the indignities we
face from the bosses and their government, we begin building the
confidence and experience we’ll need as a class to win bigger battles to
come.”
Rowe decided to buy two books — Is Socialist Revolution in the US
Possible? by SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters and The Working Class and the
Transformation of Learning by Barnes.
“It’s not just the best coverage of our strike out there,” Eddie
Pirrmann, another picket, told SWP campaigners, explaining why he
subscribes to the Militant. “This paper talks about the struggles of
workers all around the world. Where else can you get that?”
Amnesty for immigrants!
In California SWP candidates are campaigning with a statement, “Amnesty
for immigrants! Unite, organize all workers!” It describes how the
Teamsters union that is fighting to win recognition for truckers at the
Port of Los Angeles combined their October three-day strike with a
protest against threatened deportation of immigrants. Some of these
workers are truckers and union supporters whose Temporary Protected
Status is under attack by the White House.
Dennis Richter, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks with SEIU union
member Alva Rodriguez in Selma, California.
Militant/Deborah Liatos
Dennis Richter, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks with SEIU union
member Alva Rodriguez in Selma, California.
Dennis Richter, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from California, and his
supporters took the campaign to the Sun-Maid plant gate in Kingsburg,
where workers recently ended a strike. Many stopped their cars for
discussions and 26 got copies of the Militant.
The SWP campaigners also knocked on doors in nearby Selma, where Richter
spoke with plumber Dicky Gonzales and his wife Melissa Ocampo, a
waitress whose aunt had been on strike against Sun-Maid.
“I’ve punched the clock since I was 15,” Gonzales told Richter. “I
didn’t vote, but I leaned toward Trump because he was for small
businesses and a better economy. He said he wasn’t against immigrants,
but they need to work. He talked more about the working class than Clinton.”
“The majority of workers aren’t for deporting immigrants,” Richter said.
“The SWP explains why amnesty for all undocumented workers in the U.S.
is in the interests of the working class and unites us.
“We don’t call for open borders, it’s utopian and dangerous under
capitalism,” Richter said. “We support building a powerful working-class
movement to bring solidarity to all workers struggling to make a living,
here and abroad — from the Sun-Maid strike to the 77-day strike of
Chiquita workers in Honduras earlier this year.”
“If you’ve never had to struggle to put food on the table, you can’t
talk about what it is to struggle,” Gonzales said. “That’s why I haven’t
voted for years.”
“We need our own party, and fighting unions,” Richter replied. “A labor
party would fight against Washington’s wars,” he told the couple, who
said they have several relatives who are veterans. “More than 2 million
workers have cycled through the 18-year Afghanistan War and the U.S.
rulers’ wars in Iraq, all fought in the interests of the handful of
billionaire capitalist families. My campaign calls for withdrawal of all
U.S. troops from the Mideast and Korea.”
They said they really appreciated the discussion and the literature.
Vote for the SWP candidates Nov. 6! Join the SWP’s ongoing campaign to
extend the reach of the Militant, books by party leaders and to reach
the $100,000 goal of the party-building fund. To get involved, contact a
party branch near you.
Related Articles
SWP: Push back limits on franchise! Restore voting rights to ex-prisoners!
This following statement was released Oct. 29 by Steve Warshell,
Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Florida. The
Socialist Workers Party calls on all working people and supporters of
democratic rights to vote Nov. 6 in favor of…
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Workers need unions, solidarity, a labor party
Vote Socialist Workers Party in 2018
•Join in denouncing Jew-hatred, a deadly threat to working class
•Tens of thousands protest anti-Semitic assault, killings
•SWP: Push back limits on franchise! Restore voting rights to ex-prisoners!
•US capitalist rulers seek bloc against Tehran amid Middle East rivalries
Feature Articles •‘Women’s liberation is a vital part of the
working-class struggle for emancipation’
Also In This Issue •‘One job should be enough,’ Marriott hotel strikers say
•Women workers in Glasgow lead battle to win equal pay
•Solidarity boosts Ky. concrete workers strike
•‘Militant’ fights Florida prison censorship
•Socialist Workers Party Fund Drive Oct.6 - Dec. 4 (Week 3)
•Fall Campaign to sell Militant subscriptions and books Oct. 6 - Dec. 4
(Week 3)
Books of the Month •How fight to end Vietnam War transformed politics in US
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
© Copyright 2018 The Militant - 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor - New
York, NY 10018 - themilitant@xxxxxx
--
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after
death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst
out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement,
and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how
wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous
something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov