The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.1           January 6, 1997 
 
 
Socialists Launch Campaign In Peoria  

BY VED DOOKHUN
PEORIA, Illinois - At a press conference held at the Pathfinder bookstore December 5, the Socialist Workers Party launched its campaign for mayor of Peoria and city council.

The announcement was covered by local television station WEEK 25, the local national public radio affiliate, and the Peoria Journal Star. The socialists "announced their candidacies Thursday for mayor and the 3rd District City Council seat," said the article in the December 6 Star.

Angela Lariscy, a member of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee, announced her candidacy for mayor along with her running mate Meg Novak, a member of the Young Socialists National Committee, who is running for city council.

"Lariscy is a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union at the Witco plant in Mapleton," said the Star article. "Novak works at the Bridgestone/Firestone plant in Bloomington and is a member of the United Steelworkers of America."

Explaining that her campaign aims to provide a working- class voice as an alternative to the interests of big business, Lariscy spoke of the need to put forward a program that unifies working people faced with a "downward spiral of wages, working conditions, and standards of living as a result of a worldwide capitalist depression."

"There is no Peoria solution to these problems," said Lariscy. "My campaign puts forward an Action Program that begins with a demand for jobs for all, which can be accomplished by shortening the workweek with no cut in pay. Affirmative action is a necessary measure to level the playing field in hiring, housing and education for women, Blacks, and other oppressed nationalities. Defending affirmative action, and explaining that the labor movement can only enforce it on the employers by quotas, is a necessary part of unifying working people against the assaults on our standard of living."

The candidates also addressed the problems facing working farmers. "My campaign will demand an end to all farm foreclosures, a guaranteed price for crops and livestock above the price of production, and pollution and waste control regulations on mega hog farms," Lariscy said, referring to the building of large-scale hog confinements in Illinois without regard to the effects on the surrounding land and air quality. Lariscy called for an alliance of working farmers and trade unionists and other workers to defend their common interests against the capitalist exploiters. Fighting for such an alliance can eventually lead to opening the road for a government of workers and farmers, the socialist candidate said.

"The assault on our standard of living is coupled with attacks on our democratic rights," stated Novak. Pointing to the attempts by the Clinton administration and the local government to restrict the rights of youth, Novak noted that this represents a drive to "scapegoat young people as criminal elements in society." She cited the so-called "roadside safety checks" in Peoria as "nothing but a reason for the cops to stop and harass people just like the curfew laws." Novak demanded an end to these measures.

"There is a tug of war going on today between working people and the rulers like the unresolved labor dispute at Caterpillar that will not be settled without a fight," Novak stated.

Pointing to walkouts by working people in France against government austerity cuts and the recent strike by workers at an IBP meatpacking plant in Joslin, Illinois, she added, "Working people are fighting back."

On December 7, Socialist Workers campaign supporters launched a petition drive to get the socialist candidates on the ballot. Danny Booher, one of these supporters and a Steelworkers member, reported that the campaign has begun to get a good response among working people in the area. The first two days of petitioning, 187 signatures were collected. Campaign supporters also sold three Pathfinder books, six copies of the Militant and one subscription to the Spanish-language socialist monthly magazine Perspectiva Mundial.

At a December 13 forum with the socialist candidates, Novak explained she was ending her campaign in Peoria in order to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to assume full- time responsibilities in the Young Socialists national center as a member of newly elected YS National Executive Committee.  
 
 
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