Many of the 50 Veye Yo activists attending this meeting in the Little Haiti section of the city nodded their heads in agreement when Hawkins said that domination by Washington and its imperialist allies keeps a substantial portion of the world’s population living in darkness after the sun goes down each day, thus limiting industrial development and the possibility for the toilers to raise their cultural level. Hawkins said SWP candidates across the country are supporting the right of governments in semicolonial countries to use whatever means they choose to address this problem, including the use of nuclear power.

In informal discussions after her presentation, Hawkins pointed to the conditions in Haiti following the disastrous floods there in May. The U.S. government and its imperialist allies, she said, were responsible for the deforestation of the country that resulted in devastating mudslides and a huge death toll on the heels of torrential rains.

Hawkins gave her presentation shortly after a campaign talk by Maurice Ferré, the mayor of the city of Miami in the 1970s and ’80s, who is currently a candidate for mayor of Miami-Dade County. Ferré, a Democrat, claimed he was competent for election to this post because he was qualified to administer the budget of the county and its school district, which, he said, was larger than the combined budgets of several Caribbean countries put together. He also said that it was the failure of Blacks to vote that cost him the election last time around—as though African-Americans could be counted on to vote for him, if only they would go to the polls.

During her tour, Hawkins joined Nicole Sarmiento, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida, and a team of campaign supporters at the Point Blank Body Armor plant in Oakland Park, north of Miami. About 40 workers came to the campaign table outside the factory gate to meet the socialist candidates. “We salute you in having won an organizing victory and contract,” Hawkins said. “You are setting an example for other workers in how to fight the employers. Our campaign supports the right of workers to organize unions and defend themselves from the bosses’ assaults. Everywhere we go, we call for defending the labor movement from the continuing offensive by the employers and their twin parties of capitalism—the Democrats and Republicans.”

The Oakland Park sewing plant manufactures body armor for the military and police. Workers there waged a successful two-year fight to have their union, UNITE, which organizes garment and textile workers, recognized. They are now working under their first union contract.  
 
Campaigning among striking truckers
Sarmiento and Hawkins also took the socialist campaign to a crowd of 100 truck drivers gathered outside the entrance to the Port of Miami. The truck drivers began their strike June 28, shutting down transportation in and out of the shipping terminals there. Many of the drivers were born in Nicaragua, while others are of Cuban descent. They are striking over skyrocketing fuel prices, the low wage they are paid per load, insurance payment surcharges imposed on them by the port administration, and the fact that they have to sit idle for hours for a load without being paid for waiting time.

A handful of Cuban truck drivers objected to the socialist candidates distributing literature. “We know about communism, and it’s no good,” one of them shouted at Sarmiento. Several truck drivers took issue with this stance, however, and made a point of telling others that the SWP candidates and campaign supporters were there to support the truck drivers and to learn about their fight.

On July 9, a judge in Miami issued an order instructing the drivers to end their walkout, claiming that because they weren’t officially members of any union they had no right to shut down the port.

Later that day, Hawkins joined several campaign supporters at the Miami Government Center during the late afternoon rush hour. This is a major downtown bus and rail transportation center. SWP candidates Omari Musa, running for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 17th Congressional District, and Lawrence Mikesh, the party’s candidate for mayor of Miami-Dade County, took turns on a bullhorn addressing passersby and distributing campaign literature.

During her stay, Hawkins also visited the farm of C.R. Martin in West Palm County. Martin, who grows corn and string beans, was a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in the late 1990s by farmers who are Black against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for decades of discriminatory practice that resulted in forcing thousands of African-American farmers off the land.

Martin explained the vise small farmers are caught in today between the low prices they receive on the market for their products, on the one hand, and the high prices of seeds, fertilizer, and other farm inputs they have to pay for, on the other.

During her Florida stay, campaign supporters organized two dinners for Hawkins that young people attracted to the campaign could attend and talk informally with the SWP vice-presidential candidate. Hawkins also participated in a class SWP candidates in Miami are organizing on the book The Changing Face of U.S. Politics by SWP national secretary Jack Barnes.

All the Miami-area SWP candidates plus Karl Butts, the SWP candidate for Congress in the 11th C.D. in Tampa, joined Hawkins in speaking at a July 3 rally at the campaign headquarters in Miami attended by 36 people. Participants included two workers who had heard Hawkins speak at the Veye Yo meeting, workers from Point Blank who had met Hawkins at the factory gate, and young people from Miami and Tampa who have participated in recent campaign activities. More than $800 was raised for the national SWP campaign appeal at the rally.
 
 
Related articles:
Nearly 12,000 sign petitions in first week to put Socialist Workers on N.Y. ballot  
 
 
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