Militant/Dan Fein

Willie Cotton, SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in 15th C.D., right, campaigns at New York’s Harlem Bookfair. Campaigners got more than 100 signatures to put party slate on ballot and sold 40 books on revolutionary politics, and four subscriptions and 60 copies of the Militant.

“We are well on our way to collecting double the requirement,” said Janice Lynn, a meat packer and organizer of the SWP campaign here. Election authorities require 3,500 signatures to place the presidential ticket on the ballot.

Over the same weekend, some 2,600 people signed petitions to put the SWP slate on the ballot in Minnesota, well over the requirement of 2,000 state residents.

In New York, where SWP campaigners collected nearly 30,000 signatures in two weeks, a substantial effort is under way to do the necessary paperwork to prepare the petitions to be filed with the state by mid-August. At the same time, partisans of the socialist campaign there have stepped up literature distribution and other outreach work in working-class neighborhoods.

“These efforts are further steps toward gaining ballot status for the party in more states than we have been on since 1992,” said Norton Sandler, SWP national campaign director. “In every case we are using the petitioning campaigns as launching pads for effective campaigning for the Socialist Workers slate.”

“That’s all I need to hear, I’ll sign for them,” said Ernest Brooks. He was among the 200 people who signed the petition at a shopping center in the southeast section of Washington, D.C., after being told of the Socialist Workers’ support for union organizing. Brooks is a warehouse worker and drives a forklift. “We could use a union,” he said. “The company wants us to drive the forklifts, help load trucks, pack boxes and anything else they need done. We don’t get any extra pay for it either.” Brooks also bought a copy of the Militant to read the coverage of the fight by coal miners in Utah to be represented by the United Mine Workers of America.

“I’m down for that,” said Charles Matthews, a construction worker. He and others signed the petition while waiting at a busy bus stop in the U street commercial district. Matthews currently works as a laborer but attends classes sponsored by the Iron Workers union to become a welder. “Without the union I wouldn’t have this opportunity to get a better job,” he said.

“I signed back down the street,” Alvin Burns told another campaigner. “You’re right on the money,” he added, wearing his American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union T-shirt. Burns said he was going to vote for Democratic candidate John Kerry because it was important to “get Bush out.” But he said he was glad to see there are candidates “taking a strong stand for labor.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet,” Monica Thompson told campaigners that day, referring to recent news accounts that real wages are declining. Thompson, a single mother, said she has a job but has to work a second part-time job. “By the time I pay for transportation, phone, electric and gas, and all the other bills, there is very little left for food,” she said, with a half-full shopping cart outside a local food market.

A report to be released by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute said that the top 20 percent of the city’s households have 31 times the average income of the bottom 20 percent. The average annual household income for the top groups was $186,830, compared to $6,126 for the bottom group, the report said.

One scheme backed by a business group that claims it would bring more jobs and income for city services, is a ballot initiative that would allow video-slot machine gambling in the city. In order to pick up some extra income, Thompson said she agreed to petition to place the initiative on the ballot and was paid as much as $3 per signature. She said that while the job paid well she became skeptical of its promises to provide more jobs and improved schools. “I think this will just lead to a lot of people just losing their money,” she said.

Organizers of the ballot measure known as the “Slots” have been accused by various Democrats and other politicians of widespread fraud, including falsifications of signatures. The scandal surrounding the initiative, however, had little effect on the willingness of working people to sign the Socialist Workers Party petitions. “I just wanted to make sure you were not the ‘Slot’ people,” said Lucy Bivens.
 
 
Related articles:
SWP certified on Iowa ballot, confronts Mississippi challenge
Funds needed for socialists’ ballot efforts
SWP petitions in Minnesota  
 
 
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