“Wow, I’m so happy to see the socialist campaign,” said Israel Sosa, a student at the University of Houston downtown campus. “I didn’t know the socialist movement was so strong. I’m glad to see people promoting these ideas.”

“What we stand and fight for is indeed powerful,” responded Hawkins.

Nine individuals attending the fair purchased subscriptions to the campaign newspaper, the Militant, as a result of discussions held with Hawkins and the party’s candidates for U.S. Congress in Texas—Anthony Dutrow in the 7th District and Jacquie Henderson in the 18th District.

That evening 21 people attended a campaign meeting featuring Hawkins at the SWP campaign center here.

Given the offensive by the bosses to shore up their declining profit rates by imposing speed-up, lengthening the workday and workweek, and driving wages down, Hawkins said, the socialist campaign platform focuses on the need for workers to organize unions, or strengthen those they have, to fight the bosses offensive. The employers, of course, resist the organization of unions in their factories, mines, mills, transportation centers, or warehouses, the socialist candidate said. But there is no special crackdown right now on the right to organize unions by the National Labor Relations Board or other government bodies, she continued. In fact, most capitalist candidates will give lip service to “the right to organize a union.” What’s important, however, is the need and ability of workers to organize in face of the current leadership of the labor movement that ties the unions to the ruling class and its parties, especially the Democrats, and promotes collaboration with the bosses rather than uncompromising struggle in the interests of the workers, she said.

In response to a question about how the party views immigrant workers, Hawkins stated, “These workers are not victims but part of leading changes and struggles of the working class here.” She pointed to the example of coal miners in Huntington, Utah, many of them originally from Mexico, who are leading a fight to be represented by the United Mine Workers of America together with U.S.-born workers. “This is a class question,” she said. “We say immigrants and native-born need to fight shoulder to shoulder. We can’t let the bosses divide us based on where workers were born.”

The following morning, Hawkins, together with Henderson and Dutrow, distributed campaign flyers to workers going into a local meatpacking plant.

Hawkins then spoke before a class of some 30 students at the Thurgood Marshall Law School of Texas Southern University, and was interviewed by the local Pacifica radio station KPFT.

The day before arriving in Houston, Hawkins made a campaign stop in New Orleans, Louisiana, to thank all those who helped in putting the SWP presidential ticket on the ballot in that state. She spoke at a public meeting held on the Tulane University campus and then attended a barbecue at a nearby dorm that houses a number of international students. Among those who came down from their rooms to meet Hawkins were students from the Congo, Tanzania, and India.

The Tulane Hullabaloo published an article on the visit by Hawkins in its October 8 issue. The SWP, the article said, “denounces the campaigns of both President Bush and Senator Kerry, citing their capitalist outlook as ‘twin parties of imperialist war, economic depression and racist oppression.’

“Hawkins focused on the plight of working people. ‘There is growing disparity, a widening gap between those who have and those who are struggling to make it day to day,’ she said.

“Citing what she referred to as the ‘grinding assault against workers,’ Hawkins pushed for Socialist ideas, stressing the need for a federally funded program for universal, lifetime health care.

“‘There is no respect for the lives of working people who don’t have access to health care coverage,’ she said.

“Speaking about international issues, Hawkins encouraged immediate withdrawal from Iraq and several other countries, particularly those in Latin America.”

Later that evening Hawkins and other campaign supporters participated in a vigil to protest the killing by cops of Joseph Williams, a 22-year old who is Black. Williams, a musician who played the trombone, was gunned down August 3 by New Orleans police. The family and supporters in the community hold weekly vigils each Saturday night at the site where young man was killed to demand that the cops who shot him be prosecuted.
 
 
Related articles:
Break from parties of the employers!
Socialist candidate for Senate in N.Y. debates Green, Libertarian opponents
Calero meets with students, meat packers in Twin Cities
Calero stumps in Tampa
New Jersey socialist candidates join debates
SWP vice-presidential candidate meets farmers, unionists in D.C.  
 
 
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