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Vol. 72/No. 42      October 27, 2008

 
SWP candidate Calero
visits strikers in Montreal
 
BY JOHN STEELE  
MONTREAL—Róger Calero, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president, spoke to workers on picket lines and to students on campuses here during an October 5-7 campaign stop.

Calero visited striking hotel workers on their picket line at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The 700 strikers, members of the Confederation of National Trade Unions, are fighting for a new contract with better working conditions.

The socialist presidential candidate was also well received by locked-out Petro-Canada refinery workers, who have been resisting concession demands from the oil refinery bosses since November 2007.

Speaking at a Militant Labor Forum in downtown Montreal, Calero likened the deepening capitalist financial crisis to a “slow-moving train wreck.”

“The rulers cannot spend their way or regulate their way out of this crisis,” he said. “The root problem is not deregulation or specific policies or individuals. It is the normal workings of the capitalist system.”

“Some conservatives say that Washington’s bailout package for the Wall Street billionaires is socialism,” said Calero. “This is not socialism. We can only start to build socialism when workers and farmers have political power.”

Joseph Young, the Communist League candidate for St. Léonard/St. Michel in the October 14 federal election, also spoke. Earlier in the day, he and Calero distributed revolutionary literature and spoke to workers at a demonstration here of 5,000, organized by Quebec’s union federations, and community, cultural, and student organizations.

The axis of the demonstration was a call for defeating the Conservatives, who currently head the government, in the upcoming elections.

“There is nothing in this perspective that strengthens the working class,” said Young. “It is not a step toward independent working-class political action because it is really a call for support to the other capitalist parties.”

Young pointed to the demand in the Communist League election platform explaining the need for a labor party, based on fighting unions, that defends the needs of all working people.

Calero encouraged everyone at the forum to join in campaigning for the Communist League candidates. In response, a garment warehouse worker participated in his first campaign table later that week.

At another event Calero addressed 13 students who turned out to a meeting organized by the science and law students’ association at the University of Quebec at Montreal, one of Montreal’s major universities.

Beverly Bernardo and Joseph Young contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Workers need to take power in own hands’
SWP presidential candidate Calero speaks on worldwide capitalist crisis
Costs are rising, farmers tell socialist candidate  
 
 
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