Rachele Fruit, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. president, is winning a growing hearing in cities across the U.S. and Canada for the party’s call for workers to break with all the capitalist rulers’ parties and build a labor party based on the unions. The campaign has reinforced the successful nine-week party effort to win 1,350 new Militant readers, get out the same number of books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries and raise $165,000 for the paper.
The drive is over the top! We’ve won 1,355 subscribers, sold 1,511 books and raised $168,246.
The party has taken Fruit’s presidential campaign, the Militant, the paper’s fund drive and its books to actions to back Israel’s existence as a refuge from Jew-hatred and pogroms; in support of Ukraine’s fight to defend its independence; and to workers on strike picket lines and at their doorsteps. SWP and Communist League members in Canada, Australia and the U.K. have discussed and debated the road forward with thousands of working people.
In Miami SWP members Steve Warshell and Laura Anderson visited St Paul Louis, a retired janitor and member of AFSCME Local 1184 May 12. Louis pulled out lawn chairs to discuss the paper and the Fruit campaign.
Louis has been reading the Militant for more than two years and has contributed to the Militant Prisoners’ Fund. “The Democrats and Republicans are hypocrites and don’t care about working people,” Louis said as he filled out a card to endorse Fruit’s campaign. “We need to depend on ourselves.” He also renewed his Militant subscription.
Louis described a visit he made back to Haiti in the 1980s. U.S. imperialism was “there for the rich,” he said. A defender of Israel as a refuge for Jews, he told Warshell and Anderson he’s looking forward to the French-language edition of the new book The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.
Jonathan Parsons, from Richland Hills, Texas, also endorsed Fruit’s campaign after talking with party members George Chalmers and Hilda Cuzco on his doorstep May 13.
He said he worked in the oil fields until he was injured and now trims trees, another dangerous job. After discussing the need for a labor party based on the unions, Parsons pulled out $20.
He got a copy of the Militant and The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward and donated the rest to the Militant Fighting Fund.
Alyson Kennedy, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas, and party member Alex Huinil met Norma Ribas on her doorstep in Cleburne May 13. “Immigrant workers in the U.S. work harder, more hours and for less pay,” Ribas said, as they discussed the challenges facing workers today. “One day we will strike all across the country and the U.S. will lose billions of dollars.”
Huinil told her about the millions of immigrant workers who organized protests demanding amnesty across the U.S. in 2006. “The SWP campaign supports amnesty for immigrants who live and work here,” he said. “This is a life-and-death question for the unions.”
“Workers today are in a mood to fight, we can change our conditions,” Kennedy added. “We need to organize our own party to lead a powerful working-class movement based on the unions to take political power.”
Ribas got a subscription to the Militant and a copy of The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us.
Several flight attendants at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport told SWP members they appreciated their participation in the May 9 picket for a new contract there. Denise Chapple, who works for American Airlines, told Edwin Fruit she was glad to see the Militant’s earlier coverage of pickets by United Airlines flight attendants.
“I’m interested in reading other points of view and need to find out more about the Middle East war,” she said. She got a subscription and copies of the The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us and The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch.
Kami Forcier, a flight attendant for 25 years, described the fight they are waging for a wage increase and to end work done without pay. She also got a subscription.
SWP members are stepping up efforts to win endorsers for Rachele Fruit’s campaign and are organizing to get the SWP candidates on the ballot in as many states as possible. In the coming weeks, campaign and petitioning teams will be fanning out across New Jersey, Tennessee and Washington state.
To join these efforts contact the campaign office nearest you listed in the Directory.