"Workers and farmers face worsening economic conditions, police brutality, rising unemployment, and attacks on our rights and our unions," said the candidate. "But in country after country, working people are also resisting the assaults by the bosses and their governments, from strikes and protests in Argentina to coal miners and others right here in the United States. Our campaign points out the common interests workers and farmers have internationally, as well as the common enemy we have in the corporations and in the U.S. government.

"My campaign is part of the effort to forge a leadership in this country," Forrestal said, "that can lead working people in a revolutionary struggle to replace the government of the superwealthy exploiters in Washington with one of working people. Such a struggle will be forced on working people who will more and more respond to Washington's deepening war against workers and farmers both at home and abroad. These are questions that are central to what working people here in Pittsburgh face, from fighting racism to union-busting assaults."

Forrestal is a coal miner and a member of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). He works at the Robert Murray-owned Maple Creek mine where workers are resisting Murray's efforts to push back the union and set up nonunion operations. Democrat Thomas Murphy, the incumbent who spent $1.4 million in the party's primary election to win by 699 votes, and Republican James Carmine, a professor of philosophy at Carlow College, are also in the race.

The filing followed a 10-day petitioning effort in which campaign supporters found a welcome response from working people. A large proportion of the signatures were gained in the areas surrounding the Socialist Workers headquarters in East Liberty, a working-class neighborhood. Petitioning efforts included street tables, street petitioning teams, and supporters approaching people in parking lots at local grocery stores.

The highlight of the drive was on Saturday, July 28, when 1,059 signatures were collected, sending the effort over the top. Petitioners reported they found a real openness to the campaign and that large numbers of people signed when they learned that a socialist and coal miner was seeking to get on the ballot.

At a Militant Labor Forum that evening, campaign organizer Diana Newberry pointed to the overwhelmingly working-class character of the support received. Signers are required to put down their occupation on the petitions. Newberry read out some of the occupations listed, such as nurses, laborers, and cooks and said the "signatures are from the class that produces the wealth in this society but doesn't share in the benefits. The perspective of the Forrestal campaign," she said, "was charting a course of putting in place a government where workers and farmers are in control."

At the July 28 forum, Forrestal said his campaign starts with an international perspective on class interests and concerns of working people around the world, not in the framework of "America," which is a trap for workers and farmers. Forrestal pointed said the protests by unionists and the unemployed in Argentina against IMF-imposed austerity plans are the latest example of why the labor movement in the United States needs to join in demanding cancellation of the foreign debt of the semicolonial countries. "The debt is the mechanism by which hundreds of billions of dollars is taken by imperialist banks from working people in the Third World, no matter what the consequences on the lives and conditions of hundreds of millions of workers and farmers," he said.

Forrestal also reported on the activities that he and fellow coal miners are involved in to defend their union against government and company assault.

Tony Lane is a coal miner and member of the United Mine Workers of America.
 
 
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