The Militant - August 27, 2001 -- Miami socialist candidate joins picket line

Vol.65/No.33 August 27, 2001

Miami socialist candidate joins picket line

BY ERIC SIMPSON
MIAMI--Michael Italie, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Miami, joined a picket line of some 100 communications workers outside a Bell South installation here August 4. The unionists, along with thousands of other Bell South employees in nine southern states and Puerto Rico, were preparing for a strike against the telecommunications giant as their contract expired that evening.

On the picket line Italie expressed his solidarity with the workers' demands for higher wages, an end to speed up, and for better working conditions. One hour before the midnight contract expiration deadline Communications Workers of America officials announced they had reached a tentative agreement with the company and that there would be no strike.

Italie is a sewing machine operator at Goodwill Industries, where several hundred workers produce military uniforms for the U.S. government. Some of the socialist candidate's co-workers have expressed support for the campaign, including offering to translate campaign literature into French and Creole for workers of Haitian origin.

Socialist campaign demands
Italie announced his campaign in July at a well-attended Militant Labor Forum on the fight against police brutality in Miami. In an interview with the Militant, Italie said, "The socialist campaign is presenting a series of demands, such as 'Jobs for all--shorten the workweek with no cut in pay,' 'Increase the minimum wage,' and 'Cancel the Third World Debt,' in order to build solidarity among working people around the world who are facing rising joblessness, growing indebtedness, and the ever-present danger of ruinous bursts of inflation and financial panic. These demands and our campaign," he said, "are part of constructing a revolutionary movement capable of taking power out of the hands of the capitalists, establishing a workers and farmers government, and joining the worldwide struggle for socialism."

Italie supports Cuba's socialist revolution and has campaigned for normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba, the repeal of the Helms-Burton Act and other measures that are part of Washington's economic war on Cuba, and for the end of all U.S. government restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Italie's nine opponents include the current mayor and former cop Joseph Carrollo, and two former mayors. Italie will be on the ballot in the November after qualifying for an exemption to an undemocratic $1,000 filing fee imposed on all candidates. After presenting his pay stub to election officials showing he earns $5.15 an hour as a sewing machine operator, Italie was granted a waiver under an "undue financial burden" provision in the law.

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