Many can be won to signing a petition, sending a letter to Goodwill and the mayor of Miami, or endorsing the fight. Some will want to kick in funds or take some literature to show their friends. It's a simple fact: workers and farmers who are fighting like to learn about and support others doing the same.

Socialist workers and young socialists can explain the fight the same way Italie does at speaking events across the country. He points out that the attacks against the toilers in Afghanistan, the threats against the people of north Korea, Iran, and Iraq, and the deployment of U.S. troops in the Philippines are an extension of the bipartisan domestic policy of the U.S. rulers. Their assault on the social wage, conditions of life, and political space at home is aimed at pushing back, dividing, and defeating the working class.

Supporters of Italie can also talk about the example of the Cuban Revolution and the tremendous advances working people have made since taking state power out of the hands of the capitalists and landlords, making a socialist revolution, and reaching out to support other liberation struggles around the globe.

Michael Italie's unflinching stand and nationwide fight set an example for others in speaking out against attacks on workers' rights. Under capitalism, those rights can never be protected through laws or in the courts. Italie's case is just one of many examples that shine a spotlight on the fact that laws under capitalism are not written to protect workers' rights. Even if a legal case can be mounted, Italie knows what millions of other workers do from firsthand experience: the odds are stacked against him in the capitalist courts.

These institutions of the ruling class simply give legal cover to the defense of the prerogatives of the bosses and the curbing of the rights of working people, especially Blacks and Latinos, who in disproportionately large numbers get caught up in the legal system.

The war fever that Washington began to whip up after September 11 has petered out. With each passing day more workers are more concerned with cop killings, rising unemployment, or bosses squeezing more sweat and blood out of our bodies to fatten their own pockets. Many will welcome information on Italie's fight.

The rulers are running into roadblocks in their attempt to go after working people's rights. Elementary solidarity in the defense of a fellow worker given a raw deal and messed over by the boss is widespread. Italie's fight touches a raw nerve, especially when workers find out how Goodwill--supposedly a "charity"--gets around state and federal minimum wage laws so it can pay disabled workers substantially below the already miserly minimum.

In his speaking tours and meetings, Michael Italie offers everyone the same road he has taken--that of dedicating their life to the revolutionary movement and joining in the struggle to overthrow the system that exploits labor and brutalizes working people.

We encourage all supporters of this fight to organize more tours across the United States that include house meetings with co-workers, discussions with unionists and others involved in struggles today, and public events.

This fight is a tool to find and recruit workers and farmers to Italie's party, the Socialist Workers Party. Most workers, regardless of their political views, will listen to and support a fellow fighter who stands up to a political firing. Many individuals will want to learn more about the political perspective he presents and to follow his example.
 
 
Related articles:
Fired socialist worker wins new support in Illinois and Indiana
Italie interviewed by Ball State college paper
'We find this firing to be unjust,' say Black Telephone Workers for Justice  
 
 
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