Militant photos by Rachele Fruit

Socialist Workers Party candidates Nicole Sarmiento for U.S. Senate in Florida (right) and Karl Butts (back to camera) for U.S. Congress in Tampa campaign at East Tampa flea market.

“I’m running for U.S. Senate in Florida as the Socialist Workers Party candidate,” said Sarmiento, 22, a student at the University of Miami. “Our campaign offers a fighting, working-class alternative to the Democrats and Republicans, which are the twin parties of imperialist war, exploitation, depression, and racism.”

Sarmiento said, “We call for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Yugoslavia, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.”

Workers stopped to learn more about the socialist campaign, drawn by the team of campaigners who were armed with leaflets, newspapers, books on working-class politics, and a bullhorn.

Sarmiento said, “We need jobs for all working people. These jobs can be created by cutting the workweek to 30 hours at 40 hours’ pay.” She added, “The Socialist Workers campaign also says: double the minimum wage.”

A young Honduran-born worker, Ricardo Mejía, joined other campaigners in passing out socialist literature. He had met the candidates the night before at the Militant Labor Forum in Tampa where Sarmiento and congressional candidate Omari Musa had spoken on the subject, “U.S. Hands Off Venezuela.”

Sarmiento spent three days in the Tampa area campaigning. She was joined by Karl Butts, a vegetable farmer in nearby Plant City and the Socialist Workers Party can date in the 11th C.D. in Tampa, and Omari Musa, a Miami garment worker who is the party’s candidate in the 17th C.D.

The socialist campaigners in Florida had a busy week in both Miami and Tampa. In addition to the flea market, they introduced their campaign to working people and youth at a transportation center, several political events, and a rally in support of hospital workers fighting for a union (see photobox on hospital workers’ fight in this issue).

In Tampa, Sarmiento and Musa participated in a conference at the University of South Florida on “The Civil Rights Movement in Florida.” Socialist campaigners had a literature table there and distributed campaign material.

In Miami, Lawrence Mikesh, a meat packer and Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Miami-Dade County, and Seth Galinsky, a garment workers and socialist candidate in the 21st C.D., campaigned with a bullhorn May 30 outside the Government Center Metro rail stop. On June 3, Mikesh and Galinsky participated in a forum attended by more than 200 people on “Haiti, Human Rights, and the Coup.” That event was held at Florida International University’s North Campus. In the discussion that followed panel presentations by a range of speakers, Mikesh called for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from Haiti, receiving a round of applause.

Galinsky campaigned on June 5 at a march and rally organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in support of workers fighting to win recognition at Pan-American Hospital. On January 26 the majority of the workers at the hospital voted for the union, two weeks after nurses there also voted to be represented by the SEIU. The hospital is challenging the validity of the election and has fired nine union activists, workers report. The protest of some 250 also attracted unionists from other area hospitals, members of the Laborers International Union, and others.

A sewing machine operator at the Point Blank Body Armor plant in Oakland Park, Galinsky detailed the experience that workers there have gone through the last two years to win their first union contract. He said the Socialist Workers Party campaign joins with the hospital workers and urges other working people to support their fight.

Mikesh joined SWP campaigners from several southern states in Mississippi on June 5, where the effort to get the Socialist Worker presidential ticket on the November ballot is under way.  
 
 
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