Five days later the Pittsburgh election board confirmed that Ressler’s name would appear on the ballot. Ressler, a coal miner, had refused to sign an “antisubversive” pledge when he filed for ballot status.

Close to 300 workers, members of Laborers Local 1357, struck Airo Die Castings in June. Pickets said the company demanded concessions on health insurance, pensions, overtime premium pay, and bidding rights. The plant, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh, makes parts for Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

One question that came up on the picket line during Ressler’s visit was whether the reason for the predicament organized labor faces today is that the AFL-CIO doesn’t do enough lobbying of politicians. “No, it’s fights like the one you are waging that will strengthen the labor movement, not more lobbying of Democratic and Republican politicians,” Ressler said in his exchange with the strikers. “They are the parties of the employers.

“Just as we organize unions to resist the bosses’ attacks,” he said, “workers need to organize in the political arena independently of the bosses. We need our own party, a labor party based on the unions, that fights for the interests of all working people.”

Ressler noted other demands in the Socialist Workers platform that point to “the need to build a movement that can take political power out of the hands of the billionaire rulers, establish a workers and farmers government, and link up with the struggles of working people worldwide.”

On August 11, the SWP candidate for Pittsburgh City Council in District 8, Cynthia Jaquith, joined a solidarity rally at the Laborers picket line. The event drew supporters from locals of the United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers, and United Mine Workers.

Jaquith, a meat packer, and Ryan Scott, a coal miner and the SWP candidate for Allegheny County Council in District 12, are running as write-in candidates.  
 
 
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