Militant/Joel Britton

Martín Koppel, SWP candidate for New York attorney general, campaigns July 23 in Woodside, Queens, hit by a weeklong blackout. Con Ed “relief station” is in background.

“Our campaign calls for nationalizing the energy industry,” he said. “The energy companies must be taken out of private hands and run as a public utility for the benefit of the majority.

“This means opening their books to expose all their so-called business secrets and profit-motivated decisions, like the refusal to invest adequately in maintenance and new power plants. Those decisions by the capitalists guarantee there will be more disastrous breakdowns.”

Koppel said the nationalized energy companies “must be operated under workers’ control on the job—control over the pace of production, over how the job is organized, over the safety of workers and the public at large.”

The Socialist Workers Party campaign, he said, is calling for a massive public works program to rebuild the deteriorating infrastructure and create thousands of needed jobs.

These proposals are part of the election platform that socialist campaigners have been taking to working people across the state. By today, campaigners had successfully completed a two-week effort to collect 30,000 signatures—twice the required number—to win ballot status for the SWP ticket in New York State.

The Socialist Workers candidates are Róger Calero for U.S. Senate, Maura DeLuca for governor, Ben O’Shaughnessy for lieutenant governor, Martín Koppel for state attorney general, Willie Cotton for state comptroller, and Nancy Boyasko for U.S. Congress in the 11th District.

Boyasko, Calero, and Koppel spoke at a campaign rally hosted by the Militant Labor Forum in Manhattan on July 22 to celebrate the accomplishments of the ballot drive here. The panel included Osborne Hart and Diana Newberry, SWP candidates for governor of Pennsylvania and Iowa, respectively, and Marshall Lambie of the Young Socialists.

Visiting Woodside the next day, Koppel and a team of socialist campaigners spoke with dozens of people standing in line to receive bags of ice and meals at a relief station set up by Con Edison and the Red Cross. Resident after angry resident described the conditions they have confronted during the blackout, as they signed petitions to put the Socialist Workers ticket on the ballot.

“We’ve been without power for six days now. Yesterday was the first day these people showed up in our neighborhood with water, ice, and food,” Marcelo Cruz, a restaurant worker, told Koppel. “For five days last week I had to take a taxi to work in Manhattan because the subways weren’t running in this area.”

“This is an outrage. It’s pure negligence by Con Ed and the city,” said Antonia González. “After a week without power, my kitchen stinks from the spoiled food. There’s no air conditioning. The elevators aren’t running. Yesterday the lights came back on and I bought groceries—but then we lost power and I had to throw out the food again. And after they fix the blackout, I’m sure they’ll increase the rates, which are too high already.”

“Who keeps receipts for the food they bought?” asked María Montes, a house cleaner, referring to the utility’s offer to reimburse families for loss of perishables if they showed receipts or food labels. In addition, many small businesses lost thousands of dollars in ruined goods.

Six days into the blackout, hundreds of thousands remained without power in northwest Queens, including Astoria, Sunnyside, Hunters Point, Long Island City, and Ditmars. The blackout began July 17 at the height of a heat wave, when 10 of the 22 main power feeders in the area broke down. Con Ed decided to keep the power running through lower-voltage cables, which then burned out, according to company officials. The utility has refused to explain the cause of the breakdown.

A group of workers standing in the food line, originally from Tibet, asked Koppel about the socialist election platform. The demand for nationalizing the energy industry, he said, is part of a broader approach that the union movement must take up in defense of the needs of all working people.

“The energy question can’t be seen as a local or American problem—it’s a world problem,” Koppel said. “Two billion people in the world lack access to electric power. The U.S. government tries to prevent Iran and other nations from developing nuclear power and other energy sources they need. Our campaign stands with the oppressed nations in opposing these imperialist attacks, and in any effort to make economic and social advances. That’s the position the labor movement in this country should take.”

The workers were interested in this world approach and several signed the petition to put the SWP ticket on the ballot. Many other workers who signed, hailing from countries such as Nepal, Korea, Pakistan, and Mexico, referred to their own experience with conditions of imperialist-imposed underdevelopment. Some, hesitant to sign at first, grabbed a pen after they began to discuss with the socialist campaigners the recent big demonstrations for legalization of all immigrants and the impact of these mobilizations on U.S. politics.

Rosa Gaguancela, who cleans houses and, as a recent garment worker, is a member of UNITE HERE, said she had attended the May 1 immigrant rights demonstration in New York. She has also helped organize other workers to join similar protests in Paterson, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. “We have to keep up this struggle. Workers need to get their papers,” she said.
 
 
Related articles:
State orders end to use of ‘loyalty oath’
Responds to Pennsylvania SWP campaign
Nationalize the energy industry!
Statement by SWP Candidates
Initial list of Socialist Worker Party candidates in 2006  
 
 
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