Speakers at the rally included representatives of the sponsoring organizations: Yousef Abudyyeh of the National Council of Arab Americans, and Zani Damuwi of Al-Awda (The Palestine Right to Return Coalition). Also speaking was James Harris, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for California governor.

“We demand the Israeli government stop its assault on Lebanon and withdraw all its troops now,” said Harris, who works in a meatpacking plant in the Los Angeles area. “We urge working people, including those fighting for the legalization of immigrants, and others, to protest Washington’s support to Tel Aviv’s aggression. One of the most important things that your street protest is accomplishing today is getting out the truth—that the Palestinians fight Israel, because Israel stole their land.”

Also joining the protest was David Arguello, the SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in California’s 51st District. “The new partnership agreement between the AFL-CIO and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network is a positive step for the labor movement,” Arguello told protesters. “Labor must not only demand legalization of all undocumented immigrants, but harness the power and resources of the union movement to this fight.” (See also front-page article.)

“By extending a hand of solidarity to these brothers and sisters, the labor movement strengthens the entire working class and counters the divide-and-rule tactics the bosses use against all of us,” said Arguello, 27, a factory worker and member of the Young Socialists here. As a hotel worker previously, Arguello had been part of a fight at Hotel Del Coronado to bring back a UNITE HERE union local after the new employer threw it out and voided its contract following a change of ownership in 2003.

“Immigrant workers are encountering harassment and efforts to close down their day-laborer sites in Vista, Encinitas, San Marcos, and elsewhere in San Diego area,” said Yolie Ríos, 24, who is part of the Coalition for Justice, Peace, and Dignity in San Diego, responding to Arguello’s comments. “Sometimes anti-immigrant groups like the Minutemen pose as the Border Patrol or ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) units to intimidate these workers.”

“I think the AFL-CIO decision is great,” Ríos continued. “The day laborers like it when human rights activists are out there standing with them, and I’m confident they will like having the unions with them even more.”

Ríos said she plans to help campaign for the SWP candidates because “they take a stand on human rights.”

Meanwhile, Joel Britton, Socialist Workers candidate for Board of Education in San Francisco, submitted petitions to get on the ballot. Britton explained in his “qualifications statement” that he was a participant in the historic fight against Jim Crow segregation in the 1960s and struggles against police brutality and for affirmative action in jobs and education.

The SWP campaign also calls for a federally funded program to put millions to work at union scale building schools, child-care centers, and repairing deteriorating infrastructure, Britton told the Militant. “But the most important education is that which prepares youth and working people for the greatest battle ahead, the battle of workers and farmers to throw off the negative self-image the rulers teach us, to recognize we are capable of taking power and organizing society in the interests of the vast majority,” he said.
 
 
Related articles:
Socialist Workers in New York file for ballot status
Socialist Workers Party candidates in 2006  
 
 
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