Vol. 76/No. 32      August 27, 2012

The New Orleans Times-Picayune quoted SWP vice presidential candidate Maura DeLuca, who filed for the party along with at-large elector Eloise Williams, saying that “the party will be on the ballot in at least seven other states, including Washington, New Jersey, Iowa and Florida, and expects to be written in on ballots in other states.”

At a press conference on the steps of the state Capitol, Williams told reporters, “We have to stand up for ourselves” because the “politicians and their police all organize against working people.”

Williams, a life-long fighter for civil rights from the Algiers section of New Orleans, has organized and participated in dozens of protests against police brutality and other attacks.

“My grandson is in jail for no good reason,” she said. “Like other young African-American men here he has been harassed by the police. He was stopped on the excuse of a license plate light being out and has been locked up in jail since March.”

The Baton Rouge Advocate noted that “Socialist Workers Party presidential nominee is James Harris, a trade unionist who ran in 1996 and 2000,” and that vice presidential candidate Maura DeLuca was campaigning throughout the state. “‘We are trying to give a voice to the struggles of the working people,’ said DeLuca, who worked as a welder at Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing in Lincoln, Neb.,” the paper wrote.

“That is us too,” one reporter responded when DeLuca mentioned that bosses now demand workers do the job they previously employed two, three or more workers to do.

“One of the oldest papers here, the Times-Picayune, is laying off workers,” he said, “going to only three days a week.”

“So you want a public works program,” another reporter said. “Would that be like the WPA?” referring to the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.

“No,” DeLuca said. “We have seen enough ‘programs.’ We are against big government bureaucracies that invade our lives.”

“I am talking about federal funding,” she explained. “We need to be able to put millions to work at union wages. Constructing schools, roads, hospitals, child care centers—all those things that are being cut back.”
 
 
Related articles:
‘Bosses’ assaults, workers’ resistance are worldwide’
Socialist presidential candidate speaks in NY, NJ
‘Union struggles important to fight for safety’  
 
 
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