Vol. 77/No. 26      July 8, 2013

Militant/Candace Wagner

Barbershop owner Mel Walker listens to Dan Fein, Socialist Workers candidate for New York mayor, right, while another barber tapes talk to play on shop’s video screen, June 23.

Fein was speaking to barbers and patrons at Finally Mel’s barbershop after being invited in by shop owner Mel Walker while campaigning door to door in the working-class neighborhood of East New York in Brooklyn June 23.

“My opponents, the Democrats and Republicans, ignore the most important issue facing working people — unemployment,” said Fein. “The labor movement needs to fight for a massive public works program to put the more than 20 million unemployed and underemployed to work building affordable housing, hospitals, child care centers and other things the working class needs.

“What you said was excellent,” Walker said. “I want people in the neighborhood to know about your campaign.” Another barber made a video of Fein speaking that Walker said will be shown on the shop’s TV. Walker got a subscription to the Militant for the shop and invited Fein to be a guest speaker at a block party in September.

Speaking at a Militant Labor Forum two days earlier, Fein said that when school bus workers in New York went on strike earlier this year, “it was a popular strike among parents and other working people. But the strikers faced political obstacles. Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 officials called it off after a month when five Democratic Party candidates for mayor promised that if elected, they would look into the issue.”

“The SWP campaign is an example to the labor movement of what must be done to break with the Democratic and Republican parties,” said Fein. This is in contrast to the course taken by labor officials, who are offering union endorsement and money to one or another of the candidates vying for the Democratic Party mayoral nomination in hopes of backing the winner and gaining a “friend” in City Hall, he said.

New York City ballot drive

“I’m here to join with you and all my compañeros to support Dan Fein’s campaign,” said retired schoolteacher Miriam Canales, one of the speakers at the event. “I met Mr. Fein when he and another campaign supporter knocked on my door. I was very happy to find out I was not the only person who thought the working class had to fight for humanity. I’m glad to be joining this fight.”

“The recent protests in Brazil started when the government imposed fare hikes in cities across the country,” Liatos said. “But they exploded nationwide and all kinds of other questions came pouring in.”

“As workers in Latin America, the U.S. and worldwide look for a road to fight growing attacks from the capitalists and their governments,” Liatos said, “the living Cuban Revolution provides an example of workers and peasants taking power, transforming themselves and all of society.”

“Today we are living through an unfolding crisis of capitalist production and trade,” said Studer. “And the capitalist rulers’ only response is to make workers pay for it. Their goal is to change the relationship of class forces — to drive down the value of our labor power.

“The New York City Comptroller is supposed to watch over the interests of the city’s bondholders, the capitalist class,” he said. “The comptroller looks at this the same way the bankruptcy laws are written, to protect the capitalists’ interests. You can see this at work against the coal miners fighting Patriot Coal’s use of the federal bankruptcy court to attack the United Mine Workers union in West Virginia and Kentucky, like you saw used against Hostess workers last year and against the Eastern Airline strikers in 1989.

“You can see the same thing today in Detroit, where workers face the lash of potential bankruptcy as a bosses’ tool to make them pay, targeting city workers’ contracts, and health care and pensions of workers and retirees.”

“The Comptroller is assigned to defend the employers’ interests, disguised as ‘our’ interests,” Studer said. “But the SWP would do the opposite — defend and advance the struggles of working people against the capitalists and their efforts to make us pay for their crisis.”

“The candidates’ talks were very informative,” Nick Amendolare, 23, a cleaner on the Long Island Railroad, told the Militant. “I personally think everyone who’s a worker in Manhattan should be here. I definitely want to come back and be part of this.”

“It’s a good idea for an independent political course. It goes in the right direction,” said Noemia Topete, a school bus attendant in the Bronx.

A delicious chicken and lo mein noodle dinner prior to the forum, prepared by Shirelynn George with help from other campaign supporters, began the event on a high note.

After an appeal from the chair, more than $950 was raised in contributions and pledges for the campaign.

Candace Wagner contributed to this article.  
 
 
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