Vol. 79/No. 38 October 26, 2015
“Working people know the job situation is not getting better. Their standard of living has been steadily eroded,” Sandler said. “The SWP calls this ‘a slow-burning depression.’ There are not long bread lines on the scale of the 1930s, but this is what a depression looks like today. Only 62.4 percent of adults of working age are employed. And the figures in the Black community are much worse.
“In this context, the fight for $15 an hour and a union movement is having an impact everywhere, giving workers confidence. A new vanguard of the working class is being forged,” he said. Many leading this are young and they are having an impact. As an example, Sandler pointed to a recent National Labor Relations Board ruling that grants a union the right to negotiate with a parent company as well as a contractor. The airlines, fast-food companies, hotels and many other employers have tried to say they are not responsible for abuses and grievances imposed on workers by contractors.
Black-led, but broad, mobilizations in the streets have impacted the U.S. ruling class and resulted in them reining in the cops somewhat. “We have to know, discuss and organize to expand these victories for the working-class,” Sandler said.
“The SWP has had branches in Omaha a number of times dating back to the 1930s,” said Joe Swanson a longtime leader of the SWP from Lincoln, who also spoke. “Pick up a copy of Teamster Power,” he said. “Farrell Dobbs, a leader of the fight that organized tens of thousands in the over-the-road trucking industry in the 1930s throughout the Midwest and of the SWP, writes about the ‘Siege of Nebraska’ in 1938 and other battles across the state.
“We may be leaving Omaha for now, but that won’t stop the party’s political work in Nebraska,” Swanson said. “Talking and working with workers and farmers in small towns, cities and working-class neighborhoods in every corner of the state, we’ve gotten a real hearing for communist politics.”
“I say to party members in the Twin Cities and Chicago who came to join us here today, keep your cars in shape because we will be calling on you for help,” he said. Swanson noted that “from the beginning we have been involved in the defense of Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (David Rice) — the Omaha 2 — who have been imprisoned in the Nebraska state penitentiary for 45 years.
“Ed and Mondo, who were leaders of the Black Panther chapter here, were framed up by the cops in 1970 because they called for the arrest, prosecution and punishment of cops who beat and kill working people,” Swanson said. “We took part in two meetings in Omaha and Lincoln over the last month demanding Nebraska officials free them.”
“Coming here I read how in Midlothian, Illinois, police officer Steven Zamiar was sentenced to 15 months in prison yesterday for repeatedly striking a man with a metal baton outside a bar four years ago,” Alyson Kennedy from Chicago pointed out in the discussion.
“This shows how much has been won by the fight against police brutality,” she said. “This cop would not have been arrested, much less convicted, a few years ago.”
“One of the reasons the party is important to me is that it keeps grassroots people involved and informed,” Carl Tyler, from North Omaha, said after the meeting.
Among the 32 participants another $735 was pledged to the SWP Party Building Fund, bringing contributions from the area to $2,001, well over the Omaha branch’s initial goal of $1,400.
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