Vol. 79/No. 41      November 16, 2015

The SWP candidates have gotten widespread media coverage, appeared in numerous candidates’ debates, joined union picket lines and protests against cop brutality and talked to workers on their doorsteps. They’ve sought to put every political question in a class framework, and promote working-class solutions.

Katie Colaneri, a reporter for WHYY public radio and its associated Newsworks website, accompanied the socialist candidates as they knocked on workers’ doors in the Mayfair area in Northeast Philadelphia. “The working class neighborhood is home to just the kind of voters they’re targeting,” Colaneri wrote Oct. 26.

She asked Hart what the SWP would accomplish through the campaign. “Our victory is that working people get a voice in the elections,” Hart answered.

The party has been asking workers to join a Nov. 10 rally at 3:30 p.m. at City Hall organized by fast-food workers, Walmart workers and many others demanding $15 an hour, regular full-time schedules and a union. Hart works as an overnight stocker at Walmart and Staggs works a cash register at a different store.

“Yes, I support the fight for $15 an hour — but the minimum wage should be at least $20 an hour,” Sean Wright, a construction worker, told campaign supporter Janet Post on his doorstep in Port Richmond Nov. 1.

“The hardest thing about working at McDonald’s was the terrible pay,” Elizabeth Wilcox, who worked there 30 years, told Post. She said that she will try to go to the Nov. 10 demonstration because to win $15 an hour “will take a fight.”

“A lifelong supporter of black people’s rights, he [Hart] was a participant in the July 24-26 Black Lives Matter national conference in Cleveland,” said a Newsworks 2015 Philadelphia Voters Guide. “He also supports a woman’s right to have an abortion, has marched and spoken out in support of undocumented workers in Philadelphia, Norristown and southern New Jersey, and has joined protests and rallies against public school funding cuts.

“Staggs has been using his Council campaign to support Verizon workers and ATI steelworkers in their contract fights,” the voting guide said. “Staggs is also an opponent of U.S. wars he calls imperialist — in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere — and he supports the revolutionary government in Cuba as an example for all working people.”

“Working people need to organize a movement to form our own political party, a labor party based on the unions that can take the reins of power out of the hands of big business,” Staggs told those attending an Oct. 27 candidates’ meeting sponsored by the Committee of 70, Young Involved Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Citizen.

Grandille Crothers, who has worked at ArcelorMittal’s steel mill in Coatesville since 1966, told campaign supporter Mitchel Rosenberg Nov. 2 that he backs the SWP’s efforts to promote the fight for a labor party. “I’m all for it. Sooner or later somebody has to stand up for the working man,” Crothers said.

ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel are demanding deep concession contracts in negotiations with the Steelworkers union. The SWP candidates have joined Steelworkers’ actions in defense of the union at ArcelorMittal plants in both Coatesville and Conshohocken.

When the topic at an “All Candidates Night” Oct. 28 sponsored by The Chew and Belfield Neighbors Club turned to police brutality quite a discussion broke out on how to end police killings.

Rev. Chester Williams, club president and the moderator, said that the cops should be trained to shoot so that they don’t kill.

Jim Foster, an independent candidate for mayor, said he thought cops should be trained to take someone down without shooting at all.

Hart said he joined family members in public protests against the killings of Frank McQueen and Brandon Tate-Brown and the brutal beating of Tyree Carroll by the cops.

“It isn’t a question of training the police better,” he said. “The police defend the interests of the employers, the ruling class. Working people, the majority in society, need to mobilize to take power out of the hands of the capitalists and put it in our hands — that is the solution.”

The SWP candidates are inviting workers to hear Kenia Serrano and Leima Martínez, leaders of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, Nov. 7 in Washington, D.C., to learn about what workers and farmers in Cuba have been able to accomplish with their own government. And they’re building the Nov. 10 rally for $15 and a union.

“Unity is what it’s all about, sticking together. You got my vote,” Kevin Foreman, a 39-year-old forklift operator and member of the Teamsters, told Hart at his front door in Port Richmond. “I support the $15 minimum wage. I’ll read the Militant, but I want you to come back and talk after the Tuesday election.”

“I’ll be here,” Hart said. “The SWP doesn’t just run in elections, we’re a 365-day-a-year political party.”
 
 
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