Vol. 79/No. 45      December 14, 2015

 

Oil worker gives ‘blood money’ to build SWP

 

The Socialist Workers Party received a check for $1,030.76 Nov. 21 from Mitchel Rosenberg, an oil refinery worker and member of the United Steelworkers union in Philadelphia.

“This particular piece of blood money comes with a unique twist,” he wrote. Blood money is a bribe workers get from the bosses in an effort to get us to acquiesce to rotten contracts, speed-up, discrimination and other indignities.

“All blood money comes with a lie intended to weaken workers’ solidarity and get us to ‘team up’ with the capitalist owners,” Rosenberg wrote. “After a tentative contract was negotiated this year with the refinery, Steelworker union members got a letter from the bosses promising we would get a ‘contingency’ bonus if we approved the deal. If we didn’t approve it, they said, they would use the money to implement their contingency plan — hire replacement workers and try to beat us into submission.

“While I’m always proud to be able to put blood money to good use by handing it over to the Socialist Workers Party, my experiences this year make me unusually enthusiastic,” he said. “From the USW oil workers’ strike at the beginning of the year; through the door-to-door campaigning with SWP candidates Osborne Hart and John Staggs in my Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood and others; building solidarity with the current USW contract fights at ATI, ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel; joining with fighters for a $15 minimum wage and unionization at the recent airport strike and street actions; campaigning against cop brutality; and winning support in my local for fellow Steelworkers Tom Harding and Richard Labrie, who face frame-up charges for the rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and for Joe Dougherty with the Ironworkers here — it’s been quite a year to be a communist.

“I look forward to more of the same. The 2016 SWP national election campaign holds more promise than any in my memory,” Rosenberg said. “From Havana to Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Ukraine and Kurdistan, we’ll find like-minded fighters who appreciate the SWP and join us on the revolutionary road to fight for socialism.”

— JOHN STUDER

 
 
 
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