Vol. 80/No. 10 March 14, 2016
SWP candidate Eleanor García joins warehouse workers’ fight
“We will go to struggles big or small, whether labor battles to organize or win a contract, fights to beat back attempts by the bosses to make workers pay for their crisis, actions by women demanding abortion rights, and protests against the killing of cattle rancher Robert Finicum by Oregon State police and the FBI,” said García, an aerospace worker.
“These fights are schools for workers to learn. They open up new perspectives. What marks our campaigns is that they are campaigns of action. These are our battles.”
Participants enthusiastically contributed well over the $3,480 needed to put García’s name on the ballot for the June 7 “open primary,” for which she filed on Feb. 26. SWP supporters across the state are now organizing to complete the ballot effort by filing nomination petitions signed by 100 registered voters by March 11.
California has so-called voter nominated primaries, in which the top two vote getters in June are placed on the ballot for the November election, regardless of party affiliation. This will be the first time in many years that an SWP candidate for statewide office is on the California ballot.
García joined California Cartage workers Feb. 24 picketing outside the warehouse at the Port of Los Angeles. The action was organized by the Warehouse Workers Resource Center. “We urge people to fight alongside you,” she said. “Workers the world over face the same conditions. Through fights like these we can gain experience and confidence. It changes us. We become capable of controlling production and our conditions.”
García campaigned in solidarity with Farmer John meatpackers, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, after their union meeting Feb. 28 where they discussed ongoing contract negotiations. “The managers harass us, they’re always on top of us. They want us working all the time. They don’t want to give us raises,” Marta Menendez told her.
“We have been living and working under depression-like conditions for 10 years. Because the bosses aren’t making the profits they want, they try to squeeze more out of us,” García responded. “So they speed up the lines, push us harder. We have to join together, fight together and extend solidarity with others in battle.”
Related articles:
Socialist Workers Party: Defend right to abortion!
SWP candidates join March 2 protests
Socialist Workers Party campaign statement: Defend abortion rights!
No miner has to die, in Russia or US!
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