Alyson Kennedy, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, issued the following statement, Aug. 12.
The Socialist Workers Party 2020 campaign — Alyson Kennedy for president and Malcolm Jarrett for vice president — is the only campaign that joins and champions the struggles taking place today by working people to push back growing attacks by the bosses and their government.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the presidential candidates of the bosses’ two major parties, defend the rule of the propertied class responsible for the deep social and economic crisis confronting working people today. The drop in production worldwide caused by the crisis of capitalism and exacerbated by the coronavirus lockdowns imposed by governments at all levels, has led bosses to slash jobs, cut wages and attack working conditions.
Liberals and middle-class radicals of all stripes say workers have to subordinate everything to removing Donald Trump from office, but Biden is just as staunch a defender of the bosses and capitalist rule.
SWP candidates are part of the daily struggles workers are waging on the job to change the conditions we face. My campaign says workers need to organize a fighting union movement in every workplace, a movement that will provide the strongest foundation for building our own party, a labor party. A party that organizes solidarity with every labor battle and mobilizes support for the fight against cop brutality, for women’s emancipation and against the predatory wars the U.S. rulers inflict on peoples worldwide.
As working-class struggles deepen, a labor party would lead millions on a course to replace capitalist rule with a workers and farmers government. This new state power will provide the mightiest weapon possible to end class exploitation, the oppression of Blacks and women, and every form of human degradation inherited from millennia of class-divided society.
We say workers need to use our unions to wrest control of production from the bosses. This is a pressing necessity today as employers force millions to toil in crowded conditions that hasten the spread of coronavirus and at ever-faster line speeds. The bosses organize all aspects of production for one purpose only — profits, disdainful of the effects on workers, communities near their mines, mills and plants, and the environment.
All work can be performed safely. No worker has to die on the job. But that is only possible if workers fight to take control of production and safety into our own hands.
To advance that struggle we need jobs. My campaign urges workers and our unions to fight for a government-funded public work program to put millions to work at union-scale pay — to build urgently needed medical facilities, schools where children and school workers can study and work safely, to build affordable housing and much more.
Through working-class struggle millions of us will be transformed, discovering our real capacities and self worth. This is reflected in the explosion of interest in books about working-class history and politics today. We can take political power and join with millions worldwide to make a future built on human solidarity.
Join the SWP in fighting for our right to be on the ballot and in campaigning for its action program — the only alternative worth fighting for in 2020.