Statement by Seth Galinsky, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York City Council, May 3.
There are more openings to strengthen our unions today, to join labor and working-class struggles and to build solidarity. Working people need to be prepared for deepening crises, more wars and social disasters, and to fight to defend constitutional freedoms that are under attack, primarily by the Democrats and the middle-class left.
At the center of the Socialist Workers Party election campaigns is the fact there is no way to reconcile the class interests of workers and our allies with those of the bosses and the political parties that serve them.
SWP candidates present a course to advance workers’ unity, self-confidence and reliance on our own forces, to be able to stand up to the employing class, which profits from our exploitation and oppression. We present a program for our unions to fight:
- For a government-funded public works program to put millions back to work at union-scale pay building hospitals, day care centers and other essentials working people need.
- For cost-of-living adjustments in every contract so our wages, benefits and programs like Social Security rise automatically every time prices go up. And for 30 hours work for 40 hours pay to spread the available work around and prevent layoffs.
- To ensure a basic income for all families that guarantees we can work, cover living necessities and have time for family, union and political life.
- To extend workers control over production and working conditions as bosses push speedup, gut safety and endanger the health and lives of workers and those who live near rail lines, refineries and other factories.
- For a labor party based on our unions to speak and organize to advance the interests of workers and all those exploited and oppressed by capital against the Democrats, Republicans and other capitalist parties. Every political question today is a class question.
Working people need our own foreign policy, to counter the imperialist rulers’ assault on workers and farmers worldwide and relentless drive toward war.
The SWP campaign projects a line of march to take political power out of the hands of the ruling capitalist families and build a workers and farmers government. That’s what working people in Cuba proved in practice is both necessary and possible when they made the first socialist revolution in the Americas.
A step on this road is to join in building solidarity with the UPS workers’ battle for a new contract!