“We can win working people to get behind the fight for a society where all workers in the U.S. are welcome and join together to defend our class interests against capitalist exploitation,” Eric Simpson, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Oakland, told people he met at a protest against deportations at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco Feb. 16 “This starts with fighting today for an amnesty for workers without papers.”
The rally of hundreds took place at the culmination of a march that began 21 miles to the south in San Mateo. “Immigrant workers are playing a leading role in union struggles today, like in recent hotel strikes here,” Simpson said. “Ending the fear of deportation that undocumented workers face will strengthen the fight of all workers and our unions for better wages and working conditions.”
Several participants at the action told Simpson that they, or people they knew, had benefited from earlier amnesties for millions under the administrations of Ronald Reagan in 1986 and George H.W. Bush in 1990.
At the Militant Labor Forum in New York City Feb. 15, Craig Honts, SWP candidate for lieutenant governor in New Jersey, also addressed these questions.
“The fact that we all share the same needs will become clearer to working people as they work and fight together,” Honts said. “In the struggle for a break from the bosses’ Democratic and Republican parties, and for a party of labor, unifying the working class is key.”
Under capitalism, he said, “workers are driven to compete against each other for jobs, but we have the same interests. The fight for an amnesty is a clarion call for workers’ unity.”
Honts and Simpson are part of 2025 campaigns the SWP has announced in eight states — California, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Party campaigners explain that all labor and social battles are political struggles, where the two major social classes confront each other — the capitalist ruling families versus the millions of workers and others exploited and oppressed by capital.
The SWP calls for a party of labor, based on the unions, to lead tens of millions to fight to take political power from the U.S. rulers into our own hands, as part of the fight for a socialist world.
Joanne Kuniansky, SWP candidate for New Jersey governor, discussed with a worker who came from Egypt why workers should back Israel’s fight to defeat and dismantle Hamas. Kuniansky met her on her doorstep in Jersey City Feb. 16.
“She told me she didn’t like President Donald Trump’s proposal for Palestinians in Gaza to be sent to Egypt,” Kuniansky told the Militant, “not because she’s not concerned about them, but because she doesn’t want Hamas in Egypt. ‘Wherever Hamas goes, they destroy everything,’ she said.”
Kuniansky pointed out the U.S. rulers intervene in the Middle East to advance their own imperialist interests, not to defend Jews or the interests of working people. “That’s why the SWP says workers need our own foreign policy, based on the interests we share with fellow workers worldwide.”
In Minneapolis, Nour Adow, 43, a mental health worker, welcomed Kevin Dwire, the SWP’s candidate for mayor, and party member Mary Martin into his home Feb. 16.
“You are the first mayoral candidate to come to my door,” he told Dwire. “If you were with one of the two usual parties, I wouldn’t have bothered to open the door.” SWP candidates say they are getting a broader hearing today.
During the hourlong visit, Adow, Dwire and Martin discussed the revolutionary working-class leadership shown by Malcolm X and his example for working people today, as well as the importance of the fight against Jew-hatred and to defend Israel as a refuge. Adow said he wanted to find out more about the SWP, signed up for a Militant subscription and made plans to visit the party’s campaign headquarters.
SWP on Fort Worth ballot
SWP candidates join in today’s union struggles and help build solidarity that is crucial to their outcome.
Alyson Kennedy, the party’s candidate for mayor in Fort Worth, Texas, joined a rally in solidarity with Teamsters on strike for better wages and conditions at the Hertz car rental facility at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Jan. 30.
Both Kennedy and Hilda Cuzco, SWP candidate for City Council in District 11, have won a spot on the ballot for the May 3 election.
The Fort Worth Report listed Kennedy as one of the eight candidates in the race. “Kennedy is a political activist,” it said, who “has been the Socialist Workers Party’s nominee for vice president and president in several presidential elections.”
In Cincinnati, SWP City Council candidate Ned Measel campaigned at a West Side apartment complex where he met Larry Johnson, a school bus driver. “Everywhere we go,” Measel told Johnson, “the SWP explains our goal is to build the leadership that’s necessary to lead workers to take political power.”
“That’s good,” Johnson replied, “because it seems like workers are all alone on almost everything. The kids I drive to school have special needs, and their families don’t get much help at all. Working people always seem to come last.”
“We have a powerful example of how workers can change society,” Measel said. “The Cuban Revolution shows it’s possible to overturn capitalist rule and put the workers in power.” In the fight to make the revolution, millions of the exploited and oppressed were drawn into struggle, gaining confidence in their own capacities and deepening class consciousness.
“That’s what we need here and worldwide,” he said.
To help campaign for the SWP candidates, contact the campaign office nearest you.
