UNION CITY, N.J. — Almost 1,000 people signed up in one week, April 14-21, to put the Socialist Workers Party candidates in New Jersey, Joanne Kuniansky for governor and Craig Honts for lieutenant governor, on the ballot. This brings the total to 2,213, well on the way to the target of 3,200 set by campaigners, after Democratic Party Gov. Philip Murphy more than doubled the requirement from 800 to 2,000 earlier this year.
The strong response to the party’s fight for ballot status is also reflected in the many workers who’ve gotten subscriptions to the Militant and books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries. To date, 95 subscriptions have been sold across New Jersey, along with 78 books, plus 300 single copies of the Militant.
“Many workers respond favorably when they find out that there is a working-class party fighting for ballot status and want to hear more about our program,” Kuniansky told the Militant. “SWP campaigners explain that with a deepening economic crisis and the threat of more wars, the world is becoming more dangerous and that neither of the bosses’ two main parties have any solution to the problems workers face.”
“Something’s got to give with the Democrats and Republicans, because this ain’t working,” retired Department of Transportation unionist Dwayne McMillan told SWP campaigners at a Walmart parking lot in Linden. “I just spent $113 for three small bags of groceries!”
The SWP urges a union-led fight for cost-of-living adjustments in all contracts so that when prices rise, workers’ wages and benefits go up to match. To combat the government’s lies about inflation figures and to calculate the real cost of living, working people need to organize price committees of trade unionists, farmers, housewives and other working people.
Over the April 19-20 weekend, SWP teams campaigned in Hammonton and Vineland, towns in rural South Jersey, as well as Newark and other largely African American areas.
“It’s going to take us standing together and standing strong, with everything we’re facing,” Kim Kahoun, a retired member of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825, told Honts as he campaigned at a Walmart parking lot in Hammonton. “There’s no way to sidestep it. Their system is broken,” she said.
“It can’t be repaired,” Honts replied. “What workers have to face is that the only road forward for our class is based on taking political power from the capitalists and into our own hands.”
“I had to fight my way into industry,” Kahoun said. “Growing up on a farm, I was comfortable working around heavy equipment. That gave me self-confidence.”
Kahoun stuck around to talk, picked up a subscription to the Militant and got Women in Cuba: The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution by Cuban revolutionaries Vilma Espín, Asela de los Santos and Yolanda Ferrer.
The book tells the story of the transformation of millions of working people in Cuba as they made the first socialist revolution in the Americas. It describes how they advanced the fight to end deep-rooted discrimination against women and involve them in every aspect of social and political life.
“The U.S. wants to invade every country,” Eleuterio Garcia, a food manufacturing worker, told this worker-correspondent when Garcia stopped to talk with SWP campaigners and sign the petition.
“Yes, they are leading us to new wars,” I answered, “and it is up to us — the working class — to prevent that by taking power.”
Garcia said he thought the government was right to deport “criminals,” but “if they come here to work, what is the problem?” The SWP fights for an amnesty for all workers in the U.S. without papers. Garcia got a subscription to the Militant, and the Spanish edition of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning Under Capitalism by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.
The fight against deportations and for the defense of immigrant rights is on the mind of many of the workers that SWP campaigners spoke with.
Desiree, who didn’t want her last name used, told Kuniansky she was pleased to hear that the SMART union is helping organizing support for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an apprentice sheet-metal worker and union member, who had been picked up and deported to El Salvador. Kuniansky was campaigning at a parking lot in Clifton April 19.
“My friend’s stepfather is being held in a deportation center here in New Jersey,” Desiree said. “He witnessed a hit and run and was waiting to give evidence to the police. When they came, the cops arrested him. He’s not a criminal. He’s a hardworking man.”
SWP members are building actions across the country on May Day, where the fight against the deportation of workers without papers will be an important demand.
“I’m a stay-at-home mom. But not by choice,” Desiree told Kuniansky. “I’d rather be working. We just can’t afford child care. They just built new ‘affordable’ housing near where I live. It’s $2,000 a month. That’s not affordable for anyone I know.”
Kuniansky also met Tara Schutt in the parking lot, and asked her what she thought the most important questions were.
“The cost of child care,” she replied immediately. Schutt is a social worker who works primarily from home. Her two young children “stay home with me because I just can’t afford child care. It’s not good for them or for me. You lose your sense of self if you’re not going in to work.”
Kuniansky explained that one of the first things workers and farmers did in Cuba after they took power in 1959 was to build child care centers so women could participate in the revolution. What they did stands as an example for working people worldwide to emulate.
“You know, it’s true,” Schutt said. “We’re the workers. If we were in charge we could decide to produce what people really need.”
Both Schutt and Desiree got subscriptions to the Militant.
SWP campaigners also joined an immigrant rights protest in downtown Elizabeth April 17, gathering signatures, getting out information on the party campaign and spreading the word on the union effort to bring Abrego Garcia home.