‘More workers see SWP as party they’re seeking’
“We are presenting the working-class road to take political power,” Norton Sandler, Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of California, told a campaign rally in Los Angeles April 13. The SWP is running candidates all across the country.
“As we confront the drive by capitalist rulers worldwide toward World War III, working people will find the Socialist Workers Party to be the kind of party they are seeking,” Sandler said. “It is imperative to build a revolutionary party to lead the fight for working-class power.”
Supporters of the campaign of Laura Anderson, SWP candidate for mayor of Miami, campaigned at a downtown “National Day of Action” April 19 called by supporters of the Democratic Party. The event’s theme was anti-Donald Trump administration and anti-Elon Musk, which organizers hope will lead workers to back the Democrats.
SWP supporters went because they knew many workers and young people would turn up looking for a place to raise their concerns. In fact, many saw it as an opportunity to protest against recent deportations of immigrant workers. They were attracted to the SWP campaign table, which was busy from the moment it was set up.
SWP campaigners explained the importance of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers’ defense of wrongly deported union member Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Maryland, as well as the SWP’s call for amnesty for all undocumented immigrant workers in the U.S. to unify the working class. They pointed to the government’s refusal to grant Abrego Garcia and others being deported their right to a hearing to contest the orders, as required by the U.S. Constitution.
They also talked about the party’s support for Ukrainians’ fight to defend their sovereignty against Moscow’s murderous war. And their support of Israel’s right to exist as a refuge for Jews and the need for Israel to defeat Hamas and to take out Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity. This led to sales of two copies of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.
One woman who bought the book told SWP member Rachele Fruit she was Jewish, adding, “This perspective is a breath of fresh air.” The second woman who got the book told Fruit she was originally from Iran. “As an Iranian Jew, I understand exactly what you are saying,” she said.
Among the 300 or so participants at the action, seven bought subscriptions to the Militant, nine got one of the Pathfinder books by leaders of the SWP and other revolutionaries and 12 picked up a copy of the Militant. One woman said she looks forward to meeting the SWP mayoral candidate.
In Pittsburgh, Tony Lane, the SWP’s candidate for mayor, met John Billips, a warehouse manager, on his doorstep April 12. Billips said the most important issue today is the growing attacks on the working class. The government “taxes our income, they tax all our purchases. It’s almost predatory,” he said.
“It is predatory!” Lane said. “This is what the ruling class does to workers and will continue to do to us as they look after their class interests. What we need to do is fight against all the ways the bosses and their government exploit us and try to put the effects of their crisis onto our backs. Ultimately that will require a struggle for political power.” To follow the campaign, Billips got a subscription to the Militant.
Eight-week spring campaign
Campaigning for the SWP candidates and the party’s program is strengthened by the eight-week spring campaign being carried out by the party, along with Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada and the U.K., to win 1,300 readers to the Militant, get out the same number of Pathfinder books and to raise $165,000 for the Militant Fighting Fund. The Militant is financed entirely by donations from working people.
In several cities campaigners report more people are signing up for long-term subscriptions to the Militant. At the Teamsters Local 89 casino workers strike picket line in Elizabeth, Indiana, Amy Husk met Sandra Ramirez, a slot service worker and union steward. Husk explained the Militant is a socialist newsweekly written by working people around the world. “That’s great!” Ramirez said. “How much is a yearly subscription?” When Husk told her it was $35, she replied, “Let’s just make it $50 and I’ll make the rest a donation.”
In Standstead, Quebec, on the U.S.-Canada border, Communist League campaigners spoke with Carol Hudson, a single mother of six. They discussed the Quebec government’s Law 96, which discriminates against those who speak any language other than French. Hudson, whose first language is English, said, “The majority of the people I know didn’t learn French at school but by speaking with people in French, because they were interested to learn it. The same is true for French-speaking people who learned English.
“I don’t mind speaking French, but since the new law I ask to be spoken to in English,” she said.
“The Communist League opposes Law 96,” CL member Joe Young said. “The Quebec government tries to divide us, because when we are united, we are stronger.” Hudson decided to buy a subscription to the Militant and to get on the email list for Militant Labor Forums held in Montreal.
Winning long-term renewals
Supporters of Philippe Tessier and Katy LeRougetel, the Communist League candidates in Quebec for Parliament, spoke with Gillian Axten, a teacher in the psychology department at Saint Lawerence College in Cornwall. She is a union steward in the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and a Militant subscriber. “We’re campaigning against the moves by the Ontario government for funding cuts to Ontario’s colleges,” Axten said.
She renewed her subscription and bought a copy of Teamster Rebellion, the first in a four-volume series by Farrell Dobbs. The books describe the development and actions of the class-struggle leadership of the strikes and organizing drives, of which Dobbs was a central leader, that transformed the Teamsters union in the Midwest into a fighting social movement and pointed the road toward independent labor political action.
“That’s something I’d like to read, given my situation,” Axten said. “I’m also a member of the Jewish caucus in OPSEU. We’re fighting against the idea that anyone who is a Zionist supports genocide. I appreciate Seth Galinsky’s articles on developments in the Middle East, even though I don’t always agree with everything in them,” she said.
“The Communist League uses the Militant to fight Jew-hatred and explain why the formation of Israel as a refuge for the Jewish people was a necessity after the Holocaust and why the rulers in the U.S., Canada and other ‘democratic’ imperialist countries then shut their doors to Jews,” campaigner Beverly Bernardo said.
To join in the effort, or to get a subscription or make a contribution, contact the Socialist Workers Party or Communist League branch nearest you.