UNION CITY, N.J. — Two and a half weeks into the campaign to win ballot status for the Socialist Workers Party in New Jersey, SWP campaigners are finding serious interest in the party’s program and candidates as they speak out against Washington’s war against Iran and the bosses’ assaults on workers at home. They explain workers need and are capable of building a revolutionary working-class party in the U.S. to lead the fight to overturn capitalist rule.
As of April 13, there were 1,994 signers to put Joanne Kuniansky, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate, on the ballot, and 233 for Craig Honts for U.S. Congress.
“We’re going to go well over the requirements of 2,000 for me and 250 for Craig,” Kuniansky told the Militant. Workers’ interest in the party is reflected in the sales of 88 Militant subscriptions, 92 books by SWP and other revolutionary working-class leaders and 324 copies of the paper during the ballot effort.
“Things are so, so bad,” Noe Pérez, an appliance installer, told SWP member Lisa Rottach at a parking lot in Saddlebrook April 9. “Taxes, prices, bad wages, rough work. But it seems like nobody cares, nobody wants to fight to change things. I don’t understand why. How bad does it have to get?”
“For the first time in several decades workers are fighting through their unions for better wages, safer conditions and respect on the job,” Rottach said.
“You can follow these struggles in the Militant and find ways to support them, including the meatpackers at JBS in Greeley, Colorado, who struck for nearly four weeks,” she said. “They stood firm, demanded to be treated with dignity on the job and to be paid higher wages. Fights like this show the power of the working class.
“The Socialist Workers Party says workers must wage a struggle in our millions to take political power,” she added. Rottach pointed to Cuba “where they made a socialist revolution over six decades ago. That is the aim and purpose of our party in the U.S.” She showed him the book, The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward by Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters and Steve Clark.
“It’s great to see you out here,” Pérez responded. “We need to build a big movement” to do just what Rottach described. Pérez bought the book and subscribed to the Militant.
“Cuba is standing up because they don’t want to become another Puerto Rico,” Headstart worker Edgar Ayala told Rottach at a store parking lot in North Bergen April 11. He was referring to the devastating impact of decades of U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico. Ayala said he supports the SWP’s demand to end Washington’s brutal economic and political war against Cuba.
“The U.S. wants to keep them on a leash, just like they do to my country. They have every right to defend themselves and keep free of capitalism,” Ayala said. He signed the petition to place both SWP candidates on the ballot.
US troops, warships out of Mideast
“The U.S. war against Iran is a war for the plunder of resources and domination of the Middle East. It’s not in the interests of workers,” this reporter and SWP member told Teamster Donald Vandyk, as he signed the SWP’s petition in a parking lot in Franklin April 12.
“How much money do they need? It never seems to be enough,” Vandyk added. He described the spiraling cost of supplying fuel for his oil-heated home.
“The bosses and their governments compete for profits against rivals or go under. That’s the source of their wars,” I said.
“Trump says we’ll get more money when the price of oil goes up,” Vandyk added. “Who is the ‘we’ he’s talking about? It’s not us.”
“It’s the capitalist class. Their rule is upheld by both the Democrats and Republicans,” I said. Vandyk said he was unhappy his union president, Sean O’Brien, had endorsed Trump in 2024.
“What’s needed is a break from the lesser evil politics of both capitalist parties,” I said, describing the work of the SWP today to build the kind of party that workers need.
Vandyk got a subscription to the Militant to learn more.