The Socialist Workers Party is running candidates in 12 states across the country in 2026, advancing a road for the working class to defend itself from the exploitation and drive to war of the capitalist class and to fight to take political power into its own hands. They are walking strike picket lines and building support for locked-out workers in Indiana and elsewhere as they defend their jobs, wages and working conditions.
The candidates and their supporters are helping build public protests against the U.S. rulers’ assaults on Cuba, demonstrations in defense of immigrants, including calling for amnesty for all immigrants in the U.S., and actions against Jew-hatred, a life-and-death question for the working class.
Nelson Gonzalez, SWP candidate for governor of Florida, and Rachele Fruit, the party’s candidate for U.S. Senate there, brought solidarity to nurses and other union members belonging to 1199SEIU in Florida, joining an informational picket outside HCA Woodmont Hospital in Tamarac Aug. 12. Workers pointed to the need to win higher wages, an increased nurse-to-patient ratio and safer working conditions.
Nora Duncan told Fruit she has worked at HCA for 47 1/2 years. Originally from Georgia, she transferred to its Westside Regional Hospital in 1990. “The union was organized here in 2011, and I have been a union delegate ever since,” she said. “The turnover rate is the biggest issue I see. We don’t have enough workers.”
When Fruit asked about workers who have lost their Temporary Protected Status, Duncan said, “I know several who’ve left. It’s not right. The government is breaking families apart, even though people came here when it was legal. The entire workforce in South Florida will suffer.”
As they discussed what workers face today, Duncan was interested in finding out more of the growing efforts by workers in different industries to use their unions to fight to improve their conditions. She decided to get two Pathfinder books, The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward and Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning under Capitalism by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes, as well as a subscription to the Militant.
Glenda Sumner, a member of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 390G at International Flavors and Fragrances in Memphis, Tennessee, recently talked with SWP member Amy Husk and decided to renew her subscription to the Militant. Sumner was a stalwart on the picket line during the 10-month strike over wages and benefits by the 200 workers at IFF in 2023-24.
Sumner had met Husk and party member Ned Measel during that fight when they came to Memphis to help build solidarity with the fighting union and report on the strike for the Militant.
Sumner told Husk she went back to work at IFF after the strike ended and continues to support the union there.
This month a co-worker organized a potluck dinner at his apartment building community room. He invited Jacob Perasso, the SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in Washington state who is a grocery store worker and member of the BCTGM union, and other SWP campaign supporters to come and discuss the party’s campaign. Another one of Perasso’s co-workers and their family had donated and helped cook a dinner for 40 people to help Perasso’s campaign successfully raise the $1,700 filing fee required to be on the ballot.
The SWP campaign joined the thousands gathered for the Fourth Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade and Festival in Lorain, Ohio, Aug. 15. After marching under a sea of Puerto Rican flags, participants gathered in Oakwood Park for live musical performances, food and family activities.
Talking to workers on their doorsteps in cities and rural areas, SWP candidates explain why it’s decisive for workers to break with the Democrats and Republicans, the two parties of the capitalist class, and organize independently in our own interests.
Join with us in this effort. For the location of the SWP nearest you.