https://themilitant.com/2018/09/08/advance-the-revolutionary-mobilization-of-workers/
‘Advance the revolutionary mobilization of workers’
Vol. 82/No. 34
September 17, 2018
The following statement was issued Sept. 3 by Róger Calero, Socialist
Workers Party candidate for governor of New York.
Ceaseless competition for markets, financial exploitation and profits
among the bosses compels them to assault our wages, rights and working
conditions, whether the capitalist economy grows or, as it inevitably
will, contracts. Workers need to build unions, forge ever greater unity
and strength, and chart a course independent of the bosses’ state, its
political parties of all stripes, and organize to fight for power ourselves.
Our unions are weak and continue to weaken today, but millions of
workers are open to discussion — and action — on what can be done to
halt the impact of the biggest economic, social and moral crisis of
capitalism on our lives. In these conditions there are openings to join
together to respond to union fights and social struggles that break out
today. Workers can utilize our capacities for solidarity, going together
to picket lines and build the labor movement.
We need a new course. Whether it’s sending messages of support to
workers battling the bosses, like the work stoppages organized by Uber
taxi drivers in Australia last month, or going to rallies and marches of
Steelworkers at U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal where workers are resisting
the bosses concession demands, there are opportunities to advance the
working-class movement. Workers at Walmart can take advantage of a court
ruling in May forcing the company to allow workers to wear union
insignia at work, to promote workers’ solidarity and deepen discussion
about the need to unionize the country’s largest employer.
Confronting the challenges facing working people, including organizing
to build the unions, requires above all charting a political way forward
for all workers, as well as the unemployed and working farmers, fighting
for and drawing in all the oppressed and exploited.
For decades union officials refused to build on the courage and tenacity
workers demonstrated in union battles. Instead, they tied workers’ wages
and benefits to the capitalists’ profits. They urge workers to elect
“pro-labor friends” in the Democratic and Republican parties and to side
with “our” capitalist state against competitors abroad and to adopt
regulations and government agencies to “protect” us. Union officials say
we should rely on these politicians to regulate relations between
workers and bosses, a recipe to bolster the state’s power at our expense
and weaken our capacity for struggle. This course has led to shrinking
union membership, attacks on rights and growing discontent among
workers. Workers’ strength lies in relying on our own forces, in our
independent mobilization and proven capacity to overcome the divisions
the rulers try to use to weaken us.
The Socialist Workers Party demands an amnesty for undocumented workers
in the U.S. to undercut the bosses efforts to push a layer of the
working class into second-class status, forced to live in fear of
deportation. This is the road to forge unity between native- and
foreign-born, to create better conditions for organizing the growing
numbers of workers who are unorganized today, and to defend the wages
and jobs of all.
We fight to break down the walls between workers outside and the
millions of fellow workers in prison who fight for contact with the
class struggle and political discussion.
As workers struggle independently of the bosses, their parties and their
state, we gain experience, greater resilience and self-confidence. As we
fight together to change our conditions we also change ourselves, a
precondition for taking power and running society in the interests of
the vast majority.
We see ourselves as citizens of the world, as part of an international
working class with common interests. We fight to stop the capitalist
rulers’ wars and colonial oppression. We offer the hand of international
solidarity.
Along such a course it is possible to build a party that can lead
workers and farmers to take political power into our own hands and end
the rule of the exploiting classes.
That is the perspective the SWP discusses with fellow workers on their
doorsteps. The party speaks out against every indignity and attack
heaped on workers and the oppressed. Join the Socialist Workers Party in
its efforts to win workers in their millions to replace capitalist rule
as we participate in discussions and struggles of today.
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In This Issue
Front Page Articles •‘Advance the revolutionary mobilization of workers’
•Veterans fight delays in gov’t disability benefits
•SWP: We need independent working-class political action
•Steelworkers at ArcelorMittal, US Steel protest concession demands
•Liberals disrupt Senate hearing in furor over Trump nomination
•Protest ‘Militant’ censorship by Florida, federal prison officials!
Feature Articles •Grenada Day participants hunger for revolutionary books
Also In This Issue •Indonesia: Teen jailed for abortion wins her freedom
•California protest demands ‘End solitary confinement!’
•Free Ukraine director on hunger strike from Siberia jail!
•Washington state teachers strike over pay, conditions
On the Picket Line •New Zealand bus drivers walk out over low pay, safety
Books of the Month •The history of the belated, bloody birth of US
imperialism
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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