Union organizing calls for commitment, steadfastness and courage. A
thick skin will help also. It's difficult to get ones mind around the
thought process of some Working Class Folk. I remember distributing
literature for a Progressive candidate running for the First
Congressional District in Seattle. I came to a long walkway that ran
out into Lake Union. Instead of the fancier house boats, this dock
was a collection of run-down homes. One place I went up to was an
unpainted house with stacks of junk on both sides of the door. I
knocked. A fellow about six feet tall and at least as big around
opened the door. I remember looking at his chest(I was only about ten
years old) and thinking he might be a professional wrestler. His
undershirt was grimy and ripped. His pants fastened below his big
belly and he was chomping down on a stub of a cigar. "Yeah?" he
challenged me. I stuck out my propaganda piece, and he grabbed it
from my hand.
"Goddam Commie!" He crumpled the paper up and tossed it over the
railing into the lake. "Get the Hell out of here kid, before I do the
same to you!"
I did.
What goes on behind our bushy eyebrows that causes us to turn against
even an offer of help? Have we allowed ourselves to become so dummied
down that we strike out at any offer of help?
I marvel that any woman, regardless of age, social status, color or
political preference could vote for Donald Trump. How can any God
fearing Christian support a candidate who shows contempt for People of
Color, or those who hold different religious beliefs? It's down right
demoralizing.
Still, it has always been this way. Regardless of how they gained
power, every Ruling Class becomes corrupt eventually. In part, it's
our own doing. Ours, meaning the Working Class. We have been
conditioned to place our trust in the hands of others, rather than
teaching ourselves to be our collective leaders. Until we place our
trust in ourselves we will continue to be bullied about by the likes
of Donald Trump and his gang of Corporate Lovers.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/27/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2018/09/22/we-need-to-get-a-union-into-the-place-where-i-work/
SWP Speaks with, for Working People
‘We need to get a union into the place where I work’
By Emma Johnson
Vol. 82/No. 36
October 1, 2018
“We need a union where I work,” Stephanie Revill, 42, who has worked at
National Beef for 11 years, told Rachele Fruit, Socialist Workers Party
candidate for Georgia governor. “We work in the cold and never know when
we’ll get off. We don’t get paid enough for the conditions. The
supervisors are always telling us to hurry up, hurry up. But they get
the bonuses, and we get nothing.”
Fruit knocked on Revill’s door Sept. 15 as SWP members were introducing
themselves to workers in Moultrie, an agricultural town of 15,000 some
200 miles southeast of Atlanta. Meeting workers and farmers on their
doorsteps is the central activity for the SWP and the Communist Leagues
in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
These face-to-face exchanges in cities, towns and rural areas offer
party members and supporters the opportunity to share experiences and
discuss and debate the key political issues facing workers today. They
give the best platform to respond to developments in the class struggle,
on the job and in social protest actions.
“We need to build the labor movement. The unions are our basic
instrument of defense, and can become leaders of broader class
struggles,” Fruit said.
“With the growing economy and more hiring workers are a little more
confident today to organize for better conditions and wages,” Fruit told
Revill. “We see steelworkers, hotel workers, retail workers and others
standing up against the bosses.”
Revill decided to subscribe to the party’s paper, the Militant, and make
a contribution to the SWP campaign.
The party speaks out as a tribune of the people against all the
capitalist rulers’ assaults — on jobs, wages and working conditions; on
women’s right to choose abortion; the debt slavery forced on working
farm families; and police brutality. The SWP also calls for amnesty for
immigrant workers living in the U.S.
Members and supporters stress the need for the labor movement to chart a
class-struggle course independent of the capitalist rulers, their state
and their parties. The heart of the discussions is what will it take for
working people to gain the confidence and experience needed to overturn
the capitalist system and take political power. And why they should join
the SWP to pursue this course.
Do workers need our own party?
Steve Warshell, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Florida, and Cindy
Jaquith visited Lake Worth in Palm Beach County Sept. 8. The area is
home to many farmworkers and is surrounded by sugar cane fields,
vegetable farms and nurseries.
“We met immigrant workers who wanted to talk, but requested we not use
their names, because some don’t have papers the authorities consider
proper,” Warshell wrote.
A worker originally from Peru asked if Warshell would vote with the
Republican or the Democratic bloc in the Senate if he was elected, and
whether he supported President Trump or the “resistance.”
“We aren’t either Democrats or Republicans — they are both parties of
the propertied rulers. The president is a member of the boss class. We
say workers need their own party, a revolutionary party, to overturn
capitalist exploitation, oppression and wars,” Warshell replied. “Some
of Trump’s actions, like the negotiations with North Korea, have reduced
war tensions — and that’s in the interests of all workers, here and in
Korea.
“The so-called anti-Trump ‘resistance’ is a hysterical response of fear
of the working class, who the liberals think are racist and
reactionary,” he said.
Amnesty for all immigrants
“A lot of immigrants only make minimum wage,” child care worker Venecia
Acosta, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, told Beverly
Bernardo, Communist League candidate in the Oct. 1 Quebec provincial
election. Acosta invited Bernardo to her house Sept. 17 after they met
the previous week when Bernardo was knocking on doors in Acosta’s
neighborhood.
Child care worker Venecia Acosta, right, invited Communist League member
Beverly Bernardo back for political discussion Sept. 17. They met
previous week when Bernardo knocked on doors in Acosta’s Montreal
neighborhood. Acosta signed up for the Militant and got Malcolm X, Black
Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by SWP National Secretary Jack
Barnes.
Militant/John Steele
Child care worker Venecia Acosta, right, invited Communist League member
Beverly Bernardo back for political discussion Sept. 17. They met
previous week when Bernardo knocked on doors in Acosta’s Montreal
neighborhood. Acosta signed up for the Militant and got Malcolm X, Black
Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by SWP National Secretary Jack
Barnes.
“The bosses pay immigrants less to lower everyone’s wages and divide
workers born here from foreign-born workers,” said Bernardo. “The
Communist League calls for amnesty for all immigrants here without
papers to unite the working class,” she said.
“About eight years ago my son was arrested by the police in Ontario and
framed up for drug trafficking, and then deported back to the Dominican
Republic, even though he grew up in Canada,” said Acosta, who is still
fighting for her son to be able to return.
“Working people need to make a socialist revolution and take political
power,” Bernardo said, pointing to the example of the Cuban Revolution,
where the July 26 Movement under Fidel Castro’s leadership organized the
working class and its allies in a broad popular struggle that overturned
the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship there in 1959. Cuban workers and
farmers built their own government and have extended the hand of
solidarity to toilers worldwide.
Acosta signed up for the Militant and purchased the Spanish-language
edition of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by
Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes. It’s one of five
books on special with a subscription.
To join with the party in door-to-door discussions with fellow workers,
or learn more about our program and activities, contact the SWP or
Communist League nearest you.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Iraq protests shake up moves to form new gov’t
•‘Militant’ wins a round, fight against prison censors goes on
•‘We need to get a union into the place where I work’
•Protests in Dallas demand cop who killed Botham Jean be fired
•Are frenzied liberals afflicted with ‘Trump derangement syndrome’?
Feature Articles •Social catastrophe from storms are a product of
capitalist rule
Also In This Issue •Great Russian artists of 19th century and 1917
Bolshevik Revolution
•Pa. prison authorities curb letters, books, newspapers
•Colo. meatpackers win suit against right to pray firings
•Manila book fair draws over 100,000 participants
Editorials •Join and build the Socialist Workers Party 2018 campaign
On the Picket Line •SF hotel workers rally, say ‘One job should be enough’
•Striking hotel workers in Chicago rally for yearlong health care
•Industrial glass strikers in Montreal win solidarity
Books of the Month •Imperialism pauses only when it faces a people ready
to fight
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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