UniversalMonk

UNION CITY, N.J. — “World politics more and more inserts itself into every election campaign,” Paul Mailhot, Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of New York, told 37 people here at a March 28 Militant Labor Forum. The meeting kicked off the campaign to put the SWP candidates in New Jersey, Joanne Kuniansky for U.S. Senate, and Craig Honts for U.S. Congress in district 8, on the ballot.

“We’re no longer asked, ‘what’s the war got to do with us?’” Mailhot said. “The connection between the U.S. rulers’ wars abroad and their war against working people at home presents itself to workers at every turn.”

Workers see the rulers are heading toward a third world war, Mailhot said, “not because of President Trump, but because of what’s happening with the capitalist system he and all other Democratic and Republicans uphold.

“Over the past couple of months, the SWP has issued several calls to action demanding ‘U.S. hands off!’” Mailhot said. “The first was over Washington’s assault on Venezuela, then over its oil blockade and war threats against Cuba, and now its bombing of Iran. All U.S. troops, warships and bombers should get out of these regions.”

Israel’s war “is very much a different war,” Mailhot said, “a defensive war to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon” to threaten Israel’s existence.

The U.S. rulers’ wars, Mailhot said, “serve the very same interests as the war against working people in this country — to protect their profits at the expense of the needs of the vast majority.” A key part of the meeting was the campaign’s efforts to win support for today’s union struggles against the bosses’ deepening assaults on workers.

Honts asked supporters to join in solidarity with the strike by 3,800 meatpackers, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, at JBS in Greeley, Colorado. Their fight for better pay and conditions in defense of the largely immigrant workforce and for an end to abuse and disrespect by the bosses has important stakes for all workers and our unions, he said.

Honts described the fight by the United Farm Workers in California against government moves to slash the pay of immigrants on H-2A visas.

The conditions the UFCW and UFW members are fighting show why “the SWP calls for an amnesty for all undocumented immigrant workers,” to end their second-class status, Honts said, and to unify the working class. SWP campaigners are collecting 3,200 signatures for Kuniansky, well over the requirement of 2,000, and 400 for Honts, more than the 250 required, Honts added, urging participants to join the effort.

A road to end imperialist war “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth led prayers this week at the Pentagon calling for ‘overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy’” in Iran, Kuniansky told the meeting. This is “the course of an imperialist government to advance and defend the interests of the ruling capitalist families.”

In contrast, the SWP “presents a way forward that starts from the interests of workers worldwide,” she said. “We have confidence in the capacities of the working class to act in our own interests.”

Kuniansky pointed to the Pathfinder title Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Víctor Dreke, a firsthand account of Cuba’s decisive aid to that struggle. The book provides a prime example of the proletarian internationalism of those who made the Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro. And of the revolutionary leadership of Amílcar Cabral who led the independence movement in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, she said.

Kuniansky cited a 1948 speech by Farrell Dobbs, the SWP national secretary who was running for U.S. president. “Working people need a party they can trust,” Dobbs said. SWP members are to be found “wherever the going is tough, wherever extra energy and devotion are needed to defend labor against the employers.” The SWP builds on the example that Dobbs’ campaign set, Kuniansky said.

In New Brunswick, March 28, Kuniansky met Terri Rossee, a dental assistant, who explained that a rent increase had forced her to move out of her own apartment. The economy has slowed down, she said, and “jobs are so limited. A change has to be made.”

“It’s getting tight now,” Kuniansky agreed. “But there are struggles by working people” to change these conditions, she added, pointing to today’s labor struggles and the need for solidarity. To make lasting gains, “working people need to take power into our own hands and change the system. That’s the only road to preventing a third world war.”

Rossee agreed. She signed the petition and bought a subscription to the Militant. By March 31, 574 people had signed up to put Kuniansky on the ballot and 91 for Honts. And 21 people got subscriptions to the Militant, 23 got books and 105 got the latest copy of the paper.