'Workers Need to Fight to Take Political Power'
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AUSTRALIA $1.50 · CANADA $1.50 · FRANCE 1.00 EURO · NEW ZEALAND $1.50 · UK £.50 · U.S. $1.00 INSIDE Why workers should demand US out of Guantánamo! — PAGE 7 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 80/NO. 15 APRIL 18, 2016 Join spring US gov’t blocks ‘Workers need to fight activities to with Moscow to take political power’ build Socialist to defend stake Socialist Workers Party campaigns across Workers Party in Middle East Wisconsin against capitalism and its crisis BY SETH GALINSKY BY MAGGIE TROWE Join us from now through June — In recent months Washington and and beyond — as the Socialist Work- Moscow have forged a strategic bloc ers Party steps up its activities to get to tamp down instability and combat the party known more broadly in the in Syria and open the door to new at- working class and to win new mem- tacks on Islamic State in both Syria bers and friends to the revolution- and Iraq. The U.S. government judges ary movement. Communist Leagues that this new axis, which includes around the world are doing the same. working with Tehran, can better ad- Among key aspects of this concen- vance its imperialist interests in the trated effort: region. Getting Socialist Workers Party The deal includes shoring up the candidates for U.S. president and brutal regime of Syrian dictator vice president — Alyson Kennedy Bashar al-Assad, the most stable force and Osborne Hart — on the ballot in the area, as well as recognizing de in six states: Louisiana, New Jersey, facto autonomy of the Syrian Kurds. Tennessee, Colorado, Minnesota and Moscow carried out a partial with- Washington (see details on page 3). drawal of forces last month. Joining and promoting the fight for A truce put in place in March per- unionization. Organize the unorga- mits military action against Islamic nized! We will be right in the middle State as well as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Militant/Eric Simpson of the April 14 nationwide protests for Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate in California Eleanor García, right, on farm- $15 and a union, and winning solidar- Both Washington and Moscow worker picket line in Watsonville, California, March 31. Fights like these “help workers gain confidence, experience on road to taking power out of hands of capitalist class,” García said. ity for other union actions by workers have stepped up attacks against Is- standing up to attempts by the bosses lamic State. Moscow’s bombers have BY JOHN STUDER “I worked as a coal miner in Utah in to make working people pay for the backed Assad’s forces, joined by com- “It’s an outrage that people in this a mine where the majority of workers capitalist crisis. bat troops from Iran and Hezbollah, country have to work for just $8 or were from Mexico,” Kennedy said. Going door to door in small towns in ousting IS from Palmyra, pressing $10 an hour. You can’t survive on “We organized and fought to make it Continued on page 3 Continued on page 4 those wages,” a Teamsters union a union mine, to raise wages and get truck driver told Socialist Workers protection from the bosses’ disregard Party presidential candidate Alyson for our safety. The answer to the prob- Kennedy as she campaigned among lems you pose is not deportations, but April 14 actions will demand $15 those attending a rally for Donald coming together to fight for the needs Trump at Nathan Hale High School in of all. an hour and union organizing West Allis, Wisconsin, April 3. “But “We face a basic conflict between we have to worry about the people the owning class, who use the govern- in this country first. We have people ment to defend their profits, and the without jobs, people without health working class,” Kennedy said. “We care or insurance.” need a social revolution. Working people must unite and take political power.” The Socialist Workers Party orga- Attack on Ukraine nized teams across Wisconsin to pres- ent the party’s revolutionary perspec- Communist tive in the political discussions lead- ing up to the Republican and Demo- Party is threat to cratic Party primaries there April 5. The bourgeois elections in 2016 are working class Continued on page 6 BY JOHN STUDER Members of the Communist Party and the Leninist Communist Youth Inside Union in Ukraine were attacked and Militant/Betsy Farley Celebrate life of political Airport workers rally in Chicago March 31, part of nationwide fight for $15 minimum wage. beaten by rightist thugs from the Azov prisoner Mondo we Langa 2 Civil Corp in Kiev Feb. 17. Mikhail BY MAGGIE TROWE sexual harassment of female workers Kononovych, the leader of the youth SWP candidate backs fight to On April 14 actions in dozens of cit- by bosses, rallied in Oakland, Califor- group, and Igor Plitsyn, first secretary prosecute California cop 3 ies across the U.S. will demand a $15 nia, March 31. Petra Reynaga, a fast- of the LCYU Kiev City Committee, minimum wage and a union. Across food worker and member of the East were seriously injured. Cop account of killing of Bay Organizing Committee, urged This latest attack is part of an on- Jamar Clark ‘not true’ 9 FIGHT FOR $15 the protesters to turn out April 14 for going series of physical assaults, de- AND A UNION the $15 and a union actions. “Rents struction of political offices, “disap- –On the picket line, p. 5– are rising but wages are not keeping pearances” of CP members and gov- — SWP campaign statement, p. 9 East Coast unionists protest up,” she said. ernment efforts to ban the party from Canada they will take place the fol- In recent years, as working people exercising its right to participate in Verizon concession demands lowing day. looked for ways to defend themselves politics. Washington, Mexico Union janitors fighting for a con- against grinding depression condi- These attacks are a deadly threat farmworkers tour together tract, for $15 an hour and the end of Continued on page 9 Continued on page 4 Celebrate life of political London ‘tube’ drivers strike against unsafe trains prisoner Mondo we Langa BY JOE SWANSON linking them to the case was dubious OMAHA, Neb. — Some 200 people at best. celebrated the life and work of political The celebration of we Langa’s life, prisoner Mondo we Langa here March held at the Malcolm X Memorial 26. He along with Ed Poindexter had Foundation, included cultural perfor- been jailed on frame-up charges for mances and more than a dozen speak- more than 45 years. ers. Messages were received from Af- We Langa, 68, formerly known as rica, Australia, United Kingdom and David Rice, died in the Nebraska State from across the United States. Penitentiary in Lincoln on March 11 Freelance journalist Kietryn Zychal, after a long illness. who has been investigating the frame- “Ed and Mondo helped organize up of the Omaha Two, introduced a protests against police violence that recorded message from Poindexter. Omaha’s Black population suffered in After being in separate prisons for 26 the 1960s, which continues nationwide years, Poindexter said, he returned to today,” said Tariq Al-Amin, president the Nebraska State Penitentiary and of Nebraskans for Justice. The group found “Mondo was still serving the Militant/Jonathan Silberman has fought for many years to free the people.” LONDON — Hundreds of London Underground “tube” drivers — mem- men known as the Omaha Two. Ne- “Mondo was an inspiration and a bers of the Rail, Maritime and Transport and the Associated Society of Loco- braskans for Justice will “continue the mentor to fellow prisoners at the state motive Steam Enginemen and Firemen unions — took 24-hour strike action work to free Ed Poindexter,” Al-Amin penitentiary,” said Linda Kennedy of March 23. Pickets at the Arnos Grove depot, above, spoke of company harass- said. the Harambee African Cultural Or- ment and intimidation and unsafe trains. There has been a rise in disciplinary We Langa and Poindexter were ganization, which meets weekly at the action, pickets told the Militant. leaders of the Black Panther Party, prison. “He explained, ‘I have no time “There are serious questions over the safety of the aging fleet on the Picca- which organized protests against po- to be bitter to the government frame- dilly line in terms of braking systems, wheel flats and brake operation” a union lice brutality, including the 1969 kill- up, I have a life to live.’” spokesperson said in January. The union has insisted for years that the 40-year- ing of 14-year-old Vivian Strong. They Other speakers included Angela old trains — known as “1973 stock” — are dangerous. For example, the door on a moving train with passengers flew open Jan. 16. were railroaded to prison in 1970 on Davis, who in 1970-71 was a Com- The RMT said there had been four similar incidents in preceding weeks. trumped-up charges of killing a police munist Party member framed up and The company claimed the door opening was an “isolated incident.” But the officer, who died after being lured into imprisoned for her activity defending BBC reported two doors opened on a moving train in October 2013. The Rail, a home where a suitcase bomb explod- inmates at California’s Soledad prison. Maritime and Transport union plans further stoppages on April 19 and 21. ed. Both were sentenced to life impris- Davis called for continuing to fight to — JONATHAN SILBERMAN onment. free other political prisoners, including The jury was never informed that Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal.