New Yorkers join in taking back May Day

By Gabe Falsetta

Reprinted from People's World

The sun was shinning as 10,000 New Yorkers celebrated International Workers Day last Sunday, May 1. They joined millions around the world who have celebrated that day each year on a holiday made in the USA 125 years ago when Chicago workers rallying for the eight hour day were put to death by a judge in the service of business oligarchs.

The trade unionists, immigrant workers and community groups joined together in Foley Square, downtown Manhattan to send a message to Wall Street that workers are taking back a historic day that for too long was celebrated more around the world than here in the country of its birth.

Kevin Lynch, organizing director of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Local 338 put it this way, "May Day is our day in every sense of the word."

There was a festive mood as people connected with their brothers and sisters who make this city work. The New York Labor Chorus sang Solidarity Forever.

There is a special ring to it when thousands of working people join in. Diana from Unite Here's Local 100cafeteria workers made her feelings known; "I'm here to support the Teachers and all the unions who work hard for our children. And now the city is making cuts that will hurt all of us. May Day is a day for all of us to come together."

It was clear that the attack by Wisconsin's Gov. Walker on public service workers and their unions was utmost on everyone's mind.

"I'm upset about the attack on labor," said Frank Farcas, a retired member of DC 37's Local 1579. "The epicenter is in Wisconsin but it is happening around the country, threatening collective bargaining rights and setting labor back 50 to 75 years. I'm worried about the future of our children."

About an hour and a half into the rally, the ranks were swelled by a feeder march from Union Square. Many immigrant rights organizations such as Make the Road and The New York Immigration Coalition joined the unions they see as their natural partners in this fight.

Everyone seemed to understand that the fight is not an easy one. They believe the right wing of the Republican Party and the newly elected Tea Party members of Congress are bent on destroying the labor movement and that they are up against the tactics the capitalist class has always used - divide and conquer.

Juan Negron, a union member from Brooklyn, said, "I am here to support American workers and workers around the world. They are taking too much away from us, they woke the sleeping giant and we are fighting back."

A 20-year member of the Laborers, Samuel Araveytha said, "I am here to protest laws against immigrants."

Tim Sheer, a UAW Local 1981 National Writers Union member, seemed to sum up the day: "The rich and powerful are taking more and more out of my pocket and the people I work with. They are taking too much of the pie. New York has the greatest disparity of wealth, and New York is a union town."

A highlight of the day was the speech by Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO.

"We will build an America our children need, together," she declared. "Together we will demand the passage of the Dream Act so all children can reach their aspirations. As one we will work for a new day when no one, no one remains in the shadows, when the circumstances of birth do not, do not my sisters and brothers determine your fate."

Sonia Ivany, president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement said, "Together we send a strong and unified message to Albany. The hard fought gains will not be reduced. Together on this May Day we all come together. New York, Wisconsin united! The right for every single worker in this nation to have the right to organize unions. To have the right to collective bargaining and a living wage. United we are moving forward."

Photo: Elena Mora/PW

NYC May Day rally: thousands bring tradition back, urge legislative reform

By Peter Gale
From the People's World newspaper:

The thousands of people jamming Manhattan’s Foley Square on May 1 demanding labor rights and immigration reform are part of a long tradition, stretching all the way back to the 1800s. The date was picked by the world working-class movement in memory of workers rallying peacefully in support of the eight hour day in the Haymarket Square rally, which became a massacre on May 4, 1886 in Chicago. Until now, it has been more widely celebrated in other countries than in the country where it started. But Latinos have sparked an interest in May Day rallies in the United States since 2006. This year, many labor unions climbed on board in unity with immigrant organizations.

The boisterous crowd was about two-thirds Latino, reflecting the fighting spirit among Latinos to fight for immigration reform, and reflecting the large immigrant population in New York City from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries in Central and South America.

Members of the Transport Workers Union, Local 100, Service Employees International Union, with many unionists from Local 1199, the Laborers Union, United Federation of Teachers, Professional Staff Congress, and other unions were present in force.

The most common poster seen among the crowd was “Friends Keep their Promises.” This slogan was a reminder to the Senate that immigration reform is part of the Obama agenda. Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, has been preparing immigration reform legislation to introduce this year. It was originally intended to be a bipartisan effort in a partnership with Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC. Graham appears to have been pressured by Republican obstructionists who are trying to say “no” to everything in the Obama agenda. It is not clear whether Graham will continue to help pass any bipartisan legislation, so Schumer now appears to be working mostly with Democrats, while trying to woo one or two breakaway Republicans.

A few days before the rallies, President Obama warned that Congress may not have the “stomach” to pass immigration reform yet. It is not clear just how much a step forward the Schumer legislation will be.

In the meantime, immigrants are suffering from threats of deportation, harassment, discrimination, and occasional violence from employers, landlords, and some whites who worry that they might lose their jobs to immigrants willing to work for a minimum wage, or sometimes less. The labor movement in the United States has realized that it must fight discrimination and racism against immigrants in order to foster unity in the fight for labor rights and economic justice. The labor movement has come slowly to realize that undocumented immigrants living in fear of deportation and discrimination will be fearful to speak out for justice for all workers.

Many speakers and signs spoke out against the new Arizona law which many fear will end up profiling immigrants for police harassment. As the crowd chanted English and Spanish slogans, the most common one was “Obama Escucha, Estamos en la Lucha,” "Obama, Listen, We are in the Struggle."

The march went south from Foley Square, going west on Barkley Street. The crowd turned north on Church Street, and circling east on Worth Street to return to Foley Square.

May Day reborn!

By Libero Della Piana

International Workers Day - was, of course, born in the U.S.A. But while the Haymarket events occurred in Chicago, the largest and perhaps best known May Day celebrations in the U.S. were historically in New York City. Unions, workers, their families and more traditionally marched together to honor working people.

This year, New York's historic May Day celebrations will be reborn with a mass march and rally organized by the labor and immigrant rights movements. An alliance of over 30 city and regional organizations is calling for "Labor and Immigrant Rights and Jobs for All." The demands are based on the AFL-CIO's five-point jobs program and immigrant rights demands.

A recent panel of labor leaders at the Left Forum discussed May Day historically and the plans for May Day 2010.

Ed Ott, former Executive Director of the New York City Central Labor Council spoke from the panel, saying, "this project will help rebuild the working-class left in the city." He noted that there are several protests on May 1, but argued, "this particular expression is the regrouping of some particular unions to reclaim a presence on May Day."

This emerging alliance is reclaiming May Day from years of neglect. McCarthyism, the decline of the left, and the identification of May Day with sectarian groups (true and not) had whittled New York ‘s May Day celebrations down to a small but spirited gathering by the dawn of the 21st Century.

Then in 2006, something happened.

Immigrant rights movements in the U.S. had for several years used the occasion of May Day to demonstrate for immigrant rights, but in that year millions of immigrant families poured out on May 1 around the U.S. calling urgently for immigrant rights, workers rights and amnesty. New York was no exception. May Day received a new breath of life.

This year perhaps begins a full recovery. Saturday, May 1, the march will assemble in Manhattan's Foley Square on Worth Street between Centre and Lafayette Streets. The March route will pass Wall Street, home to the country and world's largest banking and finance institutions, which many participants see as the source of the current economic and jobs crisis-and end in Battery Park.

Another panelist, Bhairavi Desai of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance said, "It is really important to see organized labor and the immigrant rights movement come together with our economy in the state it's in." Taxi workers, domestic workers and many other immigrant workers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act and face particularly difficult challenges at the workplace and elsewhere.

Some of the sponsors of the May day events include, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, District Council 37 AFSCME, Transport Workers Union Local 100, Domestic Workers United, United Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 210, New York City Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (UFCW), Labor Left Project and many more.

In closing the panel presentation, Ed Ott spurred the audience into action, saying, "Every working-class activist should try to build this effort."

For more information or to volunteer, contact Jason Green with the Alliance for Labor & Immigrants Rights & Jobs for All at Jason@advancegroup.com or 212-239-7323

Bronx town hall promotes wage, health bill

By Elena Mora
Photo By Dave Sanders

The community room at the Amalgamated Houses, a cooperative housing project in the Bronx, was the scene of an important gathering of workers and neighbors Monday night.

A highlight was the remarks of Alba Vasques, a "member political organizer" of SEIU 32BJ. Vasquez raised her children as a single mother, and described the huge change in her life when she finally got a union job, after year of working 18 hours days and still struggling to make ends meet.

"We had health care and sick days, something I'd never had before. And I had vacation time. I could get to know my children."

The "town hall meeting" was called by 32BJ, which represents 70,000 building service workers in New York City, to promote a newly introduced City Council bill (Intro 18-2010) that would "guarantee good wages, health care and other benefits to building service workers at new, city-subsidized developments and newly leased city work sites."

The bill reflects a growing movement in New York City that rejects the idea that people have to accept whatever crumbs are left on the table, and is fueled by anger at Wall Street and the pro-developer Bloomberg administration. Union Vice President Kyle Bragg said, "we shouldn't be subsidizing developments that leave working families in the cold."

Just a few weeks ago a Bronx coalition of churches, community groups and unions defeated a Bloomberg-endorsed development plan, saying the plan would not have created the kinds of jobs and services the neighborhood needs.

On the stage last night with the union leaders were City Council members Oliver Koppell, Fernando Cabrera, and Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who each forcefully declared their support for the bill, which was introduced by East Harlem Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito and has the support of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and South Bronx Councilwoman Anabel Palma.

"We must take concrete steps to eliminate the government's role in promoting poverty," said Cabrera.

Councilman Koppell, in whose district the meeting took place, mentioned that the Amalgamated Houses was a project of the labor movement, based on the same ideas as the bill -- that workers and their families deserve decent wages and living conditions.

Councilwoman Arroyo praised the union for its activism, including its leadership on promoting bilingualism in political life, and said that the bill is "a no-brainer. It is common sense."

CVS risking consumer, worker s' health for profits, laborers claim

Members of Laborers Local 78 are connecting poor treatment of consumers to poor working conditions for contractors, and are urging consumers to pressure CVS, the corporation responsible, to change its practices.

Local 78 members distributed leaflets outside of a CVS on Manhattan's Columbus Avenue, near Lincoln Center, explaining that the corporation has hired Panzner Brothers Demolition, a sub-standard non-union company, to remove asbestos from their buildings.

"When asbestos isn't properly removed," said one of the union activists, "the fibers go into the air. They're so small you can't see them, but, when inhaled, they can remain in someone's lungs forever."

According to a flier issued by Local 78, "Ultimately, asbestos fibers cause fatal diseases that currently have no cure."

The union activists charge that CVS has hired a non-union company to save money. While they are fighting this as an anti-union move, they are also concerned that this will ultimately endanger both people in the area and the unorganized workers themselves.

Local 78 members are connecting this lack of oversight to shocking abuses of consumers, including the sale of counterfeit drugs in Deer Park, N.Y., and a case in East Pointe, Georgia, where the company, known for understaffing its pharmacies, gave the wrong medication to a truck driver, resulting in post traumatic stress disorder.

The picketing unionists made clear that they are not asking for a boycott or a strike; the simply want members of the public to contact CVS and demand that responsible contractors be hired.

The suggest calling CEO Tom Ryan at 401-765-1500 and Bill Jacobs at 516-729-1018.

By Dan Margolis

Workers in U.S. most dangerous industry demand protection

From the People's World
By Dan Margolis, Chair
New York State Communist Party

He's had a gun put up to his head during a robbery. He's been assaulted with a crowbar, and had every window in his car broken. He's had a jagged beer bottle shoved into his neck. He was nearly maced.

All of this on the job.

Of colleagues he knows: One was stabbed in the lower neck with a hunting knife. One was choked by a woman. One was shot in the eye after being robbed. Another remains in a four-year coma after a violent assault. Still another, Ndiaye Serigne (pronounced "Jay Serene"), was beaten violently on Halloween by mask-wearing men.

Police officer? Soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan? What sort of job does he, David, as well as his colleagues, hold?

They work, according to the Department of Labor, the most dangerous job in the United States: New York City taxi driver. While New Yorkers tend to take cab drivers for granted, they perform the most dangerous, and one of the most grueling, jobs in the city.

In Serigne's case, the four masked passengers jumped into his cab, one of them taking the front seat. Since it was Halloween, Ndiaye wasn't surprised by the masks. But after crossing the bridge into Staten Island, the man in the front seat switched off the meter, and told Serigne that "now it's a free ride." Serigne, in a move that may have saved his life, ignored his assailants' orders to pull down a narrow street and instead drove to a nearby gas station. It was there that he was beaten and the passengers-turned-attackers fled. Now when he looks at the security camera video, he can't believe what he sees.

"I'm just thankful that I am alive," he said, noting that a childhood friend from his native Senegal was murdered on the job only three years ago. "We are just workers, but some passengers treat us so badly."

According to taxi workers and their representatives, this is a horrible story, but one that is neither an anomaly nor even surprising.

"Drivers are 60 times more likely to be killed on the job and 80 times more likely to be robbed on the job than any other worker in the United States of America," said Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance yesterday.

Taxis move nearly half a million people each day, she added. "The airports, finance, restaurants, Broadway, every single industry in New York City, depend on taxi drivers for their bottom line. Our bottom line is our lives need to be protected."

Now taxi drivers, united into the TWA and well as elected officials are going to do something about it. Standing next to Desai, New York State Assembly member Rory Lancman, D-Queens, announced that he would introduce a bill into the Assembly that would extend protection already won by bus and subway workers to taxi drivers.

"Men and women who drive these taxis are entitled to just as much protection as the people who run our trains, drive our buses," Lancman, who chairs the Assembly Subcommittee on Workplace Safety, said.

Under recently-enacted laws, won after a sustained fight by Transport Workers Union Local 100 and its allies, anyone who assaults a bus driver, or subway or railroad worker, is to be charged with a felony and potentially sentenced to prison time. Lancman, the TWA and some transit workers present, want to see that protection extended to taxi workers. The law would also require a sign in each cab warning would-be assailants that any assault could lead to prison time.

The bill would send a signal, Lancman said, that "we in New York state will not tolerate [violence against drivers], and we will take every measure that we can to make sure that when these men and women get into their cab to start their shift, at the end of it, when they leave that cab to go home to their families, to go home to their children, that they come home safe and sound."

Labor Rallies Against Racist Editorial cartoon

By Gary Bono

On Thursday, February 19th, hundreds of angry protesters, including labor leaders and members, clergy and elected officials, gathered in midtown Manhattan for a noontime rally protesting a blatantly racist editorial cartoon that ran in the previous day’s edition of the notoriously right-wing New York Post. They called for a boycott of the racist newspaper, known for its racist, anti-working people positions. Many also called for a federal investigation of the paper, saying that the cartoon could be seen as an incitement to assassinate the President.

The cartoon depicted two white police officers, guns drawn, standing over the bullet riddled corpse of a chimpanzee, saying, “I guess we’ll have to get someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” On a previous page, the paper carried a photo of President Barack Obama signing the economic stimulus bill.

Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to comment directly but said that he doesn’t consider the New York Post to be a serious news source and doesn’t spend a lot of time reading it.

Post editor Col Allan and cartoonist Sean Delonas defended the cartoon, but many New Yorkers felt differently, and many hundreds of them demonstrated their outrage outside the posh 6th Avenue headquarters of News Corporation, the Post’s parent company, noisily protesting what they saw as a racist smear of Obama and an incitement to violence against him.

Some protestors remarked that the appearance of this particular cartoon during black history month added insult to injury; some saw the attack as a part of the right wing assault on labor and people’s forces in general. The demonstration, originally called by Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, produced a turnout of surprising size and breadth.

In addition to members of the National Action Network, multitudes of outraged citizens turned out. The NAACP, One Hundred Blacks in Law Enforcement and other civil rights and community organizations had organized presences. As the demonstrators chanted, “boycott the Post” drivers of assign cars, trucks and busses raised their fists and honked their horns in solidarity.

Organized labor was particularly well represented at the rally and, at least once, representatives from the various unions present marched together as a unified labor contingent. The labor turn out included, among others, members from Transport Workers Union Local 100; SEIU 32 BJ, 1199 and 371; AFSCME District Council 37; Public Employees Federation and IBEW. TWU Local 100 and SEIU 32BJ had major organized presences, with leading members among their contingents. In addition to the organized labor turn out, union members, both active and retired, who came to the demonstration on their own greeted and joined their union brothers and sisters on the line.

Numerous public and political figures also turned out for the noon demonstration. These included New York City council representatives John Liu and Charles Barron and State Senator Eric Adams.

Barron supported calls for a boycott of the paper and said that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder should investigate the Post for threatening the life of the President.

Adams, a former NYC Police detective and former head of One Hundred Blacks in Law Enforcement, also called for an investigation, saying that the U.S. Department of Justice needs to look at the cartoon as an incitement to assassinate the President. Earlier, councilwomen Letitia James called for the editor of the Post to be fired and for an apology to be printed on the paper’s front page. James called the cartoon an example of a “racist mind at work.”

In addition to calling for a boycott of the paper Sharpton called for an investigation of the waiver granted by the FCC to News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch which allowed him to own a newspaper and two TV stations in the same market.

On Friday, following several more protests plus torrents of outraged phone calls and emails and calls for the dismissals of Delonas, Allan or both, the Post issued what has been described as a half-hearted apology. Surprisingly though, the Post choose to use the ‘apology’, buried inside the paper, to attack what it called ‘opportunist’ critics, a veiled reference to Sharpton. This ‘apology’ has done little to silence the calls for the heads of Delonas and Allan and the calls for a boycott of the paper.

In rejecting the ‘apology’ famed movie director, Spike Lee, and R&B artist John Legend have said that, in the future, they will refuse to grant interviews to Post reporters. They asked other entertainment and sports figures to do likewise.

As of this writing it appears that the firestorm generated by the cartoon is far from subsiding. On Saturday, following the initial street demonstrations, national NAACP president Benjamin Jealous said that the cartoon was an invitation to assassination and called for the firing of Post cartoonist Delonas and Post editor Allan. The national chair of the NAACP, Julian Bond, referred to the cartoon as, “thoughtlessness taken to the extreme."

Meanwhile, regional civil rights leaders, like Wilbur Alridge of the NAACP and Ernest Prince of the Urban League have joined the call for a boycott. What’s more the New York Times has reported that some Post employees were themselves dismayed at the papers decision to run the cartoon.

The National Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives and the National Association of Black Journalists have also weighed in, with members and officials from the organizations registering their outrage and disgust.

Taking it to Wall Street: Rallies vs. bailout crowd 'the street'

By Libero Della Piana

NEW YORK—Unions, civil rights groups and community organizations called a series of protest rallies on Wall Street this week in response to President George Bush’s plan to bailout financial firms with no strings attached.

“Our country is facing the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression.,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney at the New York City Central Labor Council noontime rally on Sept 25. Nearly 1,000 union members gathered within earshot of the American Stock Exchange to demand Congress “bailout Main Street not Wall Street.”

“But for working people, this crisis is not new. Working people have been living this crisis with lost jobs and stagnant wages, crumbling schools and roads, with eroding healthcare and disappearing pensions.”

Sweeney went on to say that the then proposed bailout “does not even begin to address the roots of our crisis. It’s a bailout that simply ignores the real problems of working families.”
Labor Council Executive Director Ed Ott was MC at the rally, speakers at which included Randi Weingearten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York, Lillian Roberts, executive director of District Council 37 of the American Federation of State Councty and Municipal Employees, and other New York labor leaders.

The Labor Council announced in a press release the same day “Seven Conditions for $700 Billion Bailout Plan,” which includes a stop to home foreclosure, aggressive public oversight, repeal of the Bush tax cuts, and overhaul of financial governance and regulation.
Later that same day, hundreds gathered near the Wall Street Bull, a 7,000-lb bronze sculpture in the financial district, forming just one of over 250 protests held nationwide at the same time. Called by US Action, Jobs with Justice, ACORN, United for Peace & Justice and other groups, the protests declared, “No Bush bailout!”

The diverse crowd carried homemade signs, sang songs and chanted slogans. Many protestors brought “junk” from home as an ironic stunt mocking the “cash for trash” deal in which the U.S. government will buy bad loans from financial institutes in order to aid their liquidity. Some protestors made their way up Broadway to Wall Street and gathered on the steps of Federal Hall, site of George Washington’s oath of office, which is kitty-corner from the Stock Exchange.

After announcement of a deal on the bailout in Congress Sept. 29, hundreds of union members rallied again on Wall Street in a protest called by Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s RainbowPUSH Coalition.

“The plan in Washington today involves too much money, controlled by too few people, without enough transparency,” said Jackson. “We should not be panicked into signing. We need hearings now. We need to save workers now. We need to save homeowners now.”

“If you want taxpayers’ money, then you should be accountable to the taxpayers,” TWU President Roger Toussaint said to Wall Street financiers. “If you want taxpayers’ money, then taxpayers should share in the upside not just the downside. If you want taxpayers’ money, then you have to make sure there are assurances against this happening again. If you want taxpayers’ money, then you have to curb excessive CEO pay. If you want taxpayers’ money, then we want assistance given to the victims not the predators. If you want taxpayers’ money, then we want protections for public employees, private employees, working people’s pension funds. If you want taxpayers’ money, then we want the money invested in the real economy—in healthcare and education, in mass transit, in our parks, our libraries. We want money invested where it matters.”

Congressional Democrats had tacked a number of measures onto the bailout before this week’s vote to ensure some protections for taxpayers and more economic protections for average Americans.

“The bulls and the bears of Wall Street have mauled and gored the American people for the very last time,” said Arthur Cheliotes, president of Local 1180 of the Communication Workers of America. “The free market doesn’t work. The free market is the law of the jungle. And in a jungle, only the biggest and the baddest survive.”

1199 Secretary-Treasurer Maria Castaneda added, “What we are watching is the cumulative effect of the failed policies of Bush/McCain for the last eight years. We cannot afford four more years.”

While many speakers pointed out the complicity of both major parties in the deregulation of the financial sector, they also made it clear the difference between the two presidential candidates when it comes to financial governance. “They want a McCain/Reagan moment. We want a Roosevelt/Obama moment,” said Jackson.

Jackson ended Monday’s rally by calling for a massive march on Washington demanding economic democracy regardless the outcome of the current legislation in Congress. Participants dispersed with little idea that Congress was at that moment voting down the compromise bailout.

Reprinted from the People's Weekly World.

NYC Labor Day: Time for a Change

This Labor Day working people and their families in New York State are in an exciting and challenging moment. For the first time in years, the labor movement together with its broad movement allies, has the potential to change the course of the country in a more positive direction.

The 2008 Presidential election is historic. Not only has the Democratic Party nominated an African American as its candidate for the first time, but there have also been record turnouts in the primaries and a vibrant grassroots movement has developed.

What’s at stake for working people in the election couldn’t be starker.

McCain represents four more years of the failed Bush policies of war and aggression, tax-breaks for the rich and big corporations, and destruction of social services vital to working-class communities. On the other hand, the candidacy of Barack Obama reflects and represents the massive desire for change: for a livable environment and a sustainable world, for jobs with justice, for peace and progress, for fair taxes and a program to rebuild our cities and towns. Let's be clear, there is a big difference between these two choices. McCain is no "maverick." He is a real conservative who puts the "rights" of the rich and corporations ahead of the needs of the working majority. McCain received a dismal zero percent pro-labor voting record for 2007 while Obama has a stellar 100 percent record and said he looks forward to signing the Employee Free Choice Act into law as our next President.

25 percent of the Democratic Party’s Convention delegates were union members, while the GOP Convention speakers took turns bashing unions and blaming them for the economic crisis in the country.

Of course, deeper Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and in an increase in progressives in the Congress will also shift the terrain in Washington, opening the way for legislation to turn-back the damage of the Bush years, and to repair the country from 30 years of right-wing rule. This is no time to sit out the election.

We not only have a chance to undo the Bush Agenda, but to win big transformative victories and set the stage for higher levels of struggle. A decisive electoral victory in November will lead the way to passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, the end of the occupation of Iraq and implement some form a of national health care. The working-class has been on the defensive for decades, this election has the chance to put the movements back on offense, to set the agenda for the country.

The potential for change is not just in Washington. There is a chance for a shift in the balance of forces in Albany as well. For the first time in decades, the Republicans could lose control of the New York State Senate. No longer will they be able to block progressive legislation, block taxation on the rich, and block reform of out-of-date laws like the Taylor Law, which bans public workers from striking.

A big people’s victory in November is not the end of the struggle, but a new beginning on more favorable ground. The mass movements of the people: the peace movement, student movement, civil rights movement, women’s movement, and labor movement have to keep the pressure on to ensure a new Democratic Administration and Legislature keep the promise to meet the people’s needs.

Together, we can win in November and together we can go on the to change the world.