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CMPL Supporter Tom Trottier's Contribution to the Labor Party Blog |
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Written by CMPL
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Thursday, 28 February 2013 15:23 |
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Labor Party Time? A New Blog Initiated by Former Officials of the Labor Party |
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Written by CMPL
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Sunday, 23 December 2012 08:40 |
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Labor Party Time? (A Contribution to the Discussion) |
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Written by Mark Dudzic & Katherine Isaac
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Tuesday, 11 December 2012 00:14 |
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 We republish here an article by Mark Dudzic and Katherine Isaac, both active in the Labor Party in the 1990s and early 2000s (as National Organizer and Secretary-Treasurer respectively). It gives an overall picture of the movement for a labor party in the 1990s, and the conditions that contributed to the party's formation. The article correctly points out the need for an independent political party of the working class and the need for such a party to be based on the resources of the labor movement. As the authors explain: "We would be hard-pressed to identify a period of U.S. history where the need for a labor-based political party was greater than it is now." The CMPL couldn't agree more!
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Written by Laura Seitz, Deseret News
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Thursday, 06 December 2012 19:06 |
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Click here and here for pages one and two of a newsletter by the Utah CMPL which was distributed at the Salt Lake City Walmart protest.
Walmart protesters demonstrate for better wages, benefits
Laura Seitz, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — Demonstrators gathered outside a Salt Lake Walmart store and Walmart stores across the nation Friday to protest what they believe are low wages, poor benefits and bad treatment of employees.
"They don't get full-time hours, they don't get any benefits, they don't get decent wages, they can't live on their wages. … I mean it's miserable conditions," said Michael Broumas, a member of the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor.
He was among about 30 people who protested outside of a Salt Lake Walmart near 300 W. 1300 South, in conjunction with a union-backed group called OUR Walmart. The Utah chapters of the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World also attended the protest.
OUR Walmart claimed it was holding an estimated 1,000 protests in 46 states. The exact number was unclear. Walmart refuted that estimate, saying the figure was grossly exaggerated and that the protests involved few of its own employees.
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Check Out the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor |
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Written by Marcus and Laura Mayo
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Thursday, 18 October 2012 21:57 |
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This article was originally published in the August edition of the Dayton's Bluff District Forum in St. Paul, MN
 Our family has been residents of the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood for nearly six and a half years. We moved into the neighborhood as we were able to find a first house that was relatively affordable, with the knowledge that the crime rate was declining, and for the most part housing prices were still on the rise. Of course, shortly after we moved in, things began changing very rapidly. Due to conditions and circumstances completely out of our control, within a few years the value of our house, like many others in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood, had dropped tremendously.
During the past few years we have watched hard-working neighbors struggle to keep their heads above water, like so many other neighborhoods throughout the country. And while our policy makers in Washington have assured the survival of banks, whose complete lack of accountability and use of complex mathematical formulas resulted in the expansion of the subprime housing market, little more than lip service has been offered to working Americans. This raises a question that many of us have been asking ourselves – who in government represents the working/middle class? Of course, both parties claim to, but their policies would beg to differ. In fact when it comes time to vote for a candidate, many people feel they are voting for the lesser of two evils when choosing their party lines – is that really a choice at all?
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Page 1 of 6 |
The Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor is thrilled to see a broadening of the discussion on the need for a U.S. labor party with the launching of this new blog. With "lesser evil" austerity bearing down on the American working class, the need for such a party has never been more urgent. 
In order to win political power, a labor party must have as its base the entire labor movement or a least a very significant part of it. However, this does not exclude the fact that a “non-mass” labor party, provided it has some support from sections of the labor movement, could play an important educational role and help to build support for a mass party. This would mean the party would have to engage various political and social movements and would need to run candidates in some elections. We might not expect to win at first, but we could use the campaigns to build broader support as workers (both in and out of unions) could hear a different political perspective to the two big business parties. What might start as protest votes could be built into something larger in some areas. As the party grows, the dead-end of the present policy of the labor leaders would mean more debate opening up in the unions among the rank and file about what labor should do in elections.