SPNYC Official Statements

SPNYC Official Statements

• Congratulations to the Starbucks workers union of NYC!- Sisters and Brothers, Comrades and Fellow Workers, The Socialist Party - USA, Greater New York Local, wishes to extend its heartfelt congratulations to the Starbucks workers of the IWW on their recent legal victory. You have demonstrated to all of us the renewed willingness of working people in this country to organize: not for mere government decreed 'rights' but to overcome once and for all capitalism and the exploitation of any human being by another. We know this victory means your fight is only beginning, and we stand ready to aid your struggle in any modest way we can. In solidarity, SP-USA, NYC Endorsed March 12th, 2006 T Miles, Secretary
• 2/20 Anti-Iraq War March In Brooklyn.-

  Note: The Socialist Party USA, Greater New York City Local has endorsed this event. SP members should make every effort to come out! --- http://www.newyorksocialists.org
  

  War Resisters League
  339 Lafayette Street
  New York, NY 10012
  
  www.warresisters.org.
  
  Contacts:
  Frida Berrigan 347.683.4928
  Todd Eaton 917.620.7781
  Ed Hedemann 718.768.7306
  
  February 17, 2006 For Immediate Release
  

  NEW YORK CITY WAR RESISTERS TO HOLD IRAQ WAR FUNERAL MARCH IN BROOKLYN ON PRESIDENT'S DAY 2006
  Brooklyn, NY - The New York City Local of the War Resisters League (WRL) will hold a funeral march on Monday, February 20, 2006, to protest the loss of life in the war being waged in Iraq. Gathering across from the corner of Remsen and Court Streets (in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall steps) at 11:30 am on Monday, participants will assemble coffins draped in black and in American flags, representing the Iraqi and Americans killed in the war.
  

• January 26th: NYU Grad Student Picket.-

  Join the striking Graduate Students at NYU for a rally and picket, Thursday, January 26th, 4pm, in front of Bobst Library.

  Unionized teachers and teaching assistants are coming in from all over the country to support their fellow workers at NYU. Come out to show NYU that New York City is a union town, and that we won't tolerate their unilateral decision to ignore the GSOC, who just last year they'd signed a contract with. Now the administration is pulling funding for all striking workers, essentially firing AND expelling them.

  Help us demand justice for the strikers! You could be next!

• SP-NYC: We Support The TWU Local 100-

  The Socialist Party of New York City strongly supports the right of transit workers to free speech, free assembly and free labor.

  We denounce, in the strongest possible terms, the Metropolitan Transportation Agency's callous disregard of the safety and health of transit workers, as well as their unending demands for for wage and benefit cutbacks. We are sickened by the slave plantation politics of Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki and Attorney General Spitzer, who would fine union members from two days' wages up to a quarter of a million dollars each for the nerve of refusing to work without a contract.

  As commuters, we recognize and appreciate the hard work and dedication of New York's transit workers. As citizens, we voted in large numbers in favor of the state's transportation bond act - expecting that some of the money we approved would go to fair and equitable pay increases for the workers who keep New York moving. As workers, we insist that if our brothers and sisters in TWU 100 go on strike, then we too will not go to work, or if we do WE WILL WALK.

• Abolish the Death Penalty-

  Statement from Socialist Party USA Vice-Chair Mary Loritz

  Stanley "Tookie" Williams' life was taken by the state last night at 12:35pm by way of lethal injection, after spending twenty-four years in prison. Tookie was one of the founding members of the street gang the Crips, and in 1981 was convicted on four counts of murder, for which he maintained his innocence.

  He has since denounced gang life and violence and apologized for his role in establishing the Crips. Tookie went on to coauthor several children's books discouraging violence, and an autobiography that documents the realities of violence and life in prison.

• Statements-

  Statements From The SP-USA:

  Statement of Principles (pdf)
  A Century of Struggle: Socialist Party USA -- 1901-2001 ( pdf)
  The Israel/Palestine Crisis (pdf)
  Repeal the Hyde Amendment (pdf)
  Democratic Socialism and Lesbian and Gay Liberation (pdf)
  Martin Luther King, Jr., and Democratic Socialism (pdf)
  

• Fight The Taylor Law.-
  

  The Greater New York Local of the Socialist Party - USA calls for an immediate end to New York State's anti-union Taylor Law.
  
  The 1967 'Public Employees-Fair Employment Act' made it illegal for any public employee or organization of public employees to go on strike, or even to " instigate, encourage, or condone a strike." That's right. Individual working people can be fined for so much as saying a strike is OK.

  Even under capitalism, workers are SUPPOSED to have a right to bargin. How can they bargin when they have nothing to threaten? Doesn't that explain why so many NYC public employees go years without contracts? No limits are put on the coercive power of bosses, but public workers in this city can be forced to go to work by the police, forced to accept any pay and conditions the bosses demand. The 1967 law is just a retread of a 1947 law that was dumped after upstate millionare Governor Nelson Rockefeller found city officials wouldn't throw striking Transit Workers in jail as the law demanded, probably because the mayor knew the cops would have put HIM in jail if he tried.

• On the NYU Graduate Student Strike: 11/05-

  The Socialist Party of Greater New York whole-heartedly supports the Graduate Student Union [GSOC/Local 2110 UAW] of New York University in their strike for fair union recognition. We ask that every New Yorker honor their picket lines and join the students and faculty at their rallies and meetings.

  The graduate students are asking for nothing more than that the NYU administration recognize reality. There is a union of graduate students workers, the GSOC, formed and recognized in 2004. Even under the laws of this capitalist government, the administration must negotiate with that union. The administration flatly refuses to do so, safe in the knowledge the state will support them.

• Celebrate May Day 2006- On May 1st walkouts at schools and workplaces across the US will take place in solidarity with immigrant com- munities under attack by Congressional legislation. These walkouts invoke the powerful tradition of May Day - the socialist celebration of international working class solidarity. Once again US immigrants are taking a leadership role in the struggle for social and economic justice, just as they did at the birth of May Day in Chicago a hundred and twenty years ago. The Socialist Party USA joins in the celebration of May Day and condemns the Democratic and Republican Parties for militarizing our borders and failing to protect the rights of all workers. Callous and ineffectual immigration policies are exacerbating racism in the US and creating an underclass of super-exploited workers, all in the service of corporate profits. The Socialist Party furthermore rejects assimilationist policies and attitudes which marginalize and criminalize the diverse heritages of immigrants and people of color. Experience teaches us that only militant industry-wide labor action can challenge corporate power and win better wages, hours and working conditions. Nevertheless, the global inequalities that compel migrants to seek risky, back-breaking, low wage labor in the US cannot be resolved within the constraints of modern capitalism. In the tradition of May Day we call for the abolition of capitalist systems of ownership and trade, and the creation of a truly democratic society where production fulfills human need, not profit. In a world riddled with war and underdevelopment, we also add racism, militarism and imperialism to the list of global cancers which must be uprooted as prerequisites to peace and justice. The Socialist Party encourages all members and affiliates to take part in the May Day call for “No Work, No School, No Buying, No Selling” and for members and affiliates to take part in local May Day actions. A list of actions can be found on the Socialist Party USA website www.sp-usa.org and on http://www.nohr4437.org/.
• On Lebanon:-

  Dying and Killing for Israel, Palestine, The United States, and Capitalism : August 2006.

  T Miles ::: Socialist Party - USA, Secretary: Greater NYC Local.

  As a party and as human beings, The Socialist Party of New York City has condemned the mass murder taking place in South West Asia at this moment. From Beit Jalin to Haifa to Sadr City, the United States government is provoking, sustaining and arming those hateful and desperate enough to kill entire peoples.

• On The Queens Police Murder- The Socialist Party of New York City condemns unreservedly the shooting and murder by police in the early hours of Saturday, November 25th. The specter of Amadou Diallo, Ousmane Zongo and Abner Louima hangs over this latest murder by those whom the government has given tremendous power over our lives. Police with no uniform or identification fired fifty bullets at three unarmed men in a van, leaving a nightclub. Already, the police have tried to leak a criminal history of these victims, to paint them as the police involved undoubtedly saw them, as members of a 'criminal class': guilty before any crime is committed, a threat to society for being young African-American men. A witness said that the victims were in a car that struck an unmarked police car. Then "the [unmarked police] minivan came around the corner and smashed into their car. And they [the police] jumped out shooting, No 'stop.' No 'freeze.' No nothing." One man is dead, two are fighting for their lives. The police were not in uniform, apparently part of a 'vice squad' investigation of the club. Police spokespeople could not say if police involved had been drinking. They did confirm that one officer emptied two full clips of ammunition into the victim's car, meaning he had to stop, reload, and continue shooting. Make no mistake, this is not an isolated incident. Police violence in this society is treated with impunity, even when armed with all the firepower of a small army. The day-to-day behavior of police shows little of the courtesy and respect that their slogans trumpet. Police behave as if they are above the law, because those in power allow them to. Police (even police from ethnic minorities) treat every young black male as a threat because we live in a racist society. And we live with these racist presumptions not because we're idiots, but because the system in which we live profits when we fear one another, and profits more when one group of people can be marked out as an underclass. Capitalism drives this. Capitalism gives us all an incentive to divide ourselves into warring parties. Capitalism pushes us to pocket the exploitation of others; and it's easier to sleep at night when those you exploit don't look like your own family. Capitalism pushes working class white people to say 'I may be doing bad, but at least I'll always do better than THEM.' And when whites get poorer like everyone else, the only thing they can see that keeps them off the bottom is pushing someone else back down. Why do the powers that be back up every cop in every shooting, let them behave with impunity to the rest of us, but still won't give the police a decent union contract? The last one costs money. In the short term, police and politicians need to be held to account. Murder must be called murder, and those invested with such public trust must be held to a higher standard. The police demand that the murder of a police officer be a great crime. So too must be murder BY a police officer. Police must be drawn from the communities they serve and must be directly accountable to them. They must be well trained, as much in mediation as force if they are to serve, not rule, us. There must be no tolerance for the taking of petty advantage. If Kelly and his like trumpet the 'broken windows' theory of comming down hard on minor breaches of law, then the use of a badge to get out of speeding tickets or get special favors should be punished as severely. In return, police have the right to a strong union, good pay, and decent benefits. But until we remove the system that sets us against one another, Sean Bell, Trent Benefeld, and Joseph Guzman will be just the latest victims, not the last. The Socialist Party - USA, Greater New York City Local November 28th, 2006 ---ends---
• May Day Greetings from the Socialist Party - USA, Greater NYC Local-

  Sisters, Brothers, Comrades, We send greetings to all who struggle against capitalism on this, your day. Wherever those who suffer rebel, those who work tire, those who are alone organize: there is the revolution.

  The future is in our hands. Let us join them across every barrier our rulers have created and build that future now.

  Peace, Freedom, Socialism! on behalf of the Socialist Party - USA, Greater NYC Local

  Justin Denton Ari Moore Tommy Miles David Mcreynolds

  "Workers of the world, awaken!
  Rise in all your splendid might
  Take the wealth that you are making,
  It belongs to you by right.
  No one will for bread be crying
  We'll have freedom, love and health,
  When the grand red flag is flying
  In the Workers' Commonwealth."
  -Joe Hill

• Statement of Solidarity on the Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion-
  
  The Gay Liberation Front, 1970.
  by Amber R. Clifford-Napoleone
  Convener, Queer Commission of the SPUSA
  

  In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City police raided a Greenwich Village bar: The Stonewall Inn. The Stonewall Inn, a gay and lesbian neighborhood bar with a large number of African American and Latino patrons, was also well-known as a safe space for those who did not conform to gendernorms: butch lesbians, effeminate gay men, and transsexual and transgendered persons before the terms were in popular use. All of these factors brought the police to Stonewall in 1969 for the purpose of illegally raiding the bar, and arresting its occupantsan action not unknown in New York in the 1960s. On that fateful day, however, the Stonewall's patrons had enough. Nobody knows who threw the first bottle that day. It may have been Sylvia Rivera, a transgendered activist and later a founding mother of political movements on behalf of transgendered and transsexual Americans. It may have been a still unidentified butch lesbian arrested in the bar. Over 2000 GLBTQ Americans clashed with 400 police officers on June 28. Arrests and beatings were concentrated among Stonewall's African American, Latino, butch and trans patrons. What ensued was known in the New York press and among the police as the Stonewall riots. For gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual and queer Americans, and later the world, that fateful day marked the beginning of the Stonewall Rebellion. With shouts of "Gay Power," the rebellion that lasted five days in New York began to spread across the country. Gay, lesbian, trans and other queer Americans took to the streets to protest their continued oppression, objectification, and criminalization. This singular event, the Stonewall Rebellion, marked the beginning of the modern GLBTQ liberation movement, and brought GLBTQ political and social struggles out of the closets on onto American streets. Using this date as the flashpoint, cities across America and around the world continue to celebrate the last week of June as Pride Weekend, a weekend where we remember the Rebellion, organize to continue the fight for queer liberation, and celebrate our culture, community, families and history.

• STOP THE DEPORTATION PROCEEDINGS AGAINST VICTOR TORO!- The Socialist Party USA - NYC Local calls on the United States Department of Immigration to immediately terminate all deportation proceedings against Chilean exile Victor Toro. For the last 23 years, Victor Toro has lived in the United States and made a great contribution to the struggle of immigrant workers for human rights. Victor came to the U.S. after the criminal coup carried out against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende forced him into exile. He was seized in July of this year by officials of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while returning from a conference on immigrant rights and now faces deportation proceedings. In the 1960s, Victor Toro helped to facilitate the revolutionary upsurge in Chile by organizing land seizures among indigenous groups in addition to spreading the ideas of militant action among the Chilean working class. This activity eventually lead to the formation of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), a key revolutionary organization which pushed the Allende government from below towards more rapid nationalizations and the recognition of the claims of the homeless and landless. When the coup against the democratically elected Allende government occurred in 1973, the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet listed Victor Toro as one of the 13 most dangerous people in the country.
• SOCIALIST PARTY USA STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR THE SCREENWRITERS STRIKE- SOCIALIST PARTY USA STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR THE SCREENWRITERS STRIKE Labor Commission of the SP-USA When the irreverent early 20th century comedian W.C. Fields was once caught reading the bible he explained that he was “looking for some loopholes.” On Monday November 5th, 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) took a bold strike action to sew up some of the loopholes which have allowed the entertainment industry to make exorbitant profits from their labor. The Socialist Party USA (SP-USA) stands with the WGA and calls upon the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to concede to the WGA’s demands for a just contract. Unlike the often inebriated actor Fields, the AMPTP has found many profitable loopholes. While screenwriters are paid industry rates for work aired in traditional media venues such as television and movies, they receive only a small fraction of the profits generated in the “new” media outlets of DVD sales and internet based programming. Writers currently receive only 5 cents per unit for the sale of a DVD. For entertainment delivered via internet streaming video WGA members receive only 1.2% of gross revenue. There is also currently no language in the contract regarding the producer’s right to insert product placements into WGA member created scripts.
• International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo- The Socialist Party is formally endorsing and our members will participate in the International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo on January 11th, 2008. Check http://www.witnesstorture.org and here for updates as they become available.

  ---

  International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo From: "Matthew W. Daloisio" --------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  Hey folks... Hope you are well. So here we are again. We hope that the Socialist Party NY, SP NJ and the SP USA can sign on again this year, so that hopefully in '09 we can celebrate the one year anniversary of the closing of Guantanamo! Let me know as soon as you can so we can update our materials. You can also go to http://www.witnesstorture.org and click on endorse to fill out a form.

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