From: harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Labor Party Organizing Network
Date: 20 Aug 92 03:26:05 GMT


    In the last presidential elections, 96 million Americans refused
    to vote for either the Democratic or Republican parties. [...]
    Even the polls conducted by the Big Business-owned media show that
    a majority in this country believe a new party is necessary to
    compete with the Democratic and Republican parties for public
    office.
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   We hereby agree to form a Labor Party Organizing Network (LPON) to
   help advance the discussion, education and organization necessary
   to promote labor-led coalitions that can field independent
   candidates on a state and local level beginning in 1993,


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Topic 260       LaborParty Organizing Network!!! 
dwalters        Labor News & Notes       5:16 pm  Aug 16, 1992 
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LPON resolution

THE TIME HAS COME CALL FOR THE FORMATION OF A LABOR PARTY ORGANIZING
NETWORK ADOPTED BY THE JULY 25-26 NATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR INDEPENDENT
LABOR POLITICAL ACTION

Enough is enough! 

This is the cry of millions upon millions of people in this country
who, under the impact of a growing bipartisan onslaught against their
rights and very livelihood, are expressing their outrage with the twin
parties of Big Business Q the Democrats and Republicans. They are
saying enough concessions, enough givebacks, enough giving in.

In the last presidential elections, 96 million Americans refused to
vote for either the Democratic or Republican parties. During the
recent primaries, voter abstention was even greater, reaching an
all-time high. In the state of New York, only 7% of registered voters
even bothered to go to the polls. Increasing numbers of working people
understand that it will not make an ounce of difference which of the
two parties wins the election; things only will get worse for them.
Even the polls conducted by the Big Business-owned media show that a
majority in this country believe a new party is necessary to compete
with the Democratic and Republican parties for public office.

Millions of working people are looking for an alternative to
politics-as-usual. This is the obvious meaning of the misguided
support for billionaire Ross Perot.  But the quest for an alternative
is not restricted to the electoral field. Growing numbers are
beginning to express Q in the streets and workplaces of this country Q
their disgust with the unrelenting offensive by the corporations, the
government, and the courts. Important strike movements Q such as the
Caterpillar strike and the victorious Summit Hospital workersU strike
in Oakland, Calif. Q reveal a growing determination to fight back and
reverse the drive for concessions imposed by the bosses.

In Los Angeles, hatred and outrage erupted in the aftermath of the
trial of the police who brutalized Rodney King. This has exposed for
all to see the feelings of millions who have lost their jobs, their
homes, their healthcare and their rights. The large number of youth Q
particularly Black youth Q who were in the forefront of the rebellion
felt they had nothing to lose and no future.  Independent politics is
the order of the day. Across the country, initiatives that point to
the need for independent political action by working people are
developing. Labor Party Advocates, headed by former OCAW
Secretary-Treasurer Tony Mazzocchi, is gaining wide support among
unionists. Ron Daniels, former director of the National Rainbow
Coalition, is organizing a convention for independent politics in late
August. The National Organization for Women recently launched the 21st
Century Party.

All these initiatives, to mention but a few, are positive. They show
that the time to begin organizing an independent alternative for
working people is now. They show that the time has come to build a
labor party based on the unions and encompassing, as a key component,
the independent political expression of Blacks and all oppressed
minorities.

We working people, gathered here from across the United States at the
National Conference for Independent Labor Political Action in San
Francisco on July 25-26, 1992, declare that we've had enough of
lesser-evil politics. We've had enough of so-called friends of labor
like Bill Clinton, the most openly anti-labor Democratic Party
candidate in modern history, We cannot accept a situation where
working people donUt have their own candidates Q independent of the
Democrats and Republicans Q to represent them and fight for their
interests.  We understand as well that the question of independent
labor political action is an international question. That is why the
July 25-26 National Conference invited workers from Germany, France,
Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Canada and elsewhere to participate. In a
global economy, working people in one country cannot defend their
interests effectively without linking up with workers in other
countries. From deregulation, privatization, and leveraged buyouts to
the RFree Trade ZonesS and the worldwide destruction of the
environment, the policies that threaten working people in the United
States threaten our sisters and brothers throughout the world.

We must build international links to confront these policies.  The
time has come to run our own independent candidates against the
parties of the corporations and the ruling rich Q based on a program
for all working people. Unless we elect our own independent labor
candidates, the bosses and their twin parties will have free rein to
continue their relentless assault against our wages, jobs, and working
conditions.

Now is the time to run independent labor candidates Q not some
indefinite time in the future. We need a real choice on every Election
Day! Such independent candidacies are already emerging in a few cities
around the country. We want to help spread this phenomenon far and
wide.

We hereby agree to form a Labor Party Organizing Network (LPON) to
help advance the discussion, education and organization necessary to
promote labor-led coalitions that can field independent candidates on
a state and local level beginning in 1993,

LPON is not counterposed to the many initiatives for independent labor
political action. Our objective is to help bring together all those
who have committed themselves to a break with the Democrats and
Republicans and the building of a labor party Q and to run independent
labor candidates in the coming state and local elections.

To accomplish this task, LPON will establish a newsletter and a
national labor electronic conference that will provide information,
news and discussion of the labor party question.  The time has come to
get the ball rolling.
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