U.S. Elections:
The Vote for Working Class Party—A Down Payment on the Future

Oct 27, 2022

Candidates of Working Class Party

In Michigan:

Top Row: Jim Walkowicz, 9th Congressional district; Andrea L. Kirby, 10th Congressional; Gary Walkowicz, 12th Congressional; and Simone R. Coleman, 13th Congressional district.

Middle Row: Larry Darnell Betts, State Senate district 2; Mary Anne Hering, State Board of Education; Lou Palus, 3rd Congressional district; Liz Hakola, 1st Congressional district.

Front Row: Linda Rayburn, State Senate district 3; Kathy Goodwin, 8th Congressional district; Kimberly Givens, State Senate district 6.

In Maryland:

Cathy White, for Lt. Governor,

David Harding, for Governor.

In Illinois:

Ed Hershey, 4th Congressional District

The Vote on November 8^th: A Commitment

The working class needs its own party, to organize its forces and put forth its own interests in the political arena. While such a party does not exist, people who believe it must be built have successfully put Working Class Party on the ballot in the states of Michigan and Maryland plus one U.S. Congressional district in Illinois. By voting for candidates of Working Class Party in those three states this November, working people are able to express their desire to see such a party built and, for many, their commitment to help build it.

The next issue of The Class Struggle, which will appear in January, will cover the results of this election.

What follows is the program of Working Class Party, printed in brochures distributed in Michigan, Maryland and Illinois, and reproduced on the independent website, workingclassfight.com.

A Working Class Program to Combat the Crisis of Capitalism

• For that one percent that lives off of stock, inflation has been a bonanza. Millionaires became billionaires. Billionaires became … zillionaires.
• But for the rest of us, inflation has been a disaster.

We are living in a system that cannot produce decent paying jobs for most young people.

• For that one percent who live off the wealth stolen from our labor, times couldn’t be better
• They have gobbled up a bigger share of society’s wealth than ever before.
• But jobs that exist are part-time or temporary or contract work—or full time only until you are laid off. They lack benefits. Pensions are a dim memory of bygone days.

We are living in a system that could not prevent Covid from ravaging the most fragile part of the population.

• Over a million people in this country have died from it.
• Blame for this terrible death toll rests on the two parties that run this political system.
• For decades, every government, Democrat or Republican, raided funds from public health, just like they stole from roads, dams, water and sewage systems, and education.
• Instead of using public money to serve the population, the two parties siphoned it off, turned it over to expand the private profit of corporations, banks and speculators.

There ARE Answers to Inflation:

• Everyone’s wages could be increased NOW. Minimum wage could be set high enough to support a family of four—comfortably. Instead of giving money to stockholders, companies must use it to increase our pay.
• Wages should keep up with inflation. When prices go up, wages should go up an equal amount—and immediately. Pensions and Social Security should go up—immediately.

There ARE Answers to Unemployment:

• If companies say they have no openings, then let them slow down the pace of work to a reasonable one. That will provide many more full-time jobs—and be better for everyone.
• If companies still say they can’t hire all those without work, then let everyone work fewer hours. That would create more jobs.
• No one’s pay needs to be cut to provide these jobs. The wealth is there to create jobs, but it has to be taken back from the wealthy class, who stole it from our labor.

We Won’t Get These Things without a Fight.

• No one will hand us jobs, wages and a healthy country. Not Trump, not Biden. No one.
• But working people have power—when we stand together as one class, ready to fight.
• Working people are essential. We make everything run. We know how everything works. Organized together, the working class can change the world.

To fight, we need the full forces of our class—which is a powerful class when it is united.

• But to unite our forces, we have to recognize the reality of all the vicious ways our class is attacked and divided.
• We have to stand up against the indignities and violence of racism, against the blatant attacks on women’s rights.

We won’t change our situation with an election.

• But we can use this election to say there are people, tens of thousands of people, who agree with this program for the crisis.

Vote November 8 for Working Class Party Candidates