Occupy Wall Street opens new era of struggle

Workers World Party conference. WW photo: G. Dunkel

Under a banner that outlined the theme of the 2011 Workers World Party national conference, “Expand Occupy Wall Street, Shut Down Capitalism and Fight for Socialism,” activists of all ages and nationalities gathered at the Paul Robeson Auditorium in the South Bronx Oct. 8 and 9. They discussed the significance of the rapidly expanding Occupy Wall Street movement and the role workers and oppressed must play to bring a genuine anti-capitalist direction to this struggle.

The conference also included tributes to Che Guevara on the 44th anniversary of his death; to Troy Davis, who would have turned 43 years old Oct. 9; and to Workers World Party founder Sam Marcy, born 100 years ago in 1911. The vast majority of the plenary speakers were WWP members from various branches representing important labor, community and anti-imperialist mass struggles.

Conference participants like members of Steelworkers Local 8751, representing Boston school bus drivers, were in the house. So were postal workers and retirees from several cities, who brought their message of fighting back against the pending massive elimination of 200,000 jobs.

The audience included members of the Providence, R.I., Movement for a Peoples Assembly; youth, immigrant and labor organizers from North Carolina; community activists from the South Bronx; members of the Detroit Moratorium Now! coalition active in fighting foreclosures; and participants from the heroic occupations in Madison, Wis., whose struggle against union busting in February galvanized the country. Cultural presentations were performed by Myia X and Redd Welsh.

Participants from Occupy Wall Street as well as occupations springing up in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Tucson and Los Angeles all came to share their experiences. The leadership role of young activists was visible throughout the conference.

Rocio Silverio, with the South Bronx Community Labor Alliance, welcomed the gathering to her neighborhood. She noted that the South Bronx is the most impoverished urban area in the U.S., with the highest jobless rate in New York state. Silverio reported that 40 percent of its residents fear homelessness and 60 percent depend on food stamps. “As a community we have been able to survive what they’ve thrown at us, but we need to reach out. We thank Workers World for bringing the message of workers’ power to the Bronx.”

The first plenary, building on the central theme of the conference, was chaired by young Durham, N.C., member Cathey Stanley, who reported that as of that morning, occupations were happening in more than 420 cities. A single mother, Stanley discussed the difficulty of securing state-subsidized child care for her son with more than 600 children already on the waiting list: “The lack of support for child care shows that capitalism doesn’t work for children, and it definitely does not work for women.”

Speakers on this panel included Larry Hales, a leader of New Yorkers Against the Budget Cuts. Hales credited the movements in northern Africa and across Europe for inspiring the movement at home, noting that the global capitalist crisis that fueled these uprisings is intractable. “The system can’t rehire the 8 million unemployed nor can it absorb the hundreds of thousands of new workers entering the workforce every day. Conditions are going to get worse,” Hales said.

Teresa Gutierrez, co-coordinator of the May 1st Coalition for Workers and Immigrant Rights, stressed the need for unity between Occupy Wall Street and the immigrant rights movement, whose heroic mass marches in 2006 opened the way for the resurgence of working-class struggle in the U.S. “Occupy Wall Street has to not only welcome oppressed peoples,” Gutierrez stated. “They need to push forward their leadership.”

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