Working Class Party

The Working Class Party is a party with ballot status based in Detroit, Michigan.^[1] The Working Class Party competed in the 2016 Michigan election, presenting three candidates. It has filed to present 11 candidates in the 2018 election, five for the U.S. Congress, two for the Michigan , and four for the Michigan Senate.^[2]

Other candidates who shared many of the same ideas as the Working Class Party appeared as "non-partisan" (independent) candidates on the ballot in Chicago in 2015; in Baltimore in 2016; and in Los Angeles in 2018.^{[3] [4] [5]}

History

The party could be traced back to an agitational campaign carried out by people around the Trotskyist newspaper, The Spark between 2011 and 2013.^[6] That campaign focused on the need for the working class to organize independently. Five of the people active in that campaign ran for office in 2014 (although they were on the ballot as non-party candidates). The candidates ran for Congress, for Dearborn School Board and for the Wayne County Community College Trustee. The latter was elected due to his only opponent, the Democratic incumbent, being disqualified before the election.^[7]

Despite the harsh ballot access laws in Michigan, the people active in the 2014 campaign managed to put a party on the ballot in 2016. With several dozen others joining the voluntary effort, they turned in more than the required 31,566 petition signatures. In the end they turned in more than 50,000^{[8] [9]}. The Working Class Party fielded two candidates for Congress and one for the State Board of Education in Michigan.

Their candidate for the State Board of Education polled many more than the votes needed for the Working Class Party to retain ballot status in the Michigan 2018 elections. ^[10][11]

Similar campaigns in other states included for alderman in Chicago in the 25th ward. Candidate Ed Hershey received 614 votes (8.23%)^[12]. In 2016, David Harding was on the ballot for Baltimore's City Council elections, running in the 14th district. He received 1,426 votes, (8.3%)^[13]. In 2018, Juan Rey ran as a candidate in California's 29th congressional district for the U.S. House of Representatives. He received 944 votes (1.45%)^[14].

In the 2018 midterm elections the Working Class Party is running eleven candidates in Michigan: five for the U.S. House, four for the Michigan state senate and two statewide candidates for the Michigan State Board of Education. Most candidates are fielded in districts in and around Detroit, but the party is also contesting districts in Grand Rapids and Saginaw^[15].

Ideology

Despite being supported by the Trotskyist newspaper, The Spark, the Working Class Party itself is not openly Marxist. The party does place itself historically in the tradition of Eugene V. Debs, the IWW and the movement for the labor party. ^{[16] [17]}

The following statement was adopted by the Working Class Party Convention, September 24, 2017 as a “Preamble” to its By-laws.

Most of us work for our living – or can’t find work, or are retired from work, or work taking care of the children who must work tomorrow. We are part of one class, the working class.

But we have no party of our own, no party that proposes answers to this country’s problems that could serve the class interests of working people. The two big parties basically represent and serve the needs and desires of the capitalist class: the bankers, corporate tycoons, financial and real estate speculators.

We are convinced that the working class must have its own party.

We know that elections cannot overcome the massive problems we face. Only our struggles and mobilizations can do that. Nonetheless, by keeping Working Class Party on the ballot, we can give working people a way to express their desire to have a party that represents their own class. And this could lay the groundwork for a real party to take root in the working class.

Finally, we are profoundly convinced that racism of all kinds is a cancer nourished inside the working class by our enemies, aimed at weakening the working class. We must use whatever influence we have to oppose all those abusive ideas that would divide us. We need all our forces standing together, even just to defend ourselves.^[18]

The party espouses broadly leftist positions such as: putting an end to unemployment^[19] and stopping the decline of pensions and social security.^[20] They call for workers to look into the books of businesses. ^[21] They call for the unity of workers against the divide created by the bosses.^[22]

Election results

See also

• Spark (U.S. organization)

External links

• The Working Class Party has no website of its own, but many of its leaflets and statements can be found on the independent website www.workingclassfight.com.
• The Working Class Party email address is: contact@workingclassparty.org.

References