The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.65/No.43            November 12, 2001 
 
 
Socialist in Miami wins support in fight against political firing
(front page)
 
BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS  
MIAMI--"This is an attack on the right of all working people to express their point of view, to think and discuss their ideas and opinions without fear of intimidation or of losing their jobs," said Michael Italie at an October 29 press conference held outside the Goodwill Industries garment manufacturing plant here. Italie, a sewing machine operator and the Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Miami, was fired a week earlier by the Goodwill bosses for his political views. At the well-attended media event Italie described the support he is winning from co-workers, defenders of democratic rights, and others in the fight to reverse the firing.

Goodwill bosses openly say they dismissed Italie for speaking out against the U.S. government's war on the people of Afghanistan and its simultaneous attacks on workers' rights at home during his mayoral campaign. As an article in the October 29 Miami Herald put it, "Of the 10 mayoral candidates, Italie stands alone in supporting the 1959 Cuban revolution and in opposing the war against the Taliban government in Afghanistan."

"We cannot have anyone who is attempting to subvert the United States of America," Goodwill's chief executive officer Dennis Pastrana told the Miami Herald in an interview published October 30. "His political beliefs are those of a communist who would like to destroy private ownership of American enterprises and install a communist regime in the United States."

In a televised interview aired October 30, Pastrana further stated that Goodwill's attorneys had advised him that advocacy of political views is not a protected right for those who work for a private employer.

Goodwill is a major contractor of the U.S. government, producing military uniforms and flags used in burial of U.S. servicemen. The company is viciously antiunion and often pays well below the minimum wage, numerous workers at the plant report. Italie talked about the need to organize a union with his co-workers in order to improve conditions in the plant, win wage increases, and establish a level of dignity for workers on the job.

"Goodwill Industries and other employers don't want workers to be able to discuss, organize, and fight to improve our conditions," Italie said in an interview with the Militant. "This political firing is aimed at my co-workers, and tens of thousands like them in the Miami area who are fighting to defend their unions, or win them for the first time, as they resist the offensive by the employers against our working conditions, wages, and safety on the job."  
 
'Treasonous views'
The socialist candidate blasted statements by Mayor Joseph Carollo to the Miami Herald. Carollo backed Goodwill's decision to fire Italie, and said that he considered the socialist candidate's views to be "treasonous." Carollo added he thought Italie "would have made Benedict Arnold seem like a patriot.'' Benedict Arnold was a general in the American revolutionary war who turned traitor and became a spy for the British.

"The week before my firing," Italie said, "Carollo, myself, and other candidates were speaking at a debate. Carollo twice demanded the moderator prevent me from stating my views about the U.S. government's assault on workers' rights and their brutal imperialist assault on the people of Afghanistan. The moderator refused the mayor's attempt to squash freedom of speech, allowing me to continue to present my views."

"Carollo's actions and statement to the Herald help shed light on the fact that the U.S. ruling class and their political spokespeople do consider opposition to their wars, to employer assaults, to racism, and other outrages of capitalism to be treasonous," Italie noted. "With his statement the mayor takes my firing a big step beyond the action taken by the bosses at Goodwill. Carollo too is threatening workers' rights.

"Workers and farmers have fought since the American Revolution for the right to speak our views and even advocate a revolutionary change in government as a right under the U.S. constitution," Italie said. "This is how the Bill of Rights--including the freedom of speech and expression--became enshrined in the constitution. Workers and farmers have fought and shed their blood defending these liberties and attempts by the capitalists and their government to roll them back."

Italie pointed out that the SWP took the government to court in 1973 in what became a 15-year battle against FBI and secret police harassment, spying, and disruption targeting the party. In the end, a federal judge ruled the SWP's advocacy of the need to replace the capitalist government with one of workers and farmers to be constitutionally protected activity.

The garment worker urged other candidates for mayor, whether or not they opposed the firing or agreed with Italie's views, to condemn the mayor's attack and urge Carollo to withdraw his statement.  
 
Attempt to keep co-workers away
Italie and his supporters scheduled the news conference to coincide with the end of the workday in order to talk with as many co-workers as possible. In one news spot covering the press conference, TV Channel 4 showed a CBS reporter approaching the gate of the Goodwill plant only to find it shut down. A security guard told CBS that the company was not allowing any media into the plant.

It turned out that the company halted production at the plant and sent all 400 workers home two hours early, with full pay, to try to prevent them from meeting and talking with Italie or the press. According to several workers interviewed by the Militant, bosses told workers to punch out at 3:00 p.m. rather than the 4:30 p.m. regular ending time because "Mike the communist would be out there talking to the media." They were also told by the company that no one was to stay outside to wait for the press conference.

"This is an attempt to silence Mike and cut him off from his co-workers," Sydney Royal, a retired health service worker who is African American and a supporter of Italie's campaign, told the press at the October 29 news conference. "This can backfire. Many will identify this firing as an attempt at thought control."

Outside the plant gate the next day, nearly 70 workers took campaign literature from Italie, including a fact sheet on his firing, and some purchased copies of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial. A number of co-workers smiled at seeing Italie there and wished him success in his fight against the firing. Only one employee told others to stay away from the socialists, without much success.

In discussions with the socialist candidate, a number of workers agreed with Italie that the company's decision to fire him is part of the intensified assault by the ruling class on workers' rights. Italie pledged to continue the fight to protest his firing, regardless of whether he can mount a legal challenge, "just like public workers in Minnesota went on strike despite being told by the governor there they were unpatriotic, and despite the governor using the National Guard to undermine their fight."

Italie is campaigning for a shorter workweek without a cut in pay and for a massive government-funded public works program to build housing, schools, hospitals, and other much needed infrastructure in order to create jobs. He calls for a substantial increase in the minimum wage and other affirmative action measures. The socialist candidate demands full cost-of-living protection in wages and retirement benefits to protect working people from inflation, and government-guaranteed lifetime health, pension, and disability benefits for all.

The socialist candidate is discussing with fellow workers the need to demand a halt to farm foreclosures, and having the government guarantee cheap credit and a living income for small farmers. His campaign also calls for cancellation of the foreign debt of the semicolonial countries and for lifting all tariffs and other obstacles to trade and travel erected by the U.S. rulers, including those in Miami. Italie's main campaign brochure states that these demands are aimed at building solidarity and to unite workers and farmers internationally.

"These demands cannot be won in Miami alone," Italie said. "They are part of building a revolutionary movement to take power out of the hands of the capitalists, to establish a workers and farmers government, and to join the worldwide struggle for socialism."

As part of the fight to reverse the firing and defend workers' rights, Italie has filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union charging that Goodwill violated his right to freedom of speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment. ACLU local president Lida Rodriguez-Taseff told the press the civil liberties organization is looking into the matter. "If it is determined that Goodwill gets government funding, he might have a case," she stated.

Italie's October 29 press conference, attended by reporters from local CBS and Univision affiliates along with the Miami Herald, received wide media coverage here. The next day, a reporter from the local NBC TV channel interviewed Italie at his campaign headquarters, which shares space with the Pathfinder bookstore in Miami's Little Haiti. Other television stations picked up stories on the news conference. The local affiliate of National Public Radio and other radio stations have also covered the story.  
 
Italie wins support
"Veye Yo, a longtime grassroots organization, denounces the unjust firing of Socialist Worker Michael Italie for his democratic views on the war against Afghanistan," said Tony Jeanthenor, a leader of the Haitian rights organization, in a statement distributed to the press October 29. "This terror against workers' rights must be stopped or someone must come out and tell the world that there is martial law in the U.S. and the democratic rights of everyone are suspended."

Danny Couch, deacon in the Church of the Body of Jesus Christ and the only African American among the 10 candidates in Miami's mayoral race, also sent a statement. "I support your effort to freely speak your beliefs and to exercise your rights as an American," Couch wrote to Italie. "As an African American I know all too well what you are going through and I must, as you must, continue to fight for your self-respect."

Two youth who took part in an October 18 mayoral debate at Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC) and have become supporters of Italie's campaign also attended the news conference and brought handmade signs reading: "Defend workers' rights! Protest the firing of Mike Italie." It was after that event, which received media coverage, that supervisors began inquiring about Italie's campaign and what seemed to have sparked his firing.

"The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives us the right to think and feel what we will," said Heather Page, 19, one of these youth who spoke at the October 29 news conference.

"It's unjust to fire someone for their political beliefs," said Aldo Nahem, 24, who is a student at MDCC and was assigned to cover the October 18 mayoral debate for the campus student newspaper Metropolis. He also took part in the press conference outside the Goodwill plant. "Fighting this firing is part of the struggle to change society."

Since the firing, Italie has received numerous invitations for campaign speaking engagements.

He spoke at a philosophy class at Florida International University (FIU) South campus October 30. Other engagements include a candidate's forum at the Martin Luther King Center and a presentation to a class at MDCC's North campus October 31, and another candidate's debate sponsored by a number of organizations in the Black community November 1.

The Militant Labor Forum will host a speakout against Italie's firing November 3. The panel of speakers include Tony Jeanthenor of Veye Yo, Ramón Gómez representing the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba, Heather Page, and Michelle Beer, a philosophy professor at FIU South.

Argiris Malapanis is a meat packer in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
 
 
Related articles:
Fight political firing in Miami
Vote Socialist Workers
'This is an attack on all workers,' socialist candidate for mayor of Miami tells press
 
 
 
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