The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 69/No. 27           July 18, 2005  
 
 
Seattle socialist candidate joins
cement workers at union rally
(front page)
 
Militant/David Rosenfeld
Chris Hoeppner (right), Socialist Workers candidate for Seattle mayor, speaks at June 30 union rally with Ken Miller, a leader of fight at Ash Grove Cement to win representation by International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

BY DAVID ROSENFELD  
SEATTLE—Campaigning at a June 30 rally in support of a union-organizing drive at Ash Grove Cement, Socialist Workers Party mayoral candidate Chris Hoeppner was warmly received by many workers here.

Ash Grove workers are voting July 6 on representation with International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 19. Some 60 supporters of the cement workers, many of them longshore workers from the nearby docks, rallied at the plant to protest the company’s anti-union moves leading up to the union vote.

Hoeppner, a packinghouse worker, discussed with fellow unionists at the rally the significance of job actions in recent years by truck drivers at Atlantic, Gulf Coast, and Western ports, which pose sharply the need for unions. A central point of the Socialist Workers campaign platform is the need to organize unions and to use and extend union power to defend working people from the bosses’ assaults.

After the rally, Hoeppner and Ken Miller, a 13-year employee at Ash Grove who is helping to lead the union-organizing drive, spoke about this fight and other labor battles. Miller told the socialist candidate that “dignity and safety are the biggest issues on the job.”

Hoeppner pointed to the example of ILWU Local 19, based at the Port of Seattle, which helped organize two tours by striking Utah coal miners who are fighting for representation by the United Mine Workers of America. He also highlighted the successful organizing drive by cannery workers at the Snokist plant in Yakima, Washington, as a fight deserving labor solidarity.

Earlier in the week, the socialist candidate spoke on a panel at a fund-raising program for Seattle youth attending the World Festival of Youth and Students in Venezuela in August.

Hoeppner has filed for exemption from publicly disclosing the names of financial contributors to the campaign. The Seattle Ethics and Election Commission (SEEC) has granted the SWP’s request for an expedited hearing on this issue, setting it for July 14. The party is fighting to regain a campaign disclosure exemption in Seattle, which the SEEC denied it in 1997.
 
 
Related articles:
Pittsburgh socialist campaign reaches miners  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home