Vol. 72/No. 39      October 6, 2008

At Borough of Manhattan Community College Professor Chuck Mohan invited Kennedy to speak to three of his classes. Dan Fein and Ben Joyce, SWP congressional candidates in the 10th and 7th Districts, respectively, also participated.

“How would legalization work?” asked one student.

“We say that any worker who comes here can work and live without fear of raids or deportation,” Kennedy said. “Legalization would put all workers in a better position to fight.”

“How will your proposal to shorten the workweek with no cut in pay help the economy?” asked another student.

“Our starting point is not helping the capitalist economy,” Kennedy responded, “but protecting the working class from devastation. We call for a public works program to provide millions of jobs at union-scale wages.”

“If elected, would you sign the various international trade agreements?” Kennedy was asked when she addressed a class at Hunter College. She was invited to speak by Professor Greg Morris.

“These trade agreements exist to maintain the stranglehold of the imperialist powers over the world economy,” Kennedy said.

“When we are elected, we will eliminate all tariffs aimed against nations oppressed by imperialism, and cancel the Third World debt to U.S. banks.

Campaign supporter Harry D’Agostino invited Kennedy to speak at his school, Elisabeth Irwin High School. Sixteen students and several faculty came after school to hear Kennedy, who took up the ongoing attack on public education. Kennedy noted that she learned while campaigning in New Orleans that only five public schools had been reopened and that many were being opened as charter schools.

“It’s also an attack on the unions,” a history teacher said. “Charter schools are a growing problem in New York, too.”

Kennedy spoke along with D’Agostino and Martín Koppel, Socialist Workers candidate for Congress in the 15th District, at a campaign rally here September 19. The meeting opened with the airing of a five-minute interview Kennedy had done earlier that day with WBAI radio on the financial crisis.

D’Agostino told the audience that a construction worker, Yuri Vanchytskyy, fell to his death near his school as many of his classmates looked on. “I never again want to hear a capitalist politician say that a worker’s death on the job is a fact of life,” he said. “I support the SWP campaign because it puts working people and their lives first.

Kennedy joined the picket line at the Stella D’Oro bakery in the Bronx (see story on page 5) and also campaigned outside Brooks Brothers tie factory in Queens, where she had once worked as a sewing machine operator.

She and Fein also visited Greenfield Clothiers, where they walked through the plant at lunchtime talking with workers, several of whom took their pictures with the vice presidential candidate.
 
 
Related articles:
Calero visits workers hit by Ike
Kennedy meets day laborers in New Jersey
Calero discusses U.S. financial crisis with students  
 
 
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