Vol. 80/No. 42      November 7, 2016

 

SWP candidate: ‘Defend Sioux tribe’s treaty rights’

 
David Rosenfeld, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Congress in Minneapolis, visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation as part of a solidarity delegation Oct. 14-16. Below are excerpts of a message he released.

The Socialist Workers Party supports the fight of the Standing Rock Sioux to defend their sovereign treaty rights against the U.S. government. The support of hundreds of tribes and First Nations for the Standing Rock Sioux is a response to the assaults and degradation suffered by indigenous peoples throughout the Americas.

The bosses and some union officials say that union workers should support the pipeline and oppose the treaty rights of Native Americans because the project creates jobs. This argument is false to the core. We must fight for jobs, but not in a way that strikes a dagger into the heart of working-class unity. Workers need housing, schools, health care. Billions of people around the world need access to electricity. Instead of supporting rapacious capitalists — like Energy Transfer Partners — our unions, together with Native Americans and other workers, should be fighting for a massive public works program to create millions of jobs at union scale wages.

Ensuring safe conditions in the production and transportation of oil, gas and coal can only be achieved by working people wresting control over safety and working conditions out of the hands of the bosses as we fight to strengthen our unions. Then we can provide protection to workers and communities. We can prevent profit-driven capitalists from contaminating the land, air and water.

As we fight to transform the twisted social relations of the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism, we will change ourselves into a working class capable of reorganizing society on the basis of human solidarity. In that spirit, we say, stand with Standing Rock!
 
 
Related articles:
Standing Rock Sioux defend their water, win solidarity
 
 
 
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