The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 69/No. 25           July 4, 2005  
 
 
Pittsburgh Socialist Workers candidate for mayor:
‘I won’t sign loyalty oath’
SWP offers working-class alternative to capitalist parties
(front page)
 
BY TONY LANE  
PITTSBURGH— “The loyalty oath the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Allegheny County require candidates to swear to is flagrantly unconstitutional,” said Jay Ressler in a statement released June 17. A coal miner and member of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), Ressler is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh. The oath “is a danger to the political rights of the working class and the majority of the people in Pennsylvania.”

“I will not sign the loyalty oath,” Ressler said. “And we’re determined to ensure that anyone who chooses to pull the lever for the SWP’s mayoral candidate in November will be able to do so.”

The next day supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign here began a petition drive to collect at least 3,000 signatures—three times the city requirement—to place Ressler on the ballot. More than 1,200 were collected the first weekend.

Word has started to get around here that a union man who is a coal miner is campaigning for mayor on the SWP ticket. On Sunday, the second day of petitioning, a number of people indicated they had heard about the campaign. “If it’s for that coal miner, I’ve signed already,” several said.  
 
‘If he’s for unions, I’ll sign’
“If he’s for unions, you don’t need to say any more,” said another worker. “I’ll sign.”

The SWP candidate is campaigning to support workers’ struggles to organize trade unions and mobilize union power to resist the bosses’ “productivity” assault on wages and working conditions. Ressler is helping to organize solidarity in Western Pennsylvania with coal miners in Utah who are fighting to win union representation by the UMWA at the Co-Op mine (see front-page article). He is also working with others across the country to turn back a lawsuit filed by the mine owners against the Co-Op miners, the UMWA, and newspapers that have covered their fight and given it editorial support.

Ressler is speaking out against the drive by Washington and its allies to prevent nations oppressed by imperialism from developing nuclear power and other energy sources needed to expand electrification—a necessity for economic and social advances.

“And we are getting a hearing,” Ressler said, “when we explain the need to build a revolutionary movement that will organize working people to take power out of the hands of the billionaire ruling class, establish a workers and farmers government, and join the worldwide struggle for socialism. Fighting the loyalty oath is a step along that road.”  
 
McCarthy-era law
Candidates collecting nominating petitions in Pittsburgh this year are required to sign a sworn statement that they are not a “subversive person,” as defined in the Pennsylvania Loyalty Act, a 1951 state law. If the propertied families in Pennsylvania get away with reimposing a McCarthy-era “loyalty standard” on candidates for public office, Ressler emphasized, it won’t stop there.

“They’ll be emboldened to impugn the ‘loyalty’ of workers fighting to organize unions to defend our living standards and job conditions,” he said.

Opposing a revived “loyalty program,” the socialist candidate said, is “part of resisting the push for expanded FBI and cop spying and disruption. It’s part of fighting government efforts to renew the undemocratic ‘Patriot Act.’ To tighten the borders and target the foreign born. To increase ‘pat downs’ and ‘no-fly lists’ at airports. And to impose a national ID card each of us will have to keep on us at all times.”

“People we talked to while campaigning were surprised and appalled to find out that Pennsylvania officials require a loyalty oath,” SWP campaign manager Brian Taylor told the Militant. Taylor is also a coal miner and member of the UMWA. Petitioning volunteers distributed Ressler’s statement while collecting signatures, along with the SWP campaign platform. “Several wondered aloud, ‘Who decides who is subversive?’” Two Green Party members offered Ressler their support in fighting the loyalty oath, Taylor reported.

Noted constitutional attorney Michael Krinsky, of the New York law firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky and Lieberman, who is the SWP’s general counsel, represents the party’s Pittsburgh campaign in this case. “So-called loyalty oaths exclude on the basis of political beliefs, not unlawful conduct, and have been rightly condemned by the courts,” Krinsky said. “They are particularly objectionable in the electoral context, as they compromise the people’s fundamental right to hear and vote for whoever they want.”  
 
Messages of support
Ressler is calling on unionists, political activists, and all supporters of civil liberties to support striking down the unconstitutional loyalty oath and to send letters stating their views to the Allegheny County board of elections with a copy to the state board in Harrisburg. The Political Rights Defense Fund (PRDF) is backing the effort.

On June 22, nine coal miners at 84 Mining who are members of UMWA Local 1197 signed a statement opposing the requirement that Ressler or other candidates sign the loyalty oath. The oath “is designed to intimidate and deter union fighters, activists for social justice and others from participating in politics,” the statement said. “This affront to democratic and constitutional rights should be thrown out immediately.”

Messages can be sent to: Allegheny County Board of Elections, 604 County Office Building, 542 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15219; and to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of State, Bureau of Commissions, Elections & Legislation, 305 North Office Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120.

The SWP campaign is asking that copies be sent to the Socialist Workers mayoral campaign at: 5907 Penn Ave., Suite 225, Pittsburgh, PA 15206. E-mail: pittsburghswp@netscape.com

Funds are also urgently needed for legal costs to combat the loyalty oath. Contributions are tax deductible and can be sent to PRDF, P.O. Box 761, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10007, earmarked Pennsylvania loyalty oath fight.
 
 
Related articles:
Socialists launch ballot drive in Seattle  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home