There was a time, when labor’s leaders realized the dangers inherent with socialism—and later, communism. Apparently, those days are long gone.
The following paragraph is a quoted from the socialist-run Workers World:
A coalition of activists from Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST), Workers World Party, Students for Appalachian Socialism, the Jewel City Solidarity Network and Service Employees union Local 32BJ held a public meeting on March 25 to kick off a “Fight for 15 at Marshall University!” campaign. The meeting was attended by campus workers, faculty, students and community supporters, who received the coalition’s message with enthusiasm and support. Attendees signed petitions that will be hand-delivered to the university administration. The goal of the meeting was to begin to build a mass movement to force the university to accept the coalition’s list of demands. [Emphasis added.]
You can read the coalition’s list of “demands” here.
It is worth noting, however, that the allies of the SEIU are not merely fighting for higher wages—they are fighting for a socialist society where, in the case of the Workers World Party, “the wealth is socially owned and production is planned to satisfy human need.”
Here is the list of the SEIU’s Appalachian “allies”:
FIST (Fight Imperialism – Stand Together) is a self-described group of “national group of young revolutionaries.”
On its website, FIST states, “We believe that the only way to achieve true liberation for all peoples throughout the world is through socialism.”
On their website, the Students for Appalachian Socialism (SAS), state:
Our vision of socialism is a society ruled from the bottom up, a society that’s single moral is ‘people before profit.’ With this virtue, we are not ashamed to admit our goals and aims for a just and egalitarian world. Che Guevara once said that “The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.” That being noted, we will dare to struggle for socialism. [Emphasis added.]
The group’s Facebook page boasts of 284 “likes” and on Tuesday posted the following questions:
While appearing to be less “revolutionary” than the young “revolutionaries” of FIST, the Jewel City Solidarity Network is, according to its Facebook page:
…an all-volunteer mutual support network In Huntington, WV that uses collective direct action to fight employers and landlords who are pocketing our wages, refusing repairs, stealing deposits, or otherwise cheating or abusing one or more of us.
One must wonder if, by teaming up with these groups, the SEIU is aware of its allies’ goals to end private property rights (e.g., the means of production) and, if so, whether the SEIU supports those same goals.
One thing is clear: Today’s union leaders are nothing like those whom they followed…
would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.”
Samuel Gompers, 1918
