Two members of the Socialist Alternative Party spoke yesterday to a group of students about their party's platform and their fight for a $15 minimum wage.
The event, which was hosted by the Tufts Labor Coalition (TLC) and cosponsored by the American Studies and Peace and Justice Studies programs, featured Tim Larkin and Ryan Mosgrove, two grassroots organizers with Socialist Alternative.
"TLC thinks that in defending worker's rights, we also have to question the nature of the system that creates this inequality, lack of dignity and respect for working people," TLC adjunct committee leader LiorAppel-Kraut, a freshman, said. "We want to bring different perspectives to campus on capitalism and alternatives to capitalism."
Larkin began by showing a video of KshamaSawant, a recently-elected socialist member of the Seattle City Council. During the video, Sawant spoke about her desire to work for those who do not earn a living wage and those who are denied basic social services. Larkin explained that her views echoed those of the Socialist Alternative Party which supported Sawant's campaign.
"Marxist analysis sort of begins with a socioeconomic analysis of class relations in a given society and, in this context, it only makes sense to begin the analysis with the point in time when the face of capitalism changed ... and that would be the economic crisis in 2007 and 2008," Larkin said. "At this point we had a massive shockwave in the economy and throughout society which affected all aspects of society and shifted what we know about capitalism to a different state of mind."
During the period of instability which characterized the crisis, people acted in a variety of ways, according to Larkin, who said that the working class was "jarred to a shock" and fought back very little. There were a few movements, however, which highlighted the power of workers, and one was the occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago, he said.
"They shut down the factory and decided to ship things out, violating contract rights and severance," Larkin said. "Workers occupied the factory and they did get that severance."
After a brief lull in protests by workers, Larkin highlighted the occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol building as a turning point.
"The ruling class, in its attempt to shift the costs onto the working people and recover what it lost in the economic crisis while driving down wages and benefits, had turned its attention to the public sector and particularly public sector unions," he said. "Governor [Scott] Walker in Wisconsin was sort of the vanguard of the fight against organized workers in the public sector. Basically, there was this massive bill that virtually wiped public sector unions out."
The unions were handed a loss, and Larkin attributed this to a weakness of the major parties.
"The union leadership essentially handed the struggle to the Democrats," he said. "The Democrats handed it to the Republicans and the Republicans rammed it through. The major lesson from this is that the Democratic Party is not on our side."
The Occupy Wall Street movement was born out of this struggle, Larkin explained, but he said that the protest ultimately failed due to its lack of organization.
"It was a widespread expression of discontent with the status quo of capitalism," Larkin said. "The best part of Occupy was it engaged in radical tactics that were often illegal ... and clearly highlighted social inequality, getting to the heart of the issue with capitalism ... The problem with Occupy was that it was organizationally decentralized."
Given the problems with the Occupy movement, Larkin suggested that it was only able to achieve a symbolic victory. He said, however, that the lessons of previous movements have been used by the Socialist Alternative Party as it selects elections into which to enter candidates.
"It would be best to run against a long term incumbent in a safe district, one with a long record where we could basically just hammer away at their record over and over again," he said. "Such a situation happened in Seattle."
In Seattle, Sawant ran against Washington House of Representatives Speaker Frank Chopp, a Democrat, and ultimately received 29 percent of the vote, a larger portion than previous Republican challengers, according to Larkin.
"The purpose of the election was never really to win it," he said. "The purpose was to use the platform to build radical ideas and radical movements in a grass roots campaign. Having that platform is a very powerful thing and does draw the attention of a lot of working class people."
Mosgrove then spoke about the Socialist Alternative Party's campaign to get a $15 minimum wage across the country.
"Record numbers of people are on economic assistance," he said. "The gap between the rich and poor is larger than it has been since the Great Depression. We have record dissatisfaction with the two major parties."
According to Mosgrove, some corporate CEOs make more than $7,000 an hour, while fighting to keep minimum wage below $10. Increasing the minimum wage is not an issue of affordability, but of fairness to workers, he said, and the Socialist Alternative Party is working to get a $15 minimum wage on various ballots nationwide.
"I think the fight for $15 is an important step to rebuild the movement and lay the groundwork for a socialist alternative," he said. "It's gaining momentum ... The reason is that it's a growing movement is that there's more viability around the demand for $15. People will no longer be satisfied."
