2017 is not an election year in Michigan on the state level. But that doesn't mean that there is nothing that can be done. Maybe we can't campaign for candidates. But we can campaign for the idea that working people need our own party.
In fact, some of us have been doing this at places like Eastern Market in Detroit or the Labor Day festival in Hamtramck. In Hamtramck, we had a booth, and we had a leaflet with us, but we weren't aiming to plaster the streets with the leaflet. We wanted to give it to people who were ready to talk.
The leaflet is two sided. The first side , with a photograph of the three candidates from last year, is written in the form of a letter that the three candidates signed. This letter gives a sense of how we did in the 2016 election and how it was important that we did this work – and also that we intend to continue.
The second side is a simple statement of why the working class needs its own party and what a working class party would do differently.
Anyone here can take a few leaflets just to talk to people you know in the next number of months – raising the idea that workers need their own party. Give them a few for the people they know.
Also, we have some Working Class Party buttons, and if you know people who would wear one, people who agree with the idea that the working class needs its own party, purchase a few, only a dollar donation, and have them pay you back. When people see the button, it raises this idea that workers need their own party.
I know most of the people sitting here have talked to people they know. And those people have talked to other people they know. This is important. And we need to continue to do so. That's how the working class organizes.
Keep in mind that next year, 2018, a Michigan state election year, we can run candidates. And assuming we do, we will identify a block of time in the spring where we will make an intensive campaign for the new candidates of WCP.
Then, beginning Labor Day weekend, 2018, we will make an all-out effort to really launch our campaign – and continue to campaign up until the elections in November.
As we say in the leaflet, The working class needs its own publicists, its own agitators, its own speakers, its own organizers.
That's us sitting right here in this room. We can be the beginning.
September 24, 2017