Candidate for Representative in U.S. Congress
District 12, Michigan
Gary Walkowicz has worked for four decades at Ford, elected by his fellow workers to various positions in the local union. He is known as someone who always stood up against auto company demands to push workers backwards, and he helped organize opposition to contracts demanding concessions from the workers, including the one in 2009 that was voted down.
He was nominated for president of the UAW International at the 2010 and 2014 UAW Conventions, running against the top officials who had pushed concessions on auto workers.
Gary explained his goal: "I didn't have any illusions I would win at the Convention, but running was a way to give a voice to the UAW membership, to the thousands of workers who do not agree to go on paying the cost for the bosses' crisis."
It's exactly the same situation in the U.S. elections, where normally the working class has no voice. That's why in 2014 Gary was part of a slate of five candidates, whose slogans were: "For a Working Class Fight, for a Working Class Policy."
Nearly 17,000 people voted for four of these candidates, and another 15,000 for the fifth person, who was uncontested. Despite the fact they were running as "non-party" candidates, without a party name on the ballot, they got a hearing, and their joint candidacies let the working class have a voice.
Based on the results in 2014, Gary and the other four candidates, along with many of their supporters, decided to do the work to put Working Class Party on the ballot.
The 50,000 people who signed their petitions to get on the ballot attest to this fact: in the working class there are people who understand that the working class needs its own party.
