By the WORKERS VOICE FUND RAISING TEAM
Supporters of Workers’ Voice have enabled us to greatly exceed our Summer Fund Drive goal of $10,000! We decided to build on this success by extending the drive to Sept. 30 in order to raise an additional $4000. Indeed, in the first few days of September, an outpouring of new contributions arrived, pushing us to over $12,500. We are grateful for all of the contributions so far. Thank you!
• The additional $4000 will help secure travel costs and other expenses for a major ecosocialism conference on Saturday, Nov. 11, at the Bregamos Community Theater in New Haven, Conn. Our fourth “Solution is socialism” conference will feature Marxist intellectuals, revolutionary trade unionists, local activists, and international guests to discuss effective methods to deal with the worldwide climate and environmental crisis from the socialist point of view. The conference will feature Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, a professor whose theoretical work draws liberally from the Black radical tradition and contemporary social science. Táíwò is the author of “Elite Capture” and “Reconsidering Reparations.”
The November conference will also feature Cleber Rabelo, a union construction worker and leading member of the Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado from Belem, Brazil, who has organized with Indigenous communities in the Amazon to stop the extractivist expansion of oil company Petrobas.
Our goal for “The Solution is Socialism” this year is to distribute more than 10,000 leaflets, put up more than 2000 posters around New England and the Mid-Atlantic region, and have radio and social media advertisements. A $1000 donation can ensure that we have enough funding to properly advertise this event.
• We will also use the additional funding to send Workers’ Voice representatives to report on strikes and picket lines in different parts of the country. The UAW contract negotiations and potential strike at the Big Three auto manufacturers will present a unique opportunity to build solidarity with on-the-spot reporting, as well as with an online solidarity meeting that will bring together autoworkers from Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. $500 will help cover the costs to send one of our members for on the ground reporting in Detroit.
• In subsequent months, Workers’ Voice will be preparing for our second National Congress. To accompany the Congress, we will look to host a big public meeting in the San Francisco Bay Area that will feature international guest speakers as well as members from around the country who are leading important work around the labor movement, the environmental crisis, Ukraine solidarity, immigrant rights, and more. To make this mass meeting a success, we will need to distribute thousands of leaflets and posters; $250 will allow us to hand out thousands of leaflets in the Bay Area.
As always, if you value the work that we do and feel the same sense of urgency to build a working-class socialist voice, please join us in building Workers’ Voice through our 2023 Summer Fund Drive.