Debating Fusion, Elections, Movement-Building and More.

• Position: Labor Party leader Tony Mazzocchi and Working Families Party leader Bob Masters

At the Socialist Scholars Conference on April 11, 1999 in New York City, Labor Party (LP) leader Tony Mazzocchi and Working Families Party (WFP) leader Bob Masters debated the issue of how to build an effective, labor-based, independent party. Masters is the Legislative and Political Director of Communications Workers of America (CWA) District One. Mazzocchi comes out of long years of national leadership of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union.

The WFP was formed in 1998 when a coalition of several unions, ACORN, the New Party and others decided to run City Council President, long-time Democratic Party political boss and Democratic Party Gubernatorial candidate Peter Vallone for Governor on a new Working Families line. New York is one of eight states where candidates can run for office on more than one line. If a new party gets a candidate on the ballot for Governor and then obtains at least 50,000 votes the party can run candidates at all levels for the next four years without having to go through an often-difficult petitioning process.

In the debate below, differences between Labor and Working Families on this tactic and related issues were clearly presented.

Following opening statements from Mazzocchi and Masters explaining the history and perspectives of their respective organizations, questions were put forward by people in the audience.

The first questions dealt with how independent labor activists should relate to the electoral system. Mazzocchi: One of the questions was why didn't the LP support the WFP in the last election. The LP, by virtue of its delegates who were elected to attend the convention [in November, '98] and formulated a position, has decided that the LP will only endorse and support candidates who emerge from the LP running on the LP ticket (applause). That's the policy of the LP. It has nothing to do with denigrating the work of other people.

I've been in the political process the last 50 years. My definition of politics is different. Frankly, if you look at results and what you do, you wouldn't be voting for Democrats. I was the legislative director of my union for 12 years in Washington, DC. Lyndon Johnson was the President, we had a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, we had a proposed occupational will safety and health bill, and we could not get it out of the House Ways and Means Committee. A Democratic President, a Democratic Congress, and we couldn't do it. Richard Nixon gets elected, we get the bill out of committee, we pass it by a large margin of votes.

We bring up pension reform which we couldn't bring up under a Democratic Congress, we get that passed. We bring up the EPA which we couldn't get passed under a Democratic Congress; we got it passed. If you look at legislation we favored, it's been passed by people you wouldn't vote for.

And I'm reminded that the worst thing that's happened to the health care system is the imposition of a proposal by Hillary and Bill Clinton, the corporatization of health care (applause). We don't even know who the lesser of the two evils is anymore. If George Bush had been elected in '92 we wouldn't have had NAFTA, we wouldn't have had GATT, and we wouldn't have had welfare reform, the worst attack on people without, also on the working class, that's occurred in the entire post-war period, including the crime bill. It's not the Gingrich Congress that's been imposing damage when there's a Democratic President and...