Socialist City Council member Sawant vows to fight for working class



SEATTLE -- She is a well-known Seattle-area activist who has spent a lot of time trying to change things from the outside.

Now she's on the inside.



She has a seat at the table where decisions are made and today she made it clear she will be the voice of the voiceless.

"This city has made glittering fortunes for the super wealthy and for the major corporations that dominate Seattle`s landscape. At the same time, the lives of working people, the unemployed and the poor grow more difficult by the day. This is not unique to Seattle. Shamefully, in this, the richest country in human history, fifty million of our people; one in six live in poverty,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant said.

Sawant is a community activist.

She knows how to organize and to motivate. To begin to change all of this, we need organized mass movements of workers and young people, relying on their own independent strength. That is how we won unions, civil rights and LGBTQ rights,” Sawant said.

She told the crowd she is ready to do her part.

"I will do my utmost to represent the disenfranchised and the excluded, the poor and the oppressed - by fighting for a $15/hour minimum wage, affordable housing, and taxing the super-rich for a massive expansion of public transit and education and let me make one thing absolutely clear; There will be no backroom deals with corporations... There will be no backroom deals with corporations or their political servants. There will be no rotten sell-out of the people I represent,” Sawant said.

Sawant promised to fight for a 15 dollar minimum wage, affordable housing and healthcare, but told her constituents she can’t do it alone.

She encouraged them to organize and participate in a mass movement. She even called for a new political party, an organization of the working class, run by and accountable to themselves.