Dan Cantor

Dan Cantor

Template:TOCnestleft Dan Cantor is Director of the New York Working Families Party.

DSA collaboration

In 1987, Dan Cantor and Juliet Schor, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, co-wrote "Tunnel Vision:Labor and the World Economy, and Central America (South End Press).

New Party founders

The first strategic meetings to plan the New Party were held in Joel Rogers' home in Madison Wisconsin in the very early 1990s. Present were Rogers' wife Sarah Siskind, Dan Cantor, ACORN leaders , Wade Rathke ,Zach Polett , Steve Kest and Jon Kest , Steve Cobble from the Institute for Policy Studies (in an advisory role), Sandy Morales Pope (for the first 18 months), Harriet Barlow and Barbara Dudley.

The very first meeting included Gerry Hudson from Democratic Socialists of America and SEIU and Gary Delgado, plus labor activists Sam Pizzigati and Tony Mazzocchi. Anthony Thigpenn of Los Angeles was also approached, but though supportive did not wish to play a leadership role.

Chicago connection

In May 1992 Dan Cantor held a New Party fund raising meeting in the Chicago home of Quentin Young, "with half a dozen good people present".

Working Families Party

Working Families Party officers in 2009 included;

• Jon Kest, who runs day-to-day operations for ACORN is the WFP secretary.

• Bertha Lewis, a WFP co-chair and the executive director of ACORN’s New York offices.

• Bob Master, who serves as party co-chair and the political director of the Communications Workers of America.

• Mike McGuire, resigned as WFP treasurer in August 2009.

• Dorothy Siegel, replacement Treasurer. Siegel is the chair of the Working Families Party South Brooklyn Club and is already the treasurer of the Working Families Organization, one of the many additional affiliates of the WFP. Siegel is employed at the Institute for Education and Social Policy at New York University.

• Sam Williams.

In 2009 Non-voting assistant secretaries were;

• Alex Rabb, WFP staffer.

• Dan Cantor, WFP executive director and co-chair .

WFP spokesman is Dan Levitan.

YDS conference

On the weekend of March 5-7, 2010 over a hundred young radicals from around the country Manhattan for the Young Democratic Socialists’ 2010 national conference, Democratic Socialism: REAL Change for a Change.

Dan Cantor spoke about the Working Families Party of New York as a “unique and powerful way to make non-violent change.” Cantor stated that if one “really wants power one has to scare, not influence, the influentials.” He also emphasised that there are “no shortcuts to doing the work that we do.”

References

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