The Workers World Party and its newspaper, Workers World, was sued for defamation a few months ago. The party’s newspaper had run an article on February 23, 2006, titled “WCI Steel Bankruptcy Robs Workers’ Pensions”. The article explained that Renco owned a steel plant in Warren, Ohio, that Renco had filed for bankruptcy, and that its planned reorganization plan threatened pensions for steel workers. The lawsuit claims that the use of the verb “rob” constitutes defamation. The case is Renco Group v Workers World Party, New York Supreme Court, Manhatten, 102875-06.

Workers World is the second Marxist party to be sued for defamation for reporting on disputes between labor and management. The Socialist Workers Party newspaper, The Militant, had been sued for defamation by the owners of a coal mine in 2004, but that case was recently dropped.

On June 5, the Working Families Party turned in 20,000 signatures to the Oregon Secretary of State, so as to qualify as a political party. The state requires 18,381, so there probably aren’t enough valid signatures yet. But the state will check the signatures and tell the party how many more are needed.

The party has no plans to run a candidate for statewide office this year (Governor is the only statewide office up), but may run for a few legislative and county offices. Within a year, the party will need to boost its registration up to one-half of 1% of the state total, in order to stay on the ballot (since it will not have polled 1% for any statewide race in 2006, since it won’t run for Governor).

The Massachusetts Republicans running for State Treasurer and State Auditor have both failed to gather enough valid signatures to win a place on the primary ballot. Therefore, the party will not have any nominees for those two offices. They each needed 5,000 signatures of registered Republicans or registered independents. Massachusetts ballot access for primary elections is very difficult, yet for some reason the press in Massachusetts never discusses this point.