JANUARY 26, 1979 50 CENTS VOLUME 43/NUMBER 3

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY /PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE Ex-agent exposes gov'llies about FBI informers By Larry Seigle JAN. 17-A vast conspiracy to cover up crimes of FBI informers has begun to unravel. M. Wesley Swearingen, a recently retired FBI agent, has provided evi­ dence that the number two man in the FBI gave false information under oath in the Socialist Workers Party lawsuit against the government. The fabricated testimony is the foun­ IRAN: dation on which the Carter adminis­ tration has based its refusal to turn over files on the activities of eighteen FBI informer-provocateurs used What against the SWP and the Young So­ cialist Alliance. Carter's attorney general, Griffin way Bell, has even gone to the unprece­ dented length of placing himself in contempt of court rather than hand over these files. forward? At this very moment, a federal court of appeals is deciding whether to sus­ tain the contempt citation against Continued on page 6 TEHRAN-Demonstrators celebrate shah's flight by pul­ ling down statue of his father. See page 4. Joseph Hansen dies in New York NEW YORK, Jan. 18- in New York City. It will be Joseph Hansen (1910-1979), held at Manhattan's Marc Ball­ longtime leader of the Fourth room, 27 Union Square West International and the Socialist (between Fifteenth and Six­ Workers Party, died here today. teenth streets). Messages to the Hansen, who joined the Trot­ meeting should be sent in care skyist movement in 1934, was of the Militant, 14 Charles editor of the weekly socialist Lane, New York, New York magazine, Intercontinental 10014. Press, and a former editor of the Militant. He served in Mex­ Next week's Militant will ico as secretary to Leon Trot­ carry more on the life of this sky. outstanding leader in the fight A memorial meeting has for the emancipation of work­ been scheduled for Hansen at ing people and the oppressed 3:00 p.m., Sunday, January 28, throughout the world. JOSEPH HANSEN (1910-1979) In Our Opinion VOLUME 43/NUMBER 3 JAN. 26, 1979 CLOSING NEWS DATE-JAN. 17

"new realities" of a crisis-wracked world capi­ forced Margaret Costanza to resign as his talist economy, austerity and an across-the­ special assistant on women's affairs. board attack on the needs of working people Carter had created the advisory committee are the bipartisan response. to appear responsive to issues raised at the Under the guise of fighting inflation, Carter 15,000-strong National Women's Conference in calls for a 7 percent limit on wage increases-a Houston in 1977. ceiling that will ensure the decline of workers' The committee had been scheduled to meet purchasing power. with Carter last November. But the presiden­ Carter's ~new era' Workers who resist having their real wages tial appointees canceled that meeting in pro­ The Democratic Party has long posed as the cut will have to face the power of the federal test when they discovered Carter was only party of progressive reform, the party of the government. Thus, Carter declared January allotting them fifteen minutes. poor, the oppressed, and working people gener­ 15, "I can't think of anything more damaging After the January 12 meeting, the adminis­ ally. The performance never matched the to the economy than a sustained Teamsters' tration said Abzug was fired because she campaign rhetoric, of course, but now it seems strike." Should such a strike occur, Carter "attempted to lecture the president." (That's we aren't even going to get the promises. promised that "either I or the Congress would White House-ese for "uppity.") Stuart Eizenstat, Carter's chief domestic have to act very rapidly" to break it. Actually, Abzug had emerged to tell repor­ adviser and touted as the arch-liberal of the At the same time, Carter is pushing ahead ters that the meeting had been "very satisfac­ White House, warned in a January 4 speech with his inflationary plan to boost domestic oil tory," praising Carter for being "very generous against clinging to "past memories of a by­ prices to the world market level. This will be a with his time." gone time that cannot be repeated." The Demo­ bonanza for the energy corporations, and .But Abzug and other committee members cratic Party, he said, must reshape its "tradi­ another painful blow to the American people. face the same dilemma as the current mislead­ tional beliefs and commitments" to conform to When it comes to enriching the giant corpo­ ers of the Black and union movements: They a "new era" and "new realities." He said the rations and spending billions to protect their are all under pressure from those they claim to administration's 1980 budget offers "as much investments around the world, Carter seems represent to take at least verbal distance from as we could afford to do." able to afford a lot more than for the human Carter's cutthroat economic policies. But they What Carter can "afford" for working people needs of American workers. don't want to break with the administration and the poor is not much. He proposes: Carter and Eizenstat's proclamation of the and the Democratic Party. • Cuts in public service jobs-from 750,000 new era of Democratic Party cutbacks under­ Yet Carter's policies exclude the possibility in the spring of 1978 to less than 500,000 by lines the futility of relying on any wing of of advances for women. In fact, women, along the end of 1980. either party to defend the interests of working with minorities, are the prime victims of • Cuts in spending for school lunch pro­ people. Carter's austerity drive can only be government cutbacks. grams, food stamps, and other social-welfare answered by massive, independent protests A body such as the Advisory Committee on spending. uniting labor, Blacks, women, and others who Women has no reason to exist, however, unless • Scaling back expenditures for public hous­ suffer from these policies. it can maintain the illusion that it speaks up ing. To give such protests an effective political for women and that the president in turn is • Cutbacks in health and education pro­ voice, a complete break with the two capitalist responsive to it. grams. parties and the organization of a labor party Carter's budget proposals torpedoed that It would take $15 to $16 billion more than is based on the unions ought to be next on the fiction. allocated in Carter's budget just to maintain agenda. The advisory committee distributed a critical the pitifully inadequate social programs that news release to the media before its meeting exist today. with Carter. To top it off, Time magazine noted January It "warned [Carter] that the Administra­ 22, Carter "will propose the first significant tion's anti-inflation program will impose addi­ cuts ever made in Social Security benefits." Why Abzug got fired tional burdens upon women in increased un­ These benefit cuts, it should be emphasized, It was the president's first and last meeting employment [and] cutbacks in social pro­ will come at the same time that Social Security with his National Advisory Committee on grams." taxes are being raised. Women. The committee also "was critical of the Meanwhile, one area of the budget will Immediately after the January 12 meeting, Administration's proposed 10 percent increase continue to expand even faster than the rate of Carter unceremoniously dumped co-chair Bella in the military budget" and "urged the Presi­ inflation-war spending. The military budget Abzug. In protest, twenty-six of the commit­ dent to change his position" on Medicaid will climb from $112 billion to about $123 tee's forty members quit, including co-chair funding for abortions. billion. Carmen Delgado Votaw; Eleanor Smeal, presi­ Carter is only interested in an "advisory If this "new era" sounds suspiciously like dent of the National Organization for Women; committee" if it snaps to attention behind his the austerity drive inaugurated under the and Joyce Miller, president of the Coalition of attacks on women's rights. When his appoin­ Republican administrations of Nixon and Labor Union Women. tees were forced to balk a bit, he decided to get Ford, there is good reason. Faced with the This came less than five months after Carter himself a new committee.

The Militant Militant Highlights This Week Editor MARY-ALICE WATERS Managing Ed1tor STEVE CLARK 3 Peru upsurge Business Manager: ANDREA BARON 4 Iranian revolution Young Socialists set 1979 plans Editorial staff: Peter Archer, Nancy Cole, Fred 5 Cambodia war The recent Young Socialist Alliance national convention voted to step Feldman. David Frankel, Osborne Hart, Cindy Jaquith, Shelley Kramer, Ivan Licho, Omari Musa, 6 Socialist suit against FBI up campaigns against nuclear power and for Black majority rule in Harry Ring, Dick Roberts, Andy Rose, Priscilla 8 Marroquin case South Africa. Page 14. ' Schenk, Arnold Weissberg, Matilde Zimmermann.

13 Socialists' disclosure suit Published weekly by the Militant. 14 Charles Lane. 16 Steel haulers' strike New York, NY 10014. Telephone Editorial Office (212) 243-6392; Business Office (212) 929-3486 17 Ruth Querio 18 Safety at workplaces Correspondence concerning subscriptions or changes of address should be addressed to The 22 Shipyard designers' strike Militant Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, New 23 Crisis In shipbuilding York, N.Y. 10014. Capitalists bleed cities dry Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y 28 Newport News Cleveland is in default. New York City faces another round of Subscnpt1ons: US $15.00 a year, outs1de U.S $20.50. By first-class mail: U.S .. Canada, and Mex­ 2 In Our Opinion staggering budget cuts. Why should workers pay for problems ICo: $42.50. Wnte for surface and airmail rates to all 24 In Brief caused by big business? Pages 9-11. other countnes What's Going On For subscnpt1ons a1rfreighted to London then 25 The Great Society posted to Bntain and Ireland: £2.50 for ten 1ssues: Union Talk £5 50 for s1x months (twenty-four issues); £10 for one year (forty-e1ght issues). Posted from London 26 Our Revolutionary Heritage to Continental Europe £4 for ten issues. £8 for s1x Letters months (twenty-four 1ssues): £13 for one year 27 Learning About Socialism (forty-eight 1ssues). Send checks or mternational If You Like This Paper ... money orders (payable to lntercontmental Press Defend affirmative action! account) to: Intercontinental Press (The Militant). WORLD OUTLOOK P 0 Box 50. London N1 2XP. England 19 U.S. in South Africa 'Reverse discrimination' lawsuit by Brian Weber (right) threatens all working S1gned articles by contnbutors do not necessanly represent the Militant's v1ews. These are expressed 20 Algeria after Boumediene people, say socialist leaders. They urge a campaign to rally support for m editonals 21 World News Notes rights of unions, Blacks, and women. Page 12. 2 Strikes hit P-rice hikes Peruvian junta jails opponents By Fred Murphy Peru's military dictatorship jailed hundreds of trade-union and political leaders between January 4 and 11 in an effort to stop a general strike. 'Release USLA executive secretary!' The strike began January 9 and was The U.S. Committee for Justice to to have lasted three days. It was called Latin American Political Prisoners by the biggest Peruvian union federa­ has launched an emergency cam­ tion, the CGTP, in response to the paign to demand that the Peruvian regime's latest "austerity" measures­ government release USLA Executive a 20 percent hike in the price of gaso­ Secretary Mike Kelly. Kelly has been line and increases of up to 35 percent held in a Peruvian jail since Janu­ on such vital food products as sugar, ary 10. milk, and bread. USLA held picket lines January On January 6 the government de­ 16 outside Peru's UN mission in clared a "state of national emergency" New York and at the Peruvian Em­ and sent heavily armed troops into the bassy in Washington, D.C. Protes­ industrial districts, working-class ters demanded the immediate release neighborhoods, and shopping areas of of Kelly and the dictatorship's other Lima and other major cities. Cops prisoners. carrying rifles rode the buses, and Efforts on Kelly's behalf are also tanks controlled the streets. being made by U.S. senators Ed­ Gatherings of more than three per­ ward Kennedy and Paul Tsongas, by sons were prohibited. The police were U.S. Rep. Ronald Dellums, and by authorized to search homes and make Lawrence Biros, chairperson of the arrests without warrants. Seven inde­ U.S. Council on Hemispheric Af­ pendent weekly periodicals were fairs. banned. (Peru's daily newspapers and Kelly was seized by State Security radio and television are all agents while taking pictures in government-owned; the weeklies are downtown Lima on January 9. He thus the main source of accurate infor­ was held until 1 a.m., released, and mation.) ordered to report back later in the The junta combined these moves day. When he did so, the cops took with some concessions. The food price Kelly to the place where he had been increases were suspended, and pay staying and ransacked his room for hikes of up to 30 percent were autho· four hours. They then took him back rized for wage workers in both the to jail. public and private sectors. As of January 16, Kelly was still j Meanwhile, the top leaders of the in custody. There was no indication Millilarii/Sus~tn Ellis CGTP, which is controlled by the Com­ that he would be released soon, USLA Executive Secretary Mike Kelly (right) greets Hugo Blanco at beginning munist Party, went about organizing despite the fact that the cops at first of Peruvian revolutionist's 1977 U.S. tour. the strike in a sectarian antl bureau­ told him he would be "invited" to cratic way. They refused to open the leave Peru. The government would strike committee to the more militant say nothing publicly about his case, tioning and writing magazine arti­ letters demanding immediate free­ independent unions-such as the min­ although Kelly's attorney, Peruvian cles. dom for Mike Kelly, Alfonso Bar­ ers, teachers, and public employees­ Amnesty International representa­ As USLA executive secretary for rantes Lingan, and the other Peru­ and rejected participation by other tive Laura Caller, was informed that the past three years, Kelly organized vian political prisoners be sent to the workers parties or by organizations a "secret investigation" was in pro­ the group's efforts to ensure the Peruvian Embassy, 1700 Massachu­ based in the huge shantytowns where gress concerning "political agita­ safety of Hugo Blanco and twelve setts Avenue N.W., Washington, tens of thousands of the poorest tion." other political figures deported from D.C. 20036. Send copies to USLA, workers live. Kelly has been traveling in Latin Peru to Argentina in May 1978. 853 Broadway, suite 414, New York As a result of all this, Peruvian America for several months, vaca- USLA urges that telegrams or New York 10003. -F.M. workers did not participate in the massive way they had in earlier gen- eral strikes in July 1977 and February and May 1978. While some cities in the interior were leaders would "have to pay." Unity (UDP); Miguel Villar and Victor in custody as of January 15 is Mike reportedly paralyzed on the first day of Because Blanco is a member of the Anchayoa, both members of Hugo Kelly, an American who is national the strike, most miners, about half the Constituent Assembly he supposedly Blanco's party, the PRT (Revolution­ executive secretary of the U.S. Com­ bank workers, and many transport enjoys "immunity" from arrest. Al­ ary Workers Party, a sister organiza­ mittee for Justice to Latin American workers stayed on the job. Large though he was not detained in the tion of the U.S. Socialist Workers Political Prisoners. numbers of strikers returned to the round-up of working-class leaders, the Party); and Hernandez Zamora and While the failure of the general strike factories in Lima on January 10, and regime's threat is ominous, especially Esquivel Escalante, trade-union acti­ and the stepped-up repression mark a later in the day the CGTP leadership in light of the attempted kidnapping of vists from the Workers, Peasants, Stu­ setback for the Peruvian workers, they declared an end to the work stoppage. Blanco last September in downtown dents, and People's Front (FOCEP). have by no means been defeated. Their But the regime did not halt its at­ Lima. That attack is now widely be­ Villar and Escalante were wounded by trade unions and political organiza­ tacks on the workers movement. On lieved to have been the work of mil­ police gunfire outside the Diamante tions remain intact, and they can be January 11, the political police raided itary intelligence agents. shoe factory in Lima when they re­ expected to renew their battle against the Lima headquarters of the Commu­ During the weekend of January 13- fused to enter the plant and return to the steep inflation and massive unem­ nist Party and arrested thirty-five per­ 14, many of those arrested in Lima work. They are being held under guard ployment that the military's austerity sons, including the editor of the party's were released. As of January 15, some at a Lima hospital. program has produced. newspaper and leaders of the Commu­ forty-seven persons were known to still Two members of the Revolutionary At the moment, it is important to nist Youth. be held in the capital. Hundreds more Marxist Workers Party (POMR) are press for the release of the prisoners, A government radio broadcast on might remain in detention eleswhere in also among those still in jail. A POMR the lifting of the "state of emergency," January 12 singled out Hugo Blanco­ the country, however. office in Lima was raided by police and the restoration of.press freedom. the Trotskyist leader and delegate to during the general strike, and much of International solidarity can play a big the Constituent Assembly-as one of Among those still jailed are Alfonso the group's office equipment was con­ part in this effort-for information on those "responsible" for the strike. The Barrantes Lingan, president of the fiscated. how you can help, see the box on this broadcast said Blanco and the CGTP leftist coalition Democratic People's Also arrested on January 9 and still page. Special offer Subscribe today to new readers 52 for ten 1ssues (new readers only) 58.50 for SIX months ( ) S15 for one year The Militant-10 weeks/$! New ( ) Renewal Name The Militant provides weekly news and analysis of important developments in the national libera­ Address tion struggles in South Afnca. Z1mbabwe. and Namibia. as well as timely coverage of the fight City here to end U S government and business support to southern Afnca·s racist reg1mes Don't m;ss an State Zip ______ISSUe. 14 Charles Lane. New York. New York 10014

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 3 For a constituent assemblyJ lran:revo ion ends shah's By David ,Frankel Deserted by his imperialist support­ ers and despised by the Iranian people, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi fled into exile January 16. The tyrant ended his dark and bloody reign with­ out even waiting for his rubber-stamp parliament to confirm his choice of Shahpur Bakhtiar as Iran's new prime minister. As news of the shah's departure spread, New York Times correspondent Nicholas Gage reported, "hundreds of thousands of people poured out of their homes shouting 'Shah raft!-'The Shah is gone!' "The streets, nearly empty during recent days of strikes and gasoline shortages, were quickly clogged with automobiles that added the sound of their horns to the din, as people em­ braced, wept and threw flowers at soldiers, who seemed to share their high spirits. The cacaphony of celebra­ tion continued all afternoon and well into the evening." What a victory for the Iranian peo­ ple! Victory for all oppressed With the flight of the shah, the Iranian masses have taken a giant step toward finally ridding themselves of the hated monarchy and ensuring Demonstrator and soldier exchange friendly greeting in Tehran the gains they have already made. As a result of the revolution unfold­ ing in Iran, the imperialist grip on the stop this process, and if possible to same time, the advance of the masses tions, and of soldiers accepting red country has been greatly weakened. reverse it. threatens the shah's generals with the carnations from demonstrators have Washington has been forced to begin Not even the members of his own prospect of being tried for their crimes. become common. dismantling its top-secret equipment at · government have much hope that In the end, a cornered rat will always "Inhabitants of the southern town of bases along the Iranian-Soviet border, Bakhtiar, any more than the shah who turn and fight. Masjid-e-Suleiman reported today that and the representatives of U.S. corpo­ put him in office in the first place, will As one member of Bakhtiar's cabinet six army conscripts had been shot and rations that dominate Iran's economy succeed in halting the mass movement. put it in a discussion with Times killed today by other soldiers after the have been sent streaming out of the What is involved is not any lack of reporter R.W. Apple, "Sometimes a conscripts tried to join civilians in country. desire on Bakhtiar's part. Asked Janu­ coup, I guess, almost has to happen at mounting a demonstration in favor of One new slogan that echoed through ary 6 if he thought that the shah would some point." Ayatollah Khomeini," the Times dis­ Tehran January 16 was: "The Shah is be able to retain· his throne, Bakhtiar Of course, it is another question patch reported. gone. The Americans are next!" declared, "I hope and I think and I altogether whether such a coup at­ Under these circumstances, Carter's Meanwhile, the mobilization of the pray" that this would be the case. tempt would succeed. · reluctance to put the Iranian army to masses has won the release of Earlier, while announcing that the This explains the State Depart­ the test is understandable. hundreds of political prisoners, has put censorship lifted in the case of newspa­ ment's hypocritical statements about Another factor that convinced Wash­ an end to newspaper censorship, and pers would remain in radio and televi­ Washington's "strong support for a ington to try to buy time is the diffi­ has placed the regime's torturers and sion broadcasts, Bakhtiar insisted that civilian government operating within culty it would face in trying to make hangmen on the defensive. "liberty is relative and gradual." the constitutional framework" in Iran. any direct military intervention to tip Nor is the shah's fall simply a vic­ Oppressed nationalities within Iran No such statements were forthcom­ the balance in the event of a civil war tory for the Iranian people. Their gain who demand the right of self­ ing when the CIA helped organize the in Iran. The American people are in no is a victory for the oppressed and determination were p:ut on notice as to 1953 coup on behalf of the shah, nor on mood for any new military adventures, exploited throughout the world. what they can expect from Bakhtiar the eve of the 1973 military coup that especially on the borders of the Soviet The anti-imperialist sentiment of the when he told New York Times corres­ ousted the Allende regime in Chile. Union. Iranian people has forced Bakhtiar to pondent Nicholas Gage January 12 If "Human Rights" Carter thought The problems facing Carter in this promise that no more oil will be sold to that "I am not going to accept disinte­ there was a good chartce to drown the regard were vividly illustrated when he Israel and South Africa. gration of this country. I will be piti­ Iranian revolution in blood, he would had to be content with the feeble The successes of the Iranian masses less against everyone who threatens jump for joy. In this case, Carter has gesture of sending a squadron of un­ have inspired other peoples around the the unity and integrity of Iran." so far opposed a military coup because armed F-15 jets to Saudi Arabia. It was world struggling for their rights he is afraid the rightist forces would a far cry from 1965, when Lyndon against seemingly impregnable re­ lose. Johnson was able to send 24,000 U.S. gimes. Rumors of coup Marines to invade the Dominican Re­ And the prospect of a continuing Bakhtiar also vowed not to legalize public, while more than 30,000 U.S. revolution in Iran has shaken pro­ the Communist Party. Army begins to crack troops were already engaged in Viet­ imperialist regimes in the Middle East But even worse than his promises Washington Post correspondent Jim nam. and weakened Washington's position were his actions. Demonstrators con­ Hoagland admitted the basic problem in the entire region. tinue to be shot down each day under facing Carter in a January 13 article. Meanwhile, the Iranian masses are Bakhtiar's "liberal" regime. "What the White House appears to continuing to push forward, demand­ "I spend most of the time trying to fear most," Hoagland noted, "is not so Constituent assembly ing all the democratic rights that have locate police and soldiers to send from much a military coup that would suc­ _While Bakhtiar's regime staggered been denied them for so long, and one trouble spot to another," Bakhtiar ceed and end the disruption of Iranian on, naming a nine-member regency insisting on the establishment of a complained to Gage. A few weeks life and oil exports, but an attempted council to preserve the form of the society that will ensure justice for the earlier and it could have been the shah coup that would fail because troops monarchy, Khomeyni announced the oppressed and exploited. talking. would not carry out orders to repress appointment of a "Council of the Is­ Despite Bakhtiar's pathetic eager­ demonstrations."· lamic Revolution" January 13. Kho­ Inspiration for masses ness to curry favor with the shah's Eyewitnesses in Tehran reported meyni, who remains by far the best Although the end of the shah's rule officer caste, rumors of an impending that 600,000 people demonstrated to known and most widely followed oppo­ has been the central demand of the military coup against his ineffectual celebrate the reopening of Tehran Uni­ sition leader, declared that he would Iranian revolution up to now, it is clear government became so persistent that versity, which had been closed by the return to Iran from exile to "supervise that the shah's flight will not put an the State Department had to express regime. and direct the government." end to the revolution. On the contrary, public opposition to such a move. Huge protests continued on the fol­ Following the shah's flight, which this victory will inspire the masses. It To some extent, the rumors of a lowing days, as the army stood by. A Khomeyni called "the first step" to­ will raise their confidence in their own military coup have been encouraged by January 14 New York Times dispatch, ward ending the Pahlavi dynasty alto­ strength and embolden them in the Bakhtiar as a threat against the Iran­ reporting scenes that recalled the Por­ gether, he urged that demonstrations fight for their demands. ian people. The masses are being tuguese revolution of 1974, said: and strikes against Bakhtiar continue. By their determined struggle, the warned that the alternative to Bakh­ "The demonstrators were friendly Iranian people have opened up new tiar is the army's tanks. toward the troops who patrolled the In his statement, Khomeyni prom­ possibilities for their country. While But eventually, it is almost certain streets. Some kissed the soldiers, giv­ ised that "I will introduce very soon a they are trying to move forward, how­ that a section of the officer corps will ing them flowers, a~d chanted, 'Greet­ provisional government to set up a ever, the imperialist powers who try to halt the revolution by resorting ings to our brother soldiers!'" popularly elected constituent assembly backed the shah and who are now to a coup. Bakhtiar's government is too Reports of soldiers waving pictures for the ratification of a new constitu­ backing his appointed prime minister weak and discredited to succeed in of opposition leader Ayatollah Kho­ tion." are desperately seeking some way to stopping the mass movement. At the meyni, of soldiers joining demonstra- Immediate elections to a constituent 4 U.N. ,Cambodia 'debate': bloody reign forum for U.S. hypocrisy assembly-no matter what regime is in ization of all political parties and power-are necessary so that the Iran­ groups, freedom of religion and the ian people can freely discuss and de­ separation of church and state, and cide the issues facing their country. freedom of assembly. Such a constituent assembly must be • Complete abolition of the mo­ able to debate and decide on all the narchy and confiscation of the wealth issues facing Iran, not only on the stolen by the shah, his family, and proposals for a new constitution. Every their hangers-on from the Iranian peo­ party and every group in Iranian so­ ple. ciety must be free to participate in this • Nationalization of imperialist eco­ national discussion and to vote for nomic holdings. The natural wealth of representatives of their choice. Iran should go to the development of This includes the high school youth the country and the improvement of who have played such a big role in the the lives of its people, not the enrich­ struggle against the shah. It includes ment of imperialist corporations. women, those without any property, the millions who cannot read or write, • A thoroughgoing land reform and the oppressed nationalities. It under the control of the landless pea­ includes all the political groups sants and small landowners. Despite banned by the shah. And it includes the shah's so-called land reform, one­ the soldiers. third of Iran's peasants ·still have no land. Committees to discuss the issues and • Recognition of the right of self­ to help organize the elections should be determination for Iran's oppressed na­ U.S. planes dropped 442,735 tons of bombs on Cambodian countryside from 1970 to established in the barracks. After all, tionalities. Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Balu­ 1973. But that doesn't stop Andrew Young from lecturing Vietnam about interven­ the rank-and-file soldiers, who may be chis, and Arabs, among others, have a tion. ordered to shoot down their brothers long history of struggle for their rights and sisters demonstrating in the and have played an active part in the streets or else risk being shot down by By Fred Feldman choice of the collapsing Pol Pot regime movement against the shah's dictator­ their officers have a big stake in the Vietnamese troops and Cambodian to represent it abroad. The timing of ship. course of events. insurgents have captured "all major the UN debate prevented any represen­ • Measures aimed at abolishing the Cambodian towns, including the prin­ tative of the new Cambodian govern­ Delegates to the constituent assem­ oppression of women. Repeal all dis­ cipal western city of· Battambang" ment from participating. bly should be elected by proportional criminatory laws and establish legal according to a report attributed to The strongest critic of the Pol Pot representation, so that every grouping equality. This would include especially "Western analysts" in the January 15 regime and of Sihanouk's call for UN that gets a certain minimum percen­ repeal of the law permitting male New York Times. intervention at the Security Council tage of the vote nationally is guaran­ family members to punish women rela­ Although armed clashes continue in meeting was Cuban delegate Raul Roa teed a voice in the debates of the as­ tives who supposedly tarnish their "ho­ some areas, the January 16 New York Kouri. sembly. nor." Times reported, "The flood of Cambo­ Roa pointed to Sihanouk's admis­ Nor should the debate be limited to Also, equal pay for equal work and dian refugees once expected by the sions that the Pol Pot regime was the representatives in the constituent the establishment of child-care centers Thais has not materialized. . . . brutal and repressive. He denounced assembly. Continuing discussions on for those women who want them. Both "Colonel Thanit . . . said he and the former king for spending three the great issues facing the Iranian these demands have been raised by other Thai officials believed that many years in Cambodia "listening to guitar people should be organized in the women in the course of the struggle Cambodian villagers viewed the music and crooners" rather than pro­ factories, the schools, the barracks, against the shah. Vietnamese-backed insurgents as liber­ testing the regime's policies. The New and the villages. Only in that way can ators from the harsh regime of Mr. Pol York Times described Roa as saying the masses really take part, guarantee Pot." that "it would have been better ... if the gains that they have made so f~r. * * * Heng Samrin, head of the new Cam­ the Prince had burned himself alive in and continue to push forward the bodian government (called "People's the manner of protesting Buddhist development of the revolution. A great victory for freedom and Revolutionary Council") named a vice­ monks." social progress has been won in Iran. president and six other council One of the world's most notorious On January 15, the USSR (supported members on January 8. by Czechoslovakia) vetoed a resolution dictators has been driven from power Samrin is a leader of the Kampu­ Program for revolution by an aroused people. backed by the United States and chean National United Front for Na­ twelve other council members demand­ Trotskyists in Iran have already Having come this far in their strug­ tional Salvation. Said to be forty-four, distributed thousands of copies of their gle for human rights, the Iranian ing the withdrawal of "all foreign he was described in a December 5 forces" from Cambodia. newspaper, Socialism, calling for elec­ people are not about to stop their fight. broadcast by the front as a former tions to a constituent assembly. Social­ They deserve the full support and Andrew Young, the U.S. representa­ commander of a battalion and later a tive at the United Nations, has de­ ists would call on such an assembly to solidarity of working people here in the regiment in the Cambodian Khmer implement a program that would in­ United States. nounced the Vietnamese for allegedly Rouge forces. He is said to have fled to violating Cambodian sovereignty and clude: Long live the struggle of the Iranian Vietnam in May 1978" after leading an • Release of all political prisoners, people! the UN Charter. This is another high abortive insurrection against the Pol point of U.S. government hypocrisy. complete abolition of censorship, legal- Long live the Iranian revolution! Pot regime. The U:S. rulers, it is clear, have In April1970, shortly after Lon Nol's concluded that nothing can be done to CIA-backed coup against Prince Siha­ roll back the installation of the new nouk's government, President Nixon regime in Cambodia. Statements by ordered a U.S. invasion of Cambodia. former Cambodian Vice-premier Ieng American bombers went into action on Sary on his arrival in Thailand that Lon Nol's side, blasting the country­ guerrilla warfare will continue, and side long after American ground troops similar assertions by Peking officials, were withdrawn in June 1970. are being discounted. Saturation bombing continued for Henry Kamm wrote in the January three years. The country was hit with 14, 1979, New York Times: "No doubt 442,735 tons of bombs-more than 100 the most fanatical Khmer Rouge soldi­ pounds of explosives for every man, ers . . . are prepared to fight on. But woman, and child in the country. the people whom the Vietnamese are After taking Pnompenh in April installing in power are certified Cam­ 1975, the Khmer Rouge regime charged bodian nationalists with that 600,000 Cambodians had been unimpeachable Khmer Rouge records. killed during the five-year war and Mr. Pol Pot was not notably successful another 600,000 wounded-this out of a at fighting them when he ruled all population of 7 million. Agricultural Cambodia, with a seaport through production had been completely dis­ which China could supply him." rupted, and famine was widely feared. In line with this assessment, U.S. On top of this barbaric assault, representatives at the United Nations Washington is now using the recent have treated the debate that began events in Cambodia as a new pretext January 11 as an opportunity for anti­ to diplomatically isolate and economi­ communist and anti-Vietnamese pro­ cally blockade the Indochinese re­ paganda but have not associated them­ gimes. selves with proposals for military or The American people should reject other sanctions against Vietnam. this cynical doubletalk and demand This has been left to the Chinese that the Carter administration recog­ representatives and Prince Sihanouk, nize the Vietnamese and Cambodian Cambodia's king when the country governments and provide massive aid was ruled by France and later head of for the reconstruction of Cambodia, state when the country gained formal Vietnam, and Laos-without condi­ Political prisoner, released from jail, Is carried In demonstration independence in 1955. He was the tions of any kind. THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 5 Ex-FBI agent blows lid oH Continued from page 1 Bell. However, the evidence provided by Swearingen, and other facts being ferreted out by reporters, demolish Bell's position, legally and politically. The facts that are emerging provide hard evi­ dence of an ongoing conspiracy within the Carter administration to conceal the truth about the crimi­ nal activities of the FBI's hired stool pigeons in their war against socialist groups, against the labor movement, and against Black organizations. 'Pack of lies' Several months ago, Swearingen provided the Justice Department with evidence that the testim­ ony of top-ranking FBI official James Adams was false. Swearingen also stated that material com­ piled by FBI field offices on informers, which Adams relied on in his testimony, was "a gross pack of lies." Swearingen told the Justice Department that the reason the FBI is afraid to turn over the informer files to the SWP has nothing to do with their stated reasons ,about protecting "law enforcement." If the files are disclosed, asserts Swearingen, "the FBI's abuses of the past would bring the FBI to its knees. Informants could be prosecuted, FBI agents could be prosecuted, and the entire FBI would be disgraced." Yesterday, the New York Times ran a front-page story on Swearingen's charges, under the headline, "Ex-agent Accuses F.B.I. Executive of Perjury in Suit Over Informants." Within hours, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Griesa convened an emer­ gency hearing in his courtroom on the matter. Griesa demanded to know why the Justice De­ partment had failed to inform him that the testim­ ony of a key witness in the case had been called into serious question. Thomas Moseley, the government attorney, responded weakly that he thought the Swearingen "allegations are devoid of substance." Under sharp questioning from Griesa, however, Moseley conceded that the Justice Department had been investigating the charges for two months. The NEWS ITEM: Justice Department to investigate FBI agents in news disclosures of burglaries. inquiry will not be completed for another month, he said. "The FBI is looking into it," said Moseley with a turning over the informer files would violate a any statement whatsoever about a 'pledge of confi­ straight face. solemn "pledge of confidentiality" given to in­ dentiality' at the time of the sworn affidavit" by Moseley also tried to discredit Swearingen's state­ formers by the FBI and would make it nearly Adams. ments, calling him "a somewhat disgruntled" ex­ impossible to recruit informers in the future. In fact, according to Swearingen, the FBI Man­ agent who, the government contends, had stolen "In each and every case the confidential infor­ ual, Section 107, says, "Contacting agent must secret documents from the FBI office in Los Angeles mant must be and is assured that his identity will condition informant for the fact that he may at a when he retired in 1977. An internal Justice Depart­ not be revealed," Adams said. future date be called upon to testify to information ment agency, the Office of Professional Responsi bil­ In rebuttal, Swearingen, basing his statement on that he has furnished on security matters." ity, considered the Swearingen assertions substan­ actual practice of FBI agents, says: "The 'pledge of Adams had also sworn that the lives or safety of tial enough to forward them to the United States confidentiality' is a term invented by the FBI and FBI finks would be endangered if the SWP found attorney in New York for further evaluation. Mr. Adams following the lawsuit by the SWP. out their identities. Swearingen, who has long It would be up to the United States attorney in Agents as a matter of practice in the field did not experience in spying on the SWP, says flatly, "Mr. New York, Robert Fiske, to decide whether to seek a make a pledge of confidentiality to informants. Adams cannot cite one instance where the SWP perjury indictment against Adams. Since Fiske is Occasionally agents did make such an inference in physically assaulted anyone identified as an FBI also defending the FBI, however, and since Adams cases of organized crime or 'mafia' style crimes, informant.... There is no foundation for believing is one of the major witnesses for the government, it where it was obvious that the informant was that the SWP would physically harm exposed infor­ is hardly likely that an objective decision will be reporting on individuals who lived by a code 6f mants... " reached. control by death." In fact, says Swearingen, the FBI headquarters 'Abuses and corruption' 'Pledge of confidentiality' "in every instance continued to pressure the Field Swearingen also discredits Adams's testimony Nonetheless, Swearingen's charges totally des­ into persuading the informant to testify, if the FBI that FBI agents were seeing "sources" dry up troy Adams's testimony and a key part of the thought the particular crime deserved to be prose­ because of fear of disclosure. The truth is, says government's case which rest on that testimony. cuted.... Swearingen, based on firsthand knowledge, In his sworn statement, Adams had asserted that "The 'FBI Manual of Instructions' did not contain "Agents in Los Angeles were closing informant files hoping to bury the abuses and corruption they had perpetrated over the years. After the SWP suit began, agents were closing informant files by the Informer killed Pler in 1969 hundreds in L.os Angeles." LOS ANGELES-An FBI informer planted in it turn over the names of eighteen informers to Today, government lawyers in New York handed the Progressive Labor Party used a stolen gun to the SWP. over to the SWP the Swearingen charges that had kill a party member who had discovered her The secret document claimed that the govern­ been forwarded to them by the Justice Department identity. ment agent had shot George Lancaster because, in Washington. It is believed, however, that only This was disclosed in a Washington dispatch after discovering her identity, he and another some of the material Swearingen turned over was to the January 17 Los Angeles Times, which said PLP member had beaten and threatened to kill sent to New York. Additional material to corrobo­ rate his claim may be in the hands of the Justice the information was based on an FBI document her. Department in Washington. Included in this file which had come into its possession. The Times said that the report containing the FBI version of the killing was prepared in may be documents directly from the FBI office in The shooting occurred in 1969. It was ruled response to a directive to all FBI field offices to Los Angeles, which Swearingen reportedly took "self-defense" by the Hermosa Beach Police compile examples of intimidation and retaliation with him when he left the bureau. Department. No charges were filed against the Judge Griesa has directed the government to killer, who is identified in the FBI documents as against exposed informers. This information was then used in an affidavit by James Adams, produce all the material they have received from Vinceanna Lawlor. assistant FBI director, to bolster the agency's Swearingen, including files still in Washington. The Times said the information was included argument that disclosure of the eighteen in­ Griesa, however, reserved decision on a request by in a secret report from the FBI's Los Angeles former files in the SWP case would endanger Leonard Boudin, chief counsel for the SWP, for an field office to the agency's headquarters in Wash­ those identified. immediate hearing to put both Swearingen and ington as a contribution to the bureau's defense The stolen gun, the FBI said, had been part of Adams on the witness stand, along with other FBI in the Socialist Workers Party damage suit. The the loot in a $15,000 burglary of a Palos Verdes agents from the Los Angeles field office. document had been prepared in August 1976. home. The version of the killing in the FBI report was The Times said it was not known if the killing 'Lying to American people' designed to bolster the Justice Department's case was dismissed as "self-defense" as a result of Griesa said that whether Adams had lied in court in refusing comply with a federal court order that FBI intervention. is "of grave concern to me." He pointed out that the FBI had earlier been caught in several lies. "I 6 gov't. lies. in sociaUst suit 'Thousands of bag jobs' In material turned over to the Justice Depart­ jobs on the SWP Headquarters. ment, retired FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen "The illegal activities of the FBI which were provides explosive new evidence of decades of conducted against the SWP /YSA, the CP [Com­ criminal activity on a massive scale. munist Party] and other organizations were not Swearingen was assigned to the FBI offices in limited to Chicago. The FBI conducted regular Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and other 'in-service' training schools in photography to be cities. He spied on the SWP, tried to track down used in bag jobs or surreptitious entries, lock fugitives of the Weather Underground, and car­ picking schools, electronics training known as ried out other assignments. He provides evidence 'sound school', techniques in surveillance, radio based on his personal knowledge and experience. communications and what to do if caught in a "Almost all information on the SWP /YSA bag job. during the 1940's and 1950's came from illegal "The Chicago office conducted thousands of wiretaps, illegal microphone surveillances, physi­ bag jobs. I have numerous letters of commenda­ cal surveillances, mail covers, trash covers, bag tion from J. Edgar Hoover and one cash award jobs of members' houses, bag jobs of SWP Head­ in the amount of $150 in recognition [of these quarters, police department 'red squads' ... and break-ins]. other government agencies. "On 4/11/77, SAC [Special Agent-in-Charge] "This knowledge is based upon my various Elmer Linberg of the Los Angeles office advised assignments in Chicago from 1952 to 1963, which me that the Los Angeles office had 35 agents included some individual cases of the SWP /YSA. assigned to conducting bag jobs in the 1950's. BARNES: 'FBI has been•••• lying to the Paul Frankfurt supervised the SWP squad in Other offices with bag jobs squads were Newark, pie.' Chicago in the early 1950's. Agents Daniel J. San Francisco, Washington D.C. and the largest Hurley and Robert Glendon regularly pulled bag of all New York City." -L.S. New York Times of January 6. That article stated that Swearingen was in possession of FBI docu­ ments that the government considers "highly sensi­ thought this had stopped," said Griesa. pigeons and provocateurs. The attorney general has tive." In a statement released to the press today, Jack based his refusal to obey the court order on testim­ . Whatever Swearingen's motivations, he has lit Barnes, SWP national secretary, said the Swearin­ ony that now stands exposed as fraudulent. the fuse of a bomb that may well explode the FBI's gen files "prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that "The least Bell should do now is to immediately ongoing cover-up of the crimes of its secret agents the FBI has been lying in court. hand over the files-not to mention prosecuting and provocateurs. "They have also been lying to the American Adams and every other FBI official who has lied in people," said Barnes. court." "The purpose of these fabrications is to conceal The government can now be expected to use every the truth about the FBI's illegal network of stool means at its disposal to try to discredit Swearin­ Political Rights gen's assertions. However, it will be hard for them to go too far in smearing a twenty-five-year veteran Defense Fund of their own secret-police organization as a raving The Socialist Workers party and Young Socialist lunatic. Aliiance lawsuit against government spying and Moreover, they never know when another "whis­ disruption has already exposed many FBI and CIA tle blower" from within the FBI will surface to attacks against democratic rights. confirm .Swearingen's revelations. The Political Rights Defense Fund is organizing "There are a lot of agents who would talk if they support and raising money for this historic lawsuit. could because, like me, they want a real F.B.I. and Will you help? Return this coupon with your not a paper tiger that puts itself above the law," contribution to PROF, Box 649 Cooper Station, Swearingen had previously told the New York New York, New York 10003. Times. To further his apparent aim of "cleaning up" the 0 Enclosed is a contribution of $ ·---- FBI so it can be more effective as a political police force, Swearingen has leaked a lot of information. Name ______He provided an interview to Seven Days maga­ Address ______zine, edited by Dave Dellinger. The interview was run anonymously. He gave an interview to the City ______monthly magazine of the Church of Scientology, State ______ZiP--~----- Adams (left) provided lies that Bell now repeats in also anonymous. defying court order to turn over informer files. Swearingen was first publicly identified in the Judge rejects motion to deny damages to SWP By Roger Rudenstein weaken the SWP's strong legal posi­ SWP, said, "We have already won this FBI to infiltrate organizations and Attorney General Griffin Bell and tion in· the fight for the highly secret issue several times on appeal. The gather information solely about politi­ the FBI have lost another round in informer files. If· they could get the government's only strategy is to keep cal beliefs and lawful political and federal court. U.S. District Court Judge part of the lawsuit relating to in­ trying to bankrupt us and exhaust our personal activities," Griesa concluded. Thomas Griesa emphatically rejected a formers dismissed, this would allow resources. The government also invoked a re­ motion to throw out of court a key part them to argue that the SWP doesn't "There is not a shadow of an appeal­ cent court of appeals decision involv­ of the Socialist Workers Party suit have a compelling need to obtain the able issue here. The law clearly forbids ing illegal mail opening by the CIA. against FBI spying. eighteen spy files. a pretrial appeal. In that case, as in the SWP case, the Griesa's decision was released at the That is why they filed yet another "However," she added, "that's never Carter administration argued that end of December. He ruled that the motion for dismissal, this time limited stopped the government before." even if your rights under the U.S. government's argument that the so­ to the informer aspect of the case. One of the government's arguments Constitution are violated by the federal cialists couldn't sue for damages for Griesa's sharply worded rebuff is a is that any activities FBI agents and government, there is no way to collect the illegal activities of FBI informers significant setback to this plan. Griesa informers may carry out are protected money for it. The court upheld this was hogwash. said that the FBI's own documents from civil suits under the so-called absurd position, rendering the Bill of The decision came down while a demonstrate that it has been "the discretionary function exemption. This Rights literally worthless. court of appeals is considering whether express purpose of the FBI to disrupt slippery doctrine says that you can't However, the court also ruled that if to uphold a contempt citation against the SWP and YSA . . . and also to sue for damages based on actions of federal agents commit an act for which Attorney General Griffin Bell. Bell has interfere with the activities of these government agents whose job includes a suit can be filed under state law, the been charged with contempt for refus­ organizations. . . . a degree of discretion in how it is to be government is liable for damages-and ing to obey a court order requiring him "The documents indicate that, at the carried out-even if the government awarded the victims of CIA mail open­ to hand over files on eighteen FBI very least, the FBI officials and agents agents abuse that discretion! ing $1,000 each. provocateurs. depended upon information supplied Griesa noted that the SWP and YSA by informants for planning the disrup­ However, Griesa noted, the activities suit raises perfectly valid claims under A ruling from the appeals court on tive activities and evaluating their re­ the SWP is charging the FBI with are the law of New York State, where the this question is expected soon. sults." "outside the function of investigating suit was filed and where the national The government had asked Griesa to Government lawyers immediately crime and subversion." offices of the two organizatipns are. dismiss that part of the SWP suit that said they would seek to appeal Griesa's The FBI, the judge explained, has no Specifically, Griesa pointed out, "the seeks to collect monetary damages for ruling, throwing yet another obstruc­ legal authority "to engage in a func­ alleged use of informants to infiltrate illegal activity by FBI informers. tion into the path of the case. The tion such as the disruption· program private meetings, to overhear and re­ Griesa had already ruled against the government has already gone three alleged in this case or the use of port upon private discussions and con­ arguments made by the government times to the appeals court and once to informants to further such a program." versations, and to read, copy and steal when he refused twice before to dis­ the U.S. Supreme Court on the in­ Therefore the "discretionary function private documents" amounts to an miss the entire suit. However, the former issue. exemption" simply doesn't apply. illegal invasion of privacy under the government is trying desperately to Margaret Winter, an attorney for the "There is no authority granted to the laws of New York.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 7 Since gov't denial of as}!lum Efforts mount to halt Marroquin deportation By Jane Roland committee coordinator. "After the INS gency campaign," explained Chris They're planning an event in early Faced with the possibility of Hector ruled against Marroquin, we sent a Horner, a member of the committee. February on political prisoners in Mex­ Marroquin's deportation to Mexico, his news release to all the media in the "We already raised a lot of money at a ico. That event will focus on Marro­ supporters around the country have area. 'Black Perspectives in the News' big Christmas party and dinner." quin's case as an example of repres­ stepped up their efforts to win him interviewed Jim Garrison, a member of Horner explained that several of sion in Mexico. political asylum in the United States. the committee, and ran the interview Marroquin's supporters work at In Atlantic City, New Jersey, several From Blacks in Detroit, to electrical together with several minutes of taped Dresser Industries and Austin Steel, supporters have gotten together to workers in Philadelphia; from femi­ remarks by Marroquin." · both organized by the United Steel­ form a chapter of the defense commit­ nists to Dallas, to human rights acti: During the sermon, the priest urged workers. These plants give their em­ tee. Terry Applegate, one of the organ­ vists in Tucson, support has come for everyone to check out the table at the ployees turkeys and hams at Christ­ izers of the committee, explained that Marroquin's right to asylum. back of the church, pick up literature, mas, and the supporters donated them she had been inspired to do this by the The activities are part of a national and donate money to the case. "Hector to the fund-raising effort. emergency campaign kick-off rally in emergency campaign aimed at staying Marroquin deserves asylum at least, if In Tucson the defense committee is defense of Marroquin held at the the hand of the Immigration and N atu- not more than, the shah's family," he working with the Tucson Committee Young Socialist convention in De­ said, urging people to write letters to for Human Rights in Latin America. cember. INS Director Leonel Castillo demand­ ing asylum for Marroquin. "We stayed for both morning masses," said Fink. At the end of the day the church had contributed $120- Help save his life . $50 from contributions at the table and The emergency campaign to stop campmgn. These plans mdude fund a $70 contribution from a special. fund. the Immigration and Naturalization raising events and receptions, film The supporters have since been invited Service from deporting Hector Mar- showings, and talks about repres­ to several other churches. roquin is underway. sion in M~x~co. In I~etroit_~upporters A January 18 picket line at the local The INS ruled against granting

8 Doctors n_rotest cuts Koch puts the ax to New York services By Nancy Cole 1981 would have to shrink the city's work force by New York Mayor Edward Koch announced his 44,000 or 22 percent. latest budget-slashing scheme January 15. In "They [Koch administration] will ask you to "Level I," the Democratic city administration plans redeem the Administration's 'commitment' to in­ to cut $140.7 million by axing 6,033 jobs and cutting crease fiscal aid, through welfare reform and a back on social services. variety of other actions," the memo warned White Hardest hit will be the Board of Education with a House aides. But no such commitment is to be cut of $83 million and 3,597 employees. The sanita­ made, the directive concluded, except "in general tion department will lose 400 jobs, and students in terms your commitment to do your part through the city university system will pay $100 more programs such as welfare -reform." tuition. The Commission on the Status of Women The most forthright stand taken by any group of will be gutted with a reduction of staff from eight to city employees thus far has been by the Committee one. of Interns and Residents, the bargaining unit for In "Level II," which Koch promises "is not a rose some 2,000 doctors. They are demanding that no garden," the city would wipe out 2,842 more jobs, cuts in the municipal hospitals be made and that close down the city Human Rights Commission, instead health care in the city be improved. eliminate twenty-five mental health projects, and Plans for a one-day job action on January 17 hack $16 million more from the Board of Educa­ brought down the wrath of city administrators. The tion's budget. move was "absolutely outrageous," declared Koch, Asked whether there are plans for a "Level III," and the doctors were threatened with every penalty Koch replied, "Yes, it's called Armageddon." the antiunion Taylor Law provides, including fir­ The announcement did not include information ings, fines, and jail. The city also went to court and on the plan to drastically cut back the seventeen­ won a temporary injunction barring the strike. municipal-hospital system-a move many Black KOCH: Promises 'no rose garden' Nevertheless, on January 16, 100 delegates of the leaders in the city are warning would provoke a committee voted unanimously to continue with the near Armageddon. action, conceding only that they might call it a Details on the hospital cutbacks will come later, But the White House, as well as the city's budget­ political demonstration rather than a strike. From and according to the Daily News, will begin to be cutting overseers on the Financial Control Board, the beginning, the committee planned no disruption implemented even before the next fiscal year starts have already said that the city should be making of emergency care. in July. The budget report did mention that 2,000 more cuts now. Unions representing nurses and other hospital hospital jobs would be cut this year. The secret White House memorandum on New employees pledged support to the doctors although The Level !-Level II ruse is designed to cushion York, the text of which the New York Post pub­ they remained on the job. the sledgehammer. The second stage of cuts will lished January 9, criticized Koch for not having City officials who are conspiring to close down only be necessary, Koch maintains, if the state and made the drastic cuts necessary to capitalize on his half the city's municipal hospitals have ironically federal government fail to come through with their new-in-office popularity. charged the interns and residents with "patient share. The memo declared that the budget for fiscal year abandonment."

Behind proposed gutting of N.Y. hospital system By Vivian Sahner One of the chief justifications the NEW YORK-At the top of Mayor Koch administration uses for the cuts Edward Koch's proposed cutback list is is that there are 5,000 "unused" hospi­ from $40 million to $88 million less for tal beds in the city. municipal hospitals during the next But statistics don't back up this fiscal year. claim. Four of the five boroughs of The mayor's top "health adviser," New York are already below the na­ Dr. Martin Cherkasky, is aiming for a tional average of 4.9 beds per 1,000 municipal hospital system that by population. 1982 would be one-half its present size. Municipal hospitals deliver a major Not since the 1976 cutbacks that portion of vital medical services to ended free tuition in the city university New York. While they represent only system has there been such a drastic 15 percent of the city's hospitals, they proposed cut in a vital social service. deliver 43 percent of_ its emergency­ The seventeen-hospital system, like room care, 56 percent of outpatient free tuition, is no longer acceptable to service, and 29 percent of inpatient the banker-controlled politicians, who care. They have only 18 percent of the are trying to convince working people city's hospital beds. that they have no right to, and should The Committee of Interns and Resi­ Committee of Interns and Residents no longer expect, needed social servi­ dents points out that the $1.2 billion Committee of Interns and Residents demonstrated at city hall last month against ces. budget figure used by Mayor Koch for municipal hospital cuts. Eighty-five percent of the hospitals the municipal hospital system is in the city are either private or so­ grossly misleading. More than 70 per­ called nonprofit voluntary hospitals. cent of this budget is paid through The NAACP estimates that 68 per­ And finally, for those hospital Unlike the municipal facilities, the sources such as Blue Shield/Blue cent of the municipal hospital workers workers facing the ax, the Post sug­ private and voluntary hospitals have Cross, Government Health Insurance, and two-thirds to three-fourths of the gested that "the city's hospitals should no legal obligation to care for the and federal and state funding. The city patients are Black or Hispanic. not be an extension of the welfare working poor of New York-those who only pays out about $300 million to Koch tries to hide his racist actions system, paying substantially above the cannot qualify for Medicaid and yet maintain the seventeen hospitals. behind a curtain of "fiscal responsibil­ welfare rate for thousands of Puerto cannot afford private medical insu­ And, as far as economy goes, the ity." Ricans who have made this their spe­ rance. voluntary hospitals, which specialize "When you reduce expenses, it im­ cial preserve." Koch claims he will demand that the in higher salaries for administrators pacts upon poor people because our On January 3, 300 pickets marched state enforce similar cuts in the volun­ and executives, are reimbursed at twice budget is primarily devoted to poor in front of the Post offices to demand tary hospitals, over which Albany has the rate as municipal hospitals for people," he lamely offered. that the paper retract the racist editor­ jurisdiction. many Medicaid costs. But the New York Post has felt no ial. But what the capitalist politicians But perhaps the most revealing item compunction whatsoever in disclosing The city council has warned that the really have in mind is shown by the in Mayor Koch's "money saving" the racist mentality behind the cuts. hospital cuts may create a "political example of West Harlem's Arthur C. scheme is the plan to give away the Giving its support to any hospital cuts earthquake." The NAACP says they Logan Memorial Hospital. Logan is recently completed $150 million North Koch may have in mind, a December could "lead to racial confrontation and the only Black-operated voluntary hos­ Central Bronx Hospital. The recipient 27 editorial blamed the municipal sys­ disorder." And Lillian Roberts-an pital in the city. State health authori­ of this generosity is none other than tem for "meeting the costs of thou­ associate director of District 37 of the ties are planning to close the hospital Montefiore Hospital, a voluntary facil­ sands of welfare recipients and tran­ American Federation of State, County immediately because it is in debt. ity in the Bronx that Koch's health sient illegal aliens unable to pay for and Municipal Employees-has Hospital spokespeople say that a adviser, Dr. Cherkasky, just happens their treatment." warned that "blood [will] flow in the major cause of the facility's problems to head. Reluctantly agreeing to maintaining streets" if the cuts are carried through. is that about 20 percent of its patients The city administration has "under­ seven of the seventeen hospitals, the Koch claims that this "unwarranted aren't eligible for Medicaid but can't taken a deliberate and systematic pol­ Post proposed that the rest "be given use of rhetoric" is responsible for the pay for insurance. icy to destroy the municipal hospital away or sold and in their place, we growing "polarization" in the city. But Logan's proposed fate dispels any system, a system which provides es­ should experiment with health it is his Democratic administration's hope that voluntary hospitals will sential medical services and employ­ centers-the most efficient way of deal­ attacks on the Black and Latino com­ treat those patients who in the past ment primarily to Blacks and Hispan­ ing with a population that keeps in­ munities that have confirmed what he would have gone to the municipal ics," charges David Bryan, executive flicting wounds upon each other that calls his "antipoor" image. The threat­ hospitals. Those hospitals that do will secretary of the NAACP Metropolitan require immediate care but not pro­ ened hospital cuts are only the latest simply be closed. Council. tracted hospital treatment." example.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 9 Court sabotages school desegmgation Cleve. socialist denounces busing delay By Rick Congress simply results from housing patterns opposes what he calls 'forced busing.' and Pat Wright and "human nature"-not deliberate Now he openly declares that he won't CLEVELAND-Socialist mayoral discrimination. enforce it." candidate Thabo Ntweng has de­ Recent Supreme Court decisions N tweng also denounced the role of nounced a federal .court decision to have lent credence to these reactionary Black City Council President George postpone a school desegregation plan excuses. Forbes. Forbes and other Black Demo­ scheduled to begin here next month. In an interview in the January 14 crats organized a demonstration of "This ruling is an attempt to sabo­ Cleveland Plain Dealer, NAACP attor­ 2,000 people on twenty-four hours' tage equal education for Cleveland ney Thomas Atkins pledged that the notice last year when they were in­ Blacks," said the Socialist Workers group would continue its desegregation dicted in a local kickbacks scandal. Party candidate, who is a member of suits throughout Ohio "because we "But they were nowhere to be found to United Auto Workers Local 217. think the effect of our stopping would mount a defense of Black schoolchild- be genocidal for minorities in this ren," said Ntweng. "Desegregation of Cleveland schools country." The Democratic and Republican par­ was ordered in 1976 and has already Socialist Ntweng also pointed to the ties play this role, Ntweng explained, been stalled three times," Ntweng national implications of the court ac­ because they are "the guardians of the pointed out. tion. "What happens here in Ohio will rich, the twiri parties of racism." "The SWP demands that the board affect Blacks and other working people This is shown not only by their of education get the buses rolling as across the country, just like the recent opposition to desegregation, he said, scheduled on February 27. No maneuv­ Bakke decision against affirmative ac­ but by their attempt to make Cleveland ers in the courts should stand in the tion." working people finance the city's way of basic human rights." Ntweng explained that the Cleve­ budget default through a payroll tax­ Ntweng explained that this latest land School Board has cut back fund­ hike proposal on the ballot next attack dovetails with efforts by Demo­ ing for schools on the predominantly month. cratic Mayor Dennis Kucinich to make Black East Side. "Students attend "They want us to pay higher taxes, Cleveland working people pay for the classes in buildings with no heat, no while they slash social services to the city's default crisis through increased textbooks, not even toilet paper," he bone, "Ntweng said. "And while the taxes and cuts in social services. said. "They often don't have a full-time gigantic profits of the banks and cor­ The January 8 decision was granted teacher." porations remain untouched." by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of On the other hand, Ntweng points N tweng pointed out that the Cleve- Appeals in response to a request by •.,,,,.~"'"n••~~ Roberts out, the poor-mouthing school board · land Federation of Labor and Cleve­ Cleveland school officials. It will halt NTWENG: 'Get those buses rolling.' has spent millions in the courts to land Federation of Teachers have both plans to desegregate 20,000 junior high fight desegregation. stated their support for busing to school pupils next month. It also Dayton is the only city in the state Ntweng said that school desegrega­ achieve school desegregation. throws into doubt the plans to desegre­ where a busing plan is already under tion in Cleveland has been blocked for "The Cleveland labor movement gate the remaining 100,000 public way. Since 1976, 13,000 of the district's fifteen years by Democratic and Re­ should call a conference of the unions school students in September. 37,000 students have been bused. publican party politicians on both a and Black community groups to dis­ The three-judge panel issued the Racist opponents of busing in Day­ national and local level. cuss and decide on proposals to fight decision following a U.S. Supreme ton and Columbus are demanding that "Masquerading as the peoples' the attacks by the Democrats and Court decision to review the Dayton the Supreme Court bar district-wide mayor," Ntweng said, "Mayor Kuci­ Republicans on our schools, social and Columbus, Ohio, desegregation busing. They claim that such a plan is nich's sole contribution leading up to services, and living standards," cases. The outcome of that review will illegal unless "willful" segregation by the February 27 target date for busing Ntweng said. also directly affect cases now pending school officials can be proven. was to announce that due to pending "Such a conference could mount a in Cincinnati, Youngstown, and Ak­ The racists insist that the mere police layoffs, the city could not pro­ drive to vote 'no' on the tax hike. And ron. In all, desegregation plans involv­ existence of segregation does not prove vide protection to Black children if it could launch a campaign to end the ing some 350,000 Ohio public school ill "intent" by the school system. This they were attacked by racist mobs. stalling on school desegregation once students are thrown into limbo. "natural" segregation, they claim, "Kucinich has said publicly that he and for all." Women win abortion rights victories By Matilde Zimmermat;tn restrictions on abortion, although it But the restrictions on abortion they think abortion has once again On January 10 a New Jersey Super- does not do so on the basis of a rights-and in particular the bans on become illegal-which is exactly what ior Court judge struck down a 1975 woman's right to choose. It requires Medicaid funding-are what force the anti-abortionists want them to state law that allowed Medicaid abor- Medicaid to pay for an eligible worn- many women to have late abortions. A think. tions only when a woman's life was in an's abortion whenever her doctor, woman on welfare may spend weeks or The New Jersey and Pennsylvania danger. Judge David Furman ruled taking into account physical, emo- even months saving money, arranging abortion victories represent a break in that the "medically necessary" clause tional and age factors, judges the a loan, or searching for a doctor she a long run of setbacks. As women in the federal abortion law meant that procedure necessary for her well-being. can afford. The delay means she faces celebrate the sixth anniversary of the as long as there were health factors Pennsylvania passed a law in 1974 greater expense and. a more compli- legalization of abortion, these two rul- involv~d, abortion had to be treated that restricted the right to abortion in cated procedure, and perhaps even a ings are a sign that it is possible to like any other medical procedure co- a vHriety of ways. Some aspects of the law such as Pennsylvania's that puts fight back against the attacks on abor- vered by Medicaid. law, such as those requiring consent of the "interests" of the fetus above her tion rights, and that women will not One day earlier, the U.S. Supreme the husband or parents, had already own. easily be driven back to the situation Court invalidated a section of Pennsyl- bt>en declared unconstitutional before Some women are deterred because that existed before 197:3. vania's anti-abortion law that required the most recent ruling. doctors to try to preserve the life of the In its six-to-three decision January 9, fetus and choose the abortion tech- the Supreme Court ruled that Pennsyl- nique most likely to lead to live deliv- vania's law was unconstitutionally ery if there was "sufficient reason to vague in that there was no generally believe that the fetus may be viable." accepted way of determining when a The challenge to the New Jersey law fetus "might be viable." was brought by the state Right to The Court also noted the conflict Chouse Committee, Welfare Rights implicit in Pennsylvania's require­ Organization, and Religious Coalition ment. A physician-having deter­ for Abortion Rights, on behalf of sev­ mined by means unknown that a fetus eral welfare recipients who had been "might be viable"-is to choose a denied abortions because they could proce

Ford Motor's gigantic Brook Park plant in Cleveland MilitanVDick Roberts

By Dick Roberts ing in Cleveland could pay the city's defaulted on. It's not surpnsmg. Re­ that operate in them. The exact oppo­ CLEVELAND-In mid-December taxes many times over. They get all public is the eighty-fourth largest U.S. site is true. this city defaulted on $15.5 million their wealth from exploiting workers­ industrial corporation (with some We can be misled by the granite and worth of bank loans. Democratic billions of dollars accumulated over mines in Canada). marble edifices, the city halls, court Mayor Dennis Kucinich threatened to the years. Workers should not have to In 1977 Republic sold $2.9 billion houses, and auditoriums in the center fire up to 3,500 city workers to enable pay any taxes. worth of steel products. It means that of town. Those were built by the capi­ the city hall to ra!se these funds. steelworkers at Republic turn out the talists in honor of themselves. That is Republic Steel equivalent of Cleveland's default every why their names are engraved on the Kucinich backed off from firing that A good illustration of the realities of two days. marble. many workers-35 percent of the city corporate wealth took place here in the When it comes to actually financing work force-pending the outcome of a midst of the December financial crisis. city governments, the rulers of this referendum scheduled for February 27. It concerns. Republic Steel, one of the Tax abatements Tax abatements offer a comparable country give only a pittance. And the Cleveland's residents will then be nation's largest steel manufacturers, example. Across the country corpora­ whole essence of the city crises sweep­ asked to vote to raise city taxes from 1 which is headquartered in Cleveland. tions have demanded tax breaks on ing this country is that the capitalists to 1.5 percent. For most of last year Republic had want to give less and make us pay. If the 50 percent tax increase is city real estate. They threaten to leave been demanding that the city build an more. accepted, Kucinich promises that mass the cities if they don't get these iron ore dock in Cleveland at next to In Cleveland last year residents ac­ layoffs won't be needed, although no cost for Republic. Taconite mined handouts. In Cleveland the Standard Oil Com­ tually paid more in city taxes than the smaller layoffs are already under way. on the Mesabi Iron Range in northern pany of Ohio (SOHIO) and the Na­ fabulously wealthy corporations that The tax increase would cost about $38 Minnesota is shipped down through tional City Bank received tax abate­ operate here. The corporate tax bill for million. the Great Lakes to feed Republic, U.S. Cleveland in 1977 was $57 million. The The Cleveland Socialist Workers Steel, Jones and Laughlin, and the ments of $35 million because they are building new skyscraper headquarters resident tax bill was $62 million, and Party immediately launched its may­ other steel producers in this area. in downtown. This is money that will they are trying to increase resident oral campaign to oppose Kucinich's Republic demanded the dock, threat­ be subtracted from their city taxes over income tax by half. tax referendum. SWP candidate Thabo ening to close down plants and leave Socialists believe that this whole tax Ntweng is urging Cleveland's powerful the Cleveland area if it didn't get this a period of years. ripoff should be ended. Corporations labor movement to call a conference of assist from the city. Kucinich opposed Yet $35 million is almost as much as the $38 million that Cleveland's resi­ should pay the taxes. They have enor­ unions and community groups to fight the dock. mous wealth, all of which was created for a massive vote against the tax Then all of a sudden-a week after dents are being asked to ante up in the by the labor of working people. increase February 27 and to hammer Kucinich threatened to fire 3,500 tax-increase referendum. Do these com­ panies need such a tax break? In 1977 out a political program to meet the workers because the city needed to find In order to focus attention on this needs of Cleveland working people. $15.5 million to pay the banks..;_ SOHIO's assets were $7.8 billion, more issue, the number one demand of a than 200 times as much as the impend­ There are tens of thousands of auto Republic announced it would build the conference of working people would be ing tax increase. and steelworkers in the Cleveland iron ore dock in neighboring Lorain. to open the books. By bringing out the area. The United Auto Workers and And it would spend $200 million on truth about corporate profits compared United Steelworkers could lead an plant improvement and expansion in City financing to the meager wage of workers, the unstoppable drive to expose Kucinich's the Cleveland area. The idea is drummed into our heads labor movement would dramatically tax-increase scheme. That $200 million is more than that city governments have lots of show that the problems of cities can be The truth is the corporations operat- twelve times the $15.5 million Kucinich money compared to the corporations solved. The money is there. Ford's wealth and the Penta on's ripoff By Dick Roberts • The workers at Brook Park and at CLEVELAND-The largest employ­ Ford's smaller Cleveland Walton Hills er in this area is Ford Motor. Ford's stamping plant turned out $1.89 billion Brook Park plant is its second largest worth of goods in 1977. in the world, employing about 14,000 This gigantic sum-entirely owned workers. The three assembly lines by the Ford corporation-is 126 times there turn out six- and eight-cylinder the $15.5 million now needed to bail engines. Cleveland out of default. An assembler at Engine Plant Corporations such as Ford, just from Number One showed me the stub of their output in the Cleveland area, her paycheck. She has been working at could and should pay all federal, state, Brook Park less than a year, so her and city taxes. Workers have already wages are a little below the average. paid in the wealth they create for cor­ Here's what her paycheck showed: porations. • Gross pay for forty hours: $333.40. What about the owners of Ford? A • Tax deductions: $127.50. 1978 congressional study showed that • Take-home pay: $205.67. the Ford family controls 40.28 percent Of the $127.50 that is taken right off Workers leave Brook Park Militant/Dick Roberts of the shares of Ford Motor. the top of her pay check: • The Ford family controls more • $89.81 goes to the federal govern­ cent to the Pentagon! The U.S. military How much wealth is created by the than 55 million shares of Ford stock. ment. budget should be slashed to zero. This workers at Brook Park? Such details • This is worth over $2.4 billion • $3.33 goes to Cleveland taxes. would release plentiful funds to expand are concealed by corporations, which right now. In the midst of the city's municipal needed city services many times over. only reveal figures for their entire • Income from these Ford holdings crisis, no one is saying a word about operations, not broken down city by Ford is the third-largest industrial in 1979 will be $198 million. the gigantic sum of money Cleveland city or even country by country. corporation in the United States, with • A worker such as the person I working people pay to the federal gov­ An educated guess: Ford's payroll in plants in many countries and sales all mentioned earlier would have to work Cleveland of $456 million is roughly 5 ernment. over the capitalist world. 11,314 years to make the amount the The largest item by far in the federal percent of its total world payroll. There Fords take in in one year. budget is its wasteful and oppressive • Ford's sales in 1977 were $37.8 is a close correlation beween wages • The Ford family's income from military expenditures. These constitute billion. and the value of production. If Ford Ford is roughly twice Cleveland's an­ about 35 percent of federal expendi­ • This is 318 times as much as the workers in Cleveland produced 5 per­ nual budget. They could finance two tures. entire Cleveland tax receipts for the cent of the annual value of Ford's Clevelands. "Out of pocket money," as Workers should not have to pay one same year. sales: one Ford worker said.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 11 New o~enings for rights figl.Jj Socialists urge campaign against Weber By Gene Anderson turned back on Black and women's have to unite to effPctivdy fight back." The Socialist Workers Party is rights and that all the gains we fought "You seP this in all kinds of ways,'' launching a campaign to win support for and won are in jeopardy. Hawkins said, ''Everyonp got behind for the fight against Brian Weber's "The rights of the whole union move­ the mirwrs last winter when they stood challenge to affirmative action on the ment are at stake here, too. Weber up against tht> coal bosst>s and Carter. job. challenges the right of the union to And when NOW called the massive Weber, a white lab technician for negotiate a contract that provides fair march on Washington for the Equal Kaiser Aluminum in Gramercy, Louisi­ treatment for its Black and female Rights Amendment 'last July, the ana, is suing to overturn affirmative­ members-a life-and-death question for unions and Black organizations sup­ action provisions of a contract nego­ the American labor movement. An ported it. The Weber case needs to tiated by the United Steelworkers of important sign that this is being recog­ become that kind of fighting cause." America. Last month the U.S. Supreme nized is the AFL-CIO's announcement "Socialists are in a good position to Court agreed to hear the case. that it will file a brief opposing Weber. help that happen," Lyons said, The Militant talked to John Haw­ "There was some confusion over "through the unions we belong to and kins and Wendy Lyons from the SWP what the Bakke decision meant at the women's and Black organizations national office about the party's plans first," Hawkins continued. "For exam· we participate in. We can discuss and around the case. ple, the NAACP originally said that win people to support of affirmative "We think there are new opportuni· the decision upheld affirmative action action and the need to fight against ties to expose the threat Weber poses to in principle. But recently NAACP head the threat of a Weber victory. the rights of all working people, and Benjamin Hooks exposed how various "We should talk to our co-workers new opportunities to rally support for schools have uprooted affirmative­ about their stake in this case. Path- the union's pro-affirmative-action posi­ action programs since the Supreme finder Press is publishing a new pam· tion," Lyons said. Court ruled in favor of Bakke. He told phlet explaining the importance of the "The Militant has been working to a press conference that the case has suit. It's by Militant staff writer Andy publicize this important case for some had a 'far more chilling impact than Rose, who has written extensively on time. It was actually the first national we thought it would have.'" the subject and gotten firsthand re­ paper to sound the alarm and discuss The NAACP also plans to file a ports from the steelworkers at Kaiser the implications of the case, as well as friend-of-the-court brief in support of on why they need an affirmative­ the first to publicize the real record of the steel union's plan at Kaiser. action program. anti-Black and anti-woman discrimi­ "The women's movement is angry "We expect a lot of interest in this nation by Kaiser Aluminum. about the Weber challenge too," Lyons pamphlet, which will be off the press

"Now that the Supreme Court has said. "The National Organization for in a few weeks. In addition, the Mili­ MilitanVWayne Glover agreed to hear it, Weber is becoming a Women passed a strong resolution tant is one of the best ways to get out 'There is growing feeling that we have to household word-like Bakke was.'' Al­ against Weber at its national confer­ information and analysis about the unite to effectively fight back ' lan Bakke won a suit last June over­ ence in October, and NOW chapters case.'' turning affirmative action in medical are organizing discussions and forums "Socialists across the country will school admissions. Like Weber, he around the issue in various cities. discuss the possibility of urging their charged "reverse discrimination" "What's more, the Weber case takes unions and the women's, Black, and tions may be interested in cosponsor­ against white males. place in a new political context. Many other organizations they participate in ing a forum or speakout on the need to "There is more awareness of the in the union movement, women's to pass resolutions in support of the defend affirmative action.'' need to fight against this than there movement, and Black movement now steel union's affirmative-action plan," "The possibilities will vary from was at the time of the Bakke case," realize that there is a pattern of at­ Hawkins said. place to place," Lyons said, "but we Hawkins said. tacks on our rights and living stand­ "Union locals, NOW chapters, cam­ can be sure that SWP members in "For one thing it's a question of jobs. ards by the bosses and government­ pus organizations, Black and latina branches across th~C country will be Blacks and women's organizations and that we've got to stand up to it. groups may want to organize forums discussing how to take advantage of and many in the union movement are "There is a growing feeling that we or even debates around this issue. In the new opportunities to step up the beginning to see that the clock will be have to support each other, that we some cities a whole range of organiza- fight against Weber." Oil union bargainers agree to Carter plan By Debby Leonard next year. HOUSTON-On January 11, A.F. There is a 1980 reopener clause on Grospiron, president of the Oil, Chemi­ wages, health benefits, and vacations. cal and Atomic Workers union, an­ However, the contract also stipulates But is it a pattern-setter? nounced acceptance of a contract offer that any agreement reached in the The Oil, Chemical and Atomic power of union members, it is "en­ from Gulf Oil that would avert a na­ reopened talks must also meet any Workers union didn't break through couraging" to Democratic and Re­ tionwide strike and fall within Presi­ federal guidelines then in effect. Carter's wage guidelines with its publican politicians. dent Carter's wage guidelines. Offers earlier rejected by union nego­ proposed national agreement, but is But it seems more in the world of Some 400 contracts covering 60,000 tiators included prpvisions to freeze the the pact a sign of th~ngs to come? fantasy to generalize, as a Gulf oil workers expired January 7, but the wages of workers in lower-paid classifi­ executive does, that "the workers, union negotiating team agreed to ex­ cations in order to raise the wages of Says a White House aide quoted by the Wall Street Journal, "The fact they really know something is tend the deadline. The settlement other union members. Although this wrong" and are willing to make reached with Gulf, which is expected to divisive clause is reportedly not in­ that the oil workers came in with such a responsible and reasonable sacrifices. set the pattern for the other 100 com­ cluded in the Gulf agreement, it is now As the Journal reports, "Adminis­ settlement, within the guidelines, panies, provides for a seventy-three­ being resubmitted by some of the other tration officials privately were wary without a day of work stoppage, has cents-an-hour across the board wage companies. of predicting that the oil worker to be very encouraging to the Presi­ increase retroactive to January 8. It The OCAW contract was the first settlement will set a pattern of dent and all his advisers." also increases company contributions major nationwide agreement to expire within-the-guidelines settlements to medical coverage up to $4.50 a since the announcement of Carter's Granted. Every time union offi­ from the Teamsters, Rubber Workers month for individuals and $12 for fam­ guidelines (see box). With this in mind, cials bow to the wishes of employers, and other big unions with negotia­ ilies. the White House clearly flexed its instead of confronting them with the tions coming up soon." The wage increase averages out to muscles in the talks on behalf of the oil about 8 percent this year for most oil industry. workers, but in deference to Carter's 7 Gleeful over Carter's role, Gulf Vice­ percent guideline, only 5 percent for president William Breaux, the com­ pany's chief negotiator, commented, With the proposed agreement, we are unit at the huge Gulf Oil refinery in "If the government behaves with other expected to take a cut in real wages Port Arthur, Texas, walked off the job unions and industries as it did with us, (the December inflation rate was 9 protesting an elimination of jobs re­ I'd say it's going to be successful." percent), as well as continue without sulting in speedup and forced overtime. Implicitly acknowledging that the the needed improvements in benefits. The remaining 3,000 OCAW workers at agreement falls far short of oil At the ARCO refinery where I work, Gulf have honored their picket line. workers' needs; OCAW's Grospiron a petition signed by several hundred Other local strikes have since begun said, "Now it's up to the Teamsters workers demanding dental coverage in at the ARCO Polymers plant in Port and auto workers." the next contract was submitted to the Arthur and the Amoco chemical plant The proposed Gulf settlement flies in international union. That demand was in Texas City. the face not only of Grospiron's state­ echoed nationwide and included in the There may be still more local strikes ment last month that Carter's program national set of demands. But there is before the agreement is finally voted was "unfair to workers," but also of not a word about it in the new agree­ on by all 400 OCAW units. Unfortu­ the nationally adopted Oil Bargaining ment. nately, they will pay the price of isola­ Policy, which most union members There are also many local issues at tion. The companies, which would already considered minimal in its de­ stake. They include safety, elimination have been substantially hurt by a mands. of jobs, disciplinary procedures, and nationwide strike, will be in a much That national union policy called for grievance procedures. Most local better position to continue near-normal a "substantial" wage increase, fully unions settle these before accepting the production. paid medical benefits (including pres­ national agreement. In the future, our union would do criptions and a dental plan), and more When the national contract expired well to adopt the United Mine Workers OCAW's GROSPIRON vacation time. January 7, 150 members of the clerks' policy: "No contract, no work." 12 Court cites gov't harassment Socialists win campaign disclosure fight By Bob Schwarz The Socialist Workers Party will not have to hand over names of its campaign contributors to the federal government. After a five-year battle, a court ~--~ order was signed January 2 exempting SWP cam­ ·1.•········. ·,, paign committees from identifying contributors. The exemption lasts through the end of 1984. The federal court said the socialists had demon­ strated "a reasonable probability that the compelled disclosure of the names of their members, contribu­ tors, and recipients of expenditures will subject them to threats, harassment, or reprisals from either government officials or private parties." The decision came in a lawsuit filed by the SWP against the Federal Election Campaign Act. A consent decree, agreed to by both sides, was pro­ posed by the SWP after both the defendants-the Federal Election Commission and Common Cause indicated they wanted to get out from under the case. This is the first time a federal agency has offi­ cially conceded that the government subjects social­ ists to unconstitutional harassment. The ruling will aid the SWP's ongoing fight against the FBI. Under the decision SWP campaign committees will have to continue to keep records of contributors and file reports with the Federal Election Commis­ sion, but they won't identify contributors. In 1984, when the exemption expires, the SWP can apply for an extension. ~- Militant/Rita Lee According to attorney Charles Sims of the Ameri­ Campaign disclosure laws, though touted by liberals as a 'reform,' aim to strengthen capitalist two-party can Civil Liberties Union, which represented the monopoly over elections. SWP in the suit, the federal decision paves the way for winning parallel exemptions from state disclo­ disposal. But complying with the law is a huge task its contributions. The answer is that any small sure laws. Although they are not bound by it, Sims for smaller parties and independent candidates. In party could be secretly financed by a major party or said, "state attorney generals will be inclined to many cases it is an even more onerous burden than candidate to drain votes from an opponent." accept the decision of a federal court that was in a the petitioning requirements imposed on indepen­ position to look at all the evidence. It should be very dent candidates. In the 1974 Ohio gubernatorial elections, Demo­ crat John Gilligan lost to Republican James Rhodes persuasive." For candidates who represent working-class by less than the 97,000 votes SWP candidate Nancy currents-including the SWP, the Communist Brown received. Following the election a Common Party, and others-by far the most dangerous Cause staff member told the Harvard Law Review requirement is that candidates hand over lists of Fake reform that the SWP was getting secret Republican contri­ contributors to the government. The Federal Election Campaign Act that the SWP butions. This was a deliberate lie. challenged was supposed to be the answer to It was this provision that the socialists went into However, Common Cause came under considera­ popular outrage over capitalist political corruption court to challenge. They filed suit against the ble pressure, even from its own supporters, not to exposed in the aftermath of Watergate. Supporters Federal Election Commission in federal court in side with the government against the SWP. Ken­ of the law, such as Common Cause, the self-styled Washington, D.C. Common Cause entered the case neth Guido, associate general counsel for Common "citizens' lobby" that helped write it, claimed the as an "intervenor defendant," a legal term for Cause, complained in his organization's newsletter legislation would limit corporate influence in elec­ throwing your lot in with those being sued. that "members of the Socialist Workers Party have tions and make candidates responsible to the ordi­ Throughout the long court battle, Common Cause been popping up at Common Cause meetings with nary voter. argued for and aided the FEC. At first they claimed The law requires candidates to file frequent, symp.athy with the socialists' charges of harass­ harsh questions about our support of civil liberties." ment. But challenging the disclosure law was the detailed reports indentifying contributors of more Of course, it wasn't just SWP members who wrong way to deal with it, they argued. than $100 and those they pay for printing, rent, and challenged Common Cause's reactionary stand. "By attacking the constitutionality of campaign other services. Many others who agreed with the socialists finance laws" Common Cause said in 1975, "the The SWP contended that these reports, which are "popped up" to raise their objections to Common public records, would be used by the FBI, local Socialist Workers have gone off on a tangent. If Cause policy. they were to succeed, they would invalidate laws police agencies, and right-wing groups to victimize In the end, the Federal Election Commission and designed to prevent future W atergates and still not socialist supporters. As evidence the socialists filed Common Cause were forced to concede. In the face effectively prevent government harassment." thousands of pages of documents detailing govern­ of mounting evidence of harassment of the SWP But as we have seen, these laws don't prevent ment and right-wing harassment, including secret and waning public confidence in the value of these FBI files obtained through the SWP's suit against anything of the sort. Their real purpose is some­ laws, they capitulated and agreed to the order the FBI. thing entirely different. The capitalist parties, led recently signed by the court. At the same time the SWP went on a vigorous by liberals such as Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), campaign to explain that the law would not solve took advantage of the widespread revulsion at the They agreed that the SWP "cannot constitution­ the problem of political corruption. But, the social­ corruption revealed by Watergate to sneak through ally be compelled to comply with the reporting ists explained, it would pose a serious threat to some additional obstacles to independent political requirements." political freedom and would further restrict political action. Far from preventing "future Watergates," "The record discloses," they conceded "that the expression outside the two capitalist parties. these laws reinforce the most corrupt aspect of U.S. Socialist Workers Party and persons connected with As the Militant explained when the suit was filed politics-the virtual stranglehold on the electoral it have been subjected to systematic harassment" in 1974: "As experience has shown, the only result system maintained by the two capitalist parties. by the government. of tightening controls on campaign financing is to Common Cause began devoting much of its Now Common Cause is trying to limit the victory drive the corruption further underground, not to end considerable resources to beating the SWP chal­ by saying it won't apply to any other parties that it. lenge. In state after state they defended disclosure have been victimized by government and right-wing laws and took the side of the election officials harassment. "Illicit financial deals are diverted to more indi­ against the SWP. Their liberal reputation provided Common Cause attorney Ellen Block told the rect routes. Money is 'laundered' through Mexican cover for the most antidemocratic aspects of the Militant, "I don't think the results [of the SWP banks or foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations. laws. victory] make a very large hole in the disclosure If limits are put on contributions, big donors simply law." break them down and have 10, 50, or 100 'friends' Any other group seeking an exemption "will have make the gifts. Shameless attacks to make the same kind of showing" of harassment "Illegal? Of course. But equally uncontrollable. In the end, their attacks on SWP claims of that the SWP has. "Not many parties can come in And after all, the administrators of the law are the government harassment became more shameless and do that," she predicted. very same politicians and parties who are sup­ than those of official agencies of the government. But that simply is not true. While the facts about posedly being controlled." As recently as last year they told the court "the government operations against the SWP are per­ Central Intelligence Agency is not presently con­ haps the most widely known to the American ducting any activity directed against the Socialist people, many other parties and organizations have Impact on smaller parties . Workers Party which is intended to harass the been subjected to the same illegal government activ­ The effect on smaller parties-those challenging Socialist Workers Party or its members in the ities. the political monopoly of the two capitalist exercise of their political rights." Who says so? The The SWP victory clears the way for similar moves parties-is just the opposite. lawyer for the CIA! by the Communist Party, the Raza Unida Party, the The disclosure law requires a monumental job of Common Cause accused SWP candidates of being Black Panther Party, and anyone else who has been bookkeeping and paperwork. This is not a problem "stalking horses" for conservatives. An article in targeted by the government, by the right-wing, or for the Democratic and Republican parties, who their January, 1975 newsletter said: "Some people by racist forces. have teams of lawyers and accountants at their ask why so poor a party as the SWP need disclose It is truly a victory for all.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 13 Young Socialists 1 antinuke, divestment c~ By Omari Musa As the Iranian masses were knock­ ing away the props of the shah's brutal regime in Iran and the Cuban people were celebrating the twentieth anniver­ sary of their revolution, 600 delegates and guests met in Pittsburgh De­ cember 28-January 1 for the eighteenth Young Socialist Alliance national con­ vention. Solidarity with the Iranian struggle to end the shah's tyranny fired the Pathfinder sales Sales of revolutionary literature were brisk at the YSA convention. Pathfinder Press reports that more than $4,000 in books and pamphlets were sold. Topping the list was China After Mao by Leslie Evans, 244 copies; The Ethiopian Revolution by Ernest Harsch, 146 copies; Workers and Peasants to Power by Hugo Blanco, 87 copies; and Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution by Joseph Hansen, 65 copies. spirit of the gathering. Solidarity with Iranian revolution dominated spirit of Young Socialist convention Convention delegates explained the wide interest in Iran on their cam­ puses, the anti-shah activities that had important examples of new protests on aspect of the YSA's activity. "Plans are under way for a statewide been organized, and the growing inter­ campus are the growth of the move­ Many of the delegates were also Chicano student conference in Febru­ est in revolutionary Marxism among ment against nuclear weapons and leaders of campus divestment and anti­ ary. There are more than twenty Chi­ Iranian students. power, and the movement in solidarity apartheid groups at their schools. cano student organizations involved in Parvin Najafi, a staff writer for the with the liberation struggle in south­ The YSA helped organize the tour of publicizing it," he said. Iranian socialist weekly Payam Da­ ern Africa." South African trade unionist Drake "The organizers of the conference neshjoo, addressed the convention and Koka and African solidarity conferen­ have the perspective of creating an gave a moving description of the mas­ Antinuke movement ces in New York City; Evanston, Illi­ organization that can respond rapidly sive mobilizations against the shah. Delegates from around the country nois; and Durham, North Carolina, to cop terror and attacks on Chicano Susie Berman, editor of the Young reported on student participation in last fall. Those conferences approved rights in general. Socialist, reported on revolutionary anti-nuclear power protests last No­ March 18-24 and April4-11 as weeks of "We think this is a good perspec­ developments internationally. She vember 11-19 in commemoration of the coordinated protest on campuses tive," Gonzales told the delegates, pointed to Iran, Peru, Nicaragua, Ethi­ death of Karen Silkwood. Silkwood­ across the country. "and the YSA is throwing itself into who worked in a plutonium plant­ opia, and southern Africa as examples Dywond Bell, a high school student building and participating in the con­ died mysteriously while on her way to of the important upsurges in the semi­ from St. Louis, told the delegates that ference." meet a reporter to expose unsafe work­ colonial world. "these dates offer the divestment New activity in the Black commun­ Berman explained that solidarity ing conditions at her plant. ity and among Black students was also National executive committee movement an opportunity to grow by with struggles of the oppressed every­ reaching out to other students, Blacks, noted. The delegates discussed how the member Paul Mailhot drew together blows against Black rights have led to where is fundamental to the YSA's and unionists. the experiences of the antinuke move­ protests against cop murders, the fight for a socialist United States. "It will allow activists to organize ment in a report to the gathering. Bakke decision, and in solidarity with Cathy Sedwick, national chairperson picket lines, forums, protests at board "While this is a new movement," he the African liberation struggle. of the YSA, reported on the political of trustees meetings, and where possi­ said, "it is a,lready beginning to have Steve Williams of the Washington, situation in this country. She described ble, demonstrations." an impact on the consciousness of D.C., YSA chapter explained: the increased activity and interest in The convention also stressed the American working people. "The capitalists are taking away our socialist ideas among young people importance of education on the real today. This is due, she explained, both "Actions have already been called gains in education and employment. issues in the southern Africa ~truggle. to the impact of revolutionary strug­ for Rocky Flats, Colorado, next April One of these attacks is against Black gles around the world and to important and June 3-4 as part of the Interna­ Ernest Harsch, a reporter for Inter­ colleges in the South. The rulers are changes in the United States. tional Days of Protest called by Euro­ continental Press/ Inprecor who re­ forcing these colleges to merge with "There is growing resistance by pean antinuke organizations. cently visited South Africa, showed white schools. What this does is lower working people and the oppressed in "These actions should be a focus of slides and provided personal observa­ the number of Blacks that are able to this country to the ruling-class offen­ our activity. We want to help organize tions of what apartheid means for attend college. sive against our democratic rights and campus antinuke committees and par­ Blacks in South Africa. "In light of the Bakke decision, this living standards," she said. ticipate in local protests." situation closes another door to educa­ Sedwick pointed to the miners' strike Black and Chicano struggles tional opportunities for Black youth. and the July 9 demonstration for the So. Africa solidarity Anthony Gonzales of the San Anto· "An example of the developing res­ Equal Rights Amendment as prime The emergence of the movement in nio YSA reported that there is a revi­ istance of Blacks is the fact that the examples of this resistance. solidarity with the liberation struggle val of the Chicano student movement University of the District of Columbia She noted that "two of the most in southern Africa is also a central in Texas. and Howard University organized a Join the YSA! Young people in the U.S. are moving into action to defend the freedom struggles of our sisters and brothers around the world. Their struggle is our struggle. Join the Young Socialist Alliance!

D I want to join the Young Socialist Alliance. D Enclosed is $2 for a one-year subscription to the 'Young Socialist.· D I want more information on the YSA. Name ______Address ______City ______State ______Zip ______Del ega Send to: YSA, P.O. Box 471 Cooper Station, New York, New York 10003. perso· natior

14 ·,-·. ) '·., 'US~ out of Africa' an The emergence of a new movement "However," he continued, "in our in solidarity with the liberation strug_­ opinion the only demand that effec­ gle in southern Africa was a central tively unites opponents of apartheid in • part of the Young Socialist Alliance action is the demand that the United convention discussions. States get out of southern Africa. The demand that all ties between the "For activists in the United States to Lmpa•gns United States and the white minority try to choose which liberation groups regime be cut immediately has been should lead the struggle in Africa can the focus of campus protests, rallies, only narrow and divide the solidarity and demonstrations across the coun­ movement here." try. Green pointed to the example of Discussion at the convention cen­ Cuba's role in Africa. tered on the March 18-24 and April 4- "We in the YSA think the major 11 weeks of nationally coordinated force outside Africa that is aiding the anti-apartheid protest activities. The African liberation struggle is the army call for these protests came from three of revolutionary Cuba. regional conferences involving nearly "We consider Cuba's revolutionary 2,000 activists last fall. troops one of the liberation groups in "Divest now!" is the central demand Africa. of student anti-apartheid activists to­ "But while the YSA will continue to day. YSA delegates pointed to the defend the Cubans and their role in power of this demand that universities Africa, we don't demand that other stop investing in companies doing activists adopt our position on Cuba as business in South Africa. a precondition for participating in the "It's a powerful demand in two African solidarity movement. ways," said Sally Rees, a founder of "For us, the basis for unity in build­ the North East Coalition for the Liber­ ing the divestment and anti-apartheid ation of Southern Africa (NECLSA). struggle is the immediate withdrawal "On the one hand, it is a concrete of all U.S. political, economic, and way for students to demand tha_t the military support to the racist regimes. United States get out of Africa. On the That is the way we can organize a other, it poses the question of who mass movement." should make university policy-the Delegates also discussed plans for students and faculty or the business­ the upcoming tour of Maceo Dixon. A men and lawyers on the boards of national committee member of the trustees." Socialist Workers Party and longtime The YSA delegates, many of whom Black activist, Dixon has just returned are leaders and activists in their cam­ from a seven-week trip to Africa. pus divestment groups, were optimistic Fred Halstead, the 1968 SWP presi­ that the student movement against the dential candidate, will also be on a U.S. role in South Africa will grow. speaking tour this winter. He will "Our perspective is to move full speak on the antinuke struggle and his steam ahead on the spring actions," new book on the anti-Vietnam War said Eli Green, who presented the 1t rally demanding the freedom of nos, and women-are coming to social­ movement, Out Now! -O.M. report on divestment to the convention. itical prisoners from the United ist conclusions. "The March 18-24 and April 4-11 ,tes to South Africa," Williams said. "This means we have greater oppor­ protests are precisely what are needed .Iaureen Colletta, a delegate from tunities than before to win them to our at this stage of the movement. We ston, discussed the activities of cam­ banner," national executive committee want to work together with other acti­ ; women's groups. member Miguel Zarate told the gather­ vists to broaden the campus commit­ Women students see that the at­ ing. tees that exist and help organize new ks on the right to abortion, the "The YSA's task coming out of this committees. A, and women's studies programs convention is to deepen our roots on "These actions also offer an oppor­ ve the same source," she explained. the high schools and college campuses, tunity to involve the Black community 'he YSA will be helping to organize sell the Young Socialist and Militant, and the trade unions, bringing their dvities around International participate in and help lead the coming power to bear on the U.S. government, \'men's Day and International Abor­ battles, and recruit to the YSA." banks, and corporations," Green said. th Day in March. The delegates agreed that one of the Another aspect of the discussion :onvention delegates discussed how best ways to talk socialism with young focused on the debate among students H deepening struggles of trade unio­ people is to sell the YSA's newspaper, over what demands and strategy can nts are attracting students and the Young Socialist. best build the movement. vmg people. More than 14,500 copies were sold lissouri delegates talked about the Delegates pointed out that at the last fall. The convention projected a ·or movement's defeat of the "right NECLSA conference last November sales drive with a goal of 5,000 per some participants urged that giving work" referendum in that state. month in February, March, and April. Students almost instinctively rai­ political and military support to spe­ l to the unions to help defeat this Zarate, summed up the YSA's pers­ cific liberation groups in southern .on,-busting referendum," St. Louis pective: Africa be the central "principle of egate Aaron Hatch told the conven­ "The YSA's approach is to raise the unity" for NECLSA. Tliis proposal .1. "Students and Black community broad issues of the class struggle on was rejected by the majority of acti­ ·anizations campaigned with unio­ campus-imperialist war, racism, sex­ vists at the conference. Green explained, "We support any ts explaining what was behind the ism, unemployment-educating stu­ dents and organizing support on cam­ effort to defeat imperialism. We sup­ ~rendum. port all groups struggling against This proved to me beyond the pus for the struggles of workers and imperialism-we are for their victory ,dow of a doubt the power of the the oppressed. over imperialism. ·eking class when mobilized to fight "At the same time, we link the issues its interests," he added. of special concern to students to issues facing the working class. We seek to use the campuses as organizing cen­ t opportunities ahead ters to take struggles beyond school 1e convention delegates were boundaries-and in doing so, to unite ~ed that more and more young with the working class in the fight to >le-students, workers, Blacks, lati- abolish capitalism."

look ...... ""' .. '=· South •. oil from . shah. Apartheid firnlly anchored on its oil suppli¢8 'fr6mJran~ For this reason the Iran.~ ian r(!volution is of ~pecial signifi'­ cance tq the fighting people of South Africa~ · The Black Consciousness Move~ . rnent of South Africa realizes that . meaningful change will come by the complete transfer of ·power to the indigenous people of South Africa· Militant/Susie Winsten MilitanVAfrodita Constantinidis and the complete transformation of · •s elected new YSA officers. From left to right: Cathy Sedwick, national chair­ the economic structure in favor of Susie Berman, national _secretary and editor of 'Young Socialist'; Miguel Zarate, the toiling masses. organizational secretary.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 15 Th.reat, to jail leaders ·court acts to halt FASH strike New York By Brett Merkey But the central issue in the truckers' make them return to work "against PITTSBURGH-The rights of inde­ shutdown is precisely their right to their will." CETA pendent steel haulers were dealt a form their own union and bargain Rosenberg's injunction prohibits serious blow in mid-January when independently with the carriers they picketing that interferes with deliver­ U.S. District Judge Louis Rosenberg lease their rigs to and drive for. Out of ies, but it "doesn't compel" strikers to workers ordered the Fraternal Association of some 30,000 steel haulers, 10,000 work go back to work, according to a F ASH Steel Haulers (FASH) to end its two­ under Teamster contracts. Even they attorney. month-long strike. are denied the right to vote on those More than 350 Pittsburgh-area fight contracts. strikers-victimized by the steel com­ "It's off. The strike is over," declared panies, state and local cops, the FBI, the black-robed strikebreaker. "It's at F ASH is also demanding higher Teamster goon squads, and media rates. cutbacks an end absolutely, and the status quo attacks-voted a resounding "no" to By Rosalie Schwartz must be restored immediately." Judge Rosenberg has threatened to the back-to-work order following Ro­ NEW YORK-One casualty of the U.S. Steel and six other steel com­ jail F ASH President Bill Hill unless senberg's ruling. budget-cutting fever sweeping Con­ panies requested the injunction. With the injunction is obeyed and FASH's Commenting on the firing of several gress and the Carter administration is shameless hypocrisy, these giant mo- full membership list is turned over to steel haulers and a recent rate increase the Comprehensive Employment nopolies claim that the F ASH strike the court. to the carrier companies that will Training Act (CETA). violates antitrust laws! The employers Hill has asked strikers not to inter­ mean a pay cut for truckers, George In October, Congress extended the argue that since F ASH members own fere with steel shipments. But he has Grimes, secretary of F ASH, told the program, which provided about their rigs, the group is a business left the decision on whether to end the Militant: 750,000 jobs last year, for another four organization, not a union. strike in their hands, saying he can't "We have no choice but to stay out." years. But the new legislation will cut 100,000 of those jobs during 1979, lower the maximum pay, and, with few exceptions, limit the time that an em­ Donate $9,000 ployee can be funded under CETA to eighteen months. This means that most current CETA workers face a cut­ off date of October 1, 1979. Iron range rally backs Inco strike CETA was first enacted in 1973 with the stated aim of providing training By Stu Singer leaving that day, we shook hands, and reported on the lengths to which his for the "hardcore under- and unem­ EVELETH, Minn.-Iron ore miners I said to them, 'If you ever go on strike, company, Reserve Mining, went to ployed.'' Since then, unemployment here rallied last month in support of be sure to let us know.' break the union's support for the Sud­ figures have spiraled upwards. The 12,000 striking nickel miners in Sud­ "Well, last week they called and said, bury strike. unemployed who temporarily find bury, Ontario. It was one year ago that 'We finally hit the bricks-first time in "On Sunday we posted the leaflets work under CETA are soon back on the Iron Range steelworkers ended fifty-five years.' about this rally at work. Monday the streets. their 138-day strike. morning I got a call from the Indus­ In New York, during the city budget The Inco miners in Sudbury are "These steelworkers in Germany are trial Relations person," Larson said. crisis of 1974-75, laid-off professional organized in United Steelworkers Lo­ striking for the thirty-five-hour week. "He told me he wanted them taken and semiskilled city workers were re­ cal 6500. They've been on the picket Eighty thousand are on strike. So we down. He said this Canadian strike is hired under CETA in a deal the munic­ line since September 16. truly have an international rally for none of the business of our local union. ipal unions worked out with city offi­ Almost $9,000 was raised from three different countries." 'We're not going to allow this on com­ cials. In the process these workers lost USWA locals on the range and during pany property,' he told me. 'Who do "The grass will be green before we go their pension plans, and many were plant-gate collections for the Interna­ you think you are, coming here and downgraded in salary. back," predicted Sudbury striker John tional Nickel (Inco) strikers. putting things like that up?' Most have continued working under Geslin. The December 15 rally here at the "I told him to go to hell." CETA, but like other CETA workers Local 4757 collected more than National Guard Armory was ad­ Ed Cousineau, a nickel miner for across the country, their jobs have $1,000 for Sudbury in spite of the dressed by officials of five Iron Range thirty-eight years, told the rally, "Our been based on one-year or less con­ company's opposition. USW A locals, two In co strikers, and fight against this multinational corpo­ tracts. At Inland Steel's Minorca mine, the Ed Sadlowski, who ran for USW A ration is not only our fight. The multi­ The new CETA legislation does al­ smallest and newest taconite operation president in the February 1977 elec­ national corporations get together and low for a waiver of the eighteen-month on the Iron Range with about 450 tion. get richer and bigger at the expense of limit in areas of "unusual economic hourly workers, the largest per capita The rally opened with the singing of the workers. So of necessity we have to hardship" or high unemployment, contribution to the Sudbury strike was "Solidarity Forever." Sadlowski, band together and support each other which New York City surely qualifies whose campaign was strongly sup­ morally, financially, and otherwise. made. for. But the secretary of labor has to ported both in Sudbury and on the Iron With the kind of support we have here Local 6115 President Roger Klander, approve waivers, and it is not certain Range, stressed the importance of la­ tonight, we shall not be moved. We will along with a number of volunteers, who is covered and for how long. bor solidarity. not be moved." stood at the gate during four shift About half New York's 40,000 CETA "Their strike against International changes, all in below-freezing weather, employees belong to municipal Nickel is no different than your strike Willard Anderson, president of Local handing out leaflets and collecting unions-the majority are members of was against U.S. Steel, Inland, and 2660 at Hanna Mining, spoke of the money. Almost two dollars per member the American Federation of State, Republic," Sadlowski said. "Interna­ need to establish a common expiration was raised this way. This activity led County and Municipal Employees Dis­ tional Nickel is not some foreign firm date for the contracts of USW A miners to discussions at work about interna­ trict Council 37. on the North American continent try­ in the United States and Canada. The tional solidarity and the right to strike. CETA workers have many problems, ing to take away jobs from workers in separate expiration dates have led to The U.S. Basic Steel Contract, which including inadequate grievance proce­ the U.S. The same people who have the situation of Canadian Iron ore covers the iron ore mines, expires in dures and forced "out of title" work. been cutting the Sudbury miners' miners working during the U.S. iron 1980, and there is increasing talk here But the question of job security re­ throats have been cutting our throats ore strike and the U.S. miners working of the strengths and weaknesses of the mains our central concern. for a month of Sundays." when the Canadian iron miners went 1977 strike and what to do next. A On November 15, about seventy-five Sadlowski also referred to the fact on strike. victory in Sudbury would be an inspi­ New York CETA workers met to dis­ that the Inco nickel monopoly was Local 4757 President Bill Larson ration to U.S. miners. cuss how to defend and improve our founded by financial tycoon J.P. Mor­ jobs. The CETA Workers Organizing gan at nearly the same time Morgan Committee was formed and is prepar­ put together the U.S. Steel monopoly. ing two petitions-one to demand that Inco remains largely controlled by the the Labor Department grant a perman­ same American capitalists who run ent wai•1er of the eighteen-month limit U.S. Steel. in areas of high unemployment, and "The House of Morgan has their the other calling upon DC 37 officials tentacles in International Nickel," to fight for the waiver and for the other Sadlowski said. needs of CETA workers. "So we want to pass on this Local 1930 of the Library Guild has message-their strike is our strike." passed a resolution demanding that Joe Samargia, president of Iron regular job openings be offered to Range Local 1938, chaired the rally. CETA workers, who make up one-third He also spoke of international solidar­ of the library staff. The local also ity, pointing to the strike by West approved setting up aCETA commit­ German steelworkers. (For news on the tee, which is working on CETA de­ settlement of that strike, see page 21.) mands for the 1980 DC 37 contract. "We are looking at an international We can best defend our needs by situation where U.S. miners and steel­ winning other such support from the workers are trying to raise money for municipal unions. The fight of CETA Canadian steelworkers, and I have a workers is part of the struggle to block message from an even further area­ the cutback artists-in Washington, from West Germany," Samargia told Albany, and New York City. It is in the rally. the interest of all public workers to "A year ago when we had our rally defend our rights. in Hibbing, two West German steel­ workers came to the rally and pres­ ED SADLOWSKI: 'The same people who have been cutting the Sudbury miners' ented us with $3,000. As they were throats have been cutting our throats for a month of Sundays.'

16 Socialist faces trial in Colo. free speech fight By Sue Adley Caroll' Mangan, prl'sident of the Cen­ DENVER-A battle over free speech tral I>envlT chapter of the National and civil liberties is d('veloping in Organization for Woml'n. They ex­ Pueblo, Colorado. On one side stand a pn•ssed tlwir full support for tlw social­ univl·rsity administration and the lo­ ists· right to free speech. cal district attorney; on the other, a Thl' University of Southern Colorado growing list of prominent supporters of has had difficulty in maintaining a democratic rights. consistent version of the arrest. First At issut• is whether or not Steve university officials claimed Marshall Marshall. a twenty-six-year-old wPld­ interrupted the debate with shouts for ing student at Denvpr's Community equal time. College, will facl' a six-month prison "That fiction can be clearPd up by sentence for passing out a flyer on Governor Lamm," says Marshall. public property. "who saw me in handcuffs before he Marshall was press secretary to Elsa evPn entered the building. We intend to Blum. the Socialist Workers Party's call the governor as a witness in the candidate for governor in the No­ trial." wmher 19/H elections. Next the university amended tht' Whl•n Blum was dPnied thl' right to complaint to charge Marshall with participatl' in a debate hetwel'n the making "unreasonabll.' noise." This Democratic and Republican candidatt•s ret'Prs to his tPlling students of the at the University of Southern Colorado arrest threat. in Pueblo, she and Marshall stood in For several months the university thl' public lobby of the building and claimed that it was not pressing distributed llyers to the assembling charges. But on December 1:3, at a audienCl'. pretrial conference, an assistant dis­ The flyers Wl'H' a statement request­ trict attorney told Marshall and his ing equal time in the dPbate for Blum, attorneys that USC President Richard signed by thirty prominent Colora­ Pesqueira was insisting that the case doans, and a statPment by Blum her­ MilitanVJim Altenberg be prosecuted. self. Steve Marshall discussing socialists' view of Iranian revolution. Pueblo, Colorado, At the Denver press conference, Mar­ Five minutes before the start of the authorities arrested him for leafleting a debate between Democrats and Republicans. shall emphasized that it is not simply debate, a campus cop ordered Marshall the right of one student or one political to stop leafleting and threatened him party at stake in this case but the with arrest if he continued. The response in Pueblo was imme­ Shirley Levinson, Colorado chairper­ rights of all the students and faculty As Marshall continued to lawfully diate. The American Civil Liberties son of the Democratic Socialist Organ­ on the campus to hear and express exercise his First Amendment right, he Union offered its support, as did two izing Committee; several faculty and different political ideas. told several students of the officer's local attorneys, Jerry Porter and Joe student leaders; Marshall; and Blum. Supporters of free speech are asked threat. At that point James Tising, Ulibarri. Ulibarri is a former assistant Within the next few weeks, dozens of to send messages demanding the director of Campus Security, ordered attorney general of Colorado and is telegrams poured into the' offices of the charges against Marshall be dropped Marshall arrested. He was handcuffed, chairperson of the Chicano Democratic district attorney and university presi­ to: Dr. Richard Pesqueira, University searched, and pushed into a police car Caucus in Pueblo. dent demanding that charges against of Southern Colorado, Pueblo, Colo­ as Gov. Dick Lamm, the Democratic On the university campus, a free Marshall be dropped. rado 81001; and to District Attorney candidate, walked by. speech rally was organized by the A press conference in Denver fea­ Joseph Losavio, Tenth and Main, Marshall was charged with disor­ student government and Chicanos tured James Joy, executive director of Pueblo, Colorado 81003. Copies should derly conduct and released. He has United for Action. Speakers there in­ the Colorado Civil Liberties Union; be sent to: Socialist Workers Party, 126 pleaded not guilty, and a trial has bt•en cluded AI Gurule, a former gubernator­ James Reynolds, director of the Colo­ West Twelfth Avenue, Denver, Colo­ set for April 2. ial candidate of the Raza Unida Party; rado Civil Rights Commission; and rado 80204.

Ruth Querio, veteran Trotskyist By Kipp Dawson the 1950s and early 1960s the Trotskyist move­ PITTSBURGH-After forty-five years as a ment and the organized left in general had socialist fighter, Ruth Querio died here No­ shrunk down to almost nothing in Pittsburgh. vember 26 at the age of seventy-two. On De­ There were intense pressures to conform to the cember 13 many of her comrades, family, and seemingly affluent and all-powerful capitalist friends met at the Socialist Workers Party hall to status quo. But Ruth refused to give up the celebrate her life. insights, the understanding, or the hopes that Frank Lovell, a national committee member of she had developed in the revolutionary socialist the Socialist Workers Party, spoke of Querio's movement.... first experience with politics in Allentown, Penn­ "It was such a joy for those of us who were sylvania. young radicals in the mid-1960s to discover that "Like many thousands of working-class fami­ there was an old fighter like Ruth who hadn't lies, Ruth, her husband, and young daughter been beaten, who hadn't given up, who was still were destitute in 1933 when this country was in there-expecting us, waiting for us, an older the depths of the depression. person ready to join us and encourage us and "Her husband had been a mill worker, a silk share with us as much knowledge and energy as weaver. When the workers began to organize for she could in the fight against war, racism, and their own protection against overwork and low all forms of injustice. pay, the. mill owners at first blacklisted those "And the fact that a new generation was ready they thought were ringleaders and later began to struggle for a better world was, I know, a closing down the mills altogether." source of great joy for her, too. It was a case of With no work available and no money to pay love at first sight." rent, the Querios were evicted from their home. Many of Querio's comrades sent messages to "Members of the National Unemployed League Querio helped steer the Allentown branch of the meeting. Some described her enthusiasm over learned about the eviction of the Querio family the Workers Party through difficult times, includ­ the new women's movement and the Socialist and came to their aid." Lovell said. "This taught ing a raiding action by agents of the Communist Workers Party's active participation in it. Vete­ Ruth that she and her family were not alone." Party. ran Trotskyists, including Sam Gordon, Anne Lovell described how Ruth became an activist In a message to the meeting here, SWP leaders Chester, and Regina Shoemaker, hailed Querio's in the unemployed movement and through her Farrell Dobbs and Marvel Scholl recalled that long and ever-optimistic dedication to her party. work there came into contact with the Confer­ "Ruth lived in and for the party. Despite years of LeBlanc summed it up. "Ruth was lucky to be ence for Progressive Labor Action, then led by untold suffering from several physical ailments, so valued. But she was lucky, also, to be a A.J. Muste. she never let her illness stand in the way of self­ revolutionary socialist. Querio became involved in the CPLA's discus­ imposed assignments-unable to march in an­ "It adds a rich meaning to a person's life to sions about the need for a working-class political tiwar demonstrations she often stood in the cold struggle for socialism-a society in which our party. In a 1973 interview, she said she learned of a Pittsburgh winter to sell the Militant. class, the masses of working people, are in during the depression that since nothing is given "For many years Ruth helped keep the idea of charge of the economy and running the govern­ to working people, "you have to fight every inch socialism alive in Pittsburgh, working in almost ment to make sure that each person is valued of the way. Since 1933, I believed that workers total isolation, after the former Pittsburgh and has the opportunity to grow and develop and must have their own world." branch was dissolved. And then, when she found create for himself or herself a richly meaningful "Ruth Querio was no idle dreamer," Lovell a few young people responsive to her revolution­ life, a community in which each person gives continued. "She wanted to make things happen." ary ideas, she contributed as much as possible to according to their abilities and receives accord­ This propelled her to joining the Workers Party the building of a new branch." ing to their needs. of America. The Workers Party, forerunner ofthe One of those young people was Paul LeBlanc, "Ruth was lucky to have been animated by this Socialist Workers Party, was formed in No­ who helped to found the new Pittsburgh branch goal. And so are we. And we're very lucky to vember 1934 when the CPLA fused with the of the SWP in 1973. have known and been a part of the life of this Trotskyist Communist League of America. LeBlanc told the memorial meeting, "Through fine and wonderful person."

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 17 Bow to sto~ the slaughter Fighting for a safe workplace By Arnold Weissberg According to a survey recently re­ (second of two parts) leased by the U.S. Labor Department, On paper, workers are guaranteed three out of four workers believe they safe and healthy working conditions should have "complete say" or "a lot of by the Occupational Safety and Health say" over workplace safety practices. Administration (OSHA) or other fed­ This sentiment in the ranks has been eral agencies such as the Mine Safety reflected in numerous health and and Health Administration. safety committees established at all But the nearly 5,000 job deaths in levels in the union movement. Accord­ 1977 and the 100,000 deaths every year ing to the July 16-31 issue of UA W from job-related injuries or disease are Ammo, a publication of the United powerful evidence that something is Auto Workers, the cornerstones of the very wrong. union's health and safety program are: That these regulatory agencies even "(1) engineering and process con­ exist, and that there are health and trols, (2) unrestricted information safety laws to begin with, is only the about hazards, (3) stronger OSHA reg­ result of struggle by the labor move­ ulations and enforcement, and ment. To keep those laws on the books, (4) strong contract protections, includ­ to strengthen them, and to see that ing the right to strike over serious they're actually enforced will take an uncorrected hazards." even bigger battle. In December, 1,300 members oflnter­ OSHA has a $136 million budget, national Chemical Workers Local 111 which doesn't go very far in covering struck American Cyanamid in New more than 4 million workplaces. Jersey. Nine cases of bladder cancer In 1976, OSHA conducted only can be traced directly to chemical 76,600 inspections. And its jurisdiction exposure in the plant. Nearly half the extends only to firms with more than workers who have been in the plant fifteen employees. twenty years have lung abnormalities. The Mine Safety and Health Admin­ The union is demanding improved istration, although armed with a safety procedures, information on the tougher set of laws than OSHA, can hazards of the chemicals workers use, hardly be said to have made coal regular medical checkups, and the mining a safe job. Last year, 1:36 right to know the results of the check­ miners died at work. ups. Working people have gotten no help The strikers also want a pay bQost, from the courts, Congress, or President more than Carter's 7 percent wage Carter. In the recent Simpson decision, guideline. to take only one example, the Supreme The Cyanamid strikers are taking on Court ruled that a worker who refuses one of the worst workplace health a dangerous assignment can be fired. abuses. Many employers refuse out­ Congress, for its part, has regularly right to tell workers what they're ex­ threatened to cut hac~ on OSHA's posed to, let alone what the hazards already limited powers. are. And very often the results of And the White House stalled for medical checkups by company doctors months on setting limits for exposure also remain company property. to lung-damaging cotton dust because it was so "costly" to industry. (Imple­ mentation of the rules is still being The right to know held up in federal court.) The simple demand-the right to Perhaps the crudest example of the know-can be a powerful weapon. administration's attitude toward job While workers are demanding that health and safety came when OSHA Cole their unions take increasingly finally agreed to limit worker exposure Not relying on government or industry, miners have used their own strength in fight forthright stands against industrial to the metal beryllium. Energy Secre­ for safe working conditions. slaughter, the employers are more tary James Schlesinger declared such loudly demanding their "right" to limits a threat to "national security." make a profit no matter what it costs working people have only their unions health front, miners and disabled min­ in workers' lives. Democratic and Re­ Employers' war chests to turn to. ers gave up on getting action from the publican politicians alike have joined The employers, not content to leave Workers in the most dangerous union higher-ups in their fight for in on the chorus of "overregulation." the fight against job safety in the industry-coal mining-have shown black lung compensation. Some 3,000 The government and the bosses on "eager to please" hands of government how much a serious fight by a power­ miners converged on.Charleston, West one side, and the unions on the other­ officials, have established their own ful union can win. Virginia, in early 1969 to demand that's the lineup on safe and healthy war chests. The coal miners' battles have won legislation. The West Virginia Black working conditions. The misnamed American Industrial them not only safety and black lung Lung Association was born. The carnage will not stop until Health Council is one such outfit. It compensation laws but also a right The miners had taken an important unions take the situation in hand. was set up in 1977 by 100 corporations crucial to enforcing these laws: union­ step toward taking control of their Working people must control work­ and has a $1 million yearly budget. Its controlled safety committees with the union back from the Tony Boyle ma­ ing conditions. sole purpose is to fight against govern­ power to shut down a mine in cases of chine. Through a movement of protests Workers must have the right to see ment regulation of workplace hazards. imminent danger. and strikes they won black lung laws. company records to know what ha­ Every industry has its own group, The coal industry resisted every step And the association went on to provide zards they're exposed to on the job. and every one of them is dedicated to of the way. And the operators continue troops for the Miners for Democracy Elected union safety committees fighting health and safety rules. to resist to this day. Consider the two­ campaign. must have the power to shut down In the face of government inaction and-a-half-year strike in Stearns, Ken­ The MFD commitment to safe work­ unsafe job sites. and sabotage and a well-financed anti­ tucky. The Stearns miners want one ing conditions and decent health care Workers must have the right to OSHA campaign by the employers, simple thing and the Blue Diamond was vital in turning out the Boyle mob strike over health and safety grievan­ Coal Company has bitterly fought in the 1972 union election. When the ces. against it: a United Mine Workers newly elected leadership negotiated its Union committees must have the contract with the provision for a union first contract with the coal bosses two power to determine the pace of work, safety committee. years later, the miners won their right because if the bosses can enforce Labor's How did the coal miners overcome to refuse dangerous work and the speedup, no one is safe. the vast influence and power of the safety committee's authority to shut None of this is compatible with the Giant Step coal operators and win these conces­ down the mine or mine sections. Essen­ continued existence of the profit sys­ sions? tially the contract granted a limited tem. If worker health and safety came byArtPrela right to strike over safety. before profits, instead of the other way 100,000 killed This right was one of the givebacks around, the capitalist system would Read how the United Mine Nearly 100,000 miners had died in the coal operators demanded and the grind to a halt. Workers union defied government accidents during this century by the miners successfully turned back during That is why the fight for safe work­ strikebreaking-both federal sei­ time of the Farmington, West Virginia, last year's 110-day coal strike. ing conditions is a political fight. Ulti­ mately, the rights of working 'people zure and Taft-Hartley mine blast that killed seventy-eight Workers want say can only be protected by a government injunctions-during the labor up­ miners in November 1968. The contractual rights of coal miners of working people. surges of the 1930s and 1940s Without waiting for advice from the on the job-leaving aside whether Health and safety will not become a ... and won. corrupt Tony Boyle officialdom, which they're consistently enforced or not­ priority until we have a government had a cozy' relationship with the coal are the exception in the union move­ controlled by and made up of working 583 pp., $6.95 paper operators, miners shut down every ment. Yet working people in every people-a government that puts its Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 operation in West Virginia demanding industry are becoming more and more power on the side of the vast majority, West Street, New York, New York safety legislation. They got it with the concerned with job safety and health. not on the side of the tiny handful of 10014. 1969 coal mine health and safety law. They want to do something about the capitalists who benefit from human Around the same time on another hazards they face. misery.

18 World Outlook News, analysis, and discussion of international political events·

On-the-scene reP-_ort Why So. African Blacks oppose U.S. investment Last fall August Nimtz however, was from one of these U.S. government employees. "While it is spent a week in South true that these companies provide Africa. Most U.S. Blacks some jobs for our people," he said, are barred "overall they help to strengthen the from that government, which is not in our inter­ est." country by A leader in Soweto-the large Black its racist township outside Johannesburg, where rulers, but mass student demonstrations occurred Nimtz was two years ago-took issue with U.S. Black leader Vernon Jordan, head of allowed in the Urban League. Jordan has said as a faculty that Blacks in South Africa welcome member of American investment. the Semes­ "This [claim] is not true," the Soweto leader said. "We do not want these cor­ ter at Sea Program, in porations here. When these people [like which he was teaching Jordan] come to South Africa, why several courses in African don't they come and talk with us and find out our real views?" politics. My conversations jibe with other re­ While there, Nimtz, ports on Black South African attitudes other teachers in the pro­ toward U.S. investment. The U.S. am­ gram, and students ar­ bassador to South Africa sent a confi­ dential memo to the State Department '""'' r=rr1est Harsch ranged interviews with in 1977 analyzing these attitudes. He U.S. corporations in South Africa claim they must abide by racist apartheid laws. South African Blacks as concluded: Those laws relegate Black workers to worst living conditions, such as these iron well as with U.S. corpo­ "[It] must be expected that the role of shacks in the squatters town of Crossroads. rate and government offi­ American firms here will become in­ creasingly controversial and rationale cials in that country. The for continued presence will seem less cans about the plight of Black South the poor publicity GM got in a recent following article is based and less persuasive to growing African workers, however, Washington Time article. on that information. numbers of blacks." (Southern Africa has tried to take a stance less em bar­ So the very corporation on whose magazine, April 1978.) rassing to Carter's human rights de­ board Reverend Sullivan sits won't By August Nimtz The report also pointed out that magogy. Its current position is to sup­ inform the public about its treatment Under South African law, it is illegal "radicalized blacks, most often young, port the Sullivan Code, a set of of Black workers. to "discourage, hamper, deter or pre­ urban sector, see foreign investors as "guidelines" drawn up two years ago vent foreign investment in the econ­ deliberately blind to inequities of the by Rev. Leon Sullivan, a Black minis­ Complete fraud omy of the Republic." South African social system and in­ ter and member of the General Motors Even if these glaring inadequacies of Leaders of the banned Black Peo­ deed prepared to profit by it through Board of Directors. the Sullivan Code could be corrected, ple's Convention, for example, are cur­ low wages and submissive labor force however, that would be no answer to rently serving extended prison senten­ it offers. This anti-capitalist reasoning The Sullivan Code the fundamental problem. The fact is ces because they publicly wrote to contends that even if foreign firms The Sullivan Code "urges" U.S. in­ that U.S. corporations directly profit foreign-based corporations in 1972 that offer minor reforms, it is only to create vestors to ensure equal and fair treat­ from the superexploitation of Black the BPC "reject[s] the involvement of comfortable black middle class which ment for Blacks. workers that apartheid makes possible. foreign investors in this exploitative will perpetuate exploitation of African The fact that the racist South Afri­ That is why they obey the racist go­ economic system." masses." can regime endorses the Sullivan Code vernment's apartheid laws and-while Despite such laws, Black South Afri­ raises questions about its effectiveness making token statements against this cans are more than willing to speak Real U.S. corporate role right off the bat! And there is no way system-act as a major pillar of the· out against the role of American and These attitudes are hardly surpris­ to force compliance with it, even if the entire white supremacist regime. other foreign companies in propping up ing, given the cooperation of U.S. cor­ code were any solution to the problems Ray White, the U.S. consul general, the apartheid regime. In conversations porations with the apartheid system. of Black South Africans-which it made it clear during a talk with Semes­ and interviews with Blacks in Durban, The Carnation Company in Durban isn't. ter at Sea participants in November Johannesburg, and Cape Town, I was is an example. In that plant, which is Time magazine says that in none of that Washington had no intention of told repeatedly that these corporations totally owned by its U.S. parent com­ the sixty U.S. plants it surveyed in urging U.S. corporations to disobey should pull out of South Africa imme­ pany, only non-Blacks are allowed to South Africa "was a copy of the Sulli­ racist South African laws. These laws diately. hold supervisory positions. When inter­ van Code easily available to non-white bar Black unions from participating in Among young Blacks in that coun­ viewed by others in the Semester at employees," although a third of these negotiations over wages and working try, this opinion is virtually unanim­ Sea program, the plant manager justi­ plants had signed the code, including conditions. They classify jobs and ous. They view as absurd the claim fied this policy by saying that "Blacks the biggest U.S. firms. assign supervisory positions on the that U.S. corporations can improve the do not want to be supervised by other The Carnation plant in Durban, also basis of race. conditions of Blacks. Blacks." an endorser, was no exception. In fact, To not challenge such laws means to "It's an excuse for American busi­ Carnation has recently increased the while the plant manager had heard of comply with apartheid. nesses to protect their own interests," a pay of its Black employPes, virtually the Sullivan principles. he was unsure NowherP is this bt>itPr illustrated Cape Town Black activist told me. all unskilled laborers, to about eighty of what was in them. than in the case of U.S. government cents (in U.S. terms) an hour. The The U.S. Consulate in Cape Town­ institutions therm;t>lves in South Not one supporter plant manager said, however, that this which is responsible for "urging" adop­ Africa. Officials, both Black and white, I did not meet one Black who spoke is costing the company too much mo­ tion of the code-admits that it has no told me that Black persontwl are con­ favorably of foreign corporations. ney. power to make companies even en­ sistPntly paid less than whites. The This is despite the fact that I talked So Carnation is instituting more dorse, let alone enforce, thP principii's. U.S. agencies justify this on the with a number of Black South Africans automation to reduce labor costs by A public information officer at the grounds that th<'Y must comply with employed by the U.S. government­ phasing out the jobs of Black workers. General Motors plant in Port Elizabeth tlH· discriminatory pay scale system people you might at first think would The official U.S. government posi­ was not exactly talkative wht>n questi­ that Pxists in the privatt' sector. be influenced by Washington's propa­ tion is that it neither encourages nor oned by Semester at Sea participants Little wonder that most South Afri­ ganda. discourages American investment in about the company's racial policie>;. He can Blacks I spokP with had extremely The closest thing I heard to a posi­ South Africa. With the growing aware­ admitted he could not be ver.v open little reg;~rd for Reverend Sullivan and tive comment about U.S. investment, ness and indignation among Ameri- about such inquiries, expecially given his "prin!'iples."

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 19 World Outlook

tially blocked by the opposition of rural capitalists. Algeria The economic difficulties led to a wave of student and workers struggles in 1977. Dockworkers struck the major What course after Boumediene ports. This was followed by a national rail strike, two strikes by Algiers trans­ By Will Reissner port workers, and other job actions. The December 27 death of Algeria's Faced with the growing social and President Houari Boumediene follow­ economic problems, Boumediene had ing a forty-day coma has increased been trying in recent years to expand speculation about the country's future the regime's base. A new constitution course. was promulgated in 1976. A national Boumediene's death leaves a large assembly was elected. Organizations vacuum to be filled. In recent years he of workers, peasants, veterans, women, had concentrated tremendous power in and youth were refurbished, and plans his hands, serving simultaneously as were under way to revive the moribund chief of state, minister of defense, and FLN. head of the only legal party-the Front The Algerian bourgeoisie, which had de Liberation Nationale (FLN­ been pressuring Boumediene to turn N ational Liberation Front). Although more of the economy over to capital­ the 1976 constitution empowered the ists, closed ranks behind the president, president to name a vice-president and aiming to make their presence felt in prime minister, Boumediene had the resurrected FLN. chosen not to do so. With Boumediene's death it is likely Speaker of the National Popular that bourgeois pressure on and weight Assembly Rabah Bitat was named within the regime will increase, lead­ interim president, but the constitution ing to a process of "Sadatization" in stipulates that the FLN must choose Algeria. Sadat dismantled large parts within forty-five days a successor, who of the state capitalist apparatus built is then to be ratified by popular refer­ by Nasser in Egypt, turning much of endum. the economy directly over to the bour­ In fact the successor will be named geoisie. by the eight remaining members of the The Council of the Revolution has Council of the Revolution, with the been avoiding an open power struggle FLN rubber-stamping the council's and is likely to try to unite behind a choice. single figure. The Council of the Revolution was the body led by Boumediene that We can also expect that the worker staged a successful coup against and student struggles of the past two Ahmed Ben Bella on June 19, 1965. years will continue. That coup ended the leftward develop­ assive a workers and farmers government. This is an appropriate time to call on ment of the Ben Bella years. But 1965 coup by Boumediene reversed this trend. Boumediene's successors to release Although Algeria's National Charter Ahmed Ben Bella, who has been held without charge or trial since the 1965 describes the country as "irreversibly and through strangulation of resisting socialist," while making Islam the coup. self-managed enterprises by the banks From Intercontinental Press/lnprecor state religion, and although Boume­ and the administration. diene often used socialist and anti­ By 1963 Ben Bella's regime had been imperialist rhetoric, Algeria remains effectively transformed into a workers capitalist, despite the state's control and peasants government, one in over a large portion of the national which the bourgeoisie had been dis­ economy. placed from political power and far­ The extent of state ownership is the reaching changes in property relations result of the circumstances under had taken place. It did not, however, which Algeria won its independence. take decisive steps to destroy the ves­ In contrast to most colonies, there was tiges of the bourgeoisie, nor did it move For new readers of large-scale European immigration into to establish a workers state. Intercontinental Press/lnprecor Algeria in the colonial period. At the Ben Bella's unwillingness to estab­ Dynamics of the Cuban Revo­ time of independence approximately 1 lish firm control over the actions of the million Europeans lived in the country. lution, A Trotskyist View by masses led the Algerian bourgeoisie Joseph Hansen, regularly Algiers, the capital, was overwhelm­ and petty bourgeoisie to hail the 1965 $5.45, at only half price with a ingly French in population. Boumediene coup as a way of reestab­ On the eve of independence, Euro­ lishing capitalist law and order in the subscription to Intercontinen­ peans controlled 65% of agricultural country. tal Press/ lnprecor. production. Control of industry was Because of the weakness of the capi­ You may have noticed that even more striking. In 1956, for exam­ talist class the state had to remain the many of the Militant's articles ple, fewer than 40 of the 1,140 corpora­ prime force in the accumulation of tions in the province of Algiers were on world events come from capital and economic development. Intercontinental Press/ In pre­ owned by Algerians. The French also But under Boumediene this state cor. Yet these represent only a numerically dominated the civil ser­ capitalism was organized to benefit the vice. bourgeoisie and ensure its future en­ small part of the coverage and Because of the massive French pres­ richment and strengthening. While the analysis in each issue of this ence, the Algerian capitalist class was state made large infrastructural invest­ unique magazine. even more stunted than the typical ments and nationalized key elements Firsthand accounts from Peru, India, Spain, colonial bourgeoisie. of the economy, the bourgeoisie was and Japan. Background articles on Cuba's role When Algeria gained its indepen­ given incentives and guaranteed in Africa, the twists and turns of 'China's foreign dence in 1962, after seven years of markets for investments in the consu­ guerrilla struggle and bloody repres­ policy, the freedom movements in Africa. mer sector. And for a limited time, new subscribers to IP/1 sion, there was a massive exodus of Algerian "socialism" has been a can get Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution for Europeans from the country. By 1968 boon to the capitalist class. By 1976 fewer than 30,000 French remained. the private sector of the economy repre­ only half price. In effect this meant that virtually sented more than half of national This special offer is good only through De­ the entire capitalist class had left in production, excluding petroleum and cember 31. the space of a few years, abandoning natural gas production. Approximately today. their factories and farms. 80% of retail and wholesale trade is in Algerian workers and peasants re­ Yes! Start my subscription to Intercontinental private hands, as is more than 60% of Press/ lnprecor sponded by taking over the abandoned construction and public works, and \ property and running it themselves. 65% of the textile industry. 0 $24.00 for one year. Some 430 industrial enterprises were Although the wealth of the capitalist 0 $12.00 for six months. taken over by workers who formed self­ class has been growing rapidly, the For new readers only: management committees to run them. Algerian economy has been in poor 0 Send my copy of Dynamics. Enclosed is More than 2,000 huge European est­ shape for a number of years. Unem­ ~ ates were occupied by agricultural ployment remains a gigantic problem. · -- \ $2.75 extra. laborers who ran them collectively. Algeria's foreign debt is now $14.7 _..,,.., .. '') Name The Ben Bella regime' accepted these billion. '"'' '\,, Address moves and recognized the organs that An estimated 70% of the population had developed spontaneously. The re­ lives on the land, but under. the first .,. .;.)#"'-. City/State/Zip gime tried, however, to reestablish its four-year plan only 15% of investment ~.,.,,~' Clip and mail to: Intercontinental Press/lnpre­ control over the seized enterprises went to agriculture. An "agrarian revo­ cor, Box 116 Village Station, New York. New through the introduction of a director lution" to redistribute land to the pea­ York 10014. named by the state in each enterprise sants has been slowed down and par- 20 Stalinists 'discover' Iraq regime isn't 'progressive' World news notes By David Frankel Readers of the Daily World, the newspaper of the American Commu­ nist Party, were informed January 5 W. German steel strike settled that "Iraq cannot pretend any longer Steelworkers approved by a narrow margin an agreement to end the to be a 'progressive' country." first steel strike in West Germany in fifty years. Tom Foley, who wrote the Daily Forty-six percent of the 140,000 voting steelworkers voted against World article, described the victimiza­ accepting the contract. tion of Iraqi Communists, including The pact, which covers 208,000 steelworkers in the Ruhr, provides for the use of torture and executions by the a 4 percent wage increase over the next fifteen months, a minimum six regime. "The allegedly 'progressive' weeks' vacation by 1982, and extra days off for about half the regime in Iraq is getting away with membership. murder," Foley declared. Stedworkers had been demanding a thirty-five-hour workweek as a All this may come as a shock to readers of the Daily World. For the step to ease unemployment in the industry. The employers, however, past decade the Iraqi government has were adamant in opposing any official reduction in hours from the been warmly supported by both the present forty~hour week, fearful that such a settlement would set a Kremlin and by Moscow's followers precedent for other workers. here in the United States. The strike lasted a month and a half and involved 100,000 workers, In fact, Foley himself wrote in the 30,000 of whom were locked out by the employers. March 21, 1975, Daily World that "Iraq The steel strike has shattered the hopes of the German ruling class in the past five years has followed an thai their' country will be exempt from. the class battles on the rise ever-deepening lt-ft course in politics Areas where throughout Europe. The Institute of the German Economy said and has vigorously carried out a series Kurds live January 11 that labor disputes cost the country 5.8 million workdays of socio-economic reforms, such as in 1978-the most since World War II. land reform, which have transformed Christian Sc1ence Monitor the country." More important to the Stalinists was that "in April, 1972, Iraq signed a 15- stage for a shift to the right by the Jamaicans protest fuel price hike year treaty wi.th the Soviet Union. In Ba'athist government. Prime Minister Michael Manley-who claims to be leading Jamaica May, 1972, two Communists were Foley admits that the persecution of to socialism-mobilized troops and banned public meetings throughout brought into the Iraqi cabinet.... " Iraqi Communists has been going on the island on January 11 in an effort to end three days of protests In return . for such considerations, for a year and a half now, although against an abrupt increase in the price of gasoline and other petroleum Moscow supported the Iraqi regime in this is the first time that it has been products. its war against the Kurds. The op­ mentioned in the- Daily World. Last The wave of strikes and demonstrations began January 8 as May, twenty-one Iraqi soldiers accused pressed Kurdish people in Iraq, num­ .protesters took to the streets in Kingston, the capital, chanting, "The of membership in Communist cells bering about one-quarter of the popula­ poor can't take rio ·more!" were executed without the Stalinists tion, had carried out a long and bitter By January 10, schools, banks, and businesses were closing down, struggle for self-determination. The bothering to take note of the event. and telephone service was slowed. The Associated Press reported from Soviet regime had originally supported · Now, however, Moscow has decided Kingston that "all economic activity in the country was grinding to a the Kurds but turned on them after its to shift gears. After waiting all this relations with Baghdad improved fol­ halt." Workers at the bauxite mines-a key sector of the Jamaican time, Foley vows that the CP "will economy-walked off their jobs to join the protests, as did light and lowing a coup in 1968. expose the terror in Iraq." William Pomeroy wrote in the March power workers in Kingston. This is a welcome development, al­ At least three persons were killed by police during the protests. Three 19, 1975, Daily World that the defeat of beit somewhat late for the Kurdish and cops were also reportedly killed when a Kingston police station was the Kurds would represent "the doom Iraqi masses who have suffered under attacked. of right-wing hopes of destroying the the Ba'athist dictatorship for the past progressive Iraqi government, its unity decade. arrangements with the Communist Relations between Baghdad and party of Iraq, its close relations with Moscow have been troubled by a the Soviet Union, and its nationalist Polish gov't releases French socialist number of issues. The two regimes Polish authorities released French socialist reporter Philippe Ries role in the Middle East." have been on opposite sides in the war December 23 and permitted him to leave the country. Despite such assurances and despite in Eritrea. Also, the Kremlin favors the left-wing posturing of the Iraqi recognition of Israel, while the Iraqi Ries is a reporter for the Informations Ouvrieres, weekly paper of the regime, the crushing of th.e Kurds­ Ba'athists oppose it. Last summer Internationalist . Communist Organization (OCI). He was arrested accomplished in the first place with conflict between forces in the Palesti­ December 6 after a stay in Poland during which he interviewed several the aid of the shah of Iran-set the nian liberation movement supported well-known members of the Polish dissident movement. by Baghdad and Moscow erupted in a Police used Ries's arrest as an excuse to search the homes ofleading series of assassinations and gun bat­ oppositionists. tles. · A broad campaign of protest was launched in France as soon as the But probably the most important arrest became known. Many trade unions, including the National point of friction has been the advance Union of Journalists, sent delegations to the Polish embassy. Ninety of revolutionary struggles in Ethiopia reporters and employees of Le Monde issued statements of protest. and Iran. The upsurge in Iran, with its Members of the French Communist Party also protested the arrest. large Kurdish minority, is especially The campaign culminated in a demonstration of 2,000 December 14 threatening to the Iraqi regime. outside the Polish embassy in Paris. Having consolidated its rule with help from Moscow, the Iraqi regime is moving more and more in the direction taken earlier by Egyptian President British rail strike Anwar el-Sadat. It has increased its British rail workers have joined striking truck drivers in walkouts economic ties to the imperialist coun­ that are crippling the country's economy. Employers are threatening to tries while cutting back on those with lay off more .than 2 million workers if the strikes continue; auto and the Soviet bloc, and it has also begun tire plants are already shutting down. to tum to France for arms. At issue is the Labour Party government's 5 percent wage guidelines. Iraqi relations with the Saudi Ara­ The Transport and General Workers Union-which officially sanc­ bian regime have warmed up consider­ tioned the truckers' week-long wildcat January 11-is demanding a 25 ably. "We don't want to bring about percent wage increase for its members. Rail engineers and firemen, any changes in· the Saudi govern­ ment," one Iraqi official recently as­ staging two day-long strikes January 16 and 18, are seeking a 10 sured Washington Post correspondent percent bonus in addition to wage increases. J.P. Smith. Prime Minster James Callaghan has responded to the unions' Once again, Moscow's policy of sup­ challenge by setting up regional committees, staffed with strikebreak­ port to "progressive" capitalist regimes ing "troubleshooters." has backfired. Thanks to the Stalinist In Northern Ireland, the occupying British Army has been ordered to policy in Iraq, the Kurdish people, the scab on a gas-haulers' strike. The British Conservative Party has Iraqi masses, and the Soviet Union called for the same "emergency" measures at home. Kurdish refugees. Stalinists backed Iraqi itself have all lost ground. -Peter Archer government's war against struggle of Imperialism-as Foley is forced to K.urds for self-determination. admit-has been the only winner.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 21 ~Proud to take a stand' Shipyard designers' strike in 22nd month By Shelley Kramer NEWPORT NEWS, Va.-Rita McClenney was the first shipyard worker I met here. She was hard to miss. A freezing rain was falling, and there was hardly a soul in sight inside the yard. But, umbrellas in hand, McClenney and a co-worker main­ tained their picket outside the com­ pany guardhouse at the Forty-second Street gate. . They both belong to United Steel­ workers Local 8417, which is com::,>Osed of 1,200 marine designers and aides. Three years ago the designers split from the company union, the Penin­ sula Shipbuilders Association, and . joined the USW A. They have been on strike for twenty-two months to win their first union contract. Some 300 designers remained at their jobs. With the recruitment of additional scabs, the shipyard has been able to keep its design depart­ Marine designer, a member of United Steelworkers Local 8417, pickets outside Newport News shipyard. 'We're waiting for ment open and profitable. Local 8888 to join us so we can shut the yard down,' one striker said. Many of Rita McClenney's friends drifted hack to work or moved away. Like most strikers, she had to find this contract and then stick it in their out how to cast a 'no' vote. Designers said Johnson. "With overtime they another job to support her family. But ear." are supposed to be able to figure things sometimes get $16.50 to $19.50 an Rita is not demoralized. Far from it. "Some of the most militant strikers out, but we passed the voting instruc­ hour." "I'm so proud I could bust," she told are the old-timers because the com­ tions around an'd no one could tell The company's July 1978 contract me. "I've stuck it out for two years. I've pany is trying to reduce their pen­ what to do." offer, which the strikers unanimously made my stand." Her story-and the sions," McClenney explained. Moreover, the PSA had the shipyard rejected, provided an additional back­ stories of the other strikers I talked For striker Ernie Surles, the biggest· and its business allies· behind it. "A pay bonus for these scabs. And it to-show they have good reason to problem is "environmental"-a 'Concerned Citizens' outfit surfaced included as a "management right" the take pride in the hard fight they have "company-induced environment of ha­ when the USWA started organizing," authority to fire or discipline strikers waged. rassment and intimidation." Johnson said. "The same group has for misconduct or harassing scabs Rita McClenney is Black, divorced, "Working in that office was like emerged during every previous fight during the strike. The proposal also and supports four daughters. She working in a war room," he said. against unionization." Headed up by included the PSA's standard no-strike clause. worked as a designer's aide for six A few blocks away, at Local 8417 the shipyard's lawyer, its real estate years before going out on strike in headquarters, pickets warmed up with agent, and its insurance agent, "Con­ The shipyard has been trying to keep March, 1977. She earned all of $3.97 an coffee-and with more horror stories cerned Citizens" spent hundreds of its two USWA locals divided-to no hour. about the company and PSA. thousands of dollars on ads and broad­ avail. The average wage for designers in casts against the USW A. Contributors "They say they're willing to bargain the yard is $6.79, little more than half When Tenneco took ove~, the PSA with us but not with Local 8888," started to trade away everything we to and membership of this anti-union what comparable jobs in unionized front remain anonymous. Johnson said. "But they declare in shipyards pay. There have been no had left, local president Lee Johnson advance that they refuse to make any wage increases since 1966. The last said. "The company gives you some­ "We have a scab-based 'Concerned further concessions to us. You can company wage offer, according to Lo­ thing and you give them something Designers' group too that spends much hardly call that negotiations." cal 8417 President Lee Johnson, aver­ back. That's how the PSA operated." more than designers make trying to The two union locals plan to bargain ages only 1.67 percent for each of the How did the PSA manage to pull this decertify our union. We have a good together. "We were the stepping stone five years covered. sellout off? Johnson provided an ex­ idea just where its money comes from," for the steelworkers in organizing the To add insult to injury, the shipyard ample from 1970 when the company Johnson added. yard," Rita McClenney said. "We is demanding that workers give back union agreed to eliminate the de­ In the meantime, the shipyard needed the power of a strong national their week-long paid vacation in ex­ signers' twenty-minute paid lunch claims it can't afford to pay the de­ union. Now we're waiting for Local change for this pitiful raise. "My break. signers a decent wage. "But scabs are 8888 to come out and join us. We can grandfathers fought for paid vacation "They had to schedule three votes to making more than we ever did-$11- win on their coattails because together time and now they're even taking that get this through," he said. "On the $13 dollars an hour with an extra $84 we can shut the shipyard down. This away," a striker fumed. "I want to win third vote it was impossible to figure dollars a week in living expenses," company is sitting on a powderkeg." ... Newport News organizing battle Continued from back page shipyards. Now it demands a warrant appeal" in its election campaign. The pledged in strike donations," Hower violations all day," Wayne Turner, one before it will allow safety inspectors on presence of two Black speakers at a told the Militant. of the union's inside organizers, said. its property. USWA' rally-Rev. Littleton Price, an "The first thing unionists can do "This past Thanksgiving, two workers Tenneco has also been the object of aide to Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., is refuse to cross our picket lines." were killed. One had worked in the many lawsuits protesting racial and and U.S. Rep Harold Ford of Teamsters, who make deliveries to the yard for thirty-four years and was sexual discrimination. The most re- Tennessee-was the source of this ac- yard, and members of the Seafarers about to retire. They were welding on a cent, filed by the Equal Employment cusation. International Union, who work the wood platform suspended from a Opportunity Commission in August tugboats that pull ships to the yard, crane, and the ropes broke. There was 1978, cites discrimination in employ- Solidarity have. pledged to respect the USWA As the USWA and Tenneco square strike. off for their coming battle, speculation Locals of the Communications is rife about the yard's ability to with- Workers in Newport News and Norfolk 'Everyone's coming over to the winning side. stand a prolonged strike. have voted to refuse to install or ser- The Steelworkers are here to stay.' There are no immediate deliveries of vice shipyard phones during the strike. navy or commercial ships pending. But The United Auto Workers, Rubber short-term repair work-a growing Workers, and Operating Engineers no excuse for it. The company used ment, transfers, assignments, promo­ source of shipyard profits-is more have also announced plans to back the knotty wood and ropes [instead of tions, layoffs, and job classification. vulnerable to a work stoppage. And strike. chains] in deliberate violation of Tenneco is particularly jittery about lucrative navy contracts, such as the Members of the Hampton Roads OSHA standards." the union's success in forging unity $500 million overhaul of the carrier Black Ministers Alliance, a local coali- between Blacks and whites, men and When OSHA (Occupational Safety U.S.S. Saratoga, could be lost to com- tion of sixty-five religious leaders, are women. The first members of the or­ and Health Administration) inspectors petitors. demanding that Tenneco recognize the ganizing committee to be fired were arrived, Turner added, "workers were Everyone in Newport News re- USWA. The company is "flagrantly four women. The men won't go to bat warned they would be fired if they members the last shipyard strike, in denying the will and decision of blue- talked to them." The company was for· them, the company undoubtedly 1967. For a week cops and state troop- collar workers," charged the Rev. fined $1,400-$700 a life. assumed. ers battled thousands of shipyard Henry Maxwell. He added that the "But we forced the shipyard to rehire workers along Washington Avenue. churches will provide aid to strikers. Since OSHA was established in them immediately with lost pay," Virginia's Governor Dalton has al- Earlier, sections of the BMA had en- 1971, the shipyard has been challeng­ Hower recounted. "And after that, ready threatened to call in state police dorsed the PSA in the shipyard elec- ing its minimal standards and seeking more women joined the committee. We once again for strikebreaking duty. tions. to evade its pitiful fines. Until recently, always had a good cross-section of the But while the bosses and their politi- "Everyone's cyming over to the win- the company denied admittance to work force." cians line up behind Tenneco, the labor ning side now," said one worker. inspectors it deemed "biased"­ The company struck again by charg­ movement is rallying to the USWA's "They know the United Steelworkers meaning those who had worked in ing the union with an "improper racial side. "Five million dollars is already are here to stay." 22 Protectionism not the answer Crisis in the U.S. shipbuilding industry By Scott Ware The American shipbuilding industry is in crisis. Orders for new ships, on the decline since 1975, have dwindled to almost nothing in the past two years. The American Council of Ship­ builders has estimated that by 1980, 45,000 shipyard workers, more than 25 percent of the present work force, will lose their jobs as a result of this slump. The leaders of my union, the United Industrial Workers, an affiliate of the Seafarers International Union (SIU), insist that the major cause of the problem is "unfair" foreign competi­ tion. "Without governmental subsidies," a UIW Newsletter states, "western ship­ yards just can't compete with the low­ cost production offered by the growing shipbuilding industry of the third world . . . partly because these coun­ tries pay their shipyard workers excep­ tionally low wages. . . ." The way to counter this "threat," they say, is to back up the bosses' demands for more subsidies and more Despite fat U.S. Navy war contracts and huge profits, shipyard owners demand larger government subsidies and more protection protective legislation from Congress. from foreign competition. There is scarcely a union leadership in the country more committed to twenty-four years to pay. On top of that, all these government­ The workers themselves sh<,uld protectionism than that of the UIW In addition, the government requires guaranteed profits for the owners still begin to take control of production. and SIU. Paul Hall, SIU's president, that all domestic commerce take place won't guarantee jobs for shipyard Anyone who doubts our "untried" abil­ regularly denounces free trade in gen­ on American vessels and provides workers. At Seatrain they laid off 300 ity to run things smoothly simply eral as "outdated and unrealistic." The operational subsidies to American­ workers last year, despite the fact that doesn't realize how bad our current union leadership is pushing half a built ships in foreign trade. It also sets the company had more work than it management is; even a few weeks . dozen protectionist bills demanding shipping rates to make sure that ship­ could handle. · that American shipyard owners get a ping lines can't narrow their profit Workers' control guaranteed slice of everything from margins by actually competing with But the final thing wrong with the Nationalized shipyards under the oil trade to ocean mining to off­ each other. UIW-SIU's solution to our jobs crisis is shore oil rigs to liquid natural gas workers' control would quickly be cap­ that it does not address the real prob­ able of producing ships at far less than tankers. lem. American shipyards are in trouble the present cost and provide higher Protectionism, they say, is the way 'War business' profits because there is a world wide overpro­ to protect American jobs at American Finally, the U.S. Navy squanders wages and safer conditions for ship­ duction crisis in the shipbuilding in­ yard workers as well. wages. billions on building warships to protect dustry. Nothing could be further from the U.S. corporate profits overseas. Domes­ When capitalists make technological tic shipyards reap a bonanza off this The end of the postwar economic improvements, they make workers pay truth. First, if the problem really were boom brought with it a slump in the low wages in colonial and semicolonial "war business" alone. for it by throwing them out of jobs.. world trade that has left idle more Under nationalization, the workers countries, we should be supporting Under little competitive threat, the than 100 million tons of oil-tanker would benefit by establishing shorter those shipyard workers in their strug­ industry has invested as little of its capacity alone. The increased competi­ hours. gle for decent wages and conditions, profits as possible in new technologies tion among shipyards is simply a Under private management, the first not fighting for guaranteed profits for and techniques. Even with the existing result of the fact that there are already our bosses. technique, most shipyard manage­ to go in a "crisis of demand" are the too many ships for the state of world workers. But this isn't the problem. The major ments are inefficient to the point of trade. shipbuilding centers are all European bungling when it comes to actually This is crazy. A shipyard by itself is Moreover, Paul Hall should keep in or Japanese, and American companies organizing production. little more than a few holes in the mind that one of the reasons the state ground and some welding and burning can't compete with them because Workers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard American shipyards are the most inef­ of trade is so bad is that more and equipment. The real "assets" of ship­ (Seatrain Shipbuilding Corporation) more foreign capitalists are agreeing building are the thousands of skilled ficient in the world. are continually amazed that ships get This appalling inefficiency can be with him that free trade is "outdated workers working together as a team. built at all, given the endless obstacles and unrealistic" and are turning to­ Dispersing such groups of workers traced directly to the enormous protec­ management throws in our path. ward protectionism. The more protec­ because no one needs another oil tion the industry already receives. Seeing the effects that existing pro­ The federal government subsidizes a tive barriers go up, the .more interna­ tanker at the moment is the height of tective legislation has already had on folly. full 50 percent of the construction costs tional trade stagnates, the less ships the industry, more protection is hardly are needed, and the greater becomes A nationalized yard would reconvert of a ship, and on top of that it guaran­ the answer. The companies would tees full repayment of all construction the crisis in shipbuilding. its buildings and equipment to produce simply increase their profits by raising The real solution to the crisis lies things that were needed. Whether we loans. American lines can therefore their prices, while the rest of us would buy a ship for no money down with elsewhere. We shouldn't begin by de­ look at schools, hospitals, mass tran­ see both our taxes and the cost of manding that the government guaran­ sit, or housing, the neglected needs of living go up. Off the hook again, the tee yet more profits for the owners; we working people in this country are bosses would still have no motivation should demand that the government enormous. Skilled shipyard workers Scott Ware was until recently a to invest in new methods or make their throw out the owners altogether and could make a big contribution toward shipfitter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. operations more efficient. nationalize the shipyards. meeting these needs. Florida farm workers win major victory By Jack Lieberman ting their average annual income at leading a peaceful roving picket of Finally, on December 15, the growers HOMESTEAD, Fla.-More than $2,100 to $2,200. more than 1,200 strikers. On December agreed to pay the workers forty cents a 9,000 Chicano and mexicano tomato The strike was organized by the 9, armed Klu Klux Klansmen held a bucket. This represented a 33 percent pickers won a major victory for farm United Migrants Association (UMA) of cross-burning near the two largest increase over the current rate and was workers here in December. Florida, a statewide farm worker migrant camps. Several times during accepted by the strikers as a substan­ rights group. The central demand of the strike, strikers were threatened by tial victory. The tomato pickers went on strike the strikers was forty-five cents a gun thugs hired by the growers. The struggle is not over. On the from December 7-16, forcing the grow­ bucket of tomatoes. These tactics failed to halt the pick­ night of December 16, after announc­ ers to significantly raise their wages. Fundamer.tal to the strike was the eting. Solidarity with the strikers grew. ing the strike victory at a widely During the previous year, growers right of farm workers to organize for The United Farm Workers union and publicized news conference, Lopez was paid farm workers thirty cents a better working conditions. The growers several Miami union locals and church jumped by a gang of thugs and beaten. bucket at the beginning of the season, and the government realized this and organizations came out in support of The growers would like to drive but raised the rates to between forty immediately tried to break the strike. the strike. Lopez and the UMA out of the fields. and forty-five cents to increase worker The growers initially refused to nego­ As a result, the growers were forced While forced to make some conces­ productivity at the end of the season. tiate with the strikers. They branded into negotiations. Their first offer­ sions, the growers still hope to prevent This fall, however, growers refused to UMA leader Benito Lopez a "commu­ thirty-five cents a bucket-was re­ farm workers from winning union pay more than thirty cents. nist." jected. Seven of the twenty-eight grow­ rights. Not orily are the farm workers in this In an attempt to victimize and intim­ ers then agreed to pay the forty-fiw The UMA strike committees formed area unorganized, but they are not idate strikers, Lopez and three other cents a bucht demanded by the strik­ during the strike are continuing to covered by minimum wage laws. They strike leaders were arrested for violat­ ers. This offer was vetoed by the pow­ function to protect the gains won and also suffer chronic unemployment, put- ing Florida's "right to work" law after erful tomato growers association. prepare for future struggles.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 23 In Brief ariy of the buildings at the dump, a Department of Energy Quote unquote Arizona ERA march official said, "It would depend on the severity of the earth­ "We really don't run a quake." health spa." PERJURY CONVICTION -Eldon Knape, manager FOR STATE SENATOR of American Cyanamid's New Mexico State Senator Bound Brook, New Jer­ Emilio Naranjo, Democratic sey, plant, where 1,300 Party boss and former sheriff strikers are dem'anding of Rio Arriba County, was con­ improuPments in work­ victed on perjury charges Janu­ place health and safety. ary 11. Naranjo lied under oath during thP 1976 trial of Moises Morales, the Raza Unida Party candidate running against him FUNDS RAN OUT FASTER in the sheriffs contest. THAN THE CHEMICALS Morales was acquitted of Thousands of barrels have drug possession charges. He already been found, and thou­ accused Naranjo's deputies of sands more are thought to be planting the marijuana they still buried, but the U.S. Envir­ "found." At the trial, Naranjo onmental Protection Agency is Militant/Bill Natkin swore he saw his deputy take ending its hunt for toxic chemi­ Chanting "What do we want? ERA! When do we want it? Now!" 350 people rallied at the Arizona State the marijuana from Morales's cals along the Ohio River near pickup truck. capitol in Phoenix January 8 to demand state ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Louisville, even though the The perjury charge carries a EPA admits much of the stuff Participating were League of Women Voters, Women's Political Caucus, National Organization for one-to-five year sentence, and can cause cancer. Women, Socialist Workers Party, YWCA, unionists, and students. Naranjo could also lose his The reason? The EPA got Seven charter buses made the 100-mile drive from Tucson for the march. state senate seat. $100,000 for the search and chanup mission-"and that's ahout used up," EPA TEXAS NUKE PROTEST sp ~kesperson Richard Griggs Antinuclear power protesters JaJ mary 14. from all over the state will sharply with other penalties smuggling. pervisors agreed January 9 to converge on the capitol BLIND JUSTICE handed out in connection with And then there's the case of continue free medical services grounds in Austin, Texas, Jan­ Convicted of smuggling three marijuana-especially where Texas Black activist Lee Otis for all at county hospitals, uary 21, to demand a law ban­ tons of marijuana into the the victim was known as an Johnson, who got thirty years regardless of citizenship. More ning nuclear waste dumps. The country, former Dallas County, opponent of government poli­ after a marijuana possession than 500 people turned out for rally is sponsored by the Lone Alabama, sheriff Jim Clark cies. frame-up. the board meeting. Star Alliance, a statewide coa­ was sentenced last month to Ramsey Muniz, former gub­ County officials claim free lition, and local groups in sev­ two years in federal prison. ernatorial candidate of the BOARD DROPS medical care for undocumented eral cities. For more informa­ Clark gained international no­ Texas Raza Unida Party, got RACIST HEALTH CUTS workers is "illegal." tion, call (214) 337-5885, (214) toriety in the 1960s for his ten years in federal prison for Faced with angry opposition 369-1591, or (817) 923-5635. The violent assaults on civil rights conspiring to smuggle mari­ from the entire Chicano and protest is set to start at 1:30 ATOM WASTE PLAN HIT p.m. marchers in Birmingham. juana into the country-he Mexican community, the Los Several hundred area resi­ Clark's sentence contrasts wasn't even accused of actually Angeles County Board of Su- dents bitterly opposed making the West Valley, New York, site DOES MACY'S of a nuclear reprocessing plant TELL GIMBEL'S? into a permanent atomic waste The presence of legionnaire's Atlanta protest greets Carter disposal site at hearings in disease bacteria on the roof of Buffalo January 13. "We will Macy's department store in By Don Davis burned Carter in effigy and fiftieth anniversary of fight with every means open to midtown Manhattan was con­ and Linda Millwood chanted, "U.S. out of Iran," King's birth-the Martin us," said Carol Mongerson of firmed in mid-December. But ATLANTA-Hundreds of "Down with the Shah," and Luther King, Jr., Center for the Coalition on West Valley city officials hushed up the demonstrators demanding "Down with Bakhtiar," the Social Change sponsored a Nuclear Wastes. news because "we did not want jobs protested against Presi­ shah's handpicked succes- demonstration. Three thou­ Opened in 1966 and operated to cause an unnecessary scare dent Carter outside the Ebe­ sor. sand marched to demand by a subsidiary of Getty Oil, during the middle of the Christ­ nezer Baptist Church here A smaller group de­ that King's birthday be West Valley failed to show a mas shopping season," Dr. January 14. manded freedom for six raade a state holiday; that profit and was abandoned by John Marr, head of the city's Inside, Carter was being Reidsville State Prison in­ the Equal Rights Amend­ its owners. They left behind Bureau of Preventable Dis­ awarded the Martin Luther mates who could be sent­ ment be ratified; and that 600,000 gallons of highly ra­ eases, declared. King, Jr., Non-violent Peace enced to death under a residents of the District of dioactive wastes and $4 million To that end, Marr kept the Prize by Coretta Scott King. death-penalty law signed by Columbia have the right to More than 400 joined a Carter while he was gover­ elect their own government. to clean it up. The final news secret from an expert march led by the Southern nor of Georgia. cleanup bill could reach $600 advisory commission on the Christian Leadership Con­ Speaking to the protesters, Contingents from the million. disease, which had been set up Meanwhile, numerous leaks last summer during an out­ ference and supported by the Black activist Dick Gregory Atlanta Association of Edu­ have allowed the deadly mate­ local NAACP to demand said, "If anyone doesn't un­ cators, the National Welfare break that killed three people. rials to escape. Some radioac­ However, Marr did tell Peter action by Carter to provide derstand the power of peo­ Rights Organization, the tivity has been traced into Buf­ Jay Solomon, Deputy Mayor money for jobs. ple, check out what's going AFL-CIO, and the National falo's drinking water supply. for Economic Development, More than 200 Iranian on in Iran." Organization for Women The site is also near an ac­ students outside the church The following day-the participated. who advised Marr to be "sensi­ tive earthquake fault. Asked if tive" to the economic conse­ an earthquake could damage quences of the news. What's Going On

Force on Reproduction Rights; others. for mayor of Chicago; Fred Halstead, Duke University; Socialist Workers Party ARIZONA Fri. Jan. 26, 8 p.m. 3284 23rd St. Dona­ leader of the anti-Vietnam War move­ MINNESOTA representative who has visited Cuba. PHOENIX tion: $1. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For ment, 1968 SWP presidential candidate; MESABI IRON RANGE Tues .. Jan. 23, 7:30 p.m. Duke Student CUBA TODAY: A slide show followed more information call (415) 282-6255. Thabo Ntweng, SWP candidate for mayor THE STRUGGLE OF AMERICAN INDI­ Union Room 101. Wed .. Jan. 24, 7:30p.m. by discussion. Speaker: Mike Mornssey. of Cleveland, member of United Auto ANS FOR THEIR RIGHTS. Speaker: Ver­ Univ. of North Carolina Student Union recent visitor to Cuba. Fri., Jan. 26, 8 p.m. Workers Local 217. Sat., Feb. 3, 7 p.m. non Bellecourt, leader of the American Room 215. Donation: $1 Ausp. Socialist 314 E. Taylor. Donation: $1. Ausp: Mili­ Shoeworkers Hall, 1632 N. Milwaukee. Indian Movement. Fri, Jan. 26, 7:30 p.m. Workers Party. For more information call tant Bookstore Forum. For more informa­ FLORIDA Donation: $2. Ausp: Socialist Workers Unitarian Church, 7th St. South & 3rd (919) 833-9440. tion call (602) ?55-0450. Mayoral Campaign. For more information Ave. Virginia, Minn. Donation: $1.50. MIAMI call (312) 939-0737. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For more REVOLUTIONARY CUBA TODAY. An information call (218) 749-6327. ' eyewitness account, including slide OHIO show, of the twentieth anniversary cele­ HOW THE TRADE UNIONS WERE CINCINNATI CALIFORNIA brations. Speakers: Jack Lieberman and BUlLT. Speaker: Harry DeBoer, partici­ MILITANT ANNIVERSARY EDUCA­ Marilyn Markus, Socialist Workers Party. LOS ANGELES pant in the historic 1934 Minneapolis TIONAL WEEKEND. Fri., Jan. 26, 8 p.m. Fri. Jan. 26, 8 p.m. 8171 NE 2nd Ave. CUBA & THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION. Teamster strike. Fri., Feb. 2, 7:30 p.m. Socialism and Individual Freedom. Donation: $1.25. Ausp: Militant Forum. MASSACHUSETTS Speakers: Pedro Vasquez, Socialist Carpenter's Hall, 307 1st St. N., Virginia. Speaker: Harry Ring, former editor of the For more information call (305) 756-8358 Workers Party candidate for school BOSTON Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Iron Range Mili­ 'Militant.' 8 p.m.; Sat., Jan. 27, noon: board, 5th District; Michael Mora, Native IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 1972 tant Labor Forum. For more information Radical Politics and U.S. Labor: a Discus­ American Movement. Sat., Jan. 27, 8 p.m. DERRY MASSACRE: A PUBLIC call (218) 749-6327. sion of Stalinism & Trotskyism, Class 1; 2 3660 Wilshire Blvd. Ausp: Militant Forum. FORUM-TEN YEARS OF THE CIVIL p.m., Class 2; 7 p.m. Militant Anniversary For more information call (213) 482-1820. RIGHTS STRUGGLE: WHAT HAS THE Rally. Speakers: Harry Ring; Liz Jayko, ILLINOIS IRISH MOVEMENT ACCOMPLISHED? SWP candidate for governor of Kentucky; CHICAGO Speaker: Richard Cahalane. recently re­ others. 10 p.m., party. Sun., Jan. 28, SAN FRANCISCO CHICAGO: THE CITY THAT WORKS? turned from a tour of Ireland, member of NORTH CAROLINA noon. Class 3. All sessions at 970 E. OUR BODIES, OUR LIVES, OUR Hear the socialist alternative to the Dem­ the Socialist Workers Party; others. Also RALEIGH McMillan (Peebles Corner). Donation: $1 RIGHT TO DECIDE. Speakers: Sandra ocratic Party. Speakers: Andrew Pulley, slide show. Fri., Jan. 26, 8 p.m. Donation: CUBA: TWENTY YEARS OF REVOLU­ per session; $1.50 for reception and rally. Salazar. chairwoman, California State member of United Steelworkers Local $1.50. Ausp: Militant Forum. For more TION. Speakers: Dr. Charles Bergquist, Ausp: SWP & Young Socialist Alliance. National Organization for Women Task · 1066, Socialist Workers Party candidate information call (617) 262-4621. Latin American History Department at For more information call (513) 751-2636. 24 The Great Society Compiled by Arnold Weissberg

AFL-CIO TO HONOR agency admitted January 10 it Harry Ring ERA BOYCOTT had given Michael Townley a The AFL-CIO, which sup­ preliminary security clearance ports the Equal Rights Amend­ in 1971 preparatory to using ment, has moved its 1979 na­ him as an agent. But the CIA tional convention out of Miami claims to have dropped the The march of civilization-"It is an Most likely story of the week-A Beach because of Florida's fail­ idea ten months later. The CIA unwritten code of behavior that the CIA spokesman for Standard of Indiana said ure to ratify the ERA. The also declared it had never used and the [Soviet] KGB do not murder each the recent OPEC increase in the price of National Organization for Townley's services. other's operatives-except under the most crude oil would soon be reflected at your Women has called on all ERA Meanwhile, three anti-Castro extraordinary circumstances."-the New local pump. However, he added, "We supporters to boycott nonrati­ Cubans on trial for the bomb­ York Times. won't make any money off of this." fied states when seeking con­ ing claimed Townley set it up vention sites. on CIA orders. Cozy-Concerned that the tobacco in­ It figures-Warehouse stocks of ham­ According to federation rep­ Letelier and an associate, dustry had to shell out $5 million to defeat burger grade beef totaled 300 million resentative AI Zack, the No­ Ronni Moffit, were killed Sep­ the public-smoking restriction referendum pounds December 1, triple the inventory of vember 1979 convention will be tember 21, 1976, when the car in California? Not to worry. The money a year ago. But the president of the in which they were driving was held in Washington, D.C. AFL­ was funneled through the Tobacco Insti­ American .Meat Institute anticipates that demolished by a remote control CIO conventions usually bring tute, which is chartered as a nonprofit the price of hamburger will spiral about 3,000 people to a city. bomb. A snail's paced investigation trade association. Members write off 50 another 40 to 50 percent in 1979. TWENTY-NINE FREED IN has revealed links not only to percent of dues in taxes. Says institute ROCKY FLATS TRIALS the CIA but the highest levels President Horace Korngay: "The govern­ Marvels of free enterprise-A South Charges have been dropped of the current Chilean govern­ ment is the biggest partner in the tobacco Carolina farmer is selling tie tacks, lapel against twenty-nine people ar­ ment.· industry today." pins, and such, featuring small plastic rested last spring at the Rocky molds stuffed with cured quail droppings. PROTEST ANTINUKE Flats, Colorado, nuclear wea­ They're worried?-"WASHINGTON He says a local computer estimates that at pons plant. A total of sixty-two CONVICTIONS A demonstration to protest (AP)-Consumers borrowed money at his selling price of $10 each, the gross people had been arrested. nearly record levels in November as they should be $176 million per ton. Thirty-one have been convicted the conviction of eleven antinu­ clear activists in Washington, used credit cards instead of cash for pre­ of trespassing and sentenced to Christmas purchases. . . . Some econo­ Enough already!-We've survived all six months of unsupervised D.C., will take place February 12, the day of their sentencing. mists are afraid that consumers are over­ the shortages and price hikes up to this probation. Two trials remain to extending themselves as they borrow to point, but now we learn that due to a be held. All sentences have The eleven were arrested after try to beat inflation and they will not be drought in France last summer the price been stayed pending appeal. they unfurled a banner on the White House lawn calling for a able to pay the money back if a recession of truffles will double, from twelve dollars CIA LINK TO nuclear-free world. hits." an ounce to twenty-four dollars. LETELIER MURDER A noon rally in Lafayette Michael Townley, who has Park, opposite the White pleaded guilty to conspiracy in House, is scheduled. Charter the 1976 bombing murder of buses from New York City are former Chilean Ambassador available. Orlando Letelier, may have For more information, call Union Talk worked for the CIA. The (212) 228-0450.

This week's column is by Geoff Why? Because that is the best aid we Stop Knoetze! Mirelowitz, a member of United can give to the freedom struggle of the "Fight Racism, stop Center, Florida Alliance Steelworkers Local 2609 at Bethle­ Black majority there. When the Black Knoetze!" was the chant in Against Racist and Political hem Steel's Sparrows Point plant. workers of South Africa topple the racist, several cities across the Repression, Socialist BALTIMORE-A new subway is under white minority regime, they will be deal­ country as anti:apartheid Workers Party, Cuban Dem­ construction here using steel imported ing a tremendous blow against U.S.·corpo­ demonstrators protested the ocratic Socialists, and oth­ from South Africa. This came to the rate might. And that helps the struggles appearance of white South ers. attention of several organizations opposed of workers back home in the United African boxer Kallie . Several days earlier, in States. Knoetze. New York City, thirty people to South African apartheid, and two suc­ cessful informational picket lines have Perhaps the members of Workers View­ picketed CBS headquarters point are confusing what some union Knoetze, a former South (see photo). CBS broadcast been organized in protest. African cop, shot and Unionists have discussed different ap­ officials are willing to support with what the fight. The picket was many steelworkers are willing to support. crippled a fifteen-year-old organized by the American proaches to this issue in United Steel­ Black youth during Black Coordinating Committee for workers locals 2609 and 2610 and in the Many of our co-workers, especially protests in 1977. He claimed Equality in Sport and So­ Baltimore Coalition Against Apartheid Blacks, are more concerned with the apar­ self-defense and was not ciety (ACCESS) and the and Racism (BCAAR), the organizer of theid system that is oppressing Blacks in prosecuted for the crime. American Committee on the protests. South Africa than they are with the In Miami on January 13, Africa (ACOA). Among the The international USW A leadership phony "foreign imports" issue. Many are 300 demonstrators repre­ groups supporting the action mistakenly supports the position of the willing to support a movement to end U.S. senting twelve organiza­ were the African National steel company l'osses, opposing imports of support to apartheid even if South African tions picketed the gym Congress, Brooklyn Black foreign steel frc.m any country. They put steel is not the only issue. where the nationally tele­ United Front, Operation the blame for loss of jobs here on steel­ In fact, even many union officials are vised Knoetze fight took PUSH, Young Workers Lib­ workers in other countries, instead of willing to take a stand against U.S. sup­ place. Participants included eration League, Young So­ fighting against the real cause of plant port to apartheid. Both locals at Sparrows Operation PUSH, the Miami cialist Alliance, and the shutdowns and layoffs-the profit and Point voted to support the recent tour of NAACP, Haitian Refugee Guardian. productivity drive of the American steel Black Smith African trade unionist Drake industry. Koka. The president of Local 2610, Joe Local 2610 officials echoed this position. Kotelchuck, spoke at the meeting welcom­ They proposed that the local endorse the ing Koka to Baltimore. picket line against South African steel on Socialists believe that workers all over the basis of reaffirming the union's offi­ the world should stand together in the cial stand against all imports. fight against our common enemy. This position received support from a Whether we work at Sparrows Point or in somewhat unexpected source-members South Africa or in a steel mill in Japan, of the Maoist group Workers Viewpoint. we face common problems· of health, At a meeting of the BCAAR, a proposal safety, working conditions, and earning was made to broaden the coalition de­ decent wages. mands beyond opposing South African We should mobilize the broadest possi­ steel to include opposition to all U.S. ties ble opposition to the use of South African and support to the apartheid regime. steel here in Baltimore, because that is an Members of Workers Viewpoint opposed act of working-class solidarity with our this. They argued that the unions could brothers and sisters in South Africa. not be involved in action if the demands That is also the exact opposite of the. went beyond opposing South African union bureaucracy's chauvinist campaign steel. After all, they argued, American against imports, which promotes solidar­ workers have an "objective interest" in ity with the U.S. bosses against the opposing foreign steel imports because we workers of other lands. lose our jobs as a result. There is an interesting postscript to this This is wrong on every count. In the story. The year-end Bethlehem Steel re­ fight for jobs, our enemy is at home-the view reports on new contracts being U.S. steel profiteers. American workers signed between Bethlehem and the Peo­ have no interest in strengthening the U.S. ple's Republic of China. There are even steel monopoly's position against its for­ reports that Bethlehem is going to begin eign competitors, which is what the anti­ importing iron ore from China. import crusade is all about. Will Workers Viewpoint, which at last American workers do have a big stake look was a supporter of the Chinese gov­ in fighting to cut off all U.S. support­ ernment, oppose such moves because they Militant/Osborne Hart including investment and trade-with may "steal" jobs from U.S. iron ore South Africa. workers? I guess we can only hope not.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 25 Our Revolutionary Heritage Letters

Black lun movement Tribute to a fighter Leaving prison We have just received news I am writing you to inform that Ruth Querio passed away you that I have completed my on November 26 (see story on prison time and am going page 17). We were both very home. It was really a great saddened to hear of her death. pleasure reading your paper. I The Socialist Workers Party learned a lot about the struggle has lost a wonderful person, of the Third World peoples all and we have lost a friend. over the world. Your paper is Ruth was one of the people very educational and very who introduced us to enlightening. Trotskyism in Pittsburgh. We There is a friend of mine who first got to know her at a is going to be here in prison for meeting called "Meet the a while, and knowledge like Young Socialist Alliance." what your paper contains is Ruth was to talk about "What what he really needs to set him is socialism." The first words on the right track, so please out of her mouth were, "I'm so address my regular issue to proud that you young people him. are thinking." A prisoner Ruth realized that she wasn't New York going to see the triumph of the ~=ebruary 26, 1969, march in Charleston for black lung legislation socialist revolution in the United States. She told us, though, that she expected to Three thousand angry coal miners hats with skulls and crossbones embla­ Forming opinions marched through the streets of Charles­ zoned on each side. Others wore large red live to see the Socialist Workers ton, West Virginia. The miners had come and black buttons with the numbers '78-4' Party a party filled with Keep up the great coverage! I hesitate to form an opinion on to demand state action on black lung, a printed on them. These referred to the workers. In this she saw her crippling respiratory disease caused by seventy-eight men killed at Farmington [a visions being realized. any new issue until I've seen The best tribute to Ruth the Militant first. breathing coal dust. In West Virginia, the November 1968 mine disaster] and to four A reader coal industry, aided by compliant doctors, who had died in a flooded mine at Hom­ would be to continue building Austin, Texas had managed to keep black lung from iny Falls, West Virginia, six months ear­ that party of workers. being recognized as job-related. Victims lier. Buddy and Susie Beck were thus ineligible for workers compen­ "An often repeated slogan of the cru­ Malaga, Spain sation. sade became: 'Seventy-eight, four, how The date was January 26, 1969. many more?' In addition, there were cut­ Equal job safety Deepgoing dissatisfaction with the out cardboard discs with black skull and During a newscast on black lung situation had been growing for crossbones and the words 'Stop Black How about printers? October 30 I was heartened to years. Tony Boyle, who had inherited the Lung Murder!'" hear the following, which Why has the Militant's union's reins from John L. Lewis in 1963, This still wasn't enough. The miners confirms what the Militant has coverage of the printers and was more interested in snuggling up to had to jam legislative hearings, rally been saying for quite some various newspaper unions been the coal bosses than 'in leading a fight to again at the state capitol and confront the time. so scant? protect the miners. He saw to it that the governor, and finally strike for three The U.S. Supreme Court Certainly they play a union did nothing unacceptable to the weeks until they won. But win they did­ recently ruled that sex somewhat peripheral role in industry. over the combined opposition of the coal discrimination against male U.S. capitalism's operations. But the ranks of the union were the ones industry and the UMWA bureaucrats. forestry workers is illegal. They haven't the weight to dying from black lung, and they wanted According to the newscast, The miners' victory set the stage for shut down the system. But action. the deadly herbicide dio'Xin is ousting the Boyle machine. Many of the there one has a chance to The ingredients of a movement had sprayed routinely on forests black lung activists signed on with Min­ analyze (and learn from some fermented for some time before the 1969 throughout Oregon and ers for Democracy, a reform slate that serious mistakes) an important Charleston march. Three coalfield doctors Washington to control certain promised action on the safety front and question-how do unions deal had broken the wall of silence around undesirable vegetation. Dioxin union democracy. with automation and job loss? black lung and had begun holding meet­ is known to cause cancer as In 1972, MFD candidate Arnold Miller (Most recently there is the ings around West Virginia. well as serious birth defects. was elected UMW president. The union's case of the Washington Star, Miners then banded together in the Women forestry workers of health and safety division was dramati­ but this has been going on for West Virginia Black Lung Association, child-bearing age had cally expanded from the one-person unit it years, obviously.) the goal of which was to get some state previously won the right to had been under Boyle. The miners also It's an issue that already has legislation to provide compensation for choose whether or not to work won the right to vote on their contracts. and will more in the future (due the disease. The movement rapidly spread in areas where the deadly The black lung movement was in many to the system's need to across the mining districts of the state. poison had been sprayed, but ways the parent for efforts around work­ automate) affect more basic The efforts of the Black Lung Associa­ this right was denied to men. related diseases that followed. The fact areas-=-the longshoremen, the tion were bitterly opposed by the Boyle So the men filed suit and the that federal and state governments were rail workers, and soon parts of gang, which threatened to expel the acti­ court ruled that they had been forced to recognize the victims of black agricultural labor. vists on the grounds of "dual unionism." discriminated against. The lung and establish benefits programs still And the lessons to be drawn Journalist Brit Hume, in his book Death court ruled that from now on, has this country's rulers worried. of the need for labor solidarity and the Mines, describes the black lung men must also be allowed to are transparent there, due to movement at the time of the march on After all, if coal miners could win such a decide whether or not to work the antiquated craft-union Charleston: "By now the miners had concession, what of the millions of other in dioxin-contaminated areas. structure-an important lesson begun to appear with some of the typical workers who are beginning to speak up Both the Communist Party for all strikes today. accoutrements of a political campaign or about the hazards they face on the job? as well as right-wing A friend, who's a printer and movement. Many wore their white hard -Arnold Weissberg opponents of the Equal Rights reads the Militant, asked me Amendment argue that passage about this, and I became of the ERA will result in the curious myself. elimination of protective Thanks. legislation for women. Al Campbell However, as the Militant has Cambridge, Massachusetts always pointed out, and as the case of the forestry workers THE MILITANT is the voice of 0 I want to join the SWP. proves, it is possible to fight for the Socialist Workets 0 Send me _. _ copies of Prospects and win extension of protective for Socialism . in America at $2,95 legislation for all workers. Party. each. Enclosed $--- Enjoyed Larry Thomas 0 Please send me more information. YSA convention Tucson, Arizona IF YOU AGREE with what I spent two hours at the you've read, you should Name Pittsburgh Young Socialist Alliance national convention. I join us in fighting for a Address -----~----'--­ world without war, ra­ really enjoyed it. I have been a City ------­ socialist all my life. I am now Frorn an auto worker cism, or exploitation-a seventy-four years old and was Please send me a socialist world. State ------Zip -'--­ thirty years with the Socialist subscription to your paper. Telephone Party U.S.A. I have been Please also send me a copy of receiving the Guardian and the December 15, 1978, JOIN THE SWP. Fill out this SWP. 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. Workers Power for the past Militant, as I am interested in coupon and mail it today. 10014. three years. the article on American Motors - Yours for socialism and in Toledo. I work at AMC in unity. Kenosha, Wisconsin. Samuel Slyman Thank you. ,~ . JOIN THE SWP New Kensington, An auto worker Pennsylvania Kenosha, Wisconsin 26 Learning About Socialism

Appreciates 'Militant' I'm a prisoner, and I've been Is the United States a class society? receiving the Militant through Why do socialists talk about the working class and the product, although it was no longer his product but exclu­ your Prisoner's Fund for over a capitalist class? Is the United States really a class society? sively the product of the labor of others.'' year. However, I did not receive The wealthy merchants and planters who played a This is all the more true today. Under capitalism, the vast the last few issues. prominent role in establishing the United States never majority of people can live only by selling their labor I value the Militant greatly, dreamed it was anything else. power-that is, working for wages. The collective labor of and I miss all the knowledge, George Washington certainly didn't consider himself to be this army of wage workers produces all the wealth of information, understanding, society-from gold and oil, to cars and toasters. etc., that is in the Militant each in the same class with his slaves! And James Madison, But the fruit of th's social labor goes to the individual week and would definitely writing in the tenth of his Federalist Papers, declared that appreciate the continuance of "the most common and durable source of factions has been capitalists who own the factories, banks, mines, and mills, such. the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who not to the mass of workers. The workers are paid a wage, Keep up the good work, and hold and those who are without property have ever formed which is only a fraction of the value they produce. thanks a lot. distinct interests in society." Engels concludes: "The contradiction between socialized A prisoner As far as Madison was concerned, government was production and capitalistic appropriation manifested itself Colorado intended to protect property, and men of property were the as the antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie." natural rulers. This attitude was reflected in the early years An indication of the gulf between the ruling class and the of the United States in laws allowing only those who owned rest of us was shown in a 1969 study by the Internal Socialists on army a certain amount of property to vote. Revenue Service. It found that those with wealth of more But such open class bias was politically expensive. It than $5 million (the top 0.008 percent of the population) own I am a female who is a single became necessary for the capitalists to mask the reality of as much wealth as the bottom half of all families. parent and was so desperate their class rule through cosmetic reforms. Today, teachers for a job that I joined the army, Because of the domination of the capitalist class, all which I am presently in. at every level of the American educational system are productive activity in the United States is organized for For curiosity's sake I'd like to expected to present the mask as the reality. private profit. When private profit conflicts with human know what the Socialist For a look beneath the mask, there is no better place to needs, human needs are always the loser. Workers Party's views are start than with Frederick Engels's presentation in Social­ We see the result in our day-to-day lives. Goals such as about the military system. I ism: Utopian and Scientific. eliminating pollution, establishing safe working conditions, consider myself a socialist. Engels explained that " . . . in every society that has and assuring adequate health care and decent housing are I'd like to know how you feel appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distrib­ simply not purused. They are said to be "too expensive," about single parents (another uted and society divided into classes or orders is dependent meaning they would cut into profits. military issue). When I think of upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the The capitalists control the Congress, courts, White House, socialism I think of people products are exchanged." and army. Through their two parties-the Democrats and supporting people. I believe in The basic source of all wealth is the application of human Republicans-the wealthy exercise a total political monop­ free day care for the worker, labor to the raw materials provided by the earth. Different oly over the decisions that affect our lives. providing another with a societies are characterized by how they organize the social But the working class has the power to change this. "The function. I believe in free labor necessary for production, and by how they distribute proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of education, kindergarten on up. the resulting wealth. production into State property," Engels wrote. In order to have a country Under the Roman Empire, labor was organized through There is no reason why the millions who produce the strong and functional, the system of slavery. Distribution was controlled by the wealth of society cannot make the decisions about how that education is important for all. slave masters who automatically owned everything pro­ wealth will be used. And only such a social revolution can All must be aware and well duced by the slaves. prevent an increasingly irrational and outmoded capitalist prepared to meet anything. During the Middle Ages, the feudal system dominated system from eventually destroying the human race. A GI Europe. Production was carried out by the serfs, but the Texas A society in which there is no division between those who feudal landowners constituted the ruling class and exprop­ produce the wealth and those who control it-a giant riated most of what the serfs produced. producers cooperative in which resources are allocated by Production in medieval towns was organized mainly the democratic decision of the workers-would no longer be 'Down with shah' demo through individual family units. Individual artisans bought a class society. the necessary raw materials, owned their own tools, pro­ Fifteen hundred to 2,000 Such a classless society, which would eliminate war, duced the finished product, and sold it themselves. people marched from San racism, sexism, and poverty, is what socialists are in favor Francisco's civic center to the As large workshops and factories began to develop, of. Next week, we will discuss why the industrial workers Iranian consulate December 28 production more and more became a collective enterprise. are the main powerhouse that can lead the fight for a to demand the removal of Shah But, Engels explains, "The owner of the instruments of socialist society. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and labor [the capitalist] always appropriated to himself the -David Frankel to protest any intervention by the United States in Iran. On December 30, more than 3,000 persons again peaceably demonstrated along the same route to protest against the shah. If You Like This Paper, Look Us Up These demonstrations were · Where to find the Socialist Wor,kers Party, Young Socialist Alliance, and socialist books and pamphlets part of the Iranian Students Association U.S.'s twenty-sixth ARIZONA: Phoenix: SWP, YSA, 314 E. Taylor. Zip: Carrollton Ave. Zip: 70118. Tel: (504) 486-8048. OHIO: Athens: YSA, c/o Balar Center, Ohio Univer­ convention, held in Oakland, 85004. Tel: (602) 255-0450. Tucson: YSA, SUPO MARYLAND: Baltimore: SWP, YSA, 2117 N. Charles sity. Zip: 45701. Tel (614) 594-7497. Cincinnati: California, the same week. 20965. Zip: 85720. Tel: (602) 795-2053 St. Zip 21218. Tel (301) 547-0668 College Park: SWP, YSA, 970 E. McMillan. Zip: 45206. Tel: (513) CALIFORNIA: Berkeley: SWP, YSA, 3264 Adeline YSA, c/o Student Union, University of Maryland. 751-2636. Cleveland: SWP, YSA, 13002 Kinsman One significant flaw marred St. Zip: 94703. Tel: (415) 653-7156. East Los Zip 20742. Tel: (301) 454-4758. Rd. Zip: 44120. Tel: (216) 991-5030. Columbus: the march, however. When Angeles: SWP. YSA, 1237 S. Atlantic Blvd. Zip: MASSACHUSETTS: Amherst: YSA, c/o Rees, 4 YSA, Box 106 Ohio Union, Rm. 308, Ohio State members of the Socialist 90022. Tel: (213) 265-1347. Los Angeles, Cren­ Adams St., Easthampton 01027. Boston: SWP, Un1v., 1739 N. High St. Zip 43210. Tel: (614) 291- Workers Party and salespersons shaw District: SWP, YSA, 2167 W. Washington YSA, 510 Commonwealth Ave., 4th Floor. Zip: 8985. Kent: YSA. Student Center Box 41, Kent Blvd. Zip: 90018. Tel: (213) 732-8196. Los An­ 02215. Tel (617) 262-4621. State University. Zip: 44242. Tel: (216) 678-5974. for the Iranian socialist weekly geles: City-wide SWP. YSA, 1250 Wilshire Blvd., MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor: YSA. Room 4321, Michigan Toledo: SWP, 2507- Collingwood Blvd. Zip: 43610. Payam Daneshjoo joined the Room 404, Zip: 90017. Tel: (213) 482-1820. Los Union, U of M. Zip: 48109. Detroit: SWP, 6404 Tel (419) 242-9743. demonstration in support of its Angeles, Southeast: SWP, YSA. 2554 Saturn Ave., Woodward. Zip 48202. Tel: (313) 875-5322. MI. OREGON: Portland: SWP, YSA, 711 NW Everett. Huntington Park, 90255. Tel: (213) 582-1975. Pleasant: YSA, Box 51 Warriner Hall, Central Zip: 97209. Tel: (503) 222-7225. demands, several organizers of Oakland: SWP, YSA. 1467 Fruitvale Ave. Zip: Mich. Univ. Zip: 48859. PENNSYLVANIA: Bethlehem: SWP, Box 1096. Zip: the demonstration stopped us 94601. Tel: (415) 261-1210. San Diego: SWP, YSA, MINNESOTA: Mesabi Iron Range: SWP, P 0. Box 18016. Edinboro: YSA, Edinboro State College. from selling the Militant and 1053 15th St. Zip 92101 Tel: (714) 234-4630. San 1287, Virg1nia, Minn. Zip: 55792. Tel: (218) 749- Zip: 16412. Philadelphia, SWP, YSA, 5811 N. Payam Daneshjoo. The Francisco: SWP, YSA, 3284 23rd St. Zip: 94110 6327. Minneapolis: SWP. YSA, 23 E. Lake St. Zip: Broad St. Zip: 19138. Tel: (215) 927-4747 or 927- Tel: (415) 824-1992. San Jose: SWP. YSA, 942 E. 55408. Tel: (612) 825-6663. St. Paul: SWP, 373 4748. Pittsburgh: SWP, YSA, 5504 Penn Ave. Zip: organizers tried to exclude us Santa Clara St. Zip: 95112. Tel: (408) 295-8342. University Ave. Zip: 55103. Tel: (612) 222-8929. 15206. Tel: (412) 441-1419. State College: YSA, from participation in the COLORADO: Denver: SWP, YSA, 126 W. 12th Ave. MISSOURI: Kansas City: SWP, YSA, 4715A Troost. c/o Jack Craypo, 132 Keller St. Zip: 16801. demonstration, but after other Zip: 80204. Tel: (303) 534-8954. Zip 64110. Tel (816) 753-0404. St. Louis: SWP. RHODE ISLAND: Kingston: YSA, P.O. Box 400. Zip: DELAWARE: Newark: YSA, c/o Stephen Krevisky, YSA, 6223 Delmar Blvd. Zip: 63130. Tel: (314) 02881. Tel: (401) 783-8864. demonstrators protested, we 638 Lehigh Rd. M4. Zip 19711. Tel: (302) 368- 725-1570. TEXAS: Austin: YSA, c/o Mike Rose. 7409 Berkman were able to rejoin the action. 1394. NEBRASKA: Omaha: YSA, c/o Hugh Wilcox. 521 Dr. Zip: 78752 Dallas: SWP, YSA, 5442 E. Grand. Nancy Elnor FLORIDA: Miami: SWP, YSA, 7623 NE 2nd Ave. Z1p: 4th St., Council Bluffs, Iowa. 51501. Zip: 75223. Tel (214) 826-4711. Houston: SWP, San Francisco, California 33138. Tel: (305) 756-8358. NEW JERSEY: Newark: SWP, 11-A Central Ave. Zip YSA, 6412-C N. Main St. Zip: 77009. Tel: (713) GEORGIA: Atlanta: SWP, YSA, 509 Peachtree St. 07102. Tel (201) 643-3341. 861-9960. San Antonio: SWP, YSA, 112 Frede­ NE. Zip: 30308. Tel: (404) 872-7229. NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque: SWP, 108 Morning­ ricksburg Rd. Zip: 78201. Tel: (512) 735-3141. ILLINOIS: Champaign-Urbana: YSA, 284 lllini side Dr. NE. Zip 87108. Tel: (505) 255-6869. UTAH: Logan: YSA. P.O. Box 1233, Utah State Union, Urbana. Zip: 61801. Chicago: City-wide NEW YORK: Binghamton: YSA, c/o Larry Paradis, University. Zip: 84322. Salt Lake City: SWP, YSA, SWP, YSA, 407 S. Dearborn #1145. Zip: 60605. Box 7261, SUNY-Binghamton. Zip: 13901. Capital 677 S 7th East, 2nd Floor. Zip: 84102. Tel: (801) Tel: SWP-(312) 939-0737; YSA-(312) 427-0280. District (Albany): SWP, YSA, 103 Central Ave. 355-1124. The letters column is an Chicago, South Side: SWP, YSA, 2251 E. 71st St. Zip: 12206. Tel (518) 463-0072. Ithaca: YSA. WASHINGTON, D.C.: SWP, YSA. 3106 Mt. Pleasant open forum for all view­ Zip: 60649. Tel: (312) 643-5520. Chicago, West Willard Stra1ght Hall, Rm. 41A, Cornell University. St. NW Zip 20010. Tel (202) 797-7699. Side: SWP, 3942 W. Chicago. Zip 60651. Tel: Zip: 14853. New York, Brooklyn: SWP, 841 Clas­ WASHINGTON: Seattle: SWP, YSA, 4868 Rain1er points on subjects of gen­ (312) 384-0606. son Ave. Zip: 11238. Tel: (212) 783-2135. New Ave., South Seattle. Zip: 98118. Tel: (206) 723- eral interest to our readers. INDIANA: Bloomington: YSA, c/o Student Activities York, Lower Manhattan: SWP, YSA, 7 Clinton St. 5330. Spokane: SWP, P 0 Box 672. Zip: 99210. Please keep your letters Desk, Indiana University. Zip: 47401. Indianapolis: Zip: 10002. Tel: (212) 260-6400. New York, Upper Tel: (509) 535-6244. Tacoma: SWP, 1022 S. J St. SWP, 4163 College Ave. Zip: 46205. Tel: (317) West Side: SWP, YSA, 786 Amsterdam. Zip: Zip: 98405. Tel (206) 627-0432. brief. Where necessary they 925-2616. Gary: SWP, P.O. Box M218. Zip: 46401. 10025. Tel: (212) 663-3000. New York: City-wide WEST VIRGINIA: Morgantown: SWP. 957 S Univer­ will be abridged. Please in­ KENTUCKY: Lexington: YSA, P.O. Box 952 Univer­ SWP, YSA, 853 Broadway, Room 412. Zip: 10003. sity Ave. Zip: 26505. Tel (304) 296-0055. dicate if you prefer that sity Stat1on. Zip: 40506. Tel: (606) 269-6262. Tel (212) 982-8214. WISCONSIN: Madison: YSA. P.O Box 1442. Zip: Louisville: SWP, 1505 W. Broadway, P.O. Box NORTH CAROLINA: Raleigh: SWP, Odd Fellows 53701. Tel: (608) 255-4733. Milwaukee: SWP, your initials be used rather 3593. Zip: 40201. Tel: (502) 587-8418. Building, Rm. 209, 19 West Hargett St. Zip 27601 YSA, 3901 N. 27th St. Zip: 53216. Tel: (414) 445- than your full mime. LOUISIANA: New Orleans: SWP, YSA. 3319 S. Tel: (919) 833-9440. 2076.

THE MILITANT/JANUARY 26, 1979 27 THE MILITANT Battle at Newport News

By Shelley Kramer several workers, young and old. It was the biggest organizing victory "The thought of the yard's 19,000 NEWPORT NEWS, Va.-A secre­ They pointed to the Peninsula Ship­ the labor movement, North or South, maintenance and production workers tary, married to a shipyard welder, builders Association-the company had seen in decades. But it was only walking off their jobs is enough to makes two lists: which bills to pay and union since 1939-as a source of their one battle in the war with Tenneco. send cold chills down one's spine," which can wait. frustration. The company has refused to accept the editorialized the Newport News Daily Phones at the union offices never "The PSA was owned and run by the election results and will not come to News. stop ringing. Will my health insurance shipyard," a young Black welder said. the bargaining table. Bosses across the South are shaking be cut off? How much are strike bene­ "That shouldn't be. A real union would First the shipyard appealed to the from the same chills. Their unorgan­ fits? Will we get food stamps? have nothing to do with the yard." National Labor Relations Board. Not ized workers will be inspired by a In the supermarket, shoppers swap "Why, the PSA even supported Virgi- only was its appeal denied, but the union victory in open-shop, "right to recipes for low-cost meals to see their work" Virginia. Thousands of workers families through a long strike. in nonunion shipyards in Mississippi, Everywhere you go in this city of Louisiana, and Texas will have their 150,000 on Virginia's Tidewater penin­ 'We won because we have a movement. We eyes on Newport News. So will 66,000 sula, talk is the same. can't be stopped.' DuPont chemical workers-in twenty­ When will the Steelworkers strike six southern plants-who are next on Newport News Shipbuilding? the USW A organizing list. Which side are you on? nia's 'right to work' laws at one time," NLRB turned around and declared the Tenneco itself, the country's According to Jack Hower, the United an older worker recalled. PSA guilty of harassing and intimidat­ fifteenth-largest corporation, employs Steelworkers' top organizer here, the The PSA's cozy relationship with the ing USW A organizers. After the NLRB thousands in the nonunion South and city's 17,500 shipyard production and company enabled it to beat back four certified USWA Local 8888, the com­ Southeast. A union victory in the com­ maintenance workers will strike "be­ different union challenges over the pany turned to the pourts for further pany's shipyard will set off repercus­ fore the end of January." They are years, three from the International delays. sions throughout the Tenneco. empire. represented by USW A Local 8888, Association of Machinists and one On March 5 the Fourth Circuit Court Newport News may also be a test of which has been engaged in a year-long from the Boilermakers. of Appeals in Richmond will consider Carter's wage guidelines, which struggle for union recognition. A little more than two years ago, a the shipyard's charges that the USWA threaten working people across the Virulently opposing the union is group of shipyard workers decided the committed "election irregularities." country. Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry­ time had come to take on the PSA "The elections were held on company Newport News shipyard workers dock Company, the country's biggest again. This time they turned to the property, during company time, earn an average of $5.90 an hour, shipyard, owned by the giant Tenneco United Steelworkers. workers were escorted to the polls by compared to $7 in unionized shipyards It conglomerate. employs about 22 The small organizing nucleus even­ company supervisors, the company and $9 for USW A members in basic percent of the peninsula's 112,000 tually grew into a committee of 700, furnished voter lists and voter identifi­ steel. private-industry workers. composed of workers from the yard's cation badges, the company wrote To undercut the steelworkers' The shipyard's mammoth cranes various departments and trades. This letters to absentees urging a vote for appeal-and bolster Carter's and endless rows of clockhouses and network of experienced and respected the PSA," replied Wayne Crosby, presi­ guidelines-Tenneco recently granted work sheds stretch more than twenty a 6.5 percent wage increase. But this leaders, able to spread the union's dent of Local 8888, in a letter to the city blocks between Washington message at a moment's notice, was the local paper. concession only bolstered confidence in Avenue and the James River. High what a USW A strike could win. key to the USWA's success, according Despite these odds, the USWA won. barbed-wire fences and gates keep the to Hower. "So who's being unfair," Crosby rhe­ Asked what she thought of Carter's 7 public at bay. Despite the business establishment's torically asked. percent limit, Local 8417 striker Rita well-financed campaign to portray the The shipyard is now orchestrating a McClenney replied, "After two years of Company union USW A as a bunch of "outsiders and flag-waving campaign for its "demo­ picketing in the rain, cold, and heat, I don't think much of it. We have a This high-security profile reflects the carpetbaggers," union organizers col­ cratic right to a day in court." But fact that 65 percent of the shipyard's lected a record 12,000 cards for the what the company really wants is saying in the South: 'We want the business is navy contracts. Nuclear­ USW A. When representation elections months and years in court-time to whole hog, not just part of it.' We're powered cruisers, aircraft carriers, and were held on January 31, 1978, 53 stall the union, time to intimidate and fighting for everything we can get." submarines are all built and repaired percent of the voters chose the steel­ wear down the workers. And there's in the South Yard. Construction and workers. nothing "democratic" about that. Safety repair of commercial ships are concen­ Right now the workers have no "Union safety committees composed trated in the newer North Yard, opened 'Go Steelworkers' union protection at all. USW A mili­ of workers" will be another high­ in 1975. The organizing drive was capped by tants are being fired, suspended, and priority demand, Hower said. In 1976 About half the shipyard workers are a pre-election rally of 6,000 workers disciplined. Grievance hearings are the company launched a well­ Black. Two to three thousand women and then a triumphant march down held without union representation. publicized "Safety Sense" campaign. are scattered in both clerical and pro­ Washington Avenue. "Go Steel­ "The workers cannot, and I emphas­ Its emblems and mottos deck the yard. duction jobs. workers" stickers plastered on car ize cannot, continue working under the But signs come a lot cheaper than safe "When I first got this job, I thought I bumpers and hard hats continue to conditions which this company working conditions. could really become somebody-that it identify union supporters. chooses to impose upon them," Hower Among the chief hazards caused by meant something to work in the ship­ "We won because we had a move­ said. "March 5 is way too long to wait. company negligence, Hower listed poor yard," a Black woman told the Mili­ ment; we couldn't be stopped," said These workers are ready." ventilation, cancer-causing asbestos tant. "But now it's an embarrassment, organizing committee member Edgar The Newport News shipyard strike dust, and radiation exposure. a humiliation." Lee, proudly sporting his USWA volun­ is shaping up as the first major class "I could talk to you about safety The same sentiment was echoed by teer organizer button. showdown of 1979. Cotftinued on page 22