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WfJ/iKE/iS VIIN'IJIIR'... :.~,~Ul' ';, .. No. 216 .. <(;ili"". x ~n 6 October 1978 • rl e aveI strikes h,lIc hit dOlens of cities this fall, Rail Unions: the growing number of strikes is by no means limited to government employ­ Defy the Government! ees. In the Pacific :\orthwest. pulp and rarer workers have been pn strike for In the most dramatic show of union three months against '12 manufacturers. rower since last winter's coal strike. and In California. Teamsters are engaged in with far more immediate economic a bitter and rrolonged strike against the imraet. railroad workers brought the major grocery chains. In the Midwest nation's trains to a screeching halt on and South. teachers. firemen and Sertember 24. The shock wave sent out sanitation workers have held center bv the ricket squads which shut down stage. while in "\ew York City, the rail yards from Washington. D.C. to newspaper unions hit the major city Washington State was so great that dailies with a solid two-month strike. within hours federal courts were issuing In addition. major strikes were only restraining orders. By Friday President narrowly averted in the key New York Carter had obtained a sweeping injunc­ Transit Workers Union and the U.S. tion under the Railway Labor Act. But Postal Service, where contract rejection it was only the caritulation by their own votes have been frustrated by the union leaders which took down the incredible cowardice of union leaders rickets. And even that was not enough afraid to lead their members against the to extinguish the unexpected wave of bosses' no-strike laws. strike action which has swept the Everywhere the strike movement country in the last two months. The finds itself confronting stepped-up "miners' fcver" so feared by the bosses is government strikebreaking. Coal min­ still ali\(:. ers and now rail workers are slapped The two-month-old strike of 4.700 Ilith rresidentially ordered back-to­ ckrk.' against the Virginia-based "\or­ work injl·nctions. Teachers are locked lolk & Western railroad exploded when ur in one city after another. California the Brotherhood of Rai\wav and Air­ Teamsters see their pickets run down lines Clerks (BRAC) threw up picket and murdered by scab drivers while the lines at intcrsection points with 43 other courts ban mass picketing and cops railroads that have been moving scab rolice the picket lines. :'\& W freight throughout the strike. This crackdown reflects the Carter Thumbing their noses at a flurry of administration's escalating offensive federal court back-to-work injunctions, against labor. Everyone of the labor the pickcts spread the next day to 73 rail Photo leadership's pet legislative projects lines. as BRAC targeted the companies Above: Firemen confront National Guard in Memphis. Below: Striking rail (Humphrey-Hawkins "full employ­ clerks demonstrate in Chicago. which have been contributing $6 million ment" bill. Labor Reform Act, common a week to N& W in a strikebreaking court orders were simply ignored. On pickets shut down hundreds of scab situs picketing) has been slaughtered mutual aid pact. Wednesday. Labor Secretary Ray Mar­ mines for 110 days last winter, defying in Congress. Meanwhile, with Carter's The power of the picket line was shall high handedly decreed a 24-hour state rolice. National Guardsmen, anti-inflation jawboning tactics getting immediately felt. Despite desperate deadline to end the dispute. The presidential decrees and court orders. nowhere. the administration is gearing attemrts by the railways to maintain deadline rassed with pickets still spread­ The imract of the miners' militancy is ur a drive to impose across-the-board senice with supervisory personnel, an ing. On Thursday. President Carter evident not just in the BRAC action, but wagc guidelines of 7 percent per year. estimated 350.000 railroad workers ill\oked the Railway Labor Act and in the strike wave that has swept across This is less than the current rate of resrected the BRAC ricket lines in 42 ordered the strikers back to work. He. the U.S. inflation and far less than the double­ affected states. "\early two thirds of the too. was ignored. So far it has only slightly involved the digit inflation rate most economists are nation's 200.000 miles of railroads. On Friday. Justice Derartment at­ key industrial unions. none of which predicting for the next two or three freight shirments and rassenger service torneys and lawyers for over 100 rail­ have contract expiration dates this fall. Years. was tied ur. Chicago. the nation's key roads finally got U.S. District Judge But it is hardly the quiet autumn of Elen the traditionally reliable water­ rail hub. was hardest hit and the '\ubrey Robinson who the day before labor peace which Carter's economic boys in the trade union leadership are :vlidwest industrial heartland began had declined their entreaties to issue a braintrusters were predicting. It is some now hostile to the White House. Arch­ grinding to a stop. Seventy percent of temrorary restraining order halting the of the traditionally most quiescent reactionary George Meany has come coal. grain and industrial surrlies and \Ialkout. Still the rickets waited for sectors of the working class, often led by out against the wage guidelines and rarts were stalled and the auto and steel \Iord from their union leaders. When conservative craft union officials. who liberal Doug Fraser walked off the industries immediately felt the squeele. the \1 ord finally came from Kroll to pull have been walking out. This undoubted­ rrcsidential I.abor-Management Ad­ With their hands clenched firmly dOlln the pickets. it was clear that it was ly exrresses a mood of anger and I ismy Group bemoaning big business' around the bosses' arteries. the strikers the union's instructions. not the gmern­ frustration among the ranks. as every "one-sided class \\ar." Last week Wil­ II cre nC\crtheless ordered back to \Iork me nt's. which ended the walkout. onc of the recent strikes has been greeted liam \Vinisringer. head of the Interna­ h\ BRAC rresident Fred Kroll after Ihe enthusiasm \Iith which the II ith enthusiasm. And it reflects as well tional Association of Machinists. de­ tour davs of escalating gO\l:rnment BRAC strikers disratched thcir picket the growing estrangement of the labor clared that his union had "written threats. On Tuesda\'. federal courts had squads and the eager resronse and bureaucracy from the reanut million­ Carter off" and would not support his re'ronded in knee-jerk fashion to the solidarit\ of the other railroad unionists aire they hclred rut in the White House. re-election. The trade-union tops are rail comranies' requests for restraining Ill're' at least rartl: lIlsrired by the Centered in the rublic sector. where nO\I looking to rromote Ted Kennedy orders rrohibiting ricketing. But the combative coal miners. whose roving teachers' and other municipal workers' continued on page 9

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Stamberg NOW: Jimmy SWP Scabs on Ballot Carter's on Railroad in NYC "Ladies' Strike Auxiliary" Courts Gag "Free" Press

Evcr since the U.S. defeat in Vietnam actual j,lilings have occurred. And of find. By lorcing disclosure of reporters' and Nixon's Watergate debacle there thl's\.'. with pnhaps two exceptions. it conlidential sources. the state seeks to has been a steady stream of disclosures was t:ithn tht: acti\ities of the left or a turn the press into an investigative arm of CIA/FBI skulduggery and murder. mut:kraking ill\t:stigation of bourgeois of the district attorney's office. The initial response of the American corruption which caused the state to It is not as if Jimmy Carter is staging a bourgeoisie was to proclaim a new era of st:t:k n:prisal (S('II' York Tillles. 26 July personal vendetta against the press in "open government," while limiting the 197~). fhe practict: of subpoenaing tht: style 01 '\iixon and Agnew. He is damage with a technique which could be repor.tns be.l'an in tht: mid-1960's with simply carrying out his election man­ termed "cover-up by investigation." tht: rise oltht: !'\e\\ l.eft. black national­ dak from the American ruling class. Recently the imperialist state has gone ism and the .l'hetto t::\plosions. Prosecu­ After tht: disaster of Vietnam and the over to the offensive in seeking to clamp tors attt:mrtin.l' to labricate criminal stt:nch of Watergate. the credibility of ,\ lid on embarrassing exposcs. The chargt:s a.l'ainst lett and black militants tht: l'.S. imperialist state was greatly result is a full-scale campaign to bind discO\ned that reporters' notes could damaged. Carter cast himself in the role and gag freedom of the press through pnl\ide them with "evidence." The of M r. Clean. the outsider capable of court-ordered police raids. jailings and major 1972 Supreme Court case which reestablishing the bourgeoisie's authori­ censorship. hksst:d this acti\ity grew out of the t\ for future imperialist adventures. He Open hunting season on the press was FBI's murderous Cointelpro eampai.l'n got the job. and one of his first tasks was declared May ~ I when the U.S. Su­ to ".l't:t" tht: Black Panthers. Earl to halt the erosion of the secret police preme Court legaliled police raids on Caldwell. a S('II' York Times reporter. apparatus ... by stopping the leaks! The newspaper offices for purposes of \\as subpoenaed to appear before <~ government's campaign amounts to an gathering "evidence" of "crimes." The fednal .l'rand jury attempting to framt: attempt to enact an official secrets act by decision. Zurcher I'. Stallfiml /Jailr. the Panthn leadnship on "conspiracy state repression rather than legislative produced angry editorials from almost Myron Farber AP to assassinate the president" charges. at:tion. If the legal power doesn't exist to every major bourgeois daily. Signifi­ The first major test of a reporter's jail Daniel Ellsberg and "Deep Throat," cantly. the case grew out of a bloody protest the Supreme Court decision right to protect sources involved Mark ths-n the .rr~ss must be intimidated into attack on the left. In 1971 a large againsi the Stallfiml /Jailr, they pro­ Knops. a journalist for a Wisconsin not pubhshll1g what they say, Stanford student antiwar demonstra­ ceeded to make a hero out of Myron "underground" newspaper. Knops, in For the loyal bourgeois media. tion was brutally assaulted by Palo Alto Farber. Virtually every major daily 1970. served by far the longest jail however. the agreed-upon ends should police. In textbook fashion the rampag­ coast-to-coast stated its defense of sentence of any reporter-nearly six be reached by other means. If only the ing cops beat and gassed scores of Farber. recogniling that attacking a months-for refusing to disclose the excesses of the U.S. spy agencies could demonstrators. then arrested their rcporter's right to protect confidential source of a Weatherman "commu­ be curbed. then America could reassert \ictims. But several days later. in a new sources threatens to smother any and all niquc." And one of the latest subpoenas its claim to be the great defender of twist, the cops picked up a search il1\estigative reporting. Some. including was served July 6 on Mark Allen. a democracy. But even "responsible" warrant and burst into the offices of the the Iktruit 'veIl's. even offered to assist reporter for the People's World (the exposcs run head on into the need of the Stanford student newspaper. ransack­ in thc payment of the fines. Twenty­ ing it for evidence with which to bring se\cn days alter walking into Bergen more prosecutions. When the Supreme County Jail. Farber was freed. but only ~ Court upheld this procedure. the result after he and the li'mesturned over some """--"'~"":l was an ominous new weapon in the legal of their files to the court. Farber still arsenal of state repression. faces a hearing that could return him to What terrified the editors of the Nell' jail. York li'lIIes et al. was not the obvious threat of wholesale repression of the left. Judicial Persecution of the Press but haunting memories of Richard Nixon's vindictive campaign to demol­ MYron Farber and the Stall!i)rd ish the loyal capitalist political opposi­ J)aill' arc not isolated victims of over­ tion. The li'mes obliquely recalled the lealous prosecutors. The government deposed president's "enemies list" of campaign of intimidation has advanced troublesome journalists and liberal across a wide front, causing even the personalities: "In this decade. it is hardly Wall Street Journal (23 August) to fanciful to worry that public officials protest in a major article entitled. "A bent on obstructingjustice might invoke Judicial War on the Press?" More than such authority malevolently" (New 20 reporters nationwide have recently ~ York li'mes. 6June). Howard K. Smith. faced the threat of iail for refusing to Oliphant ABC-TV's news commentator, was disclose sources. In addition. in early "The Supreme Court media style book prefers a semi-colon to a comma after more direct. calling the decision "a .I une the Justice Department won a civil the use of the past pluperfect subjunctive." police-state action" and "Nazi-like suit to seile royalties received by Frank ruling." Snepp. an ex-CIA agent. from publica­ West Coast newspaper of the Commu­ secret police to murder efficiently-that Hardly had the editorial outcry died tion of' one of the l1)any "insider" nist Party). Allen flatly refused to is. in darkness and not in the light. down when a New York Times reporter accounts of secret police skulduggery. release his notes on a strike against Unlike some banana republic. in the was thrown in jail for refusing to reveal The information Snepp has is so safe Automatic Plastic Molding, a union­ U.S. the media are not simply a confidential news sources to a New that even the CIA didn't label it busting employer which is suing the mouthpiece for the government. The Jersey court involved in a murder trial. "classified." International Longshoremen's and press has a certain degree of independ­ On August 5. Myron Farber, whose Earlier. on May 19. Ronald Hum­ Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). Allen ence from direct state control, a status it only "crime" was investigating and phrey and David Truong were sen­ had written an article covering a vicious seeks to preserve. Every high school reporting a series of killings in a New tenced to 15 years in jail for "spying" for police assault and arrest of striking civics book relates the victorious de­ Jersey hospital. began serving an indefi­ Vietnam. Their ','crime" had been to ILWU members in 1976,asdid Workers fense of John Peter Zenger, tried for nite sentence for refusing to name names release documents that had been openly VanKuard (see "Drop Charges Against "seditious libel" of a British colonial before the court. The Times was fined reported in Congress! With the espio­ ILWU Strikers!" WV No. 1['5,25 June governor in 1735. The emerging Ameri­ $100.000 outright and $5,000 for each nage convictions of Humphrey and 1976). can bourgeoisie even wrote freedom of day Farber remained silent, while the Truong the government won the "right" Mark Allen has so far avoided jail. the press into the Constitution. judge slapped a $2.000 fine on tr.~ to use "warrantless wiretaps" whenever Contempt charges have not yet been However, the relative independence reporter personally (New York Times. it claims the "national security" is brought against him. But the obvious of the U.S. media has its limits-largely 25 July). Under the arbitrary contempt endangered. threat to the left and labor movements self-enforced. If the press sees its role as Dai~1'. posed by these attacks has not disap­ powers of the court. Farber was never As in the case of the Stanfi)rd a "watchdog" it is in terms of the peared. By raiding newspapers of even permitted the opportunity to the left is frequently the target of these broader "national interests" ... of the organizations they assault, cops can explain why the information should be attacks. Since 1972 more than 500 bourgeoisie. They do not wish the ransack the files for membership lists, withheld. reporters have been ordered before abolition of the secret police; they internal documents, anything they can If the capitalist media felt obligated to grand juries and courts. Over a dozen merely disagree with the choice of victims. Says Myron Farber: "( am not a fanatic or absolutist. ... I believe that the First Amendment means what it says about the freedom of the press and that it was annexed to the constitution with full knowledge that an unfettered hut respollsihle press was nucial to our nation." [our emphasis] -Nell' rurf.: Times. 25 July 1975 A nd as "free but responsible" journalIsts tht: nwdia llave lor years willingly indulged in self-censorship. Thus the Times refused to publish advance news of the Bay of Pigs invasion. even though it had learned of preparations weeks beforehand. and it , M.cElhinney/NeW5week. . AP McElhinney/Newsweek selectively printed articles throughout Frank Snepp Daniel Ellsberg Philip Agee Daniel Schorr the early years of the Vietnam war to

2 WORKERS VANGUARD - Mass Graves in Nicaragua After 14 days of bombings, mortar cadcd slum on the northern edge of the attacks and street fighting the town of city all residents of a particular block bteli-the last held by Nicaragua's were ordered into the street. Women courageous rebels-was retaken by the and girls were marched north while 21 '\ational (iuard SeptemblT 22. Dictator men and boys were herded south for one i\nastasio ("Tacho") Somma still holds mile, ordered to dig a shallow grave at the country in his bloody grip, but the side of the road and then shot. managed to smash the popular uprising The mass killing was not even hidden that has been raging for over a month by the Somma regime. Where other only through virtual genocide­ dictatorships would deny such atroci­ massacring a whole section of the ties, Nicaraguan newspapers published population. "What remains is hatred," grisly photos of decapitated bodies "in wrote I.e Atonde (27 September). "The order to teach the youth a lesson." The prevailing sentiment today, more than killing has been so wanton and cold­ sadness in defeat, is a desire for blooded, in fact, that the populace is Yengeance." willing to talk to reporters within The rising against the hated Somma earshot of the National Guard. They are regime was sparked by the populist so sickened by what they have experi­ Sandinista National Liberation Front enced that they readily risk death rather (FSl.N), but it was the teenage youth than continue to silently endu"re Somo­ who responded and manned the barri­ za's terror. cades. To Som07a's National Guard '\icaragua's major cities lie in ruins. Downtown areas have been reduced to Naythons/Gamma-Liaison evcry young man and boy became an Red Cross workers burn bodies of victims of street battles. enemy of the state, and with a policy of rubble by the aerial bombardments and taking no prisoners the Guard methodi­ mortar attacks. In the last stages of the term, which doesn't expire until 1981. groups, was called off last week in favor cally went about the mass murder of"los siege of Estell. mass starvation and a "Friendly cooperation" refers to the of "mediation with the regime for muchachos." "To be young in Nicara­ malaria outbreak threatened to deci­ OAS mediating team set up at U.S. institution of a stable democracy." The gua today is a crime punishable by mate those who survived the Guard's initiative to negotiate "an enduring and FAa also dropped its earlier insistence death," lamented one grief-stricken machine guns. Thousands are fleeing on democ"ratic solution" with the bloody that Som07a agree to step down as a parent. the highways and into the hills while the dictator. Publicly Washington is asking precondition to negotiations. But any entire country is in the throes of only that Somma clean up his act, but What took place in Nicaragua in the "deal" with this butcher means tram­ economic disaster. many worried liberals reason that a last two weeks of September was the pling on the bodies of Nicaragua's dead. With a temporary "peace of the "second Cuba" can be averted by biggest bloodbath in Latin America It means protecting the hated National graveyards" descended on the country, removing the Nicaraguan strongman. Guard at a time when the survivors are since the Chilean coup of 1973. In a Somoza is now willing to accept the The bourgeois opposition in demanding vengeance. miserable little country of million L.3 "friendly cooperation" ofoutside forces. Nicaragua is also counting on "friendly people, more than 4,000 were killed by By allying with the OppOSItIOn He had previously made it clear that any cooperation" from Jimmy Carter. The the patriarch's praetorian guard. Pro­ businessmen who are appealing to negotiations must take place "within the work stoppage begun last August 24 by Washington the FSLN hopes it can portionately that would be the equiva­ constitutional framework"-i.e., he the Broad Opposition Front (FAa), a lent of more than four hundred thou­ topple this universally despised despot. remains determined to complete his coalition of businessmen and labor But a "stable democracy" which main­ sand deaths in the U.S. So now the tains the power of those who only Organization of American States (OAS) yesterday were Som07a's partners in is investigating to see if any "violations plunder will not raise the Nicaraguan of human rights" were committed by masses out of their impoverished mis­ Somoza's private army! In Estell. a town of about 30,000, the ery. Only by imposing a workers and peasants government-which wou\d Red Cross dug a mass grave for 400-500 seize the vast properties of the tyrant persons. Many more deaths are suspect­ and his cohorts, expropriate industry ed since families were forced to bury and the latifundia, smash the National their dead in backyards as it was tiuard and punish the Somoza criminals impossible to transport bodies­ by people's tribunals-can the Nicara­ decomposing in the streets with flocks of guan working people root out the vultures descending on them-through dictatorship and take charge of their the aerial bombardments. destiny. The entire city of Leon has become a No deals with the murderous SomOla vast cemetery with at least 1,000 known clan and their private army-For a dead. (The total population was only revolutionary constituent assembly! No ~O,OOO.) The National Guard used the reliance on the treacherous bourgeois same tactics in Leon as elsewhere: the opposition and Carter's "human rights" majority of deaths resulted not from demagogy-Not the petty-bourgeois fighting on the barricades but from nationalism of the Sandinista Front, but house-to-house searches. The army a Trotskyist party to fight for a Central dragged unarmed men and boys as American workers republic! The blood young as 13 into the streets and Naythons/Gamma-Liaison of the Nicaraguan masses must not have summarily executed them. In a barri- Somoza's troops search for rebels in Masaya. been spilled in vain!.

shore up Johnson's propaganda. When Sanctimonious invocations of the working-class press has periodically the strength of the workers movement Daniel Schorr in 1976 handed the First Amendment to the contrary, the been suppressed, either by the state can insure. Publish all CIA/FBI files! suppressed and sanitized House Select press will not be truly free until the directly or by fascist gangs in the serv­ Stop government attacks on the press!. Committee on Intelligence report to the bourgeoisie's monopoly of the means of ice of capital. During the McCarthy­ Vi/hiRe Voice-for which act he Was widely disseminating news and opinion ite period in the U.S. the govern­ very nearly held in contempt of is smashed. Throughout the capitalist ment effectively managed the media Congress-he did so because his own. world the mass media-radio, television by inducing them to carry out anti­ CBS News would not use the material. and the' major daily newspapers-are rcd purges through blacklisting and W()liKlliS The "free but responsible" journalists either under direct state control or firings. have been unwilling to mount a serious overwhelmingly in the hands of power­ Marxists resolutely oppose any effort 'AHOIIAiiI) defense of the First Amendment. Dur­ ful press monopolies. The working-class hy the capitalist state to interfere with Marxist Working-Class Biweekly ing the 27 days Farber spent in jail the press, lacking the enormous financial freedom of the press. This bourgeois­ of the Spartacist League of the U.S. nearly unanimous support he first resources of the media barons, has to be democratic right is vital in enabling the EDITOR: Jan Norden received was seriously eroded. The "content" with a far more restricted workers movement to defend itself PRODUCTION MANAGER: Darlene Kamiura Washil1~ton Post didn't like the case as a audience. 'Moreover, even where a against the attacks ofcapital, and for the CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mike Beech constitutional test. Syndicated colum­ degree of press freedom is permitted the revolutionary vanguard to prepare the EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, Charles nists such as Haynes Johnson, Joseph capitalist state apparatus seeks to proletariat for the seizure of power. And Burroughs, George Foster, Liz Gordon. Kraft and even McGovern-liberal An­ control what news is "freely" printed where the government attempts to stop James Robertson, Joseph Seymour Published biweekly, skipping an issue in thony Lewis felt the case wasn't suffi­ (intimidation of publishers, CIA "disin­ leaks ofsecret police atrocities, the labor August and a week in December, by the ciently compelling. Meanwhile the formation," etc.). To this day state movement demands public disclosure of Spartacist Publishing Co., 260 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013. Telephone: Times offered to do a deal, proposing to licensing of newspapers exists in France, their crimes, Today. reporter Myron 966-6841 (Editorial), 925-5665 (Business). turn over some of Farber's notes to the Italy, Spain and a host of other Farber is jailed for refusing to reveal Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, court. As to t~e threat of police raids G.P.O., New York, NY 10001. Domestic European countries. In the rare case ofa confidential sources while Attorney subscriptions: $3.00/24 issues. Second-class growing out of the Supreme Court's backward capitalist country which has General Griffin Bell remains free after postage paid at New York, NY. Stanford Dai/y decision, the press the forms of parliamentary "democra­ refusing to disclose the names of FBI Opinions expressed in signed arlicles or cy," the state frequently controls news letters do not necessarily express the responded by supporting a host of bills provocateurs and informers in the editorial viewpoint. in Congress that replace cop raids by output by monopolizing the distribu­ Socialist Workers Party. The widest warrant with cop raids by subpoena tion of scarce newsprint. Where legal exposure of the counterrevolutionary No. 216 6 October 1978 (Nel\' York Times, 14 July)! censorship is not sufficient, the secret police requires a press as free as 6 OCTOBER 1978 3 Exchange on NYC Newspaper Strike

Sertemher 12. 197X \\ ill extend the term of office of all the typograrhical union and to a lesser To the editor: offil'ers lrom one year to three years-a C\tcnt the Guild arc to the left of the constitutional amendment the ITl' While I agree with the general line of national leadershir. They have carried hacks have rut ur lor a vote three times the article on the New York newsparer out a number of moves. such as merging in li\e \'Cars and lost overwhelmingly strike (WI· No. 214. X Sertemher). I all the local unions in a fifty-mile radius e\en time. think some further light can he shed on with the Oakland and S,;n Francisco A few small roints: the question of the "interim" newsra­ locals. thereby creating a common l!sing the l'Xamrle of the 1926 British rers heing rrinted in N.J. These rarers. hargaining unit and. potentially. the general strike newsrarer as an example while they arc rrinted in union shors resources to rrosecute a militant strike. lor~. Y. workers is good in that it is one and arc written hy reorle who arc Putting on a left lace when the San in which the workers were in rolitical working there hC('{lliSe they wouldn't Rafael st rike was forced on them. the motion. hut it might also have been scah on the N.Y. strike. nevertheless local hureaucrats called for mass picket pointed out that the Trotskyist move­ ohjectively serve the interests of the lines and both the longshore and ment used the same tactic when they N.Y. ruhlishers hy serving to lessen leamsters responded with pickets and ruhlished the Organi::er and later the some of the heat thev would ordinarilv hoycotts of all goods in or out of the \ou/lll'{'.11 Orgoni::er in the mid-1930's. have heen under fro~ their advertising rarer. The owners appealed to the Also. regarding Jimmy Breslin. this customers. municiral and county government, at scahby S.O.B. has a long history of this However. in dealing with this ques­ which point sheriff's deruties attacked sort 01 thing and the workers should be tion. I think the aqicle could have gone the ricket line with clubs and gas and made aware of it. Back in the '62 strike .a little further than it did. For instance. jailed a number of pickets. The plant's Breslin published a riece in the Nell'ark since most ITU [International TYrogra­ mechanical superintendent was shot !:'I'cning SCI\'S which came out against phical Union] (and I assume. other under peculiar circumstances and the the ITl! (the initiator of that strike). rrinting trades unions) contracts con­ hureaucrats hacked off. The scabs got hecause he claimed that by striking a tain "struck-work" clauses. we could in. the embargo was broken along with newsparer and preventing him from have rut forward the idea of N.Y. the strike. Subsequent suits by the puhlishing his column that the union newspaper workers picketing the N.J. owners resulted in judgments that cost was violating his indil'idualfirst amend­ rlants and demanding that the N.J. the unions involved over a million ment rights. He ridiculed the ITU as a workers ohserve elementary working dollars. religious cult and implied that if any of class solidarity and refuse to work on The interesting thing is that now Ihis the N. Y. publishers had the guts to the Mel/'0 et al. for which they have a strike is used hy the bureaucrats to publish. that he would certainly scab. perfect legal co\'er-i.e.. making it "rrove" that it can't be done. Whenever He seems to have proved his point. difficult to justify an injunction. they're attacked on their leadership of Mainly. however. I think that the Comradely. the Vallejo strike. they point to San WV Photo thing we missed was the narrow basis on Riker Newspaper Guild pickets outside Rafael as an example of what happens which the printing trades bureaucracy the Daily News building in June, when "hot heads" get their way in a operates. For example. there are no September 16. 197X strike. chain-wide contracts in the newspaper So you can see that the New York To the editor: that the struck paper. usually a monop­ industry even though most of the daily oly. is the only place where they can strike represents a departure for these papers in the country are owned by Just an addendum to my letter of advertise. The unions then combine to unions-in that they have managed to multi-media and even multi-national Sept. 12. to give you a picture of the produce an "interim" paper to relieve stop production with a strike. And while conglomerates. It makes no sense to situation in the newspaper industry here the problem (Vallejo). The paper usual­ it is true that strikes in the New York anyone but the bureaucrats to strikejust on the Coast. ly goes broke. along with the strike. This newspapers usually result in stopping one newspaper of a chain at a time. Besides the long ago lost-cause rattern has been repeated in city after production, it is not true of virtually the (About as much sense as the UAW strikes at the LA. Herald-Examiner, city with millions and millions in union rest of the entire industry. striking one Chevrolet or Ford planL) Portland Oregonian and San Rafael money being poured down the rat hole And you can see that the "interim" This is a conscious policy at least on the Independenl-Journal there are the that these papers represent. In several papers take on a different character part of the ITU bureaucrats. Their current strikes at the SaeramenlO Bee cases the unions actually floated stock when viewed from a national perspec­ excuse is that if common expiration and Vallejo Times-Herald. These arefar deals to finance the papers (Portland), tive. The union bureaucrats aren't going dates were negotiated and then a chain­ more typical of the strike strategy used and then peddled the worthless invest­ to go after these papers. In fact. if they wide or even nation-wide strike were by the printing craft union bureaucra­ ment to their own ranks. didn't spring up the way they had. given pulled to get a contract. that the federal cies than that in New York and you The strikes in San Rafae1 and Sacra­ their rast performance they would government would step in with Taft­ should have some knowledge of them in mento represent variations on the probably have gone to New Jersey and Hartley injunctions and the leadership order to get a better grasp of the New theme. Sacramento. which is still going set up the papers themselves! would be sent to jail and the union York situation. on. was lost from the very beginning The day when the highly skilled ruined with fines. The typical strategy usually involves a when nearly half the union members in printer walked off the job and every­ Another aspect of this is the question particularly determined owner who the plant crossed their own picket lines thing came to a halt is over. With some of merger among the individual craft defeats all subterfuge and tricks by the and became scabs -after only a few of the newer technology it is now unions with the aim to form an industry­ bureaucracy and finally forces them out days on strike. This of course prevented possible to put out a paper without any wide industrial union. The thought ofan on strike or just plain locks them out. the usual ploy of putting out an printers. union orscab. Printers are now industrial union didn't even occur to If the paper continues to publish (90 "interim" paper for lack of resources merely semi-skilled production workers these hacks until the attacks of the percent sure). the unions then mount an and enough union printers loyal to the like any other. In fact, the publishers' publishers had shrunk the dues base to "aggressive" campaign of educating the strike to put it out. In this instance the offensive of the last 10-15 years merely the point where Iheir jobs were threat­ public by ( I) buying advertising space workers had to be content with a strike reflects their attempt to rationalize the. ened. And now, when they've finally on city buses (LA.). and (2) canvassing bulletin-that sold advertising and kept production of newspapers in view ofthis begun to move on the question, typical­ the city to get subscription cancellations the record of the defeat of their strike. new reality. ly: they have done it in the most (Vallejo and just about everywhere else). The strike in San Rafael was interest­ Our line on this strike is correct. This undemocratic and bureaucratic fashion The next thing that usually happens is ing in that it was led by the Social is a watershed event in this industry. Ifit possible. that the union bureaucrats try to get Democrats and supported by the Stalin­ is defeated. it is probably a blow that the When the ITU-Guild-Mailers merger "pro-union" advertisers to pull their ists in the Bay Area Typo Union. New York printing unions, and in fact is voted on next week or the week after, business out of the struck paper. That Because of the peCUliarities of the Bay the New York labor movement, will included in the proposal is a clause that leads to complaints by the advertisers Area labor movement. the leadership of take years to recover from. If the strike is turned around a victory could serve to educate. the ranks in these unions that the (mil' way to win a strike is to stop production. Just about everything else is THE secondary to that fact of life. Comradely. BRITISH WORKER Riker oFFICIAL sTJUKE NEWS BUlLETIN ***** Published by The General Council of the TrJdes l'nian Congr"" ~o. , WEO"ES"",," ,,·E"'NG. M.

dailies. limit the strike. They keep the union leadership but of class-struggle heat off the publishers from both the big militants. What is necessary to formu­ advertisers and the populace. In short, late the correct tactics is an alternative Pressmen Settle they isolate the strikers while at least to strike strategy to the narrow, defeatist a small degree satisfying those who are approach of the bureaucracy; it is most acutely inconvenienced by the necessary to expose the parasitic papers strike. Therefore. we want to break up as scab rags, while mobilizing the with Murdoch's Post this configuration. At the same time, strength of the labor movement behind As we go to press, New York Post "settlement" with the Post is not a however. the union bureaucracy and the strike. publisher Rupert Murdoch has nego­ contract at all, but merely throws the much of the membership see the The demand for a labor daily was tiated a separate deal with the striking ball to the Times and News to fight it out parasitic interims as also keeping the formulated precisely as a hridf?e to Printing Pressmen's union. In an at­ with the pressmen. pressure off them. Theydon't want to be realize the actions you propose. Such a tempt to get the money-IDsing Post < Furthermore, the drive to resume held responsible for a press blackout; paper could well be published in the ahead of the other dailies and reap publication of the Post puts enormous the pressmen fear that unless Guild same New Jersey shops that publish the potential millions in advertising reve­ pressure on the Newspaper Guild unit at members are given employment, they parasitic interims; the provision of NYC nues, the Post agreed to defer the hotly the paper, which is also on strike and is will be willing to cross their picket lines. union scale for the New Jersey pressmen disputed manning scales issue with the now behipd the eight ball. Murdoch has So the existence of "struck work" would act as a major impetus to a pressmen and accept whatever terms been at war with the Guild for months, clauses notwithstanding, an immediate campaign to raise wage rates and they subsequently arrive at with the seeking the right to fire reporters at will, military confrontation over the interim manning scales in the suburbs to the Daily Neil'S and the Times. remove many from union jurisdiction, papers. picketing, burning delivery NYC level, thereby undercutting the The publishers ofthe Times and News eliminate the grievance procedure, slash trucks. could well backfire,particularly runaway movement by the publishers. It are reportedly "seething" over this salaries for new employees and cut if it is the axis of the policy not of the continued on page 11 breach in their united front. Pressmen's severance pay. According to Guild union chief Bill Kennedy, who now says members at the Post interviewed by that Murdoch was the "dove" all along WV, the very existence of the union is at and is painting the Times negotiators as stake. the hard guys, is "happy" with the Instead of joint bargaining with the arrangement. The pressmen ratified it publishers, each of the striking unions today in a mass meeting by a ten-to-one has pursued its own negotiations and margin. now the Pressmen have struck a But while the publishers' initial' separate deal. The never distant threat strategy-of essentially locking the that the other unions might cross their unions out, sitting tight and waiting for picket lines has put heat on the pressmen disunity and scabbing to begin-has to give in at the bargaining table-this suffered a reverse due to Murdoch's same pressure will now be on the Guild. defection, under this lousy "me-too" After a long string of smashed deal the pressmen have won nothing! newspaper strikes and mutual scabbing They should have turned it down. The by the unions, the dramatic power ofthe pressmen continue to be under pressure New York strike has been its solid union from the Allied Printing Trades Coun­ front. What can be won by this unity ciL the Council's "watchdog" in the must not be sacrificed in back-room talks, Ted KheeL and Driver's union high-pressure tactics to force either the leader Doug L.aChance, to be more Pressmen or the Guild to make damag­ "Oexible" in the talks. They still have to ing concessions. Don't give up one fight to save their jobs in the continuing single job to the publishers! Defend the The "interim" parasite press. strike against the other two papers. The Guild! Victory to the NYC press strike! 6 OCTOBER 1978 5 NOT DEBS BUT LENIN! Activists vs. Stow!y Cold Warriors in SPUSA "The Socialist Party U.S.A." Who arc Ihomas todav nothing but an isolated. (joldwater in 19M-calling instead to 01 liberalism by throwing out the they')" This would be the predictable internally disintegrating. hopelessly "'Vote No for President"-the party tops I)ixienats. response of the vast majority of the fact ion-ridden a nd despised sect'? simply dissolved their youth group and In the aftermath of McGovern's American left upon reading our head­ I-rom the bcginning of the cold war. changed the locks on the office. With its humili"ting defeat at the hands of Nixon line. For official social democracv in the SP became a handmaiden of the tics to the fanatically anti-Communist the SOCialist Party underwent a three­ this country has been moribund since U.S. govcrnmcnt. largely escaping the Meanvite labor bureaucracy. the SP wav split in early 1973. The right-wing the 194()'s and virtually went out of blO\\s of MeCarthyite witchhunting due steadfastly refused to call for U.S. mitjoritv changed the party name to existence during the Vietnam war. to its ferocious anti-Communism. As its v\ithdrawal from Indochina. This made Social Democrats USA (SDUSA)­ when its "State Department socialism" domestic influence dwindled. SP sup­ it absolutelv impossible to recruit in the the term "socialist" was considered too made it anathema to an entire genera­ porters working with the CIA. such as late 1960's as the tens of thousands of radical-to become the most active tion of radicals who came of age in the linited Auto Workers (U A W) interna­ antiwar activists who rallied to Eugene supporters of Henry Jackson and antiwar movement. But over Labor Day tional affairs director Victor Reuther. McCarthv in 196X and McGovern in (icorge Meany. Harrington pulled out weekend the fifth national convention plaved a major role in splitting the 1972 were subjectively far to the left of to set up the Democratic Socialist of the "reconstituted" S PUSA collapsed European labor movement and setting the Socialist Party. Organi/ing Committee (DSOC) as a in disarray amid bitter charges of up anti-Communist unions. At home. Politics. like atmospheric pressure. pressure group on the McGovern/ "Leninist totalitarianism" and "McCar­ Socialist Party members could occa- ab.hors a vacuum. Thus the role earlier Kennedy liberal wing of the Democratic thyite redbaiting." Party. And a small rump group. led by The scene of this unlikely event was Zeidler and centered on his Milwaukee Iowa City. Iowa where some 75 dele­ base. retook the name Socialist Party gates gathered to do battle in a factional \\hilc proudly upholding its tradition dogfight that has paralyzed their organi­ of "'il1ltependent" social-democratic /ation for months. (The SPUSA's elcct oraIism. Socialist hihulle has not appeared since Milwaukee was the one place where April.) Squared off against each other the old SP was more than simply a were a youthful. politically heterogene­ Democratic Party ginger group. This ous left wing calling itself the "Debs Wisconsin city had been the stronghold Caucus" and an underground right­ of the "municipal socialist" right wing of v\ ing faction around long-time Socialist the party. Victor Berger. the boss of the Party stalwart Frank Zeidler (former SP right wing. was repeatedly elected to mayor of M i1wa ukee) a nd pacifist old­ Congress from Milwaukee from 1910 timer Dave McReynolds (secretarv of into the 1920's. and the Bergerite the War Resisters League). machine continued to be a force in the lhe eotl\cntion was dominated bv citvlong after the partv elsewhere was some of the most outrageous bureau­ rL'dueed to hein!! the [)ellJoeri/h' "hi/(I­ cratic shenanigans since the heyday of ',)\'\. Frank Zeidlcrwas a "non-partisan" the \"ev\ Left. Raising the spectre of a mayor of Milwaukee from 194X to 1960. "'l.eninist takeover." which would turn Frank Zeidler, right through the McCarthyite era. the SP into something that would leader of SPUSA Thus the remnants of the Berger "'make the Marine Corps look like a anti-Communist machine opposed liquidation into the parliamentary democracy." the Zeidler­ old guard and Democratic Party not out of leftism but ites stampeded the apolitical center into former mayor of Milwaukee. During due to organinltional conservatism. aborting the confab. After a small Apart from this. Zeidler's Debs Caucus majority voted to rescind the party's bitter Kohler strike he broke the labor in the old SP was not significantly to the previously tendered application for boycott. Zeidler left of the Harrington group. Indeed. it is mcmbership in the Socialist Interna­ combines the ironic that Debs' name was taken by the tional. the right wing used every trick of "sewer socialism" lineal descendants of his arch-rival. parliamentary maneU\ering to cut off of Victor Berger Victor L. Berger. debate on "party principles" and cancel and the "State Zeidler himself is a redbaiting cold planned elections for national officers Department warrior along with the best of them. socialism" of and the National Committee. Today he is a labor mcdiator. i.e.. an Norman Thomas. After cancellation of elections. the arbitrator who serves the capitalists threat of a walkout by the frustrated under the guise of "impartiality" and the Debs Caucus (which provides most of myth that a "fair" compromise can be the manpower of the SP apparatus) reached between capital and labor. And appeared so great that middle-of-the­ sionally provide useful services mobiliz­ played by Norman Thomas' SP was as mayor of Milwaukee Zeidler ran not road delegates forced through a "medi­ ing support for ADA liberals. taken over in the late 1960's by the as a Socialist but as the candidate of the ating committee" to patch things up. A In the early 1960's the SP youth Socialist Workers Party (SWP). a once­ "Public Enterprise Committee." a coali­ new convention is now plannea for May group. the Young People's Socialist Trotskyist organizatIon turned reform­ tion including prominent local 1979. and a promise of no expulsions of l.eague (YPSL). managed to attract a ist. The SWP became an extra­ Democrats. "Leninists" in the interim was extracted. number of militant pacifists through the parliamentary agitational agency for the In office. Zeidler showed to what However. at a gathering immediately vchicle of the Student Peace Union. liberal Democrats. As the "best build­ treachery his "democratic socialist" following the stymied convention the YPSI. could also be counted on to ers" of an "independent antiwar move­ policies can lead. During the UAW's right-wing-dominated National Com­ organi/e demonstrations for a Hubert ment." it channeled thousands of long. bitter 1950's organizing strike mittee voted to bring charges against Humphrey civil rights bill and to radicali/ed youth into the orbit of the against the violently anti-union Kohler National Secretary Tom Spiro. who make sure the Stalinisfs and Trotskyists McCarthys and McGoverns. Company. a plumbingequipment manu­ joined the Debs Caucus on the eve ofthe didn't take it over. Meanwhile. SP facturer. a labor boycott succeeded. in meetings. The charges'? That Spiro had leader Michael Harrington. author of Last Gasp of Municipal stopping a ship with raw materials for arranged "'an impossible convention Jhe Other America. was recognized as S6cialism Kohler from unloading in Sheboygan. agenda" and had "led a militant faction the father of JFK's "war on poverty." By the early 1970's the SP\ formal Wisconsin. The ship was thereupon which tried to disrupt the convention." But as the Kennedy administration's organizational independence from the rerouted to Milwaukee. After Zeidler Viet Cong Overran the SPUSA foreign policy took on an aggressive Democnils was completely at variance unsuccessfully tried to mediate the anti-Communist hue following the Bay with its political aims. The far right­ dispute. the city council voted not to The organization which just made a of Pigs (1961) and the Cuban missile v\ingers like Bayard Rustin and Penn allow the Kohler supplier to unload. The shambles of its convention is well-nigh crisis (1962). more radical forces quickly Kemble. in particular. were anxious to "'socialist" mayor. however. I'etoed the invisible. without functioning branches displaced the YPSL/SP. devote all their energies to combating council decision. thus becoming a in virtually every major U.S. city. Yet It was the Vietnam war which finally the menace of New Leftism within the strikebreaker for one of the most the SP is not lacking in historical lu­ did in the State Department socialists. Democratic Party. Michael Harrington reactionary capitalist concerns in the minaries. among them Norman Thom­ While protest was brewing on the wished to hark back to the heady days of countrv. as. the holier-than-thou pacifist. and campuses. later extending to main­ J FK 's Camelot. when he could pad Because it opposed liquidation into Eugene Debs. the prairie radical who stream Democratic liberals. the SP along the red-carpeted corridors of the Democratic Party. the Milwaukee­ got 6 percent of the vote in the 1912 leadership maintained its rigid cold power in the White House. His "Rea­ based group around Zeidler did willy­ presidential elections. So why is a party war line. When YPSI. refused to lignment Caucus" called for transform­ nilly attract left critics of the SP claiming the heritage of Debs and support l.yndon Johnson against Barry ing the Democratic Party into the voice leadership. particularly on the Vietnam

6 WORKERS VANGUARD \\ar LJucstioll. Hut at a timc when determination. We reject ooth Comrade thousands of radicalized youth looked Zeidler's contention ihat the U.S.S.R. is to the :\LF ~nd North Vietnam Stalin­ the greatest threat to sell-determination ists as a revolutionary modeL this group and world peace as well as Comrade Debs and Lenin Kissell's assertion that ooth U.S. impe­ limited itself to the weepy pacifism of rialism and the loreign practices of the Dave McReynolds. And since going The founder of American l:.S.S.R. arc eLJually 'evil' and ooth Trotskyism, James Cannon, independent the SPUSA has continued should oe eLJually opposed. We feel that P. to have extremely right-wing politics outh positions arc anachronistic and was a younger contemporary of arc objeeti\ch complieit with (support for disarmament, the UN and u.s. Debs as an IWW organizer and imperialism." Israel) under a thin New Left veneer. SP left-winger in the 1910's. -.loci Miller. "A Call to Writing four decades later, Can­ Reconstitute the Deos Caucus" (Septemoer 197~) non described Debs' centrist A Left Opposition Emerges role in the old Socialist Party: the "new" Socialist Party was born in While this rejection of State Depart­ a semi-comatose state. The Bergerite ment socialism and "third campism" "Debs' refusal to take an active leadershir was a smug lot, whose main rlaces the Debs Caucus in the left wing part in the factional struggle, of contcmporary American social de­ activit\ seems to have consisted of and to play his rightfUl part as mocracy. it provides no guide for reassuring each other that Frank Zeidler tt:le leader of an organized left rrincipled revolutionary politics. In \\as really the Norman Thomas of wing, played into the hands of effect they declare the U.S. the main todav. .)"ocia/isl hihlll1C rarely came out the reformist politicians. There enemy because it now plays a more Irom 1973 to 1976, a nd most of the his beautiful friendliness and aggressive reactionary role in world l10minalmembers did nothing, not even generosity played him false, for politics while the Soviets stand for rav dues. It did. however, manage to the party was also an arena of "progressive" causes and detente. If it is attract some voung activists in the Victor Berger the struggle for socialism. "anachronistic" to describe the Kremlin rolitical backwaters of its Midwest Debs spoke of 'the love of as the greater enemy, then this was base. And it managed to fuse with two comrades'-and he really meant ossified social-democratism of the presumably a true statement in the past !'\ew I.eft leftovers, the California Peace it-but the opportunist sharpers Zeidler regime. In this resrect there is a (perhaps in the early cold war years'!) and Freedom Party and the Michigan didn't believe a word of it. They certain similarity to elements who have and could be so again in the not-so­ Human Rights Party. never do. They waged a vicious, been trying to infuse life into the De distant future. I.eonist Socialist Labor Party (SLP) organized fight against the In 1976-77 some of the younger. more During the convention debate Zeidler and ran into resistance from the rem­ revolutionary workers of the energetic members began to react taunted the Debs Caucus, "You cannot nants of the Arnold Petersen regime (see party all the time. And they were against the do-nothingism of the old associate yourself with Leninism with­ "In Terminal Crisis ... SLP Goes the gainers from Debs' fogies around Zeidler. They wanted an out taking responsibility for early Trendy...." WV No. 192. 10 February abstention. activist orientation to the radical milieu Bolshevik government." While this is 1971\). This left activist current crystal­ around such issues as the ELJual Rights certainly true. the Caucus could give no "Debs' mistaken theory of the i/ed as the Debs Caucus just before the Amendment. South Africa divestment, answer due to its political heterogeneity. party was one of the most costly Sertember SP convention. Bak ke. etc. In addition the Young Turks A majority consider themselves Marx­ were frustrated with the bureaucratic The Debs Caucus program is ist. a minority view themselves as highhandedness of the Zeidler regime. characteri/ed above all by abstractness. perhaps heading in the direction of Ihn got a big boost when a newcomer consisting of vague statements about the Leninism and at least one memberofthe took mer as SPUSA national secretary desirability of socialism and opposition Caucus describes himself as a "Leninist­ Ttrotskyist." They are united mainly in opposition to Zeidler and in calling for a "multi-tendencv Democratic Socialist t> The Russian LJuestion was also posed sharply in the debate O\er affiliation to t> the Socialist International. As a result of t> a 1977 cOl1\ention decision the SPUSA had apr1ied for membership in the organi/ation of Helmut Schmidt and Mario Soares. However. in the mean­ time the Second International (SI) had cut the ground out from under Zeidler b\ recogni7ing Harrington's DSOC as its American atliliate. Debate began . \\hen the SPLJSA international secre­ tary Kisscll opposed formal tics to the SI and recou nted some of the crimes of the Portuguese Socialist Party, such as Eugene V. Debs returning expropriated land from col­ lective farms to former landowners. mistakes a revolutionist ever Another delegate pointed to a "60­ made in the entire history of the year history of betrayals" by social American movement. democracy: hostility to the Russian "The strength of capitalism is Re\olution. the murder of Luxemburg not in itself and its own in­ and Liebknecht. refusal to make a stitutions; it survives only united front with the Communists because it has bases of support against Hitler. the treachery of the in the organizations of the Spanish popular front. (On the other workers. As we see it now, in the Above, "help hand it was pointed out that the light of what we have learned wanted" ad placed "Democratic Socialists of Cuba in from the Russian Revolution and in the SPUSA Exile," a Miami group. had approached its aftermath, nine-tenths of the newspaper the SPUSA. This group favors the struggle for socialism is the Socialist Tribune. counterrevolutionary restoration of struggle against bourgeois in­ Left, speaker at capitalism as against Castroite rule.) On fluence in the workers' recent SP a roll-call vote the motion to withdraw organizations, including the convention in the application to the Sl was passed by Iowa City. party. ~4 to 24: however, this was immediately "The reformist leaders were sabotaged by the right wing which had the carriers of bourgeois in­ Mary Locke sufficient votes to require a referendum fluence in the Socialist Party, of the SPUSA membership. and at bottom the conflict of Overall the convention battle must be factions was an expression of in mid-1977. The rarty had advertised in to racism, imperialism and other bad judged a draw. The Debs Caucus. with the class struggle. Debs ob­ its newsparer for a national secretary, things. It resembles nothing so much as the support of most of the new recruits viously didn't see it that way. His offering a most unusual riece-rate the early (social-democratic) New Left (who were allowed to attend only over aloofness from the conflict salary: circa 1965, particularly in wanting to enabled the opportunists to ".\alio/la/ 5;eCl'l'/a!T.... Qualifications: ignore the basic historic divisions in the the objections of the right wing), had the oasie understand i'ng of democratic best of it in the early rounds, scoring a dominate the party machine and workers movement. Thus on the key to undo much of his great work socialism. memoer of the Party in good issuc which has divided social demo­ knockdown in the debate over the SI. standing for one year. touch typist. 30 as an agitator for the cause. crats and Leninists since 1917-the However. the mediating committee wpm or oeller. Salary $6000 yr plus truce proposal still left power in the "Debs' mistaken theory of the o/le-hall 01 a/l dues ('o/leeled." [our "Russian LJuestion," i.e., the historic role party was one of the most emphasis1 of the Bolshevik Revolution and the hands of the outgoing National Committee. important reasons why the the man who landed the job was Tom nature of the society which emerged Socialist Party, which he did Sriro. from it-the Debs Caucus seeks to duck Against the "Debs Tradition" more than anyone else to build Seeking to apreal to the radical the LJuestion. It approaches the global up, ended so disgracefully and All American social-democratic or­ milieu, whose attitudes inc still largely conflict between the U.S. and USSR in left so little behind." shared by 1960\ New Leftism and terms of greater or lesser evilism: gani/ations. from the Meanyite - The First Ten Years of SDUSA to the "third camp" Interna­ where the organi/ed forces generally "We reeogni/e that U.S. imperialism is American Communism tional Socialists (I.S.) and the ostensibly claim to be Leninist. the young SPUSA the dominant world svstem and the (1962) activists came into conflict with the greatest threat to world~peace and self- continued on page 10

6 OCTOBER 1978 7 ·SWP Scabs on Rail Strike

CH ICAGO. Septemher 30-Picket BRAC picketers. He also co-authored a Pulley tried to rationalile their scahbing BRAe leadership under the pressure of lincs mean don't cross.' This elementary leaflet with other Local 65 memhers with a stream of lies and contradictions. the strike recogni/ed the elementary principle of trade unionism was the calling on the Steelworkers union to Grogan claimed they were not picket duty of picket line solidarity. AI Good­ weapon used to shut down railroads respect BRAC lines. The leaflet de­ lines "around steel. the picket lines were fader. a spokesman for BRAe head­ across the U.S. for four days last week. nounced the criminal policy of the around railroads" even though dozens LJuarters in Washington. D.C.. told the When memhers of the Brotherhood of USWA local and District 31 leader­ of pickets were at three gates of the press: Railway and Airlines Clerks (BRAC) ship the eorl' of the Sadlowski "re­ South Works plant where she works. "When pickets show up. it's fairly threw up pickets at rail yards and form" group \\110' were condoning and She claimed to have received permission oh\ ious. II your union comcs along and terminals of 73 different railroads. some encouraging the memhcrshp to cross the here's another union picketing. you're to cross the line from the pickets. We not going to eross it. It's a commonplace 300.000 unionists refused to cross those railroad workers' lines. The leaflet wonder which pickets she and Pulley union thing to observc picket lines. Not lines. From the West Virginia coalfields emphasiled: asked. Not the ones handing out just \Iith this union. hut with any to the Chicago railway yards. the picket "Thc scab policy of our union leader­ Goldenfcld's leaflet at Gary. And the union." line is the battle line ofthe class struggle: ship scrved only to divide the labor pickets who attempted to close off the • movcment and help the companies. It But not with Pulley. Grogan and the company finks and scabs on one side. must be defeated I road leading to Gary were not about to SWP! for them. respecting picket lines invite the SWP to cross. The cops came is only an "optimum idea." as Pulley put and pushed the pickets apart. But to the it at the forum. which "we want to SWP\ Grogan and Pulley it was only a reali/c at somc point." Yet in the next picket "around the railroad." hreath. Pulley had to admit that In these dog days of the bureaucrats' thousands of coal miners in West "informational picket line" Grogan may Virginia have heen honoring the picket have had the conversation she reports. lines at Norfolk and Western through­ She may have received permission from out BRAes two-month-old strike! one of the hureaucrats who ordered this Gcnc Goldenfeld spoke up at the treacherous erosion of elementary forum to explain what motivates the principle. Perhaps she talked to a SWP to cross picket lines: "for the worker who had simply become worn Maoists. it's heing one with the masses. down hy the scabherding policy of the If the masses scah. then we'll scab. For hureaucracy. The union tops capitulat­ the SWP. it's heing one with the ed to the anti-secondary boycott provi­ hureaucrats. If the bureaucrats tell the sion of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act by workers to scah, then we'll scab." instituting the "informational picket Among 'ostensihle leftists in the line." Therefore. the younger generation Chicago-area steel mills. the SWP was of workers do not in general understand not alone. At South Works. trustee that a picket line means don't cross. Roherta Wood. a prominent supporter However. the SWP claims to be a of the Communist Party-backed Na­ revolutionary proletarian organization tional Stcelworkers Rank and File and it does knol\' what a picket line Committee, crossed the picket lines. as means. If Grogan and Pulley appeal to Photo WVPhoto did members of the Revolutionary the backwardness of most steel workers Communist Party-supported "Break­ Pat Grogan Andrew Pulley on the picket line question, this is just a out" group. union loyalists on the other. "Those of us who have no intention of flimsy excuse for their political But thc SWP falsely claims the It ought to be a clearly understood crossing the BRAC iines demand that opportunism. banner of Trotskyism and is making a principle of collective survival. It was our union adopt the following policy: In the same vein, Pulley tried to p'lrticularly hig deal out of its recent for the 180.000 miners who held out for "I. FULL SUPPORT TO THE ridicule the militant steel workers who "turn" to the working class. Steel RAILROAD STRIKE; had respected the picket lines, saying workers, rail workers, coal, miners: all almost four months against the com­ "2. MILITANT OPPOSITION TO panies and the government, who go out ANTI-STRIKE RESTRAINING OR­ that Frank and the others were the only should know that the SWP "leaders" on massive "wildcats" when even a lone DERS AND ALL GOVERNMENT ones who "thought the BRAC workers cross picket lines without a blink of the pkket shows up at the portal. And it STRIKEBREAKING; were picketing to shut down the steel eve. The SWP has tied itself to the "3. THE PICKET LINE IS THE t~eacherous, certainly ought to be a reflex action of mills. Everybody else missed it, even the scahherding labor bureau­ BATTLE LINE OF THE CLASS BRAC leaders." Pulley's claim to stand crats and will go down with them in socialists. STRUGGLE--DON'T CROSS; However. at a forum here tonight. "4. DEFEND ALL THOSE VICTI­ with the BRAC bureaucrats, while disgrace when the union movement entitled "Ferment in Steel," the Socialist MIZED FOR REFUSING TO SCAB telling much about where his real casts out the hureaucratic parasites and Workers Party (SWP) featured two of 0"\ THF BRAe." sympathies lie. is itselfa lie. For even the their hangers-on.• its "leaders" in the steel industry-Pat Goldenfeld, a member of USWA Grogan and Andrew Pulley-who had LocaI 10 14. had similarly respected hem daily crossinK the picket lines ofthe BRAC lines and distributed a leaflet to strikinK railroad workers. Gary steel workers: Grogan is employed at U.S. Steel's "Right now. the rail companies are South Works plant in South Chicago getting anti-strike injunctions from the federal courts. Rail workers must not and is a member of United Steelworkers allow this government strikebreaking of America (USWA) Local 65. She is attempt to intimidate them! Carry the also SWP candidate for U.S. Senator strike through to victory! The USWA from Illinois. Pulley is a member of and the rest ofthe labor movement must USWA Local 1066 at U.S. Steel's Gary, come to the aid ofthe BRAC strike with whatever actions of militant labor SECOND WEEK Indiana Tube Plant and is SWP SOlidarity are necessary to win the candidate for mayor of Chicago. Picket strike .... PICKET LINES MEAN lines were up for four days at both DON'T CROSS!" Local Quota Points % Local Quota Points % plants. manned by BRAC members The reaction of rail workers at South Berk./Oak. 250 265 106% Detroit 225 230 102% employed by the Elgin. Jolliette and Boston 125 76 60% Los Angeles 225 144 64% Works and Gary to this militant 300 267 89% Eastern Railway (EJ&E). a wholly Chicago 250 173 69% New York solidarity was enthusiastic and appre­ Cleveland 200 232 116% San Francisco 225 232 103% owned subsidiary of U.S. Steel. EJ&E ciative. At Gary, EJ&E pickets lTanded At Large 50 - - hauls most of thefinished steel from the' out 2.000 ofGoldenfeld's leaflets to steel Total 1850 1619 H7.5% plants and sup'plies South Works with workers. At South Works a BRAC coke from Gary's ovens. Its operations picketer told WV: "Local 65 is not within the sprawling steel plants are sympathetic. It would be a whole crucial for production to continue. different ball game if they were. Just Special Combination Offer There is no excuse for crossing the o Workers Vanguard imagine if steel and rail went out (During Sub Drive Only) BRAC picket line. Yet the SWP forum (includes Spartacist) together!" Free Spartacist Pamphlet was a platform for excuses and apolo­ 24 issues (one year) $3 But the SWP scabs were not moved with gies for scabbing. The picket line which U New LI Renewal hy the manifest desire of the BRAC to $5combmatlon WV Full Year means nothing to the SWP is nothing have steel workers respect their lines. Sub Plus Either: less than the class line. often drawn in Nor did they care that across those same o Women and Revolution Women and Young blood. What is instinct to tens of picket lines came steel foremen who 4 issues $2 o o thousands of coal miners-that you directly replaced the struck labor of the Revolution, Spartacus, never cross a picket line-is "ultraleft­ o Young Spartacus 4 issues or: 1 year railroad workers. The SWPers followed 9 issues (one year) $2 ism" to the "leaders" of the SWP. the lead of Local 65 president John Solidarity YS. Scabherding Chico, who ruled a motion mandating respect for the picket lines "out oforder" NAME Grogan and Pulley were confronted at a September 28 union meeting. At AD DRESS _ at tonight's forum by Jay Frank and Gary, Andrew Pulley repeatedly crossed Gene Goldenfeld. steel workers who had the BRAC lines at the Buchanan Street CITY/STATE ZIP _ respected the BRAC lines. Frank, a gate where picketers were distributing 216 member of Local 65. had gone on Goldenfeld's leaflet asking steel workers Order from/make checks out to: Spartacist PUblishing Co., Chicago-area television to answer an not to cross! Box 1377, GPO, New York, N.Y. 10001 anti-union editorial attacking the At tonig.ht's forum. Grogan and 8 WORKERS VANGUARD drdlt railroad strikers into the Army for wage IrTCles that have shrunk their real Strike Wave ... good measure. income o\er the past few years. (continued from page 1) Though Kroll \\as willing to initiate I he largest of the school strikes is in "No trade the mass picketing in the fight agaimt CIl'\Tland. whcre 10.000 employees. d' the ,tep-in replacement for the ever­ N&W. he has carefully avoided chal­ including teachers. bus drivers. cafeteria unionist should more d i,cred ited Carter. lenging the government/court restric­ \\orkers and nurses. have been out for '\0 reshuffling in the Democratic tions on his union. Earlier in September the last month in the largest public ever cross P'lrty. however. will halt the anti-labor BRAC had thrown up pickets at N&W workers' strike in Ohio history. Cleve­ oITen,i\e. The multi-millionaire Ken­ interchanges with other companies in land teachers have not had a pay hike a picket line..." nedy is no less a representative of the Buffalo. Chicago and Columbus, Ohio ,ince 1976 and the $9,100 starting salary capitdlist class than Carter. The but called them off when a court i, one of the lowest in the U.S. The following is a transcript of the fundamental paradox of the American injunction was issued. The mass picket­ In Bridgeport. Connecticut, the big­ remarks by Steelworkers Local 65 worker,' movement is that it faces the ing last week was launched when an gest mass arrest of striking teachers in (U.s. Steel South Works) member economic and political power of the appellate court voided that injunction. U.S. history landed 274 teachers in jaiL Jay Frank, broadcast on WMAQ­ capitdlist class with no political party of And the picketing spread to railroads including the union's entire negotiating TV (Channel 5) in Chicago on ih own. Without a break from the contributing to the mutual aid pact only team. After 17 days on the picket lines. September 27, at the height of the capitalish and the forging of a workers aftcr Chief Justice Warren Burger the longest teachers' strike in state railway clerks strike. party committed to mobilizing and dismissed another lower court order history ended September 24 in negotia­ unifying the working class around its which the companies had obtained tions concluded at the National Guard The mana~ement of Channel 5 0\\ n interests. strike struggles will run prohibiting it. Then when the federal barracks where the teachers had been aired a vicious anti-union editorial aground against the political monopoly court in Washington enforced Carter's incarcerated. which condemned the widespread of the capitalist class. rcquest for an injunction ending the Other public employees have been s~mpath~-strike action of" railroad four-day strike. Kroll again toed the striking over the same wage demands as workers in the Chica~o area. As a Railroad Unions vs. the line. thc teachers. An indication of the deep Government rank-and-file member of Local 65, I The BRAC president is so locked into discontent prevalent in the working refused to cross the picket lines Probably no better case for labor the current maze of government con­ class was that even the backwaters were thrown up around the South Works independence from the bosses' govern­ trols that he has called on Congress to striking. Firemen in Biloxi. Mississippi: bJ railroad workers because I know ment, their parties and legislative­ sei7e the railroads "for the duration of Wichita. Kansas: and Butte, Montana that the strike is the only weapon that judicial controls ean be found than in the dispute." Congress is expected to struck this month, in addition to the workin~ people have to defend the experience of the railroad unions. pass special legislation banning another bitter firemen's strike in Memphis which themselves a~ainst the profit-hungry Among the oldest and once most strike if the 6O-day cooling-off period saw picketers facing National Guards­ companies and the ~overnment powerful sectors of the labor movement, does not produce a settlement. But the men in a conflict reminiscent of the 1968 which represents them. the rail unions have long been shackled unions have never and will never win on Memphis garbagemen's strike. Sanita­ by laws designed to prevent strikes and Capitol Hill what they are unwilling to tion workers in Detroit. Tuscaloosa and Like the mine workers who struck curb the unions' power, enforced with fight for on the picket lines. San Antonio have recently been out.· last sprin~ and like the pressmen equal vigor by the Democratic and And last month transit workers snarled currently on strike in New York City, Republican parties. Indeed, the most Strike Wave Aga.inst Take-Aways Washington. D.C. while thousands of the railroad workers are on strike to notable thing about the BRAC strike public workers tied up Philadelphia last defend. themselves against attacks on The same kinds of take-away was that it happened at all. It was the month in a pay dispute. their jobs and living standards. In the demands the railroads are imposing on longest tie-up of the nation's rail system last few years, 1,800 railway clerks' the rail unions (see accompanying The range of public employee strikes in well over three decades! jobs have been abolished by the article "Issues in the Rail Strike") have extends from small Mississippi towns to the nation's capital, and they could well railroad companies. The 1926 Railway Labor Act governs characterized most recent negotiations be but a small portent ofthings to come. eollective bargaining in the rail industry. and have fueled the current strike wave. The labor movement has fought Though numerous, public employee Its provisions empowering the president In what was supposed to be a "light" throu~hout this century and won, strikes are atomized from city to city to invoke 60-day "cooling-off' periods bargaining year, the number of strikes throu~h widespread strike activity, hcf

fhe long-quiescent rail unions have kept half its normal freight load moving in the U.S. who believes inflation will posture could only weaken the union's been victims of the mass of government with supervisors and the assistance of43 soon go down! collective strength, as a strike at anyone other railroads who picked up N&W line would have limited impact com­ repressive legislation, failing railroad Negotiations for a new national rail lines, a workforce divided against itself freight at interchange rail yards. Despite pared to a national strike, as the recent agreement had been underway months in a multiplicity of craft unions and a the long strike and revenue losses of 90 BRAC strike so vividly showed. before the January I contract expiration narrow and extremely conservative percent, the N&W was able to post third The impasse was finally broken in date. When the contracts expired, right leadership. This combination of liabili­ quarter profits due to the $6 million a April, when the Milwaukee Road broke in the middle ofthe coal strike, there was ties has aided the industry's long war of week funneled to it by 73 other compa- . ranks with the rest of the industry and a tremendous opportunity to link up signed anagreement with the UTU. The attrition to cut back the workforce. nil'S linked together in a mutual aid with the most militant section of the The strike which began July 10 pact. The fund was established pre­ contract provides for the elimination of U.S. labor movement. Instead, the rail against Norfolk & Western was overjust cisely to aid rail lines engaged' in one brakeman over time, through an union bureaucrats toed the line of legal battles against the unions which the attrition rate of about 5 percent a year. this issue. A major coal hauler and one requirements for extended bargaining, member companies deemed of interest In exchange, the reduced crews will of the nation's most financially success­ compulsory federal mediation, etc., and to them all. receive $4 per man per trip and the ful railroads. the N& W has for two years the opportunity to really shut down the of on-going negotiations resisted company will put $48.25 per crew trip country was lost. BRAes demands for income security BRAC has also been resIsting a into a "productivity fund" which work­ for clerks threatened by computeri7.a­ national contract signed in mid-July Throughout the talks, rail industry ers can draw on at the end ofevery year. tion. The BRAC leadership has not been between the National Railway Labor negotiators were pushing for a nation­ By July, the rest ofthe railroads decided demanding a shorter workweek to Conference, representing the major wide uniform agreement on reducing to allow the crew size issue to revert to preserve jobs, but merely a five-year railroads, and the other major rail the size of train crews. The railroads road-by-road negotiations and the income guarantee for workers laid off unions: the 180,OOO-member United won the last major confrontation on this national contract was signed. On Sep­ due to automation, an agreement Transportation Union (UTU), the issue in the mid-1960's, when firemen tember 14, Conrail-which employs 25 already in effect with many other rail Locomotive Engineers, Signalmen and were eliminated and new "work rules" percent of the UTU's membership­ lines. The union also wants jurisdiction Sheet Metal Workers. Lest anyone slashed 150,000 jobs. This time around agreed to the same deal arranged with over \,000 jobs considered by manage­ think the BRAC president is a fire­ the railroad bosses were demanding the Milwaukee Road and it is widely ment to be supervisory, hopefully breathing militant, it should be noted elimination of one of two brakemen anticipated that the rest of the industry opening the door to organi7.ing similar that Kroll's objection to the pact is who are part of the four-man train will follow this pattern. Though it will jobs on other lines to offset the 20 merely over the structure of the 35 crews. Instead of taking on this assault take them a while and will be more percent membership loss BRAC has percent wage package-he wants a large directly, the operating unions, led by the expensive than they would have liked, suffered on the rails since 1970. guaranteed wage increase with a lower UTU, insisted that the crew size issue the rail employers have taken another When BRAC finally struck against "cap" on the cost-of-living adjustments, had to be settled on a road-by-road hig step toward cutting back the N&W's intransigence, the company making him one of the only bureaucrats basis. not in national bargaining. Such a railroad work force.• 6 OCTOBER 1978 9 red scare by liberal union bureaucrats such as conference he thought a 7 percent wage With major contracts in trucking. pushing through an amendment to the Arnold Miller and Ed Sadlowski, who "guideline" would cut into steel workers' electrical equipment. ruhher and auto SP constitution at the 1912 convention: cost-of-living raises, he never mentioned coming .up oeginning next March, the in turn deliver their ranks to the "Any member of the party who opposes the issue to the delegates in the week­ possibility of launching a laborco.unter­ Democratic Partv on election dav in political action or advocates crime. Novemher (in ~ddition to stabbing' long convention. reserving his criticism offensive is posed. The trade-union sabotage or other methods of violence for the kind of formal wage controls oureaucracy will do everything in its as a weapon of the working class to aid strikes in the back). And in Portugal the imposed by Nixon. Instead, ,he wel­ power to straitjacket any upsurge in in its emancipation shall be expelled SWP politically apologized for Mario from membership in the party." comed Carter with open arms. Carter militancy. Thus. despite their largely Soares' SP at the very moment that it equally welcomes McBride's no-strike verbal nose-thumhing at Carter. the was allying itself with fascist elements Shortly thereafter this amendment Experimental Negotiating Agreement Krolls. Meanys. and Frasers have against the supposed threat of a "revolu­ was used to expel Haywood from the (ENA). which prevents the ranks from hacked down from every serious con­ tionary takeover" hy the CP and the"far National Executive. In response many shattering the bureaucracy's frontation. such as the current rail left." of the most radical working-class "responsible" contracts with the steel strike. Their real aim is to try to steer the :rhey will discover that the Spartacist elements left the SP. And despite his companies. emerging strike struggles into a "Draft l.eague together with Cannon tell the genuine desire for party unity, Debs did The ties of all sections of the labor Kennedv" movement. truth aoout Dehs while the SWP Ilothillg to prevent the right wing from bureaucracy to the capitalist system are Instead there should be an all-out cynically perpetuates themyth of a Dehs driving out the revolutionary syndical­ also reflected in the rightward shift of hattle to break through Carter's anti­ tradition in order to appear American as ists. In his usual manner he kept aloof the so-called "opposition" wing of the lahor wage "guidelines." comhined with apple pic. The Sl. continues the revolu­ from the Haywood-Hillquit fight and USWA bureaucracy, centered on Ed a politicalstrugglc to hreak the working tionary tradition of Lenin and Trotsky, did not even attend the critical 1912 Sadlowski and District 31 director Jim class from the capitalist Democratic while the SWP can only give them a convention. In fact, after 1904 Debs Balanoff. With the debacle of the . Party. hy building a workers party, more effective version of the "independ­ didn't attend anr SP conventions, on Arnold Miller "reform" leadership of hased on the unions. to fight for a ent" reformism which the stodgy anti­ the grounds that he hated to see the United Mine Workers of America, workers government. Both these tasks communists of the Norman Thomas/ socialists fighting with one another. Sadlowski & Co. have stood as the require purging the labor movement of Frank Zeidler SP can no longer deliver. heacon of lahor "progressivism" for the quisling misleaders. Only then will Among those who tout the "Debs l.ike their predecessors these social crusading liherals. When Sadlowski was the growing strike movement be ex­ tradition" today is the SWP, which democrats of the second mobilization running for USWA presidentayearand tended into the fight for lahor's political explained their brand of socialism to can offer the working class nothing hut a half ago, he had-mouthed the ENA power. • striking coal miners in the Cabin Creek new hctra~·als.•

10 WORKERS VANGUARD organ of the British Labour Party. HOWe\eL because of the belatedness of Pass the ERA! Exchange ... the decision of the bureaucracy and the (continuedfrom paRe 5) lack of prepared coordination before­ would provide employment for some of hand, the British Worker never ap­ the locked-out workers. while undercut­ peared in anywhere near the quantities ting the press blackout in New York, in which it was demanded. NOW: Jimmy Carter's and serve as a rallying point to draw in The 1926 general st rike was of course support for the strike from the rest of the defeated, not by the greater circulation labor movement. The provision for no of the British (Jazette or even by the capitalist advertising would further military strength of the bourgeoisie but increase pressure on the publishers. due to the treachery of the TUC "Ladies' Auxiliary" Were such a policy pursued by the leadership, which was not prepared for unions, it would quickly isolate the the political consequences of a direct A hundred thousand people marched "affirmative action" schemes and anti­ interim papers and make it easy to confrontation with the state. Likewise, in Washington in support of the Equal discrimination court suits against the generate broad labor support to halt the call for a daily newspaper published Rights Amendment last July. The unions union-busting weapons which their production and distribution. hv the labor movement is not a deus ex leaders of the National Organization for place the doubly oppressed women I//{/china which can guarantee victory to Of course, such a labor daily would be Women (NOW) arc still congratulating workers on the \\'rong side in the crucial the :\ YC newspaper strike. What it does qualitatively different from the union­ thcmselves. ""OW's fake-socialist tail­ battle for trade-union independence sponsored papers published during the do. however. is point the way to ists oj the Socialist Workers Party from thc capitalist state. West Coast strikes. Such papers were hroadening the struggle so that the press (SWP) are gearing up to redouble thei'r And the slickest arguments for this unions do not go down to defeat in essentially last-ditch, desperation mea­ efforts to become the "best builders" of suicidal strategy of relying on the class isolation, as occurred in the Los Angeles sures undertaken by the unions after the morihund liberalism and bourgeois enemy to fight the labor bureaucrats' IIcra/d-Lxaminel" strike. the Washing­ decisive battle had been lost at the point feminism, their appetites whetted by this discriminatory policies come from ton Post strike and otLers.• of production and the bosses had unexpected show ofstrength. Preaching NOW's supposed left wing. the SWP. resumed large-scale scab publishing. A "confidence and unity," the SWP greets The vicious red-baiting which the SWP policy for a labor daily must be the upcoming NOW National Conven­ has suffered at the hands of the NOW coriceived as having a bold and aggres­ Fascists ... tion with happy cries that a strategy of leadership is ironic. For the SWP offers sive character. designed to consolidate (continued from page 12) "visible plOtest" is what brings results. no programmatic alternative to NOW's the unity of the workers and throw the' And the result that all seek is passage pro-capitalist leadership. but simply enemy on the, defensive; once the tunatelv is but a reflection of the organi~a­ of the Equal Rights Amendment, a presents itself as the advocate ofa more solidarity of the unions has been politic,;1 weakness and lack of formal statement of token equality "visible" protest strategy in support of decisively smashed. as on the West tion of the anti-fascist forces. under the law for women. The ERA the same classless reformist aims. Coast. then of course this tactic is Other leftist organisations par­ should be passed. We of the Spartacist The SWP likes "visible protest" robbed of its real impact and power. ticipating in the Brick Lane counter­ League support its passage, But we are because it likes to pretend that being "in You are certainly correct in citing the march. notably the International­ under no illusions that bringing legal the streets" constitutes "independence" importance of the Organizer, published Communist l.eague (I-CL), advocate hypocrisy in line with liberal sentiment from the Democratic Party. And it is by the Trotskyist leadership of the physically confronting the fascists re­ will really alter the lives of women, delighted with NOW's choice of the Minneapolis Teamsters during the great gardless of the balance of forces. The whose oppression is fundamentally ERA as the single issue. Why? As the 1934 strike. This was. in fact. the first I-CI .. hitherto a left tail of the pacifistic rooted in capitalism and the nuclear SWP explained to its recent "Active strike daily ever published in the United A'\L is now pressuring the SWP to family. Workers Conference": "In the unions, States. and it proved an invaluable return' to the adventurist anti-fascist Passage of the ERA will change the the ERA remains the issue most likely to antidote for the strikers to the lies actions of last year. But suhstitutionist lives of women· - particularly oppressed get the broadest response from the ranks circulated in the bosses' press. However. adventurism is not the answer to the working-class and minority-group and the least opposition from the we focused on the British example pacifistic popular frontism of the A1\L women - about as much as the passage officials" ("Building the National Or­ because it involved a general press In a sense it is the opposite pole of the of the Equal Rights Act of 1964 changed ganization for Women." S-WP Party hlackoll!.· same opportunist methodology. What is the lives of most blacks, whose living Organi::er, Vol. 2, No.6, September Interestingly. at the time of the 1926 necessary is the difficult fight to bring standards have plummeted under the 1978). general strike, the British Trades Union out the mass organisations of the impact of the economic crises of Indeed. the ERA is a godsend to left­ Congress crUC) leadership initially had working elass. above all the trade decaying capitalism. The outpouring of talking elements of the union no plans to publish their own press. The unions. liberal. radical and minority group bureaucracy-such as the SWP's dar­ Nell' Statesman at the time observed far The st ruggle to huild workers defence energies that went into passing legisla­ ling, Ed Sadlowski of the Steelworkers. more sagaciously: "In a newsless world. squads \\ill never be undertake-n by the tion to protect the rights of black pepple or its latest discovery, Doug Fraser of Governments must inevitably be almost \>.orthies who grace AN L platforms. was not exactly wasted. It is a good the UAW-in cultivating a "progres­ omnipotent." The British bourgeoisie, Rather the fight to mobilise the power of thing that civil rights laws were passed, sive" image on the cheap. These in any event. had no intention of labour to crush the National Front is for they made life a little harder for promise-them-anything fakers are as forsaking a propaganda arm during the inseparably linked to the fight to oust • landlords and employers addicted to staunchly opposed to unleashing the general strike. The government took the Labour tops. both the Callaghans unusually overt racist practices. And real power of the labor movement over the premises of the Morning Pust. and Benns. and the union misleaders, they made life a good deal easier for a against the capitalist government as are expropriated newsprint from the struck the Duffys and Scargills. and replace small layer of petty-bourgeois and the overt reactionaries papers, recruited printing personnel them with a new revolutionary leader­ aspiring petty-bourgeois blacks, The masses of working women will from among foremen, supervisors, ship of the workers movement. But nobody but a wide-eyed liberal never be WQn to actively supporting the students. the military, etc.. and pub­ Such a leadership cannot be built on would deny that things got worse for the middle-class reform aims of organiza­ lished the British Gazette during the the basis of bourgeois popular frontism bulk of American black people. And tions like NOW which seek to bind them course of the strike, the first issue in the style of the ANL and its partis,!ns, nobody but a cynical reformist can turn ever more tightly to their illusions in the appearing May 5 under the direction of hut only through the fight for the a blind eye to the way the capitalist "democracy" of the ruling class and its Winston Churchill. programme of proletarian revolution. government of "human rights" Jimmy government. Only a program which Only when it got word of the As the SL/B said in its leaflet for the Carter has been attacking every real does not pit strata ofthe working people government's schemes did the TUC Brick Lane counter-march: "Break with gain won in struggle. From busing to against each other (women against men, make any plans to publish its own press, the ANL popular front! For working­ abortion, the liberals' cherished reforms blacks against whites arid unionists the British Worker. which was printed class action to smash the National are being wiped away with a stroke of against the unemployed) for a share of on the premises of the Daily Herald, the Front!". the pen by the very same Congress and the shrinking capitalist "pie," but goes courts which liberals claimed could outside the framework of the capitalist become the protectors of the oppressed. status quo to pose a real fight on behalf SPARTACIST LEAGUE LOCAL DIRECTORY The capitalists have killed busing, of the working class and all the Ann Arbor Detroit closed down the poverty programs, oppressed, can advance the struggle for c/o SYL, Room 4102 Box 663A, General P.O. struck down open admissions in the equality, Only a class-based struggle for Michigan Union Detroit, Michigan 48232 name of the "rights" of Alan Bakke. the rights ofthe oppressed can wrest real University of Michigan (313) 868-9095 But NOW continues to beseech the gains from the capitalist rulers as it Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Houston capitalist rulers to show themselves organizes to sweep them away -and open (313) 663-9012 Box 26474 Berkeley/Oakland Houston, Texas 77207 more sensitive to women's needs. NOW the road to real freedom through Box 23372 Los Angeles has its own class-based program, the socialist revolution.• Oakland, California 94623 Box 26282. Edendale Station bankrupt program of bourgeois liberal­ (415) 835-1535 Los Angeles, California 90026 ism, whose first concern is keeping the Boston (213) 662-1564 oppressed tied to "lesser evil" capitalist Box 188 SL/SYL PUBLIC OFFICES New York M.LT. Station politicians. NOW's basic strategy in­ Marxist Literature Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Box 444 Canal Street Station cludes the manipulation of the just (617) 492-3928 New York, New York 10013 (212) 925-2426 grievances of the oppressed against the BAY AREA Chicago one force potentially capable of leading Friday and Sa1urday . 300-600 pm San Diego Box 6441, Main P.O. them to. victory--the organized labor 1634 Telegraph. 3rd floor Chicago, Illinois 60680 P.O. Box 2034 (near 17th S1reet) (312) 427-0003 Chula Vista, California 92012 movement. NOW's recipes for advan­ Oakland. California Cleveland San Francisco cing women's rights include government Phone 835-15,5 Box 6765 Box 5712 CHICAGO Cleveland. Ohio 44101 San Francisco, California 94101 luesday .. 5:30-9:00 (216) 566-7806 (415) 863-6963 Saturday 200-530 p m 523 South Plymouth Cour1 3rd floor Vancouver Correction Chicago IllinOIS TROTSKYIST LEAGUE Box 26, Station A A reader has brought to our Phone 427 -0003 OF CANADA Vancouver, B.C. attention that Roberto Clemente was NEW YORK (604) 733-8848 a Puerto Rican baseball star, not Monday-Friday 630-900 p m Toronto Winnipeg Dominican as we identified him in Sa:urday 1 00-400 P m Box 7198, Station A Box 3952, Station B the article "Nicaragua in Flames" 260 Wes1 Broadway Room 522 Toronto, Ontario Winnipeg, Manitoba New York New York (416) 366-4107 (204) 589-7214 (WV No. 215.22 September). Phone 925-5665

6 OCTOBER 1978 11 WfJliNEIiS VIIN(;(J1l1i1J Organized Labor Must Smash Fascists in Britain 10'\ I )0'\ Ihe long economic dl'Cl\ I Ibnals, lords and hi,lwrs: the Anti 01 Britl,h im!lL'ri;I1i,m ha, reached the '\a/l 1 eagul'. Ihe A'\ I. is a rerlcct roint \1 herl' the li\ing qandard, of it, rl'rlica 01 the reaedul "anti-fascist" \Iorker, arc nO\\ ICl\ln than tho,e in rrotest nw\ements that the Stalini,t Srain. Simultaneomly, a signilieant Communist P,lrty erected in the /I.)JO's. hlack and A,i,ln rorulation. the after­ lull of hot air and rious gestures and effect of a once great colonial emrire. is \11th all the lighting strength of a soggy ero\ldnl into the ghettos of Britain's biscuit. maJor cities. Ihese exrlosin social So tens of thousands "rocked against conditions ha\e spawned a racist anti­ racism" in Ihixton to the music of Tom immigration "hacklash" as well as an Rohinson while TUldall and Wehster's aggressin' fascist mmemenl. the '\a­ \ile hullil's lIere smashing windows in tional !-ront ('\ F). Brick Lane. The rdormist hureaucrah Ihe Front scored a \ictory Sunday. and Iihnals in the A,\;1. arc of course 24 Sertemher. when it organised a harry to hack dangerous calls on the 2.000-st rong "March I\gainst Commu­ hourgepis state to han the '\;ational nism" through the Asian immigrant Front. Such calls ha\e repeatedly area of Brick Lane in l.ondon's East resulted in hans on le/I-\\'illg and ol/Ii­ Fnd. Perhaps 1.200 leftist and immi­ !{/I(isl c\ents. But they shrink in horror grant counter-marchers were pre\'ented from mohilising the ranks of the unions hy thl' roliee from getting ncar the and the hlack and Asian communities to fascist demonstration. Front leaders Spartacist Britain crush the Front in the streets the only .John Tyndall and Martin Wehster Tyndall addressing a rally of fascist thugs. strategy which can truly stor the could hoast: "We haye neyer heen fa scist s. stronger." Ahout 50 of the fascist hooli­ in firix ton fa r fr 0 m the 'Ii F march. Inthe the '\ational I:ront \Ias terrorisin1! :\ot enjming t he lux u ry of re\elli ng in gans later celehrated their success­ \1 ords o!lony Cliff's reformist Socialist Asian immigrants? ' the sun \Iith the A'liL. the East Ind ful march hy ramraging through the Workers Party (SWP).the guiding force I.ast \Tar the SWP organised a series immigrant comlllunity directly under Asian neighhorlwod. hreaking \Iindow, hehind the A'\ I. "The sun was ouI. the of smal!. achenturist attacks on the att.ack hy the Front reacted with a call ,Ind threatening residents. lacl's 01 the reorle were hrigln. har­ I·ronl. for which it \Ias furiouslY red­ lor a counter-march initiated hy the Did the halance of forces in lirick r\... All \\as celehr,llion" (5;ociillisl baited b\ the bourgeois rress. In liackne\ and TO"L'r lIumlcc.' [)c!L'IIL'C' Lane on the 24th indicate that anti­ II nrAer. 30 Sertember). :\ot so in Brick t\rieally orrortunist fashion, the Cliff­ Committee. The Spartacist League; fascist forces in Britain arc so small and lane. ites reacted \Iith a IXO-degree turn. They Britain (Sl.j B) responded to the call impotent" :\ot at all' 7hill .1011/1' dill" the 110\\ did this unheliC\ahle situation sought the comfort and resrectahility of with arrroximately 50 surrorters. This Anti '\a/i League (1\'\1.) attracted six/r come ,Ihou!" \\'hy \lelT tens of thou­ .a racifiqic. soeial-ratriotic and class­ \Ias the largest organised contingent in 10 0111' hUlldred thou.lill/d /11'01111' to its ,ands of surrosed anti-fascists carni­ collaborationist hloc with left l.ahour the counter-march. a fact which unfor- second Fun and "Magic" Cami\a!. held \alling \Iith smiles on their faces \Ihile \1 P's. union bureaucrat-. and sundry continued on page /1 Defend the Left! SWP Chicago Offices Burned In the early morning hours on police headquarters (Militanl. 26 Sep­ October 2. the Chicago office of the tem hcr 1975). Socialist Workers Party (SWP) state­ The Srartacist League docs not rlace wide camraign committee headquarters any confidence in the bourgeois legal were looted. ransacked and set on fire. apparatus to fight right-wing terrorists. SWP files were stolen and campaign Desrite countless investigations literature was destroyed. An anti­ including local whitewashes hy a grand communist outfit calling itself "Viet­ jury. court suits. high-level congression­ nam Veterans Against Communism" al committees. etc. anti-communist cidimed credit for the attack. according terror grours which arc aided. ahetted. to t he Chicago police department's armed and financed hy the cars and spy homh and arson squad. More ominous­ agencies ha\c and will continue to target 1\. these thugs ha,e rromised more the !cft and lahor moyement. \jo!cnce and issued death threats \'ow­ Unlike ciYil lihertarians who rely on ing ell machine gun and kill SWP court suits and rressuring the hourgeois ml'!1lhcrs and campaign workers. state, the SL recogniles that no confi­ I ill' Srartacist League/Spartacus dence ca n he rlaced in the class enemy to Youth I.eague resolutely condemn this rrotect the exrloited and orrressed. \lCillUS attack against the SWP hy these '\1!ainst an earlier waH of racist night­ righl-\I lllg hoodlums! This attack rep­ rider attacks the SL called on the unions resents a serious threat to alllcft-wing. The aftermath of terror attack on SWP's Chicago office, October 2. to take the lead in organizing lahor/ labor and minority organizations who hlack defense. And in a statement arc tar!!cts of ultraright raramilitary condemning the homhing of the SWP orgdili/dtions. fascist groups and the fascist and raramilitary terrorist grours Ielt-wing and antiwar organi/ations. headquarters. the Ch icago Spartacist rerre"'I\ e apparatus of the capitalist arc notorious. well documented and The Legion's formidable armory was [,eague wrote: state. We demand that the scum who acknowledged hy all hut police spokes­ stocked hy the 113th military intelli­ men. the Dalcy/Bilandic machine and gence unit hased in Evanston. and these "Ihc assault on thc SWP', officcs and carried out this criminal attack hejailed threats against the lives of SWP and prosecuted. However, we also point ohnoxious journalistic apologists. Dur­ gc)\ernment-paid criminals even had Illclllncrs comes in the context of out that assaults on left-wing offices. ing the 1960's the fascistic "Legion of access to an armored car kept hehind cscalating rightist provocation in the trade-union headquarters or black Justice." a group of murderous "patri­ their '\orthwest Side headquarters. a Chicago area. notably the rash of Nazi race-hate rallies this summer. This latest c:ommunity groups are more likely to be ots" orerated as a virtual auxiliary to taycrn owned by a prominent anti­ busing conservative. Legion gangster act of rcaetionar\' violence redoubles met with indifference by the bourgeois the police spy unit. staging several the necessity for th"e left and the working state, whose interests these Yermin violent raids against Chicago SWP (homas Stewart later testified to a class to defend themselves. in the first openly serve. offices-while the cops stood September 1975 grand jury that often instance by standing ready to defend the Chicago police red squad unit ties to lookout!-as well as terrorizing other the raiding parties left directly from SWP from rightist attack." 6 OCTOBER 1978 12