4. Tribute meetings set for Farrell Dobbs •• 2 THE Gains won by Grenada revolution .. 5 Women workers discuss union organizing 15

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 47/NO. 42 NOVEMBER 18, 1983 75 CENTS

U.S. troops Grenada: . U.S. targets poised Central Anterica next to attack Thousands of people are marching November 12 in Washington, D.C., and on Syria the West Coast against U.S. wars in the Caribbean and Central America. These protests could not be more timely, given BY MOHAMMED OLIVER the U.S. invasion and occupation of the The U.S. government is threatening to Black-populated island of Grenada, es­ go to war against Syria to achieve its aims calating attacks by CIA terrorists against in Lebanon. The White House is beeftng Nicaragua, and a huge U.S. naval-marine up its military might in the region. It not buildup in Lebanon. only rushed to replace the marines who The massive invasion of Grenada marks have died there, but increased its force by the ftrst time since Vietn·am that U.S. several hundred more. It will soon have troops have been used for the purpose of four naval task forces poised off Lebanon's shores. The U.S. armada includes three aircraft carriers, 300 warplanes, and the battleship New Jersey. One of the naval EDITORIAL battle groups, headed by the aircraft carrier Independence, is steaming toward Leba­ taking over another sovereign nation and non from Grenada, where it partieipated in . forcing a new government down the throats the U.S. invasion of that island. of its people. The U.S. rulers have carried Meanwhile, Palestine Liberation Or­ out their arrogant violation of Grenada's ganization (PLO) ftghters loyal to PLO right to self-determination despite wide­ chairman Y as sir Arafat are under heavy spread opposition - including condemna­ military attack from PLO dissideqts backed tion by an overwhelming vote in the United U.S. troops round up Grenadians suspected of being members of People's Revolu­ by the Syrian army. The bloody assault on Nations and protest demonstrations around tionary Army. Arafat' s troops near the Lebanese city of the world. Tripoli is aimed at forcing the PLO to fol­ The full toll of U.S. aggression in Gre­ low the political dictates of the Syrian re­ nada is being kept secret from the Amer­ Movement (NJM), which led that revolu­ Even with this devastating blow, fol­ gime. ican people. But the few facts that have tion, succeeded in mobilizing the workers lowed by the U.S. invasion, the U.S. rulers U.S. involvement in a broader Mideast gotten past the Pentagon censors show and farmers of Grenada to make deepgoing recognize it will take more to uproot the war seems imminent. Imperialist attacks massive destruction through bombing and advances in living standards, health care, gains of the revolution and stamp out resis­ against the Lebanese, Palestinian, and an unknown number of Grenadians education, and democratic rights. . tance to the man Washington hand picked . other oppressed peoples of the region have slaughtered. Washington has wanted to crush that to now run the country, Sir Paul Scoon. escalated since the October 23 bombing of The bloodshed has only begun. Far from revolution ever since 1979. It seized the Already Washington says its occupation the U.S. and French military headquarters a "rescue mission" to "restore order and de­ opportunity in October when ~. disastrous force is holding at least 200 Grenadians in Beirut. Two hundred thirty U.S. mocracy," the invasion of Grenada has split in · the NJM leadership led to the prisoner and subjecting them to "intensive marines and 58 French soldiers were killed been carried out to overturn the anti~ execution of NJM leader Maurice Bishop, . questioning." Thousands of U.S. troops in the attacks. An Israeli military post in capitalist revolution that began in that Grenada's prime minister, and other cen­ are conducting house-to-house searches for Tyre was demolished on November 4 in a country in 1979 with the overthrow of a tral leaders, and the overthrow of their gov­ other activists. Their principal .targets are similar bombing attack that killed 60 U.S.-backed dictatorship. The New Jewel ernment by opponents within the NJM. Continued on Page 22 people - including 28 Israeli troops. Is­ raeli troops have occupied southern Leba­ / non, where Tyre is located, since its inva­ sion of that country in the summer of 1982. Antiwarrmaririe wins victory for GI rights· The U.S., French, and Israeli govern­ ments have accusee the Syrian and Iranian BY ANDREA GONZALEZ position to the U.S. invasion of Grenada "My name is Jim Stryffeler. I arri a Marine regimes of being responsible for the bomb­ CINCINNATI - A major victory has and his plans to participate in the Sergeant. I have been in the Marine Corps ings. Both the Syrian and Iranian govern­ just been won here for the constitutional November 12 march on Washington in op­ for five and one-half years. I joined the ments have denied this charge. right of Gis to speak out and demonstrate position tothatinvasion and U.S. i~terven­ Marines right out of high school, like many other young people, hoping to get job in opposition to U.S. military intervention tion in Central America. Imperialists escalate attacks abroad. Stryffeler, while on vacation leave, skills. On November 9, Marine Sergeant Jim scheduled a news conference at the Hilton "I am speaking today," the statement In the wake of the October 23 bombings, Stryffeler, a member of the Young Hotel in downtown · Cincinnati for continued, "as a U.S. citizen who is op­ U.S. Secretary of State Shultz went to Socialist Alliance, was given an honorable November 4. He planned to explain his op­ posed to the U.S. invasion and occupation Paris for discussions with French, Italian, discharge from the Marine Corps. He had position to the U.S. military invasion of of the small island of Grenada. I am plan­ and British government offtcials. At about been threatened with victimization and Grenada and his intention to march on ning to act on my beliefs by participating in the same time, Under Secretary of State possible court-martial because of his op- November 12. the peaceful, legal action of November 12 Lawrence Eagleburger held discussions He had been politically active for the last called by antiwar, labor, civil rights andre­ with Israeli officials t~convince their re­ several months. This included sending a ligious organizations to protest this inva­ gime to play a more active combat role in letter to the editor of the Cincinnati Post sion and the deepening U.S. war drive in . imposing imperialist rule in Lebanon. protesting an editorial that appeared in the Central America and the Caribbean. · Washington was also considering increas­ paper, marching in the August 27 demon­ "I am also acting on my beliefs by en­ ing its military aid to Israel. stration in Washington, and joining the Continued on Page 7 Continued on Page 21 YSA. However, in order to pre¥..ent him from speaking out against U.S. military inter­ vention, the Marine Corps, which found Jackson campaign spurs debate out about the news conference, cancelled his leave, transferred him to the Marine Reserve Center on the outskirts of the city, ~on Black political act~on and ordered him to report for duty Friday morning. BY MALIK MIAH and genderless, and that the sole hallmark The Marine brass feared that his news On November 3 civil rights leader Jesse of a true leader is not .. . skin color ... but conference would pierce the "big lie" prop­ Jackson offtcially announced his campaign the ability ... to bring competence, com­ agated by. the Reagan administration that for the Democratic Party nomination for passion and fairness to the sacred trust that the U.S. population, especially Gls, over­ president at a Washington, · D.C., news the people elect their offtcials to discharge. whelmingly support the U.S. invasion of conference and rally of 2,500 people. "This is not a Black campaign. It's a· Grenada. At the time the news conference Jackson was joined by other Black Dem­ campaign through the eyes of the hurt, and was scheduled to begin, Sgt.· Stryffeler was ocratic Party leaders, including several the rejected, and the despised, those left being detained and interrogated about his big-city mayors and members of the Con­ naked before the Lord· in the wintertime. political views and activities. gressional Black Caucus. Native American "Blacks, women, Hispanics, workers, Nevertheless, in front of a full turnout by and Latino leaders, as well as a leader of Indians, _Chinese, Europeans - we must the Cincinnati media, the news conference the North American Farmers Alliance were come together and form the rainbow coali­ was held: John Studer, national executive also present. tion." director of the Political Rights Defense The more than three-hour gathering "We can do without the Democratic and Militant Fund, which aided Stryffeler in organizing heard Jackson explain: Republican parties," he added. But, he Marine Corps Sgt. Jim StrytTeler op­ the news conference, read a statement "I seek the presidency because I want to continued, "they cannot do without us." poses U.S. invasion of Grenada. Stryffeler had prepared earlier. It stated, afftrm my belief that leadership is colorless Continued on Page 11 Meetings to celebrate Farrell Dobbs' life Meetings to celebrate the life of Farrell Because of his opposition to the course In addition to the meetings listed here, Dobbs and pay tribute to his many con. of U.S. imperialism in World War II; he tributes to Dobbs have also been scheduled tributions to the revolutionary workers was among the leaders of the SWP and to take place in Cleveland on November movement are being organized around the Teamsters Local 544 in Minneapolis who 27, Chicago on December 4, and Boston country. were the frrst victims of government pro­ on December 3. · Dobbs, who was national secretary of secution under the notorious Smith Act. He The main speaker at those gatherings the Socialist Workers Party for 19 years be· served 13 months in federal prison. will be SWP National Cochairperson Barry ginning in 1953, died October 31 in During the difficult years of the Sheppard. California, following a brief illness. He capitalist witch·hunt of the 1950s, Dobbs' Meetings will also be held in dozens of was 76 years old. leadership was decisive in assuring the sur· other cities around the country, and Mili­ Speakers at the meetings being planned vival and revolutionary continuity of the tant readers are urged to contact the SWP are among the broad range of those who SWP. As a new generation of youth carne branches listed in the directory on page 21 worked with and learned from Dobbs dur­ into the party in the 1960s, inspired by the for information. · ing his nearly 50 years of active leadership rising struggles 9f Black Americans, the in the revolutionary workers movement in Messages to be read at the meetings in victory of the Cuban revolution, and the tribute to Dobbs should be sent to the the United States and internationally. battles being waged by the Vietnamese Dobbs, who joined the Communist SWP, 14 Charles La., New York, N.Y. people, Dobbs helped train and ensure the 10014. League of America, predecessor of the transition of the party's leadership to the SWP, in 1934, was a leader of the 1934 new generation. Future issues of the Militant will carry Minneapolis Teamster strikes, one of the articles, messages, and other materials that important labor battles that led off the Dobbs also played an important role in will give a full appreciation of Dobbs' nationwide struggle to unionize basic in­ the leadership of the Fourth International, lifetime of political activity advancing the dustry in the United States. He later be· especially in helping to win a majority of interests of the working class. Farrell Dobbs carne the central Teamster organizer of the Trotskyist forces around the world to sup· first campaign to organize over.the-road port for the Cuban revolution and working truckers in the United States. to reunify the Fourth International on that Schedule of meetings for Dobbs Dobbs left the Teamsters to become basis in 1963. labor secretary of the Socialist Workers The main speaker at the New York meet­ New York Northern California Party following the party's founding con­ ing and several others will be Jack Barnes, Sunday, November 20, 2:00p.m. vention in 1938. current national secretary of the SWP. Bay Area District 65 UA W Hall Tuesday, November 22, 7:00p.m. 13 Astor Place, lith Floor ffiT Local 70 Hall (near Broadway and 8th Street) 70 Hegenberger Road North Korea ·rejects blame in Burma Speakers will include: Oakland Jack Barnes, Clifton DeBerry, Connie (near Oakland Coliseum) bombing, calls charge 'fabrication' Harris, George Novack, Ed Shaw, Mac Speakers will include: Warren, Mary-Alice Waters. Jack Barnes, Clifton DeBerry, Connie For more information: (212) 925-1668. BY GEORGE JOHNSON vidual terrorism and assassination." Harris, Sam Manuel, Mary-Alice Waters. UNITED NATIONS-The Democratic Han charged that the governments of For more information: (415) 839-5316. People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has South Korea, the United States, and Japan rejected claims by the Burmese govern­ Minneapolis-St. Paul had pressured Burma into making the Monday, November 21, 7:30p.m. Los Angeles ment that the DPRK was responsible for Wednesday, November 23, 7:30p.m. charges. He noted recent Japanese loans to Machinists' Labor Temple the October 9 bombing in Rangoon in Burma. 2546 W Pico Blvd. 1399 Eustis St. which 21 people were killed, including Speakers will include: four South Korean cabinet ministers. Han also charged that the South Korean St. Paul government and its U.S. masters, in trying Jack Barnes, Oscar Coover, Fred South Korean Pres. Chun Doo H wan Speakers will include: to blame the DPRK for the bombing, were Halstead, James Harris, Betsey Stone, was in Rangoon at the time but escaped the Jack Barnes, John Enestvedt, Helen playing their usual "north scare" card to try Mary-Alice Waters. bombing. Scheer, Dave Salner, Mary-Alice to reduce large-scale protests in South For more information: (213) 380-9460. The Burmese claims are a fabrication Waters. Korea against the Chun regime and against "evident to everyone," Han Si Hae, the For more information: (612) 644-6325. Receptions will follow each meeting. U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan's upcoming DPRK's permanent observer to the UN, visit to South Korea. said at a news conference here November 7. Han said "there is enough ground to as­ sert" that the bombing was perpetrated by Han also said Burma's November 4 de­ cision to break diplomatic relations with Chun himself to "extricate himself out of Books by Farrell Dobbs the blind alley" the South Korean people's the DPRK and order its diplomatic person­ struggle for democratic rights has driven Teamster Rebellion Revolutionary Continuity nel to leave in 48 hours was ''an unjustifi­ him into. 192 pp., $4.95. able act ignoring international law and Marxist Leadership in the U.S.: Teamster Power practice." Han pointed out that security for Chun's The Early Years, 1848-1917 Han said Burma had not even discussed visit was handled by hundreds of South 255 pp., $5.95. 221 pp., $5~95 . its investigation of the bombing with his Korean agents, yet Chun's personal securi­ Teamster Politics ty chief and the head of the National 256 pp., $5.95. Revolutionary Continuity government prior to breaking relations Marxist Leadership in the U.S.: with it. Agency for Security Planning - the new Teamster Bureaucracy Birth of the Communist Movement Han also pointed out that Burma had not name for the Korean Central Intelligence 304 pp., $5.95. made public the results of the investiga­ Agency - "Were not fired when Chun shuf­ This four-volume series contains the 1918-1922. tion, nor had it begun legal proceedings fled his cabinet following the bombing. history and lessons of one of the most 240 pp., $5.95. Others who could be responsible for the against two "Korean suspects" in the important labor struggles of the 1930s This two-volume set describes the bombing. (A report from Rangoon in the bombing are Burmese or South Korean dis­ and 1940s. Farrell Dobbs offers an in­ sidents. Marxist movement in the U.S. from its Washington Post dated October 14 stated spiring, first-hand account of a militant, beginnings through 1922. It points out that one of the two "suspects" had died.) The Chun regime is notorious for its democratic union, and takes up ques­ the political lessons learned from these The only "evidence" so far revealed, brutal suppression of labor and of demo­ tions of trade union str~tegy and the cratic rights. two periods. Han said, was alleged "confessions" from role of the revolutionary party. These the two suspects that they were DPRK The U.S. and South Korean military au­ books are indispensable for under­ Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 West St., agents. thorities have also used the bombing to standing revolutionary strategy in the New York, N.Y. 10014. Please include 75 A DPRK Foreign Ministry statement launch a number of armed provocations labor movement. cents for postage and handling. said the DPRK has "never resorted to indi- against the DPRK. Read the truth-every week The Militant

"Xl Closing news date: November 9, 1983 Subscribe to the Militant Why the U.S. invaded Grenada Editors: CINDY JAQUITH With a new subscription you will receive a copy of Maurice DOUG JENNESS Bishop Speaks to U.S. Workers: Why the U.S. Invaded Gre­ Business Manager: nada, a recently published pamphlet that contains two Maurice LEE MARTINDALE Editorial Staff: Connie Allen, William Gottlieb, Arthur speeches by M aurice Bishop. · . · Hughes, Margaret Jayko, George Johnson, Malik Miah, For the past four years w e have carried extensive coverage Bishop Geoff Mirelowitz, Mohammed Oliver, Harry Ring, of the revolution in Grenada, including eyewitness reports Larry Seigle, Mary-Alice Waters. of speeches and interview s with M aurice Bishop and other Published weekly except two weeks in August, the last revolutionary leaders, and documents of the New Jew el Speaks to week of December, and the first week of January by the Movement. We will continue to carry reports and analyses of Militant (ISSN 0026-3885), 14 Charles Lane, New the devastating blow that has been dealt to the revolution York, N. Y. 10014. Telephone: Editorial Office, (212) there. . U.S. Workers 243-6392; Business Office, (212) 929-3486. Don't miss an issue. Subscribe today. Correspondence concerning subscriptions or changes of addreSs sbo~d be addressed to The Mili­ tant Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, New York, o Enclosed is $3 for 12 weeks o Enclosed is $1 5 for 6 months N.Y. 10014. o Enclosed is $24 for 1 year o Enclosed is a contribution Name ______Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. POST­ MASTER: Send address changes to The Militant, 14 Address ______~------Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014. Subscriptions: U.S . $24.00 a year, outside U.S. $30.00. By firSt-class City[State/Zip ------­ mail: U.S., Canada, and Mexico: $60:00. Write for air­ mail rates to all other countries. Te le phone ------Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily rep~ Union/Orga•niz ation ------:----- resent the Militant's views. These are expressed in edito­ rials. Se nd to Militant, 14 Charles l ane, New York, N.Y. 10014

2 The Militant November 18, 1983 Nicaraguans prepare for invasion by U.S.

BY JANE HARRIS [in Grenada] indicate that a large-scale in­ the preparations for civil defense, con­ CIUDAD SANDING, Nicaragua - tervention against Nicaragua is in prepara­ cretize evacuation plai)S, and get first-aid Here in this working-class suburb, south­ tion," said VIctor Tirado, a member of the and fire brigades trained. west of Managua, Nicaraguans are prepar­ FSLN National Directorate, October 29. "The Yankees won't find us with our ing for a U.S. invasion similar to the one He was speaking to an assembly of agroin­ arms locked in storerooms," Ortega told a against Grenada. dustrial innovators, workers who have in­ meeting of Sandinista Youth in Managua "We are trying all means to avoid a di­ vented devices to substitute for imported October 31 . "We have already distributed rect.U.S. intervention in Nicaragua," In­ weapons and millions of bullets throughout terior Minister Tomas Borge told a crowd the country." of some 9,000 here October 30. "But it is On-the-scene report If the bullets run out, he said, Nicara­ possible that our efforts will not be suc­ The Militant's bureau in Managua, Ni­ guanswill fight with knives if they have to. cessful and arrogance will predominate." caragua, staffed by correspondents Jane Ortega said Nicaragua would prefer to Since the invasion of Grenada, Borge Harris and Michael Baur~ann, brings spare both its own people and young U.S. and other leaders of the Sandinista National you weekly news on the U.S. war, plus draftees from such all-out warfare. Nicara­ Liberation Front (FSLN) have intensified regular features on the Sandinista revo­ gua would rather fight the "Weinbergers, . efforts to prepare the country for a shift lution's accomplishments. You can't fol­ Reagans, Shultzes, and Kissingers," not from . the current attacks by counter­ low what's .happening in Nicaragua "young North Americans who often don't revolutionary exiles to a full-scale inva­ without the Militant. To subscribe see even know the name of the country where sion, backed by air strikes against popula­ page 2. · they're being sent to kill and die." tion centers and economic targets. They The October 29 FSLN daily Barricada featured a front-page interview with Com­ point to a recent meeting of top military materials and spare parts that are difficult mander Dora Marfa Tellez, FSLN political men from Honduras, Guatemala, and El to obtain. secretary in Managua. She pointed to seri­ Salvador, organized by the U.S. govern­ "We must be alert, because what hap­ ous deficiencies in the present level of civil ment, as evidence of plans for such an in­ pened in Grenada sets the stage for a com­ defense. vasion, which could involve not only Hon­ ing attack against the Sandinista revolu­ Tellez stressed that while formally Nica­ duran, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran tion," Tirado warned. ragua is in a State of Emergency, "I would troops, but U.S. soldiers as well. Task number one in confronting this ag­ In wake of U.S. invasion of Grenada, say that we're actually in a state of alert, gression, according to Sandinista Defense Nicaraguans are organizing massivf "All signals, all military intelligence re­ which precedes a state of war. Minister Humberto Ortega, is to accelerate civil defense programs for their cities. ports at our disposal, and the recent events "When the imperialists attack," she said, "they won't just hit economic targets, but will also try to terrorize the civilian popula­ tion." So far, she added, civil defense Sandinistas thwart bishops' antidraft march preparations against this are "suitable for a war against an enemy like Somoza, but in­ BY MICHAEL BAUMANN rounded by supporters· of the revolution ically escorted the most reactionary parish sufficient to withstand a full-scale U.S. in­ MANAGUA, Nicaragua - As the have been issuing anonymous leaflets urg­ priest out of the neighborhood and told him vasion. threat of a direct U.S. military intervention ing boycott of military service, vigilancia not to retuf11. "Our people are accustomed to combat, deepens, ·so too does the polarization of (night watch), and efforts to save energy A bishop who tried to enter San Judas but they think in terms of their experience class forces in Nicaragua. and increase production. They have also the same day to take part in the antidraft in the [anti-Somoza] insurrection. We have Tens of thousands took part in a march begun to form parish-based youth organi­ demonstration was peacefully but firmly to overcome this concept and make clear in Masaya, 18 miles south of here, zations to advance such counterrevolu­ prevented from doing so. He was also in­ that new methods have to be developed to November l in support of Patriotic Military tionary political perspectives. formed that Archbishop Obando y Bravo, confront imperialism." Service and in rejection of what march Eight members of one such organiza­ the country's highest church figure, was Because of the shortness of time, the leaders called "reactionaries in clerical tion, the Archdiocese Catholic Youth unwelcome in San Judas. priority will be to prepare the defense of robes." The march, sponsored by the Community, were arrested and briefly de­ Feelings against the church hierarchy Managua, the country's capital and nerve Nicaraguan mass organizations and made tained at the end of October by state securi­ run particularly high in San Judas because center. up largely of urban workers and artisans, ty forces. The arrests came after it was of a lengthy battle by residents with the Barricada also printed a two-part inter­ was the culmination of several days of learned that they planned to occupy offices church over a piece of land. The land, in­ view with Nguyen Vinh Bin, Vietnam's open confrontation over defense of the rev­ of the United Nations and the International tended for a school, was deeded to Obando ambassador to Nicaragua. Bin explained olution. It came at the end of the first Red Cross to publicize a call for boycotting y Bravo personally during the Somoza dic­ how the patriotism and creativity of the month of signup under the new universal conscription. All eight were subsequently tatorship in an arrangement to safeguard it Vietnamese masses triumphed over Wash­ military service law. released in the custody of their parents. until construction could begin. Obando ington's massive bombing of their country. Opposition to the law- in effect, to de­ In Masaya, two foreign priests who have y Bravo now claims to remember nothing Work brigades of thousands of Vietnamese fense of Nicaragua from imperialist inva­ been among the most vocal opponents of about an agreement to return the land and mobilized to immediately rebuild bridges sion - is being led publicly by the Catho­ Patriotic Military Servce had their permis­ says it is his personal property. and other strategic targets each time they lic Church hierarchy under the pretext of were destroyed by U.S. bombs. sion to reside in Nicaragua revoked Oc­ As of November 3, full figures had not advocating "conscientious objection." Emergency aid, meanwhile, has been tober 31 . The action came after they re­ yet been published on the results of the Involved behind the scenes are the right­ flown in from North Korea: 100,000 picks peatedly refused to stop issuing leaflets month-long campaign to register for mili­ wing political parties, wealthy business­ and shovels to begin digging bomb shelters · calling for a boycott of military service. tary service the estimated pool of 200,000 men, the U.S. embassy, relatives of im­ planned for Managua and other cities. One of the priests, a Costa Rican, was a men between the ages of 17 and 22. It has prisoned Somozaist National Guardsmen, major figure in an effort to organize a and former municipal officials of the been reported that rates of nearly 100 per­ counterrevolutionary uprising in Masaya in cent registration were attained in the large Somoza era - all operating under· the August 1982. Support of the move by the guise of "religious liberty." working-class concentrations in the coun­ revolutionary government to expel the try's mines, mills, factories, and agro­ These forces joined together in a sup­ robed reactionaries was a major theme of posedly religious march in one of Ma­ industrial complexes. In Managua, the the November 1 demonstration in Masaya. sparsely populated rural areas along the nagua's wealthy suburbs October 9. The Two recent incidents, among many, real aim of the action was shown by leaflets Pacific, and in the Atlantic Coast region, show the degree to which church leaders registration has gone slower. and slogans directed against signing up for have isolated themselves. military service. The clear aim of church leaders in trying An effort to hold a similar but even big­ In the southeastern Managua neighbor­ to hold an antidraft demonstration October ger march October 30, following the main hood of Colonia Centro America, Father 30, the day before the registration dead­ Sunday masses in a half-dozen Managua Antonio Baccaro outraged much of his line, was to harden up those who have not parishes headed by reactionary priests, was parish when he refused to provide a funeral yet signed up. Their inability to even step stopped cold by the mass organizations. mass for a Sandinista soldier slain in com­ out into the streets was a blow to this effort. At each church, hundreds of members of bat in the north. He told the soldier's fam­ Registration of women, who fought for the Sandinista Defense Committees ily, which belongs to the parish, that he and won the right to serve as volunteers in (CDS), the Sandinista Youth, and neigh­ wanted nothing to do with those "com­ the military, began on November 5. This borhood Christian Base Communities munist dogs." will continue to the end of the month, mobilized to block the reactionaries from In the western Managua barrio of San along with continuing registration for taking the streets. Judas, the day of the planned antidraft ac­ young men who did not sign up by the orig­ The sheer physical presence of these tion, CDS members and parishioners phys- inal deadline. Dora Maria Tellez supporters of the revolution was sufficient to prevent the right-wing march from tak- ing place. ' "The people closed ranks and shut the Solidarity with the Nicaraguan Revolution doors to the maneuvers of those who are seeking to demobilize Nicaragua's de­ Tour Nicaragua! January 29-February 5 or extended tour to February 12 fense," said Elias Chevez, general secre­ tary of the Managua CDS. "The masses Jan. 29-Feb.. 5- Managua, Masaya, Leon, Matagalpa took to the streets to dissuade these sectors from their antipatriotic activity and to re­ Feb. S-Feb. 12- Bluefields (Atlantic Coast) pudiate their line of boycotting vigilance in the factories, industrial centers, and Militant/Perspectiva Mundial Tours, Inc. provides an opportunity to view the accomplishments of the Nicaraguan revolution streets." and express solidarity with the Nicaraguan people. Contrary to the claims church leaders are PartiCipants visit factories and farms; meet with activists from the unions, women's and youth organizations; learn about making in the international press, the con­ economic planning, health care, education, and culture. · frontation has nothing to do with "religious persecution," Chevez stressed. 8 day tour: $700 from Miami 15 day tour: $900 from Miami In every barrio where mass organiza­ Tour price includes: round-trip airfare from Miami, three meals daily, all transfers and guide service. A $150 deposit reserves a tions turned out Sunday, religious denomi­ space with full payment due by December 28. Participants must have a passport valid for at least 6 months after the date of entry nations and parishfs that do not openly op­ into Nicaragua. pose defense preparations held services without incident. Militant/Perspectiva Mundial Tours, Inc., 410 West Street, New York, N.Y. (212) 929·3486 Severat of the churches that were sur-

Nov~mbel" 18, 19~ Th.e,Militant 3 Some questions and answers on Grenada invasion and Cuba BY MARGARET JAYKO World War II vintage or older. Since the beginning of the U.S. inva­ Grenada had those arms because, like sion of Grenada, Militant supporters every sovereign nation, it has the right to have mobilized to get out the truth about defend itself. Washington denies that right the Grenada revolution through to Grenada, yet the U.S. government sends stepped-up sales of this paper. millions in arms and advisers to the dic­ Many workers and others have tatorship in EI Salvador, whose death bought the paper and have asked our squads have assassinated 1 ,300 civilians · salespeople a lot of questions about Gre­ this year alone. nada, particularly about the role of The Grenadian people decided to build Cuba. The purpose of this article is to an army because they correctly expected an answer some of these questions. invasion. When that invasion came, it was Grenada Government Information Service the U.S. troops that were heavily armed Grenadian officers and workers in Ministry of Agriculture pose among 23 tractors Question. I don't understand why you compared to the Grenadians. The Grena­ donated by Cuba. oppose the invasion of Grenada. The U.S. dian army of a few thousand was attacked government says that secret military pacts by some 6,000 U.S. soldiers, who were Acting on this premise, Bishop visited between Grenada and the Soviet Union, backed up by warships and dozens of Washington fears the thousands of North Korea; and Cuba have been found helicopter gunships and warplanes. The Cuban doctors and teachers who voluntar­ the United States in June of this year to ily aid other countries. And it fears the fact strengthen what he called "people to on the island, in addition to a lot of U.S. invaders not only bombed to bits gov~ that the Cuban masses, precisely because people" relations between the two coun­ weapons. Doesn't this prove that Gr~nada emment buildings, but blew up a mental was being used as an armed camp to train hospital, killing at least 20 civilians. of their socialist revolution, enjoy high liv­ tries. ing standards and more democracy than The major media is trying to portray terrorists and export weapons all over Ever since the March 1979 overthrow of any other country in Latin America. Bishop's trip as an offer to trade some of Latin America? the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Sir Eric. The United States, on the other hand, is his revolutionary principles for a deal with Gairy by the New Jewel Movement (NJM), Answer. No. a threat to Cuba's national security- and Washington. the U.S. has been preparing military inter­ Of the many documents the U.S. gov­ says so openly. From the 1961 Bay of Pigs But Bishop explained the purpose of his ernment claims to have found, only two vention to overthrow the workers and farm­ invasion to the numerous CIA attempts to ers government led by former Prime Minis­ trip in a speech he gave to 2,500 people in have been printed. kill Castro to the U.S. fleet currently head­ New York during his visit. In addition to The November 6 New York Times ter Maurice Bishop. ing for Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. military getting out the truth about Grenada t9 the printed excerpts of what the State Depart­ In 1981 , thousands of U.S. troops par­ base on Cuba's territory, the attacks have ticipated in military maneuvers that in­ working people of the United States, ment says are military cooperation agree­ been relentless. Bishop said, another objective of his tour ments between Cuba and Grenada, and the cluded a dress rehearsal for an invasion of was "to try yet again to establish some 0 0 0 • Soviet Union and Grenada. Grenada. Q. Well ifall that's true, then why were official dialogue with the government of Whether the Grenada documents are real That same year the CIA presented the other Caribbean countries so anxious to the United States." or not, they prove absolutely nothing about Senate Intelligence Committee with a have the United States help them invade covert action plan to overthrow Bishop's Grenada being an "armed camp" or a base Grenada? Like Cuba and Nicaragua, Grenada has government. This was only revealed in for "terrorist" operations for the Soviet always sought normal diplomatic relations 1983 by the Washington Post. A. For one thing, these countries have Union or Cuba. with the United States in order to relieve With the execution of Bishop and other no more right to invade Grenada than the According to the documents in the some of the economic and military pressure United States does. Times, Cuba agreed to provide about 45 government leaders in October of this year, on their countries from Washington. It is But this invasion was made in the military specialists to help train the Grena­ and the overturning of their government, Washington that has rebuffed and sabo­ Washington made its move, carrying out U.S.A., not in Jamaica or Barbados. The dian armed forces and to Jet Grenada send taged such efforts at every tum. Reagan re­ planning for it began a long time ago - in 12 military personnel to Cuba_to receive the invasion just as it had rehearsed in fused to meet with Bishop while he was Washington. Even the actual formal writ­ training. 1981. ten "request" for U.S. "aid" in the invasion here. The Soviet pact detailed military equip­ by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean That's because Bishop made crystal ment the Soviet Union agreed to give the Q. But Reagan said the U.S. got there States (OECS) was drafted in Washington clear that the Grenada revolution was not Grenadian government. just in time io prevent a Cuban takeover of and then sent to the OECS for its rubber for sale to U.S. imperialism - at any Reagan claimed that U.S. soldiers found Grenada. stamp. price. As he told the crowd in New York, three warehouses full of military equipment A. Like with every other charge that What these East Caribbean governments while the Grenadian government would in Grenada. But reporters who inspected Reagan has made against Cuba, he hasn't fear is not Cuban or Grenadian "aggres­ continue to press for normalization of rela• the warehouses the next day found that offered a shred of proof to back this one up. sion," but the example that Cuba and Gre­ tions with Washington, it would continue only one contained arms, and it was three­ That's because he doesn't have any. nada set for the working pt?ople of their to deepen the revolutionary process there, quarters empty. Most of the arms were The fact is, Cuba never invaded Grenada own countries. taking the needs of the Grenadian masses or threatened to do so. The United States, The existence of the Grenada revolution, as its starting point. (Bishop's speech is av­ however, has. in particular, confirmed that even tiny is­ ailable in pamphlet form - see ad on this Cuba has been the staunchest friend of lands can break from imperialist domina­ page.) For Further Reading. Grenada since its 1979 revolution. Cuba tion and make big economic, social, and Far from supporting those NJM figures donated heavy earth-moving equipment, political gains for their people. (See article machinery, tractors, and fishing trawlers who overthrew _Bishop's government, the Why the U.S. invaded Grenada on facing page on what the Grenada revo­ Cubans denounced this act, pointing to the along with volunteer technicians, construc­ lution accomplished.) tion workers, doctors, and dentists to aid great danger of a U.S. intervention that it the Grenadian people in their struggle to opened up. Maurice develop their economy' which had been Q. Wait a minute". I am very confused stunted by years of imperialist domination. about what actually did happen in Gre­ Q. One final question. If everything Bishop Cuban aid was given at the request of Gre­ nada. According to what I've read, Bishop you've said is true, why have so many Gre­ nada, which also asked the United States was a Marxist and a friend of Castro. But nadians been shown on TV saying they' re for aid. The U.S. government sent marines Cuba had a hand in Bishop's death. The glad the United States invaded? And how Speaks to instead. new people who took over in Grenada are come only Cubans fought back against the The U.S. motive for invading Grenada is more hard-line Marxi$ts and they turned invasion? againt Bishop because he was beginning to to protect U.S. corporate domination in A. Many Grenadians did fight. After U.S. Workers be too pro-American. that area of the world against rebellions by U.S. troops had killed or taken prisoner all the people who are exploited and oppressed A. Bishop was indeed a Marxist, right Cubans on the island, there were still bat­ by U.S. imperialism. up until the day of his death. That is, he un­ tles going on. So Washington then claimed By contrast, Cuba has never threatened derstood that in order for humanity to ad­ there were 1,100 Cubans, not the 700 it the well-being of the people of the United vance, the rule of society must be taken out originally said. But Cuba released the exact States or any other country. of the hands of the tiny class of factory number of Cubans it knew were there - --The Cubans made a socialist revolution owners, bankers, and landlords and taken 784. The U.S. government was caught against a U.S.-backed dictatorship 25 over by the vast majority of people - the lying again and had to admit the Cuban fi­ years ago. In those two-and-a-half dec­ workers and farmers. gure was accurate. ades, they have never militarily threatened He was a central leader of a Marxist Why do the polls show support among the United States; they have never tried to party - the New Jewel Movement, which Grenadians for the invasion? interfere with U.S. imports and exports set itself the task of organizing the toilers One reason is there are massive round­ that go through the Caribbean by sea; they of Grenada to run that society, a process ups in Grenada today of supporters of the 48 pp., $1. Fifty percent discount have never been the staging ground for ter­ the U.S. invasion was designed to smash. former government. People are subject to on all orders of 5 or more. rorist attacks on the United States or Bishop was neither "pro-American" nor arrest, jailing or worse for being supporters Cuba's neighbors (though right-wing ''anti-American." of the NJM. Today, Grenada really is an Also Cuban terrorists operate freely on U.S. soil The hostility between the People's Rev­ armed camp, with U.S. troops all over the with the blessing of Washington); and they olutionary Government of Grenada and the place. You'd think twice, too, about going Grenada: Revolution In the have never invaded any other country. U.S. government did not stem from some on television or telling some "poll-taker" Caribbean Washington - in the same period of time supposed anti-American attitude on that you opposed the invasion and sup­ By Sam Manuel and Andrew Pul­ - has invaded Vietnam, Kampuchea, Bishop's part. It stemmed from the unre­ ported the Bishop government. ley. 35 pp., 95 cents. Laos, the Dominican Republic, Iran, and lenting hostility of the U.S. ruling class to­ It's also true there is disorientation and Lebanon. ward this big revolution on a small, Black, demoralization on Grenada following the What Washington fears is not a Cuban Order from Pathfinder ~ress, 410 English-speaking island. execution of Bishop and the other leaders. · invasion but the example of the social and Bishop and the NJM leadership, how­ That's why the United States picked that West York, St., New N.Y. 10014. economic gains of the Cuban revolution, ever, often explained that the working moment to invade - they knew the resis­ Please includt! 75 cents for postage which are a powerful threat to the real colo­ people of the United States, particularly tance would be qualitatively weaker than it and handling. nialism in the region: the colonialism of the Blacks, were a vital ally of the Grenadian would have been under the former govern­ U.S. , British, French, and Dutch varieties. people. ment.

4 The Militant November 18, 1983 Why does Reagan fear Grenada?

BY HARRY RING Why did Washington invade Grenada? The real reason is not that complicated. After more than 350 years of colonial rule, the Grenadian people made a revolution in 1979 that brought them genuine indepen­ dence and the opportunity to build a new and better life. Washington, and the business and finan­ cial interests it represents, feared that the example of the Grenadian revolution would prove catching among the other Caribbean people, who suffer the same so­ cial problems inflicted on Grenada as the · result of imperialist exploitation. For nearly two centuries, beginning in 1609, Great Britain and France had en­ gaged in a tug of war for possession of Gre­ nada. Meanwhile, both waged a genocidal war against the native Indian people, exter­ minating them completely. By 1783, British colonialism had won control of the island. African slaves were brought in to do the work. The slaves heroically resisted their op­ pression and, by 1834, Britain was com­ pelled to end slavery. But London held its grip on the island Among many gains Grenadian working people accomplished with their own government were free education and· government and only in 1974 did Grenada obtain for­ training and loan programs, which helped reduce unemployment. At left is adult education class; at right, student at Mirabear · mal independence. Agricultural Training School. · The island still suffered under the dic­ tatorship of Eric Gairy, however. His rule ended abruptly March 13, 1979, with the In an impoverished country, tuition was Antilabor laws imposed under Gairy Price lists were posted in markets. Fines victory of the popular revolution led by the required to attend high school. were quickly repealed. A Trade Union Rec­ for violators were trebled and jail sentences . New Jewel Movement. · The. revolutionary government pro­ ognition Act was passed ensuring the right for persistent offenders doubled. The Provisional Revolutionary Govern­ ceeded on the idea that if people were of workers to join a union without fear of The island was divided into 10 districts, ment was established with the late Maurice going to nm their own lives, and govern­ · victimization. Unions grew quickly. with a price control inspector for each. The ment, they must have education .. inspectors were rotated so they didn't get Bishop as prime minister. It was a govern­ Other mass organizations were de­ ment that represented the interests of Gre­ There was a drive against illiteracy. veloped to give the people input into the too chummy with the merchants. Over a two-year period, high school tuition nada's workers and farmers and put people country's decision-making process. These fees were phased out and all education be­ before profits. included the National Women's Organiza­ Pension rights pres~ came free. Despite big obstacles, and heavy tion and the National Youth Organization. sure from a hostile Washington, the Grena­ Training courses were established for A national insurance plan - the first - was established. It provided old age pen­ dian revolution made astonishing progress the grade school teachers who needed Secret ballot ilil a brief four and a half years. them. Meanwhile, community organiza­ sions, sickness benefits, maternity bene­ Grenada had inherited a classical coloni­ tions kept the schools running. They did All officials and executive committee fits, survivors' pensions, and funeral allegacy. painting and repairs and taught the pupils members of mass organizations were voted grants. It was a fertile tropical country. But such practical skills as auto repair and ag­ on by secret ballot at annual or semiannual With expanded government employ­ three-quarters of its food had to be im­ riculture. election meetings. ment, and government support to the ported. The land was monopolized by cash The organizations were represented on unions, real wages increased 7 percent in Health care was made a big priority. crops for export - nutmeg, cocoa and · the boards of government bodies. The prin­ 1981 and 3 percent in 1982. When the revolution won, there were but bananas. cipal leaders of these organizations became By 1983, the prerevolutionary un­ three hospitals on the island with 320 beds. full members of the Provisional Revolu­ employment rate of 49 percent was reduced There were only 25 doctors. Mass unemployment tionary government. to 12. Hospital facilities were expanded and In each parish, or district, monthly meet­ This was of particular benefit to women, When the revolution occurred, 49 per­ upgraded. The number of doctors grew to ings were held to discuss local and national who had traditionally suffered double 40, with a number of volunteers coming cent of Grenada's work force was jobless. issues. exploitation and oppression. The minuscule amount of health care av­ from Cuba. The people had "the right to summons." One of the first acts of the new govern­ All public health care was made free. ailable was strictly for the few who could This meant any government minister or of­ ment was passage of a Grenadian version afford it. Three of every four children on the island ficial could be called on to attend and re­ of the Equal Rights Amendment, which There were less than 70, mainly dilapi­ were immunized against the five major in­ spond to particular concerns. still awaits approval in the United States. dated, grade schools on the island. Only 30 fectious diseases there. Basic issues were brought to the people. On June 15; 1979, in the fourth month of percent of the elementary school teachers The new government set about ensuring For example, when the 1982 national the revolution, Prime Minister Bishop ad­ the democratic rights of the people. were professionally trained. budget was drawn up, it was presented for dressed a national conference of women. discussion .to 1 ,000 delegates from the He declared. it a government responsibil­ unions, mass organizations, and People's ity to ensure women's rights. But, he em­ Revolutionary Army. phasized, women had to ~ organized "to Grenada's international airport make sure the practice is not lagging too far · Following their discussion, the budget behind promises and behind declarations A while back, in a TV performance, The dispatch cited a spokesman for the was taken to the monthly parish meetings and proclamations." President Reagan displayed a sinister-look­ British firm Plessey Ltd., which held the and to workplace gatherings. Rarely have ing aerial photo of the airport being built in $9.9 million contract for the airport. (Cuba working people had such a voice in deter­ And women were actively involved in · Grenada. The airport, Reagan stated, simply provided skilled construction work­ mining how their money should be spent. advancing their own liberation. In the first showed Grenada was being converted into ers.) And it was spent in their interest. Using year of the revolution, the National a Soviet-Cuban military base. Why, he de­ The Plessey spokesman said, "This has that particular budget as an example, half Women's Organization had 120 mem~rs .. magogically inquired, does such a tiny is­ been a civilian airport from the start. Of the expenditures were allocated for de­ By 1981 it had grown to 1,500. By land need such a big airport? course, it can be used by any invading velopment of the island - new housing, 1983, it enjoyed a membership of 6,500, force as the United States has shown, but it new roads, electric and telephone with active chapters in every town and vil­ He knew. Like most of the Caribbean is­ was never intended for military purposes." facilities, a new bus system, etc. lage. lands, Grenada is dependent on tourism. He noted that a military airport would Of the noncapital expenditures, a solid A government Ministry of Women's Af­ But unlike the others, Grenada has only a have underground fuel storage tanks and 60 percent went for health, education and fairs included a section called Women in tiny airport that can't handle large passen­ protective shelters. The Grenada airport housing. Production. Its responsibility was to pro­ ger planes. To get to Grenada, you have to has above-ground tanks and no shelters. Under Gairy there were nominal price mote training and opportunities for women fly to Barbados and there transfer to a small In sum, Ronald Reagan is a shameless controls. But under the new government to break into nontraditional jobs. The de­ plane. If it's after sundown, you have to liar. -H.R. controls were enforced. partment aimed to establish a center in every stay over in Barbados because Grenada's parish to teach women carpentry, masonry, airport isn't equipped to safely handle night surveying, and other skills .. landings. Amid these inspiring gains, a prophetic The new airport had a slated 9,000-foot COME TO THE note was struck. runway to accept direct flights by big pass­ In 1982, Pat Kane, a British socialist, enger planes. Five small neighboring is­ spent several months in Grenada as a cor­ lands have airports as big or bigger. YSA CONVENTION respondent for Intercontinental Press, the For instance, Antigua, which is smaller international news magazine. than Grenada, has an airport with an Dec. 2lh!an. 1, the Young Socialist Alliance will meet in St. Louis, Missouri, to discuss the fight against Washing- 111111111 In the March 29,1982 issue, Kane re­ 11 ,000-foot runway. Aruba, smaller yet, ton's wars in Lebanon, Central America and the Carib- ported on the opening of a plant that would has a 9,000-foot runway. bean and the tasks of U.S. revolutionary youth. provide asphalt for the runway of the new Grenada was simply trying to better international airport being built with aid compete for tourist trade. A celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Cuban revo- from Cuba and other countries. But don't take our word for it. This is lution will be featured. ·•.. ••.•·.·.···I .!IIIIIII i A Grenadian worker at the asphalt plant what was reported November 1 by News­ For more information write to YSA, 14 Cnarles La., New .told Kane: day, a major New York area daily: York, N.Y. 10014. "This is what the Cubans bring, aid so "LONDON-The Grenadian airport that Name ______that we can build our country. President Reagan foresaw as a Cuban and Address ______"What do you think the American sol­ Soviet military base was planned by the diers will bring with them when they come? Books and milk for our children? Canadian governm~nt, is being underwrit­ StateCi~------~~~----- ______Zip ____ ten by the British government and built in No, brother, they will only bring guns and part by a London firm." death for our people." November 18, 1983 The. Militant. . 5 Argentine elections: military rule ends

BY GEORGE JOHNSON ers and political activists followed. More Presidential elections in Argentina, held than 10,000 were killed and 7,000 impris­ October 30, resulted in the victory by a oned. More than 22,000 were kidnapped· large margin of Raul Alfonsin, candidate by security forces and .!'disappeared." of the Radical Party. More than 300,000 people were forced into Alfonsin's inauguration in mid-De­ exile. cember will end almost eight years of mil­ All political and trade-union activity was itary rule in Argentina. Originally set for banned. Workers' wages were driven January 30, the inauguration, under popu­ down while inflation spiraled. lar pressure, was moved up by the discre­ The junta's austerity program had the dited military government. warm approval of U.S. bankers. A vice­ September strike in Argentina by public employees Alfons in's electoral victory, by 52 per­ president of Manufacturers Hanover Trust cent of the vote against 40 percent for Italo said of the junta's finance minister that the But the working class fought back, re­ The junta had alienated Argentine Luder of the (Peronist) Justicalist Party, "banking industry considers him one of the covering from the terrible blows it had businessmen and had lost the confidence of was the first defeat in elections for the best economic ministers Argentina has taken, mounting strikes and demonstra­ Washington and other imperialist powers, · Peronists since their party was founded in had." tions. Protests for an accounting of the mil­ which sided with Britain in the Malvinas the 1940s by Juan Peron.· Both candidates A finance director for International Tele­ itary's murders and torture also grew. war. are procapitalist. phone and Telegraph said it "is indubitable On March 30, 1982, several hundred The generals and admirals decided they The defeat of the Peronists was not so that confidence in the Argentine situation thousand workers and others marched could no longer govern. They scheduled severe in the Chamber of Deputies, where exists, and there is international recogni­ against the junta. On April 2, hoping to elections after declaring an amnesty for the the Radicals won 13 r seats to the tion that the policy followed by the minis- strengthen its political position, the mili­ soldiers and cops responsible for wide­ Peronists' 111. With seven other parties ter is correct." • tary government recovered the Malvinas spread murders and tortures. taking 12 seats, the Radicals have an eight­ By 1978 workers' real wages were down Islands which the British government had The amnesty was repudiated by Luder member majority in the 254-seat chamber. to 28.7 percent of their 1974 level. ·Be­ illegally occupied since 1833. and especially by Alfonsin, who won votes U.S. press reports of returns are not tween 1976 and 1982 workers lost $80 bill­ The Argentine workers and masses sup" ·because of his role in opposing the mili­ complete, but the Peronists "appeared to ion in real wages. ported the fight to recover the islands while tary's repression. But the military will cer­ have won the governorships of at least Foreign debt increased from $1 0 billion denouncing the government in huge dem­ tainly resist any investigations, regardless eight of Argentina's 22 provinces," ac­ at the time of the coup to $40 billion today onstrations. of popular clamor for them, and Alfonsin cording to an October 31 dispatch from because of what one U.S. study described has stopped short of calling for them. as "military spending and private greed." The military government was discre­ Buenos Aires. Argentina's international creditors still The military seized power in March Argentina has the third-largest foreign debt dited and humiliated when it proved incap­ able of resisting the British reseizure of the want their pound of flesh. Talks between 1976, toppling the regime of Isabel Peron of any country in the world. the new government and the International who had · succeeded her husband as presi­ An estimated $11 billion in capital left Malvinas, and the masses were embold­ ened to demonstrate against it. Monetary Fund were due within 10 days dent when he died in 1974. Having failed the country, much of it to military officers' after the elections to discuss repayment of Large protests by relatives of the junta's to impose an austerity program on Argen­ secret accounts. The economy virtually the country's debt. victims grew. The workers organized three tina's rebellious workers, she was about to collapsed, with Argentina's employed in­ Both Alfons in and Luder had made cam­ default on $1. 1 billion in foreign debts. dustrial work force down from I. 8 million general strikes within 10 months, the most recent on October 4 of this year. paign promises to pay the country's "legiti­ A period of terrible repression of work- in 1976 to 1.3 million today. mate" debt. That the "illegitimate" part of the debt was left open made the interna­ tional bankers nervous. • The big-business press in this country Protests against invasion-of Grenada continue reacted to Alfonsin's election with ap­ proval, in large part because the Peronists, BY GEORGE JOHNSON whose leaders were "distributing national tions is to replace the capitalist U.S. gov­ traditionally based in the unions, have Protests of the U.S. invasion and occu­ resources in the best way to help all their ernment with one representing workers and raised the specter of default on debts to for­ pation of Grenada continue across the people." farmers. · eign banks when they have been in power. country. ~lack groups and individuals con­ During a visit to Cuba, Daughtry said, People cheered every mention of Cuba They believe that Alfons in is more likely to tinue to take the lead in initiating them. he "found a great and gallant people who by her or others. pay, and are urging the bankers to be At tht center of the Grenada protests is a were willing to give of their meager re­ About 20 percent of the crowd at first cooperative in granting relief to the new deepening understanding of why the U.S. sources, in spite of their being blockaded supported the U.S. invasion, Sojourner government on loan payments. invaded: to try to destroy a socialist revolu­ [by the United States] 20 years." Daughtry told the Militant, and there was a real dis­ Despite misgivings about setting a pre­ tion in a Black nation and prevent its influ­ said Cuba is a country that "can tell coun- . cussion at an open mike. cedent by softening their collection terms, ence spreading to other Caribbean coun­ tries across the world we will send you our One Black army veteran said the U.S. the bankers appeared to be willing to go tries. doctors, we will send you our technicians "had to invade to restore democracy in along. Also discussed is the role of Cuba. and teachers." Grenada." He was answered by a Black ex­ The New York Times gloated over the Many, if not most, of those protesting the marine who said it "wasn't freedom the Peronists' electoral defeat in hopes that Al­ invasion greatly admire Cuba's inter­ The defense of Angola by Cuba's inter­ U.S. was defending in Vietnam," where he nationalist fighters against racist South Af­ fonsin will move against the leadership of nationalism and aid to Grenada and reject fought, or in Grenada. the unions, which retains close ties to the the U.S. government's charges that Cuba rica was also strongly cheered when "The arms profiteers win wars," he said, Daughtry mentioned it. An editorial from Peronist party, despite the Peronists' com­ was trying to dominate Grenada. while it's "working people and Black plicity with the military's repression of A New York City memorial meeting the Cuban newspaper Granma about people who die. It's always the brothers of Cuba's role in Grenada was read by a rep­ workers. November 4 for slain Grenadian Prime color on the front lines." Some U.S. papers pleaded with the U.S. Minister Maurice Bishop turned into a Gre­ resentative of Casa de las Americas andre­ Often mentioned at this meeting, as at ceived a standing ovation. government to give the new civilian reg~me nada solidarity rally. A crowd of more than others, was the need to demonstrate in a chance. It may. But it'll keep its military 1,500, most of whom were Black, filled Those at the meeting also saw The Fu­ Washington, D.C., and other cities on option open. As Business Week noted, a Hunter College auditorium, where Bishop ture Is Coming Towards Us, a film about November 12 against U.S. intervention in top U.S. official was looking forward to . had spoken in June .. the gains of the Grenada revolution. Central America and the Caribbean. selling arms to the Argentine military . A meeting November 2 at Pennsylvania Many people at the meeting, Sojourner Such sales had been suspended because of The meeting heard representatives from said, saw the danger of U.S. intervention the Hunter College Student Union, the Na­ State University in State College drew 200 the notoriety of the military regime's re­ people who decided to form an emergency in Nicaragua or El Salvador as much more pression. tional Black Independent Political Party, likely following the invasion of Grenada.· National Black Unjted Front (NBUF), Na­ committee against the U.S. invasion. Selling arms would ''help reestablish A meeting in Los Angeles on October 27 links" between the U.S. and Argentine mil­ tional Conference of Black Lawyers, Casa A featured speaker at the meeting was sponsored by the U.S.-Grenada Friendship Nicaragua, Committee in Defense of Hai­ Katherine Sojourner of the Socialist Work­ itary, he said: "They need that contact. Society at St. Brigid's Catholic Church in And so do we." tian Territory, Caribbean · People's Al­ ers Party in Harrisburg. The crowd re­ the Black community drew more than 250 liance, and others. sponded very well to her defense of the people. That same day an armed forces re­ Rev. Herbert Daughtry of NBUF socialist revolution in Cuba and Grenada, cruiting station in a Black neighborhood Icelandic unions say explained that what Reagan feared in Gre­ and to her conclusion that the way to pre­ was picketed by 250 people. nada was the example of a Black nation vent counterrevolutionary U.S. interven- In Washington, D.C., Ike Nahem re­ U.S. out of Salvador ported to the Militant a number of Grenada solidarity actions: an October 23 memorial The Icelandic Workers Federation, that meeting for Bishop at the Metropolitan country's leading trade-union body, issued AME Church that drew 300; an October 25 a sharp denunciation of U.S. intervention meeting of 200; a picket at the White in El Salvador at its October 14-16 con­ House October 26 by 300 people; and an gress. October 29 rally of nearly 400. The U.S.-backed Salvadoran govern­ The Black media have also condemned ment, the federation declared, has made it the invasion. An editorial in the Portland impossible for trade unions to defend Observer titled "Why Grenada?" answered working people, with hundreds of their the question: members and leaders imprisoned. "What the Grenadians have done too A resolution passed by the congress well is to serve as an example, an inspira­ called attention to "the struggle of workers tion, to Black people in the U.S. They and farmers in El Salvador for jobs, land, achieved their own liberation and used the right to organize, and the right to gov­ their resources to help their people. They ern their country themselves independently became the first liberated, Black, English­ from a small proprietor class, which now speaking nation in this hemisphere. And governs the whole wealth and all the re­ that was their crime. sources of the country, and without the in­ "This is an invasion that strikes at every tervention of the imperialist power in the individual in this country, especially those north, the United States and its big com­ Part of October 26 protest of 4,000 at UN against U.S. invasion of Grenada who are Black." · panies."

6 The Militant November 18, 1983 Eyewitnesses dispute U.S. Grenada story

The following are excerpts from an in­ and disorganized defense efforts? terview done by Socialist Voice, news­ paper of the Revolutionary Workers Totten. There was a lot of demobiliza­ League of Canada. In the interview, tion,but nonetheless there was a resistance which was conducted November 1, I never would have believed. Canadians Harvey Totten and Sue What happened is that the People's Rev­ Mitchell give an eyewitness description olutionary Army [PRA] grabbed their rifles of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Both in one hand and a machete in the other and _ were on the island when U.S. -troops headed for the hills. The U.S. troops didn't landed. They left October 28 and re­ have the guts to go in after them, so they turned to Canada. used their aerial bombardment to flush Totten and Mitchell had been living in them out. It's like using a bulldozer after a Grenada for 21 months and working for mouse. _ CUSO, a Canadian nongovernment aid The resistance the PRA has been able to and development organization. Totten put up in the face of such a large number of helped the Grenadians design agricul­ extremely well-armed marines is some­ tural tools and Mitchell worked with the thing. food and nutrition council on the island. When we went to the airport to leave, I was appalled. The island is like something Question. Where were you on October out of the movie Apocalypse Now, except 25 when the invasion started? within a 133-square mile terrain. Totten. I was in St. George's [the capi­ Q. How did the U.S. troops enter the tal]. I was awakened about 5 o'clock in the capital of St. George's and how were they morning by the sound of these warplanes. received by the population? I got up to look out the window and here Mitchell. First there was a handful of were these gigantic planes flying across the marines dropped off at the waterfront. face of the moon. Daylight comes at about There was no response to them. Then a 5:45 in St. George's. large cavalcade arrived. There were a few We were restricted to our house over the people in the streets, and a few did go to next few days, caught in crossfire. greet them. But the place was silent. It was The tension was unbelievable- the ter­ a very eerie feeling. rorism of the invading forces. You ~ould The troops were positioned in battle for­ have to be there to appreciate it. There was mation and they looked very scared. very heavy warfare, with very heavy equipment brought to bear by the invaders. Totten. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, they started dropping flares. This Mitchell. The first thing we noticed has a devastating psychological effect. The were the planes in the sky. Then they delta-wings would then buzz past amidst Canadians Sue Mitchell and Harvey Totten say U.S. bombing of island was intense started dropping paratroopers at the new this. airport. Around 6 a.m. some naval shelling The marines entered the capital on started and it went on pretty well all day. Thursday morning. They were very jumpy, There was a lull around 9 a.m. , but the looking very scared. There was dead si­ shelling started again and it lasted until lence. Marine's GI rights victory dusk. Then later, in the darkness, it started As the marines passed below us, there up again. were some lumpen types who started fol­ Continued from front page Mel Mason, socialist city council lowing them. A woman at the fire station couraging all off-duty Gis, and everyone member in Seaside, California, .home of Q. The U.S. government said that they was screaming at these Grenadians: "What else, to participate in this important na­ Ft. Ord, stated, "military personnel who were avoiding the use of aerial and naval are you following for? You should be spit­ tional public ·expression of opposition to are being asked to fight and die in Grenada bombardment in order to spare the civilian ting on them!" population. Is this true? the war policies of the Reagan administra­ and Lebanon have the constitutional right The marines didn't shoot the woman, tion." to discuss, debate, and openly oppose U.S .. Totten. That is a total falsehood. We ac­ but she sure took an awful risk. war policy when they see that wars against tually .have pictures of some of the bom­ This story we've been hearing in the The statement continued: "My beliefs workers and farmers in other countries-are bardment. They blew up Fort Rupert from press about the marines being welcomed is are shared by the majority of American not in their interests." the sea. The warplanes bombed Fort Fre- ­ unbelievable. We would have to say from people and a large number of my fellow derick, and this is where they hit the mental our experience that there was no welcome Marines. My legal actions in furtherance of At issue in Sgt. Stryffeler's case is hospital. Then Grand Anse Beach, the given to the troops. Now, in the villages, my beliefs have led the Marine Corps brass whether military personnel can express Radio Free Grenada building, and Butler this may well have been different. The to harass and threaten to victimize me. - their opposition to U.S. foreign policy and House [prime minister's residence] were people were hungry after several days of They claim that my opposition to the inva­ join with others to demonstrate against bombed from the air. being confined to their homes during the sion of Grenada is incompatible with ser­ these policies. invasion, and then the curfew before that, vice in the armed forces." Q. Could you see or hear fighting going and you also have to understand that still Sgt. Stryffeler's victory is a powerful Dozens of Cincinnati and national fig­ weapon for anti-intervention forces and all on elsewhere on the island? for many Grenadians North America repre­ ures appeared or issued statements at the sents the land of plenty. supporters of civil liberties. Totten. We knew that some ferocious news conference in support of Sgt. Stryf­ battles were taking place because you feler's right to hold and express his views. Q. Were you able to talk to the U.S. sol­ could hear them, but often we didn't Susan Schnall, former lieutenant in the diers? Stryffeler's letter exactly know where. Down in St. David's U.S. Navy and a leader of GI protests there was fighting and also at Westerhall, Totten. Oh sure. against the U.S. war in Vietnam, stated: "It to 'Cincinnati Post' Calivigny, and of course at the new airport. is obvious to me that the U.S. invasion of We heard all these battles and we saw the Q. What was your impression? Grenada is another step in the U.S. govern­ The following letter by marine Sgt. warplanes maneuvering in the air. ment's 'Vietnamization' of the entire James StrytTeler was printed in the Totten. They did not know where they Caribbean." She explained, "As part of the March 25, 1983, Cincinnati Post. The were, and they were scared. They wanted war drive, Reagan is cutting back on civil March 19 editorial StrytTeler was re­ They were using a plane with a delta­ to go home. wing. It goes terrifically fast and it dives at liberties, on the rights of the American sponding to, headlined "Salvadoran I remember the lieutenant who did our people to know the truth, and on the rights talks," supported President Reagan's a target, then pulls up away straight into paperwork when we were leaving. He took the sky. As it pulls away from the target, of members of the military to speak out." rejection of peace talks proposed by the Marlene Green's passport. She's a CUSO She stated that "the men and women in uni­ Farabundo Marti National Liberation the pilot presses the trigger and out of the worker and a Canadian landed immigrant tail it fires a pattern by computer, so that form have more of a right to voice their Front and the Revolutionary Democrat­ with a Dominica passport. opinions because their lives are on the line, ic Front. every part of the ground where it aims is The lieutenant looked at her and said, covered very precisely at 6,000 rounds per not those of the old men in Washington." "Dominica, where's that?" In response to your March 19 editorial minute. The slugs it fires are about four in­ Betty Jean Carroll, senior vice-president "Well," she said, "it's just down the on El Salvador: ches long and three-quarters of an inch in road a little." of American Federation of Government diameter. "Is it part of Grenada?" he asked. Employees Local 1138, which organizes You chose to ignore the fact that the re­ "No," she said, "it's a sovereign coun­ civilian employees at the Wright-Patterson Q. Was the population organized and bels are the popular force in Salvador. try." Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, said, "I Their goal will be accomplished even if the prepared to meet the invasion, or had the One of the fellows behind her said, must go on record against this latest action events of the previous week demobilized U.S. intervenes. "Don't you know? It's one of the countries by the U.S. military to suppress free Just because the Cincinnati Post chooses that's part of your invasion force!" speech." to be the voice of capitalism does not mean San Francisco voters "Oh," said this lieutenant. "In that case Additional statements were released that the American people agree. We don't you can move along." from Thomas E. Louis, a leader of the Cin­ want another Vietnam and the people of El cinnati A. Phillip Randolph Institute and an Salvador have a right to self-determina­ say: 'Out of Salvador' Q. The newspapers ·here are now re­ official of the Operating Engineers Union; tion. porting only pieces of iriformation about SAN FRANCISCO -In the November Congressman Mickey Leland of Texas; the invasion force rounding up supporters The Post fails to recognize the gains of 8 election San Francisco voters approved David Cortright, executive director of the Marxist revolutions such as in Nicaragua, Proposition N, a ballot proposition to "call ·of the revolution for detention. Did you Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy; have any evidence of that? where the people no longer live in fear of upon the federal government to im­ Daniel Berrigan; Anne Braden; Rev. Wil­ government, as under the U.S.-backed mediately end all military aid to the gov­ Mitchell. There were some reports of liam Sloan Coffin, Jr.; John T. Williams, Somoza. ernment of El Salvador and withdraw all that beginning on Thursday. One woman trade unionist and member of the U.S.­ The Nicaraguans now fear U.S.-backed United States military personnel from that we knew who is a Jamaican was boarding Grenada Friendship Society; the Jobs, counterrevolution just as Salvadorans fear country." a plane to leave the island, and as she was . Peace and Freedom Coalition of Cincin­ U.S. intervention. The vote was 74,627, or 53 percent, in getting on the plane, a former PRA nati; the Central Committee for Conscien­ Stay out of El Salvador. favor of the proposition and 65 ,366, 47 member pointed her out to an American of~ tious Objectors; Rev. Maurice McCrackin percent opposed. The entire election was ficer and said, "That's a coinmunist." They . of the Cincinnati Community Church; the And if the Post isn't scared, it will print marked by a low ~oter turnout of 41 per­ held her for questioning for 24 hours before American Friends Service Committee; and this letter and become the people's paper cent. she was able to leave. many others. · instead of the voice of capitalism.

November 18, 1983 The Militant 7 Court voids 1942. internment convictions BY MILTON CHEE behalf ofthe U.S. government. It argued In legal action on October 4, the United the racist position that Japanese-Americans States government QlOved to void the 1942 had racial and cultural characteristics conviction of a Japanese~American for re­ which could lead to a propensity to be dis­ fusing to be sent to an internment camp loyal. These characteristics included living during World War II. close to strategic installations such as In Korematsu v.U.S., the U.S. Supreme roads. Court, in 1942, upheld the constitutionality Further action on the other two suits of of President Franklin Roosevelt's Execu­ Hirabayashi and Yasui is still pending, but tive Order 9066, which "relocated" the same outcome is expected by their at­ 110,000 Japanese-Americans. torneys. At the time, the U.S. government argued In a separate action, on September 30, a that Japanese-Americans posed a national class-action suit for compensation for all security threat and the only solution was re­ losses due to the relocation was filed in location and internment. Fred Korematsu, U.S. district court in Washington, D.C. Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui The National Council for Japanese-Amer­ were three who refused to comply with the ican Redress, based in Chicago, and 25 relocation order. Their· convictions were former internees filed this first civil dam­ appealed to the Supreme Court. age suit to arise from the internment. In presenting its case, the U.S. govern­ In this suit the government attorney ar­ ment altered, suppressed, and destroyed gues that the statute of limitations has long evidence which contradicted its position. Dorothea Lange past, and that congress voted in 1946 for This came to light years later when law Japanese-American internees at Hayward, California, during 1942 racist roundup. monetary compensation. Therefore the suit professor Peter Irons of the University of should be thrown out of court. Further ac­ California, San Diego, recovered the evi­ tion is still pending. dence under a Freedom of Information Act Faced with the airing of such evidence in was "not an act of graciousness or generos­ The trade union movement should hail inquiry in researching for a book. court, the government decided instead to ity, but a recognition that the wrong done the Korematsu case as a gain for the civil ' As a result, Korematsu -v. U.S., and the move to void Korematsu's conviction. . . . was politically, legally, and morally rights of all. Labor endorsement of the other two cases were refiled in January of At an October 5 San Francisco news indefensible." compensation suit by Japanese-Americans this year, with the court setting October 4 conference, Professor Irons commented, On September 27, the California Attor­ is also needed. These types of actions can as the deadline for the government to re­ "The government's action not only repre­ ney General filed a friend-of-the-court contribute to the fight against the rise of spond. sents a total victory for Fred Korematsu, it brief in the Korematsu case on behalf of anti-Asian violence currently underway. Professor Irons, who became co-counsel is also an historic victory for civil liber­ Korematsu. This was another victory. More importantly, such a program can help in the Korematsu suit, said, "The case is ties . .. . " In the 1942 trial, the California State At­ educate about one of the true causes of ra­ based entirely on materials from the gov­ Co-lead counsel Dale Minami pointed torneys General, Earl Warren and Robert cism and oppression, the U.S. govern­ ernment's own files." The materials clear) y out that the government's "capitulation" Kinney, filed a friend-of-the-court brief on ment. show that the government's case against the three men "was based on intentional falsehood and fabrication." FBI and Navy Intelligence reports, one Get out Grenada trUth: help SWP fund as early as 1939, probed the question of Japanese-American "loyalty." Among the BY HARRY RING supplement to the weekly contributions of challenge, there is a growing realization of conclusions reached were that less thari 3 The Socialist Workers Party is currently members and supporters, comes at a mo· this need. percent were potentially "disloyal" and raising a $125,000 Party Building Fund ment of particular need. In New York, a Central American sol­ those persons were well-known. and is appealing to readers of the Militant Since the Grenada events, the SWP has idarity activist phoned in a calendar im­ The navy report further conclwded that, to help achieve this goal. intensified efforts to reach the maximum nouncement to the Militant. She expressed "The entire 'Japanese (American) Problem' Like so many others, SWP members and number of people with the truth about the her appreciation for the SWP response to has been magnified out of its true propor­ supporters reaoubled their efforts in past U.S. invasion and the mounting threat to the Grenada invasion and asked how she tion, largely because of the physical weeks to build the November 12 demon­ Nicaragua, Cuba, and El Salvador. could help financially. The answer, of stration and other actions in opposition to course, was simple. Send a check to the characteristics of the people .. . and should Sales of the Militant in the communities U.S. aggression against Grenada and the · Party Building Fund. be handled on the basis of the individual and at factory gates have been increased by other countries of the Caribbean and Cen­ In Los Angeles, a supporter walked into ... and not on a racial basis." Further evi­ an encouraging number. tral America. dence of suppression of this report and Within a week of Maurice Bishop's as­ the SWP office with a $60 contribution. memos have also come to light. The $125,000 socialist fund, a necessary sassination, Pathfinder Press issued a pam­ This week, a New York supporter back­ phlet featuring his remarkable June 5 ed up his stepped-up activity with a $1,000 speech at New York's Hunter College. contribution to the fund. Miss. labor focuses on bakery strike Special efforts have gone into circulat­ Not many of us can contribute that ing this important pamphlet. At a Hunter generously. But we can all contribute with College memorial meeting for Bishop last the same spirit. We appeal for your sup­ BY ELLEN KERR sionalism and one run by vandalism." port. Every dollar contributed to the SWP MERIDIAN, Miss.- A strike at Har­ The strikers at Hardin's have received week, one particularly able socialist sales­ person alone sold 135 copies. Party Building Fund will advance the fight din's Bakery here is the focus of statewide important solidarity from the labor move~ against U.S. intervention abroad. attention by the labor movement in this ment. The BCT has provided national lead­ Despite the added cost, complimentary "right-to-work" state. . ers and organizers to build support by the copies of the Bishop pamphlet are also So-called right-to-work laws act, as in­ 19 other BCT locals in the state. · being offered to those taking introductory tended, to prevent or weaken unions. But The 500-member United Auto Workers subscriptions to the Militant. GOAL the 110 workers at Hardin's voted a year local at Delco-Remy here donated $1 ,400, In its campaign to get out the truth $125,000 ago to join the Bakery, Confectionary and half of which was collected from workers about Grenada, the SWP has placed spe­ Tobacco Workers International Union at the plant gate, to the strike. cial emphasis on the workplace. In addition (BCT). Teamsters from Memphis refuse to de­ WHERE WE to weekly plant gate sales actoss the coun­ SHOULD BE The company, one of the region's largest liver sugar to Hardin's. Other support has try, members and supporters have in­ suppliers to grocery stores and fast-food come from the state AFL-CIO, from furni­ creased their on-the-job sales ~>f the Mili­ ====:::1 $97,500 chains, offered raises of 3 percent twice ture workers trying to organize a ·large tant, the Bishop pamphlet, and related ma­ during the life of a one~ year contract. It had plant here, and from woodcutters. terial. been paying $5 an hour, on the average, At an October 1 rally, the president of In the initial days of the invasion, this WHERE with few benefits. the local chapter of the NAACP spoke be­ wasn't always the easiest thing to do. WEARE The company, however, insists that fore 50 strikers. Both Black and white Many working people were snowed under $65,000 union membership in BCT Local 149 be workers from Hardin's predominantly by the incredible disinformation campaign. made optional after 30 days, rather than the white work force are solidly behind the full year the union warits. The company strike. But, across the county, socialists found also demands the right to fire workers it The Militant also spoke with Barbara that as they patiently but persistently ar­ claims "instigated violence" on the picket Alexander, a young white woman, while gued for their point of view, they gained line, which went up July 26. she was waiting for picket duty. "I've some ground among their coworkers. The Militant recently talked to strikers worked in a lot of factories in different And socialists found a heartening on the line. We were greeted by a solidarity states," she said, "and I know that having a number of coworkers, especially Blacks, banner, an effigy of a scab, and by several union is the most important factor in how a . Latinos, and Vietnam War veterans, who picketing workers. job will be." had a healthy mistrust of U.S. aims frorri Jimmy George, chief steward and a She spoke proudly about the participa­ the go. member of the local's four-person bargain­ tion of her fellow strikers this year in the With the support of such workers, ing committee, told us, "The survival of first Labor Day march ever held in socialists in the coal mines, garment shops, our union and not money is now the main Jackson, Mississippi's capital. The march textile mills, and auto plants slowly but issue." "made a lot of my fellow workers who steadily began to gain ground among co­ I Want to Help The Meridian City Council, he said; "is haven't been in unions before understand workers. made up of all the rich folks in town. They that we're not alone," she said. This was, of course, but a beginning ef­ Enclosed is my contribution of want to destroy our union." The company claims the strike hasn't af­ fort and a huge job remains to be done in $ ___ to the Socialist Workers Jay Walker, a Black striker, said he had fected production. But union members rallying the ranks of the labor movement Party 1983 Party Building Fund. seen the city manager escort a scab across point out that, with supervisors and 80 against Washington's criminal course. But the picket line. scabs working, only four trucks leave the with intensified efforts it can be done. Name The courts and cops have helped the plant each day. Before the strike; eight did. However, as every movement activist Street company by issuing an injunction limiting A victory by these bakery workers will knows, intensified political activity de­ the number of pickets to three and dili­ strengthen recent gains by the labor move­ mands additional funds. It is this that lends City ...... State ... .. Zip ... .. gently enforcing it. ment in this right-to-work-for-less state. special importance to our present fund Make checks or money orders pay­ . The local paper, the Meridian Star, has Solidarity is important. Send contribu­ drive. And, as our scoreboard indicates, at able to Party Building Funa. Send to chimed in, trying to pit striking telephone tions or messages of support to: Hardin's this moment of particular need, we're be­ SWP, 14 Charles La., New York, workers against 1:he bakery workers, call­ Strikers, c/o BCT, 3387 Poplar Ave., Suite hind schedule and have to catch up. N. Y. 10014. ing their two unions one "run by profes- 227, Memphis, Tenn. 38111. Fortunately, with the present political

8 The Militant November 18, 1983 - . SELLING OUR PRESS AT THE PLANT GATE------

BY LEE MARTINDALE Lamont reports that because of the States at various times has invaded Sales at plant gates and on the invasion of Grenada more people Soviet Russia, Cuba, and now job have been an important part of were interested in discussing polit­ Grenada. The reverse has never .SUBSCRIPTION the socialist response to the inva­ ical questions. One particularly in­ taken place. sion of Grenada, putting the Mili­ teresting discussion began when a Socialists in Cincinnati sold 39 SCOREBOARD tant and PM in the middle of the worker asked, "Well, what did (Totals as of Militant issue #40, PM issue #21) debates and discussi.ons going on your man Fidel have to say about · copies at plant gates, more than among workers in key industrial what happened in Grenada?" Lam­ the total they had sold during the Militant PM Total unions. ont showed her the Cuban state­ previous seven weeks. Nine of Area Goal/Sold Goal/Sold Goal/Sold % ment on the invasion printed in the these were sold to people driving Sales at some plants doubled or Los Angeles 100/90 7S/86 17S/176 101 Militant. into work at the General Electric. tripled, particularly at plants plant where Socialist Workers San Antonio 60/S3 2S/2S 8S/78 92 where socialists had been selling After she read the statement Party candidate for Cincinnati City Brooklyn 110/104 40/31 1S0/13S 90 Twin Cities 120/106 1017 130/113 87 regularly. over lunch, she and Lamont and a. Council Kathleen Denny works. number of other workers in the Salt Lake City 70/S6 S/6 7S/62 83 Fifty papers were sold at the She reports that these sales Price, Utah 3S/31 S/2 40/33 83 shop began discussing what was Tenneco shipyard in Newport sparked more discussions inside. Seaside, Calif. 4S/38 S/3 S0/41 82 News, Virginia, which is or­ so special about Cuba. Since most Despite redbaiting and malicious Detroit 8S/69 SIS 90174 82 of peoples' information about ganized by the United Steelwork­ pranks by' a few right-wingers, St. Louis 120/92 0/1 120/93 78 Cuba comes from the big-business ers of America. Around I 0 of other workers sought out the Greensboro, N.C. S0/38 0/1 S0/39 78 newspapers, it was a real eye­ San Jose 7S/S4 lS/15 90/69 77 these were sold to sailors stationed socialists to talk about the inva­ opener to them that Cuba had Albany, N.Y. 70/S4 S/3 7S/S7 .76 . on Navy ships in the yard for re~ sion . taken steps to improve the living Wash., D.C. 90/73 2S/13 11S/86 7S pair. The response was polarized, conditions of its people and that it "One machine repairman, a Virginia, Minn. 7S/S4 0/2 7S/S6 7S reflecting the discussions going was willing to fight to allow Gre­ Vietnam veteran who hasn't spo­ Harrisburg 3S/29 S/1 40/30 7S on. Some people walked right up Boston 95165 15/16 110/81 74 nada to take the same steps. ken to me since May when I and gave salespeople a dollar for started selling at the gate, began Milwaukee 110/81 10/6 120/87 73 The discussion then turned to Manhattan 150/109 50131 200/146 73 the Militant, while others passed talking with me Friday after the in~ whether or not it would be possi­ Lincoln, Neb. 35/25 010 35/25 71 by with hostile remarks. vasion. We talked about Vietnam, ble to do the same thing in the Indianapolis 80/52 013 80155 69 about wtio runs this country, who Sixty-one were sold to United United States, where the working Denver 80/61 15/5 95166 69 ends up paying for everything - Auto Workers union members at class is so consciously divided and Toledo 70/48 512 75/50 67 and he had to agree with a lot. Still the Jeep plant in Toledo: 27 at the pitted against each other by the Oakland 90/63 1517 105170 67 he doesn't like a lot of the labels Louisville 55/37 010 55/37 67 gates, and 34 single copies and 4 ruling class. How would it be pos­ on my ideas, but this was a break­ Philadelphia 100/67 25/16 125/83 66 subscriptions on the job. Many of sible to overcome this disunity? the 34 copies sold inside the plant through." Newark 110171 30/17 140/88 63 Lamont also noted that the latest Atlanta 85/52 514 90156 62 were bought by people who had issue of the Young Socialist is of From Pittsburgh, socialists re­ Morgantown, W.Va. 70/43 010 70/43 61 rejected the paper at the gate. particular value in this discussion port that sales at plant gates were Phoenix 15145 25/12 100/57 57 After some discussions about the because of its article describing not unusually high last week, but San Diego 70/40 30/15 100/55 55 role of Cuba and Russia, they de­ the history and gains of the Cuban there were many more discus­ Dallas 50/29 1517 65/36 55 cided to check it out. revolution. sions. They have been selling reg­ Miami 10140 10/3 80/43 54 Cincinnati 70/35 0/1 70/36 51 Outside the London Fog gar­ Another socialist worker in the ularly at Clairton Steel, one of the San Francisco 90/48 40/17 130/65 50 ment plant in Baltimore, Mary­ same shop related that some of his largest steel mills in the Monon­ Kansas City 65/35 10/1 75/36 48 land, organized by the Amalga­ discussions have centered around gahela Valley steel producing Portland 45/18 10/8 55/26 47 mated Clothing and Textile Work­ where the real threat of war lies. center. Tucson 30/14 1014 40118 . 45 ers Union, socialists set up a liter­ Albuquerque 50/26 15/3 65/29 45 Coworkers had expressed to him Sales team member Clare ature table with books and pam­ Seattle 75/33 5/2 80/35 44 the fear that "some nuts" were Fraenzl reports that over the weeks phlets on Grenada and Central going to touch the wrong button Newport News, Va. 75/32 010 75/32 43 they have gotten to know quite a Cleveland 80/34 510 85/34 40 America. They sold Militants and and the whole thing would go up few of the people who·work there. copies of Perspectiva Mundial and Charleston, W. Va. 45118 010 45/18 40 in a mushroom cloud. He was able Even if they didn't buy a copy of Houston 60126 3019 90/35 39 the Young Socialist and distributed to give a short history of the de­ the Militant every week, they Birmingham 70/26 010 70/26 37 leaflets for the November 12 dem­ velopment and use of nuclear would say hello. "After the inva­ New Orleans 80/31 5/0 85/31 36 onstration in Washington, D.C., weapons, explaining that the sion of Grenada," she reports, Pittsburgh 135/46 0/0 135/46 34 against U.S. involvement in Cen­ United States is the only country "there was a marked increase in Baltimore 65/17 010 65/17 26 tral America and the Caribbean. that has ever used them and that Gary 45/11 510 50/11 22 interest in the Militant and in our Chicago 135/29 15/1 150/30 20 They sold a total of 12 Militants the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Gre­ opinion about Reagan's invasion. both at the table and inside the nada are arming themselves in self Whether people supported or op­ Totals 3,750/2,348 620/397 4,370/2, 74S 63 plant. · defense. · posed Washington's action, they Should Be 2,812 46S 3,277 7S Militant salesperson Susan He pointed out that the United wanted to stop and talk." Grenada protests spark sales, but push needed

BY PEGGY BRUNDY tense political discussion following the in­ debating out the country's foreign policy, cessful week of sales. St. Louis socialists As readers can tell from the subscription vasion. The table quickly sold out of liter­ its relationship to the employers' union­ report that seven active supporters went out scoreboard, a big push is needed in the last ature on Grenada.· busting campaign, and the escalating at­ on sales with them. One took a bundle of days of the drive to meet the goal we set At the heart of the socialist response to tacks on the hard-won civil rights of five papers to sell at Granite City Steel, a ourselves of winning 4,000 new subscrib­ the invasion of Grenada are sales at plant Blacks, Latinos, and women. After buying basic steel mill in the area. An at-large ers to the Militant and Perspectiva Mun­ gates and to coworkers. Over 850 copies of the paper regularly, an increasing number member of the Young Socialist Alliance at dial. The response to these socialist publi­ the "U.S. Hands Off Grenada'' issue were are deciding to subscribe. Springfield, Illinois took a bundle of 20. cations, especially since President sold to union members at steel mills, rail Socialists in Price, Utah, and Tucson, Total sales of issue #40 in the St. Louis Reagan's invasion of Grenada, indicates yards, auto plants, machine shops, oil re­ Arizona, sold subscriptions to railworkers area were 390. that we can do it. fineries, and garment shops. last week at rail-yard sales. Seattle sold 390 copies with two active Los Angeles, the first branch of the Sales at plant gates and on the job were Eight subscriptions were sold on the job supporters participating. One hundred Socialist Workers Party to reach and go significantly higher than usual in many by Brooklyn socialists in the course of dis­ twenty of these were sold at two demon­ over its goal, has decided to continue spec­ places. Socialists in Kansas City sold 92 cussions on the Grenada invasion. strations against the invasion of Grenada; ial efforts to sell subscriptions. They are papers at auto plants last week. Seventy-six The same heightened interest in politics 20 at a high school; and 47 at a Black com­ organizing to win subscribers at the of these were sold on the job. In addition, resulting from of the invasion is also appar­ munity college. November 12 Los Angeles demonstration they sold 14 papers at three other plant ent in selling on the street, on campus, and We're also meeting potential new read­ against U.S. involvement in Central Amer­ gates. Forty-two of the 325 Militants sold door to door in workers' neighborhoods. ers and supporters at protest activities in ica and the· Caribbean. Socialists in To­ in Philadelphia were sold on the job and at Nationally, over 13,000 of the "U.S. other cities. New Orleans socialists sold ledo, Ohio, raised their goal this week plant gates. New York socialists sold over Hands Off Grenada" issue ( #40) of the seven subscriptions at a Grenada protest, from 55 to 75 subscriptions, challenging 160 on the job and in plant-gate sales; Militant were sold. and in New York four subscriptions to PM themselves to meet new people Newark sold over 100; Atlanta sold 27 to Reports from many cities indicate that were sold at an anti-invasion demonstra­ politicalized by recent events. Socialists in industrial workers. active supporters of the Socialist Workers tion organized by Dominican groups. Seaside, California, raised their overall Workers at these factories and mines are Party played an important role in this sue- Selling subscriptions will be one of the goal to 50. - main tasks of socialists participating in Socialists in other cities report that al­ demonstrations against U.S. involvement though they got off to a slow start in the Subscribe to 'Intercontinental Press' in Central America and the Caribbean tak­ drive, they have discussed plans to or­ ing place on November 12 in Washington, ganize getting as many subscribers as pos­ The biweekly international news­ terview by Marta Hamecker with San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other sible following the U.S. invasion of Gre­ magazine Intercontinental Press is Sandinista leader Jaime Wheelock. cities. Special subscription teams will be nada. Many now think they may go over able to carry more documents and You can't follow what the circulating at the demonstrations making their original goal. other material on the events in Gre­ Cuban, Grenadian, and Nicara­ sure every demonstrator has a chance to In Greensboro, North Carolina, 16 sub­ nada than we can fit in the Militant. guan leaders are saying and doing subscribe. scriptions were sold door to door. A by only reading the Militant. Sub­ These actions represent an important Lebanese supporter of the Militant, out­ A special November 7 IP, for exam­ scribe to Intercontinental Press step in building the kind of mass, working­ raged by U.S. intervention in his country, ple, printed several documents today. class movement needed to challenge sold five subscriptions to Palestinian from Cuba on the invasion of Gre­ Washington's war policy. A political ten­ friends. nada that you didn't see in the Mil­ D Enclosed is $25 for a one-year dency of workers is developing that sees In San Diego, socialists sold 21 Militant itant. The current IP, dated subscription (U.S. and Canada). that defense of the Grenada, Nicaraguan, subscriptions and 6 PM subscriptions last November 14, reprints two impor­ D Enclosed is $12.50 for six and Cuban revolutions, not the military ag­ week. Thirteen of these were sold at a Mil­ tant interviews with New Jewel months. gression of the imperialist government in itant Forum on the invasion of Grenada. Movement leaders Don Rojas and Washington, is in workers' interests. The regular literature table set up by Mil­ Caldwell Taylor. The new issue Send to Intercontinental Press, 410 Building the readership of the Militant and itant and PM salt$people at the University also begins part one of a major in- West St., New York, N.Y. 10014. PM is a contribution to building this ten­ of Utah in Salt Lake City was a focus of in- dency.

November 18, 1983 The Militant 9 Phoenix· union rally backs copper strike at Phelps Dodge

BY KAREN KOPPERUD With ang-ry words he blasted the govern­ PHOENIX, Ariz: - Over 125 people ment for its support to Phelps Dodge. The representing 15 different unions and other company "has control of the political community organizations attended a rally machine," he said. Phelps Dodge has "one to express solidarity with striking copper powerful ally-the governor of Arizona," miners and to oppose the open union-bust­ said L6pez of Democrat Bruce Babbitt. ing of the Phelps Dodge Corp. Thirteen Babbitt had been considered a "friend of unions have been on the picket lines in sev­ labor" by some prior to his open union­ eral copper towns in the state for more than busting role in this strike. "He's not the four months. friend of labor in Clifton, Ajo, Bisbee, and Show of force by police, ordered by Democratic Gov. Bruce Babbitt last August, to Angela Avillar, representing the Douglas," said L6pez listing the copper intimidate striking copper miners at Morenci, Arizona. women's auxiliary in the copper town of towns. Morenci spoke first. She pointed to the L6pez also explained his view that hear tonight is a carbon copy of what Mr. 274; Mike Bielecki, vice-president of the dangerous use of strike-breaking and Phelps Dodge is being encouraged by Ken­ Greyhound has in store for us." Phoenix fire-fighter union; Sister Doran of union-busting tactics at Continental Air­ necott, Magma and the other copper com­ "They want to destroy the labor move­ the United Farm Workers union and Fran­ lines and Greyhound Bus lines too. panies, including those that settled with the ment," said Franklin of the employers, "or cis Cavasos of the Arizona Farm Workers. Greyhound, which maintains its corporate unions last spring to avoid a strike. render it ineffective. This plan has the en­ Sister Doran announced that UFW Presi­ offices here, has threatened to replace "Phelps Dodge was chosen to spearhead dorsement of the White House, the State dent Cesar Chavez planned to visit the min­ strikers and has demonstratively handed this drive because it still has company House, City Hall, and even the justices of ing towns to express his union's support for out employment applications across the towns, with people living in their houses, the peace," he explained. the strike. country since Greyhound workers hit the buying at their store, using their utilities." A collection at the meeting raised picket lines November 3. The company is Nevertheless, Phelps Dodge has "failed to Working people "have to wake up," he $1 ,025 which was presented to Annie demanding big wage and benefit break the spirit of our strikers," he af­ said. When workers go on strike, "the laws Jones, president of the Ajo Women's Au­ givebacks. firmed, "and we will continue fighting. We are against you, the press and the media are xiliary by Chris Smith, president of Amer­ against you and the politicians that some of A villar described the often brutal harass­ will win this war." ican Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local An important speaker at the rally was our people helped to elect are against you. 2050. Smith's local initiated the rally ment that Phelps Dodge strikers have suf­ "Don't think you are safe because you Ellis B. Franklin, an international repre­ which was co-sponsored by the the fered at the hands of the company, scabs, have a contract," Franklin warned. "You · and state police. She recounted one inci­ sentative of the Amalgamated Transit Phoenix· Central Labor Council. Union, which represents Greyhound work­ are only half organized until you are or­ The meeting was co-chaired by Jackie dent in which a woman waiting in a pick­ ganized politically." up truck for her sister who was on the pick­ ers. "I am an ex-Virginia coal miner," said Hayes, vice-president of American Federa­ et line, was approached by a state cop. Franklin expressing his deep-felt personal Other speakers included John Blake, tion of Teachers Local 2050 and Roy Santa "Get out or I'll blow your head off!" the cop support for the copper miners. "The story I secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local Cruz, sub·district director of the USWA. told bet, and then forced her to the ground where he searched her in a "vicious man­ ner," Avillar reported. She stressed the aid the strikers need and San Diego .unionists face new attacks noted that the Morenci Women's Auxiliary has less than $300 on hand. However, she SAN DIEGO - Teledyne Ryan single out Aragon, Barton, Cohen, March, vadoran trade union leader Alejandro also affirmed that the company is not doing Aeronautical, one of San Diego's major and White for further attacks. Molina Lara to Local 506 to speak last · as well as it claims. As recently as two war industry manufacturers, announced in These five union members were active in spring. weeks before the rally, said A villar, Phelps a meeting with union officials from United the discussion of the contract and were Local leaders of the U AW and a regional Dodge was still appealing to workers to Auto Workers (UAW) Local 506 that five among the most vocal in opposing the dual representative characterized the violation come back on the job. laid-off union members )VOUld not be per­ pay scale. Almost one-third of the local of seniority as a "witch-hunt" because four Alex L6pez of the United Steelworkers mitted back in the plant until the company voted to reject this contract, which·was the of the unionists are members Of the of America (USWA) and the chairman of had completed "reinvestigating their appli­ largest percentage to vote against any con­ Socialist Workers Party and one is an SWP the strike negotiating committee spoke cations." tract in many years. supporter. The UA W is fighting the com­ about the history of the strike and the issues These five union members were also ac­ pany attacks in what is expected to be a at stake. Whatever the copper unions have The meeting occurred on October 20, tive in convincing the union to bring Sal- serious battle. won over the past 40 years, he said, was with union officials grieving violations of the result of unity and the union's refusal to seniority, harassment, and discrimination allow the companies to ·pit one union against Jan Aragon, Merrill Cohen, and Judy White, three workers from Teledyne again~t another. ''They were no longer able Greyhound forces bus strike to pay you less wages simply because you Ryan's pooling and plastics fabrication de­ partment. live in the Southwest, or simply because BY GEORGE JOHNSON without a contract. Greyhound turned you were a different color," said L6pez of The company also linked two other A nationwide strike. forced on drivers down these offers and refused to resume the predominantly Chicano, mexicano, and union members to this "reinvestigation." and terminal workers by Greyhound Corp. talks with the union. Native American miners. They are Tom Barton and Gina March, began November 3. On November 7 Greyhound ran full­ Phelps Dodge has been preparing to try also from the plastics fabrication depart­ The strike was forced when Greyhound page ads in 170 newspapers across the to bust the unions since 1981 Lopez said. ment. These five virtual suspensions are presented the Amalgamated Transit Union country to put further pressure on its em­ He pointed to the large number of copper part of a general campaign against UAW (ATV) with demands for sweeping wage ployees to end the strike. miners who had been on extended layoff members stemming from a contract signed and benefits cuts and then refused to The company claims its main bus line, for months before the strike even began. last spring. negotiate. Greyhound Lines, lost $16 million last In a major threat to the union, year, but concedes that the corporation's In the latest contract, all new hires were Greyhound has sent letters to its 12,000 entire transport division made a profit ot U.S. to set up new given as. much as $3.81 per hour less than striking employees warning them that they $19.6 million. a worker already hired last spring. But in would be replaced if they were not back at Greyhound Lines lost business because military training reality, workers doing the same job next to work by November 14. The company has its main customers - workers, retired base in El Salvador each other make as much as $5 per hour taken applications for potential scabs in people, and students - have traveled less less. This is because new hires came in at cities across the country. · because of the recession. In addition, the Washington plans to complete construc­ the bottom of their scale and the older work Greyhound is demandifig a 9. 5 percent corporation's leasing division, which rents tion of a large training center for troops of force is at the top of the old scale. It would pay cut, under which drivers would lose airplanes, construction items, and other the Salvadoran dictatorship by next Janu­ take five years for the new hires to reach $18.50 per day. equipment to Mexico, Brazil, and other ary. The new U.S. training center is lo­ the same rate as the older work force. A solidarity meeting in Cleveland of 350 countries was hit hard by the capitalist cated in eastern El Salvador, just across the The dual pay scale was the central de­ ATU members and supporters was told by economic crisis. The company now claims Gulf of Foriseca from Nicaragua. mand of the company last spring when it a union official of other concessions some of these debts are delinquent. One thousand Salvadoran soldiers. will pleaded poverty and claimed that it would Greyhound is demanding, which have not Greyhound is run by John Teets, the be trained there each month, according to lose its Hughes Apache helicopter contract been reported by the big-business media: company's chairman and chief executive a report in the Washington Post. A U.S. if the work force did not take a pay cut. • A freeze on cost-of-living adjust­ officer. He is so determined to cut labor training base in Honduras is already pro­ With the hiring of hundreds· of new ments (COLA) for the first two years of the costs that even the big-business media con­ cessing Salvadoran troops in groups of 350 workers this fall, sharp conflicts developed contract, and a 35 cents per hour cap on cede that he forced the current strike. each. in the plant. Scores of grievances have COLA the third year. Half of that is to go Striking drivers "nOte that if they are re­ An idea of the kind of instruction the been filed for new workers who have been into a pension fund. placed Greyhound will be using scab driv­ U.S. "advisers" give is suggested by the forced to work out of "Classification and • Loss of four paid holidays. ers with only two weeks' training. Two fact that one battalion has already been who have been under a general campaign • Sharply reduced medical benefits. months is the norm, and the strikers have turned out at the new base in EI Salvador. of disciplinary harassment by the com­ • Increased nonpaid layovers, including warned that untrained drivers will be un­ It is called the cazador, or "hunter" battal­ pany. time spent by drivers going to runs. safe, especially on winter roads. ion. Taking advantage of a younger work • No Saturday or Sunday overtime pay The ATV says Greyhound is trying to The announcement of the new base force, safety procedures have been ignored until a weekly minimum number of hours _ bust the union, an opinion shared by pick­ comes as the Salvadoran liberation fighters and flagrantly dangerous conditions left is reached. ets in cities across the country. have scored a number of military successes uncorrected. Union officials report that the • Reduced mileage rates for charter-bus Strikers also noted with irony Teet's in the past two months, killing 800 Sal­ whole work force is on edge. More than 20 drivers l\Od for deadheading (returning an strong support for industry deregulation , vadoran soldiers and capturing 400 as pris­ workers attended the second-shift union empty bus). which has resulted in temporary fare wars oners, in addition to expanding the territory meeting last month and angrily denounced • Hiring of part-time workers and ig­ as bus and airline companies_ try to capture under their control. According to media re­ the company's discriminatory conduct and noring job classifications. shares of the market from each other. Now ports, the troops of the dictatorship have harassment. The union flied a general grie­ The meeting in Cleveland also heard Teets claims Greyhound needs concessions often fled rather1than fight the liberation vance with the entire second shift. how the ATV had first offered to continue from its workers because of this competi­ forces. In this context, the company decided to working with the present contract, then tion.

10 The Militant November 18, 1983 Debate on winning Black political power

Continued from front page pectations could lead to new challenges to . The Jackson candidacy is causing a great their leadership . deal of discussion and debate, particularly Furthermore, they are worried that the in the Black community. The views being campaign will deepen the polarization in expressed range from one end of the polit­ society and lead to a racist backlash against ical spectrum to the other - from total B1M \'\ t5DtPt Blacks. They know that many rightists and support to outright racist hostility. Jackson reactionary elements strongly oppose a is charged by some as being "divisive" to fQ\Jltt~, \ Black even being considered for president the Democratic Party; others see his cam­ it.?1 "1 - no ·matter how loyal that candidate is to paign as a step toward Blacks and other the system. These racist attacks against working people building an independent Jackson's right to run for president must of base both inside and outside the Democrat­ course be opposed by all supporters of ic Party. democratic rights. The aims of such racist What stance Blacks and other working attacks are not only to deny Jackson's people should take to Jackson's campaign rights but the democratic rights of all will be among the topics discussed at the Blacks. National Black Independent Political A polarization does exist. But it is Party's (NBIPP) third national party con­ caused by the employers' attacks and can't gress, November ll-13 in Jersey City, be avoided by sticking to the status quo. New Jersey. That's why more and more working · NBIPP represents a political vanguard Howort people, led by Blacks, are becoming open for the Black community and working Black party contingent at Sept. 19, 1981, Solidarity Day action. Party's program to new perspectives. people in general. With its anticapitalist charts anticapitalist perspective for Black struggle. Those Black liberals who oppose perspectives-, NBIPP urges Blacks to create Jackson also fear his radical-sounding pro­ gram - for the Equal Rights Amendment; amass-based Black political party to fight A. Yes. But this fact should not lead us Blacks to public office at a city, state, and for political power. It explains that this will against the "right to work" laws; for union, to Jackson's conclusion that we should try national level. This, he says, will force the Black, and Latino rights; and criticisms of require a break from the parties of big bus­ to become a stronger force within the Dem­ Democratic Party to give us our share of iness, the Democratic and Republican par­ the government's foreign policy. In the ocratic Party. To the contrary, it shows that power. context of a national presidential campaign ties. if we chart~d our own independent .course That's why Jackson's candidacy cannot The NBIPP program put forward in its they worry that this can fuel the politicali­ we would be a much greater threat to the lead to a break with the Democratic and zation in the Black community and . go charter is based on the last 20 years of ex­ Democratic and Republican parties and Republican parties. Rather, it miseducates periences and struggles of Blacks for full beyond their, and even Jackson's, political have much greater power in fighting for Blacks, Latinos, women, farmers, and all control. equality and self-determination. It points our interests. other working people he appeals to by giv­ the way ahead for all working people. For the liberals it is one thing to tap the We would have more clout: If Black ing false hopes about how political power deepening ferment among Blacks and Because of the Jackson campaign's im­ workers and farmers told the Democrats is to be aChieved. It doesn't help to break portance and what it reflects about political many white workers in the Chicago, that they can't count. on our support any Blacks from the illusions they have in the Philadelphia, and Boston mayoral cam­ moods in the Black and labor movements, more we would put greater pressure on capitalist system and the Democratic Party it is useful to consider some. questions paigns where victory is possible. But it is winning concessions. or explain the necessary road forward. another thing to raise hopes by launching a being raised about the campaign, and how The gains that we have won have been they should be answered presidential campaign that can't come the byproduct of mass movements and big Q. Does that mean Blacks and other close to winning. struggles where we have acted indepen­ workers should view the Jackson campaign * * * dently in our own interests. Isn't that ales­ like the John Glenn or Walter Mondale Q. Well, it seems clear why many Black Question. What is the significance of the son of history? campaigns? That he's just another liberals and other top Democrats would Jackson candidacy? Why is Jackson get­ In the 1930s the industrial unions were capitalist politician like them? oppose a Jackson campaign. But doesn't ting such sympathy and support, especially created after massive struggles including that prove the point argued by some Black · A. No. While we reject the Jackson can­ among a . significant number of young sitdown strikes and other militant ac4ons radicals and socialists who oppose the didacy as a way forward for Blacks and Blacks? by working people. It was the mass civil capitalist system and support the Jackson other working people, we believe those in­ rights movement of the 1950s and '60s that campaign as a way forward for Black lib­ Answer. The Jackson campaign reflects spired by it - especially young Blacks - destroyed the Jim Crow segregation system eration? They say that it shakes up the something important going on in U.S. poli­ are genuinely seeking a new course, a new in the south and forced the passage of im­ status quo and may eventually lead to an tics- among Blacks and the entire work­ leadership to fight back. They want some­ portant civil rights legislation. independent anticapitalist third party. Is ing class. Working people, particularly ,more than just defeating Reagan at all None of these gains'were the result of us thing that possible? Blacks who are suffering from unemploy­ strengthening our position inside the Dem­ costs. They don't want their politics just ment, ioflation, worsening working condi­ ocratic Party. To the contrary, it was our defined by what they're against but also by A. It is true that many Jackson support­ tions, racism, and new wars, are increas­ independent mobilizations that forced the what they're for. They recognize that. some ers, through the experience of his cam­ ingly fed up with the present elected offi­ employing class to "open up" the Demo­ kind of a "rainbow coalition" is necessary. paign, may become disillusioned with the cials. They want more political representa­ cratic Party to us. After years of barring if we are going to have any power. Democratic Party and break with it. Some tion - that is, political power - to defend their doors to us we were permitted to run Many Jackson supporters will face a may join NBIPP which advocates a mass themselves from the blows raining down some candidates. and get some Black crisis following the Democratic Party con­ independent Black party. on them. elected officials. Their aim has been to buy vention. When Glenn or Mondale is nomi­ But the main way to help them break Jackson very effectively points to the us off and keep us out of the streets. They nated by the convention, they will confront from their illusions in the capitalist, parties . disproportional representation of Blacks in want to prevent an independent Black po­ the choice of supporting the nominee or is not to become supporters of the Demo­ Congress. If the number of Blacks in the litical movement that would challenge the pushing for an independent campaign. cratic Party or Jackson's campaign to in­ Senate and the House of Representatives capitalist system - the source of our op­ . Because the Jackson campaign reflects a crease Black representation in it. Rather it was the same proportion as our numbers in pression. deeper thinking-out process underway in is to tell the truth about the system and the the population, there would be 12 Black the Black community and in society as a kind of movement needed to replace it. To The key today is to get ourselves going Senators instead of none and 51 Black rep­ whole, it is important for those with a dif­ do the opposite is a trap and error. Unfortu­ on the road to build a mass movement with resentatives instead of 21. In Alabama, for nately some radicals are making this mis­ the objective of overturning this racist, ferent perspective to participate in the 1984 example, Blacks are 30 percent of the elections and present their ideas. take. capitalist system. population. Yet of the seven congressmen, In 1980 the National Black Political As­ Brenda Dixon of the Communist Work­ sembly's convention, which called the or­ ers Party, for example, writes in the Au­ none are Black. Q. But doesn't Jackson oppose the pre­ Jackson explains that his "rainbow coal­ ganizing conference that launched the gust 17-30 Workers Viewpoint that, '!To sent economic system? ition" is to be made up of those most af­ NBIPP, urged Blacks not to vote for the oppose Jackson's candidacy from the fected by the racist, antilabor policies of A. Jackson is critical of the economic three capitalist candidates - James Carter, standpoint of maintaining 'purity' of polit­ the employers and government. system and ·many of its evils. But he Ronald Reagan, or John Anderson. It ical principles is narrow and immature. It is The Jackson campaign is attempting to doesn't oppose the system. He believes the explained that they represented the class not the task of communists and revolution-· tap the growing anger and politicalization capitalist system can be reformed and that that is responsible for Black oppression. aries to oppose the likes of Jesse Jackson." ofBlacks, Latinos, and others in order to we can win our full equality and freedom in From the same standpoint NBIPP, in the She concludes that, "We. must be in strengthen their position inside the Demo­ this system. This is totally interconnected 1984 elections1 will re able to explain to Jackson's campaign because where the cratic Party. with why he's for building a power base in­ those supporting Jackson that the strategy people are, so must revolutionaries be." side the Democratic Party, rather than of seeking to reform the Democratic Party The issue of course isn't 'purity' of prin- Q. Is Jackson right when he says that breaking from it. is a dead end and win many activists to an Continued on Page 21 Blacks can do without the Democratic and Jackson says his candidacy will be a suc­ independent perspective. Republican parties, but they can't do with­ cess if several million more Blacks regis­ out Blacks? ter, and if it leads to the election of more Q. If Jackson is simply seeking to strengthen the position of Blacks in the Democratic Party and get more Blacks elected to office, why then are so many Reading on the Black struggle Black liberals opposed to his candidacy? A. It's true that many Black liberals op­ pose Jackson's campaign. This includes Independent Black Political The National Black Independent such figures as Detroit's Mayor Coleman Action: 1954-78 Political Party Young, Georgia state legislator Julian The struggle to break with the An Important Step Forward for BlaCks Bond, and the NAACP's executive direc­ Democratic and Republican parties and Other American Workers tor Benjamin Hooks. They oppose it be­ cause they fear the J~ckson candidacy· Education for Socialists publica­ could lead those backing him to bolt from Edited by Mac Warren, this Educa­ tion by Nan Bailey, Malik Miah, and the Democratic Party when Jackson loses tion for Socialists publication in- . Mac Warren. 32 pages, $1.25. the nomination. This may include, they eludes articles on the Freedom Now say, not only newly registered voters but Party, Lowndes County Freedom Or­ Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 many others who normally vote Democrat. ganization, Black Panther Party, Na­ West Street, New York, New York The Black liberals who oppose Jackson tional Black Assembly, and more. 10014. Please include $.75 for post­ feel that the masses galvanized into action Jesse Jackson: his campaign raises ques­ 81f2 x 11 format, 72 pages, $3.50. age and handling. by his campaign could be further tions on how working people can ad-. politicalized by the experience. Higher ex- vance politically.

November 18, 1983 The Militant 11 fill nationalizatiOn of· industry sa~

BY GEOFF MIRELOWITZ the cities' decaying infrastruCture, includ­ The capitalist government would aim to steel corporations are modernizing more As plant closings, permanent job losses, ing roads, water andsewage lines, bridges, run a nationalized industry, like an indi- . slowly because the banks and other sources and high unemployment continue to plague transit rails and new schools, hospitals and vidual plant, at a profit. Just as big U.S . . of investment capital believe their funds, steelworkers, a broad discussion and de­ low cost housing." corporations must do now, a nationalized for the most part, can be better invested in bate is taking place ·about how the labor To accomplish all ofthis Hall "called for steel industry would have to compete other industries and ventures where they movement can defend itself from these at­ a 'mass people's movement'" and "at the against corporations producing steel for can obtain a higher rate of profit. tacks. The approach of the top leadership same time ... urged that a 'Dump Reagan' profit in other countries. The profit drive A nationalized industry would confront of the United Steelworkers of America campaign be tied into the movement." would dictate the very same attacks on· the same problem. It would have to com­ (USWA) is to accept big conc(j$sions in A previous article in the September 23 workers' rights in a nationalized industry pete for investment with other industries in wages and benefits and urge workers to op­ DW reports on a statement issued by the CP as in a· privately-run industry. the United States. To do this successfully pose imports. of foreign steel as a way to in Western Pennsylvania calling for the In fact this is precisely the reason why would require satisfying its economic fight back. This approach wrongly puts the nationalization of "the United States Steel some capitalist governments do decide to partners that it could be operated at a profit blame for unemployment on fellow work­ plants in the Pittsburgh area." This state­ take over particular industries. The entire - and a high enough one at that. This is ers from other countries and points away ment called upon "Allegheny County and point of nationalization under capitalism, why nationalized British Steel is attacking from a determined fight against the U.S. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to from the point of view of the employers, is British steelworkers to create a "leaner" steel giants who are actually handing out take over these plants 'to satisfy Pennsyl­ to use the power of the government to re­ and "more efficient" industry - with tens the layoff notices. vania's need for steel' .. .. Such an action store profitability.- and to soak the work­ of thousands fewer workers. In a recent article, the Militant took up . . . would guarantee" that all laid off steel­ ing class for the cost of doing so, through Furthermore, just as is the case today at the idea that workers should seek to buy workers in the area "would be recalled and higher taxes, and so forth. In some cases, U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel, and else­ those plants the capitalists threaten to shut kept working for years." after profitability is restored through where, if the bankers and others can be per­ down (see "Can 'employee-owned' plants This statement, according to the DW, nationalization, the industry is turned back suaded to invest in the needed moderniza­ operate in labor's interest?" in the Militant "urged nationalization as the first step to­ to private owners. tion, workers in a nationalized steel indus­ October 21, 1983). This article explained ward changing the system in order to 'put try would still be the losers. Precisely be­ why companies operated under "Employee people back to work.'" British Steel example cause the profit drive will still be at work in Stock Ownership Plans" (ESOP) are sub­ Finally, an October 14 DW article re­ In those capitalist countries where par­ a nationalized industry, such moderniza­ ject to the same laws of the capitalist eco­ ports on another speech by Gus Hall, at a ticular industries have been nationalized, tion will not be carried out to create more nomy as all .other corporations. It pointed national leadership meeting of the CP that the very same capitalist plant managers and jobs. Rather it will be a tool to eliminate out that workers at Weirton Steel, who had discussed activity among industrial work-. executives - as well as the original own­ them. This has been the reality at British recently approved an ESOP proposal, had ers. There Hall presented a program "to ers themselves in some cases- have been Steel. also been forced into massive concessions speed the process . . . to turn the depression retained by the nationalized industry. But the workers employed by a while 2,600 of their fellow union members around .... "This included "nationalizing These people are experts at squeezing the nationalized industry are not the only ones remain laid off. basic industry especially steel and maximum possible out of workers in their _to pay the price. The employers and their In recent issues of the Daily World coal ...." ' industry and are kept on the job by the government make the public - that is (DW), the newspaper reflecting the views of capitalist government for exactly that pur­ working people - pick up the tab in many the Communist Party (CP), another idea has · Sounds good pose. ways for restoring profitability. They raise been raised that deserves examination. A To many workers these may sound like A case in point is Britain, where the steel taxes for instance. In some cases they use front-page headline in the October 13 issue good ideas. This is especially so when con­ industry has been nationalized. Ironically, bond issues to finance their plans. This. in­ reports that CP General Secretary Gus Hall sures that the banks will reap high interest trasted with the top USW A leadership's one of Gus Hall's supporters points to this "Demands Gov't Take Over Mill." payments from any "improvement" of the open collaboration with the profit-hungry example - ineffectively however. nationalized industry. A social cost is The article refers to threats by the United employers. In the September 27 Daily World a letter exacted as well. For instance, pollution States Steel Corp. to permanently close its But there is a problem. Under calling for "Jobs through nationalization" controls are often relaxed for "ailing" in­ South Works mill in South Chicago. This capitalism, nationalization of either indi­ appears, signed by Roberta Woods, an ac­ dustries - including those still directly in mill has been devastated by layoffs for al­ vidual steel mills, or the entire industry, - tivist in USWA Local 65 at South Works most two years. In September 1982U.S. private hands. will not solve unemployment. who has been laid off since June 1981 . Steel announced that South Works would To see why this is the case let's untangle "England has a nationalized steel indus­ None of these problems of nationaliza­ only be kept open if the USW A agreed to the CP's demands and look at them one at try," writes Woods. "Some people say it tion under capitalism are solved by Gus fundamental work rule concessions in the a time. The weaknesses of nationalizing a doesn't work too well," she allows, "but at Hall's suggestion that an expanded market staffing of a proposed rail mill there. No single plant are among the clearest. least the workers have their jobs." (em­ concessions, no rail mill, said the ·com­ phasis added.) pany. No rail mill, no South Works. If a "regional steel authority" took over South Works for instance, the' situation This would be a compelling argument­ Despite widespread membership opposi­ if it were true. Unfortunately Roberta tion to this blackmail, USWA Local 65's would not be much different from that con­ Why workerS, fronting the new owners of Weirton Steel. Woods appears to be a bit mixed up about president and the top leadership of the in­ the facts. ternational union agreed to the deal. But For the plant to stay in business some­ For at least the past three years, British Under certain circumstances a fight by now .U.S. Steel may no longer be in­ one still has to buy the steel. A nationalized steelworkers have been under relentless as­ the labor movement to demand that the terested. Evidently, with or without the rail South Works would still have to operate in sault from their governmental employers. capitalist government nationalize particu­ mill or the concessions, South Works may • a capitalist - production for profit only - a British Prime Minister .Margaret Thatcher lar industry can be a big step toward work­ not be profitable enough to suit U.S. economy. The capitalist government which has targeted British steelworkers in her ers becoming politically active and seeing Steel's stockholders. would own South Works would have to strive to be competitive with privately­ drive against the entire British labor move- · the need for the working class to replace ment. the government. Nationalize South Works? owned plants in order to find a market for its product. · Since 1980 more than 80,000 British The 1979 "oil crisis" is a recent example Just as at Weirton, the need to be com­ steelworkers have lost their jobs-perma­ of a severe breakdown of the economy that This then is the context for Gus Hall's nently. affected and angered millions of workers, proposal that "the government should seize petitive would require attacks on workers' What accounts for the attacks on British who demanded government action . the mill" and nationalize it. This step . wages, benefits, safe work rules, and other steelworkers, and why would U.S. work­ At that time the giant energy monopoly "would be done in priority·of workers' in­ rights. The managers of a nationalized ers at a nationalized industry face more of was hoarding oil· and refused to refine terests," said Hall. He suggested that the plant would not recall workers from layoff the same? adequate quantities Into gasoline and heat­ takeover be accomplished through the es­ unless it were profitable. Just as one plant ean not be separated out ing fuel. The oil cartel did this in order to tablishment by the government of a "reg­ The idea that the capitalist government, from the workings of the entire capitalist artificially jack up the price of these neces­ ional steel authority." This authority's which defends the private-profit system at economy, neither can one industry-espe­ sities even further and raise the oil com­ board of directors "would be democrat­ every turn, would agree to operate South Works at a loss is not persuasive. This is cially one as central to the functioning of panies' already spectacular profits to a new ically elected to include community and the entire economy as the steel industry. high. worker representation," according to Hall. especially so today when the government is The truth of the matter is that it is more This created a contrived crisis for all "Other steel mills in the area threatened cutting wages and attacking union rights of and more difficult to separate out any one working people . The crisis itself was very by closing or closed . .. could come under public employees as part of a phony effort to "balance the budget." industry from the complex, integrated ad­ the authority's operation," the Daily World vanced capitalist economy. In such an eco­ reported. "Once the mills were taken What about Hall's proposal to nomy each part depends on and is related to over," the DW continued, "there is a tre­ nationalize the entire steel industry as a others. mendous market for steel. . . . Over one means of saving jobs? This would not work Steel production requires coal. Auto billion tons ... are needed to help rebuild either. · makers need steel to make cars. All three of these industries depend on the railroads and trucking firms to transport their prod­ ucts. And each relationship works two ways. That is , those who are selling prod­ ucts need buyers, just as the buyers need sources of supplies. All of the economic workings of indus­ try are intertwined with the finance system and the banks. In fact the industrial capitalists and the financial capitalists are often the same. (Take for example the Rockefeller family which owns and controls both the world's largest industrial corporation - Exxon - and also owns and controls some of the largest banks- Chase Manhattan, Chem­ ical, etc.) Every industry requires new investment Restructuring of capitalist economy and its increasing crises make shut-down blast fur­ in order to modernize and take other steps Labor demonstration during 1979 energ) naces like these in Pittsburgh a common sight. Labor movement must put forward de­ to insure a high enough rate of profit. The · mand to nationalize energy monopoly, a mands to defead workers from effects of crises. U.S. steel industry is a prime example. The boards as step in fight to change goverm

12 . · The Militant November 18, 1983 re. .JO ·b s.,

for steel would be created by a government public works program. The labor movement should demand a broad public works program to provide some immediate relief to the army of the unemployed. This could be one part of a broader. fight to defend workers from the effects of the economic crisis. But a public works .program adminis­ tered by a capitalist government is likely to be a penny ante proposition. It may provide some socially useful work. But the sugges­ tion by some top labor officials that the sol­ ution to unemployment is to go back to the "good old days" of the public works pro­ grams of the Franklin D. Roosevelt admin­ istration is based on a distortion of history that is not unrelated to the labor official­ dom's complete subservience to the Demo­ cratic Party. FDR did not "solve" unemployment in the "good old days." High unemployment plagued the working class throughout most of the 1930s. To the degree that Roosevelt cut unemployment significantly it wasn't through his public works program. It was the result of World War II. It was war pro­ duction that kicked steel production into U.S. Steel's South Works. Despite union cpncessions, corporation now threatens to close mill. Communist Party proposes government high ge~. takeover of plant, but this will not end threat to jobs. In any event a public works program does not mean that nationalization under "own" workers: This too would undermine But the working class can struggle to de­ action by the labor movement are both in­ capitalism will creat~ jobs. solidarity throughout the working class. As fend itself from the effects of these inevita­ tended to avoid challenging capitalist (It should also be added that one idea a strictly economic proposition in an ad­ that seems to be implicit in Hall's approach ble consequences of the profit drive. In power. vanced economy, it is as impractical as it is is quite wrong and ill befits someone who many different ways that is what workers While Hall's proposals sound more rad­ wrong.) calls himself a communist because it can are constantly doing. That is why trade ical, they are not fundamentally different lead to protectionism. That is the idea that unions were formed as defensive organiza­ from the approach of the misleaders of the If not nationalization, what? plants in Illinois should have the franchise tions of the working class. Those who labor movement who also want to "Dump to meet Illinois' steel needs, plants in The drive for. profit is built into the founded the unions saw the need for work­ Reagan" and replace him with Democrat Pennsylvania likewise, etc. The next step capitalist system. Poor and inadequate ers to unite in order to struggle effectively Walter Mondale. This is another important is suggesting a ban on all steel imports and wages, unsafe working conditions, racism, to protect themselves. place where Gus Hall and the Communist reserving the U.S. market for U.S. steel­ discrimination against women, military in­ Workers struggle to defend themselves Party go wrong. The labor movement does need to become active politically. That makers. vasions and wars abroad are all among its by fighting against unemployment and war, (If this is not the intent of sm;h an argu­ effects. So long as capitalism exists work­ fqr better wages and union rights, and so does not mean becoming better - or ment, the only other explanation is that ers can not eliminate these problems. In on. As accidents and speed-up on the job "more radical"- campaigners for defeat­ Hall believes each state should become a fact the crises of the system will worsen increase, workers defend themselves by de­ ing Reagan at all costs. It means using separate economic island, supplied by its these conditions. manding union control over safety and con­ union power to act in labor's interest by ditions of work. As the capitalist economic forming an independent labor party. crisi~ deepens and severe dislocation 6fthe This is key because the struggle to de­ economy occurs, workers will begin to fend· the working class from the capitalist challenge the prerogatives of the employ­ profit drive demonstrates the need to get rid iemanded oil-trust takeover ers to shroud their financial dealings, profit of capitalism itself by fighting for political rates, inventories, etc. in secrecy by de­ power. The present government must be manding they open their booj.(s. changed. Workers and farmers need a gov­ real as mile-long gas lines attested. But the manded government action to bring the oil As workers struggle to defend them­ ernment that will represent the overwhelm­ real cause of the crisis was the profit drive monopolies under some control. Many selves they meet fierce resistance from the ing majority. The Democrats and Republi­ of Exxon, Texaco, Mobil and the other oil· workers pointed to the dear need for public employers and the government they con­ cans will not form such a government. monopolists. scrutiny of the oil industry. trol. The employers, for example, strongly Only labor and its allies can do it by taking This highlighted a particularly danger­ Andrew Pulley, the· Socialist Workers oppose the demand for a shorter work week power out of .the hands of the capitalist · ous feature of advanced - monopoly - Party candidate for president of the United with no cut in pay, which would spread the class. capitalism. As capital is concentrated in the States in the 1980 election responded by de­ available work around and create more hands of even fewer industrialists and manding that the entire energy industry be jobs, because it would mean a cut in their For expropriation bankers this leads to greater monopoly con­ profits. But in the course of struggles like put under public ownership - nationalized Once workers and farmers have taken trol of key industries. A few giant corpora­ these, workers can radicalize, learn, and - immediately. He further proposed that political power, a new government would tions are able to dominate the market, rig draw conclusions about the source of the publicly elected boards oversee the indus­ nationalize __:_ that is expropriate - the prices, and force workers and farmers to try in order to make the facts about its fi­ problems they face and what to do about it. pay an even greater cost. A key conclusion is that workers face a steel industry and take it out of the hands of nancial workings open to all. those who have profited from the labor of Their tremendous wealth and c9ntrol of bigger problem than the drive for,profit by A militant campaign of working-class working people for so long. vital industries puts enormous power into their own employer. Workers as a class are action to demand such steps can play a big This would be done at a pace commen­ the hands of these monopolies - the oil exploited by the employers as a class. The giants are a prime example. They insist on role in mobilizing working people and rais­ employing class brings the power of its surate with the needs and level of under­ standing of the masses .of working people. their "right" to keep all the ins and outs of ing political understanding. This will not government to bear as they resist workers' their business completely secret - even solve unemployment or break the energy just demands. This poses the need for It would be undertaken as part of a total from the capitalist government at times. industry out of the framework of the workers to develop a political movement reorganization of the economy and society capitalist economy or imperialist exploita­ that would include expropriating all basic In 1979 millions of angry workers de- and a political party that can fight to over­ tion. But it can help the working class un­ industry and running it in the interest of the tum the government of big business and the derstand more clearly the need to fight for banks and replace it with one representing majority. This would include developing political power. Some concessions can be the maximum control by the workers them­ the majority - a workers and farmers gov­ won from the employers and their govern­ selves, in each industry, over work rules, ernment. safety conditions, production quotas, etc. ment through this fight. Advancing this understanding should be It is the struggle itself that is of key im­ the aim of the most cons-cious working­ This is the foundation for socialism. portance in sttch circumstances. Fighting class fighters. Demands, proposals, and for nationalization - government action methods of struggle that help workers to - poses the need for workers t0 mobilize see this need clearly are useful. Those Steelworkers Under Attack and act politically to -change the govern­ which obscure that goal act as a brake on How to fight back and defend jobs ment. When workers fight to open the advancing workers' consciousness and by Geoff Mirelowitz, 95 cents, 40 pp. books of the energy trust to public view, moving toward taking political power. In March 1983 the steel corporations im­ they challenge the authority and preroga­ That is why it is wrong for the labor posed big wage, benefit, and work rule con­ tives of capitalist power. The right of the movement to concern itself - as most top cessions on steelworkers. Despite their majority to vital economic information labor officials today do - with making claims, not a single job was saved by these must take priority over the capitalist "right" capitalism :·work better." givebacks. Steelworkers . still face tough to business secrets. times and signs are that they may get worse. This motivated the SWP's call for pub­ In this pamphlet, Mirelowitz, a laid-off steel­ licly elected boards. Contrary to Gus Hall's Nationalize and 'Dump Reagan?' worker, answers the employers' attempts to assertion that such a board "would be dem­ Gus Hall's proposal that workers call for blame workers for the economic crisis in the ocratically elected to include community nationalization under capitalism to provide steel industry. This pamphlet proposes a and worker representation," as in all jobs, while "tying" that movement to a course for the steelworkers' union and the capitalist elections any working-class rep­ "Dump Reagan" campaign will not help entire labor movement to fight back. Militant/Arnold Weissberg resentation on such a board would depend workers see the need to struggle for politi­ Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 West St, isis. Socialist Workers Party joined in de- · on independent working-class political ac­ cal power. However, Hafl's stance is a New York, N.Y. 10014. Please include 75 I put it under control of publicly elected tion through a labor party, Black party, or consistent one. His proposal to solve un­ : cents for postage. at. . I other working-class formations. employment and his proposal for political

November 18, 1983 . The Militant 13 Farm protest actions a step toward unity with unions, Blacks

BY JOHN GAIGE back on my ancestors, the ~ave days, VIRGINIA, Minn. - The Farmer­ people fought and died to free us. We have Labor Solidarity and Survival Day events to fight back to get anything ac­ in Minnesota and parallel activities in Iowa complished." She brought the audience to November I marked a significant step for­ a standing ovation when she said, "We ward in solidarity between farmers, un­ aren't fighting between Blacks and whites ionists, and Blacks in this region. any more, we're fighting together." Nearly 200 people packed Carpenter's Hall here to enjoy a free meal and partici­ Support to copper strike pate in a spirited rally protesting un­ "One and the same, we're under the cop­ employment, union-busting, and attacks per collar," Jim Krass, the copper strike on farmers. leader, said when he reached the podium. Farmers from Minnesota and Wisconsin He added, "What happened to the Bates Ava and Bernard Bates at Kansas protest in October. She told Minnesota rally that donated hundreds of pounds of food for the family cannot go unpunished .. The great family farmers, unionists should unite against their common exploiters. meal and for workers on the Iron Range, unemployment problem on the Iron Range where I2,000 out of I4,000 miners in the I can identify with. The copper mines have Spike Moss, director of the Way, a com- - United Steelworkers of America (USW A) been depressed for as much as I1 out of 24 The building process leading up to and are out of work due to long term shut­ months. With the economic conditions munity group, talked about the importance out of November 1 activities was an impor­ downs. now we can't let the companies take our of farmers to the economy and the issue of tant part of the solidarity achieved in these The rally was sponsored by the Iron hard-fought-for gains, won over 50 years. foreclosure on homes of people in the city. protests. Farmers from NAFA, AAM, and Range Labor Assembly, and the North To win, we will need solidarity for the fu­ Tom Quinn, a Wisconsin farmer repre­ WFU spoke before local meetings of the American Farm Alliance (NAFA). It was ture." senting NAFA, said, "It is not just Reagan, USW A in October and worked closely with endorsed by the following: USWA locals Many people inspired by the speeches, something is wrong with the whole fabric, the Iron Range Labor Assembly. Laid-off I938, 6860,4757, and 6II5; Communica­ stayed to discuss issues informally. There the w-hole direction of the country. For members of the USW A also spoke before tions Workers Local 7202; and the Duluth was singing of "Solidarity Forever", and farmers, a cruel joke has been played on meetings of farmers. Central Labor Body. It also was endorsed all the caps and pins from Minnesota AAM us; we were made to think labor and people In the Twin Cities, Ava and Bernard by Minnesota American Agriculture were sold out. of color were the problem and could not Bates spoke before two churches in the Movement (AAM), Wisconsin Farm Unity At the breakfast rally in north Min­ support us." Black community and were interviewed by (WFU), and U.S. Farmers Association. neapolis, Anita Gay, COC, welcomed Following the formal speeches, there radio stations and USA Today. There are In a related protest in the north Min­ everyone by saying, "Farmers in our state was time for questions and comments. A standing invitations in a number of unions neapolis Black community, I25 people and nation are facing bankruptcy un­ member of the U.S.-Grenada Friendship and community groups for farmers to come participated in a free pancake breakfast at equaled since the I930s. I welcome the op­ Society read a statement denouncing the and explain the farm crisis. the Ruth Hawkins Community Center. It portunity to build unity, human solidarity, U.S. invasion of Grenada. There was progress in getting solidarity was sponsored by the Coalition of Consci­ to seek solutions for much needed social­ for the copper strike. Krass, on November ence (COC) and NAFA. economic change. What affects one di­ 'Like the Nicaraguans say' 2, was able to meet with 14 union leaders The November l events originated from rectly, affects all indirectly." Mark Ritchie, board member of the U.S. on the Iron Range, including Elden Kirsch, a call for a nationwide "Farm Revolt" by Bob Killeen, director for Sub-region IO Farm Association and an activist in NAFA, director of District 33 of USWA, and pres­ the Colo.rado AAM - a series of protests of the United Auto Workers (UAW), said said in closing remarks, "farmers have idents of locals 2660, I938, and 4108 and against the economic disaster driving fam­ he encouraged UA W locals to work with learned two things from the Black struggle. officers of the Operating Engineers and ily farmers off the land. NAFA, a coalition farmers. One is as the Nicaraguans say, 'freedom American Federation of State, County and of farm, labor and community groups, en­ He said Washington claims to be for de­ doesn't come like a bird on the wing;' and Municipal Employees. dorsed the "Farm Revolt" September I7. mocracy in Grenada but supports a dic­ second, that just as racism was not a Black Krass also spoke before two shifts of The featured speakers at both rallies tatorship in Haiti, where workers make problem, the farm crisis is not the farmers' UAW Local 879, the Ford plant here. were Ava Bates, a Black farmer who farms $2.70 a day. He said: "The city is full of problem alone- it is a social issue." These workers agreed to send the .copper. with her husband, Bernard, in Nicodemus, jobs - minimum wage jobs , -at About 30 people from the breakfast rally miners $500. International Association of Kansas, and Jim Krass, chief picket cap­ McDonald's and Wendy's. The only jobs went to Duluth, en route to the evening Machinists Local 1833, workers at North­ tain for the copper miners striking Phelps are in the army, navy, marines, and air event in Virginia. The caravan stopped for west Air Lines, also voted to send $500. At Dodge Co. in Morenci, Arizona. Krass is force. It is tragic to waste bodies and miri<;ls a reception and protest at the Duluth Labor both meetings a bucket was passed to de­ a member of USWA Local 6I6. The in Lebanon and Grenada." Center. fray transportation costs. Bateses were the center of an October 3 protest over a foreclosure sale of nearly a third of their land, which drew 300 people. Frank Stuckel, president of the Iron Range Labor Assembly, welcomed Union hosts big Iowa farm-labor rally everyone to the Iron Range; Tom Quinn of WFU chaired; and Jim Langman, president BY JAY RESSLER people to seats at , long tables, signed "You need jobs," he continued, "and we of Minnesota AAM, spoke briefly. WATERLOO, Iowa-In a massive dis­ people up to receive free sausage, and dis­ need a fair price for farm commodities to Langman, holding a USWA and AAM play of solidarity between farmers, work­ trib_uted the sausage. make a living." cap in each hand, said, "I'm a two fisted ers and Blacks, nearly 1,000 people jam­ Farmers wearing U.S. Farniers Associa­ Riordan pledged, "We're going to do cap man. We brought potatoes and beans med into the headquarters of United Auto tion and National Farm Organization caps some serious coalition-building today." here and I want to take back to farmers this Workers (UAW) Local 838 here also assisted with some of these tasks. Reverend Gains of the Antioch Baptist hat," the USWA hat. November 1 for a rally, free bean soup A farmer who had donated a hog, Gary Church represented Waterloo's Black com­ Jim Daniels, president of USWA Local lunch, and sausage giveaway. Lamb from Toma County, represented munity. "We're all in this boat together," I938; traced the history of the hard-won Local 838 organizes the workers-at the Iowa Farm Unity on the platform. he said, "we must all come together. This union gains on the Iron Range, then stated: huge John Deere farm implement plant in He said, "It is my dream that those who event is a tremendous push for all of us." "People are headed into the roughest winter Waterloo. Four thousand John Deere produce the food and fiber on the land will Mark Smith, state secretary-treasurer of ever seen on the Iron Range. People who werkers are presently on layoff. join with the workers in the factories. the Iowa AFL~CIO, declared, "We're here get away from here are lucky to get work. The overwhelmingly Black audience en­ "Something is wrong in the country to demand an end to unemployment, an People have to give up everything they thusiastically applauded calls for coalition­ today," Lamb went on,. "if there is over­ end to poverty, an end to hunger, an end to have worked for their whole lives, their­ building between farmers, organized labor, production of food and fiber, which causes the arms race." homes, cars, and, many times, even their Blacks, and women to fight against fore­ low prices we are told, and yet people are North American Farm Alliance spokes­ families." closures of farms, low farm prices, high starving. Something is wrong when th_e woman Carol Hodne explained that today Raising his fist, Daniels said, "I would unemployment, and growing demands by workers at Wilson Meatpacking are forced family farmers face an "unpar-alleled bosses for givebacks. Rally participants to take wage cuts while the president of crisis." like to show farmers what this means, the clenched fist of solidarity, farmers and also loudly approved denunciations of the Wilson gets a salary hike to $700,000 a Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers workers fighting together- unity and sol- _ U.S. invasion of Grenada and the U.S. nu­ year. Something is wrong when the color from Omaha's Black community received idarity." clear build up. of your skin is used to decide whether or an enthusiastic ovation when he denounced The audience, predominantly union Jim Riordan, representing the Iowa not you have a job and a fair wage." Washington's invasion of Grenada. members and farmers, listened carefully to Farm Unity Coalition, chaired the event. Local 838 Pres. David Neil announced Chambers said, "There are two stan­ Ava Bates tell the story of the loss of 240 He explained that it was planned to show that Rath Packaging, which is employee­ dards in this country: one for the rich and acres of their farm. the need for solidarity between those who owned, filed for bankruptcy earlier that one for the poor. The rich make the wars "The issue is foreclosure," Bates bear the brunt of the economic crisis today. day. and the poor fight them." Farmers donated II ,000 pounds of saus­ Neil told the· crowd, "We must band to­ explained, "like you getting behind in your Also speaking at the rally were Iowa Lt. payments, for your house or car, for age to unemployed workers. Iowa farmers gether to fight the multinational corpora­ contributed 69 hogs to the effort. Members tions who play off one against the other­ Gov. Bob Anderson and Waterloo's reasons beyond your control. In our case mayor, who was resoundingly booed when we were hailed out and had a drought." of the United Food and Commercial Work­ the workers against the farmers." ers donated the labor to process and pack­ His view was that the way to do that was he took the platform. Later about 60 people Speaking for the interests of many farm­ attended a strategy session. ers, she said, ''They are trying to get rid of age the sausage at the employee-owned to "buy America." He asserted that protec­ Rath Meat Processing plant in Waterloo. tionist measures would help both workers Several farmers opened the discussion the family farm. Corporations and banks by stating the problems they faced, particu­ are getting the land, not family farmers." Riordan also explained that the bean and farmers. soup lunch was donated and prepared by Riordan explained that "We came to larly the growing price of fuel. Joe Swanson, a rail worker from Lin­ 'Must work together' UAW 838 "Brownbaggers" - a volunteer Waterloo to give away sausage because it's community service conimittee of the local a shame that there are people going hungry coln, Nebraska, took the floor and Bates said, "City people, union people, made up mainly of retirees. right here in the heart of the world's bread­ explained the need for "workers and farm­ and farmers must work together. We have Men and women wearing Local 838 basket. It's a shame that farmers are paid ers to break from the two big-business par­ been told our troubles are all because of the jackets, shirts, caps, or pins directed traffic not to grow food, when people are starving ties once and for all." I city." in the overflowing parking lot, staffed the right here in our midst. We want to grow His comments about independent politi­ She closed by saying, "When I look kitchen, directed TV cameras, ushered food. cal action received loud applause.

14 The Militant November 18, 1983 CLUW takes up problems of union organizing Discusses fight against sex discrimination,.attacks on undocumented

challenge facing labor in the 80s and 90s is organizing unorganized workers. She said this is a difficult task and the labor move­ ment "has not been as effective in recent years" in carrying it out. Eighty percent of U.S. workers are. unorganized. Saporta pointed to plant closings, layoffs, high unemployment, and the con­ cessions many unions are making to em­ ployers as one set of obstacles to organiz- . ing efforts. · Another problem, she said, is that "more and more employers are becoming more and more enlightened, not for any altruistic reasons, but they're becoming better em­ ployers ·and you're getting fewer issues. I know that you can go around New Orleans or any other town and find sweatshops or sweat-like shops. But employers are get­ ting a little bit better and they're paying more comparable benefits."

Employers pushing harder The discussions of the women at the conference contradicted Saporta's view that employers are getting more "en­ lightened." In fact, the employers are push­ There are over 3 000 women at Tenneco shipyard in Newport News, .Virginia, where workers won right to Steelworker rep­ ing harder against all workers, trying to resentation and c~ntract with bitter strike in 1979 (above). CLUW conference hailed Steelworkers Local 8888's recent victory take away past gains. For women, Blacks, in beating back decertification attempt. and the undocumented, it's even worse. Far from there being fewer "sweat-like~' shops today, their number is on the rise. BY MARGARET JAYKO last one was in 1980 in Dallas and was blamed the 40 percent wage gap between The New York Times recently ran a two­ NEW ORLEANS - More than 400 about the same size. men and women's paychecks on the fact part series· on "The New Sweatshop." It trade union women from across the country CLUW was founded in 1974 as a na­ that women are less unionized, and on the quoted Jay Mazur, ILGWU secretary-trea­ gathered here on October 28 and 29 for the tional organization of trade union women. fact· that 80 percent of all women workers surer, saying that these sweatshops 1'are the Coalition of Labor Union Women's Its origins are rooted in the rise of the are forced into traditionally low-paying shame of the 1980's in this state [New (CLUW) conference ·on "Organizing the women's liberation movement and the im­ female jobs. York] and in many parts of the country." Unorganized." pact of the growing millions of working Fifty percent of the unions' membership Saporta emphasized the increasing use The workshops and plenary sessions fo­ women on the labor movement. It is open increase in the last 20 years has been of professional union-busting frrms as cused on how to organize the millions of to all trade union women. women, said Miller. She also pointed out another obstacle to organizing efforts. Two unorganized workers, particularly working Its March .1984 Chicago convention, that the labor movement has begun to fight union-busting films utilized by such com­ women, into unions. which will mark the lOth anniversary of the for pay equity for women. Pay equity panies were shown to the conference. Participants felt that in order to win founding of CLUW, will include a one-day means women in predominantly female At the Saturday luncheon, two success­ women to its banner, the union movement conference on affirmative action. This con­ jobs getting the same wages as higher-paid ful organizing drives of women workers must be in the forefront of the fight against vention was seen as an important event for men in predominantly male jobs that re­ were described: one at New York's Colum­ discrimination against women. union women to attend. quire comparable skills and education bia University, and one in Boston. Emphasis was placed on the fact that or­ The conference began the day after levels. Dorine Levasseur, president of SEIU g

Bigger than expected Conference organizers had expected Women unionists aid Hector Marroquin about 250 people, but 419 showed up. The American Federation of State, County and BY PRISCILLA SCHENK faces immediate deportation. Municipal Employees (AFSCME) from NEW ORLEANS - More than 50 par­ At the CLUW conference, supporters of New York sent 150 members. ticipants at the Coalition of Labor Union Marroquin's case were able to talk with About 50 percent of the conference par­ Women (CLUW) October 28-29 "Or­ hundreds of women about the stakes for the ticipants were Black, and there were many ganizing the Unorganized" conference labor movement in this fight. Latinas. While most of the women were signed petitions calling on the Immigration Mary Moore and Marsha Zakowski, in­ middle-aged or older, there were scores of and Naturalization Service to halt the de­ ternational staff representatives of the young union activists. portation of Hector Marroquin. They were United Steelworkers of America, and Her­ Unionists were there from all over the responding to a special "Appeal to Trade dastine Williams, president of Local 11 of South, and from as far away as California, Unionists" distributed by CLUW members the American Federation of State, County New Mexico, and Massachusetts. who are active supporters of Marroquin's and Municipal Employees in Springfield, They came from almost every major fight for political asylum. Illinois, added their names to the growing union: United Auto Workers (UA W); Marroquin is a Mexican-born socialist list of labor endorsements for Marroquin. Communications Workers of America who fled Mexico .in 1974 when he and Others took literature on the case back to (CW A); Service Employees International three of his friends were framed up in the their union locals and CLUW chapters. Union (SEIU); Oil, Chemical and Atomic murder of a librarian at the university. The Unionists from New York pledged to help Workers (OCA W); International Brother­ Mexican police gunned down two of these get out the word about a rally to stop the hood of Teamsters (IBT); Amalgamated friends and "disappeared" the third. Marro­ deportation of Hector Marroquin that will Clothing and Textile Workers Union quin's decision to come to the United be held in New York City on December 3. (ACTWU); American Federation of States saved his life. The rally, culminating Marroquin.' s fall Teachers (AFT); International Association Marroquin found work at the Coca-Cola tour, will feature South African poet and of Machinists (lAM); International Ladies' bottling plant in Houston, where he helped educator Dennis Brutus, Aurora Camacho Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU); in an organizing drive to win representation de Schmidt of the American Friends Ser­ Lukecart United Steelworkers of America (USW A); by the Teamsters union. About a year later vice Committee's Mexico-U.S. Border Hector Marroquin (left) at United Farm International Union of Electrical Workers he was arrested by immigration cops. Program, and other well-known advocates Workers convention. Marroquin and (IUE); and the United Food and Commer­ For the past six years, he has been fight­ of refugee rights. his supporters have visited many union cial Workers (UFCW). ing a legal and political battle to stay in this The rally will be held at 8:00p.m. at the meetings, picket lines, and plant gates to This was the setond national CLUW or­ country. He now faces his final appeal be ~ Ethical Culture Society, 2 West 64th win support for his right to political ganizing the unorganized conference. The fore the Supreme Court. If he loses, he Street, New York. asylum in U.S.

Nove~be.-18, 1983 The Militant Ui FBI, CIA use disruption lawsuit against SWP to boost informers

dangers involved, and of the political con­ curred in this lawsuit. The Government, text in which this move is being made, to which has stood by ip passive acquiescence Socialists lightmindedly dismiss the government's to the malicious prosecution of this action effort as a frivolous move. Itis deadly seri­ against the Socialist Workers Party, has ous. A rapid and vigorous response is now come forward to seek further advan­ seek damages, needed to expose this government sneak at­ tage from this abusive lawsuit. The Court tack on the Bill of Rights and to demand should not countenance this attempt to ag­ condemn that Pfaelzer repudiate it in the most deci- gravate the injury to the SWP and to the sive manner. · Constitutional Rights of all Americans. Pfaelzer has announced that she will gov'tmove hold a hearing on the "proposed conclu­ sions of law" submitted in the case. The I. The Government's First BY LARRY SEIGLE date for this hearing has not yet been fixed. Proposed Conclusion of Law LOS ANGELES - At an October 24 Violates the First and Fourth· hearing in federal court here, Judge Amendments to the Constitution Mariana Pfaelzer repeated what sht; has said on earlier occasions: the lawsuit filed Government's The federal defendants have asked this by Alan Gelfand against the Socialist Court to hold that "[t]he use of informants Workers Party was a fraud. ·'Proposed within political parties for investigative "The case never had merit, and the Militant/Della Rossa and data-gathering activities does not con­ plaintiff never had any. evidence," Pfaelzer Attorney for SWP David Epstein stitute a violation of individual rights." stressed. • With this sweeping proposal, the Gov­ Gelfand had charged that his expulsion Conclusions ernment would have this Court grant from the party was the work of government ten opinion on this motion, and her deci­ license to the federal police to in~ade polit­ agents who have taken over the SWP. He sion is expected soon. of ical organizations, in violation of both the demanded that the court order him While this battle is underway, the De­ Law' First and the Fourth Amendments to the reinstated and remove the elected leader­ partment of Justice has opened another The following document lists the three Constitution of the United States. The ship of the party. front in the case. Seeking to take advantage rulings on informers the government is Socialist Workers Party and other private Despite repeated efforts by the SWP to of the Gelfand suit to further invade the asking Judge Pfaelzer to make. associations of political activists, even have the case thrown out of court, Pfaelzer rights of the SWP and all other working­ though engaged entirely in protected First refused to do so. She allowed Gelfand and class organizations, the government has 1. The use of informants within politi­ Amendment activities, would be held fair his lawyers, from the finn of Fisher & asked Pfaelzer to issue a legal opinion au­ cal parties for investigative and data targets for informer penetration. This Moest, to continue harassing the party and thorizing the FBI and CIA to use informers gathering purposes does not constitute a would amount to a denial of the right of the draining its financial resources for four and provocateurs against the SWP and violation of individual rights. Laird v. SWP and other political organizations to years. When the case finally went to trial similar organizations. Tatum (1972). function free from disruptive intrusion by last spring, Pfaelzer had no choice but to The FBI and CIA were nominally defen­ 2. The use of informants for investiga­ hostile Government agents. admit the case had been a sham. dants in the Gelfand suit, but this was a tive and intelligence gathering activities At the end of the trial, Pfaelzer summed legal fiction. The government lawyers sat may not be enjoined. Socialist Workers A. Laird v. Tatum Provides No up by telling the lawyers for Gelfand: "You for four years with their hands folded. Party v. Attorney General (1974); Repor­ Support for This Conclusion. They were satisfied that Gelfand, with the ters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. have not proved anything that you said you The Government cites but one case in were going to prove. Nothing." aid of Fisher & Moest and the connivance American Telephone & Telegraph Co. of Pfaelzer, was doing a good job of har­ (1978). support of its proposed conclusion. Laird. How does Pfaelzer square her earlier v. Tatum (1972), however, provides no steadfast refusal to throw the case out with assing the SWP. But after the trial, when 3. The identities of informants who the disruption operation seemed to be com­ have conducted activities within the support whatsoever. First, there was no al­ her admission that the whole lawsuit was a legation in Laird that informers were used lie? At the October 24 hearing, she put on ing to an end, the FBI and CIA mouth­ Socialist Workers Party are protected from pieces made their move. disclosure by the informant privilege. to penetrate any closed meetings or private a long face and said, "I made a mistake. I discussions of a political party or associa­ was so anxious to give the plaintiff a The form of their offensive is a legal Black v. Sheraton Corporation (1'977); In document known as "proposed conclusions re United States (Socialist Workers Party tion and second, the Court did not even chance to prove his case." reach the issue of the propriety of informer Therefore, Pfaelzer said, she herself was of law." We are reprinting this document v. Attorney General) (1977). here, along with major excerpts from activities, but rather decided the case on "somewhat at fault" for allowing Fisher & narrow grounds of justiciability. Moest and Gelfand to carry out their spuri­ SWP's response to it. The response was Respectfully submitted, ous lawsuit, slandering and abusing the submitted by David Epsteiri, a partner in a well-known Los Angeles law firm headed J.PAUL MCGRATH B. The Government's Proposed party and forcing it to divert funds and per­ Assistant Attorney General Conclusion Has No Basis in Law. sonnel to defend itself in court. by Ben Margolis and John T. McTernan, The apologies from the judge, however two veteran fighters against government STEPHEN S. TROTT The Government is attempting to trans.­ insincere, are a sign of the political pres­ witch-hunts and frame-ups. United States Attorney form Laird into support for the proposition Ironically, Gelfand and Fisher & Moest, sure she is under from a growing number of VINCENT M. GARVEY that the FBI and other police agencies have defenders of democratic rights who have who have masqueraded as fighters against a blanket right to send informers into polit­ protested against this courtroom outrage. the secret police, have not opposed the FBI LINDA L. CROMWELL ical parties. Laird simply says no such and CIA move. Likewise, the British But hypocritical judicial regrets won't STANLEY DALTON WRIGHT thing. Moreover, the Government cites not pay the legal fees and other expenses run Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) has a single other case, for none can be found, up by the SWP and by the Political Rights completely ignored this government effort Attorneys, Department of Justice to support the vast expansion of the Gov­ Defense Fund, which has organized ·pub­ to bolster its legal right to use informer­ Civil Division, ernment's power that it is asking this Court licity and fund raising for the defendants. provocateurs. The WRP financed and or­ Washington, D.C. to decree. Even more important, such regrets won't ganized Gelfand's lawsuit as part of its Such a holding would, in fact, amount to serve to deter similar disruption suits worldwide slander and disruption cam­ a charter for informer activity that no Court brought by other impostors and prosecuted paign to smear the SWP as a front for the has ever granted, and would contravene the by other corrupt attorneys willing to violate FBI. Response by First and Fourth Amendment rights of the anybody's rights if the price is right. The legal issues the government has now SWP and other political organizations. put before Pfaelzer are exactly the ques­ To deter such future disruption suits, the tions at the heart of the SWP suit against Socialist 1. . Government Informers Engaged in SWP is demanding that the judge make the FBI, CIA, Immigration Service, and "lnvestigat[ion] and Data-Gathering" Fisher & Moest pay the attorney's fees and other federal agencies. That case, known Within Dissident Political other legal expenses of the SWP defen~ as SWP v. Attorney General, has now been Workers Organizations are Not Mere Passive dants. Pfaelzer is now preparing her writ- pending for more than decade. It is referred Observers. to several times in the legal documents we are printing on these pages. Party The Government's proposed conclusion Defend The trial in that suit was held before describes the function of informers in Judge Thomas Griesa in New York more Introduction groups such as the SWP as carrying out political than two years ago. Griesa has not yet is­ "investigative and data-gathering pur­ rights sued his ruling, and won't say when he in­ The Government defendants propose poses." This vague characterization tends to do so. three Conclusions of Law, each of which glosses over the fact that the presence of While Griesa stalls, the FBI and CIA are should be rejected by the Court. hostile Government informers in activist Fighting the disruption law­ seeking to use the Gelfand- Fisher & Moest It is settled that the Court should adopt groups like the SWP, where a high level of suit against the Socialist Work­ only "such findings as are necessary to the activity is a requirement of membership, ers Party has . entailed big ex­ suit to get a ruling in its favor on the in­ penses, and the battle is not former issue, hoping the move will be disposition of the case between the par­ and where every member votes on the full over yet. . made without much public attention and ties." Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator range of policy questions, is by its very na­ Send yo.ur tax-deductible con­ therefore without much protest. Co. v. Thermoco, Inc. (1941). None ofthe ture disruptive of the activities of the as­ tribution to the Political Rights As Epstein points out in the SWP's Government's proposed conclusions of law sociation as well as a violation of its mem­ Defense Fund at P.O. Box 649, brief, the government's proposed legal is necessary to the resolution of the issues bers' rights of associational privacy. Cooper Station, New York, N.Y. conclusions "would compound the viola­ properly before the Court. In fact, the Indeed, the fact that FBI informers have . 10003. Checks should be made tion of the First Amendment that has al­ proposed conclusions are nothing but an at­ routinely engaged in disruption activities payable to PROF, Inc. ready occurred in this lawsuit. The Gov­ tempt by the Government defendants to against the SWP was indisputably estab­ $Enclosed ______is my contribution______of ernment, which has stood by in passive ac­ gain the sanction of this Court for activities lished by Judge Thomas P. Griesa's review quiescence to the malicious prosecution of by police informers which they have not of FBI informer files describing such "in­ Name------­ this action against the Socialist Workers been able to justify to any other Court, or vestigative and data-gathering activity" in Address ------­ Party, has now come forward to seek to the public. the SWP's pending litigation against the City ~------­ further advantage from this abusive law­ Further, if adopted, the proposed con­ Attorney General: State/Zip --=------suit." clusions would compound the violation of "The documents show FBI plans to place It would be a serious misreading of the the First Amendment that has already oc- informants within the SWP and YSA

16 The Militant November 18, 1983 [Young Socialist Alliance] to split the or­ with the FBI in an illegal eavesdropping ganization structure and foment dissent operation in an investigation of criminal .... It appears that in some cases infor­ activity. The Appeals Court affirmed the mants directly participated in the carrying denial of the motion. The Appeals Court out ofthe disruption activities. In other in­ held that the ·documents were "essentially stances the informants furnished the FBI irrelevant" to plaintiff's case and that plain­ with information which enabled regular tiff had not succeeded in making a showing agents of the FBI to conduct the disruption of need sufficient to overcome the govern­ activities. The observations of the infor­ ment's interest in concealing the identities mants assisted the FBI in assessing the suc­ of the informers. cess or failure of disruption activities." Clearly, the "essentially irrelevant" in­ Socialist Workers Party v. Attorney Gen­ Nancy Bekavac, attorney for Fisher & Moest law firm, at October 24 hearing. At left, terest described is far different from the in­ eral (1978). Alan Gelfand. Gelfand and his backers have ignored government move to bolster in­ terest in disclosure that the Socialist Work­ For this Court to find that FBI or CIA in­ formers. ers Party -or any other voluntary political former penetration of political parties and association - might assert in defense of its associations engaged in First Amendment involveq state enforcement of a provision Government upon the privacy of the indi­ constitutional rights to function free from activity does not "constitute a violation of which would have resulted in private citi­ vidual, whatever the means employed, government intrusion and disruption. individual rights," as the Government zens of a different political persuasion must be deemed a violation of the 4th This was exactly the situation in In re proposes, would be to grant the FBI the being admitted to the Democratic Party Amendment." United States (1 978) which the Govern­ power to act in precisely the manner that convention. If such a provision violates the As the Supreme Court observed in ment inexplicably invokes as support for its the First and Fourth Amendments now pro- First Amendment rights of the party, then conclusion. The holding is not as the Gov­ hibit. . United States v. United States District the use of FBI informers against groups Court (1972): ernment claims. such as the SWP does so a fortiori, because "The price of lawful public dissent must There, in the course of the litigation be­ 2. Use of Informers Against Political it involves penetration of political associa­ not be a dread of subjection to an· un­ Organizations Engaged in First tween the SWP and the FBI, CIA, INS, tions by hostile informers under control of checked surveillance power. Nor must the and other federal agencies, the defendants Amendment Activity Violates the the Government itself. fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping Rights·of Associational Privacy. had appealed an order directing the FBI to c: First Amendment rights are chilled deter vigorous citizen dissent and discus­ produce informer files for inspection by a. Even the identities of members and by surveillance by informers. sion of Government action in private con­ plaintiff's attorneys. The Appeals Court re­ supporters of First Amendment groups In White v. Davis(l975), the California versation." fused to disturb the judge's order, saying, subjected to Government and Employer Supreme Court held that undercover spy­ "[w]here the identification of an informer harassment are protected from disclosure. ing on classroom discussions and public or the production of his communications is Even if the activities of the informers and private meetings of campus-based II. The Government's Second essential to a fair determination of the is­ could somehow be restricted "only" to col­ groups "is likely to pose substantial re­ Proposed Conclusion of Law Is sues in the case, the privilege cannot be .in­ lecting the names of members and suppor­ straint upon the exercise of First Amend­ voked." ters of the SWP and other dissenting polit­ ment rights "which could only be sustaina­ Unsupported by Any Existing Authority The subsequent history of Judge ical groups, such activity would still con­ ble if the police could demonstrate a com­ Griesa's attempts to enforce his order illus­ stitute a violation of the First Amendment. pelling state interest that could not be The Government proposes that the Court trates even more graphically the degree to It has long been established that com­ served by less intrusive means. White, a adopt as a conclusion of law that "the use which the Government has misstated the pelled disclosure to the Government of professor at U.C.L.A., sued to enjoin the of informants for investigative and intelli­ Jaw here in an attempt to elicit from the in­ membership in an organization engaged in Los Angeles Police Department from using gence gathering activities may not be en­ stant case a ruling it has been unable to get political advocacy constitutes interference Public Disorder and Intelligence Division joined." No authority exists for this asser- in any other Court. The Government un- with freedom and privacy of association, officers as "secret informers and under­ particularly where the group espouses be­ cover agents" to report on ·discussions at ,, ______liefs in opposition to the policies of those in classes at the university and on meetings of office, NAACP v. Alabama (1958); and university-recognized organizations. The Government would have this Court grant license to ~ that such interference can be justified only The court held that the complaint, which iflt is shown to substantially further a com­ alleged that the informer reports "pertain to the federal police to invade political organizations, pelling state interest. no illegal activity or acts," demonstrated a The principles articulated in NAACP v. prima facie violation of First Amendment [denying] the right of the SWP and other political Alabama have been reaffirmed in numer­ rights, and that furthermore, the complaint organizations to function free from disruptive intrusion ous subsequent cases, most recently by the stated a cause of action under the right of Supreme Court in Brown v. Socialist Work­ privacy recognized by Article I, Section 1 ______by hostile Government agents ... · .. ,, ers '74 Campaign Committee (Ohio) of the California Constitution. See also (1982). Local 309 v. Gates (1948) (injunction Government informer operations against granted excluding state police from attend­ tion; in particular, the .cases cited by the successfully sought certiorari [review by the SWP and similar private associations ing union meetings in violation of mem­ Government do not lend any support what­ th6 Supreme Court] of the Second Circuit's also violate the rights of such groups to de~ bers' First Amendment ~ights.) soever to this sweeping claim. In fact, even refusal to overturn the order concerning the termine their political platform and or­ the cases cited by the Government defen­ informer files. Bell v. Socialist Workers ganize their activities free from govern­ 3. The Use of Informers Against dants contradict their proposed conclusion. Party (1978). ment interference. Political Parties Engaged in Lawful In Socialist Workers Party v. Attorney Having thus failed to get the discovery In Democratic Party of U.S . v. Wiscon­ Advocacy Violates the Fourth General of the United States (1974) the order overturned, the Attorney General sin (1981), the Supreme Court ruled that a Amendment. Government defendants appealed from a then took the extreme step of informing state could not constitutionally require a preliminary injunction prohibiting FBI in­ Judge Griesa that he would refuse to com­ national political party to accept delegates While courts have often sustained the formers from spying on the 1974 national ply. Faced with the flagrant disobedience who may have been selected in part by po­ use of informers in criminal investigations, convention of plaintiff Young Socialist Al­ of.a valid discovery order, Judge Griesa, litical rivals. The Court stated: no authority exists for the use of secret in­ liance (YSA). The Court of Appeals vac­ after repeated warnings, held the Attorney "This First Amendment freedom to formers against political organizations ated the order. General in contempt of court. Socialist gather in association for the purpose of ad­ which are not reasonably believed to be en­ The Court, however, expressly reserved Workers Party v. Attorney General of the vancing shared beliefs is protected by the gaging in or planning illegal acts. Such a judgment on whether the use of informers U.S. (1978). . Fourteenth Amendment from infringement conclusion would constitute a violation of against the YSA or SWP could ultimately This judgment was then appealed to the by any State. And the freedom to associate the Fourth Amendment because it would be enjoined: "Such an issue deserves treat­ Second Circuit, which ruled that the Attor­ for the 'common advancement of political permit Government intrusion into areas in ment on a full record and with ample time ney General could not properly be held in beliefs,' necessarily presupposes the free­ which one has a reasonable expectation of for reflection . .. [t]here was no urgency contempt. In re Attorney General ofU nited dom to identify the people who constitute privacy. Members of political parties such requiring the district judge to decide issues States (1979). Once again, however, the the association, and to limit the association as the SWP have a reasonable expectation of such gravity by granting an injunc­ Court of Appeals did not disturb the under­ to those people only .... of privacy regarding discussions at meet­ tion . ..." In· fact, the Court assumed the lying order, although it did deprive the dis­ "On several occasions this Court has rec­ ings closed to non-members, held in their opposite of the Government's proposed trict court of the means of enforcing the ognized that the inclusions of persons unaf­ own offices and meeting halls. Informer conclusion. The use of informers may be order against the Attorney General. filiated with a political party may seriously monitoring and reporting on such internal enjoined if a proper showing is made. Thus, it is clear that there is no blanket distort its collective decisions - thus im­ deliberations would therefore constitute an privilege that can be invoked as to disclo­ pairing the Party's essential functions - unreasonable search and seizure in viola­ sure of informers· in the SWP, particularly and that political parties may accordingly tion of the Fourth Amendment. III. The Government's Third where there are indications that the infor­ protect themselves 'from intrusion by those The proposition that the Fourth Amend­ Proposed Conclusion of Law Is mers have been involved in unlawful ac­ with adverse political principles.'" ment prohibits the use of informers to infil­ Unsupported by Any Existing tivities. But. police operations involving penetra­ trate and spy upon those engaged in con­ Authority tion by Government informers of the SWP stitutionally protected speech and assembly Conclusion and other associations advocating a revolu-· is consistent with the history of the Fourth · The Government proposes for its third tionary change in the policies and form of Amendment itself, which was adopted to conclusion of law that "[t]he identities of For the foregoing reasons, all three of the Government's proposed conclusions of Government make a mockery of these protect the people against exactly such informants who have conducted activities Jaw should be rejected. groups' rights to "protect themselves 'from arbitrary Government interference. Justice within the Socialist Workers Party are pro­ DATED: 27 OCTOBER 1983 intrusion by those with adverse political Brandeis described the underlying purpose tected from disclosure by the informant principles.'" Informers acting under the of the Amendment in his dissenting opin­ privilege." As with the Government's Respectfully submitted, control of a hostile FBI or other Govern­ ion in Olmstead v. United States (1928): other proposed conclusions of law, this is ment agency invade every party function "The makers of our Constitution . .. a misstatement of the law. MARGOLIS,MCTERNAN, SCOPE, and decision-making process, casting votes conferred, as against the Government, In Black v. Sheraton Corp. of America SACKS & EPSTEIN on disputed questions and interfering with the right to be let alone - the most com­ (1977), on which the Government relies, the rights of the bona fide members to exer­ prehensive of rights and the right most plaintiff had unsuccessfully moved for an By DAVID B. EPSTEIN cise control over their own organizations. valued by civilized men. To protect that order compelling disclosure of the names Attorneys for Defendant Democratic Party of U.S. v. Wisconsin right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the of hotel employees who had cooperated Socialist Workers Party

November 18, 1983 The Militant 17 Open letter to Polish union leader Lech Walesa

Dear Brother Walesa, There are other examples. Many public employees are I recently attended the AFL-CIO convention as a re­ denied the right to strike by law. And others, like rail porter for the Militant. Despite the serious situation that workers, while maintaining the legal right to strike, are the U.S. trade union movement finds itself in, this was a routinely denied it by court injunctions forcjng them back rather routine and boring affair. However, the delegates to work. perked up when your message was read. As a supporter So you can see that in the United States, the struggle of the struggle of Solidarity and the Polish workers for for unions that are genuinely able to function indepen­ trade-union rights, I also listened to it with interest. dently of the government and the employers, is not "past In your Jetter you wrote: history" at all. "The problems facing the American working people There is another fact that is not part of the past history seem to differ fundamentally from those confronting us of the U.S. working class, that is part of the past history in Poland. First and foremost, the difference lies in the of Polish workers. After World War I! you overthrew capitalism, got rid of the rule of big business and land­ lords and established a planned economy. We in the AS I SEE IT United States have not done that. Capitalism, with its relentless drive for profit, remains the fundamental problem facing our trade union move­ possibility of legal existence and functioning of trade ment. A tiny class of bankers and industrialists still con­ unions, independent of the State and/or the employers. trols the wealth produced by the workers. They also con­ For you this problem now belongs to past history . . . " trol the government and use it to protect their interests. It is true that the legal existence of the U.S. trade union This explains the attacks on the copper miners. movement is not being openly challenged by the employ­ This explains why PATCO was busted. ers at this time. Nevertheless, the U.S. labor movement This explains antiunion legislation on the books of fed­ is under serious attack. Open strikebreaking and union­ eral and state governments. busting are becoming more common. This explains the massive layoffs and unemployment The majority of U.S. workers are not members of trade which are among our chief problems today. unions. The government and the employers strive to The tiny capitalist ruling class in the United States in block new union organizing efforts. For the working . its quest for profits also oppresses and exploits tens of class, winning - and in some cases maintaining - trade millions of other working people in the colonial and union rights is only the result of ongoing struggle. It can­ semicolonial countries. So you touched on an important not be said that this is part of our "past history." point when you wrote in your message: Furthermore, even those powerful unions which have "The solidarity of the working people has shown to be Lech Walesa been forged through previous struggle do not by any stronger than national borders." means function "independent of the state and the employ­ But you make a mistake in thanking the AFL-CIO ers." leaders for their "solidarity" with Polish workers. Their the Caribbean? Because the foreign policy of the AFL­ In Arizona and Texas copper miners are in their fifth "solidarity" has little to do with genuine support for CIO leadership is not based on solidarity at all. It is based month on the picket lines. They have been the victims workers' struggles. As they were proclaiming their sup­ on anti-communism. They use their ill-intentioned sup­ of an open drive by the Phelps Dodge Corp. and the gov­ port for Solidarity in Poland, they stood by and took no port for Solidarity's legitimate battle against bureaucracy ernment to break their strike and bust their unions. Court progressive action to defend the PATCO workers. In­ for their own anti-communist purposes. injunctions limit the number of pickets to a small hand­ stead they called for an embargo on Polish trade. You, Brother Walesa, enjoy tremendous moral author­ ful. The National Guard and state police have escorted Moreover, most of these union officials refuse to ex­ ity with workers in the United States who have correctly scabs into the mines. The strikers have been falsely tend any solidarity to working people around the world been inspired by Solidarity's struggle. An appeal by you charged with "mob violence" and many have been jailed. - like those in Grenada, Nicaragua, El Salvador, or for genuine solidarity with fellow workers who are fight­ ing imperialism would have a great impact here and Certainly you are familiar with the experience of the Lebanon - who are forced to fight the armed might of around the world. Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization the the U.S. government. · (PATCO) two years ago. When these workers were These same. officials take every opportunity to attack The working people of Central America and the Carib­ bean especially, who are on the front lines of the fight to forced on strike to win better wages and more humane revolutionary Cuba and try to slander it in the eyes of working conditions, their strike was broken by direct U.S. workers. extend the socialist revolution, deserve the international government order. All 12,000 · were fired and then What explains this? Why is the AFL-CIO officialdom solidarity of the world working class. blacklisted from working in their field. Today PATCO for "solidarity" with Polish workers but opposed to sol­ In solidarity, no longer exists. idarity with workers and peasants in Central America and Geoff Mirelowitz CLUW takes up problems of union organizing

Continued from Page 15 Kathy Andrade, Education Director of women's activities for AFSCME, Sonia Galan, a member of the Salvado­ which was addressed by seven Latino un­ ILGWU Local 23-25 in New York, esti­ explained the importance of making ran labor federation, FENASTRAS, at­ ionists. It was attended by more than 60 mated that half the members of her local women workers aware that the culprit in · tended the conference. She was there as women, including many Blacks and are undocumented. Andrade, who is from sex discrimination is the company, not part of a nationwide tour to seek out the Latinas. El Salvador, mentioned that thousands of their coworkers, who the company seeks to solidarity of U.S. trade unionists for the. Several speakers praised the resolution Salvadoran immigrants who were forced to pit them against at every tum. struggles of Salvadoran workers and peas­ flee their homeland by the U.S. -backed ants against the U.S.-backed dictatorship adopted by the 1979 CLUW convention on CLUW's general counsel, Winn New­ undocumented workers. dictatorship there are among the un­ there. documented workers. man, contended that in order to organize CLUW's 1979 resolution includes: sup­ Dozens of CLUW members were able to Ida Torres, vi<,:e-president of Local 3 of women into unions, it is necessary for the port for efforts to organize the un­ meet Galan, and several came to a recep­ the Retail, Wholesale Department Store labor movement to fight against sex dis­ documented; opposition to Immigration tion for her at the end of the conference, Union in New York, discussed some of the crimination on the job. Virtually every em­ and Naturalization Service (INS) work­ which was sponsored by OCAW Local activities of the New York Central Labor ployer in the United States, Newman said, place raids; opposition to employer penal­ is guilty of sex discrimination. Unions 4-447, the Southern Christian Leadership ties for hiring undocumented workers; and Council in support of human rights in El Conference, and the Sonia Galan Tour Salvador and in touring labor leaders from couid use the fight for pay equity as a way support for a full, permanent amnesty for to make women see that the unions are for Committee in the New Orleans area. Many all workers currently living in this country. Central America in their locals. members signed up to get more informa­ Medina took up the racist history of them. Newman felt that the feminist move­ It is no accident that CLUW - which ment and the labor movement have to get tion about El Salvador and to possibly get represents trade union women - has a bet­ immigration laws, tracing the roots of the Galan to speak at their locals. current racist legislation such as the together on this. ter position on undocumented workers than There was some discussion about the There was a small layer of officials and the AFL-CIO leadership does. As part of Simpson-Mazzoli bill to the 1950s witch­ others at the conference who were not hunt against the labor movement and dem­ fact that the AFL-CIO must make fighting the oppressed sex, women workers can pleased with the warm response Galan was ocratic rights. sex discrimination a priority issue. identify with many of the problems that Another issue that came up in the discus­ receiving. also confront the undocumented. Several speakers expressed their opposi­ sion is sexual harassment on the job and the At the Saturday luncheon, CLUW Pres­ Workshop participants pointed out that tion to the Simpson-Mazzoli bill and their need for the union to combat it. many of the undocumented are women and feeling of relief that it wasn't passed by ident Miller referred to a meeting being held by an "outside group" that evening. face even worse working conditions and Congress this time around. The AFL-CIO Quality-of-Work:.Life Circles sexual harassment on the job than do other leadership's support for the many reactio­ She said those building the meeting were women. nary features of this legislation came in for There was a workshop on "Decertifica­ falsely claiming that CLUW was support­ harsh criticism. tions, Quality Circles, and Concession ing the mt!eting and said that the people ad­ Unions must organize undocumented Also discussed was the role of the INS as Bargaining." Employers are using all three vertising the .meeting have "nothing to do of these as part of their union-busting of­ with" CLUW. Several speakers pointed out that the un­ a strike breaker and as a police force used fensive. This attack on the reception for Galan, documented are concentrated in the lowest­ to smash union organizing drives by raid­ ing shops that are being organized and then A lively debate broke out on the whether which was being built by CLUW members, paying jobs - fields, garment shops, workers should support Quality-of-Work­ did not go over well . Many women told hotels, and restaurants. The existence of deporting prounion workers. Life programs in their plants. Many work­ Galan they were angry about Miller's re­ the unions who organize these industries Andrade said that it was important to shop participants had first-hand experience marks. They pointed out that the leaflet hinges on their ability to organize the un­ look toward the March 1984 CLUW con­ vention as a place to further this. discussion with these. didn't claim that CLUW was sponsoring documented. To do that, they have to edu­ The workshop on Internal Organizing the event. Others remarked that they were cate on the rights that the undocumented do on organizing undocumented workers and changing the position of the labor move­ included a discussion on how to establish glad Galan was there. have, and fight against all attempts by the ment on this question. women's committees in the unions. The CLUW conference was the first na­ government and the employers to violate tional trade union gathering since the be­ their rights. · In the final plenary report on the work­ Sex discrimination ginning of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Jose Medina, an SEIU lawyer, shop on Union Busting, stress was put on explained that undocumented workers are The two sessions of the workshop on sex the need to get back to the kind of organiz­ Informal discussions revealed a lot of not antiunion or impossible to organize. discrimination focused on the need for the ing ~rives that built the Congress of Indus­ opposition to the invasion and an interest in Many of these workers have a rich and union movement to fight sex discrimina­ trial Organizations (CIO), with strong getting more facts on Grenada. Women long-standing labor background in their na­ tion uncompromisingly if it is to ever be rank-and-file involvement. from AFSCME in New York described the tive lands. Fear of their immigration status able to organize the millions of unor­ The final plenary also decided to send a . union meeting they had, which debated the and of Ia migrd (INS) sometimes keeps ganized women workers. message of support to the striking copper U.S. invasion and thel). passed a resolution them from being outspokenly prounion. Marilyn Depoy, assistant coordinator of miners in Arizona. opposing it.

18 The Militant November 18, 1983 Hawaii: the record of U.S. colonial domination Hawaii: Islands Under the Influence, by Noel J. Kent. After World War II, U.S.-based corporations im­ New York & London, Monthly Review Press, 1983, plemented a division of labor in the Pacific in which 215 pages, $22 hardback. some countries supply raw materials and cheap manufac" tured goods for the benefit of capitalists in other-coun­ BY MORRIS STARSKY tries. As the multinationals moved in and the Big Five The story of Hawaii, according to this useful book, is transformed themselves into.. multinationals, the strategy not too different from that of other oppressed peoples in of developing tourism in Hawaii was adopted. Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Their development, under the domination of foreign capital, became attuned It was implemented by both the Democratic and Re­ to the economic needs of the advanced capitalist center publican parties and supported by the "house broken" on which they were depen~ent for their capital, technol­ ILWU whose militant leadership was purged in an anti­ ogy, skills, and organization. Consequently, these coun­ communist witch-hunt. tries suffer from high unemployment, low wages, high The development of the tourist industry has been a dis­ cost of living, an immense debt burden, and increasing aster for all working people in Hawaii, especially for the oppression of the toiling masses. native Hawaiians. A few years ago, the cost of living in Hawaii: Islands Under the Influence is not a "techni­ Honolulu was 40 percent higher than in a comparable cal" or "theoretical" book. It is a general account of the mainland city. Yet, the average wage was 8.4 percent economic, political, and social development imposed on less than the U.S. average. Native Hawaiians, the Hawaii by U.S. domination for the better part of 200 190,000 of them left in the islands, now only constitute years. Hawaiian protest of Navy bombing of an island held 17 percent of the population. Of these, 40 percent are em­ The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, sacred. ployed in the tourist industry, which has the lowest-pay­ consisting of six chapters, Kent analyzes the impact on ing jobs. Hawaiian society of interaction with the world capitalist capitalists. They arrested leaders of the revolt and oc­ Land policy system from Captain Cook's arrival in 1778 to the end of cupied government buildings. the "plantation society" era after World War II. Fifteen years later, in 1887, a Bayonet Constitution Long before statehood in 1959, 188,000 acres of land The first hundred years of contact with foreign capital was imposed on the Hawaiian people after a successful were set aside for native Hawaiians. Since that time only plundered the island's sandlewood, destroyed · the coup, organized by Sanford Dole and other plantation about 3,000 homesteads have been granted and 80 per­ Hawaiian subsistence economy, displaced the Hawaiian owners. The new constitution gave U.S. citizens the right cent of the land is still unavailable to native Hawaiians. people from their land, ended their political indepen­ to vote in Hawaiian elections, while a large sector of the Land is now even more valuable than it was during the dence by force, and reduced the native population to one­ .Hawaiian population was excluded through strict prop­ era of the plantation society. Not much grows on it these sixth of its size through poverty and disease. erty qualifications. Asians were excluded as aliens. days but hotels and resorts. Two years ago 60 percent of When Captain James Cook, the British explorer, ar- the vegetables, 76 percent of the fruits, and 72 percent of Republic of Hawaii the meats consumed by residents of these fertile islands were imported. BOOK.~ The showdown on Hawaiian sovereignty finally came Taxes in Hawaii are the highest in the nation to pay for REVIEW in 1893 when· another coup, again organized by U.S. the roads and public services required by the tourist in­ plantation owners working with a U.S. diplomat and dustry~ This tax burden falls heaviest on those with the rived in Hawaii in 1778, political power was in the hands backed by U.S. Marines, deposed Queen Liliuokalani lowest income. of chiefs or kings, who controlled large areas or even and abolished the monarchy. A year later, the U.S. gov­ Recently, an article on Hawaii appeared in the New whole islands. Soon the foreigners backed King ernment recognized the "Republic of Hawaii" with none York Times under the headline, "90 Years After Amer­ Kamehameha of the Big Island in his struggle for other than Sanford Dole as its president. In 1898, Con­ icans Took Charge, Some Hawaiians Still Distrust U.S." hegemony over the powerful kings of Maui and Kaui. gress passed the Newlands Resolution which, in effect, The Times reported that the Native Hawaiians Study annexed the Hawaiian Islands. Commission, appointed by Congress in 1980, recom­ Capitalism introduced In the second part of Hawaii: Islands Under the Influ­ mended against federal reparations for native Hawaiians ence, Kent examines the transformation of Hawaiian so­ During the next few decades, the capitalist develop­ in payment for U.S. responsibility in the coup that over­ ciety from an agriculture-for-export economy to one threw the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. The three native ment of Hawaii undermined the old Polynesian institu­ based on tourism. The foundation of the economy was tions. A new governmental structure and legal system Hawaiian members of the commission, the Times com­ undermined by years of reduced sugar quotas and in­ mented, "were outvoted by the six mainland members." were required by the needs of a growing capitalist class. creased beet sugar production in mainland states. This task was carried out by missionaries. The story of Small wonder that some native Hawaiians still distrust In addition, the plantation owners hated the organiza­ Washington. the missionaries' role in the colonization of Hawaii shat­ tion of plantation and mill workers by the International ters the myth of them as harmless peddlers of sexual Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). Readers of Hawaii: 'Islands Under the Influence will puritanism and the protestant ethic. Until the ILWU came on the scene in the 1930s, organiz­ learn that there is a growing antideveloper, anti tourism In 1848, a radical revision of the land tenure law was ing plantation workers was a lost cause. Racism, antiun­ sentiment in Hawaii. According to Kent, "A new consti­ adopted to dispossess the Hawaiian people and to make ion legislation, coercion, violent strike-breaking, and tuency is gradually emerging for a break with Hawaii's room for capitalist agricultural development. even some paternalistic measures maintained absolute role as a dependent tourism society." With land and business in the hands of U.S. owners, control of labor conditions and wages in the hands of the He concludes that the people of Hawaii can break the the fate of Hawaiian sovereig~ty ~as sealed. In 1872, plantation owners. Since the Big Five firms, which chain of dependent development and foreign control if when King Lunalilo died, the Royal Electors had to owned all the plantations, also controlled shipping, com­ they can formulate a political program based on funda­ choose between King Kalakua and Queen Emma. The munications, energy and banking in Hawaii, they en­ mental social change, and "build an organization capable electors were bribed and threatened into voting for joyed high profits through a union-free environment. The of implementing such a program." Kalakua. The masses, favoring Emma, took to the streets ILWU changed all that, and over the years won wages Hawaii: Islands Under the Influence is much too good and were joined by the Royal Hawaiian police, who tore and benefits for Hawaii's workers far exceeding those of a book to be available only in hardback for $22. There off their badges. One hundred and fifty U.S. marines and farm workers in Louisiana, Texas, the Caribbean, and should be a paperbacl< edition of this excellent primer on British soldiers were sent in to back the foreign the Philippines. the political economy of Hawaii. 'Under Fire': stirring film about Nicaragua

Under Fire; produced by Jonathon Taplin, written pets, they are fighting for their country and their lives. who served as couriers and combatants in the revolution­ by Clyton Frohman and Ron Shelton, and directed by Confronted by this selfless, implacable mass struggle ary war; the women who form part of the FSLN leader­ Roger Spottiswood; Orion Pictures release starring in the face of incredible odds, Price "falls in love" with ship team; the old woman slumdweller who risks her life Nick Nolte, Gene Hackman, and 'Joanna Cassidy. the revolution. Through a farfetched tum in the plot, he by taking Price in, knowing nothing about him except is given the opportunity to aid the revolution by taking that he's running away from the National Guard. BY LEE MARTINDALE sides, and he does. · Under Fire is an inspiring and important film because A lot of the truth about the Nicaraguan ·revolution The truthfulness of the film is seriously flawed, how­ ever, by the central place given a fictional "maximum it gives a vivid picture of why the Nicaraguan people comes across in the film, not so much because of its his­ made the July 19, 1979 revolution; how; and at what torical accuracy as because it gives a good portrait of the leader" of the FSLN named "Rafael." Rafael's picture is carried in demonstrations, and his name is painted across cost. contending class forces in the struggle. The film is about three U.S.. journalists working in Ni- the scene of actions by the revolutionaries. Rumors that While Somoza is portrayed as a weak bUffoon, rather this one individual has been killed supposedly determine than the accomplished butcher that he was, ~he brutality whether Washington will give Somoza more military aid. of the National Guard against the people and the total cor­ This aspect of the film is historically inaccurate and FILM REVIEW ruption of the oligarchy come across very 'well. politically misleading. Rafael is modeled after Carlos In particular, the contrast between the obscene wealth Fonseca Amador, a founder of the FSLN who in fact was caragua in the weeks leading up to the Sandinista victory. and playboy lifestyle of the oligarchy, and the poverty of killed in 1976, three years before the popular insurrec­ The central character, a young photographer named Rus­ the Nicaraguan masses, is remarkably well conveyed by tion. No single leader of the FSLN served as a symbol of sell Price (played by Nick Nolte), is a veteran of wars in one figure in the film - Somoza's mistress, Miss the revolution. The popular symbol of national liberation Africa, Asia, and Latin America fomented and manipu­ Panama. This woman appears several times in the film, in Nicaragua is Gen. Augusto Sandino, who fought the lated by the U.S. government. He has illusions that his giggling or pouting, always posing in a new dress. She occupation of the country by U.S. Marines in the late also sl~eps with the local CIA chief. Somoza takes her news photographs are neutral, objective reporting. As he 1920s and 1930s. It is from him that the FSLN takes its claims at the beginning of the film, he takes "pictures, with him when he flees the country. name and its political roots. not sides." · The film shows the mass executions of Nicaraguans, The Nicaraguan revolution had no Rafael. The strug­ Nicaragua's revolution changes that. Price has come to the use of tanks and helicopters against teenagers armed gle was led by a party, a team of leaders formed by the Nicaragua for the "inside story" of the war, so he begins with rifles, and Somoza's deliberate bombing of Nicara­ struggle to oust Somoza and to establish a government of looking for the real powers' behind the scenes, for who's guan cities in the last days before his regime's fall. workers and farmers. The revolution was made by the manipulating who. The film does an excellent job of dramatizing the role masses, and every poor neighborhood in Nicaragua has It doesn't take much to discover that the U.S. govern­ of the U.S. government as backer of the Somoza dictator­ its own heroes and martyrs, neighbors who fell in the ment stands behind the dictatorship. ship. In the movie the systematic elimination of.Nicara­ struggle against the dictatorship. Then he starts looking for the "kingpin" of the revolu­ guans sympathetic to the Sandinista National Liberation Despite this fl aw, though, this is a movie to be seen tionary forces. This search takes him through major bat­ Front (FSLN) is organized by a CIA agent, and the actual several times - with a different group of friends and tles ofthe war. killings are carried out by a U.S. mercenary. Somoza's coworkers each time. It's a valuable tool to use in ex­ But what he finds is the anonymous, daily heroism of press agent is straight from Madison A venue, and his Na­ plaining the Nicaraguan revolution, defending it against hundreds of ordi~ary Nicaraguan workers and peasants. tional Guard dependent on U.S. aid. the U.S. government's continuing attempts to overthrow They speak to him frankly and eventually hide him from The movie is also accurate in its portrayal of the people it, and winning North American workers to active sol­ Somoza's murderous National Guard ~ Nobody's pup- who made the revolution: the teenagers and even children idarity with it.

November 18, 1983 The Militant 19 -THE GREAT SOCIETY------No doubt about it - Laurance. "He's a businessman like any and they could regard them as "a and superstitiOns. For instance, will wind up costing as much as Rockefeller's world holdings in­ other businessman." Christmas present." Laurie Cabot, a declared witch, is $3.5 billion.) A telephone com­ clude a small Vermont cottage, A truly wonderful country - a member of the Salem, Mas­ plaint line has been installed so sachussetts, chamber of com­ which he rents. When the tenant, New federal regulations will deny That's that - Discussing the workers can report safety prob­ a woodcutter, fell behind, a Rock- food stamps to even more of the difficulties created by rigid en­ merce, and her professional activ­ lems without fear of being fired. destitute. However, a family with forcement of Catholic church ity includes "casting good spells an income of less than $150 a tenets, a bishop said it was hard to for corporations." They do it all for you - In the month will still be able to receive tell a young girl that the church first nine months of this year, stamps in five days, provided they permits only altar boys. A cardinal Foolproof - Canada had to McDonald's burgers, fries, can produce a birth certificate or reached for a book of canon law shut down four malfunctioning nu­ shakes, etc., produced a take of Harry passport to document the eligibil­ and said, "Just show them that it's clear reactors in a two-week $2.28 billion. Compared to the ity of each family member. impossible." period. same period last year, sales were Ring up 13 percent, and profits 16. Tis the season to be jolly - Extra insurance -The occult, Just muffle your voice- Cin­ Robert Leard (rhymes with nerd), the supernatural, and paranormal cinnati Gas & Electric is pushing At best-"Most textbooks pre­ efeller attorney went into action, federal "nutrition" director, told have become a billion-dollar busi­ to complete its Zimmer nuke plant sent students with a highly winning $220 in back rent, plus state food stamp directors the ness says U.S. News & World Re­ despite major safety problems and simplified view of reality." -The $10 court costs. Speaking of his more stringent new regulations port. And it's not limited to sim- galloping costs. (The original Carnegie Foundation for the Ad­ employer, the lawyer observed, would be in place by December . ply cashing in on ordinary fears price tag was $240 million but it vancement of Teaching. Big strike battle shapes up in British Columbia

Continued from back page with thousands of support staff, to the solidarity among workers here. Messages of solidarity and funds to sup­ • Began publishing its own weekly, the ranks of the strikers is a major escalation of BCFL Pres. Art Kupe, who is also the port the strike are pouring into British Col­ Solidarity Times. the struggle. The government has focused president of Operation Solidarity, said that umbia from all across Canada. The Na­ The BCGEU went out on November l in its attacks on the teachers, who do not have if even one teacher is victimized all public tional Union of Provincial Government response to the government's threat to fire the right to strike over economic issues, workers will strike the same day. He Employees alone has pledged $3 million in · l ,600 of its member's. When the Socred and has threatened to fire them and perma­ further warned that if one labor leader is support to the strike. CUPE Pres. Jeff Rose government offered to postpone the firings nently revoke their teaching certificates. jailed or one union attacked all unionized said November 7 in Vancouver that his temporarily in order to head off the strike, B.C. Federation of Teachers (BCFT) workers will walk out in a province-wide union- Canada's largest- is making its BCGEU Pres. Norm Richards declined and Pres. Larry Keuhn responded that such general strike. entire defense fund of $10 million available said there would be no end to the strike threats would only heighten the resolve of This massive display of union solidarity to B.C. members. until the government .agreed to perma­ B.C. teachers. "The minister' s heavy hand is mirrored in dozens of instances daily. Dennis McDermott, g.resident of the 2- nently exempt all BCGEU members from helped us to do that," he said. The BCFT's When a shopping center on Vancouver Is­ million member Canadian Labor Congress the effects of its antiunion legislation. The position is that the present strike is a poht­ land tried to expel some Solidarity Coali­ (CLC), said that because the outcome of BSGEU has also vowed to remain on strike ical action, which is legal for teachers. tion volunteers, the International Wood­ the strike has major ramifications for all until other public sector unions reach satis­ The British Columbia Federation of workers of America, the largest indusrrial Canadian workers, the CLC will use every factory agreements with the government. Labor's response to this attack on the union in the province, threatened a boycott means at its disposal to aid the strikers, in­ The addition of the teachers, together teachers gives a good sense of the level of of the mall. The volunteers stayed. cluding massive financial support. -CALENDAR------After Nov. 12 demonstrations ... ALABAMA mation call (415) 839-5316. Birmingham MISSOURI Come to Open House with the Young Socialist Panel Discussion on the Arms Race. Fri., Nov. 11, 7 p.m. Hulsey Recital Hall, Univer­ Kansas City Alliance and Socialist Workers Party. U.S. Invades Grenada -Why Reagan Fears sity of Alabama-Birmingham campus. Ausp: forum, "Cuba and the U.S. Invasion of Gre­ United Campus Against Nuclear War. the Grenada Revolution. Slide show and talk. CALIFORNIA Speaker: Enrand Kaseem, member of Socialist nada." Speaker: Thabo Ntweng, Bay Area Los Angeles organizer, Socialist Workers Party. For more Antiwar Presence When Defense Secretary Workers Party, visited Grenada in 1981. Sun,, Sat., Nov. 12, 8 p.m. 2536 W Pico Blvd. Caspar Weinberger Speaks. Fri., Nov. 11, ll information call (41 5) 839-5316. Nov. 13, 7 p.m. 4715A Troost. Donation: $2. Donation: $1 . For more information call a.m. Gather at Wilson Park, across from Bout­ Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For more infor­ (213) 380-9640. well Auditorium. Ausp: Birmingham Commit­ mation call (816) 753-0404. tee in Solidarity With Central America. For WASHINGTON, D.C. more information call (205) 786-4101 . NEW YORK Oakland Sat., Nov. 12, 3-7 p.m. Executive House Candle-light Vigil Against U.S. Intervention 2864 Telegraph Ave. Sat., Nov. 12, 4 p.m. Hotel, 1515 Rhode Island Ave., NW. Dona­ Albany Open house to be followed at 7:30 p.m. by tion accepted. in Central America. Sat., Nov. 12, 5 p.m. Lebanon: Why Are the Marines There? Magnolia Park. Ausp: Birmingham Committee Speakers: Julie Steinberg, Young Socialist Al­ in Solidarity With Central America. For more liance; others. Sat., Nov. 19, 8 p.m. 23 Central Socialist Workers Party, toured Grenada in more information call (214) 826-4711. information call (205) 786-4101 . Ave. Donation: $2. Ausp: Militant Labor Chile: Repression and Resistance. Speaker: 1982; Brigette Dennis, worked in Grenada in Forum. For more information call (518) 434- 1983 with Caribbean Education Project. Sun., Bob Bruce, Young Socialist Alliance. Sat., 3247. Sari Antonio Nov. 19, 7:30p.m. 205 18th St. S. Donation. Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m. Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Union-busting in the Southwest. Speakers: Manhattan Militant Labor Forum. For more information Jimmy Oriendo, United Auto Workers; Alfred Ausp: Militant Forum. For more information Palestine: Past, Present, and Future call (205) 323-3079. call (503) 222-7225. Aradillas, Professional ·Air Traffic Controllers Israel and the Third World Organization; Carmen Martinez, International CALIFORNIA Palestine and the U.S. Peace Movement PENNSYLVANIA Union of Electrical Workers Organizing Com­ Zionism, Judaism, Anti-Semitism. A series of Pittsburgh mittee; Debbie Justus, Fiberglass Systems Or­ Oakland panel discussions. Speakers: Noam Chomsky, The Real Cuba. Eyewitness Accounts and ganizing Committee; Andres Gonzales, The .Continuing Fight to Organize Agricul­ others. Sun., Dec. 11, 12 noon to 8 p.m. Wash­ Slide Show. Speakers: Kipp Dawson, and Clare Socialist Workers Party; Jaime Martinez, Inter­ tural Labor in California: the United Farm ington Irving High School, 17th St. and Irving Fraenzl, members of United Mine Workers. national Union of Electrical Workers interna­ Workers Campaigns Today. Speakers: Rev. Place. Ausp: November 29 Coalition. For more Fri., Nov. 18, 7 p.m. 141 S Highland, Room tional representative. Film: So You Can. Sat., Fred Eyster, executive director, Farm Workers information call (212) 695-2686. 18. Donation: $2. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. Nov. 12, 8 p.m. 2811 Guadalupe. Donation: Ministry and UFW spokesman; Raul Gonzalez, For more information call (412) 362-6767 . $2. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For more in­ Militant reporter. Translation to Spanish. Sat., OREGON formation call (512) 432-7394. Nov. 19, 8 p.m. 2864 Telegraph Ave. Dona­ Portland TEXAS tion: $2. Ausp: Militant Forum. For more infor- U.S. Out of Grenada! Speakers: Sarah Ryan, Dallas WISCONSIN Employers Offensive Against Labor. What Milwaukee Can Be Done to Fight Back. Speakers: James Socialist Workers Campaign Party: Chris Coming soon ... Kendrick, auto worker and member of Socialist Rayson for Mayor of Milwaukee. Sat., Nov. Workers Party; others. Translation to Spanish. 19, 8 p.m. 2637-A W National Ave. Ausp: Sun., Nov. 20, 7:30p.m. 2817 Live Oak St. SWP Campaign Committee. For more informa­ Maurice Bishop Speaks Donation: $2. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For tion call (414) 445-2076. A collection of more than 20 major inter­ views with and speeches by the slain leader of the Grenada revolution and New Jewel Bernadette Devlin McAiiskey Movement, including his June 1983 speech in New York City. on U.S. speaking tour Contents also include a major new intro­ Noted Irish socialist leader Bernadette gon on November 16; (503) 686-1988 and duction covering the U.S. invasion of Gre­ Devlin McAliskey will tour the United in San Francisco on November 18 for the nada and the devastating blow dealt to the States to explain the current situation in the H-Block/Armagh Committee; (415) 861- struggle against British rule in Northern 1355. Grenada revolution by the murder of Prime Ireland. On November 19, McAliskey will be the Minister Bishop and other outstanding McAliskey' s tour will focus on the featured speaker at a New York rally leaders of the New jewel Movement; the British government's use of show trials and against the show trials in Northern Ireland. October 20 statement by the Cuban gov- paid perjurers to jail Irish Republican ac­ She will speak at 7:30p.m. at John Jay Col­ . ernment on the killing of Bishop and the tivists. lege , Auditorium 1311 , 59th Street be­ other leaders; and the October 25-26 state­ On November 14, McAliskey will speak tween 9th and lOth avenues. The New ment by Cuban President Fidel Castro on in Los Angeles at a meeting sponsored by York H-Block/Armagh Committee is re­ the Friends of Ireland. For more informa­ the U.S. invasion and Cuba's role in Gre­ questing a $5 donation. tion call (213) 592-3910. . On November 20 , McAliskey' s U .S. nada. On November 15 she will be in Tucson, speaking tour will conclude with an ad­ To be published by Pathfinder Press, 410 Arizona speaking for the Irish Forum; dress at the Irish American Community (602) 623-8015. Center in Mineola, New York , at 7:30 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014. McAiiskey will speak in Eugene, Ore- p.m.

20 The Militant November 18, 1983 U.S. troops poised to attack Syria

Continued from front page been coming from a Syrian military base went into effect, the Syrian army forced placed prominent ads in the Arabic press The four governments meeting in Paris south of Tripoli. 1,200 PLO guerrillas in 'the Bekaa Valley opposing Syrian pressure on the PLO and reaffirmed their commitment to maintain The anti-Arafat PLO faction, headed by to move to the refugee camps near Tripoli. supporting Mr. Arafat as its leader." their respective contingents in the 5,400- Col. Saeed Musa, claimsit doesn't seek to In Syria itself the offices of Arafat's Support for the PLO and its leadership man "peacekeeping" force in Lebanon. drive the Arafat forces from Lebanon, but Fatah organization were shut down Oc­ remains overwhelming among the Palestin­ These imperialist troops seek to bolster the only, as Musa is quoted in Lebanese pa­ tober 2, and on October 8 the PLO's pub­ ian people. On November 7 thousands of rightist regime of Lebanese President pers, on "calling him [Arafat] to a dialogue licity offices there were raided and their Palestinians demonstrated at Bir Zeit Uni­ Amin Gemayel, which faces stiff opposi­ of reform. " Musa charges Arafat with staff and records seized. versity near Ramallah on the West Bank. tion from Lebanon's working people. In seeking an accommodation with Washing­ Assad's present drive against the PLO Shopkeepers in East Jerusalem and Nab­ addition, Washington and its allies hope to ton and Tel Aviv, and running the PLO in occurs in the framework of the "national Ius , the largest towns on the West Bank, crush the independent existence of the an undemocratic fashion . reconciliation" talks going on in Geneva, closed their stores to protest the attacks on PLO, and drive the 40,000 Syrian troops While there are actual differences within Switzerland, between representatives of the embattled PLO fighters in Beddawi and now in Lebanon out of the country. the PLO and Fatah, the Palestinian guer­ the Gemayel regime and opposition · Tripoli. Expelling the Syrian army from Leba­ rilla organization founded by Arafat and by Lebanese leaders. The negotiations were According to the November 8 New York non will take a war. The political prepara­ far the largest group within the PLO, these recessed for 10 days on November 4. The Times in the last week several West Bank tion for such a war is being laid with the are not the underlying reasons for the cur­ Syrian government, which is participating leaders, including the former mayors of false charges against the Syrian regime re­ rent factional warfare. The combat in in the talks, hopes to enhance its negotiat­ Hebron and Ramallah, have issued state­ garding the recent Beirut and Tyre bomb­ northeastern Lebanon is the bloody result ing position by driving all PLO fighters ments accusing Syria and other Arab states ings. U.S. government officials have con­ of the Syrian regime's attempt to gain more who disagree with its policies and perspec­ of being involved in the campaign to over­ tinued to say that "retaliation" was still leverage in the PLO and restrict its inde­ tives out of Lebanon. Assad wants to use tum Arafat's leadership in the PLO. under consideration for the Beirut bomb­ pendence. his position in Lebanon to bargain for the At Fajr, an East Jerusalem newspaper, ing. The November 8 New York Daily return of the Golan Heights, which Israel conducted a poll and found 93 percent of News reports that the French government is Syrian goais has occupied since its June 1967 war of ag­ the Arabs on the West Bank support planning military strikes against Lebanese Assad is waging war against Arafat's gression. Arafat. forces to clear the way for a deal with villages in the Bekaa Valley, where most "The support for Mr. Arafat on the West Syrian President Assad's machinations Washington and Tel Aviv - precisely of the Syrian troops are located. Bank is startling in its unanimity," reported hurt not only the Palestinian national liber­ . what Assad accuses Arafat of doing. On November 4-within hours after the the July 1 Christian Science Monitor. ation struggle, but the Arab revolution as a The PLO has carried out an uncom­ Israeli occupation post in Tyre was bombed "Elected mayors, student groups, profes­ whole. Assad is weakening Syria's defense promising struggle for the rights of the Pal­ -Tel Aviv's warplanes bombed the vil­ sionals, and trade union leaders have all against U.S. and Israeli aggression. lages of Aleih, Bhamdun, and Sofar in the estinian people. For that reason, as the Mil­ mountains east of Beirut. At least 60 itant noted in its July 15 , 1983 , issue, "the people were killed in this vindictive attack. PLO has always come under fire when the In addition to increasing its naval power off capitalist rulers in the Arab countries have Debate on Black political power the Lebanese coast Washington has sought to close a deal with imperialism. stepped up other provocative threats. On Collaboration with imperialism in the Mid­ Continued from Page 11 The charter explains that the Democratic · November 5, 12 U.S. F-14 jet fighters flew dle East means above all acceptance of the ciples but the historical record of the Black and Republican parties have historically menacingly over Beirut for the first time Israeli colonial-settler state - something and working-class movement. It is no acci­ betrayed Black people, and the source of since September. that the PLO and Arafat have never agreed dent that Malcolm X 20 years ago and exploitation and oppresssion is capitalism. In response to these war moves by to." NBIPP today explain that the Democratic The logic of the NBIPP charter is for Washington and its allies Syrian President Assad's attack on the PLO began during and Republican parties are the enemies of Black revolutionists, along with other rev­ Assad placed his 220,000-man army on the 1975-76 Lebanese civil war, 'when his Blacks. They are the tools used to keep us olutionists, to participate in the day-to-day alert and called up the army's reserves. troops were deployed in Lebanon as a in a second-class status in all aspects of struggles of working people. It points to This general mobilization of the Syrian "peacekeeping" force . Had it not been for U.S. society. joining struggles against the U.S. wars the Syrian army, Palestinian and Lebanese armed forces is aimed at readying the coun­ It is true that NBIPP activists, socialists, abroad. - . leftist forces would have surely toppled the try for the expected U.S.-Israeli assault. communists, and nationalists should be NBIPP is a small nucleus - a party in proimperialist regime in Beirut. where our class, the working class, is in formation. Its program represents the polit­ The most recent moves by Assad against Syria attacks PLO fighting the injustices of this system- on ical vanguard of the Black oppressed na­ the PLO began in May with the mutiny of the picket lines, in antiwar demonstrations, tionality today. This program provides the Unfortunately, the Syrian regime has several Fatah leaders. These Arafat oppo­ pro-women's rights marches, anti-police basis of winning more and more revolu­ also responded to the imperialist pressure nents were based in a single camp in Leba­ with a murderous attack on the PLO forces brutality protests, and so on. tionary fighters and can be an example to non's Bekaa Valley. They took control of other workers who are beginning to under Arafat's command near Tripoli. several PLO supply centers near Damas­ Q. What perspective should be taken by radicalize. After three days of intense rocket and ·ar­ cus, the Syrian capital, which were sup­ Blacks and all working people? tillery shelling, PLO fighters loyal to posedly guarded by Syrian military police. Because those inspired by the Jackson Arafat were driven from the Nahr al Bared But their "revolt" began to fizzle until Sy­ A. The necessary task now is to present campaign are in fact looking for a strategy Palestinian refugee camp on November 5. rian tanks spearheaded an offensive by the what is in the objective interests of working to win power, the NBIPP program thus can According to the November 7 New York PLO mutineers in the Bekaa in June. At the people in order to defend ouselves from the provide a framework and orientation. It is Times, Mohammed Shaker, an Arafat end of that month Assad booted Arafat out capitalist assault. Black revolutionaries by participating in the day-to-day struggles spokesperson, said "special units of Syrian · of Syria. The Syrian president hoped that and socialists should be actively interven­ in our communities and work places that commandos moving in front of tanks" had by deporting Arafat to Tunisia the PLO ing in the Jackson campaign. But not as the program can be given flesh and move overrun the camp. leader would lose contact with his forces supporters. of his course. We should pre­ us toward winning our full liberation and The Syrian-backed PLO dissidents then still in Lebanon. sent our own program and perspectives - freedom. surrounded and began shelling the Bed­ But the PLO chairman returned to Leba­ to become an alternative pole, to win the It is by aggressively intervening in the dawi refugee camp, nine miles south of non on September 16 in response to the best activists to an independent working­ 1984 elections including in the Jackson Nahr al Bared. Hundreds of Palestinian and stepped-up combat role of imperialist class and Black perspective. campaign, that NBIPP activists, socialists, Lebanese civilians have been killed as forces in the Lebanese civil war. Two days NBIPP in particular.can play an impor­ and communists can win many more shells slammed into Beddawi at a rate of before the September 25 cease-fire agree­ tant role in this discussion. NBIPP's char­ radicalizing Blacks and other working more than 60 a minute. Most of the artil­ ment between President Gemayel 's troops ter points the way forward for Blacks and people to an anticapitalist political perspec- lery and mortar fire . hitting the camp has and the militias of the opposition forces other workers. tive. · -IF YOU LIKE THIS PAPER, LOOK US UP------

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November 18, 1983 The Militant 21 -EDITORIALS------Contintern on nationalization U.S. targets Central America demand Continued from front page naval base l~ated on Cuban soil. The Communist International was founded and led the revolutionists who led the Bishop government and the The U.S. rulers focus their attacks on Grenada, Nica­ unions, militia, women's organization, and youth group. ragua, and Cuba because these three countries are a by the leaders of the Russian revolution including Lenin, Trotsky, and others. At its first four congress­ Of particular concern for U.S. antiwar activists Is the beacon for the working masses throughout Latin America es, held between 1919 and 1923, the Comintern, as it fate of leaders in the former NJM government who sup­ and the rest of the world. Nicaragua and Grenada ex­ was known, discussed many important matters of rev­ ported Bishop and have survived in U.S.-occupied Gre­ tended the socialist revolution in the Americas begun by olutionary strategy and tactics. The Comintern's dis­ nada. Three members of Bishop's cabinet - George Cuba in 1959. cussions and conclusions retain great value today. Louison, Kendrick Radix, and Lyden Ramdhanny - The role of Cu.ba, Nicaragua, and Grenada in leading Below are excerpts from the third Comintern con­ the fight against U.S. imperialism has placed them in the have been at?le to make contact with reporters or mem­ gress resolution "On Tactics," dealing with the sub­ forefront of the international struggle for peace. It is for bers of the U.S. Congressional delegation that recently ject of nationalization. The entire resolution is availa­ visited the island. Louison told the Wall Street Journal this reason that U.S. antiwar fighters must place special ble in Theses, Resolutions and Manifestoes of the thatthe U.S. invasion is "an illegal international crime." emphasis on defense of these three revolutions from the First Four Congresses of the Third International, The lives of these leaders are clearly in danger. It is ur­ warmakers in Washington. The outcome of the U.S. as­ published by Humanities Press in Britain. Copies of gent that opponents of the invasion demand that their sault against these revolutions is vital for the liberation movements in El Salvador, Guatemala, Lebanon, and this book are available in hard cover for $20 from safety be guaranteed, that they have their full democratic Pathfinder Press, 410 West Street, New York, N.Y., rights to speak out and to travel withHoward Baker, asked about such an inva­ aid to the dictatorship there must be halted. Many unions In place of the minimum programme of the centrists sion, said, "I don't rule that out. . . . I think it is clear by have gone on record in favor of stopping this aid, and and reformists, the Communist International offers a now ... that America is not going to roll over and play some have also called for ending funds to the counter­ struggle for the concrete demands of the proletariat dead in Central America and [it] should not." revolutionary killers attacking Nicaragua. which, in their totality, challenge the power of the Threats against Cuba have also sharply escalated. The November 12 demonstrations, which will be bourgeoisie, organize the proletariat and mark out the While U.S. troops still refuse to release all the Cubans joined by many unionists, can be . an important different stages of the struggle for its dictatorship. Even they are holding prisoner in Grenada, a task force of nine springboard for deepening the involvement of the labor before the broad masses consciously understand the need U.S. warships is steaming toward Cuba, where it will movement in the fight against U.S. military intervention for the dictatorship of the proletariat, they can respond to hold provocative "maneuvers" offGuantanamo, the U.S. around the world. the individual demands. As more and more people are drawn into the struggle around these demands and as the needs of the masses come into conflict with the needs of capitalist society, the King holiday is big victory working class will come to realize that if it wants to live, capitalism will have to die. The bourgeoisie mobilizes to respond to every step the On the morning of November 2 several well-known Helms' red-baiting ploy was a racist attempt to scuttle working masses take in fighting for even a single demand Black leaders, including Coretta Scott King, stood in the the holiday bill. Liberal supporters of the King legislation and, on the occasion of any major economic strike, the White House Rose Garden and sang "We Shall Over­ denounced Helms' charges as "slander," but didn't reject whole ruling class comes swiftly to the side of those em­ come." It wasn't a civil rights protest, but a celebration. his anticommunism. It was, in fact, liberal Democratic ployers threatened, in order to prevent the proletariat President Reagan had signed legislation creating a na­ Pres. John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, the U.S. At­ from winning even a partial victory. tional holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. torney General in his brother's administration, who or­ In the struggle against the workers the bourgeoisie Reagan didn't join in the singing. He was still smarting dered their secret police to spy on King and other civil mobilizes its entire government machine: in Poland and from the blow struck by Blacks, other civil rights ac­ rights leaders and to disrupt the movement. France workers have been called up into the army; tivists, and-the labor movement, who have been demand­ emergency laws were passed in Britain during the min­ Anticommunism has long been used by the U.S. ing for years that King's birthday become a federal holi­ ers' strike. In this way, workers fighting on single issues capitalist rulers to try to divide and weaken the fight for day. The Congress was forced to adopt a resolution that are automatically forced to take on the whole bourgeoisie Black rights. One of the big achievements of the move­ makes the third Monday in January a day of homage to and its government apparatus. ment in which King was a prominent leader was that it King only after many years of struggle. The bill goes into The Communist Parties should make certain that the helped to end the anticommunist witch-hunt of the 50s effect in 1986. · demands they put forward not only correspond to the de­ and early 60s. Congiessional opposition to the bill was led by Sen. mands of the broad masses, but also draw the masses into The new holiday not only honors King, but pays tri­ Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Helms claimed that King battle and lay the basis for organizing them. Concrete bute to the gigantic achievements of the millions who had ties to the U.S. Communist Party, and, therefore, . slogans that express the economic need of the working participated in the civil rights movement and those who should not be honored as a national hero. The Senator masses must lead to the struggle for control ofindustry ­ died fighting for freedom. They showed all working tried to delay the vote on the holiday proposal until after control based not on a plan to organize the economy bu­ people that determination and action are necessary to de­ senate lawyers could get FBI files on the slain civil rights reaucratically and under the capitalist system, but on the fend and extend our civil and human rights. leader. The documents are sealed until the year 2018. factory committees and revolutionary trade unions .... During a nationally-televised news conference, repor­ But the struggle is far from over. Blacks still suffer The present epoch is revolutionary precisely because ters asked Presipent Reagan whether he agreed with from the cruel effects of racial oppression. The new holi­ the most modest demands of the working masses are in­ Helms. Reagan replied, "Well, we'll know in about 35 day, and what it represents, should remind us of the compatible with the continued existence of capitalist so­ years, won't we?" and went on to express confidence in struggle ahead of us and what it will take to wipe out ra­ _ciety, and the struggle for these demands is therefore Helms' sincerity. cial discrimination once and for all. bound to develop into the struggle for Communism.

22 The Militant November 18, 1983 Philadelphia unionists build Nov .12 protests

BY MARK EMANATIAN (AFSCME), a report has been issued recommending an District I; Thomas Cronin, president of AFSCME Dis­ AND DON MACKLE end to all U.S. government aid to the current regime in El trict Council47; Dinkin; Henry Nicholas, national presi­ PHILADELPHIA - In shops around this city mem­ Salvador. dent of Hospital and Health Care Employees 1199; Art bers of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers ACTWU, said Dinkin, also adopted a resolution at our Douherty, secretary-treasurer of the American Postal Union (ACTWU) are posting leaflets about the last national convention calling for an end to U.S. aid to Workers Union; Nick Onofaro, president of United Elec­ November 12 demonstration against U.S. intervention in the Salvadoran government. trical Workers District I; and many others. El Salvador and getting signatures in support of impris­ Americas in Transition, a film detailing the history of In addition to our meeting, the committee has·spoken oned Salvadoran electrical workers. U.S. interventions in Latin America, was shown at our before several lAM local meetings. Our efforts are a result of a presentation at the last union meeting. After the movie a representative from the At these meetings the committee is seeking resolutions labor committee on El Salvador spoke about the murder­ ous attacks against unionists in El Salvador carried out by calling for an end to U. S. aid, building support for the "death squads" organized by the U.S.-backed dictator­ November 12 demonstration, and circulating petitions UNION TALK ship. for 11 members of the Salvadoran electrical workers What's needed, he explained, are acts of solidarity by union now in jail. meeting of our union's social services committee by. ·a trade unionists in this country in support of their embat­ After the meeting, four ACTWU members took copies representative of the Philadelphia L'abor Committee in tled union brothers and sisters in El Salvador. of the petition to circulate in their shops. Another half Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador. It was awareness of the U.S. government's support for dozen took leaflets for the November 12 demonstration Bernard Dinkin, education director for the union here, the Salvadoran regime's brutal union-busting tactics that and promised to put them up at work. More than 20 people signed the petitions and asked to be put on the explained at the outset of the meeting that the labor com­ recently led 10 local unionists to set up a chapter of the mailing list for committee activities. mittee on El Salvador is being spearheaded nationally by National Labor Committee on El Salvador here in our Secretaryctreasurer Jack Sheinkman and Union Label Philadelphia. As one union sister said as she signed the mailing list Director Dave Dyson. The committee has set up an office They included members of the UAW, ACTWU, Inter­ and took petitions, "I have two boys serving in the mili­ in our national headquarters in New York. national Association of Machinists (lAM), American tary now who could end up in El Salvador or over there Dinkin told the 50 unionists at the meeting that follow­ Federation of Teachers, Philadelphia Federation of in Lebanon. We've got to do something now to stop these ing a fact-finding tour of El Salvador last summer by na­ Teachers, Hospital and Health Care Employees 1199-C wars." tional representatives of ACTWU, United Auto Workers andAFSCME. (UAW), National Education Association, and American The committee has obtained endorsements from Nor­ Mark EmanatUin and Don Mackie are members of · Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees man Loudenslager; directing business agent for lAM AC1WU Local 143 in Philadelphia.

-LETTERS------~~- Nicaraguan draft. ington's doorstep. If Reagan con­ your cnttc1sms and play down How ironic! Not only was the tinues his present course, the your agreements with leftist cur­ October 7 article in your paper United States. can expect nothing . rents with the same general aim. supporting Nicaragua's male-only but trouble, but if we offer good­ Who benefits from that? will to the Sandinistas, perhaps Third, criticizing the Guardian .. conscription written by a woman, ,.( but so was the reply to my letter. If then the United States will have a you say, "it's poor politicians who r -+- we assume, for argument's sake, genuine chance to achieve real sit, with pens poised, in another that Nicaragua indeed needs con­ peace in the region - a peace country and try to fine tune the tac­ based on respect for third world ·tics of someone else involved in a ~I scription to defend itself from out­ J'(Eastern Europe or Afghanistan. completely ignore what Workers other U.S. citizens, have the right Hyde addressed a "Right to Life" in its entirety. Reagan's cold war policy is isolat­ World wrote? Because it covered dinner at the Ramada Inn on Oc­ to free speech. The local solidarity coalition By the way, I supported SWP ing the United States from Latin the whole KAL incident so well? tober 21. used information from Interconti­ American nations and causing the You also brush off what Frontline Congressman Hyde launched mayoral candidate Sonja Franeta nental Press to write a fact sheet Sandinistas, in tum, to up the wrote, insultingly calling it the his campaign in 1976 to deny poor in our recent municipal elections on Grenada that was printed on the and will have nothing to do with ante. Nicaragua's rearmament, paper of a "small radical group" women equal abortion rights with back of leaflets for the November (are you now a big one?), even the Democratic Party. moreover, is leading to serious al­ the passage of the first "Hyde 12 demonstration. legations of repression committed though its position is also close to Amendment" which restricted the Patricia Hefner T.F. Birmingham, Alabama by the Sandinistas themselves . yours. use of federal funds for abortion Portland, Oregon against those who disagree with I fail to see why, for good, non­ services. The only exceptions them. If these allegations of sectarian reasons, you pla.y down were for rape and incest victims human rights abuse~ committed by your differences with the San­ and in cases where the woman's The letters column is an open Sandinistas inside Nicaragua dinista National Liberation Front life would be endangered without ACLU liberal? forum for all viewpoints on sub- should prove true , it could cost the [in Nicaragua], Cubans, and an abortion. As a member of the American . jects of general interest to our Sandinistas needed support from Farabundo Marti National Libera­ By 1980 restrictions denying Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), I readers. Please keep your letters democratic elem~nts in Western tion Front [in El Salvador] since the use of Medicaid funds even in found your editorial "ACLU and brief. Where necessary they will Europe. they support building socialism cases· of rape and incest were Rosenberg case" a real eye­ be abridged. Please indicate if But ultimately, responsibility and the overthrow of imperialism, passed. opener. It is depressing to think you prefer that your initials be for this whole mess rests on Wash- while here at home you play up This September the most re- about this betrayal by the ACLU used rather than your full name.

November 18, 1983 The Militant 23 TH£MILITANT Interview with Eddie· Carthan ·Former Tchula, Miss., mayor promises to keep fighting for Black rights BY TONY DUTROW he received from Black farmers in the area. TCHULA, Miss. - f.,.s the result of the Shadrach Davis, a Black family farmer, national and international protests, a big told the Militant that when Carthan was victory was scored when former Tchula first put behind bars in 1981 , he and sev~ mayor Eddie James Carthan won an early eral other farmers put up the more than release from federal prison. He had been $200,000 bond for Carthan's release by jailed for the past several months at the taking out property bonds on their land. Maxwell Air Force Base near Montgom­ This allowed Carthan ~nd the Tchula 7 to ery, Alabama, on trumped-up charges of speak around the country. defrauding the federal government of Petitions were submitted from poor and funds. working people in Tchula demanding that According to the Jackson Advocate, the court free him. Mississippi's largest Black newspaper, a "Because the judge originally based his standing-room-only crowd of supporters sentence on the false claim that I abused staged a "homecoming" celebration Oc~. the trust of the citizens of Tchula," he tober 23 in this community of2,000 mostly explained, "to have those same citizens, a poor, Black working people and farmers. majority of the citizens of Tchula, sign a Carthan had spent a total of 14 months petition asking for my release" totally un- behind bars, part of it in the notorious Par­ . dermined the baseless charges used to rail­ chman Farm penitentiary, as a result of a road him to prison for three years. series of racist frame-ups to remove him Since a voter registration drive was and six members of his administration, launched in Mississippi this year, many later known as the Tchula 7, from office. Blacks are challenging the entrenched rul­ In 1977, Black workers, family farmers, ing families that control many of the coun­ and some poor whites in Tchula elected ties in the state. Like Eddie Carthan.before Carthan, 27, their first Black mayor to bet­ them, many Blacks running for office in Eddie and Shirley Carthan at October 23 "homecoming" ceremonies in Tchula, Mis­ ter their conditions. Tchula is located in the these counties are coming under attack. sissippi, to welcome former mayor home from prison where he served time on frame­ poverty-stricken Delta, in the heart of the For example, on August 15, Pertis Wil­ up charges. "cotton belt." · liams, a Black candidate for Lincoln County Board of Supervisors, was gunned To the white planters and other rulers and harassment have changed ij. bit over the Benjamin Hoover, framed up by Holmes who profit from the cheap labor of Blacks down in Brookhaven. His killer was let off years," he said referring to the violence of County officials, and Christopher Moore, a who work the cotton fields, Carthan's scot free. racists during the civil rights movement young Black set up for a rape-murder crime was the example he set. Leonard Brown, another Black candi­ and the Ku Klux Klan, "we have a more charge by white officials in the Gulf coast Rather than enrich himself and carry out date for office in Y olabusha County, was sophisticated 'way of being denied the right area of the state. the bidding of the rich, as other officials in wounded in a hail of bullets fired at him as to hold office, to vote and to carry out our As far as running for office again, the county had done, Carthan turned re­ he left his campaign office in Water Val- duties and responsibilities as American Carthan feels their experience has prepared sources at his disposal to help poor work­ ley. · citizens." the way for bigger battles. ing people and farmers. We asked Carthan to comment on these In summing up the lessons of the strug­ "What we have gone through - what I He repaired dilapidated homes, attemp- continued attacks and the impact his strug­ mean by 'we' is my family, my friends, my • ted to build and pave badly needed roads, gle has had on Blacks running for office . gle to win freedom, and that of the Tchula 7, Carthan said, "It has brought a lot of supporters and the Tchula 7 - I think provided access to medical care, sought to Carthan explained that attacks like this we're prepared to take anything now, bring running water into homes where none will take place wherever there is the poten­ people together, a lot of organizations to­ gether, it has educated people, and I'm we're prepared to go against any foe. I've had been before, and built the town's first tial for Blacks and other oppressed "to con­ done everything but die. We all have got to library, among numerous other modest im­ trol the government, to participate in it to talking about the whole crisis, particularly in the South, as well as all over the coun­ do that, so there's no need to be fearful of provements. For this effort, the Tchula 7 determine their future, not only here in that," he said smiling. were targeted as criminals who misused Mississippi, but all over the country and all try. I think this was our greatest ac­ complishment." General Vann told us that, except for funds by "the county's white power struc­ over the world." one of the Tchula 7 who fought his firing as. ture," as Carthan dubbed his enemies. This gives "support to what we've been As far as his future plans are concerned, a school teacher, none ofthe Tchula 7 have On November 1, Eddie Carthan invited saying all along·, that it was a conspiracy Carthan said, "I plan tobe as active as I can been able to find work in the town or the Militant to discu.ss his recent victory and harassment on the part of the power humanly be." Holmes County as a result of harassment and hear his assessment of the whole ex­ structure bere in the state of Mississippi to He told us he wants to use his first-hand from the case. perience. We met with him in the Tchula 7 use overt and covert means of denying experience as a political prisoner to speak office, not far from the .Carthan family Blacks in particular from having access in out for the many who remain in Parch­ Tony Dutrow was part of a f our-person store. the political process. man Farm. Militant reporting and sales team that Carthan told us that the support he had "Although their tactics of intimidation He pointed to the important cases of spent four weeks in Mississippi this fall. received from around the country was cru­ cial to winning his freedom. This support, especially from "the people here in Holmes County, was of such a magnitude that I was Gigantic strike battle shaping up confident something would happen that would correct this gross injustice," he said. One example that illustrates the backing Carthan was talking about was explained to against gov't in British Columbia us by General V ann when we visited him in Tchula earlier. (Vann was Eddie Carthan's BY DAVID McDONALD emment's austerity program. The teachers - 26 bills in all - gives public sector em­ campaign manager and a leader in his fight VANCOUVER, British Columbia and other school workers belong to the ployers the right to fire any worker without forfreedom.) bne of the largest class battles in English Canadian Union of Public Employees cause; abolishes 10,000 civil service jobs He told us that on very short notice, 75 Canadian history gained more momentum (CUPE). without regard to seniority; allows the' gov­ people from Tchula and Holmes County here November 8 as 30,000 teachers and ernment to declare any expired labor con­ were mobilized to make the 200-inile trip 14,000 support staff went on strike, joining The BCGEU and education workers tract null and void, opening the door to the to Biloxi, Mississippi, September 1, to at­ over 40,000 members of the British Co­ w~dkout are the first installments in a snow­ imposition of minimum wages; freezes tend Carthan' s sentence reduction hearing. lumbia Government Employees Union balling strike that will bring out other ·· welfare and pension payments and extends uni9ns in stages until, on November 18, all Another example of the depth of (BCGEU) already on strike. The strikers wage controls on public sector workers in­ 250,000 B.C. public sector workers are ex­ Carthan's support is shown by the backing are fighting the Social Credit (Socred) gov- definitely; legalizes tenant eviction; re­ pected to be on the streets. The overall peals legislation protecting women and op­ strike action is organized by Operation Sol­ pressed minorities from discrimination; idarity, a united front of unions represent­ and more. Carthan denounces Grenada invasion ing half a million British Columbian work­ Since July, opposition to the Socred ers. legislation has mushroomed into a move­ TCHULA, Miss. - Recently freed met some of the leaders from Grenada ear­ British Columbia ( population 2.5 mil­ ment that has: from federal prison, Eddie Carthan told the lier, to know them, and to know how hard lion) has the largest percentage of un­ Militant that he viewed Washington's inva- they have worked, and ho.w they have sac­ • Organized four mass rallies, includ­ ionized workers, 40 percent, and the ing one in Vancouver on October 15 that sion of Grenada· as cruel and savage. · rificed to do what they did to gain their in­ strongest tradition of labor militancy in drew 70,000. "Grenada is a small, independent coun­ dependence just a few years ago." English Canada. try, which at.tempted to do as George Carthan said he strongly supported what • Held large demonstrations in every Washington and others here in the U.S. the people of Grenada had achieved. "I The Socred budget and accompanying comer of the province. did," he said. The Grenadian people were think that anyone in this country who be­ legislation is by far the deepest attack yet · • Drawn scores of women, oppressed "practicing what we preach." lieves in justice, who believes in freedom, on the rights and living standard of Cana­ minorities, unemployed, students, tenants, who believes in independence, who be­ dian workers. The struggle in B.C. follows local units of the New Democratic Party Just like Vietnam, Korea, and · many lieves in sovereignty - which is democra­ a similar attack in Quebec mounted earlier (Canada's labor party), and other organiza­ other places around the world, Carthan cy," Carthan said, would support what the this year, which resulted ----' after stiff resis­ tions into a massive Solidarity Coalition, said, "the U.S. is faking advantage of these people of Grenada had done. Carthan said tance - in a defeat for Quebec's Common which is currently organizing community countries fighting for their freedom. people would then "denounce the United Front of public sector unions. . support for the strike. "I get so emotional, especially having States for what it has done there." The Socred budget and other legislation Continued on Page 20

24 The Militant November 18, 1983