. AUSTRALIA $2.50 · BELGIUM BF60 · CANADA $2.50 · FRANCE FF1 0 · ICELAND KR200 · NEW ZEALAND "$2.50 · SWEDEN KR15 · UK £1.00 I).S. $1.50 INSIDE Jack Barnes on working class & transformation of learning THE . -PAGES 8-11 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 64/N0.29 JULY 24. 2000 Meat packers press for Protests push back union victory in St. Paul rightist Dakota Premium bosses step up antiunion propaganda march in BY TOM FISHER ing ways to answer the attacks and to move over the previous six months. Many work­ SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minnesota-Two forward. ers say they were being forced to perform weeks before the union election, the bosses Dakota Premium, with some 200 work­ double the amount of work from before. The N. Ireland at Dakota Premium Foods here have ers, the majority Spanish-speaking, is a beef company was also forcing meat packers to launched new attacks on the union-organiz­ slaughterhouse where the employers carried work while they were injured. BY PETE CLIFFORD ing drive in the plant. Workers there are find- out a drive to intensify the speed of work Workers in the plant responded to these PORTADOWN, Northern Ireland-"The intolerable conditions with a seven-hour sit­ nationalist community is confident and down strike on June l to demand a decrease won't be intimidated by these threats," de­ in the line speed and press other demands. clared Sinn Fein leader Francie Molloy. Thousands protest killing of Black man The company, surprised by the swiftness Molloy and hundreds oflocal residents had and st:riousness of the strike, made conces­ gathered here July 9, behind razor wire and at shopping mall in Dearborn, Michigan sions on the line speed and some other is­ barricades erected by the British Army, and sues. To safeguard their advances, workers successfully prevented for the third year launched a new drive to organize a union in running a rightist Orange Order parade from the plant, United Food and Commercial going down Garvaghy Road, a majority Workers Local 789. A previous organizing Catholic community here in Portadown. drive in 1991 had succeeded, but the union "This isn't about a parade going down the was voted out in 1992 when it failed to gain Garvaghy Road. It's about those who are a contract. marching trying to reverse the political pro­ The union election is set for July 21. cess, trying to kill off the Good Friday On July 11 the company called together Agreement and once again put the nation­ small groups of workers from various areas alist community under siege," stated Molloy, of the plant to hear talks against the union­ who represents Mid Ulster in the Northern organizing drive. Speaking for the company IrelandAssembly. Sinn Fein is the party that were company manager Steve Cortinas and has been leading the fight for a united Ire­ Dominick Driano, a director of Human Re­ land free from British rule. sources for the holding company of Dakota The 1998 Good Friday Agreement pro­ Premium Foods, Rosen Diversified Indus­ vided for the establishment of the Northern tries. The lawyer did most of the talking. Ireland Assembly with limited self-govern­ According to workers in the plant, the law­ ment powers. It registered the continued yer made points to the different groups of weakening of British rule over the northern ·workers along the following lines: six counties oflreland, including the weak­ "Don't vote for the union. The union is ening of pro-British groups such as the Or­ another business, a company that comes ange Order. between the worker and Dakota Premium For years, the Orange Order has orga­ Militant/Ilona Gersh Foods. The union prevents you from hav­ nized hundreds of triumphalist parades in Some 5,000 people rally July 5 against the killing of Frederick Finley, a 32-year­ ing any say over your conditions. Northern Ireland, aimed at reinforcing anti­ old Black man who was choked to death by a mall security guard in a mostly "If the union wins the election, what will Continued on Page 12 white suburb. Another protest is planned for July 17. See story on page 3. it mean? They won't get a contract. Eight Continued on Page 14 Marchers in Socialists .launch ballot drive in New York Mississippi: BY GREG McCARTAN dustrial and Textile Employees. the interest ofpeople in learning more about AND ELENA TATE Mackie, one of the organizers of the pe­ the campaign. This is a reflection of the Black youth NEWYORK-"We collected 1,780 sig­ tition drive, said, "Team members reported deepening working-class resistance that our natures tonight!" said Don Mackie, after the collecting well over the 15 signatures per campaign is a part of." first day of petitioning to place the socialist hour that we had set as our goal. Supporters The three branches of the party, along was lynched campaign on the ballot in New York. Some in Brooklyn averaged more than 23 per hour. with the Young Socialists, held planning BY ROBERTO GUERRERO 50 campaign supporters fanned out across Veteran petitioners reported being struck by Continued on Page 5 AND BRIAN TAYLOR the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, armed with clipboards, campaign fliers, and the KOKOMO, Mississippi-"Everybody Militant and Perspectiva Mundial newspa­ get your walk on! Everybody, everybody get pers, and got the drive to collect 30,000 sig­ your walk on, what!" sounded offmany high natures off to a flying start. school students who joined this 700-person­ July 11 was the first day of the campaign strong march here, in searing southern heat, to win ballot status for James Harris and to demand a federal investigation into the Margaret Trowe, Socialist Workers Party circumstances surrounding the hanging candidates for U.S. president and vice presi­ death of Raynard Johnson. dent, along with Jacob Perasso for U.S. Sen­ Local police have declared the Black 17- ate and Paul Pederson for Congress. Perasso year-old's death a suicide. He was found is a packinghouse worker and leader of the hanging from a pecan tree in his front yard Young Socialists. Pederson is the chairper­ June 16. But the prevailing view here is that son of the Brooklyn branch of the SWP and · Johnson was the victim of a racist lynching a worker in the printshop of Pathfinder carried out as a result of his relationship with Press. a female classmate who is white. Family Also running for Congress are William members say the suicide claim just doesn't Estrada, a meat packer and member of the add up. The belt Johnson hung from, for United Food and Commercial Workers example, was not his. union; John Hawkins, a worker at Many local residents of this small rural · Pathfinder's printshop; Olga Rodriguez, an town pointed to the fact that a deputy of the airline worker and member of the Interna­ local police department was the uncle of the tional Association of Machinists; Douglas young woman Johnson had a relationship Nelson, also a worker at Pathfinder's with. According to residents, since the night printshop and leader of the Young Social­ of the hanging, the deputy and his family , Militant photos/Ruth Nebbia have left the Marion County area. ists; and Glova Scott, a garment worker and Socialists campaign for ballot status in New York. In left photo: Jacob Perasso, candi­ member of the Union of Needletrades, In- Melvin Hollins, head of the local NAACP date for U.S. Senate; in right photo: Paul Pederson, candidate for U.S. Congress. Continued on Page 14 Striking miners: 'They haven't loaded one coal train' - page 15 Swedish trial of U.S. bases in Okinawa draw protests youths attacks rights BY DAG TIRSEN of what the authorities determine to be a riot STOCKHOLM, Sweden-The govern­ can be charged and convicted. Sentences for ment here took another step in its assault on "fomenters and leaders" are up to 10 years democratic rights and the labor movement in prison and for participants up to four through the course of a mass trial of 30 years. This law was used last year in the ar­ youths who occupied an abandoned hospi­ rests· of 243 people taking part in a "street tal in Linkoping. The state used a piece of party" organized by Reclaim the City. The antilabor legislation that allows prosecution violence on the part of the cops was widely of a group for "violent rioting." criticized, and a sizable protest was orga­ With the exception of minors among nized. them, all the youth had been held in cus­ Another argument put forward by the tody for more than one month awaiting trial. prosecutors was that the youths were all Two of them were sentenced to six months guilty of attempted violence because they in prison, another to three months. Most of were there "together and in consultation." the rest were sentenced to mandatory "com­ They argued that all the participants in the munity service." None were cleared of the occupation knew about stockpiling of stones charges. and other "weapons," and all had a "com­ When asked why the court had meted out mon intent" of committing violent actions. Residents of Okinawa rally outside the Japanese island's Futenma U.S. air base, such stiff punishments compared to a simi­ This was also central in the media campaign. where a U.S. marine accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl is stationed. The lar case five years ago, a district attorney The formulation "together and with a soldier was arrested July 3. Two oth.er U.S. marines were arrested the previous answered, "The times are different now." common purpose" has been used by pros­ week after a scuffle with a taxi driver. The youths had occupied an abandoned ecutors in several cases over the last decade, Seeking to defuse protests, U.S. general Earl Hailston, U.S. Marine commander hospital building in the center ofLinkoping starting with a case in 1990 where the pros­ in Okinawa, issued a formal apology for the incidents, which occurred two weeks to press their demand for a youth house. At ecutor put two defendants on trial, claim­ before a Group of Eight summit meeting was to take place in Okinawa. More 3:00a.m., eight hours after the occupation ing both had been present at a murder, while demonstrations against U.S. military bases there are expected at that time. In began, cops made a surprise attack, which acknowledging he couldn't prove who had 1995, three U.S. soldiers were convicted of raping a 12-year-old Okinawan girl, a was fended off by the youths. The house committed it. The defendants were acquit­ case that sparked huge protests. Some 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, was then surrounded by cops and no one ted. Two years later the high court of Swe­ .nearly two-thirds of them in Okinawa. was allowed to leave until a police detach- den accepted the notion of "common pur­ . ment from Stockholm arrived. pose" in a separate murder case . When the youths surrendered, lights used This precedent has been used in several for the cops video cameras were turned off. recent cases where the defendant has been "It confirms that the issue is not whether The statement said that capitalist govern­ According to several activists on the scene, very unpopular, including right-wing mur­ the youths that occupied a house in ments around the world are in an increas­ the police then began to systematically beat derers and arsonists. Linkoping used right or wrong tactics," the ingly insecure situation given the social and those lying on the ground. Dogs were turned In the Lirikoping trial the court was not statement said. "No. The issue is that the economic crisis. The labor movement, it loose on them and one young woman was ready to accept this part of the prosecutor's cops and the court used the youths' fight said, has a giant stake in defending the badly bitten. At the hospital she was forced case, but it had served its purpose in the for a youth house in Lirikoping as an ex­ youths because the government will use the to undress in front of three male cops. media ofjustifying the long pretrialjailings. cuse for launching a brutal attack on demo­ same laws and repressive measures against A campaign in the media began, backing The Swedish ruling class has been united cratic rights. The issue is the necessity to the unions and working-class fighters. the cops and portraying the youth as vio­ in this attack on democratic rights. Few defend these youths against this injustice in lent terrorists. Without a shred of evidence voices have been raised in protest of the order to be able to defend everybody's Dag Tirsen is a member of the metal the firebombing of the garage of a leading political trial in Lirikoping. The "left" orga­ democratic rights in the future." workers union local politician was ascribed to the youths, nizations are quiet or have undercut a united who were in jail when it took place. defense by arguing that the youths used The "violent rioting" charge is based on "wrong and dangerous methods." an old law directed against fighting work­ The Communist League and Young So­ Bay Area health-care workers strike ers. In an article in the conservative paper cialists in Sweden issued a statement June BY DEBORAH LIATOS at us. Sometimes we don't even have time 24 condemning the cop assault on the oc­ Svenska Dagbladet, Per E. Samuelsson, ari SAN FRANCISCO-Four thousand to read our charts. and that is obscene." attorney in criminal law, argues that the law cupation, the subsequent jailing of the health-care workers carried out a success­ "It used to be normal that when a worker does not apply to the youths in this case. youths, and the trial and convictions. The ful one-day strike July 6 at 10 Bay Area was sick oi: injured on the job, the worker "The law was written for another time, outcome means "the court wants to increase hospitals. was replaced. But it's not the case anymore," against workers' rebellions," he said. the possibilities to use cops and the courts The strikers, members of the Service said SEIU Local 250 president Sal Rosselli. Under this regulation anyone at the scene to suppress political and social protest. Employees International Union (SEIU) Lo­ "It's escalated work-related accidents," he cal 250, were joined on the picket line by noted, "all caused by short-staffing." members of the California Nurses Associa­ . The hospital workers' fight coincides with tion. The same day, 500 hospital workers a month-long strike by 1,700 nurses at two marched in downtown San Francisco to Stanford University hospitals in Palo Alto. press their demands. The bosses at the Children's Hospital in THE MILITANT The unionists' main demands include an Oakland retaliated against the strikers by increase in staffing and reduction of the locking out all workers who were scheduled workload that would lead to better patient to work and who honored the July 6 strike. care and fewer work-related injuries. On July 8, some 150 workers held a spir­ Def~nd a woman's right to choose On the picket line at the Alta Bates Medi­ ited rally in front of the hospital. They re­ Supportfor a woman's right to cal Center in Berkeley, DeAnn Home, a ceived widespread support from passersby. union representative with 11 years' service Negotiations on new contracts continue. abortion remains strong, despite as a care associate, had just worked nine The union's old contracts with the hospitals · decades-.long efforts by the U.S. days of back-to-hack shifts, including the expired in May. Federal mediators are in­ rulers to. undermine it. The· ~Mili­ July 4 holiday. volved in the negotiations. "You're exhausted-there's a possibility tant' explains why championing a that you can make a mistake," Home ex­ Deborah Liatos is a member of the United woman's right to control her. body plained. "They're throwing so many patients Food and Commercial Workers union. is essential for the labor move­

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2 The Militant July 24, 2000 5,000 in Michigan blast killing of Black man

BY ILONA GERSH day, July 17 at noon, which will take place DEARBORN, Michigan-Chants of "No at the federal building in downtown Detroit. justice, no peace," "No justice, no profits," The rally will demand a federal investiga­ and "Enough is enough!" reverberated tion into the killing of Finley. through the parking lots ofFairlane Mall here U.S. Congressman John Conyers an­ July 5 as more than 5,000 people rallied to nounced that he had called U.S. Attorney protest the killing of Frederick Finley out­ General Janet Reno to ask for a federal in­ side of Lord and Taylor one week before. vestigation of Lord and Taylor, Fairlane Media estimates of the crowd ranged Mall, and the city of Dearborn. from 5,000 to 10,000, as the mall parking lots were jammed with vehicles and nearby Racist history roads gridlocked. Some people never got to Several references by speakers at the rally the rally because of the congestion. pointed to the segregationist past practices Finley, 32, was choked to death by a se­ of city officials in Dearborn to explain the curity guard outside of Lord and Taylor June racial profiling that they said led to the 22, according to, family members and press deadly attack upon Finley. Mayor Orville reports. Finley and his family had just left Hubbard, who held office from 1942-78, the store when plainclothes security guards was a staunch anticommunist and racist. The stopped and began to arrest his 11-year-old policies of his administration supported the daughter, accusing her of shoplifting a interests of the biggest employer in bracelet she was wearing. Finley, trying to Dearborn, the Ford Motor Company. prevent the guards from arresting her, was Dearborn, the site of the world headquar­ grabbed in a chokehold, and thrown to the ters of Ford Motor Company, was built as a ground, witnesses report. segregated city for whites. Ford resisted One guard is said to have put his knee on unionization of it's workforce for longer Finley's neck, while another handcuffed than all the other big auto manufacturers. him, rendering him unconscious. While near During World War II, the federal govern­ death, Finley received rough treatment. A ment attempted to build housing projects in Militant/Ilona Gersh Dearborn cop reported that when he arrived Dearborn to address a housing shortage. Angry demonstrators packed shopping mall in Dearborn, Michigan, July 5 to protest on the scene, a security guard was on top of Twelve thousand Blacks worked in war pro­ killing of Frederick Finley by department store security guard. Finley, who was lying face down on the duction in Dearborn, but only a few dozen ground, and was handcuffed in the front. lived in the city. Fairlane Mall. Dennis Richardson, was arraigned in the According to the written report, the cop Besides calling for the prosecution of the Store owners there report that sales 19th District Court in Dearborn and charged got up, and "then yanked the Black male guards who killed Finley and a federal in­ dropped by up to 50 percent in the week with involuntary manslaughter. suspect off the ground, stating 'Get the f­ vestigation, speakers at the rally called for following the killing. The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office . up,' and then dropped him back down on a boycott of Lord and Taylor and the The day after the rally, one of the guards, announced that no one else will be charged. the ground. The Black male suspect on the ground was still unresponsive." The hos­ pital confirmed that Finley died of as- phyxiation. · Miami trade ban with Cuba struck down '$4=death' BY BILL KALMAN policy. On May 17, Federal District Judge Florida the costly embarrassments of los­ The family denies that there was an at­ MIAMI-A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Federico Moreno, anticipating the Supreme ing such events as the Latin Grammy Awards tempt to steal the bracelet. They had just striking down a Massachusetts law requir­ Court's Massachusetts decision, issued a and the Junior Pan Am Track and Field spent more than $200 in the store, and were ing state agencies to boycott companies that temporary order nullifying the county ban Championship." still carrying more than $600 in cash. They do business in Myanmar (also known as because "there is a substantial likelihood that Ban iess and less effective say that they had forgotten about the $4 Burma) reinforced the authority of the ex­ the 'Cuba Affidavit' will be found uncon­ bracelet the daughter had put on her wrist. ecutive power in the United States in set­ stitutional." The county ban became less and less ef­ Picket signs at the rally read, "$4 =death," ting foreign policy. Cuban-American ultrarightists reacted fective, particularly over the past year. Last "Finley family-you are not alone," "Jus­ The Massachusetts ban was imposed be­ with anger and resignation. Javier Souto, a October the Cuban band Los Van Van played tice is not for sale," "No justice, no peace," cause of alleged human rights violations in county commissioner and veteran of the in front of 3,000 at the Miami Arena, a city "No justice, no profits," and "Life is worth Myanmar. Justice David Souter, writing the U.S. government-sponsored Bay of Pigs facility. In February the Miami Film Festi­ more than $4." Two larger-than-life photos Supreme Court's opinion, said the Massa­ invasion of Cuba in April 1961, said, "We val sold out its showings of the Cuban film of Malcolm X were held high. chusetts law "undermines the president's are not going to stay quiet. We will need to Life is to Whistle, despite the county rescind­ A little boy sitting on his father's shoul­ authority by leaving him with less economic be creative in finding ways not to make ing almost $50,000 in grant money. And in ders wore a sign that said "Death penalty." and diplomatic leverage." things easy for Mr. Castro." March, county officials backed down from Speakers at the rally included Jesse Jack­ This decision opposed any weakening of Jose Basulto, founder of Brothers to the canceling the opening night party at the son, Al Sharpton, Dick Gregory, Martin U.S. presidential powers on this question. Rescue, stated, ''Anyone who has a beefwith Latin American Studies Association annual Luther King III, Detroit NAACP president "It is not merely that the differences between us is striking now. They're ganging up convention, which was held at a county Wendall Anthony, Congressman John the state a:nd federal acts in scope and type against us because we're perceived as vul­ venue. About a hundred Cuban academics Conyers, and Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, the of sanctions threaten to complicate discus- nerable." attended the conference. lawyer representing the Finley family in a . sions," the court wrote, "they compromise The publishers of the Miami Herald, re­ In May, the Cuba policy was waived for $600 million lawsuit against Lord and Tay­ the very capacity of the president to speak flecting the prevailing viewpoint of local AT&T in order to award the company the lor and Fairlane Mall. Family members for the nation with one voice in dealing with ruling circles, supported the ACLU's law­ lucrative pay phone contract at Miami In­ stood on the stage. The speakers reflected other governments." suit. In a June 20 editorial headlined "Let ternational Airport AT&T provides long­ the angry reaction in Detroit to the killing This decision had an immediate impact Cuba Ordinance Die," the Herald wrote: distance service to Cuba. of Finley. here in Florida. The Miami-Dade County "What the lawsuit can do is return greater Detroit, which is overwhelmingly Black, policy that prohibits the use of county funds Miami to the national fold, opposing Castro Bill Kalman is a member of United Trans­ is surrounded by mostly white suburbs. In or facilities to anyone having business deal­ but in ways that are consistent with national portation Union Local 1138 in Hialeah, recent months the news has reported doz­ ings with Cuba was also struck down. Any-· policy and law. It may also spare South Florida. ens of incidents of police harassment and one applying for county money or venues brutality directed against Detroit residents to stage cultural, athletic, or academic events who are Black. It is common for drivers who had to sign an affidavit pledging that they are Black to be pulled over by the cops while do no business with Cuba or Cubans on the Imperialism's March toward MHI.ll\RX The Communist passing through the predominantly white island. "[The Massachusetts] ruling pre­ Fascism and War · f'REDEHICK EN(;EJ.'~ suburbs. This has become known as a DWB '1lie Manifesto cludes Miami~ Dade County from enforcing Jack Barnes (driving while Black) incident. our Cuba policy," said county mayor Alex COMl\'IUNIST Also: Karl Marx and One participant in the rally was Bob Penelas, stating that "while disappointed ... ~li\NIFES'ID • What the 1987 Stock Market Crash Frederick Engels Cracchiolo, a retired UAW member who de­ we will follow the law." Founding document cided to protest such harassment near an­ The ruling class here instituted the ban in Foretold other suburban mall in Eastpointe. 1996 in the wake of Cuba's decision to de­ • Defending Cuba; of the modern work­ Cracchiolo, who is white, faces numerous fend its sovereignty by shooting down two Defending Cuba's ing-class movement, charges as a result of his picketing. planes organized by Brothers to the Rescue, Socialist Revolu­ published in 1848. "I'm here because this could have bee:n a counterrevolutionary outfit that had repeat­ tion Mary-Alice Explains why com­ my husband, my son, or my daughter," one edly flown aircraft that violated Cuban air­ Waters munism is derived woman told this reporter. A young man said, space and ignored warnings to return to • The Curve of not from precon­ ceived principles but from facts and "It could have been me. Security guards are Florida. Capitalist proletarian movements springing just private cops. There's no telling what The Miami-Dade County policy was al­ Development they will do when they stop someone who from the actual class struggle. $3.95 ready under legal challenge. In May, the Leon Trotsky is Black. They can get out of hand." American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) $14,00 "The cops are judge, jury, and executioner filed a class action law suit challenging the all in one," said an elderly man who said he policy's application to cultural events. The was active in the civil rights movement of suit, filed on behalf of the Miami Light In New International no. 10 the late 1950s and 1960s. "They decided he Project, GableStage, Grupo Cultural LaMa The Opening Guns was guilty. Finley got the death penalty. The Teodora, the Cuban Cultural Group, and two of World War Ill crime? Shoplifting." "It's time for us all to concert promoters, challenged the policy on stand up against racism," said another par­ First Amendment grounds. Other organiza­ Washington's Assault on Iraq ticipant. "This rally shows we can be tions, like the Concert Association of Jack Barnes strong." Florida, the Florida Grand Opera, and the The U.S. government's murderous as­ Pointing to other cases of police brutal­ New World Symphony, discussed joining sault on Iraq heralded increasingly ity, Jesse Jackson opened the rally by point­ the lawsuit. sharp conflicts among imperialist pow­ ing out, "What happened here could have The policy had a chilling effect on cul­ ers, the rise of rightist and fascist happened anywhere in the country." tural exchange. For example, th.e Miami forces, growing instability of interna­ "This is not about shoplifting. This is Light Project could not bring to the city tional capitalism, and more wars. about murder," said AI Sharpton. He an­ Grupo Vocal Desandan, a Haitian musical In New International no. 7. $12.00 nounced plans for a second rally, on Mon- group that resides in Cuba, because of the July 24, 2000 The Militant 3 UNITE strikers in Florida win support BY MIKE ITALIE no te dejes insultar" (Working like mules, POMPANO BEACH, Florida-Workers don't let them insult you), and "Veye yo" struck Tartan Textile here July 6, demand­ (Keep an eye on them). ing an immediate $1 per hour wage raise. Up to 25 strikers at a time mass by the The 220 members of the Union of plant gate from 5:00 a.m. until late in the Needletrades, Ingustrial and Textile Em­ evening. They gather to sing, dance, blare ployees (UNITE) in this industrial laundry whistles, and rush together into the drive­ north of Miami-a majority of whom are way to shout at any scabs who come by. Haitian women-are angry about wages Children of the strikers join the picket, under $7 an hour and weekly take-home pay sometimes taking the bullhorn to lead the of$192. Some carry their last pay stub with chants. them and show it to people who come by Leroy Forde is one of many strikers who the picket line~ The company offered only accuse the company of discrimination. With 25 cents an hour per year in wage increases. 15 years experience in maintenance before Houston-based Tartan Textile, which being hired 14 months ago at Tartan, he was employs more than 3,000 workers at 28 given $8 per hour instead ofthe regular start­ plants across the country, washes linens and ing maintenance wage of $12. A native of surgical gowns for hospitals and nursing St. Kitts in the Caribbean, Forde said the homes. Most of the plants are union-orga­ company has not kept its promise of bring­ nized, about halfbelonging to UNITE. None ing him up to full scale after a year. Forde is of the contracts at those plants expire at the solid behind the union, he said, because "we same time as the one here. need protection and to defend ourselves from the company, which is trying to take Sympathy strikes in other states Militant/Eric Simpson advan.tage of us. They want to keep us At a July 11 rally of more than 100 strik­ Workers on strike at Tartan Textile during a picket line July 6. down." ers and supporters outside the Tartan Tex­ To win support for the fight against Tar­ tile plant in Pompano Beach, several work­ Virginia. poihted out that conditions were even worse tan, the union is organizing strikers to speak ers had just come back from other states. Preddie said he and a dozen other work­ before the union was voted in six years ago. out on Haitian radio programs based in south They had gone there to set up pickets by ers were arrested by police while picketing "Now we have vacations and holidays, and Florida. Strikers report that the company had UNITE urging workers at plants owned by the Hempstead plant on July 10. "But we they don't treat us as bad on the job," she said. been slowly bringing in workers from other Tartan to go on sympathy strikes to aid their were released on our own recognizance "We have medical insurance, although it's so plants in preparation for a strike, and about brothers and sisters here. when we got to the police station," he said. bad the hospital won't accept it sometimes." 20 workers from the plant here in Pompano "The solidarity we got was unbelievable," "The police is on the company's side but Gloria Portillo started at Tartan Textile Beach have crossed the line. Each morning said Randal Preddie, a truck driver and they are nervous about the amount of sup­ just before workers voted in the union in the company also brings in a bus of work­ member of UNITE on strike here, in an in­ port we have. I can't forget the militancy of 1994. She pointed out that without the union ers from temporary agencies to try to break terview with Militant reporters. UNITE the workers, especially the women workers "there was only one break, while now there the strike, but some ofthe replacements have members at Tartan Textile plants in Freeport who operate the laundry machines. They are are three, and it was hard to even get per­ begun to leave the plant in disgust at the and Hempstead, New York, kept those fa­ better than the men. They were amazing. mission-to go get some water." working conditions. cilities "closed tight yesterday," he stated. They would not be intimidated by the po­ Some of the many signs in English, Span­ Donald Lorfils, a 25-year-old student Preddie and other workers who had trav­ lice and company security who were telling ish, and Creole that workers carry on the from Florida International University, came eled to these factories said sympathy job them to disperse from the picket line." picket line read: "Working under 110 de­ in on one of these buses. When he saw the actions were also under way in Rome, Geor­ Carmelita Doristrin, with seven years at the grees, Sweating Like a Pig for $6.15 after 7 picket signs in Creole, he decided to come gia; Paterson, New Jersey; and in Maine and Florida plant an!i a wage of $6.15 per hour,· years. No More," "Trabajando como mulas, out on his break and learn about what was going on. "I read the Creole signs because that's my first language," said Lorfils, add­ ing that for workers to be out picketing "the company must be disrespecting people in Chicago laundry workers strike for a union their jobs. I saw the conditions inside and they're trying to work people like robots." BY LISA POTASH with a smaller number of workers getting us out and send in some new workers." Another worker, driving through this indus­ AND LISA-MARIE ROTTACH up to around $8.50. They get no benefits UNITE has organized leafleting teams at trial area looking for a job, stopped at the CHICAG0-'~1 want a union so lean be ex~ept a medical plan at great expense. to hotels contracting with Five Star to let cus­ picket to- find out. wha{ was goiqg .Qn -imd treated like a human being," saip Natalie individual workers. . .· . .tomers and hotel management know about decided to put on a union button and stay Payton, one of the 35 workers on strike at· Payton and Sherry Clark, both young ·issues of this strike. Thiee hotels have since for a while. · the Five Star Laundry in Chicago. Black workers who recently joined the canceled their contracts with the laundry Striker Carmelita Doristan is one ofmany On June 19, about 50 percent of the work­ strike, also reported that Black workers are company. day shift workers who stay on picket duty ers at the company walked out as part of a not allowed to talk to each other while work­ Several workers from the large UNIT_E­ from early in the morning until well into four-month fight to win union representa­ ing. One boss told Payton that "Blacks don't organized sewing plant Hart, Schaffner and the afternoon. She demands a $1 an hour tion. Five Star is one of a number of local like to work." Payton and Clark also pointed Marx have jointld in picketing and leafleting raise, but said that fighting the bosses' abu­ laundries that the Union ()f Needletrades, to individual favoritism as a problem. They teams. sive treatment is just as important. While she Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) mentioned a riumber of unsafe working con­ hand-feeds a machine 300 sheets an hour, has tried to organize over the last two years. ditions, including no air conditioning, ex­ Lisa Potash ·and Lisa-Marie Rottach are said Doristan, "the bosses yell at us. They Many workers leading the strike are im­ posed rollers within machines, and sharp both sewing machine operators and mem­ don't respect us. But they must be made to migrants. "We're tired of tricks and lies and machine comers that are supposed to be bers of UNITE in Chicago. Potash is also respect us because we are human beings." will stay out as long as it takes," said Jaime, covered by rubber. Payton said, "We could the Socialist Workers candidate for US. 24, from Mexico. Maria, also from Mexico, drop dead. They don't care. They'd just cart Congress. Mike Italie is a garment worker in Miami. pointed to the company's intimidation tac­ tics. "They threatened those inside, saying whoever signed the union card would be fired. They signed anyway." Approximately 2,200 unionists.walk out at Vancouver hotels 90 percent of the workforce have signed union cards. Around 40 employees have BY BEVERLY BERNARDO the passion of the moment, we tore apart hotel owners was an insult," said Albert continued to work during the strike, in ad­ VANCOUVER, British Columbia­ cardboard boxes to make signs. I'm think­ Reagan, a HRCEBU member at CARA dition to the temporary workers that Five Unionists walked off the job at sevenmajor ing of keeping one of them as a souvenir," flight kitchens who came to the Renaissance Star has brought in. The company has re­ hotels here and set up picket lines in a fight he continued. "Zero increase, zero work," Hotel picket line to show his support. The duced all those working during the strike to for wage increases, better health and dental the workers had written on several signs. Canadian Union of Public Employees in temporary status. benefits, and improved pensions. Several hours later Local 40 officials gave British Columbia has sent a letter of sup­ The Five Star walkout is an unfair labor The 2,200 workers, organized by the their authorization to the strike. port, which is on the bulletin board of the practices strike. UNITE charges Five Star Hotel, Restaurant, Culinary Employees and Wages, benefits, and pension are key is­ picket line at the Renaissance Hotel. Strik­ with threatening to fire workers who sup­ Bartenders Union (HRCEBU) Local 40, sues in the walkout. The Greater Vancouver ers report that people driving by honk in port the union. Also, workers who wouldn't voted by a 97 percent margin to reject the Hotel Employers Association offered wage support throughout the day. sign up for a pro-company outfit-Local offer from the Greater Vancouver Hotel Em­ increases of 0, 1, and 1 percent over three In addition, about 100 housekeeping and 707 of the National Production Workers ployers Association. The hotels are the Four years. "The tourism industry has made a lot laundry workers at the Pacific Inn in Sur­ Union, which is not affiliated with theAFL­ Seasons, Westin Bayshore, Delta Vancouver of money over the last 15 years so we're rey, a Vancouver suburb, have been locked CIO-were told their. paychecks would be Airport Hotel, the Holiday Inn, Delta Pa­ asking for a fair wage that keeps up with out since June 23. The members of Cana­ held back. The union also charges that Five cific Re.sort, the Renaissance Vancouver, and inflation," said Victor, a doorman at the Re­ dian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 3000 are Star offered bribes to individual workers to the Hyatt Regency. naissance. "We want at least 3 percent a fighting against the contracting out of their cross the picket line, and that it changes Angered by the bosses' refusal to meet year-the more the better," said one woman jobs as the employer tries to bust the union. conditions of work and production without their demands and the slow pace of nego­ striker at the Delta Airport who requested Jasminder and Surinder told Militant report­ first negotiating with the union. tiations, workers at the Delta Vancouver that her name not be used because she feared ers that it was their first time on the picket Natalie Payton, who was picketing out­ Hotel in Richmond walked off the job on reprisal from management after the strike. line as they stopped cars to give drivers leaf­ side Five Star, said that the bosses "talk to July 3 at 1:00 p.m. The union had issued a "Here everything is poor-poor wages, poor lets explaining the issues in their fight. They you any kind of way. They don't ask you 72-hour strike notice and the workers de­ benefits, poor pensions. That is what we have worked at the hotel since it opened about overtime. They tell you. A supervisor cided to exercise their right to strike with­ want to change," she said. eight years ago. came up to me and showed me the palm of out sanction from Local40. Workers on the "Our dental coverage should be 100 per­ "The owner pays contract workers only his hand, where he'd written 1:30! They tell picket line explained to Militant reporters cent, not 80 percent," explained Lielelotte $8 an hour but CAW members make you to go to lunch by gesturing with their that they had been without a contract since Fett, who has been at the Renaissance Ho­ $10.88," explained Local 3000 vice presi­ hands to their mouths to eat And we get March and had discussed among themselves tel since 1981. "We're on strike for better dent Jean Van Vliet. About 450 members of only one of our two 15-minute breaks," she the need to take action. Taxi drivers and the benefits and pensions," said Kulvinder, a the local at other hotels are also in negotia­ said. "For how hard I work I deserve some operators of the hotel's bus for guests im­ room attendant at the Renaissance for 12 tions with the bosses at the height of respect. The company is getting new ac­ mediately respected the pickets. years. "I've been here for 25 years and I'll Vancouver's busy tourist season. counts but we're not benefiting. On Five As news of the strike at the Delta Airport only get a pension of $i60," said a worker Star's one-year anniversary, they gave us Hotel spread, workers at the other hotels also at the Delta Airport Hotel who asked that Beverly Bernardo is a meat packer. Ned pizza!" began walking off the job. "It was a real his name not be used. Dmytryshyn, a member ofthe International Prior to the walkout, workers started at grassroots movement," said Bruce who The hotel workers are receiving support Association of Machinists, contributed to $6.50 an hour, usually topping out at $7 .25, works in banquets at the Hyatt Regency. "In from other workers. "The offer from the this article. 4 The Militant July 24, 2.000 NY socialists launch drive to get on ballot Continued from front page The forum followed several days of peti­ meetings the weekend before the petition­ tioning to get the socialist candidates on the ing drive in order to get off to a strong start. ballot here. Two people who met petition­ They plan to collect over half the signatures ers came to the forum and one bought a sub­ before the start of the Active Workers Con­ scription to the campaign newspaper, the ference on July 27 through a daily effort that Militant. A yoting woman who attended includes a team of workers and students who decided to help campaign the following day. have volunteered days off to petition full- Trowe visited four different locations in the time, · city, talking with working people and en­ In addition to Washington, D.C., support­ couraging them to sign the petitions that her ers are organizing to place the socialist cam­ supporters were circulating. Many who paign on the ballot in Colorado, where pa­ signed were glad to learn about the socialist pers have been filed; Washington State, campaign. One man signed up for a sub­ where the petitions have been turned into scription to the Spanish-language campaign the state; Iowa, which has 600 more signa­ magazine, Perspectiva Mundial. Altogether tures to go to meet the goal of 2,500; Min­ some 15 copies of the Militant were pur­ nesota where a big effort this week netted chased along with several Pathfinder books 1,674 signatures; Mississippi, where 150 of and pamphlets. The day netted some 540 2,000 have been collected, and New Jersey, new signatures on petitions. Jacob Perasso, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate, petitions in New York City July 12. which has completed its drive. In Florida, Brenda McDaniel, who signed to put the socialists are lining up 25 electors to meet socialist candidates on the ballot, told cialism and other issues the unionists were Socialist campaigners plan to collect well ballot requirements. Supporters started the Trowe, "It's nice you're a regular worker." concerned about. Amtrak worker Tom over this number by the August 15 dead­ ballot drive in Rhode Island, and have signed She volunteered to help distribute campaign Headley took Trowe around and introduced line. They have also begun petitioning to up 618 people out of a goal of2,300. flyers the next time campaigners come to her to a dozen or so other workers. The fol­ place Socialist Workers candidate Sam the shopping center. A number of workers lowing morning Trowe and two campaign Manuel on the ballot for delegate to the U.S. and youth were particularly appreciative of supporters met workers heading into the House of Representatives. Manuel attended BY JANICE LYNN the socialist campaign's stance against po­ Smithfield ham plant in Landover, Mary­ the national convention of the NAACP in WASHINGTON-Socialist Workers lice brutality. One signer told of police ha­ land. The meat packers bought two copies Baltimore July 9-12, and plans to partici­ Party vice-presidential candidate Margaret rassment of youth in that area and invited of the Militant and four copies of the spe­ pate in the August 26 march here in Wash­ Trowe spoke to scores of working people the socialists to a community meeting the . cial Perspectiva Mundial supplement about ington to protest police brutality and racial here July 7-10. "James Harris and I are trav­ following week. the struggle of meat packers in Minnesota. profiling. eling across this country to meet workers Trowe then went to Union Station and By the end of the second week of peti­ and youth who are resisting the offensive met with several railroad workers at an eat­ tioning some 2,345 signatures were obtained Janice Lynn is a members of the Interna­ of the bosses," Trowe told an audience at ery there for an in-depth discussion on so- on petitions towards the 3,320 required. tional Association of Machinists. the Friday Militant Labor Form. Trowe pointed to the 5,000 people who turned out in Dearborn, Michigan, to pro­ test the. killing of a Black man, strikes by SWP presidential candidate Harris talks mine workers in the Western coalfields, struggles by meat packers in Minnesota to unionize, and rallies, strikes, and actions by with meat packers and farmers in Iowa janitors in many cities who are standing up for their rights against company assaults. BY JOE SWANSON fighters and explained that this was one of A rural activist from western Iowa told "Our campaign is joining these picket lines DES MOINES, Iowa-One of the first the many struggles against police brutality Harris how the large hog confinement fac­ and protests wherever they break out," she campaign stops by Socialist Workers presi­ and other violence perpetrated against work­ tories, given free rein by the government, said. dential candidate James Harris was here in ing people. He cited the recent killing of a were creating environmental and health Iowa July 6 and 7. He spent the two days Black man by security guards in Dearborn, problems in the area. Harris replied that in . talking with working people, particularly Michigan, and the protest by more th~n May he had taken part in a fact-finding del- packinghouse workers and farmers, and 5,000 working people in response. The kill­ . egation with U.S. farmers to revolutionary explaining a revolutionary working-class ing of working people on the streets by the Cuba. U.S. farmers know from experience perspective. cops and other thugs are another form of that Washington does not side with them, Harris visited with campaign supporters the death penalty that is carried out every so the delegation was impressed when they at the afternoon shift change at the IBP plant day in this country. discovered firsthand that the Cuban govern­ in nearby Perry, Iowa. Later he met with Fruit accompanied Harris to a downtown ment guarantees fair prices for farmers and some of these workers at the Perry public hotel where farmers and rural activists who facilitates technical aid and low-cost loans library. are members of the Iowa Citizens for Com­ for them. Cuban farmers could not under~ One of them, originally from Mexico, munity Improvement (ICCI) were having stand the concept of "foreclosure," he said, asked Harris what the difference is between their annual state meeting. Farmers ex­ as no Cuban can lose his or her farm today. Cuba and China. Harris explained that in plained to the socialist candidates how, with While in Iowa Harris was interviewed both countries working people had carried the low prices and high expenses they faced, by the Associated Press, a columnist for out powerful revolutions, breaking imperi­ more and more of them would be driven off the Des Moines Register, and several radio alist domination. Washington remains bent the land. stations. · on undermining and ultimately overthrow­ ing the workers states in both China and Cuba. In China, however, a parasitic bureau­ Trowe joins NY pro-choice cracy has usurped political power from workers and farmers, and seeks to stabilize its privileged position by seeking an accom­ action, Ineets young fighters modation with imperialism. In contrast, in Cuba there is a workers and farmers gov­ BY HILDA CUZCO siana, to New York by the thousands to de­ emmept with a genuinely communist lead­ NEW YORK- "Women have to have fend the clinics and reaffirm that they should ership that responds to the interests ofwork­ control of their own reproductive rights. It's stay open. ing people both in Cuba and internationally. part of the Constitution," said Leah Graniela, Supporters of the Socialist Workers cam­ Other questions raised ranged from the 20, one ofthe dozens ofwomen's rights sup­ paign introduced Trowe to the activists at recent elections in Mexico to how we can porters attending the National Organization the rally. Pointing out the headline of the .strengthen our unions here. for Women (NOW) Rally for Reproductive Militant on the meat packers struggle in At a campaign forum in Des Moines or­ Rights in front of the federal courthouse Minnesota, Trowe said she is a unionist, and ganized by supporters of Harris's campaign here. a meat packer herself, and that workers are the next evening, a high school youth asked The action celebrated the U.S. Supreme seeking to transform the unions into fight­ how working people can change their unions Court's rejectron of a Nebraska 1999 anti­ ing instruments for working people. when there is a bureaucracy in control. Har­ abortion law that bans a medical procedure Several Stuyvesant High School students ris explained that the union is the member­ right-wingers call "partial birth abortion," were also present at the rally. One of them, ship, not just the officials. In the course of clinically known as D&E [dilation and Cara Wentworth, 17 years old, told the SWP struggle on the picket lines and in the streets, evacuation] abortion, performed by doctors . vice-presidential candidate that she was the union ranks can gain confidence in their in the second trimester of pregnancy. among the students that staged a walkout own capacities and begin to assert increas­ Like Graniela, there were other young March 3 in protest against the acquittal of ing control over their organization. This ten­ women among the some 80 people present the cops that killed Amadou Diallo, an im- dency can be seen in a number of fights to­ who canie to the rally looking for actions to migrant worker from Guinea. · day, from the strike by Western coal miners defend a woman's right to choose abortion. Several hundred high school students had to the union-organizing struggle by pack­ Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to a inghouse workers in St. Paul, Minnesota. vice president Margaret Trowe, talked to the rally by the federal courthouse chanting, Edwin Fruit, Socialist Workers candidate activists and shared her experience as a long­ "No Justice, No Peace," while dozens of for U.S. Congress in the 4th district, chaired time fighter for women's rights. Hunter High School students also marched the campaign event. Fruit, who is also a "In Wichita, Kansas, the antiabortion from their school to a rally by Central Park. member of the Concerned Citizens for Jus­ forces shut down the abortion clinics in an Trowe introduced the Militant to her with tice, introduced two of the leading activists organized national mobilization in 1992," the headline on the Supreme Court ruling, of the group, which is demanding justice said Trowe to several activists gathered the Minnesota meat packers struggle, and for Charles Lovelady, a young Black man around. "But they were defeated after thou­ others. who was killed by two security thugs at a sands mobilized to keep the clinics open." Wentworth expressed interest in the local nightclub in February. That battle was won after pro-choice sup­ Young Socialists as well and talked to YS In the discussion, Harris saluted these porters mobilized from Baton Rouge, Loui- leader Olympia Newton. July 24, 2000 The Militant 5 Socialists discuss steps to merge party's activity with worker and farmer fightback

BY GREG McCARTAN slow down their production lines now, be­ Premium Foods. When bosses came into the on the surface because of what workers are AND NORTON SANDLER cause the employers in Europe and Japan, cafeteria where workers gathered that morn­ increasingly having to confront. Immigrant NEW YORK-At a four-day meeting striving to catch up, are pushing in the same ing refusing to go to their work stations, they workers not only have to stand up to the here of the Socialist Workers Party National direction. They now will have to fight the ran into a determined vanguard of working company and their hired thugs; they are also Committee June 24-27, meat packers from fuwre-in-'the present while they continue to people, he said. the targets of Immigration and Naturaliza­ several regions of the country explained the drive in a way that guarantees the condi­ The union-organizing drive began in the tion Service (INS) cops and other federally struggle and ferment among fellow work­ tions for its emergence. midst of the sit-down strike. The pro-union organized harassment and violence, Barnes ers in that industry. In St. Paul, Minnesota, The employers must now respond to the slogan "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!) became noted. As these workers defend themselves socialist workers are in the midst of a fight resistance in unions and factory workforces a common one at the plant in the following against such attacks, they set an example to to win union recognition for the United Food in order to maintain dominance over their days. The fact that workers speak both Span­ other workers in taking on political ques­ and Commercial Workers (UFCW) at Da­ imperialist competitors. By pushing and ish and English, Perez said, has not pre­ tions that are the most vital to the entire kota Premium Foods. probing over the past eight years, the bosses vented them from communicating by find- class. The stakes represented by the Minnesota This year, May Day marches in several battle were brought home by the news, on cities across the country were organized by the eve ofthe meeting, about-a UFCW or­ immigrant workers. These were proletarian­ ganizing drive that has been launched in the led actions placing political demands on the Omaha, Nebraska, area among workers cur­ U.S. government, such as an end to INS rently employed at ConAgra, Greater workplace raids and deportations, and equal Omaha Packing, and Nebraska Beef plants. rights for all immigrants, Barnes empha­ Coal miners and members of the United sized. Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in­ Barnes noted that the working class in the volved shoulder-to-shoulder with miners on United States, unlike that in most other im­ strike against the Pittsburg and Midway Coal perialist countries, does not have a revolu­ Co., as well as socialist workers who are tionary-political tradition which grew out of active alongside farmers fighting to defend resistance and struggle against a military their land and livelihood, brought additional dictatorship, fascist tyranny, or repressive lessons of recent class-struggle develop­ state regime that threatened the rights and ments to the discussion. ability to politically organize by broad lay­ Garm:ent workers-from Miami to Los ers of the population. In Austria, Germany, Angeles, and from St. Louis to New York­ Italy, Portugal, Spain, and elsewhere, mil­ brought their experiences of union struggles, lions of workers have organized revolution­ actions to defend immigrantrights, and sell­ ary mobilizations that posed the question of ing the Militant, Perspectiva Munida!, and power. The infusion of millions of immi­ Pathfinder books to co-workers. grant workers from Mexico and Latin The June 24-27 meeting nominated America who have revolutionary traditions James Harris for U.S. president and Marga­ and class-struggle experience under repres­ ret Trowe for vice president as the Socialist sive regimes and dictatorships brings an Workers Party ticket in this year's elections. important new element along these lines into Harris and Trowe are both veteran working­ the U.S. working class. class fighters, unionists, and party leaders. Organizing drives and struggles such as A public meeting to launch the campaign Striking UMWA members rally June 26 at Pittsburg and Midway's McKinley mine those by miners and steelworkers cropping was held over the weekend at Columbia near Gallup, New Mexico. Through the steps taken over the past two years to fuse up across the country are beginning to link University (see article and biographies of party's work with emerging worker and farmer fightback, SWP members and Young up rural and urban toilers, as well as show the candidates in the July 10 Militant). Socialists find themselves increasingly in the midst of these struggles. the weight of the leadership of working people who are Black or immigrant, Barnes Cause of the resistance said. In an opening report to the meeting, SWP have been able to weaken the unions, Barnes ing a common language in struggle. It is possible to see a class-struggle­ national secretary Jack Barnes emphasized said. But weakening the unions is not Tom Fisher from St. Paul pointed out that minded leadership beginning· to develop that the resistance and struggles by work­ enough-they must face a fight that will go the party's branches and fractions-units of among the ranks in these fights today. These ing people in the United States today are a through these weakened but not defeated communist workers in designated industries fighters do not start with any preconceived consequence of the real relative successes basic defense organizations of the working and unions--must be ready for outbreaks of ideas other than determining through deeds U.S. employers and their government have class. struggle such as this one; since they can who they trust and who they are fighting had in increasing productivity and widen­ The bosses have drawn millions into the happen anywhere, and will. together with against the bosses and their ing their competitive edge over big-business workforce, and what we are seeing is these "Workers at Dakota remaine~ disciplined government, Barnes stated. This is how they rivals in Europe and Japan. very gravediggers of capitalism-as Karl and unified, and they won some important will judge communist workers and their This has been done, not primarily through Marx and Frederick Engels accurately ex­ concessions from the boss," he said. The party and program. the use of computers, as claimed by many plained in the Communist Manifesto in challenge now is to keep organizing and For the past two years, the party has been bourgeois economists and commentators, 1848-beginning to press back against responding to the company as the bosses use taking more and more steps to fuse its work but through the intensification of labor by them. a carrot-and-stick approach toward indi­ with the emerging worker and farmer stretching out the working day and the As part of this process, workers in the vidual workers at Dakota, hoping either to fightback. As a result, party and Young So­ workweek, speeding up production lines United States who were born in Mexico, intimidate them or to lure them away from cialists members find themselves in the and the pace of work, and incorporating Somalia, China, or other countries have, the union. midst of these struggles. As this happens, millions of immigrant workers into an ex­ while retaining their original nationalities, Becky Thompson, a leader of the party worker leaders of the revolutionary party panding industrial working class in this increasingly also become "American" branch in St. Paul, explained how socialist step forward and are chosen by fellow fight­ country. workers, a source of strength for the work­ workers and YS members in the city are ers who recognize the qualities and attributes These preconditions have laid the objec­ ing class and a problem for the U.S. bosses. getting an unprecedented response from of proletarian leaders. How fighting co­ tive basis for the emerging fights by work­ Francisco·Perez described the seven-hour workers in the area to the Militant and workers judge them will increasingly be an ers today, Barnes said, and the bosses can't sit-down strike on June 1 and subsequent Perspectiva Mundial, the only publications important criteria for the party in the elec­ change the pace. They cannot and will not actions by packinghouse workers at Dakota that have been carrying consistent and truth­ tion of its leadership. ful coverage of this struggle. Placing these class-struggle develop­ Frank Forrestal, a coal miner in Pennsyl­ ments in the broader political picture, Barnes vania, explained conditions miners face on noted ultrarightist leader Patrick Buchanan's the job and the extent of the employers' as­ success in taking over the Reform Party. This sault on past gains won by the union. He means that today a fascist-minded political gave the example of a recent incident in the figure has a nationwide party, with access mine where he works, in which for 45 min­ to federal funds and other resources, to use utes the workers underground were not no­ as his political organizing center. This is a tified that the fans in the mine had stopped new feature of U.S. politics, Barnes said. functioning. Buchanan will use this party to keep one This can rapidly lead to a buildup of foot planted in a national electoral form as deadly methane gas, the cause of many mine he works to develop a cadre who, down the explosions that have taken the lives ofcount­ road, will fight in the streets against the less coal miners. The mine transportation working class. system was shut down as a result. The mine The strikers involved in militant struggles crew had to walk underground as far as eight today, Barnes said, represent the first seeds miles to reach the surface, taking some of of what will become the working-class an­ the workers four hours to get safely out of swer to the Buchanans and their street thugs the mine. of the coming years. The lessons and work­ Jan Miller, a coal miner in the Western ing-class methods of struggle they are ac­ coalfields, described her recent visits to meet quiring through experience today-from UMWA strikers at P&M mines near Gallup, picket lines to sit-down strikes-are an in­ New Mexico, and in Kemmerer, Wyoming. valuable preparation for these future battles. These miners are in the middle of what is Communist workers will have a new shaping up as a prolonged battle. against weapon in their political arsenal with the concessions demanded by the bosses on publication by Pathfinder of the pamphlet health care, overtime pay, and the length of The Working Class and the Transformation the workday and workweek. ofEducation-The Fraud ofEducation Re­ form Under Capitalism. The booklet's con­ Militant/Linda Joyce Fightback has begun tents, which are taken from Capitalism 's SWP presidential candidate James Harris selling Militant at March 7 demonstration In his report Barnes said this resistance World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at in Tallahassee, Florida, to defend affirmative action. Socialists are meeting increased in the United States in many cases takes on the Millennium, by Jack Barnes, together interest by militant workers and farmers in revolutionary literature. greater political ramifications than it appears with an introduction by the author, take up 6 The Militant July 24, 2000 some of the broad political questions that and more see the common proletarian con­ were addressed at the SWP leadership meet­ dition the toilers face, and can also be at­ ing (the introduction is reprinted elsewhere tracted to the potential power of the work­ in this issue). ing class and the revolutionary perspectives the Socialist Workers Party advances, Wa­ Class struggle in U.S. and Cuba ters emphasized. Mary-Alice Waters, a party leader and Ted Leonard, a Boston textile worker, and editor of the Marxist magazine New Inter­ Joel Britton, a Chicago-area packinghouse national, presented a report on "The Con­ worker, reported on discussions they each vergence of the Crisis of Class-Struggle have had with farmers who were part of Politics in Cuba and the United States." these delegations. These farmers were ea­ The intertwining of the class struggle in ger to speak about what they had learned Cuba and in the United States has been about life in Cuba, which contrasts sharply brought more sharply into focus over the with the common distortions prevalent in the past year, she said. big-business media in this country. Through the last decade of confronting Joe Swanson, a veteran socialist from the effects of the world capitalist economic Iowa, pointed out that the Socialist Workers crisis, the Cuban working class has come Party will recruit farmers as well as work­ out stronger, while at the same time resis­ ers in meatpacking plants, mines, and other tance by workers and farmers in the United industries. "We will urge farmers who join States has increased. This combined devel­ the party to help recruit other farmers like opment is the fundamental reason that six­ themselves," said Swanson. year-old Elian Gonzalez was finally able to Branches and industrial union fractions return home to Cuba, Waters said. If not for Meat packers on the line at Smithfield's giant slaughterhouse in Tarheel, North Caro­ these political facts, Washington would have A centerpiece of the National Commit­ lina. As immigrant workers stand up to company assaults and their hired thugs, as felt considerably less pressure to modify its tee meeting was how to strengthen the well as to the immigration cops, they help set an example for other workers in taking arrogant refusal to respect· Cuba's sover­ party's branches and industrial union frac­ on political questions that are the most vital to the entire working class. eignty and return the boy. tions, and put them in fighting trim as the Waters explained that the Clinton admin­ party deepens its participation in these Work." Sandler, from San Francisco, who dreds of thousands of working people be­ istration seized on the unexpected opportu­ struggles. organizes the party's Trade Union Commit­ yond miners themselves, he said. "The fact nity offered by the case of the child both to One aspect of the restructuring of the tee, returned to some of the questions in­ that there were thousands of retired miners strike at Cuba's sovereignty and to set pre­ party has begun with a few branches mov­ volved in the ongoing struggle by workers and their supporters, including a few hun­ cedents damaging to the rights of working ing to set up halls in workers' and indus­ at Dakota Premium Foods. "The workers at dred high school youth, at the May 17 rally people by strengthening the powers of the trial districts in the towns and cities where Dakota are concentrating on the goal of in Washington is a sign of strength for our INS to implement policies and procedures they are located. This is not unusual for a winning the union representation election class," Sandler said. exempt from normal judicial appeal and re­ proletarian party in times of an upswing in set for July 21. The workers and union or­ "We have met a real interest in the Mili­ view. labor battles, Barnes said. ganizers are producing a newsletter called tant among miners who deeply appreciate Throughout the past seven months since He pointed to the seamen's branch of the Workers' Voice, which answers the both the objective coverage the paper gives the case began, the Socialist Workers Party party in the 1940s, which was located in the company's antiunion moves and organizes their struggles and the broader picture of the both demanded that Washington immedi­ Chelsea area of Manhattan, close to the workers into the fight," he said. world it contributes. Miners in struggle ex­ ately return the child to Cuba and kept pos­ docks along the Hudson River. The very "Every day counts in an organizing pect socialist workers to be there on the ing the fundamental class questions in­ location and charaCter of the hall made it drive," Sandler emphasized. "We can and picket lines and in the midst of the battle," volved, Waters said. This included a clear virtually impossible for its entire member­ must help link fighters together, working Sandler said. stance that the INS is a deadly enemy of ship not to become involved in the struggles through the existing union and UFCW struc­ He described recent moves by socialist working people, and that workers and farm­ of merchant seamen, as well as other work­ tures." workers in the United Auto Workers union ers must oppose moves to strengthen the ing-class protests that broke out. They were "Fighting workers correctly consider the (UAW) to organize a national fraction based powers ofWashington's police agencies and able to harness the full striking power of the union ours and the union hall ours," Sandler in key sectors of auto, aerospace, and agri­ executive branch of government. Waters branch, both sailors and non-sailors. said. "The officials and functionaries are the cultural implements plants. Over the past noted that communist workers took the cam­ Our goal, Barnes said, is to get the hall of officials and functionaries of the union, years, the concentration of socialists in these paign to defend Cuba's sovereignty and the every party branch located in workers' and which is ours. We work to make the union key industries had become more diffuse, and rights of the working class into the mines, industrial districts, so the very act of doing into a fighting instrument and, through these aU fraction members employed in UAW­ rhills, and factories, and to fighters across political work in the area near the hall le­ struggles, to develop a leadership that can organized shops had ended up working in the country. verages the work of every single member build on these conquests and widen the plants alone. Rachele Fruit, a member of the Interna­ of the party. battle." SociaJist workers in the UAW discussed tional Association of Machinists in Miami, Paul Pederson, a worker in Pathfinder's Sandler described the scope of the the need to reverse this situation at their said political developments in that city "help printshop and a leader of the party's Brook­ struggles that have opened in the coalfields meeting in Chicago at the end of April, and make it more clear that the class struggle in lyn branch, described how that branch is over the past nine months, registering the · decided to get communist workers together the United States is connected to Cuba. For organizing plant-gate and street-comer sales beginnings of a social movement led by in units of two in priority factories by June example, at a recent event in defense of the in order to learn more about the garment miners. He pointed to a series of strikes; a 15. Cuban revolution, a Cuban activist in the and meatpacking industries in that borough rally the previous day of 150 miners and "No one functioning alone in a plant is a Alliance ofWorkers of the Cuban Commu­ of New York. "This is how we are going to their supporters in New Mexico, where the fraction of the communist movement," nity (ATC) reported that workers at the plant discover where we need a hall to operate union has established a women's support Sandler said. "The national fraction is made where he works, RC Aluminum, were in­ out of in order to effectively orient to meat group for the strike; and the May 17 national 4P of local fractions, not individual mem­ volved in a union-organizing drive. They're packers and garment workers and their rally called by the UMWA to demand gov­ bers holding a card iri the union. Party mem­ winning support from other workers in the unions," he said. ernment funding for miners' lifetime health bers in the UAW decided to strengthen the city, like those at Goya Foods, who are fight­ The National Committee discussed the care and pension plans. fraction because of what is before us right ing for a contract. Socialist workers in Mi" next steps in what has been a two-year cam­ The drive by the coal bosses against the now in the class struggle," he said. "Our goal ami have joined in promoting solidarity with paign, as a report by Norton Sandler was UMWA and conquests such as health care is to establish a national UAW fraction again, this fight. titled, to "Structure the Party Through Mass affect broad regions of the country and hun- Continued on Page 12 The political discussions and interest sparked by the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books, as described by participants in the National Committee Ohio conference to highlight working-class meeting, said Waters, are strikingly similar to the response by revolutionary fighters in Cuba, who give serious consideration to the resistance, building the communist movement articles in the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial and appreciate the class clarity they BY PAUL MAILHOT safety, and extending the workday. and how their work is organized. They are get from no other source in the United Workers fighting for unions and decent Joining the panels will be coal miners also planning to meet on the day after the States. contracts, farmers resisting dispossession of building solidarity for the Pittsburg and conference, Sunday, July 30, to train new Waters noted the importance of the two their land, and youth protesting the death Midway miners on strike in New Mexico volunteers who have recently signed up for recent delegations of working, fighting penalty and other brutalities of the capital­ and Wyoming, meat packers involved in the project and others who are taking on new farmers from the United States who visited ist system will mark the upcoming interna­ union organizing drives in the Midwest, tasks. Cuba. The delegations, hosted by the Na­ tional Active Workers Conference in garment and textile workers fighting for Displays at the conference will feature the tional Association of Small Farmers Oberlin, Ohio, July 27-29. union rights, ~md Young Socialists in differ­ work of the· printshop that produces Path­ (ANAP), were made up of farmers from The conference, sponsored by the Social­ ent parts of the country getting jobs in these finder books, and the steps taken over the several different regions of the United States ist Workers Party and the Young Socialists, industries and becoming part of the emerg­ past year to increase productivity to meet who have been involved in protest actions will feature special presentations by lead­ ing resistance. the demand for revolutionary literature. A against the devastating conditions they face. ers of the SWP on the meaning of the work­ Other panelists will speak about the grow­ special sale will be held at the conference A recent Chicago Militant Labor Forum ing-class resistance that is unfolding-the ing opportunities. to build the communist with a big discount on the 60-plus newly and lively discussion featuring three mem­ si se puede confidence that is growing movement today. In addition, a number of reprinted Pathfinder titles. bers of a delegation that visited Cuba in among fighters today; class struggle poli­ classes on basic works of Marxism will be Over the next two weeks, socialist work­ May-Randy Jasper, a Wisconsin dairy tics in Cuba and the United States; and les­ given. ers and young socialists will be petitioning farmer; Basu, an Illinois organic vegetable sons for building the communist movement A highlight of the conference will be cel­ to put the working-class alternative on the farmer; and Maggie Trowe, a Minnesota coming out of recent union struggles. ebrating the success over the past year of election ballot in a number of states. In ad­ packinghouse worker-showed how easily For any worker, farmer, or young person supporters of the communist movement in dition, teams of socialists will step up visit­ and naturally U.S. workers and farmers in­ involved in struggle and who is seeking to their efforts to put in electronic form the en­ ing picket lines and joining rallies of work­ volved in class-struggle developments link link up with other fighters, the Active Work­ tire array of Pathfinder books that are the ers and farmers fighting for their rights. In­ their conditions in battles to those of the ers Conference will be the place to be. indispensable political weapons needed by terested working people and youth met fighting toilers in Cuba, and how they seek Panels featuring participants in recent working-class fighters today. The project to through this work can be invited to attend to learn from each other. "They were talk­ struggles by working people will draw those digitize all these titles is making it possible the conference. ing about their trip to Cuba," Waters noted, attending the conference into the discussion to keep a pipeline of revolutionary books If you are interested in attending the con­ "but it wasn't a 'Cuba meeting.' It was about of the changes in working-class conscious­ flowing in more readable and attractive for­ ference, get in contact with the Socialist deepening the struggle here." ness that are coming about as a result_ of the mats. Workers Party branch or Young Socialists Through their experiences as they try to bosses' unceasing drive against workers on · Pathfinder Reprint Project volunteers will chapter nearest you (see page 12 for the list­ change what they face, farmers can more the job--through speedup, cutting back on sponsor a display of their accomplishments in g). July 24,2000 The Militant 7 The working class and the The fraud of education reform under cat

The following is the introduction by really need an education-as opposed to process produces all wealth, have a right to During that same period, 312 people Jack Barnes, national secretary of the mind-deadening "training"-and that, with a social wage, not just an individual wage. across the United States were killed in Socialist Workers Party, to the Pathfinder a few individual exceptions, only those chil­ We have a right to lifetime health care, dis­ prison death chambers. Not only on death pamphlet, The Working Class and the dren will receive an education in any mean­ ability compensation, and a secure retire­ row but also in "civil society," the noose still Transformation of Learning: The Fraud ingful sense. ment. These measures are for all, and thus haunts a land for which "Strange Fruit" ofEducation Reform under Capitalism, to This pamphlet approaches education in the interests of all. We fight to push back would be a more appropriate national an­ be issued in July. The pamphlet contains from the opposite, working-class point of the omnipresent "devil take the hindmost" them than the "Star-spangled Banner." an answer by Barnes to a question he was view-as a social question. As the fight for assumptions pervading bourgeois society in Both Gore and Bush are champions o, asked at a 1993 socialist educational con­ the transformation of learning into a uni­ order to establish collaborative working­ these weapons of class terror, calling for ference in Greensboro, North Carolina. versal and lifetime activity. It presents edu­ class space-a place for confidence-build­ more cops, restricted rights of appeal and The edited transcript ofthat talk and dis­ cation as part of preparing workers and ing. parole, and stiffer penalties, including capi­ cussion are printed in Capi'talism 's World fanners "for the greatest of all battles in the Schools under capitalism are not institu­ tal punishment. During the 1992 presiden­ Disorder-Working-Class Politics at the years ahead-the battle to throw off the self­ tions oflearning but of social control, aimed tial campaign, Democratic aspirant Clinton Millennium in the chapter entitled image the rulers teach us, and to recognize "Capitalism's Deadly World Disorder." that we are capable of taking power and This introduction is copyright © 2000 by organizing society, as we collectively edu­ Pathfinder Press and is reprinted by per­ cate ourselves and learn the exploiters in mission. the process." Education "refonn" is at the top of the "issues" page of the presidential campaign A matter of social solidarity Each capitalist candidate and her or his paid promoters in the big-business press wrap proposals for Social Security "refonn" in the same assumptions as education "re­ Introduction to form." Everything is centered on "looking out for number one." new pamphlet Gore and Bush present slightly differing views as to how individuals from the middle class or better-off layers of working people can realize a superior return on retirement handbills we discover packed in our mail-­ nest eggs used for speculation in stocks and boxes, unsolicited. While the Gore and Bush · bonds. Both the Democrats and Republi­ campaigns express differences over "school cans, with different emphases, advocate pri­ choice," vouchers, funding levels, degrees vate savings accounts for those individuals of"federalism," limits of testing, and so on, who can afford them, plus, in some combi­ they share the same underlying dog-eat-dog nation, reduced pension benefits, increased Until the capitalist system is overturned, "the only 'liberal education' available to any assumption: that education is about ensur­ employee taxation, and an older retirement fighter who wants one is political education within the workers movement." So says ing that your family's children have the_ best age. Jack Barne~ in the new pamphlet, The Working Class and the Transformation ofLearn­ shot at getting ahead in the lifetime struggle In contrast, class-conscious workers and ing. Above: Socialist Workers Party leadership school in session, 1986. Organized of each against all. And they hold in com­ labor and fann militants approach Social around an intensive study and discussion of the political writings of Karl Marx an • mon an even more fundamental, unstated Security as a matter of social solidarity. The Frederick Engels, founding leaders of the modern communist workers movement, the assumption: only the children of the prop­ toiling majority in city and countryside, leadership school was launched as an integral part of the party's turn to the industrial ertied rulers and professional middle classes whose labor transforms nature and in the working class and unions at the opening of the 1980s.

at reproducing the class relations and privi­ made a public spectacle of his return to Ar­ leges of the prevailing order. The deference kansas to oversee the execution of Ricky jSi se puede! and obedience the rulers seek to inculcate Ray Rector, one of four in that state during in the classroom are backed up on the streets Clinton's years as governor. Subsequent!: by cops' clubs and automatic weapons. the Clinton-Gore administration has been ACfiVE WORKERS CONFERENCE responsible for two major federal laws ex­ July 27-29 at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio Executions on the street panding capital punishment as an instru­ Far more working people are executed ment of terror: the 1994 Federal Death Pen­ Workers, farmers, and fighting youth involved in the resistance of working people by a policeman's bullet, chokehold, or hog- alty Act, which made some sixty additional · that increasingly marks politics in the United States and worldwide are making plans federal offenses punishable by death; and to attend an Active Workers Conference in Oberlin, Ohio. Participants in these fights the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death will exchange and generalize their experiences, and draw on the broader Penalty Act (even the name speaks vol­ under capitalism umes!), which further restricts federal coun lessons and continuity of the international working-class struggle to chart a road ~~ools appeals rights of those in state prisons. forward and help in building the communist movement. are _aimed at reproducing For his part, Bush has presided over 136 the class relations and prisonhouse state killings during hi!) five Feature reports •:• Classes •:•Information tables •:• privileges of the prevailing years as governor-fully one-fifth of all Book sales •:• Sports, recreation, socials, and fun those in the United States since 1976. A order. shroud of silence prevents an accounting of how many more working people were killecf Talks and panels will discuss: in that state during those years by Texa., •:- Structuring the revolutionary party tying than by lethal injection or electrocu­ Rangers, local police, Ia migra, sheriffs and through mass work <• Class-struggle tion, even with the unrelenting climb'' in their deputies, and rightist thugs-often in­ politics in Cuba and the United States state-sanctioned murders since the U.S. cluding the former list in civvies. + Labor resistance from the Midwest Supreme Court rein- packinghouse organizing campaigns, stated capital punish­ to the Western coal miners strikes, to ment in 1976. Al­ the fights by garment and textile though local, state, workers •!• Farmers fight for their land and federal govern­ •:-Supporting the working-class ments keep no accu­ campaign in the 2000 elections •!• rate records on indi­ Building a proletarian youth organiza­ vi<1uals killed by tion •!• Using the growing leverage of ~ops, a recent survey the Militant. Perspectiva Mundial, and oased on a search of Pathfinder books •:- Producing the U.S. newspapers from books workers of the world need 1997 alone turned up UMWA pickets at PaM New Mexico mine accounts of some 2,000 deaths at the hands of police and prison guards be­ tween 1990 and the opening of 1998- clearly just the tip of the iceberg. (How many unreported kill­ ings, to cite just one example, were carried out by Ia migra-the courtesy federal Immigration Billie Holiday at a 1939 recording session of "Strange Fruit": "Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and LA. mardi for labor, Immigrant rights and Naturalization Service's hated Bor­ blood at the root. Black body swinging in the Southern breeze. der Patrol?) Strange fruit hangL1g from the poplar trees."

8 The Militant July 24, 2000 transformation of learning titalism

State-sanctioned, or state-en­ couraged, murders on the streets and in the prisons combined, however, still fall far short of the 1um1bers of workers killed each year as a result of the employ­ ers' profit-driven speedup, bru­ tal intensification of labor, and lengthening of hours . .Both life and limb of workers in the United States are being sacri7 ficed on the altar of sharpening ~ .mpetition for markets among U.S. capitalists, and between them and their rivals worldwide. More than 6,000 workers died from fatal injuries at work in 1998, the latest year for which U.S. government statistics are available. Another 50,000 died .r )m job-related illnesses that year. And 5.9 million workers were injured or made sick on the job-including more than 75,000 reported cases of carpal tunnel and other repetitive-mo­ tion injuries and more than 250,000 related illnesses. fThese "official" figures are grossly understated, moreover, since they are based on uncor­ roborated employer reports and exclude 21 million federal, state, and local government employ­ ees. And every worker in a fac­ tory, mine, or field knows how many millions of injuries go w.rreported due to fear of lost wages, disciplinary action, or Rob Arnbergllmpact Visuals other management retaliation.) Workers at S. Carolina BMW auto plant. "It's a lie that the capitalist class needs for workers to be educated. They need for us to be obedient, not to As throughout the history of be educated. Do you have to be literate to work on the railroad? In an auto plant? I don't think so; everything is color-coded, or number-coded." capitalism, the brutal intensifi- cation of labor and stretching out of the That very same day, these workers at Da­ for union representation will be decided by management's wage offer. Strikers are de­ workday and workweek drive down the kota Premium, the majority of them immi­ a vote in late July. ploying roving pickets that follow trucks hourly wages of the working class, as well. grants from Mexico, launched an organiz­ At about the same time, also in the Twin that leave the plant driven by management, ...... 1993, when the talk from which this pam­ ing drive to bring in United Food and Com­ Cities, more than 400 members of Team­ and then picket outlets where deliveries are phlet is ex~erpted was given, the working­ mercial Workers (UFCW) Local 789. The sters Local 792 struck the Pepsi Bottling being made. Pepsi has hired some 100 class movement in the United States was in results of this initial effort to win a majority Group over health and pension benefits and Continued on next page the initial years of a retreat, after some half a decade of a modest revival in union struggles in the latter 1980s. Real wages on Capitalism's World Disorder average were still well below what they had been at the opening of the 1970s. Working-Class Politics at the Millennium The "union movement has gotten weaker and real wages have been pushed down," JACK BARNES the opening paragraphs of the excerpt re­ The social devastation, financial panic, political turmoil, police brutality, and acts of printed here emphasize. "The price of our imperiali~t aggression .accelerating around us are not chaos. They are the product of labor power has been driven down by the lawful-and understandable-forces unleashed by capitalism. But the future the prop­ bosses." Within limits set by the exploita­ tion of labor by capital under bourgeois so­ ertied classes have in store for us is not inevitable. It can be changed .by the timely cial relations, the pamphlet notes, what solidarity, courageous action, and united struggle of workers and farmers conscious of • Jrkers get paid is conditioned by the suc­ their power to transform the world. cess of labor, through struggle, in raising $23.95 Special offer: $20. Also available in Spanish and French. the wage level of workers on the lowest rungs of the ladder. ~I.e: c~allgillg·-.·Fac*'•~tu~$~-.·..r,ritics·· Workers show capacity to resist .· tass Politi.cs and.the lrade· Unions· Today, in mid-2000, workers in the Working~( United States are in the third year of an ac­ c-alerated, if still uneven, upturn in resistance mines, and mills, to the employers' assaults. The buying power of workers' wages has still not re­ of capitalism in the closing years of the covered its level of thirty years ago, and the itical resistance grows; will revolution- renewed struggles have initially ended more often in standoffs than substantial gains for working people. But where workers stand together and fight, they are demonstrating their capacity to push the employers back, t....<:e some ground, and change themselves enough in the process to arrive in better shape for the next battle. nneapolis and helped paved As this pamphlet was being prepared for e. The first in a four-volume publication, a powerful example of such re­ nizing drives that transformed ;istance exploded in South St. Paul, Min­ ng social movement and pointed lesota. On June 1, 2000, packinghouse vorkers at Dakota Premium Foods carried ~t a seven-hour sit-down strike against the :ompany's cranking up the speed of the >roduction line all the way from the kill and :ut through packaging. By the end of the Available from bookstores, including those listed on page 12, or write: Pathfinder lay, plant management agreed, among other 410WestSt., New York, NY10014. hings, to slow the line, permit workers' rep­ esentatives to monitor line speed, and stop Tel: (212) ·741-0690. Fax: (212) 727-0150. Jrcing injured workers to stay on the job.

July 24, 2000 The Militant 9 The working class and the transformation to impose a twelve-hour work­ Florida, and from Texas to Washington, day, seven days a week, with no .D.C. During the discussion period, Gerardo overtime pay for weekends. Sanchez, a packinghouse worker from Pitts­ P&M is demanding conces­ burgh, asked the question that led to the sions on medical and pension answer developed in the pages that follow. benefits from workers at both Less than a year earlier, before moving to mines. Fights such as these, what­ ,, ______ever their initial outcomes, are shattering myths about the Where workers stand working class and labor move­ together and fight, they ment in the United States pro­ moted by the bosses and their are demonstrating their media pitchmen over the past capacity to take some decade and echoed by middle­ class radicals as a rationaliza­ ______ground. ,, tion of their own political, and individual, course of life and work. Pennsylvania, Sanchez had worked at the What about the self-serving plant in South St. Paul, Minnesota, that later and reactionary notion that im­ · became Dakota Premium Foods. He was migrants are a barrier to union­ there during a period when the UFCW lost Che Guevara, a leader of Cuba's revolutionary government and Communist Party, presents award ization, hired and permitted to an employer-promoted decertification vote for voluntary work at August 1964 union gathering. "Work should be the way Che Guevara talked stay in the country by the bosses in the plant after failing to secure a con­ and wrote about it," says Jack Barnes in new pamphlet. "Factories and other workplaces should be in order to divide the workforce tract. organized to promote continual requalification and ongoing education. When that day comes, then and turn the shopfloor into an The issues raised by Sanchez were not there will be something that can truly be called education." atomized Tower of Babel? ones that had been addressed in the talk, These workers are showing in and I had no notes or clippings with me re­ practice, to the horror of the lated to them. But the fraud of education Continued from previous page cut or kill floors of a major union packing­ employers, that they are not only Mexican, under capitalism, and especially the revo­ Huffineister Security thugs in an effort to house in Los Angeles. That's quite a tum­ Somali, or Chinese, but are also part of the lutionary transformation of learning by the intimidate the Teamsters, who remain on around from the situation even .a few years U.S. working class-"American workers," working class, are questions that have been strike as this is written. ago.. What's more, at the opening of the if you please-fighting shoulder to shoul­ with the communist workers movement Simultaneously, some 1,500 housekeep­ 1980s, just prior to a major assault by the der with fellow packinghouse workers, sew­ since its origins, and I had thought about ers, dishwashers, cooks, and other members meatpacking bosses on working conditions ing machine operators, hotel employees, - them and listened to other veteran Marxists of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Em­ and pay, packinghouse workers' wages were construction workers, auto assemblers, jani­ who had thought about them over the years. ployees Union Local 17 in the Twin Cities 13 percent higher on average than those in tors, and many other U.S,-bom workers who organized a strike beginning June 16 that other manufacturing jobs. are African-American or whose skin color Hypocrisy of capitalist education over a two-week period shut down services happens to be classified as "white." At the conclusion of the discussion pe­ at seven of nine major hotels in the bargain­ Coal miners fight concession demands How fares the illusion of the coal opera­ riod, I was pleased when two long-time ing unit. The strikers-the majority immi­ Some 530 United Mine Workers tors and their class brethren that the UMWA, teachers from North Carolina who were in grants from Bosnia, Somalia, and various (UMWA) members are currently on strike long looked to as an example by other fight­ the audience, the parents of a young social­ countries in Latin America-won substan­ at two Western mines owned by the Pittsburg ing workers and unionists, is now on its last il?t, approached me to say how much they tial wage increases and other employer con­ and Midway Coal Co. (P&M), a division of legs? That is belied not only by strikes and appreciated the answer. Neither of them was cessions. Chevron. Members ofUMWA Local1332 other miners' resistance on both sides of the active in the workers movement, much less Underlining the point made at the open­ at the McKinley mine in Tse Bonito, New Mississippi over the past couple years. It a communist, and both were highly dedi­ ing of this pamphlet about the determina­ Mexico, 90 percent of whom are members also ignores the beginnings of a social move­ cated to their work. But they told me that tion of wage levels, the lowest-paid work­ of the Navajo nation, are fighting a com­ ment building in coal communities across the more effort they had put into trying to ers in these unionized hotels in Minneapo­ pany assault on overtime pay, while mem­ the United States today to defend federally­ impart learning and habits of study to their lis and St. Paul will now make nearly a $1.50 bers of UMWA Local 1307 in Kemmerer, guaranteed health care benefits won through students over the decades, the more they had more per hour than starting workers on the Wyoming, are resisting management efforts decades of union battles. UMWA-initiated become convinced qfth.e.4XJloprjsy ~m.d.f&\1- rallies inAlabaina, Utah, Pe~sylvania, West ure of the education system as it currently VIrginia, and Indiana-and a national dem­ exists. What I had explained rang true to FROM PATHFINDER onstration of8,000 in Washington, D.C.; on them, even if from a very different life per­ May 17- have mobilized thousands of spective than mine. J~aa;::i=UIIIIIa:M.IlDIIia:: '.> :. '<· ~ .>«» •: :< '>..>" .« >':·>:h.. "/~ ,. ~·· :·i:··~. '''"'' ~- ., .··~·~··.. bers, high school students, and others. boro talk plus four others from mid-1992 +The Politics of Economics: Che Guevara and Marxist This increasing resistance is bringing to­ through December 1998 were collected and Continuity BY STEVE CLARK AND JACK BARNES gether workers fighting the employers' as­ published by Pathfinder Press under the title, sault on hours and working conditions, and Capitalism 's World Disorder: Working­ + Che's Contribution to the Cuban Economy BY CARLOS farmers struggling to hold on to the land they Class Politics at the Millennium. It is a com­ RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ . till in face of rising indebtedness to the panion to The Changing Face of U.S. Poli­ + On the concept of Value and the Meaning of Socialist banks, falling prices for their produce from tics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Planning TWO ARTICLES BY ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA monopoly distributors, and discrimination Unions, first published in 1981 and reissued In New International no. 8 by federal agencies. It is bringing together in a second, expanded edition in 1994. $10.00 a vanguard of working people who are male In March 2000 Mary-Alice Waters and I and female; who speak different tongues; spoke at a West Coast meeting in San Fran­ of all skin colors and national origins; from cisco celebrating some new steps forward younger and older generations; union and by the Socialist Workers Party as well as Lenin•s Final Fight currently nonunion; and with varying lev­ the growing interest in Pathfinder books­ Speeches and Writings. 1922-23 els of formal education. The toilers are first and foremost, those such as the ones V.I. Lenin speeding up this process as they fight to­ noted above dealing with changes in the In the early 1920s Lenin waged a political battle in the lead­ get}J.er, side-by-side-before they agree on working class and class struggle in the ership of the Communist Party of the USSR to maintain the many questions, and often with minimal course that had enabled the workers and peasants to initial ability to speak with one another. · overthr;ow the tsarist empire, carry out the first successful These vanguard proletarians, in town and socialist revolution, and begin building a world communist country, are being impelled to consider new movement. The issues posed in Lenin's political fight re­ ideas, to read more widely, to broaden their main at the heart of world politics today. $21.95 scope, to begin expanding the limits of what they previously believed they, and others like themselves, were capable of. In Defense of Marxism The Wages It is to these labor and farmer militants, The Social and Political Contradictions System and the revolutionary-minded youth drawn of the Soviet Union on the Eve of Frederick Engels to the~ line of march, that this pamphlet is World War II Is "a fair day's wages for a directed. Leon Trotsky fair day's work" possible? Writing in 1939-40, Leon Trotsky replies to those Should workers build their in the revolutionary workers movement who own political party? Can were beating a retreat from defense of the Soviet trade unions play a revolu­ The talk on "Capitalism's Deadly World Union in face of looming imperialist assault. He tionary role? A series of Disorder," from which the following ques­ describes how the rising pressures of bourgeois articles written for the la­ tion and response are drawn, was prepared patriotism in the middle classes as World War II bor press in Britain. for regional socialist educational confer­ approached were finding an echo even inside the Progress Publishers, book­ ences held in Greensboro, North Carolina, communist movement. And he explains why only let, $2.00 and Des Moines, Iowa, in April1993. The a party that fights to bring growing numbers of conferences featured reports that high­ workers into its ranks and leadership can steer a lighted the interrelationship between the steady revolutionary course. $24.95 class struggle in the United States and the battle being waged by working people in Cuba to defend their revolutionary govern­ ment during the difficult years following the abrupt end of favorable trade and aid rela­ tions with the former Soviet Union coupled with stepped-up economic aggression by the United States government. At the Greensboro gathering, workers and youth participated from Pennsylvania to

10 The Militant July 24, 2000 of learning-new Pathfinder pamphlet United States-that had been shown by par­ ticipants in what has now become an an­ nual international book fair in Havana, Cuba. During the reception that preceded the program, Harry Ring-a veteran of the communist movement, with more than sixty years of unbroken activity-made a point of seeking us out. He said he knew we were loaded with political responsibilities, and, since that wasn't about to change, he urged me to put other things aside for a few days sometime soon to prepare this excerpt from Capitalism's World Disorder as a pamphlet that could be sold widely to working people and youth. I can't say for sure that this ef­ fort would never have been made if it weren't for an insistent suggestion from this longtime worker-bolshevik. But it certainly would not have reached fruition so soon. A short time later, Robin Maisel, a vet­ eran of some thirty-five years in the com­ munist movement, expanded Harry's cam­ paign. He sent a letter proposing that this and several other sections of Capitalism 's World Disorder be turned into pamphlets that could be inexpensively produced and broadly circulated. Robin, a member of the team of almost 200 supporters of the So­ cialist Workers Party who have taken on the · task of preparing every single }>athfinder title in digital form so they can be kept in print at less cost, utilizing the most advanced computer-to-plate technology now being run by Pathfinder's print shop, offered to take the lead in working with other party supporters to raise the funds for this par­ ticular publishing project. That pushed it over the line, and we got to work preparing this pamphlet-simultaneously in English, Spanish, and French. We hope readers benefit from the results of the initiative taken by these two stalwart pamphleteers of the revolutionary workers movement. Tom McKittlerickllmpact Visuals Jack Barnes High school students herded through a metal detector in Bushwick, a section of Brooklyn, New York. "The deference and obedience July 12, 2000 the rulers seek to inculcate in the classroom are backed up on the streets by cops' clubs and automatic weapons." · Pathfinder Reprint volunteers step up output, hone skills BY"SARALOBMAN ·· pool of active volunteers and more skill at­ they are boxed up and sent out to custom­ two operators will be able to move to night NEWYORK.-Workers in the Pathfinder what we are doing." ers around the world. For example, 300 cop- shift, allowing the shop, for the first time, printshop here, and supporters of the com­ The workers who volunteer in . ies of What Is Surrealism?--completed by to maintain two shifts of stitcher operation. munist movement across North America Pathfinder's printshop are working hard to the volunteers in June and delivered by the This will not only speed up the turnaround and around the world, will be registering keep pace with the project. The shop's goal shop earlier this month-have already been time in producing revolutionary literature. their accomplishments at the upcoming July is to print each title turned in by the volun­ shipped out, bringing in more than $5,000 In addition, by helping to win new commer­ 27-29 Active Workers Conference in teers within 30 days. In addition, the shop in sales. cial jobs, this advance in the organization Oberlin, Ohio. Organizers of the interna­ reprints titles that have already been digi­ A new Stahl ST90 stitcher, a machine that of the shop schedule can increase sales rev­ tional Pathfinder Reprint Project plan to win tized whenever stock gets low, and is re­ staples and trims pamphlets and magazines, enues by tens of thousands of dollars in the new forces to their efforts. sponsible for printing and reprinting new was recently installed in the shop, improv­ next half year. ...: A highlight of the conference will be a titles that Pathfinder publishes, such as The ing its ability to produce Pathfinder titles. big sale of the nearly 100 basic works of Working Class and the Transformation of Printshop workers have used the new ma­ · Marxism and other revolutionary books and Learning: The Fraud ofEducation Reform chine to stitch four of the pamphlets pro­ pamphlets that have been put in digital form under Capitalism, which will be available duced this month, as well as the July-Au­ since mid-1998 (see ad on this page). in English, Spanish, and French this month. gust issue ofPerspectiva Mundial magazine. The volunteers are taking big strides for­ The shop is well on its way to making "The new machine can be learned much ward in their work to keep all 350-plus of the 30-day goal a reality. So far this month, more quickly than the old stitcher, and it Big Sale! the publisher's titles in print. "Production it has printed 6 newly digitized titles, with doesn't require prior mechanical experi­ is up more than 53 percent over last year," 3 more scheduled before the end of the ence," explained Ellen Brickley, one of the Renew your library Peggy Brundy explained to a recent meet­ month. Counting the 3 new pamphlets, the new operators. "Laura Garza and I are still ing of the Pathfinder Reprint Project steer­ shop will produce 21 Pathfinder titles this learning. But we can run it on our own after of revolutionary ing committee in the San Francisco Bay month-a record. a few weeks, and our competence increases Area. In the 11 months from August 1999 Often the newly printed books barely every day." literature! to June 2000, volunteers completed 50 touch the shelves in the warehouse before With a little more experience, one of the History of the Russian books, compared to 36 in the preceding 12 months. Revolution The project is an international effort in­ By Leo~ Trotsky volving some 200 supporters of the Social­ ist Workers Party and communist organiza­ By Any Means Necessary tions in other countries. These volunteers By Malcolm X are turning into digital form all of Pathfinder's books and pamphlets on the Problems of Wo1111en's revolutionary struggles of working people Liberation and continuity of the communist workers By Evelyn Reed movement. Using state-of-the-art computer­ to-plate technology, the printshop produces books quickly and economically, directly Plus each of the nearly 100 from the digital files turned in by volun­ other titles newly digitized by teers in the field. Pathfinder Reprint volunteers The increased pace of this campaign in recent months is the result of careful orga­ over the past two years will be nization, intensive training, and political on sale at the July 27-29 explanation to integrate many new volun­ Active Workers Conference in teers-and redeploy veterans-into various stages of book production. These include Oberlin, Ohio proofreading, formatting, preparing in­ dexes, and working with photos and artwork :30% off on 1 book to recreate the covers, internal graphics, and 40% off- 5 or more photographs in each book. D~tailed attention to standardizing each 50% off- 10 or more team's work-from how to deal with "loose lines" in the formatted text, to how to match Bring your checkbook and the colors of the covers-has been essen­ Pathfinder Readers Club card! tial. As a result, Tom Tomasko, a leader of the project, noted, "We now have a larger

July 24, 2000 The Militant 11 N. Ireland protesters push back rightist march

Continued from front page week-long action, bringing Northern Ireland Unionist forces-those that support the At this point the troops are here as a neces­ Catholic repression and upholding the Prot­ to a virtual standstill. In response, the Brit­ "union" ofNorthern Ireland with the United sary evil, but we want to see the whole se­ estant privileges that have been central to ish rulers imposed a virtual curfew on Kingdom-it has been seriously divided and curity presence removed." London's rule in the north oflreland. Dur­ Garvaghy Road and forced the parade weakened by the last 30 years of unbroken A few days after the government-run Pa­ ing these parades, nationalists have often through. This time the rightist actions were nationalist struggle. rades Commission ruled against the been assaulted and their homes attacked. But much narrower and marked more by the role Significantly, no major figure from the Garvaghy parade, it said that an Orange in recent years, opponents of the rightist of the paramilitary groups. Ulster Unionist Party, the largest pro-British Order parade could go through the nation­ marches have made gains. In 1998, for the "They think this is their town," said party, was at the July 9 parade this year. And alist Springfield Road area July 12. "It's a first time, residents of Garvaghy Road pre­ Pamela Wilson after the Orange Order pa­ former Orange Order leader Martin Smyth trade-off," said Robert McClenaghan as he vented the rightists from going through their rade had passed by. She has lived on the took his distance from the Portadown actions. and 120 other residents mounted a protest neighborhood. Garvaghy Road for 20 years. "They don't The Newsletter, a pro-Unionist Belfast July 7. Residents there already confronted This year it took just 12 minutes for the want us to have equal rights, instead they daily, editorialized that the Orangemen of a June 24 Orange march through their area. 2,000 Orange Order members and support­ herd us in this area, harassing us whenever Portadown "are exhibiting all the signs of McClenaghan pointed to a high wall sepa­ ers to pass by, prevented from going down we go to the town center. Eleven have been consigning themselves to the wrong side of rating this predominantly Catholic area from Garvaghy Road. Marching in military for­ killed in the last five years as a result of their history." Likewise, an editorial in the Lon­ the predominantly Protestant area. Over the mation with many Union Jacks and other marches." don Times was headlined "The Orange Or­ wall you can see several flags of the para­ pro-British regalia, the turnout was lower Geraldine Driscoll added, "They should der must stop marching towards the fringe." military Ulster Freedom Fighters flying. than in any previous year, according to all go home, because we'll never go away." She The British rulers took advantage of this "They come through a gate at the top of the onlookers this reporter spoke with. As they emphasized her support for the stand of the high point of the "marching season to send road which is only ever opened for these passed the assembled Garvaghy residents, local residents coalition calling for talks with 2,000 extra troops, deploying them once marches," explained McClenaghan. "On many of the rightists hurled abuse and the Orange Order to resolve the issue. again on the streets in Portadown, Belfast, June 24 there were 100 RUC jeeps [armored threats to kill Breandan MacCionnaith, a One example of the growing confidence and other areas. The razor wire and other Land Rovers] to protect the 1,000 Orange spokesperson for the community. At one of the nationalist residents of Garvaghy barriers had been erected by the British marchers. We had 3,000 on our coun­ point, masked members of the paramilitary Road was described to this reporter by John, troops to enforce the ruling that barred the terprotest." Loyalist Volunteer Force appeared and a a young worker at Denny's food processing Orange Order from marching through banner of another paramilitary faction, the plant in Portadown. The plant has 350 work­ Garvaghy Road-in what residents leader Pete Clifford is a member of the Transport Ulster Freedom Fighters, was displayed. ers, divided evenly between Catholic and Breandan MacCionnaith described as a and Generill Workers' Union. Julie MacCionnaith and other leaders ensured no Protestant. John, who preferred not to give "ring of steel" around the community. Crawford, a member ofthe National Union one was drawn into these provocations. his surname, described what happened on Francie Molloy said nationalists "do not see of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers, That evening a few hundred of these June 16 when workers found reactionary the British government as their protectors. contributed to this article. rightists clashed with the Royal Ulster Con­ placards placed at the factory entrance. One stabulary (RUC) police outside Drumcree sign read "Paras shoot to kill," referring to church, overlooking Garvaghy Road. In the the 1972 Bloody Sunday murders of 14 Irish previous week, after an Orange Order march civil rights marchers by British paratroop­ SWP National· Committee meeting had been blocked from Garvaghy Road on ers. Another sign, referring to the murder July 2, there had been similar clashes in­ of a local Catholic man, Robert Hamill, read Continued from Page 7 a disciplined and effective vanguard in the volving relatively small numbers of people "Hamill's dead-ha ha." and we are on the way to that goal. We want increasingly sharp struggles of today and inothers parts of Northern Ireland. "When we got into work, we didn't start to do this in every fraction in the party and tomorrow. On the afternoon of July I 0 a protest was work and sat in the canteen for an hour. harvest in practice the potential of what a called by Portadown Orange Order leader Eventually the management came and party ofhundreds ofworker-bolsheviks can CORRECTIONS do." Harold Gracey in support of their efforts to agreed to get the RUC to take the placards In the July 10 issue of t}).e Militant The branch executive committees of the march down Garvaghy Road and seeking down," John reported. The Protestant work­ the article entitled''Actorswin support party now have an especially important role to bring the Northern Ireland Assembly to a ers continued working. "Some supported us, in strike for contract," should have to work with members to help get fractions standstill. Orange Order members and loy­ while a few laughed about it." described the main issue iti dispute. as alist (pro-British) paramilitaries blocked He said that since then, gangs ofloyalists of two in plants and mines. This was a key factor in ensuring the success of the moves follows: •''A key ~etnand in the strike many roads that evening. have been outside the factory when they is "pay-per-play''7t mainta~n·.the decided by the UAW national fraction, 0 In 1996, in a similar action, farmers had leave, "so we've got the management to practice of paying actqrs ea<:h time a joined with their tractors to block roads, and open the gate that leads into our area." He Sandler said. comn:iel"cial isshOwn i The party's traditions, norms, institutions, broader pro-British forces had backed the also reported enthusiastically that workers ~tme fe¢ for un.Iimited in the plant have just secured a majority vote and constitution-products of decades of mercial." to be organized into a trade union. class-struggle experience-become more and more invaluable as the class struggle ll\ tl.le ~Wyi•, "We've seen the true face of the Orange ~~_otpp~~s:; ttufP: .-- ... :._ .. -____ -. __ :- ·:~~--, .__, __ .. _~:t~~·---~ "~ MILITANT Order in the last week when Harold Gracey heats up and the party becomes deeply in­ United Mine .. Workers of··America refused to condemn the violence and the volved in day-to-day struggles and union strike in Kemtn LABOR loyalist paramilitaries," MacCionnaith stated battles, a number ofparticipants in the meet­ have noted t in an interview. ing emphasized. They allow the party to apply revolutionary centralism as a nation­ L:arry L:mvHie, FORUMS- The Orange Order, an exclusively Prot­ ·····Lo<:1itl•.•l,?~l7,wn~ estant organization, has been a key pillar of wide organization, to be trustworthy to fel­ · Kemtneret. CALIFORNIA British rule. But along with the broader ·low fighters wherever they find it, and to be San Francisco The Cuban Revolution: An Example for Workers and Farmers. Fri., July 21, 7:30p.m. -IF YOU LIKE THIS PAPER, LOOK US UP 3926 Mission St. Donation: $4. Tel: 415-584- 2135. Where to find Pathfinder books and 2500. E-mail: [email protected] BRITAIN distributors of the Militant, Perspectiva NEW JERSEY: Newark: 237Washington London: 4 7 The Cut. Postal code: SE I 8LL. NEW JERSEY Mundial, New International, Nouvelle St. (near Market St.) Suite 305. Mailing Tel: 020-7928-7993. Newark Internationale, Nueva Internacional and address: Riverfront Plaza, P.O. Box 200117. E-mail: 101515 [email protected] The Cuban Revolution Today. Speaker: Mary Ny InternationaL Zip: 07102-0302. Tel: (973) 643-3341. E-mail: I [email protected] Manchester: Unit 4, 60 Shudehill. Postal Nell Bockman, Socialist Workers Party. Fri., July code: M4 4AA. Tel: 0161-839-1766. 21, 7:30p.m. 237 Washington St. #305. Dona­ NEW YORK: Brooklyn: 1068 Fulton St., E-mail: I [email protected] tion: $4. Tel: 973-643-3341. UNITED STATES ALABAMA: Birmingham: 2232 3rd floor. Mailing address: PMB 197, 655 CANADA Fulton St. Zip: 11217. Tel: (718) 398-7850. Magnolia Ave. Zip 35205. Tel: (205) 323- Montreal: 4613 St. Laurent. Postal code: PENNSYLVANIA 3079. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Garment District, 545 8th Ave. Mailing address: P.O. H2T IR2. Tel: (514) 284-7369. E-mail: Philadelphia I [email protected] Celebrate the Cuban Revolution. Sat., July 22, CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles: 2546 W. Box 30. Zip:l0018. Tel: (212) 695-7358. E­ 7:30 p.m. 711 E. Passyunk Ave. Donation: $4. Pico Blvd. Zip: 90006. Tel: (213) 380-9460. mail: [email protected]; Upper Manhattan: 540 Toronto: 851 Bloor St. West. Postal code: Tel: 215-627-1237. E-mail: [email protected] W. 165 St. Tel: (212) 740-4611. E-mail: M6G 1M3. Tel: (416) 533-4324. San Francisco: 3926 Mission St. Zip: 94112. [email protected]; Pathfinder Mural E-mail: [email protected] Tel: (415) 584-2135. Bookstore: 67 Charles St. Zip: 10014. Tel: Vancouver: 4321 Fraser. Postal code: V5V BRITAIN E-mail: [email protected] (212) 366-1973. 4G4. Tel: (604) 872-8343. E-mail: London FLORIDA: Miami: 4582 N.E. 2nd Ave. OHIO: Cleveland: 7535 Broadway. Zip: I [email protected] Ireland: An Eyewitness Report from Zip: 33137. Tel: (305) 573-3355. E-mail: 44105. Tel: (216) 641-9405. E-mail: FRANCE Garvaghy Road. Fri., July 21, 7:00p.m. 47, I [email protected] [email protected] The Cut, Waterloo, S£1. Donation: £2. Tel: 020- Paris: Centre MBE 175, 23 rue Lecourbe. 7928-7993. GEORGIA: Atlanta: 465 Boulevard, Suite PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia: 711 E. 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E-mail: I 02527.2271 @compuserve.com Auckland: La Gonda Arcade, 203 MASSACHUSETTS: Boston: 683 WASHINGTON, D.C.: 354114th St. N.W. Karangahape Road. Postal address: P.O. Box Washington St. Mailing address: P.O. Box 702. Zip: 20010. Tel: (202) 722-6221. E-mail: 3025. Tel: (9) 379-3075. Zip: 02124. Tel: (617) 282-2254. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] I [email protected] WASHINGTON: Seattle: 2533 16th Ave. Christchurch: Gloucester Arcade, 129 MICHIGAN: Detroit: 7414 Woodward South. Zip: 98144. Tel: (206) 323-1755. Gloucester St. Postal address: P.O. Box 13- Ave. Zip: 48202.Tel: (313) 875-0100. E-mail: [email protected] 969. Tel: (3) 365-6055. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: I 00250.1511 @compuserve.com AUSTRALIA MINNESOTA: St. Paul: 1569 Sherburne Sydney: I st Fir, 176 Redfern St., Redfern SWEDEN Ave. W., St. Paul. Zip: 55104. Tel: (651) 644- NSW 2016. Mailing address: P.O. Box K879, Stoc.kholm: Vikingagatan 10 (T-hana St 6325. E-mail: [email protected] Haymarket Post Office, NSW 1240. Tel: 02- Eriksplan). Postal code: S-113 42. Tel: (08) MISSOURI: St. Louis: Box 19166, 2910 9690-1533. 316933. Meramec Street. Zip 63118. Tel: (314) 924- E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] 12 The Militant July 24, 2000 -GREAT SOCIE1Y-----____;,------That's capitalism-A new whites are 1 112 times more likely vannah, Georgia, one lawyer is in Pacific. still 40 percent lower than men's, study finds: "America's longest eco­ to be poor. the pen and his partner on the lam. Another guest pad is down on his figures show."-The Times of Lon­ nomic expansion has failed to ben­ A judge says they face jail terms private strip ofbeach. If still vacant, don. efit all workers as poverty levels Meanwhile, of course-A study unless they return the $2.4 million rent it in July and August for among full-time employees have led by Wall Street's Merrill Lynch they allegedly took, without ap­ $75,000 a month. Or, grab it up for Big Greyhound in the sky-Na­ changed little since the early says the world's richest people be­ proval, from a comatose client. $10 million. ively, we liked the plebeian sound 1970s." came 18 percent richer on the glo­ of Airbus, name of the European bal stock market, thanks to runaway The can-do system-"Million Busted heads don't count?-In consortium of airplane builders. high tech stocks. letters a week go astray, mail chiefs Fargo, North Dakota, the police Now we feel a bit foolish. Airbus is Verily-"Tobacco firm to buy say."-London headline. chief imposed "performance expec­ building the world's biggest "cruise Nabisco for $14.9 billion. Phillip tations" on the ranks. They will be ship" one that will seat up to 650 Morris, which owns Kraft, would What a deal-Richard Gere is expected to have at least five "con­ passengers. strengthen its position as nation's a busy person, what with screen act­ tacts" a day with people, and write But no more of that "first-class biggest food company. Consumers ing and heading up Tibet House, an a minimum of 25 tickets a month. passengers, unaccompanied chil­ would get more products but prob­ anti-China operation. So he's un­ dren and the infirm" first. First-class ably not lower prices."-News loading his summer spot at Malibu What price sexism-"Although folks will board tpe top deck headline Beach in the Los Angeles area. A the 20th Century has seen women through a separate entrance. AP re­ That's also capitalism-That mansion and guest houses are enter the professions at an impres­ ports that's so "they need not study also confirmed that non- They saw his eye blink-In Sa- perched on a cliffoverlooking the sive rate, their average earnings are mingle with people below." Revolutionary literature gives political leverage

The excerpt below is taken from the and South Africa, on books ment who were strengthened discussion period following a talk pre­ about the Black struggle, on and given greater staying sented at a Militant Labor Forum in New works that give a scientific ex­ power by the test of fire. York City on Nov. 7, 1992, four days af­ planation of women's oppres­ Today there are opportuni­ ter the presidential elections. The entire sion and the road to their lib­ ties to win a new generation presentation titled "The Vote for Ross eration .... of revolutionists to the Social­ Perot and Patrick Buchanan's 'Culture A bolshevik party is not and ist Workers Party. Many of War': What the 1992 Elections Revealed" does not try to be monolithic. It them right now will not ini­ appears in Capitalism~ World Disorder: does, however, strive for politi­ tially come out of a revitalized Working-Class Politics at the Millennium. cal homogeneity and common labor movement. Through the The excerpt can be found on pages 370- struggle experience to prepare proletarian party, however, 376. Copyright © 1999 Pathfinder Press, for our inevitable responsibili­ they can be won to join in reprinted by permission. ties. In the crunch, it has had a building a leadership that can helluva batting average. organize the working class to BY JACK BARNES One of the most difficult make a popular revolution and One thing for sure is changing. Each six _things for capitalism's propa­ prevent the fascist devastation months, more workers and youth in these gandists to understand and por­ and world war that capitalism countries [the former Soviet Union] will tray accurately is how a politi­ is dragging humanity toward. become interested in politics. And layers of cal vanguard of the working Fighters from this generation them, over time, will be interested in the class reaches out to others to use will reach out to find parties same books, the same questions, the same and defend political space-as of revolutionists who are arguments as fighters anywhere else in the we did during the October mis­ workers, revolutionists who world: the same discussions will occur in sile crisis. Communists have no have some experience in the Vilnius, or Moscow, or Prague as in schemas or timetables. But we class struggle. They will want Johannesburg, or Havana, or Tokyo, or Hong do know that the tensions inevi­ to emulate communist work­ Kong, or Tehran, or Los Angeles, or tably rising from world ers who have learned to de­ Montreal, or London, or Mexico City. There capitalism's depression condi­ fend and use space within the will be a growing demand for books by Marx tions and its inexorable march organizations of the working ,and Engels, by Lenin, by Trotsky; by those toward fascism and war keep ,, ~lass.' and who catt show them leading not only to unantici­ how to do politics-'-how to do pated crises, but also to resis- working-class politics, a dif­ tance out of which vanguard Militant/Brian Taylor from the pages of Young Socialists, left, discuss world politics using Pathfinder books ferentiation most of these w?rhkters can build a movt~~entt. at continental student congress held in Havana in April. fighters will not have thought R1g now, we can an 1c1pa e about beforehand. Capitalism's that growing interest among working people thousands of others, I spent day and night This is the kindofworking-class experi­ and youth in radical ideas ignored by theni trying to stop that from happening. We saw ence that nobody will ever get through elec­ in the past-or rejected without serious there was space to do this, and we used it. tion campaigns. This is the kind of politics World Disorder study-will keep ahead of the pace of mass What is more, as we did so we won some that for bourgeois public opiriion·does not popular struggles. new, young fighters to the communist move- exist. who have been leaders of the Socialist Work­ But these political realities cannot even ers Party in the United States; by leaders of be seen, much less understood, unless we revolutions in Cuba, Grenada, Burkina Faso, recognize the space that exists inside the South Africa, and elsewhere; by Malcolm working class and the unions-space that -25 AND 50 YEARS AGO--­ X. can be used by revolutionary-minded work- The collapse of the Stalinist apparatuses ers to practice politics. This space is not seen that had long ago driven workers out of poli­ or registered by anything in bourgeois pub­ THE MILITANT tics through terror, demoralization, and cor­ lic opinion. It can only be seen from inside THE MILITANT PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE ruption has initiated a process that cannot the working class and the.unions.lt can best NEW YORK, N.Y FIVE (5) r.ENTS be reversed. The big-business media focuses be seen by workers who are communists who July 25, 1975. all their attention on the elections, so-called are using that space to talk politics with other July 24, 1950 privatization schemes and the trickle of im­ workers, to promote revolutionary literature, Newly released CIA documents on the perialist investment, blocs between openly to bring co~workers and their unions into Socialist Workers Party and Young Social­ "The stem days ahead." These are the fascist currents and Stalinist outfits that fights around social and political issues, and ist Alliance, dating back to 1950, prove con­ symbolic last words of Truman's radio talk claim to represent the working class, and the to participate in guerrilla skirmishes around clusively that the Rockefeller commission on his new war bill. They are an ominous blows being struck to living. and working conditions on the job. WithOut using this report on the CIA covered up major aspects forecast of what the American people face conditions. At the same time, however; a political space, the tensions just seem like of the agency's illegal spy operations. in the program Truman outlined on July 19 slow but sure process begins to unfold-at tensions, the openings are missed, and the The documents show that the two social­ for the prosecution of his undeclared war in first simply on the level of individuals seek­ space will be diminished over time. ist groups have been the targets of a mas­ Korea and the tremendous expansion of the ing answers-as workers in these countries As I was watching those television spe­ sive spy campaign by the CIA virtually since U.S. military machine. head toward coming into the world and into cials last month, I realized that as a young the inception of the agency itself. Truman made clear that a new stage has politics. revolutionist during the missile crisis I had Several files concerning the YSA also been entered in American capitalism's Never before in history has there been a learned a little bit about using political reveal that CIA spying against dissident preparations for World War III. America is bigger disproportion between the current space. I was not fully conscious at the time groups in the United States did not end when to be put on a permanent war footing. Ev­ small numerical size and negligible social of everything I was learning, but it .turned the Rockefeller report said it did, and most erything else will be subordinated to the weight of communist organizations in the out to be very useful. That is why I was so likely continue to" this day. single aim of mobilizing speedily and fully mass labor movement, and the leverage of struck by the inaccuracy of that aspect of The documents were released here by the for global war. · the political weapons we produce, translate, the documentaries. There are people at this Political Rights Defense Fund, which is sup­ Thus the authoritative NY. Times bluntly edit, circulate, and get around in whatever meeting tonight-not a whole lot, but not porting a suit filed by the SWP and YSA described Truman's program as "a long gnd ways we can. There is nothing like it in the just two or three either-who became dif­ against government harassment. The CIA, firm step toward complete mobilization for history of the workers movement. I do not ferent people during those ten days in Oc­ one of the defendants in the suit, has turned total war." Arthur Krock, Times columnist know what better word to choose than "le­ tober 1962, and not because they went out over the documents under court order. The with a direct pipe-line to Truman said that verage"-it is an easy, physical analogy. and bought canned goods. They developed suit was filed in July 1973 by constitutional the President's Congressional and radio Whether we are participating in a book fair a deeper political relationship with others attorneys Leonard Boudin and Herbert Jor­ messages are "grim confirmations" that the in Tokyo or Tehran, a university conference in the YSA and SWP who were working dan. stage Gfthe "cold war" is "ended." in Cuba, or a meeting of young fighters in together unflinchingly along the same lines. Qne of the items released by the CIA, for The "good times" are over--except for South Africa-we have the same experi­ During the crisis, I never thought there example, is a clipping from a 1950 New York the war profiteers. The war machine is to ences everywhere. was going to be a nuclear war. I am not Times on the SWP's campaign for New York take immediately another $1 0 billion to be Fighters want to get their hands on the misremembering-I genuinely never governor. Another report, dated January 26, paid by higher taxes. Rising prices and short­ Communist Manifesto, on books about the thought so. I did know that the U.S. rulers 1953 states: "Farrell Dobbs polled 10,306 ages are on the order of the day. Housing, Russian revoluti9n, on copies of New Inter­ were driving to start a war to crush the so­ voted in seven states as against Dobbs' 1948 health facilities, schools, automobiles, tele­ national magazine, on books about politics cialist revolution in Cuba, and I knew that total of 13,613 in twelve states." Dobbs was vision sets-all the things the people need and the labor movement in the United States, they would put the future of the world in the SWP's candidate for president in both and want-are to be sacrificed to the war on literature about the revolutions in Cuba stupendous danger if they did so. So, like 1948 and 1952. program. July 24, 2000 The Militant 13 Meat packers press Vancouver protesters denounce anti-choice attack for union, respond to company moves Continued from front page do we get a contract?" years ago you voted the union in and the An organizer for the union, Trish union couldn't get a contract. What has Ramirez, stated, "The organizing drive is . changed? stronger this time. In the fight for the con­ "The union has no power. The only thing tract we 'II get community support, we 'II get the union can do is lead you to strike. Strike churches and the media to put pressure on action is the only weapon you would have. the company.· None of that was done last "Workers at the Long Prairie plant got a time." little increase in wages, but things there are To this Picado added, "The only force that worse than here. Your health insurance is can determine when and how you will get a paid for, but they have to pay for theirs. If contract is the same force that stopped pro­ you vote for the union, you will lose your duction June 1. It is the workers who will benefits immediately. determine the outcome." "The union is promising it can help get "What happens if we lose the union elec­ More than 200 people demonstrated July 11 in Vancouver, Canada, within hours immigration papers for everyone. This is not tion?" was also a topic of the discussion at after the stabbing of abortion provider Dr. Garson Romalis outside of his clinic. true." the union meeting. A leader of the organiz­ Six years earlier, Romalis was shot while in his home by a rightist thug. "We have The Long Prairie plant, a beef slaughter­ ing drive, Miguel Olvera, responded, "We deciphered the human genome, we have sent machines to Mars, so when will house I 00 miles northwest of St. Paul, is are being forced to make a stand. The com­ women have complete control over their own reproductive rights," asked a young also owned by Rosen Diversified Industries. pany forced us to make a stand when they woman from Medical Students for Choice. The workers at Long Prairie Packing have a increased the line speed. If we don't make a union and belong to UFCW Local 789. stand, things will get worse." Some 35 workers from the cut department can have an impact on a national level." nizing drive. For example, it has increased Pro-union workers answer propaganda and 5 from the kill department attended the The fifth issue of The Workers' Voice, the the workload of two workers who are sup­ The issues in this propaganda attack had union meeting. bilingual newsletter of the workers at Da­ porters of the union in the kill department been discussed at a meeting of the union According to workers in the plant, the kota Premium, answered the company pro­ and at the same time has cut their wages, in organizing drive July 6 and in the last union company has posted a sign in the lunch paganda that the union is another company. an obvious attempt to provoke them to quit newsletter. According to Francisco Picado, room. The sign makes the following points, "The union and the company are very dif­ in outrage. At a previous union meeting a slaughterhouse worker who is on staff for "Local 789 won't represent you ad­ ferent," stated the newsletter. "The company workers discussed this company tactic and the organizing drive, there was lively dis­ equately-it represents workers mainly at owns this plant and many others. They make decided to encourage each other to stay and cussion on these points. At the meeting a nursing homes. The union constitution says money by hiring us to transform the cattle fight. The company successfully employed worker who was a veteran of the union or­ you can be put on trial. Also, Local 789 gets into the product they sell on the market. The this tactic a few weeks ago against four ganizing drive of the early 1990s asked, $1.7 million in dues, which supports the union does not own any factories and it does workers in the kill. "What will be different this time? We voted exorbitant salaries of the organizers and also not exploit workers and their labor to make for the union. But then a year went by. Some gets sent to the union's Washington office." money. Unions were created by workers out Company trying to divide workers workers were fired, some workers were This last point was answered by Matias of our need to defend ourselves from the The company is trying to drive a wedge bought off, but they treated us better. When Loya, a worker in the cut department, who greed of the company owners." between workers in the cut department and the union was voted out they went back to told the Militant, "I want to be a member of It is not only propaganda that the com­ the kill department and is using some more their old ways. I want the union. But how a national union. I want an organization that pany is using to try to break the union orga- aggressive tactics against workers in the kill. Enrique Flores, a pro-union worker who had recently quit his job, returned to the plant July 5 to pick up his check. He went Marchers in Mississippi demand to the kill to invite his former co-workers and friends to his wedding. He began pass­ ing out a few wedding invitations. Manage­ ment, thinking he was passing out union­ gov't investigate racist lynching organizing material, called a security guard who began yelling insults and pushing him Continued from front page up and down the route on quad cycles hand­ "In South Carolina we have these politicians away from the kill floor. chapter in McComb County, told Militant ing out water to combat the blazing Missis­ kissing the rebel flag. But it's not part of When Obdulia Flores, a worker in the kill reporters that some neighbors came forward sippi sun. Umbrellas lined the streets on the my heritage. Romancing these racist sym­ department, began defending Enrique and said they "had seen trucks gathered road to the Johnson's house. Ebay Hamp­ bols set the tone for this," he said. Residents Flores, who is her son, the security guard down the road from Johnson's house three ton, 22, heard about the action on the TV pointed to the example of a bridge, spray­ shoved her around also. Company manager nights in a row before the hanging." news. It was his first protest. "The main rea­ painted with "Kill all niggers, Kill all Jews," Cortinas admitted in the small group meet­ Lewis Meyers, the Johnson family attor­ son I came is to support the Johnson family. and police harassment in other counties that ings July 11 that the company "overreacted." ney, told CNN in an interview July 12 that It's a shame in the year 2000 things like this pushed them to participate in the day's The company is making a naked attempt "we have some credible evidence that there keep happening." A number of people events. to buy off workers in the plant. On July 11 is a possibility that a local law enforcement present commented that the killing was part Activists fighting the cop killing of workers in the kill department were served official may have been involved in what we of moves by racist forces to take working Mitchell Virgil by Gulfport police also par­ tacos and soda on their break, a move that now believe to be a murder." people backward toward the days of segre­ ticipated in the action. Virgil lived in nearby apparently had little effect. When asked The July 8 march, four miles long, was gation. Many also pointed to the fact that Columbia and many family members see the "What is the occasion?" a worker re­ called by Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow unlike decades ago, acts like this are intol­ two fights as one and the same. The march sponded, "They are trying to get us to vote Coalition. The action blocked traffic on both erable and provoke a response, and not just culminated in a rally held at the pecan tree against the union." sides of a major road for several hours. The from Blacks. where Johnson was found hanging. At the The following day the company called a following day, an even larger march of 1,000 Jason Lawrence, a shipping and receiv­ rally, his brother and sister spoke, demand­ meeting at a hotel for all the workers. At the people hit the streets at Duckworth Park, in ing clerk, said, "I feel like what happened ing justice for their slain brother. previous meeting at the hotel the company the nearby town of Columbia. Demonstra­ could happen to any of us. No matter how One of the speakers was Mamie Mobley, had provided free food and liquor. It was tors came from New Orleans in two buses, 'great' this country is, they have to answer mother of Emmett Till, a teenager who was attended by 18 workers. Illinois, Tennessee, Alabama, and all over for this. We have to show support for the killed in Mississippi in 1955 for supposedly Leaders of the union organizing drive are , Mississippi. Many families waited in shady family. One of my co-workers agrees that it whistling at a white woman. Mobley offered intensifying their efforts to win a majority. spots along the route of the march and joined was a suicide," said Lawrence, noting that her support to Johnson's mother, Maria. They have organized house visits to talk as it passed. The majority of participants another of his other co-workers came to the Democratic Party politician Jesse Jack­ through the many issues and questions that were Black, though there were dozens of march. son also spoke, calling for a federal investi­ workers have on their minds. Trish Ramirez, protesters who are white present. Carl Galmon, 59, a longtime civil rights gation into the death of Johnson. Jackson the organizer for the UFCW, reported that Throughout the march, organizers buzzed fighter, thought racism was behind the death. decried several Republican candidates for the house visits are having an impact on the their support of the death penalty and men­ · discussion. tioned the recent fight in Texas against the "For example, we explained that it is il­ executiop of Gary Graham. He pointed to legal for the company to take away benefits FROM PATHFINDER the need to improve working conditions in during the organizing drive or during the Mississippi and raise the standard of living contract negotiations as they are threaten­ through unionization, saying activists need ing to do." She stated, "The experience of n.e Eastern Alirllines Strlike to join the Rainbow Coalition as the vehicle those who are visiting the workers gives us Accomplishments of the Rank-and-File that would accomplish this. confidence about winning a strong vote for Machinists and Gains for the Labor Movement The next day protesters marched from the union on the 21st." Duckworth Park in nearby Columbia to the Leaders of the union organizing effort ERNIE MAILHOT, JUDY STRANAHAN, AND JACK BARNES Marion County courthouse. This two-mile planned a new issue of The Workers' Voice The story of the 686-day strike in which a rank-and-file stretch was made up of 1,000 people, many for July 13, and those active in the organiz­ resistance by Machinists prevented Eastern's union­ of whom were youth. Rasaan Powell, a 16- ing drive are slated to help distribute the busting onslaught from becoming the road to a profit­ year-old high school student in Columbia, newsletter outside the company gates for the explained why she and other young people first time. able nonunion airline. $9.95 joined the march. "Today we're taking a In addition, the union has organized a stand. This is for everybody who has been prayer service and a dinner for workers at < .. ·...... •.. ··•··. . . lynched. We must be heard. It is important Dakota Premium Foods at Our Lady of for us to show solidarity in order to make Guadalupe Church in St. Paul on July 16, .f'Vaibilil(! fr?O) ~ in4~~ Plbs~ .. -~ 9!l ~ 12,pr write Patlifind\1r, i!Q 'v'Yt!$t$1:.rf>J~)'91i<,NY sure justice is served." the last Sunday before the vote. The church 1.0014; T~k(212) 7-tl-{)690. f!~Jc(2l2) 'n7~J.$(). has the largest Latino congregation in St. ; Justin Hovey, a member of the Young So­ Paul and is a few miles from the plant on cialists in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, contributed Concord St. Many workers at the plant are to this article. members of the congregation. 14 The Militant July 24,2000 Miners: 'They haven't loaded one coal train' BY JACK PARKER buy the food. We stock the shelves every "Next Saturday we will be going to Las "We are fighting not just for ourselves but FT. COLLINS, Colorado-The United week and every week people come in and Cruces to speak in front of the New Mexico for smaller tribes who do not have the re­ Mine Workers strikes at Pittsburg and get what they need." State AFL-CIO," he continued. sources that the Navajo have," concluded Midway's (P&M) McKinley and Kemmerer "They are a great bunch of ladies," said One of the most important questions fac­ Oliver. "Ifone corporation can get away with mines remain rock solid as production has Hunzie, describing the other members of ing the McKinley strikers is P&M's proposal dumping medical coverage others can use all but ceased since the walkouts began back Miners' Backbone. "You couldn't ask for a to pay Native American miners a $100 bo­ it as a precedent to force their Native Ameri­ in May. better group of people." nus if they give up their health care and use cans workers to use IHS." "They haven't loaded one coal train," said Indian Health Services (IHS). McKinley is Over this past week the United Mine Lawrence Oliver, president of Local 1332 Leafleting Chevron refinery located on the Navajo reservation. Because Workers union upped benefits for strikers of the United Mine Workers of America In a similar fashion, Lawrence Oliver ex­ of a hiring preference more than 90 percent at both mines to $200 per week and support (UMWA), who was describing the situation plained his local's plans to reach out to other of the miners are Native American. Under from other unions continues to grow. "We at the McKinley mine near Gallup, New unions for more solidarity. "Tomorrow a del­ the present contract miners' health care is received letters backing our fight from Mexico. "They have done no production egation including myself is going to fly to funded 100 percent. Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa and from since the strike began," UMWA staff mem­ Los Angeles where we will leaflet workers "To me, they [P&M] shouldn't be trying the ICEM [International Federation of ber Dallas Wolf added, referring to at the Chevron refinery," which owns to make a profit off the treaty rights of the Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Work­ Kemmerer in Wyoming. Pittsburg and Midway, said Oliver. "That Navajo people," said Oliver. "P&M's posi­ ers], a worldwide union federation located There are 330 workers in the bargaining evening we have been invited to speak at tion is that their proposal is an option to in Europe," said Dallas Wolf. "Donations of unit at McKinley and more that 230 are rep­ their union meeting." The workers at Chev­ employees, but really they are just trying to food and money have come from locals in resented by the UMWA at Kemmerer. A ron belong to the Paper, Allied-Industrial get their foot in the door. Once they get there Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah." Steelwork­ couple of weeks ago three workers at and Energy Workers International Union they will try to make it a requirement that ers in Rock Springs, nearby Kemmerer, McKinley and four at Kemmerer broke (PACE). we have to use IHS. "have been big supporters as always." ranks and crossed the picket lines, but since that time no one else has scabbed. "It must be getting lonely in there," Wolf quipped. Despite being completely shut down, Indiana electrical workers stand firm P&M has not budged. "They refuse to come back to the bargaining table," said Wolf. "They haven't returned our phone calls." Meanwhile, both locals have begun to in face ofpower company lockout reach out for solidarity. Sue Hunzie, whose husband is a miner at Kemmerer, spent from BY JEREMY ROSE 5:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., July 10, picket­ EVANSVILLE, Indiana-"We're taking ing at a three-way stop sign near the mine a stand for what's right," declared Bob gate. Forty other people joined Hunzie that Lewis, an operator for eight years at South­ day. "They were mainly miners' wives," she em Indiana Gas & Electric Co.'s (SIGECO) said. Hunzie is one of' the leaders of a new A.B. Brown power plant west ofEvansville. group in Kemmerer. It is called Miners' Lewis was one of more than 200 locked­ Backbone. "One of the wives said we were out workers and supporters picketing the backbone of the miners so we came up SIGECO headquarters here July 10. with that name," explained Hunzie. The lockout began June 30 just hours af­ "We are organized into several commit­ ter members of International Brotherhood tees-phone tree, public relations, strike of Electrical Workers Local 702 rejected activities, and food bank-and we meet ev­ the company's contract offer. Since then, ery Wednesday night," she said. "We have several mass pickets have been organized organized a number of activities including to show the unity of the 480 locked-out two ladies' picket days and a march from workers who work at three power plants and Diamondville to Kemmerer," the two towns a maintenance facility. closest to the mine. "We are planning to have The company said that without a contract a booth and float in an upcoming commu­ workers are "unreliable" and claimed it was nity parade that used to be called Century forced to lock them out. Bosses and thm;e Days. - in management are working 12-hour shifts "We have found that the four scabs have to keep the power plants running. In one a hard time getting the courage to cross our incident in Augusta, Indiana;· SIGECO picket line when we are there. Two of them bosses broke a water main while attempt­ ing to install new power lines. Militant/Elyse Hathaway are women," she said. Picket line of locked-out unionists at SIGECO July 10, Evansville, Indiana. "One of the most important things we are Electrician DavidAble, a 36-year veteran doing is organizing a food bank," contin­ of the company who works at the Warrick nized coal companies are delivering coal to supervisors are taking the trains onto com­ ued Hunzie. "We let the local raise the County power plant, said workers need to all three power plants, train crews are re­ pany property. money from other unions and from retirees stick together. He pointed out that while fusing to deliver coal toAB Brown, the only The central issues for workers are the and other supporters; then we go out and nonunion truckers employed by unorga- plant serviced by rail. Several workers said company's attacks on pensions and health care. Unionists also oppose the company's demand for a five-year contract. "All we want is a modest increase in our pensions. Ranked against other power in­ Steelworkers hear tentative proposals dustry workers, we're at the bottom of ben­ efits, but the company says we're rich and greedy," Tony LaGrone, a maintenance me­ to settle lockout by Kaiser Aluminum chanic with 17 years atAB Brown, told Mili­ tant reporters at a mass picket on July 5. BY PAUL DUNN mands like random drug testing and annual tured jobs, as well as limiting the role of "Our cost of health coverage has gone up GRAMERCY, Louisiana-Spirits were certification testing." These would mean testing in job selection. 200 per cent in two years, and the company high as Steelworkers and their families filed termination if a worker failed either test. Health insurance benefits for locked-out is refusing to put a cap on it," said 26-year into a meeting at the St. John's Parish Boat Thomas said he thought the gap between workers and their dependents will be im­ veteran Bob Snow. "With this contract, they Club. They were arriving to hear a presen­ the issues that are left is small. mediately reinstated upon ratification of the want to completely eliminate our health care tation on a tentative agreement that could Numerous others, while expressing opti­ agreement. Issues still in dispute have to do when we retire. That's outrageous." lead to the end of their 21-month labor dis­ mism, reserved their opinions until after the with the Supplementary Unemployment Several workers explained they must pay pute with Kaiser Aluminum. vote. Several workers though did express Benefits plan, retirement benefits, and wage out $50 a month for medical insurance for The 345 members of United Steelwork­ reservations about the settlement, but didn't mcreases. themselves or $100 a month for family cov­ ers of America (USWA) Local 5702 here want their names to be used. One said, The pressure of round-the-clock picket erage. Dental coverage is an additional $50 are among 2,900 locked out in three states. "These proposals look like what the com­ lines has been maintained throughout the a month. They will be voting July 12-13 on an Inter­ pany has been proposing all along." lockout-including during the Boat Club est Arbitration Agreement that could mean The initial demands of the company that meeting-despite the challenge posed by a rapid end to the lockout. Everyone in at­ forced the Steelworkers on strike on Sept. nearly all local members finding other jobs. tendance received handouts that included a 30, 1998, were the permanent elimination These efforts, plus the support won through for further reading ... 22-page summary of the points where agree­ of more than 400 jobs, the contracting out numerous soltdarity actions, have forced ment has been reached with the bosses and of several hundred additional jobs, substan­ Kaiser to falter as its losses mount and stock Coal llfners on those still in dispute. dard pay and pension increases, the gutting value plummets. s•nke Articles on: If approved, all unresolved issues will be of seniority agreements, and a cap on health The tentative agreement doesn't affect the the Ill-day 1977-78 strike, the sent before a federal mediator if a negoti­ insurance benefits for retirees, who would USWA's current National Labor Relations ated settlement isn't reached before July 29. be forced to pay the additional cost. If the Board (NLRB) case. The General Counsel 1981 strike and the contract rejection The arbitration case would be heard in late new agreement is ratified, a total of 456 of the NLRB formally charged Kaiser June vote, the United August, with a ruling issued no later than union jobs will be lost despite the Steelwork­ 30 with illegally locking out the 2,900 Mine Workers of 21 days afterward. ers' fight. USWA members "to pressure and coerce" America and the Similar presentations have been made to While failing to back Kaiser down on the them into accepting the company's proposal. fight against the other affected locals. Kaiser's largest elimination of jobs, a significant number of According to a USWA news release, it nuclear power; operations are in Spokane, Washington, workers see this as a victory over company also charged Kaiser with "unlawfully dis­ the fight for where more than 2,000 workers are locked attempts to bust the union outright. The criminating against employees to discour­ health benefitS out of the Mead smelter and Trentwood roll­ company has reportedly agreed to drop 237 age membership in a labor organization, and and compemsa­ ing mill. Three hundred are locked out in out of 264 proposed jobs lost to contracting with failing and refusing to bargain in good tion to black lul')g Tacoma, Washington, and 230 at the extru­ out, preserve the use of seniority in promo­ faith with the Union as required by federal victims, and sion plant in Newark, Ohio. tions and layoffs, give an amnesty in all law." more $5 · Sam Thomas, vice president of the local cases of workers discharged for alleged As part of the remedy sought, the NLRB here, viewed the recent developments posi­ strike-related misconduct, terminate all will seek full back pay and benefits from tively. "We have won," he said. "We can now scabs before the Steelworkers return to Jan. 14, 1999, the date the company began really see an end to this labor dispute. Kai­ work, and provide new language on guar­ its lockout, and has set a hearing for Nov. ser has withdrawn some of its worst de- anteeing training on all changed or restruc- 13, 2000. July 24, 2000 The Militant 15 THE MILITANT 'Independence for Puerto Rico is in the interests of U.S. working people' SWP presidential candidate James Harris speaks at UN hearings on decolonization

The following statement was presented Rico is in the interests, not only of the Puerto ity of the U.S. rulers to attack the demo­ small island in defiance of the will of the by James Harris, Socialist Workers can­ Rican people, but of the vast majority of the cratic rights of those here who' are resisting majority of the people of Puerto Rico, and didate for U.S. president, to the United people of the United States. the employers and their government. of large numbers of Puerto Ricans living in Nations Special Committee on Workers and farmers in the United States Last year, an international campaign for the United States. Decolonization. He was among some 30 have absolutely no interest in Washington's the release of Puerto Rican political prison­ Mr. Chairman: individuals and- representatives of orga­ colonial rule over Puerto Rico. It is only the ers won the release of 11 independence A successful struggle to get the U.S, Navy nizations who testified at the committee's tiny handful of wealthy ruling families in fighters. Buttoday, six independentistas re­ out ofVieques will deal a resounding blow hearings on the colonial status of Puerto this country that benefits from the exploita­ main in U.S. prisons. One of them is Jose to our common enemy. It will show-to use Rico, held July 12, 2000, in New York City. tion of Puerto Rico's labor, land, and natu- Solis, framed up by the FBI and locked up a slogan popularized by a number of work­ Harris is a garment worker i~Atlanta and ing-class struggles led by Spanish-speaking a member of the Union of Needletrades, workers in this country today-that Si se Industrial and Textile Employees. Sub­ puede. Yes we can!Yes, it's possible to stand titles are by the Militant. up to the most brutal imperialist power in history and win freedom from its rule. It is BY JAMES HARRIS possible to win independence for Puerto Distinguished Chairman and Honored Rico. Committee Members: The accumulation of experiences in As the Socialist Workers Party's candi­ struggles by working people in the United date for president of the United States in this States, which I referred to earlier, is leading election year, I have traveled back and forth many to become more receptive to the fight across the country. against U.S. colonial rule in Puerto Rico, Last week I spoke with meat packers in and to identifY with the fishermen, work­ St. Paul, Minnesota, who are fighting for a ers, youth, and others battling to get the U.S. union. The workers there, of many differ­ military out of Vieques. ent national origins, are taking a stand for The battle to remove the U.S. Navy from human dignity against the brutal speedup Vieques has drawn attention to how Wash­ of labor that leads to injuries and the grind­ ·ington uses Puerto Rico as a launching pad ing up of workers. I also spoke with farm­ for military aggression worldwide. The war­ ers who are protesting against the devastat­ ships and planes that are now resuming mili­ ing conditions they face, many of them be­ tary exercises in the area ofVieques will be ing driven off the land, stripped of their live­ sent around the world to protect the inter­ lihood, even discriminated against by fed­ ests ofU.S. big business and to assault other eral agencies because of race. Coal miners peoples, from the Balkans to the Middle are on strike in the Western coalfields, and East. The use of U.S. military facilities in immigrant workers have held rallies around Militant/Martin Koppel Puerto Rico under the banner of fighting the country for equal rights and against de­ Demonstration in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last August demanding release of pro-inde­ "drug trafficking" in the Caribbean is of a portations. This picture of resistance by pendence political prisoners from U.S. prisons. piece with the growing U.S. military inter­ working people is an increasingly notice­ vention in Colombia and other Andean able feature of politics in the United States raJ resources. _ in a U.S. prison only last year. We join with countries under the same pretext. today. The Puerto Rican people and working thousands of others in demanding that U.S. Yesterday I participated in the convention people in the United States face the same president William Clinton release them un­ Example of revolutionary Cuba of the National Association for the Advance­ exploiters and the same oppressors-those conditionally now. Washington has not only covered Puerto ment of Colored People, one of the spon­ in Washington and Wall Street. As long as The use of the FBI, marshals, and courts Rico with its military bases. It also uses Puerto sors of a national march to protest police the U.S. rulers are able to maintain their co­ to harass and frame up unionists and inde­ Rican youth as cannon fodder for its wars of brutality planned for August 26 in Wash­ lonial domination of Puerto Rico, labor in pendence fighters in Puerto Rico emboldens plunder. Significant numbers of Puerto Ricans ington, D.C. Police brutality is part·of the the United States will not be able to throw Washington to use similar methods against have opposed being drafted into the army of pattern of violence by the rulers of this coun­ the source of exploitation off our backs ei- working-class fighters in the United States. the colonial power over the years--during try against working people. Last week more ther. · Puerto Ricans are disproportionately victims World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and in between. than 5,000 people marched in Dearborn, Some 2. 7 million Puerto Ricans are part of this so-called "justice" system. Their actions set an example for youth in colo­ Michigan, against the killing of a Black man of the working class in the United States. nies worldwide. who was defending his daughter agairtst They are subject to systematic discrimina­ 'We have a common enemy' Mr. Chairman: security guards who had accused her of tion and second-class status, as are Blacks, Two months ago, in an imperial show of The people of Puerto Rico and working stealing a $4 bracelet. This past weekend, Mexicans, and other oppressed nationalities force, 300 FBI agents and U.S. marshals, people in the United States are often told defenders of civil rights marched in in this country. U.S. colonial rule ofPuerto backed up by 1,200 marines, landed on the by our common oppressor-the U.S. em­ Kokomo, Mississippi, after a young Black Rico reinforces racist prejudice and every Puerto Rican island ofVieques and arrested ployers and their government in Washing­ man was found hanging by a belt from a reactionary force in the United States-to 200 Puerto Ricans and their' supporters pro­ ton-that it's useless to struggle, that inde­ tree in front of his house. the detriment of the entire working class. testing against the U.S. Navy's use of their pendence will only lead to degradation and As a participant in these struggles, I point The trampling of the national rights of land. Since then, the U.S. military has re­ decline. But the example of revolutionary out to others that independence for Puerto the Puerto Rican people strengthens the abil- sumed war training on Vieques, shelling the Cuba is proof to the contrary. The workers and farmers of Cuba have proven that it is possible to struggle coura­ geously and win genuine independence Strikes against austerity rock Nigeria from U.S. domination. The socialist road they have chosen is the course that has made BY MAURICE WILLIAMS town hall in Lagos. One worker was killed cia! institutions," said James Osuwa, a resi­ it possible to achieve sovereignty and dig­ Working-class resistance to austerity when a tear gas canister fired by police ex­ dent of Lagos, responding to a survey con­ nity. measures is deepening across Nigeria, ploded next to him, as the cops tried to break ducted by BBC News on the recent nation­ In 1959, Cuban workers and farmers Africa's most populous nation. For the sec­ up the gathering. wide strike against a government-ordered overthrew a U.S.-backed dictatorship and ond time in a month the country has been The IMF has demanded the Nigerian re­ fuel phce increase. Attempts to raise gas freed themselves from U.S. control. Since rocked by massive strikes when public-sec­ gime impose "economic reforms," which prices have provoked angry protests in the then--despite four decades of a ruthless tor workers in 12 states walked off the job include eliminating subsidies on fuel prices streets. Last June the NLC launched a five- · campaign by Washington to punish them for July 3. They joined striking civil servants and deregulating the fuel industry as a con­ day strike in response to a 50 percent fuel the audacity of making their country the first in Lagos in demanding an increase in the dition for granting a $1 billion loan. The price hike ordered by the regime of Nige­ free territory in the Americas-the Cuban minimum wage to $75 a month. country is already crippled by a $31 billion rian president Olusegun Obasanjo. people have successfully defenqed their Charlie Onyeagba, chairman of the foreign debt, the bulk of it owed to imperi­ The strike paralyzed public transporta­ hard-won freedom. Cuba has always con­ Anambra branch of the Nigerian Labour alist banks and investors. tion, shut the airports in Lagos, and closed sistently championed Puerto Rico's fight for Congress (NLC), said the workers would not Despite being a nation rich in oil gas, coal, down schools, hospitals, shops, and banks independence and set an example of self­ go back to work until their demands were and iron, one-third of the population lives in major cities across the country. The main . less solidarity. met. Railway workers have also been on below the official poverty line and 28 per­ oil workers union also joined the strike, The condemnation by this committee of strike and hundreds of retired soldiers have cent of the workforce is jobless. After de­ which reflected a measure of growing union Washington's colonial rule of Puerto Rico organized protests demanding the govern­ cades of imperialist plunder of the country's power one year after the end of military rule. will serve the interests of the overwhelm­ ment pay their pensions. resources, many of Nigeria's 113 million The regime eventually backpedaled and re­ ing majority of the people of the United The labor actions took place during the people Jack basic services like water and duced the price increase to 10 percent. States and those everywhere fighting for the first African tour of the International Mon­ electricity. "The president was forced into a humili­ right to self-determination and the future of etary Fund's (IMF) new managing director "I wonder when our leaders will start tak­ ating climbdown that has strengthened the humanity. Horst Kohler, who arrived in Nigeria July ing into consideration the welfare of the unions and cast doubt on his government's Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members 3. Three days later, Nigerian cops assaulted people of this country rather than satisfy­ ability to drive through economic reforms," of this committee, for the opportunity to strikers who had gathered outside the main ing the doubtful advice of the global finan- London's Financial Times reported July 5. present these views before you today.

16 The Militant July 24, 2000