------· AUSTRALIA $2.50 · BELGIUM BF60 · CANADA $2.50 · FRANCE FF1 0 · SWEDEN KR15 · UK £1.00 · U.S. $1.50 INSIDE 20,000 sign to put socialists on ballot in NY: 10,000 to go! TH£ -PAGES A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 64/N0.31 AUGUST 14, 2000 iSi se puede! Minnesota Thousands in Okinawa meat packers win union say 'no' to New UFCW members at Dakota prepare to fight for contract U.S. bases BY PATRICK O'NEILL "U.S. Bases Out," read the yellow vests worn by many protesters in a July 20 dem­ onstration by 27,000 people on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Local residents seized the occasion of the summit there by the Group of Eight-seven imperialist powers plus the Russian government-to press their demand for the removal of the bases. They linked arms in a chain around the U.S. Kadena Air Base perimeter fence, which stretches 11 miles through central Okinawa. Among the demonstrators was a repre­ sentative of the fishermen ofVieques, Puerto Rico, who have been fighting to get the U.S. Navy out of their land since World War II. "The U.S. military owns our land, our sea, and our sky," said one angry Okinawan. Many protesters wore red, symbolically showing the bases a "red card"-used by soccer referees to instruct an offending Photo: Courtesy of UFCW Local 789 player to leave the field. Workers with pro-union T-shirts gather at UFCW Local 789 union hall the evening before July 21 representation election at Dakota Thirty-nine U.S. military installations­ Premium Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota. The meat packers voted for the union 112-71. Above photo appears on union web site. three-quarters of the total in Japan-are lo­ cated on Okinawa, occupying nearly one­ BY TOM FISHER Foods here had consolidated the gains of plant, where 200 meat packers, the major­ fifth of its area. More than half the 48,000 SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minnesota-"Si se their previous struggles against the company ity Spanish-speaking immigrants, slaughter Japan-based U.S. troops are on the island, puede! 112 to 71! We won!" by voting for the union. . and process cattle. Workers initiated the which constitutes less than 1 percent of The voice of union president Bill Pearson Twenty minutes later, 10 of the leaders union drive after carrying out a seven-hour Japan's land mass, and is the country's poor­ came over the public address system to 30 of the meat packers, members of the in-plant sit-down strike June 1. est region. meat packers who had gathered at the United organizing committee, arrived. They had just The strike and launching of the union Fishermen, farmers, and other working Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) come from the company cafeteria, where the drive were the meat packers' response to people in Okinawa have long opposed the Local 789 union hall in South St. Paul to voting had taken place. More applause, deep attacks by the company. Many work­ U.S. bases, which were built following get the news of the outcome of the union shouts, and handshakes of congratulations. ers say the speed of production doubled over World War II while the island remained un­ representation election. Now there would be a fight for a union the previous six months. A number of work­ der U.S. control. Washington returned Everyone took a few seconds to absorb contract, to continue to strengthen the fight ers were asked to do the jobs previously Okinawa to Japan in 1972 but kept its the news in order to be sure of the outcome. against the employers' ongoing attacks on done by two people. Several complained Continued on Page 8 Applause and shouts broke out. The an­ the workers. The company has vowed re­ they were forced to continue working while nouncement was translated into Spanish, the peatedly that they will never negotiate a injured. • language of the big majority of the meat contract with the union. As a consequence of the June 1 sit-down packers. More shouts and more applause. The July 21 vote was the culmination of strike, in which they gathered at the com­ The meat packers at Dakota Premium a seven-week organizing campaign in this Continued on Page 6 IDinrlgrants in Unionists rally in Denver for UMWA strikers Georgia town BY JACK PARKER 1307 who has worked at the Kemmerer mine are rock-solid behind you. We are fighting protest arrest DENVER-More than 100 striking coal for more than 27 years, told the crowd, for our rights, for a fair contract, for fair miners and their supporters held a spirited "Chevron wants to bully us, but I would like wages, for health care for all, and we will rally here July 26 in front of Pittsburg and to tell the brothers from McKinley that we Continued on Page 10 of workers Midway's national headquarters. The min­ ers are on strike at P&M's Kemmerer mine BY ANN PARKER in Wyoming and McKinley mine in New The Working SMYRNA, Georgia-More than 500 Mexico. immigrant workers and their family mem­ They chanted "No contract, No work" Class Br. the bers mobilized July 17 for a city council and carried signs that said, "Chevron's Transformation meeting here to show solidarity with six record on human rights: murder in Nigeria, Mexican-born bricklayers. They packed the discrimination on the Navajo Nation, scabs of Learning city council room and crowded into the ves­ in Wyoming." Pittsburg and Midway (P&M) The Fraud of tibule to watch the meeting on a television, is owned by Chevron. while another 100 waited outside. The action was sponsored by Denver Jobs Education Reform "This shows that we're not alone, that with Justice, which is affiliated to the AFL­ under Capitalism we're united," declared Oscar Resendiz, 34, CIO. a drywall installer, who attended the meet­ Three miners came all the way from By Jack Barnes ing with his wife and daughter. North River, a P&M mine near Birmingham, "Until society is reorganized so They were protesting the handcuffing, Alabama, to show their support. "Every that education is a human . arrest, and jailing last month of the six work­ ground person is wearing a red ribbon to activity from the time we are ers, five men and one woman, under a little­ show their solidarity with the strikers," Carl known and rarely used city ordinance pro­ Yerby told the Militant. "We can't strike, but very young until the time we hibiting home construction and repair after we can tell the company where we stand." die, there will be no education 6:00p.m. According to Raul Gonzalez, one Head Sanchez was one of two miners who worthy of working, creating of the workers arrested, a man who is white, came to the rally from the York Canyon mine humanity. That is the historic leveling a lot next to where they were work­ in Raton, New Mexico. York Canyon is the truth.n $3 . ing, was not cited or arrested. Police claim other P&M mine organized by the United they were not sure if the workers heard their Mine Workers of America (UMWA). "We warning. will back the Kemmerer and McKinley Available from bookstores Many came to the meeting in work striker·s all the way," Sanchez toh:l the rally. listed on page 8. clothes. Construction workers--dry wallers, Jim Vilos, a member of UMWA Local Continued on Page 3 How U.S. militarization drive led to 2nd world war- page 7 --YOUNG SOCIALISTS AROUND THE WORLD------YSerS join protests, picket line in Mississippi BY JUSTIN HOVEY class-struggle alternative to the capitalist cialist campaigners surpassed our goal of their struggle and other political topics. TUSCALOOSA, Alabama-Young So­ parties. Many of those we talked to about signatures collected for the day~ Overall, the Willie Evans, one of the strikers, greeted cialist members from Birmingham and the socialist campaign had not yet been ex­ Young Socialists from Birmingham and · Trowe and campaign supporters on the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, protested the lynching posed to a revolutionary working-class per­ Tuscaloosa were able to link up with young picket line and explained how much he ap­ death of 17 -year-old Raynard Johnson along­ spective. John White, who was attending his fighters and workers and gain rich class­ preciated the solidarity the socialists have side workers and youth in Mississippi and first protest march, said he initially associ­ struggle experience under the sweltering given during the course of the strike. collected signatures to place the Socialist ated communism with Hitler and fascism. Mississippi sun. Spending time on the picket line and dis­ Workers candidates on the ballot in that state. But after some extensive discussion about cussing with the tested unionists of Titan • The YS participated in rallies and marches socialism, some history ·on the Russian Campaigning for socialist candidate Tire proved valuable for the Young Social­ in both Kokomo and Columbia, Mississippi, Revolution, and related questions, he One week later, Young Socialists took the ists. We learned a great deal from the strik­ demanding justice for Johnson, a Black replied, "Wow! I never knew there was a opportunity to meet and campaign in ers, and many of these lessons can be used youth whose body was found hanging from party like this. I want to be a part of some­ Natchez, Mississippi, with Margaret Trowe, in the struggles that lie ahead. a tree in his front yard. At these actions we thing like this," and signed up to find out the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. vice On July 22, the YS headed back to Mis­ had the chance to link up with other young more about the Young Socialists and its up­ president. There, YS members petitioned at sissippi with teams of campaign supporters fighters and workers from all across the coming activities. various locations and visited the picket line from Atlanta and Birmingham to make a South. The Pathfinder book table we set up in at Titan Tire with Trowe, and we went over strong push to get all of the. signatures Both rallies were largely attended by Columbia was the hot spot at the rally. Nu­ our goal of signatures for the day. needed to get on the ballot in November. working people, many of them youth. John merous people who approached the table At the tire plant, where workers have been White, a 17-year-old high school student, signed our petitions to get the socialists on locked out of their jobs for almost two years, Justin Hovey is a member of the Young So­ said, "It could happen to me. I am here to­ the ballot. One bought Fascism: What It is Trowe and members of the Young Social­ cialists and a student at the University of day to take a stand, and I want to make sure and How to Fight It by Leon Trotsky. So- ists exchanged views with workers there on Alabama in Tuscaloosa. this never happens again." Similarly, Shannon Rochsa, a 17 -year-old high school student, said, "Ending racism is ofnecessity. Justice must be served," empha­ Pickets at Indiana power plant 'hang strong' . , sizing that protest rallies were important. Local police have declared the Black BY JEREMY ROSE McGehee and Robert youth's hanging death a suicide, but many EVANSVILLE, Indiana- "We're hang­ Arthur, a mechanic, re­ working people in Mississippi reject this ing strong and the public is behind us," de­ ported that eight trailers idea. Given the fact that Johnson had been clared Anthony Bushrod, a stockman with have been set up inside-the harassed by racists in his school and com­ 15 years' service at the Southern Indiana maintenance yard and at munity who disapproved of his relationship Gas and Electric Co. (SIGECO) power plant several power plants. Ca­ with a young white woman, numerous resi­ in Warrick County. He was among scores terers have been brought dents believe his death was a racist murder. of locked-out workers who took part in an in to provide meals. Su­ A friend of Johnson, Willis Hausband, 17, expanded picket line July 19 here at a down­ pervisors, line foremen, a high school student, said, "I know he did town maintenance facility. and engineers have had to not commit suicide. He was too happy and Many passing motorists honked to show cancel vacations and fam­ had too many things going for him. This was support for the pickets. ily plans. Administrative an outright murder." Workers at SIGECO are members of In­ personnel, the unionists ternational Brotherhood ofElectrical Work­ said, are forced to work Rallies and marches necessary ers (IBE)\1) Local 702. They were locked 12-hour shifts and then Many of those interviewed from the out hours after voting down a contract offer kept· on the property. Af­ Black community here said that rallies and June 30 by the company, which claimed they ter 36 hours they are al­ marches are necessary to make sure justice were "unreliable" without an agreement. lowed to go home for a I,.B .. E.. W* will be served, and to preserve the gains Local 702 business representative Matt short time, and some are 702 made during the civil rights movement, Hemenway, who joined the pickets earlier called back after only a Local which smashed the Jim Crow system of rac­ in the day, said, "Everyone is united and couple of hours at home Emple:yee$ . ist segregation. staying strong. Morale is remarkably high." to deal with emergencies. Are Young Socialists not only participated in . He adde~ that .morale among mana~e­ . Secretaries and other ment personnel ~ho are force4 to work long the actions tq.sb9w so~idarity, butLJsed the office eri:tploy· ees have. ; ·t··· · k d opportunity to present the Socialist 'days doing union members' work 'is getting beeil pressed into 12-hour ' 0 c e . .' Workers national campaign for president worse. Bryan McGehee, a pipefitter, said, stints in the field but are and vice president, which gives an explana­ "We're locked out and they're locked in," allowed to leave atthe end ~~.· U. f tion of the political polarization and racism pointing to a supervisor driving a repair of the day. \.._J E...... truck into the facility. About 100 company r= (',, we see in this country today and offers a l fti'#!i! 'J':Am =""-\.•. :\,J . personnel reportedly. Militant/Elyse Hathaway signed a petition protest­ Members ofLocal702 of the International Brotherhood of ing the conditions they are Electrical Workers at picket line outside SIGECO head­ forced to work under. quarters on July 10. Just over a week later the unionists Supporters of the organized an expanded picket line at SIGECO power plant. THE locked-out workers have MILITANT organized car caravans of four or five cars at a time to show their support. By rigor- · ·PUBLICATION SCHEDULE ously observing legal speed limits and safe This will be a two-week issue ofthe driving conditions near power plants, coal Miners take: ~~: centra( lJJl{!Sti(lnS Militant. The paper will. not publish trucks attempting to make deliveries have In their strikes againstP&M over the; . week. following. the. Jq.ly 2,7-29 been significantly backed up. Active Workers · Conference in Several workers explained the big stick­ ~he length t!fthe.workday and; ·, Oberlin, Ohio. The next issue, no. ing point in contract negotiations is a de­ 32, safety, in mobilizations' to defend . will be. printed on ThtirSd~Jy,.August .. mand by the company to bar sympathy 10. . . . ·.· ... · .. lifetime health insuranc;e, ·t;oal strikes, while seeking separate contracts for also not publish miners are i;o11frokiing:th~:; . ... each facility, move that would undercut The Militant' 'will a .an issue on Thurs<,lay, August 3l.: ·· employers and their government the union. on social questions that are key for

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2 The Militant August 14,2000 Immigrant workers rally in Washington to demand rights BY ELENA TATE emment that existed in Nicaragua from the WASHINGTON-"Amnesty now!" and 1979 revolution through the 1980s. "Si se puede!" (Yes we can) were the most Francisco and Janet, both garment work­ popular chants here among the 1, 000 work­ ers in Manhattan and members of UNITE ers from throughout the eastern region who Local 25-35, took the day off to come to took part in a March for Dignity and Am­ the rally because "we want general amnesty nesty July 20. Another demand was an end for all of us," Francisco said. "They exploit to deportations by the immigration cops. immigrants and we are opposed to those Unions in New York organized several conditions. We work up to 10 hours a day, busloads of workers, particularly Local 79 and the bosses don't shut the doors prop­ of the Laborers International Union ofNorth erly, so rats come in while we are working." America in New York and New Jersey and Other demonstrators carried signs read­ Militant Local 169 of the Union of Needletrades, ing, "Enough ofanti-immigrant laws;' "Stop Protesters demanded end to deportations, legal residence for undocumented workers Industrial and Textile Workers (UNITE} in workplace raids," and "Fix '96," referring march in New York this year. pared to $15 to $25 or more at union scale. New York. to the reactionary Illegal Immigration Re­ form and Responsibility Act of 1996. Javier, 21, a construction worker, said that Juan Mendez echoed the sentiments of "The union has the power-it relies on before he was in a union-organized many demonstrators, stating, "Papers or no the membership," said Juan Mendez, 25, a Charles, a 19-year-old demolition worker and member of Laborers Local 79, stated, worksite, "We worked with a lot of dust, but papers, everybody should have better con­ demolition worker and shop steward for the company wouldn't give us masks. They ditions. We're fighting, and one day we will Laborers Local 79. "We are here to demand equal rights for all "Ifwe unite, we can fight would yell at us and the boss would even get what we want: papers, equal rights, and and win our demands and our rights. Work­ Americans-born here or not. I support all immigrants. The way they [the bosses] ex­ hit us." He said he joined the union to get an end to exploitation." ers born in the United States should sup­ better pay and get respect. Wages for non­ port our struggle because we're fighting for ploit us must stop-working us 12-14 hours and not paying overtime." Charles had also union, immigrant demolition workers, he Elena Tate is a member ofthe Young Social­ better working conditions for them, too." noted, run as low as $6 to $8 an hour, com- ists in New York. Hundreds of other marchers were con­ participated in the immigrant-led May Day struction workers belonging to Local 79 to­ gether with their relatives, many originally from Ecuador. The union chartered 10 buses that included hospital workers from Local Hotel strike in Vancouver spreads 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, the Garment Workers' Justice Cen­ BY BEVERLY BERNARDO Vancouver Island have offered only 5 per­ Seventy-one percent of the strikers re­ ter, bus loads from the Tepeyac Association, VANCOUVER-Music blared and mo­ cent over three years. jected a second offer July 12 from the and various church-related groups. torists honked their support in response to The escalating strikes have put 3,700 ho­ Greater Vancouver Hotel Employers Asso­ The marchers were originally from the signs of striking hotel workers at the tel rooms behind picket lines at the height ciation, which represents bosses at the Hyatt Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Repub­ Quality Hotel on Howe Street at the entrance of British Columbia's busy tourist season. Regency, Four Seasons, Westin Bayshore, lic, Central American nations, and several to the Granville Street Bridge-one of More than 2,500 workers at 12 hotels are Renaissance, Holiday Inn, the Delta Pacific African countries. One contingent was a Vancouver's main traffic arteries. The mem­ now on strike. resort, and Delta Vancouver Airport Hotel. group of250 Mexican workers from Staten bers of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Lo­ About 2,200 unionists at seven of The workers clearly decided that the 2 per­ Island, New York. cal 3000 walked off the job on July 18. Vancouver's largest hotels walked off the job cent annual wage increases in a four-year One of the demands of the demonstra­ Within days unionists at four more hotels July 3 and 4, prompting their officials in the contract were not acceptable. tion was to modifY legislation that offers organized by the CAW were also on strike. Hotel, Restaurant and Culinary Employees Some Filipino workers at the Westin expedited legal residence to Cubans and The unionists are seeking a 12 percent wage and Bartenders Union (HRCEBU) Local40 Bayshore indicated their intention to vote Nicaraguans and to extend these provisions increase over three years. to call an official strike. The workers struck no on the offer by making a pun. "We're equally to immigrants from Guatemala, El The Hospitality Industrial Relations, the after rejecting by 97 percent a company of­ FilipinNo 's," one of them told the Militant. Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. The exist­ bargaining agent for the bosses at the fer of no wage increase the first year and 1 A majority of the workers are immigrants ing law is based on Washington's hostile Ramada Vancouver Center, Parkhill, Qual­ percent raises the second and third years. hailing from countries around the world. policy toward the Cuban revolution and its ity Downtown Hotel, Coast Whistler, Pacific Local 40 members are fighting for 3 per­ The employers have responded to the opposition to the workers and farmers gov- Palisades, and Courtenay Hotel on cent annual wage increases over four years. workers' determined stance by seeking to limit the effectiveness of the strike. On July 13 unionists confronted scabs hired by the Hyatt Regency as they unloaded baggage Women's rights actions planned in Canada, U.S. with the aid of Paladin Security guards. The hotel bosses have increased their use of pri­ BY ROSEMARY RAY foreign debt of several third world countries. tober 15." In Quebec, the three union fed­ vate cops to intimidate strikers. A week later the British Columbia Su­ TORONTO--Women's rights supporters The initiative for the WMW came from erations have endorsed and are building the the Quebec Women's Federation, which or­ march. Industrial and public sector unions preme Court granted the Westin Bayshore in Canada and other countries are building and Four Seasons injunctions limiting the a World March of Women 2000 to protest ganized a Women's March Against Poverty are chartering buses to get union members in Quebec in 1995, when 850 women's to the demonstrations. number of Local 40 pickets to four at each violence against women and the conditions entrance. The Renaissance Hotel is seeking of poverty facing millions of women in the rights activists marched for 10 days and The Canadian Federation of Students is were greeted by a demonstration of 15,000 organizing buses from campuses. a similar injunction. In addition, SERCA world. They have been holding actions since Food Services has obtained an injunction March that will lead up to nationwide pro­ outside the provincial legislature in Quebec For more information on World March City. of Women activities across the country, preventing workers from blocking the tests in different countries in October. An company's deliveries to the Hyatt Regency. international delegation from women's NAC and the CLC have made posters and phone the Canadian Labour Congress at T-shirts publicizing the World March of (613) 521-3400 in Ottawa, NAC at (416) Despite these antiunion moves, some 460 groups around the world will join protests members of CAW Local4275 at the Hotel October 17 at the United Nations in New Women. The CLC is committing resources 482-4460 in Toronto, or the Quebec for transportation and publicity material, Women's Federation at (514) 876-0166 in Vancouver voted 7 4 percent for a strike York. mandate. Their contract expires July 31. In Canada, the National Action Commit­ and has written to all member locals encour­ Montreal. tee on the Status ofWomen (NAC), Quebec aging participation. The United Food and Commercial Workers has issued a poster that Rosemary Ray is a member ofUnited Steel­ Beverly Bernardo is a meat packer in Women's Federation (FFQ), and Canadian Vancouver. Labour Congress (CLC), as well as World says, "UFCW: Yes, We'll Be There on Oc- workers ofAmerica Local 5338. · March of Women (WMW) committees across the country are planning demonstra­ tions in Montreal on October 14 and in Workers in Georgia town protest arrest of immigrants Vancouver and Ottawa on October 15. Or­ ganizers say they expect tens of thousands Continued from front page Maritza Soto Keen, director of Atlanta's whom were born in Mexico, are helping to of protesters, the biggest women's rights carpenters, bricklayers, landscapers, and Latin American Association, demanded to lead a struggle for union recognition. They actions in years. Local committees have others-whose labor power is employed in know wh~ the six workers were arrested organized a sit-down strike to get the boss formed across the country open to every­ the booming business of constructing resi­ when they had stopped work and were to meet their demands, to treat them with one who wants to build the actions. dential homes and office buildings in this cleaning up. She pointed to the significant dignity. They are fighting for justicia. So In the United States, the National Orga­ area, talked up the importance of a big tum­ role that immigrant workers play in the car­ are we. nization for Women will be demonstrating out on their jobs. A Spanish-language radio pet, poultry, apple, peanut, and construction "These workers are not guilty," Fein October 15 in Washington. station, La Que Buena, where several of the industries in the region. stated. "My campaign says: Drop the The demonstrations in Canada will focus workers arrested called in to talk about their Another speaker who was well received charges now! Si se puede!" As Fein took on protesting government cutbacks in so­ fight, advertised the meeting throughout the was Dan Fein, a textile worker and the So­ his seat, the audience began to chant, "Si se cial services, education, and health care, and day. cialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress puede"-a fighting slogan that translates as the disproportionate impact these cuts have Smyrna mayor Max Bacon defended the in the 5th District. He celebrated the deter­ "Yes we can." had on the lives of women. The WMW is police and refused to back down. He stood mined mobilization by working people, say­ Socialist Workers campaigners distributed demanding that the federal government in by his statement, following the arrests, that ing, "What a great turnout! As long as there a statement in Spanish and English. They Ottawa put $2 billion into a national child­ it bothered him that city funds were being was no response Mayor Bacon thought he sold the campaign papers-the Militant and care program, increase and extend unem­ wasted to teach the police Spanish. "That's could complain about Mexican workers Perspectiva Mundial-as well as a book by ployment and welfare payments, raise the something that has always rubbed me the needing English lessons without paying a Ernesto Che Guevara and one by Karl Marx minimum wage, and institute equal pay for wrong way," Bacon complained. One price for his remarks." from a table set up at the meeting. women in the workplace. speaker at the meeting asked the mayor if Fein, whose remarks were translated to The day after the meeting at the City Other demands include increased govern­ he had been taking lessons from Atlanta Spanish by a campaign supporter, added, Council, the six workers pleaded not guilty ment funding for rape crisis centers and Braves baseball pitcher John Rocker, who "Workers from Mexico are a part of the in municipal court. Their case is scheduled housing for women who face domestic vio­ recently earned notoriety for his racist, sex­ working class here in Smyrna. That makes to go to trial in September. If convicted, they lence. The WMW also calls for defending ist, anti-immigrant and otherwise reaction­ the working class stronger, not weaker. could be fined up to $1,000 and jailed up to the rights of immigrants and canceling the ary remarks. "Meat packers from Minnesota, many of 180 days. They are currently free on bond. August 14, 2000 The Militant 3 Socialists in garment and textile discuss next steps in joining with workers in struggle BY MARK HOLLAND a layer of unionists who have decided to or­ Carolina and Georgia alone. Recently there There are increased opportunities to get AND MARTY RESSLER ganize an effective fight against the com­ have been successful union-organizing the socialist newspapers the Militant and ST. LOUIS-Socialist garment and tex­ pany. At another plant, a local fraction mem­ drives at Fieldcrest-Cannon in Scottsboro, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books tile workers met here July 15-16 to discuss ber was almost fired because of moving too Alabama, and Rocky Mount, North Caro­ into the hands of workers, and greater open­ the strikes, organizing drives and shop floor quickly to discuss revolutionary politics on lina, following the union victory at the gi­ ness to the ideas being presented through skirmishes they and other workers are in­ the job before becoming established among ant textile plant in Kannapolis, North Caro­ the Socialist Workers election campaigns. volved in today. The majority who took part co-workers. lina, in 1999. Mike Fitzsimmons, who works as a sewing in the weekend meeting are members of the Kennedy pointed out that in contrast to machine operator in Cleveland, told the Union ofNeedletrades, Industrial and Tex­ accurately reading the mood among co­ 'The bosses make us work harder' meeting that six of his co-workers came to tile Employees (UNITE), while others work workers and developments on the shop floor, It is the capitalists' intensified exploita­ a local restaurant after work to meet the in garment and textile plants that are cur­ "an ultraleft course can weaken our class in tion of workers and farmers that is at the Socialist Workers vice-presidential candi­ rently nonunion. relation to the boss, or damage a fight-that root of the growing labor resistance, re­ date Margaret Trowe recently. "There was Also taking place alongside the UNITE is what happens today when workers take marked Ted Leonard, a textile mill worker a lot of interest in the ideas Trowe presented meeting was a meeting of socialists who are their fire off the boss and instead get into a from Lawrence, Massachusetts. He took up and experiences and news about the part of the United Mine Workers ofAmerica confrontation with union officials who they the argument raised in the capitalist media fightbacks taking place among workers (UMWA). It brought together miners from across the country." Lisa Potash explained the coalfields in Appalachia, Alabama, that circulating the Militant in the plant southern Illinois/Kentucky, and in the West, where she works helped convince some of as well as anthracite miners from central her co-workers to walk the picket line with Pennsylvania. strikers from Five Star Laundry. The strikes by UMWA members at the A Militant Labor Forum Saturday night Pittsburg and Midway Coal Co. (P&M) presented a panel of speakers involved in mines in Kemmerer, Wyoming, and near labor battles. Angy Folkes, a worker on Window Rock, Arizona; the victorious or­ strike from Allied Health Care Products in ganizing drive at Dakota Premium Foods St. Louis and a member oflntemationalAs­ in St. Paul, Minnesota; and the strikes by sociation of Machinists Local 1345, talked UNITE-organized laundry workers in Pom­ about the impact on her of the ongoing six­ pano Beach, Florida, and in Chicago set the week strike at the health-care equipment framework for the discussions by socialists company. "Every step of the way I've been at both meetings. surprised," said Folkes. "I was surprised at the vote to reject the contract, and the great Support for laundry workers conversations on the picket line discussing Many rich experiences in spreading soli­ everything from capitalism to Cuba. And darity were discussed at the meeting of the we've gotten stronger the longer we've been UNITE fraction. Lisa Potash, a sewing ma­ on the line." chine operator in Chicago, described how she and other co-workers joined the picket Role of immigrant workers lines of laundry workers on strike there. Rollande Girard, a garment worker from "The laundry workers were striking to Miami, spoke at the forum on the victori­ organize UNITE at Five Star Laundry," said ous strike by 220 UNITE members against Potash. "Several workers from the large Hart Tartan Textile, a commercial laundry, and Schaffner and Marx garment plant where I the fight at RC Aluminum in Miami where work put aside other responsibilities and workers are in a drive to organize the Iron were inspired to join in picketing and Workers union. "The workers in these leafleting teams. One young Mexican co­ struggles are primarily immigrants, Haitians worker at the plant has been watching poli­ at Tartan Textile and Cubans at RC Alumi­ tics more closely these days and decided to num," said Girard. "They're learning about take another step by going to the picket line," the class struggle in this country. On the she continued. picket line at Tartan Textile, strikers sang In the opening report at the UNITE na­ songs from the fight against the Duvalier tional fraction meeting entitled "Merging dictatorship, with the words changed to re­ with the working-class resistance," Alyson flect their current struggle. In a real sense Kennedy, a sewing machine operator and a they are 'American' workers now, and they member of UNITE in St. Louis, described expose the lie that immigrants are willing the expanded openings for fighting work­ to work for anything, thereby driving down ers to join others in struggle, and to orga­ ":tr· , wages and working conditions for others. nize solidarity. Through this, there will be Militant/Eric Simpson If given a chance to fight many will be in more opportunities to introduce the social­ UNITE strikers picket Tartan Textile July 6 in Pompano Beach, Florida. the vanguard." ist periodicals the Militant and Perspectiva Girard explained the potential to carry out Mundial and Pathfinder books, she ex­ think are not leading a fight properly." that U.S. business is increasing its profits political activity in nonunion plants, like the plained. If vanguard workers don't have a clear and productivity through computers. "The one where she works as a sewing machine "There are high stakes in these fights," understanding of the relationship of class bosses are making us work harder, and for operator. Socialist workers in the plant got Kennedy told those at the weekend confer­ forces between the bosses and the workers, less," said Leonard. "There are lots of com­ out information about the sit-down strike ence, "and what revolutionary workers do and how that has not yet changed funda­ puter terminals around the plant, but they and union-organizing drive at Dakota Pre­ in the plants, mills, and mines today mat­ mentally, it can lead to setbacks for work­ do little to increase production themselves. mium Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota, and ters and will have an impact on the outcome ers in a plant, on a picket line, or a union­ Instead they are a tool for the company to decided this was also an opportunity to ad­ ofa fight, strike, or union-organizing drive." organizing drive, explained Paul Mailhot, keep an eye on us -keeping track of when vance discussions on the need for a union She added that central to the weekend meet­ who attended the meeting for the Socialist we clock in and out and how much we are at their own plant. ing was taking steps to get units of socialist Workers Party Trade Union Committee. producing." Workers there decided they should carry workers "into fighting trim, into the kind of Communists can do more on the job than in "'Stretch-out' is what many workers are out an act of solidarity with the meat pack­ combat units that they need to be in order to many years, but that doesn't mean the bosses facing," not computerization, said Don Pane, ers, said Girard, and gathered 13 signatures get more deeply involved in these fights." are especially weak. a textile worker from Atlanta. "They have on a letter that says in part, "We just learned Patient, daily work by socialist workers The bosses and the government still have me operating multiple machines at the same about your struggle for better working con­ on the job alongside their co-workers leads the upper hand and will continue to seize time-people are running themselves ditions and wages and for organizing a to trust and confidence by other fighting every opening to curtail democratic rights ragged." The flip side of stretch-out is when union. Your fight encourages us to do the workers. Workers are determining through and push back union strength that workers bosses cut back on the workday, said sew­ same here. We face many of the same prob­ experience and common action who they need to organize. For example, socialists are ing machine operator Nancy Rosenstock lems you do. We wish you victory." trust and who they will fight together with often getting a good response to our ideas from New Jersey. She explained that "this The final speaker at the forum was Don against the bosses and their government. and receptivity to the Militant at many non­ is the big issue in my plant. They drive us to Wilson, a coal miner from Colorado, who The meeting showed the progress that has union shops. But at the same time the cops produce more with the piece-rate system and described the stakes involved in the UMWA been made in getting fractions of two work­ and the bosses do their utmost to keep so­ then send us home early." Rather than the strikes against the P&M coal company in ing together in the same garment plant or cialist workers from selling outside plants producers of wealth benefiting from in­ the West. These strikes center on the key textile mill. Having strong functioning lo­ where they think workers through the course creased productivity, "workers share the issues facing miners and other workers to­ cal fractions in Chicago and Miami, for ex­ of reading the Militant will be attracted to misery" of smaller and smaller paychecks, day-the fight to maintain the eight-hour ample, strengthened the ability to do soli­ the idea of a union. said Rosenstock. day and wages, pensions, and medical care darity work with the laundry workers strikes. The majority of organized units of social­ Romina Green said studying the Path­ that meet today's needs. He said that five ist workers in garment and textile factories finder book The Changing Face ofU.S. Poli­ other contracts at UMWA mines in the West­ Learning from ultraleft errors are sewing machine operators in the apparel tics while working in a garment shop made em coalfields expire at the end of August. Kennedy pointed out that socialists in industry. It is workers in the heart of pro­ clear why it is workers in production who Participants at the weekend meetings UNITE have had to learn from a number of duction-on the jobs that the bosses depend will be in the forefront of battles with the were making plans to attend the July 27-29 ultraleft errors in their work over the past on to extract their profits-who are pushed bosses. This is one of the books workers and Active Workers Conference in Oberlin, few months. In one case, a local fraction of the hardest and feel the greatest weight from youth are reading for the socialist summer Ohio.· The conference will bring together socialists in a UNITE shop in Pittsburgh got the drive for speed-up. It is these workers schools organized by branches of the So­ workers, farmers, and youth who are part ahead of where their co-workers were will­ who are beginning to stand up to the em­ cialist Workers Party and Young Socialists. of the growing resistance unfolding in the ing to take a struggle over a contract. The ployers' attacks against the working class. Green works in a plant near Birmingham, working class today to the brutality of capi­ fight quickly went into decline when a num­ In addition to the apparel industry, there Alabama, that makes Nike jogging pants talism, and present a way to go forward and ber of workers at the plant began to act as are now socialist workers in textile mills in that sell for $40 a pair. "We only get six cents increase their striking power. though the union leadership was more of a five cities, including in several mills in North a pair for each operation sewing them," said problem than the plant boss. Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Textile Green. "It's easy to see why we should con­ Socialist workers misjudged the differ­ workers have a lot of striking power in the centrate our forces in the production sew­ Marty Ressler is a member of UNITE in ence between workers just expressing an­ South, with more than 200,000 workers em­ ingjobs, because that is where wealth is pro­ southern lllinois and Mark Holland is a gar­ ger about the concession contract offer and ployed by textile manufacturers in North duced for the capitalists." ment worker in Miami. 4 The Militant August 14,2000 Trowe meets with strikers, fighting farmers in Illinois BY ARRIN HAWKINS Sundays. AND ELIZABETH STONE Workers crowded around Trowe and her CHICAGO-"My campaign itinerary is campaign supporters to discuss their determined by where the fights are," Social­ struggle and other fights, such as the suc­ ist Workers vice-presidential candidate Mar­ cessful union organizing drive by meat garet Trowe told a reporter for the Kankakee packers at Dakota Premium in St. Paul, Daily Journal during her July 20-22 visit Minnesota. Trowe stressed the role of im­ to Illinois. Kankakee is 60 miles south of migrant workers in leading these strikes. Chicago. Security guards at Appetizers and Inc. at­ In Chicago, Trowe visited the picket line tempted to intimidate the pickets with video at the Five Star Laundry, where workers .cameras by taking close-up shots of their have been on strike for five weeks to win faces. Trowe got out her umbrella and joined recognition of the Union of Needletrades, the -strikers as they opened the umbrellas Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) they use to protect themselves from the sun Arrin Hawkins and a union contract. Strikers told Trowe to block the cameras' view and chanted, "No SWP candidate Margaret Trowe visits strikers at Appetizers and Inc. in Chicago that after leafleting hotels they succeeded tenemos miedo!" (We are not afraid). of the farm worked by her family. She were "waiting until we settle down. "But in getting four of them to cut back on con­ When Trowe and supporters of the So­ proudly showed a wide variety of organic we're not settling down!" tracts with the industrial laundry company. cialist Workers campaign returned for the vegetables and herbs being grown in rich Trowe met with 13 farmers who gathered When Trowe arrived at the picket line of afternoon shift, workers were called together soil-soil that she said officials pushing the before a meeting of the Pembroke farmers' Laborers International Union Local 681 at and it was announced that the company had prison dismissed as "scrub land." co-op. She stressed the importance of their Appetizers and Inc., dozens of workers were . agreed to reopen talks with the union. Pamela Basu was recently fired from her fight to keep the land and against the prison walking the line and chanting, "Si se Trowe visited Pembroke Township, job as treasurer of the Village of Hopkins as an example for working people. After her puede!" (Yes we can), "El pueblo callado where Black farmers and members of Pem­ Park for speaking out against the prison and presentation, the farmers raised a number nunca sera escuchado!" (A silent people will broke Advocates for Truth have been fight­ is now suing the ·village over the firing. of questions about her campaign and ex- never be heard), and "No seven days," re­ ing a plan to impose a women's prison in Commenting on the fight against the prison, changed views on the most effective ways ferring to their fight against the extension the area. The socialist candidate was wel­ Basu said the officials pushing the prison to fight back. of the workweek to include Saturdays and comed by Pamela Basu, who gave her a tour Trowe and socialist campaign supporters also visited dairy farmers in Wisconsin, where she pledged to support their planned Labor Day milk dumping protest against 20,000 sign to put socialists on NY ballot low prices to dairy farmers. Trowe was the featured speaker at the BY JOE BROOKING paperwork by August 21. Perasso urged campaign team in Jamaica, Queens, reports, grand opening of the. new Chicago head­ NEW YORK-As the Militant goes to supporters of the socialist campaign to join "We got a really good response to the is­ quarters of the Pathfinder Bookstore, Social­ press, socialist campaigners were celebrat­ in the final effort to bring home a success. sues of fighting police brutality and the ist Workers Party, and Young Socialists at ing their accomplishment in collecting The past week was a rewarding one for death penalty. We were really flying! One 1212 N. Ashland. 20,000 signatures on petitions to put the supporters of the socialist campaign. Elena woman told me how her nephew had been The meeting opened with a report by Luis Socialist Workers candidates on the ballot­ Tate, a leader of the Young Socialists inNew beaten up by the cops. Then she called her Rivera on the Young Socialists summer James Harris for president, Margaret Trowe York, joined a campaign team at the giant son over and asked him to sign." school in Chicago and its combination of for vice president, and Jacob Perasso for Co-op City housing complex in the Bronx­ Campaign teams have also gone upstate study and political action. A contingent of U.S. Senate. one of a dozen petitioning teams that fanned to Buffalo and Albany, and to Yonkers and Young Socialists and a young socialist cam­ "We're two-thirds of the way to our goal out across the city on Sunday, July 23. In an Spring Valley. paigner, Marlen Ortega, accompanied of 30,000. We've had a great response from afternoon's work, 89 people signed her pe­ In addition, several teams are campaign­ Trowe to the picket lines. working people!" said an exultant Perasso, titions. ing to put Paul Pederson on the ballot in the Campaign· supporters at the forum dis­ who has been campaigning on the streets Tate reported that one man grabbed a 12th Congressional District. The district in­ cussed how to continue building support for with dozens of supporters for the past two petition board saying "Socialists! Great, I'll cludes a broad swath of Brooklyn and sec­ strikes in the area. Dennis Chambers de­ weeks. The goal is twice the number re­ sign!" He told her he used to be a sailor and tions ofthe Lower East Side and Chinatown scribed an electrical workers strike in south­ quired to qualify for ballot status. had worked with socialists in one of the in Manhattan. west Chicago. Teamster truck driver Bert Coming out of the July 27-29 Active maritime unions. As this issue goes to press, socialist peti­ Hestroffer told about a strike of Teamsters Workers Conference in Ohio that many so­ ''A high school student was excited to hear tioners have 1,800 signatures for Pederson Local 142 in northwest Indiana at Globe. cialist campaigners are attending, they will from us about the August 26 March on in hand. They plan to file 7,000 signatures, Building Materials Inc., which makes roof­ swing into action to get the remaining Washington against police brutality," Tate double the requirement. ing shingles. The following day, three teams 10,000 signatures and process the necessary said. "He wants to come to the demonstra­ Campaign organizer Don Mackie noted, · were organized to get the message of the tion with the Young Socialists. Another stu­ "We have to make a concentrated effort to socialist alternative to these and other fight­ dent already knew about the march and said make our goal for Pederson as we keep up ing workers. he and a group of friends were planning to the momentum on the statewide campaign. go." That's a special challenge for us in the next Arrin Hawkins is a member ofthe Chicago Gabe, a Young Socialist who was. on a three weeks. chapter ofthe Young Socialists. 'You're the only party to support our strike' BY SCOTT BREEN ment workers since the strike began. Com­ supporters met with 10 steelworkers locked AND CECELIA MORIARITY panies like VMH, he said, "think they can out by Kaiser Aluminum in nearby Tacoma. SEATTLE-James Harris, Socialist hide their abuses in small places like Nine of them were from Spokane, Wash­ Workers presidential candidate, met with a Sunnyside. They know they can get cheap ington, and one from Newark, Ohio. They range of working-class fighters during his labor in rural places." have been in Tacoma for a number of months three-day stay in Washington State. He was Harris expressed his solidarity with their speaking before unions and other organiza­ introduced to strikers at Valley Manufac­ fight stating that "struggles like yours are tions about the union's 22-month-long tured Housing in Sunnyside and locked-out playing a vanguard role in the union move­ struggle against Kaiser. Steelworkers from Kaiser Aluminum, and ment today."' That evening, several strikers The discussion got really lively when toured Tent City III in Seattle, where home­ and family members gathered at a striker's Harris raised his campaign's perspective of less workers have organized themselves to trailer home for a barbecue and more dis­ what it would take for working people to provide safe, temporary shelter. He also met cussion. When Harris announced that he had get rid of cop brutality. The Steelworkers with workers from Alaska Airlines and just received word that meat packers had related several incidents of police force used spoke at a campaign rally in Seattle. won a union representation vote at Dakota against pickets. Harris encouraged them to In Sunnyside, in eastern Washington, Premium Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota, go to the August 26 national march on Wash­ Harris and a group of campaigners joined strikers applauded enthusiastically. ington against police brutality. the picket line at Valley Manufactured Hous­ At the house meeting, translated into After Harris explained he had gone to ing (VMH). The 130 members of the West­ Spanish, Harris explained, "Immigrant Cuba with U.S. farmers who are fighting for em Council of Industrial Workers, mostly workers are bringing lessons sorely needed their right to farm and they learned that Mexican-born, have been on strike since by the American working class." Valentin, a farmers in Cuba cannot have their land taken August 1999. Mexican-born striker, added, "And that's away, one Steelworker, a member of the Harris was introduced to the pickets by a why they are not giving us amnesty." Coeur d'AleQe Nation, related his 20-year leader of the strike. They were buoyed by a Another striker wanted to know, "What effort to defend his Native American recent victory in which they defeated a com­ can we do to win support? Who can repre­ community's right to part of a lake in Idaho. pany-inspired attempt to decertify their sent us?" Harris replied, "The solution lies At a campaign rally in Seattle, an an­ union, convincing more than half the re­ in the people here-you must represent nouncement was made that Harris and his placement workers to vote for the union. The yourselves, and we all must deepen and running mate Margaret Trowe had been of­ company has appealed .the election to the broaden our cqllaboration with other fight­ ficially certified to appear on the Washing­ National Labor Relations Board. ers to become a social·movement." ton ballot this year. Pablo, a lead worker with seven years' At the end of the discussion, one of the seniority, explained, "We just got tired of strikers thanked Harris for coming. "The Scott Breen is the Socialist Workers candi­ the abuse." He pointed out that the terrible Socialist Workers Party has been the only date for US. Senate in Washington State. condit~ons on the job have continued. To fill party to support us," he stated. Cecelia Moriarity is a member ofthe United 200 jobs the company has hired 800 replace- The next day, Harris and two campaign Food and Commercial Workers union. August 14, 2000 The Militant 5 Meat packers in Minnesota vote union

Continued from front page work, offering all the food and beer they parry cafeteria in the morning and refused could consume. to work until the bosses negotiated their The union had scheduled a double rally grievances, the workers gained some impor­ at the union hall for the same time, as work­ tant concessions. The company was com­ ers got off the job. It was built by widespread pelled to decrease the line speed and allow distribution of two issues of The Workers' representatives of the workers to check the Voice, published in both English and Span­ rate. It agreed not to force workers to work ish. while injured. Other concessions were won. Eighty workers-the overwhelming ma­ During the seven-hour job action, work­ jority-from the cut department attended the ers began contacting the leaders of UFCW first union rally, and 20 from the kill at­ Local 789, who came down to the area near tended the second rally. the plant. Union authorization cards were Miguel Gutierrez, a boner and one of the distributed and dozens of workers signed leaders of the drive, spoke about the cards and began getting others to sign them.

On eve of union vote Photos: courtesy The company continued its tactics of in­ Above, pre-election rally at union hall. Left, timidation and lies on the day before the union activists (from left) Miguel Olvera, vote. Supervisors came around and talked Matias Loya, and Javier Quintal. Through to workers individually. According to Amy discussions, Workers' Voice newsletter, and Roberts, a worker in packaging, supervisors rallies, workers answered employer propa­ said, "Don't vote for the union. The union ganda and won support for union. will get in the way of talking to the com­ company's efforts to divide the workforce. pany directly. We're already doing well." "We made some gains as a result of our The bosses called two 15-minute meet­ strike. There are two representatives of the ings of all the workers, one for the cut de­ workers who check the speed of the line and partment and one for the kill. Company 'gang-time,"' he said, referring to a com­ manager Steve Cortinas tried to refute each pany practice to avoid overtime pay. "But point raised in the last two issues of the the company did not keep its word with us union-organizing newsletter The Workers' on the agreements it made with the com­ Voice. Workers from the kill department re­ mittee of 14 people that had been selected port that at the meeting they attended during the strike. There is a group of work­ Cortinas seemed on the verge of tears when ers in the plant that the company allows to he pleaded with the workers to vote against get full breaks. But what about the rest of the union and said, "Please do this for me." us, who don't get full breaks? We have to That day the company organized a party stay united. If we don't stay united, the com­ at a nearby hotel for all the workers after pany will pick us off one by one." Union president Pearson also addressed the need for unity. "The company has spent Workers in Omaha packing plants sign union cards loads of money on a feast at the hotel. We can't match the money of the company. BY JOE SWANSON not want to give his name because of likely shop legislation that weakens union repre­ However, we are the workers. When we stick OMAHA, Nebraska-Packinghouse company victimization. He described the sentation. And it has ridiculous statements together we can defeat the company." workers have signed union authorization large turnover in the workforce. In his own such as: "The failure to provide adequate Pearson also spoke to a frequent ques­ cards at ConAgra, Nebraska Beef, and QPI case, the company fired him after refusing equipment shall be cause for the [manage­ tion the workers had asked: what is differ­ plants here, in numbers ranging from 23 to to accept his medical operation as an ex­ ment/union] safety committee to make rec~ ent today from 1991 and 1992, when a union 38 percent of the workforce, over the past cuse for missing work and. then, after his ommendations for corrective action by the organizing drive succeeded but then the six weeks of an organizing drive by the recovery, rehired him at a new employee's employer." union failed to get a contract and was voted United Food and Commercial Workers starting wage of $7.00 an hour, which is at One of the Local271 UFCW staffers at out. union (UFCW). The figures were displayed least $1.00 to $2.00 less then most UFCW­ the OTOCIUFCW open house said he had "This isn't eight years ago," he said. "The on a chart in a new organizing center that organized plants. heard about the sit-down strike at Dakota leadership of the local is different but, more was inaugurated at an open house and re­ The worker described a work stoppage Premium Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota, the importantly, the members are different. ception held July 19, which attracted 45 at his plant more than a year ago lasting 30 June 12 pro-union march and rally, and the Eight years ago the company promoted a people. minutes that was carried out in nearly all fight against the company's antiunion cam­ number of the leaders to management. This A staffer for UFCW Local271 in Omaha the kill and cut departments. The stoppage paign. He said union organizers in Omaha time nobody has sold out. The workers now told the Militant at the reception that some was over holiday pay that was not on work­ have learned things from their experiences have a greater sense of confidence and can't workers have signed union authorization ers' checks. The company responded saying to win union representation. They have been . be pushed around." cards at three other meatpacking plants, in­ it would pay the holiday if the workers re­ leafleting churches and the soccer fields in Pearson also took up the question of the cluding Skylark Meats. Skylark Meats is turned to the line, which they did. The com­ South Omaha. They are now starting to hold fight for a contract, stating, "The company owned by Rosen's Diversified, Inc., a ma­ pany then fired the five leaders of the work house meetings with meat packers and their has said it will not agree to a contract. How­ jor U.S. beef packer that also owns Dakota stoppage and never did pay the holiday. families about the union, and OTOC activ­ ever, the company is vulnerable. The peak Premium Foods in South St. Paul, Minne­ The UFCW has filed unfair labor prac­ ists are helping to provide translation. Continued on Page 11 sota, where workers voted July 21 to be or­ tice charges against ConAgra in Omaha. It ganized by the UFCW. There are more than accuses the company of searching employ­ 2,000 unorganized meat packers in a dozen ees' lockers for union literature, question­ or more plants in the greater Omaha area, ing workers about their support to the union, 500 rally for striking Teamsters at Pepsi. he said. and videotaping license plates of workers The new union organizing center, located who took union leaflets at the plant gates. BY TOM FISHER many jobs of delivery drivers and pro­ in South Omaha, which has a growing The workers' resistance to the attacks by BURNSVILLE, Minnesota-Some duction workers at the plant. Latino population, was jointly opened by the meatpacking bosses, particularly the 500 striking Teamsters and supporters The bosses are backing up their hard the UFCW and Omaha Together, One Com­ union organizing drive, has not gone unno­ marched July 22 against the Pepsi-Cola negotiating stance by deploying 100 munity (OTOC), an organization of38 reli­ ticed by big-business politicians in Ne­ Bottling Group in this southern suburb Huffineister Security guards, who attempt gious congregations. braska. In June, Gov. Michael Johanns of Minneapolis-St. Paul. They walked to intimidate strikers with their video One OTOC member at the open house, a signed a "Nebraska Meatpacking Industry around the large bottling plant carrying cameras and military-style uniforms. retired Mexican-American construction Workers Bill ofRights." signs and chanting pro-union slogans. The strikers have not let themselves worker who worked in the packing indus­ The new law supposedly gives workers Some wore pins saying "Boycott Pepsi be intimidated, keeping up their picket try some years ago, heard some of the work­ the right to organize and join together for Products." lines. They also organize teams of strik­ ers describe the speedup and other harsh collective bargaining purposes, the right to the march was preceded by a rally ers in vehicles to follow the trucks and conditions in the plants today and has vol­ a safe workplace by establishing "manage­ addressed by officials of the Teamsters set up picket lines when the scab truck­ unteered to help the organizing drive. ment/employee safety committees," ad­ and other unions and by some politicians. ers try to deliver their products. Some of the largest packing plants in equate restroom and rest break facilities, and The keynote speaker was Teamsters in­ A striker nam.ed Walter reported that Omaha are only about a mile from the new adequate equipment without fear of harass­ ternational secretary-treasurer Tom none of the 440 members of Local792 OTOCIUFCW office. One has more than ment or reprisals. Keegle. have crossed the picket line.. The com­ 900 workers. Almost all the workers are Of the numerous workers Militant report­ The unionists, members ofteamsters pany tries to maintain production with immigrants from Latin America, most from ers spoke with over the last few weeks, only Local 792, have been on strike against managers and workers from other Pepsi Mexico. a few had even heard of the new law and Pepsi since JU.Ue 1 L Key issues in the plants, and claims production has been Supporters of the Militant and none had a voice in bringing it about. fight are ·pay, working conditions, and little affected. But in some local stores Perspectiva Mundial have regularly distrib" Over the years, capitalist politicians ··jobs. Workers at the tally explained that and vending machines Pepsi products are uted these papers and talked with workers around the country have drawn up many the.company .l;tas refused to budge in the no longer stocked. at the plant gate there over the past three or official declarations such as the new Ne­ negotiations· from a Wage increase offer Many Pepsi strikers .and representa­ four weeks or set up literature tables in South braska "Bill of Rights." Their chief func­ of45 cents .3P. hour. Worker$ atthe nearby tives of otherT~atnstel'-organized plants Omaha. · tion has been to convince the working class (;oca-Cqla bottling plant.wl;tose CQntract in the area attended the march and rally. On one. occasion, one of the workers that the capitalist government will actually al$o expired re~ently, received a 90:-cent Also there were 15 members of the Ho~ talked to Militant supporters at the plant gate protect their rights. But these "worker right" raise, sttjl<.ers say. tel Employees and Restaura~t Employ· for more than 15 minutes. The worker, who laws operate in favor of the bosses. The · · ts on ):>eing able to ees Union, \Vhicb just scored a victory is originally from Mexico and has worked The so-called Bill of Rights, for example, $h~p syr\lP . .... ·.. .·.... ·.to its r~staurant ~us~ in a strike against seven h<>tels in the Twin at the plant almost three years, had recently starts off by declaring that "Nebraska is a tower:;;. a> c. at).gf\ that W<>1lld eiiro.ip.ate Cities area. · · ~ signed a union authorization card and did right-to-work state," referring to the open

6 The Militant August 14,2000 How U.S. militarization drive led to second world imperialist slaughter Pathfinder Press reprints 'In Defense of Marxism' by Leon Trotsky

BY STEVE CLARK der squads rooted out Bolshevik op­ Pathfinder Press has just issued positionists and antifascist officers a new printing of Leon Trotsky's of the Polish armed forces. final major work, In Defense of The counterrevolutionary course Marxism. of the bureaucratic caste registered In 1990, when the publishing by the Stalin-Hitler pact had a de­ house released the third edition of moralizing ·and demobilizing im­ the book, the editors added the sub­ pact on workers and farmers in the title: "The Social and Political Con­ Soviet Union and worldwide, facili­ tradictions of the Soviet Union." tating German imperialism's inva­ That edition went on sale amid the sion of the workers state in June events that culminated at the end 1941. Stalin was stunned and un­ of 1991 with the collapse of the prepared for this assault. On its eve, Stalinist regime in Moscow, includ­ he refused for days to approve de­ ing dissolution of the federation fensive action by the general staff that since 1922 had been called the of the Red Army, because he Union of Soviet Socialist Repub­ couldn't believe what was about to lics, or Soviet Union for short. happen. Ten years later, many workers But as Trotsky's polemics dem­ and young people who will be in­ onstrate, the communist workers terested in Trotsky's book have movement had been actively ready­ lived their entire political lives dur­ ing class-conscious working people ing a period when the term "the for more than half a decade to de­ Soviet Union" did not appear on fend the Soviet workers state and any up-to-date map or globe they take advantage of every opportunity may have looked at. to extend the socialist revolution. Recognizing that political real­ ity, Pathfinder has now expanded Roosevelt presses for war the subtitle to read: "The Social In December 1941 the expand­ and Political Contradictions of the ing wars both in the Pacific and in Soviet Union on the Eve of World Europe were finally unified with the War//." North American imperialist colos­ By doing so the publisher hopes Workers at General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, staged sit-down strike in 1937 in fight for a union. sus, and transformed into a world to establish a historical and politi­ U.S. rulers at the time were preparing for war by strengthening police apparatus of imperialist state and war. cal framework that makes the topic beginning concerted effort to combat antiwar, anti-intervention attitudes among working people. On December 8 of that year, ofTrotsky's work a bit more acces­ Congress adopted the proposal by sible and concrete, and thus of greater in­ ing in Mexico in 1939--40 when he collabo­ Franco in savagely crushing the labor move­ Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt terest, to potential readers. With the same rated with Cannon and other SWP leaders ment, insurgent peasants, and the rebellious that it "declare that since the unprovoked goal, Pathfinder in the mid-1990s added the in conducting this political fight, at the cen­ colonized people of Morocco. The Italian and dastardly attack by Japan [on the U.S. years "1928-3 8" to the title of another of ter of which was their intransigent defense government militarily conquered Ethiopia naval base in Pearl Harbor] on Sunday, De­ its standard books, The History of Ameri­ of the Soviet workers state in face of the in 1935-36 and annexed Albania in April cember 7, a state of war has existed between can Trotskyism by James P. Cannon, a found­ impending imperialist assault. 1939. German imperialism occupied Aus­ the United States and the Japanese empire." ing leader of the U.S. Socialist Workers tria in March 1938, the Sudetenland in Oc­ Several days later, on December 11, Ber­ Party. Wars in Europe and Asia tober of that year, and much of the rest of lin and Rome declared war on Washington, Both the war in Europe and the war in · Czechoslovakia in March 1939. and a grateful Roosevelt administration Why 'on eve of World War II'? Asia had begun well before the closing But the declaration of war by London and merely had to ask U.S. Congress to recip­ In Defense of Marxism had been rede­ months of 1939. Paris in September 1939 came 21 months rocate-a vote that would have been de­ signed with more readable type and an at­ In Asia, the Japanese government had before German imperialism's invasion of the feated even two weeks beforehand. tractive new cover in 1995, and those who launched its invasion and occupation of Soviet Union-and no one at the time knew A little more than two decades earlier the already have it on their bookshelves will Manchuria in 1931, extending its brutal whether it would take place in 5 months, 21 leading families ofU.S. finance capital had notice no substantial differences in this new imperial control over China throughout the months, 35 months, or when. emerged from World War I surpassing the printing. So the addition of seven words to following seven years. (Korea had been an­ In fact, Stalin in August 1939 had just United Kingdom as the dominant imperial­ the subtitle might seem of little note, espe­ nexed by Tokyo as far back as 1910, and concluded the so-called German-Soviet ist power financially, and were increasingly cially to anyone other than a new reader. remained so.) Nonaggression Pact with Hitler, opening the overtaking London's more-than-a-century­ In fact, however, the editors' choice of In Europe, during the Spanish Civil War way for Berlin to invade and occupy the long economic and naval prowess as well. wording-"on the eve ofWorld 11"-raises of 1936-39, the fascist regimes of Adolf western half of Poland. At the same time, Successfully challenging the British Empire a thought-provoking question: Why not "at Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Moscow invaded and occupied the eastern and the momentous advantages accruing to the opening of World War II" instead? Af­ Italy provided military aid to Gen. Francisco sector of Poland, after which Stalin's mur- Continued on Page 10 ter all, Trotsky's articles and letters collected in the book are all written following Sep­ tember 3, 1939, when the imperialist gov­ ernments of the United Kingdom and France FROM PATHFINDER declared war on Germany, a few days after Berlin's invasion of Poland. Pathfinder's editors made the right deci­ In Defense of Marxism The Struggle for sion. For class-conscious working people, The Social and Political Contradictions a Proletarian Party the decisive spread of the war in Europe in of the Soviet Union on the Eve of by James P. Cannon the fall of 1939 signaled the inevitability of World War II In this companion to Trotsky's In Defense what would truly transform the conflict both by Leon Trotsky of Marxism, Cannon and other leaders there and in Asia into a second world war: Writing in 1939-40, Leon Trotsky replies to of the Socialist Workers Party defend the the entry of U.S. imperialism. those in the revolutionary workers move­ political and organizational principles of References to the opening of World War ment who were beating a retreat from Marxism in a polemic against a petty­ II in September 1939 are comparable in this defense of the Soviet Union in face of bourgeois current in the party. The sense to calling the Bolshevik-led workers looming imperialist assault. He describes debate unfolded on the eve of World and peasants government established in how the rising pressures of bourgeois War II. $21.95 October 1917 the dictatorship of the prole­ patriotism in the middle classes dLTring tariat some half a year before the toilers had Washington's buildup to enter the spreading imperialist war in expropriated most capitalist-owned means Europe were finding an echo even inside the communist move­ Teamster Bureaucracy of production. In both cases, such terminol­ ment. And he explains why only a party that fights to bring ogy is an anticipation for practical, that is, by Farrell Dobbs growing numbers of workers into its ranks and leadership can revolutionary, purposes. How the rank-and-file Teamster steer a steady revolutionary course. Also available in Spanish. In Defense ofMarxism is a collection of - leadership organized to oppose $24.95 polemics by Trotsky written to arm the pro­ World War II, racism, and govern­ letarian cadre of the Socialist Workers Party The History of American ment efforts -backed by the (SWP) against a petty-bourgeois minority Trotskyism international officialdom of the current in the leadership of the party that AFL, the CIO, and the Teamsters­ was bending to the intensifying pressures Report of a Participant, 1928-:-38 by James P. Cannon to gag class-struggle-minded of bourgeois public opinion during workers. $18.95 Washington's militarization drive. "Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new Trotsky was a central leader of the Octo­ doctrice," Cannon says, "but the restoration, the ber 1917 revolution who, following the revival of genuine Marxism as it was expounded and death ofBolshevik leader V.I. Lenin, fought practiced in the Russian revolution and in the early to continue advancing Lenin's communist days of the Communist International." In this series Available from bookstores, including those listed on page 8, or write Pathfinder, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014. Tel: course against the political counterrevolu­ of twelve talks given in 1942, James P. Cannon (212) 741-0690. Fax: (212) 727-0150. When ordering by tion eventually headed by Joseph Stalin. recounts an important chapter in the efforts to build mail, please include $3 to cover shipping and handling. Exiled by Stalin in 192 9, Trotsky was liv- a proletarian party in the United states. $18.95

August 14, 2000 The Militant 7 Thousands in Okinawa protest U.S. bases

Continued from front page tly worded admonishment" to the soldiers Carlos Zenon, president of the Vieques velopmerit of Vieques, traveled to south bases. Until that year Washington, with the to be "good neighbors." Washington, wrote Fishermen's Association, was an invited Korea. He was invited to attend an "Inter­ knowledge of Tokyo, stockpiled nuclear the correspondent, uses "Okinawa's bases guest at the Okinawa protest. "The Japanese national Solidarity Conference on the Mas­ arms on the island. as firewall against trouble in Asia." suffered the brutal onslaught of World War sacres against Civilians Perpetrated by the The Japanese government, which subsi­ II. The message I am taking them is that for U.S. Military in Maehyang-ri," a village on dizes the U.S. bases in Okinawa to the tune Leaders ofVieques fight in Asia us, the residents of Vieques, World War II the southwest coast. Over the last month of$5 billion a year, has sought to defuse pro­ "[We want an] island of peace without has not ended," said Zenon on his departure villagers have led protests against the U.S. tests by Okinawans against the U.S. military. military bases," said Shiko Sakiyama on July for Okinawa. Air Force training ground nearby. Five years ago protests exploded after 20, speaking for the Action Committee that Meanwhile, Ismael Guadalupe, a leader Guadalupe dubbed Maehyang-ri "the three U.S. marines were convicted of rap­ called the protest. of the Committee for the Rescue and De- Vieques of Korea." ing a 12-year-old girl. Some 85,000 people took part in one action. In recent weeks a new round of demonstrations was sparked by the arrest of a U.S. marine for sexually Cuban trade union leaders speak in Boston molesting a 14-year-old girl and by a hit­ and-run accident involving a U.S. soldier. BY BROCK SATTER immigrate here from Mexico. They don't say Because discussions were organized in ev­ Gen. Earl Hailston, U.S. marine commander BOSTON-Cuba is stronger than 10 they are trying to flee the regime in Mexico." ery workplace to discuss the situation," and in Okinawa, formally apologized for the years ago, said Cuban trade union leader Montero reported that "in Cuba, the work­ every major measure the revolutionary gov­ incidents, an unusual action. Leone! Gonzalez here at a meeting held at place is ruled by the workers. Administra­ ernment was taking to get production go­ the Service Employees International Union tors must report to workers, and their per­ ing again. "Discussions in more than 70,000 Clinton treads carefully (SEIU) Local 285 union hall. formance is criticized by the workers. The workplaces were held," he reported. "The U.S. president William Clinton assumed Gonzalez, director of international rela­ unions don't just deal with economics, like same process took place in the high schools, a diplomatic pose on arriving for the G-8 tions of the Central Organization of Cuban wages. They participate in the economic, universities, and peasant organizations. summit,. which began one day after the mass Workers (CTC), addressed the meeting political, and social life of the country." "That's why Cuba survived. Workers par­ outpouring. Speaking at a ceremony at a war along with Manuel Montero, head of the Referring to the economic crisis that be­ ticipated as part of a workers state," the trade memorial to the 234,000 victims of fight­ CTC's North American Interests Bureau, on gan in the early 1990s with the collapse in unionist stated. In recent years Cuba has ing on Okinawa in World War II, he said the the first leg of a national tour by three Cu­ preferential trade and aid from the Soviet slowly recovered from the worst of the eco­ U.S. government would reduce "our foot­ ban trade union leaders. A third unionist, Union, Montero said, "In 1993 tens ofthou­ nomic crisis. print on this island." Olga Rosa Gomez, is also on tour. sands offactories shut down for lack of fuel. Two and a half years ago, Okinawans "We are here to speak out against the con­ There were blackouts for 16 hours a day. Brock Satter is a meat packer in the Boston tinued U.S. blockade against the Cuban But there were no social explosions. Why? area. people, to speak out against the Cuban Ad­ justment Act, and to exchange information on the realities of life of the Cuban people . . ... · .. ··.· ... · .·.···•···•····... ··.· ...· with the people of the United States," said U11••11leaderslra• Cuba taur the U.S. Gonzalez. "New legislation being considered in the Three lead~r$ ofth~Central Organization The following is the schedule and con­ U.S. Congress says that Cuba can buy U.S. of <:;obon Workers !CTC) have begun a tact phone numbers for the tour: products, but we can't sell products to the rnonth·kmg U.S. speaking tour. They are: • July 30 Toledo United States. They want to demobilize the Olga • August 1 Tennessee (865) 933-3443 fight against the blockade." Rosa<#Qrn~z.··.cortes t'ftlt.YO General secretary of the Cultural Work~ Why does Washington maintain a trade • August 2 North Carolina ers Union and a deputy in Cuba's No­ ~~···~·~ ban on revolutionary Cuba? "Because Cuba (919) 683-3 145 ~·~~~ tional Assembly ···~· is an example of what sovereignty and in­ • August 3 San Jose (408) 261-4151 K~ dependence can do for the people," Leonei·Gonzolez •Gonzalez • August 4-6 San Francisco Gonzalez stressed. Has been a ·leader of· the health care (415) 821-6545 workers union and is an official in the • August 7-.:8 los· Angeles Condemns immigration law CTCs foreign relationsdepartrnent. He (310) 419-2983 Gonzalez condemned the U.S.law known is also a deputy in the National. Assem­ as the Cuban Adjustment Act, which expe­ bl , and a member of the assembly's • August 9.;..12 Chicago dites U.S. legal reside1;1cy and citizenship for .~ls:Jt!gr~.. ,~,~.!l!~~~ipQ,;· t. • .....•.... s , . 'i ,lZ'~~J.J~.*~~g;~·l .. )"·'\')' ,·· voted in a nonbinding referendum in favor Ciibam(wbo Claim political a~ylum, com­ • Avgust 1.:3.:..14 t>etroif of reducing the U.S. military "footprint," by pared to most other immigrants. "When a (313)561-8330 rejecting a plan for a massive offshore mili­ Cuban applies for a visa to come to the tary heliport. United States they are denied. When they Clinton did not mention any troop reduc­ risk their life on a raft they get U.S. citizen­ The tour is being organized by the tions in speaking to U.S. soldiers at Camp ship," Gonzalez said. US.-Cuba Labor Exchange. Foster. Rather, he handed out a "heavy dose "What the U.S. wants is propaganda of praise for the military's sacrifices and against Cuba. Every year 1.2 million people community service," reported anAssociated Press correspondent, combined with a "gen- IF YOU LIKE THIS PAPER, LOOK US UP Where to find Pathfinder books and 2500. E-mail: [email protected] BRITAIN -MILITANT distributors of the Militant, Perspectiva NEW JERSEY: Newark: 237Washington London: 47The Cut. Postal code: SE1 8LL. Mundial, New International, Nouvelle St: (near Market St.) Suite 305. Mailing Tel: 020-7928-7993. Internationale, Nueva Internacional and address: Riverfront Plaza, P.O. Box 200117. E-mail: I 01515 [email protected] LABOR Ny International. Zip: 07102-0302. Tel: (973) 643-3341. 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E-mail: I 04127 [email protected] E-mail: 100250.1511 @compuserve.com THE MILITANT AUSTRALIA MINNESOTA: St. Paul: 1569 Sherburne Sydney: 1st Fir, 176 Redfern St., Redfern SWEDEN Ave. W., St. Paul. Zip: 55104. Tel: (651).644- NSW 2016. Mailing address: P.O. Box K879, Stockholm: Vikingagatan I 0 (T-bana St 6325. E-mail: [email protected] Haymarket Post Office, NSW 1240. Tel: 02- Eriksplan). Postal code: S-113 42. Tel: (08) vvvvvv. themilitant.com MISSOURI: St. Louis: Box 19166,2910 9690-1533. 31 69 33. Meramec .Street. Zip 63118. Tel: (314) 924- E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: I [email protected] 8 The Militant August 14, 2000 FBI's Internet spying Striking food workers in Chicago attacks privacy rights oppose seven-day workweek

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS in the government" by U.S. citizens. In a serious attack on democratic rights The FBI's website touts Carnivore as a and the right to privacy, the FBI publicly "diagnostic tool" that represents "one of the confirmed in late June that it has developed most important capabilities for acquiring and is utilizing an electronic surveillance evidence." The agency claims that "there is system, dubbed Carnivore, which enables no substitute for electronic surveillance" the federal cop agency to eavesdrop on vir­ while hypocritically claiming that it is "pro­ tually any piece of information sent over the viding enhanced privacy protection." Internet. This snooping operation can scan Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democratic from millions of e-mails a second, as well as ac­ Vermont, who the Washington Post de­ cess instant messaging systems, and Internet scribed as "a staunch privacy advocate," chat sessions. backed the FBI's arguments on the need for "The Carnivore system has disturbed such electronic surveillance. "Carnivore is many in the Internet industry," states an ar­ like a car," Leahy stated, "It can be useful ticle in the July II Wall Street Journal, "be­ or it can be abused. what counts are the rules cause when deployed, it must be hooked of the road and the llcense we give the directly into Internet service providers' driver." computer networks. That would give the One of the nation's largest Internet ser­ government, at least theoretically, the abil­ vice providers, Earthlink Inc., refused to ity to eavesdrop on all customers' digital install the FBI's new surveillance device on communications, from e-mail to on-line its network. They countered a federal Militant /Betsey Stone Laborers Local 681 members in Chicago picket Appetizers and Inc. opposing banking and Web surfing." marshal's order with a promise that they bosses' demand for weekend work and other concessions. The giant inflated rat, With such Internet wiretaps, which are would provide the government with the re­ popular at many picket lines, represents the owner of the company. supposedly conducted under state or fed­ quested information about specific e-mail eraljudicial orders, the FBI places its secret senders and recipients. Carnivore computer system in a locked cage Earthlink, which has 3.5 million subscrib­ on the Internet provider's premises, with ers, fought the FBI's demand in court, but force the FBI to disclose technical details nounced July 17 that it would be proposing agents making daily visits to retrieve the data lost the case when a federal magistrate ear­ about how its surveillance system works. It legislation within the next I 0 days that sets obtained from the provider's network. lier this year ordered the company to give filed a request July I4 specifically asking legal requirements for surveillance in "Legal challenges to the use of Carnivore the FBI direct access to its system. Carni­ for the release of the system's "source code" cyberspace by federal authorities. White are few," comments the Wall Street Journal vore, however, wasn't compatible with the as well as "letters, correspondence, tape re­ House chief of staff John Podesta, who made article, "and judges' rulings remain sealed operating system software on the remote cordings, notes, data, memoranda, e-mail" the announcement, called for "har­ because of the secretive nature of the inves­ access servers. So Earthlink was forced to and other information connected with Car­ moniz[ing] the legal standards that apply to tigations." install an older version of the system soft­ mvore. law enforcement's access to e~mail, tele­ "Nobody can dispute the fact that this is ware that would work with Carnivore. This The ACLU has also asked for similar in­ phone calls, and cable services." not legal... within the context of any current older version caused its remote access serv­ formation on two earlier FBI electronic spy­ Barry Steinhardt, an associate director of wiretap law," stated House majority leader ers to crash, which in tum knocked out ac­ ing systems, known as "Omnivore" and the American Civil Liberties Union, con­ Richard Armey. cess for a number of its customers. "EtherPeek." demned the administration's stance. "Rather The Republican congressman from Texas Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties The White House, hoping to codify into than glossing over Carnivore, Podesta added that the most troubling problem he Union is seeking information under the law the "right" of police agencies to moni­ should have announced that the administra­ sees with Carnivore is "an erosion of trust Freedom of Information Act that would tor communications on the Internet, an- tion was suspending its use," he stated. SOCIALIST WORKERS CAMPAIGN

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August 14, 2000 The Militant 9 'In Defense -EDITORIALS------­ of Marxis01' No to 'antiterror' campaign Continued from Page 7 Westminster would take another world war. The antiterrorist campaign the government is whipping federal cops claim they suspect those arrested of support­ At least since Roosevelt's October 1937 "Quarantine up around the FBI arrests of 18 people in North Carolina ing Hezbollah, a political group that many Lebanese and the Aggressor" speech, the U.S. rulers, represented by the and Michigan is aimed at all working people and should be others sympathize with because of its role in the success­ White House, had been building up their military prepared­ loudly denounced by supporters ofbasic democratic rights. ful fight to expel the Israeli occupying army from south­ ness to extend their dominance on the battlefield. The sight of a raid and arrests by 200 heavily armed em Lebanon. To justify their assertions, they cite anony­ At the same time, they began a concerted effort to com­ FBI agents is no longer a new one. It will be familiar to mous "sources"-a time-honored tradition in police bat the deep antiwar, anti-intervention attitudes among residents ofMiami, who experienced theApril22 assault frame-ups. They have the gall to allege that one of the broad layers of working people in the United States, es­ by FBI and immigration cops on a private home in that defendants visited a Hezbollah web site and shared infor­ pecially among many ofthose involved in the mass social city, ordered by top cop Janet Reno in the name of rescu­ mation from it with others. This attack on the right to hold movement that forged the industrial unions and fought ing a Cuban six-year-old. political and religious views, discuss them, and access for Black rights in those years. And it will be familiar to the people of Puerto Rico, a information comes as the FBI is pressing for greater lee­ "Under one or another pretext and slogan the United U.S. colony, where on May 4 U.S. FBI agents, marshals, way to carry out electronic surveillance on the Internet­ States will intervene in the tremendous clash in order to and marines carried out a massive raid of the island of the ominously named "Carnivore" spy system. maintain its world dominion," wrote Leon Trotsky in the Vieques and detained protesters against the U.S. Navy The case also highlights Washington's increased use of manifesto adopted by the May 1940 emergency confer­ occupation of their land. immigration laws to attack political rights and justify the ence of our world movement, the Fourth International. Who will be next? arbitrary use of police powers. Nearly all of the 18 defen­ That manifesto--entitled "Imperialist War and the Prole­ In the case of Charlotte, North Carolina, the dramatic dants are accused of"false marriages" to obtain immigra­ tarian World Revolution"----continued: raids and sensationalized media coverage are being used tion papers-another classic tactic in political victimiza­ The order and time of the struggle between Ameri­ to tar immigrants from Arab countries as "terrorists." While tion by U.S. cops. The U.S. rulers use their hated Immi­ can capitalism and its enemies is not yet known-per­ formally charging those arrested with evading cigarette gration and Naturalization Service (INS) to try to keep a haps even by Washington. War with Japan would be a taxes, the FBI seized computers, papers, and other pos­ whole section of working people in a second-class posi­ struggle for 'living room' in the Pacific Ocean. War in sessions, and is now on a fishing expedition to cook up tion, with fewer rights, to aid the employers in their ef­ the Atlantic, even if directed immediately against Ger­ more allegations. To give a taste of what they're prepar­ forts to divide our class and drive down the wages and many, would be a struggle for the heritage of Great Brit­ ing, a government affidavit includes vague references to working conditions of all. In recent years they have ex­ ain .... "target practice" by some of the defendants to bolster the panded the powers of the INS to hold immigrants without The present titanic battles on the fields of Europe are charge of terrorism. As if thousands of people in North charges, including on the basis of secret evidence-in the in this sense preparatory episodes in the struggle between Carolina don't have and use guns, which is a constitu­ name of fighting "terrorism. Working people should de­ Germany and America. France and England are only tional right. mand: Free the 18! Drop the charges! Stop the anti-Arab fortified positions ofAmerican capitalism, extended be­ At the heart of this case is freedom of association. The witch-hunt! yond the Atlantic. Seeking to direct the widespread antiwar sentiment against the imperialist rulers and their government, worker-bolsheviks in the Socialist Workers Party cam­ paigned in the late 1930s to "Let the people vote on war!" U.S. bases out of Okinawa! Through their involvement in vanguard union and farmer struggles, above all in the Upper Midwest-recounted in The fight that tens of thousands of people are waging The generator of instability is the capitalist system it­ Pathfinder's four-volume Teamsters series by SWP leader in Okinawa against the U.S. military bases on their land self, which especially since the economic crisis that rolled Farrell Dobbs-they took steps toward the creation of is one that working people in this country should make through Asia in 1997 has been wreaking havoc on the workers defense guards to combat the antilabor thuggery our own. lives of millions in the region. offascist outfits such as the Silver Shirts, the employers' A total of about 100,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Working people have been impelled into action by lay­ private company goon units, and others. Okinawa, elsewhere in Japan, south Korea, and aboard offs and other brutal economic measures by capitalist Recognizing the inevitability of U.S. capital's march warships afloat in the Pacific. These troops, together with governments in country after country-from strikes by toward war by the close of the 1930s, communist workers a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, are aimed against the 20,000 garment workers in Cambodia to demonstrations advanced this proletarian military policy to prepare the workers states in China and north Korea-as well as Rus­ in Indonesia for democratic rights. toilers to use the revolutionary methods-the only meth­ sia-and against working people throughout Asia who The U.S. rulers have divergent interests from the capi­ ods-that could both bring such a slaughter to a halt and fight to assert their rights. They are key to the U.S. rulers' talists in Japan. The heavy U.S. military "footprint" on defeat for all time the forces of fascist reaction. efforts to remain the dominant Pacific power. Okinawa-as William Clinton put it-gives Washington "Our struggle against United States intervention into Washington targets China and the Democratic People's the upper hand in the inevitable and sharpening competi­ the war has nothing in common with isolationism and Republic of Korea because workers and farmers there tion between these two imperialist powers. pacifism," said the 1940 emergency manifesto. ripped those lands out of the control of Washington and Washington maintains a roughly similar military pres­ other powers that had long plundered them, and overturned ence in Europe and Asia. But its troops in Japan and Ko­ We tell the workers openly that the imperialist gov­ capitalist rule. U.S. officials have labeled north Korea a rea are not integrated as the dominant force in any Asian ernment cannot fail to drag this country into war .... The "rogue state"-now revised as a "state of concem"-be­ real struggle against war means the class struggle against military alliance with other powers, unlike Europe, where imperialism and a merciless exposure of petty-bourgeois cause the Korean people continue to refuse to get on their U.S. imperialism is the predominant force in NATO. That pacifism. Only revolution could prevent the American knees to imperialism. The U.S. troops and weapons on makes U.S. armed intervention in Asia less "legitimate" bourgeoisie from intervening in the second imperialist the Korean peninsula are meant to reinforce the 50-year­ and more explosive. war or beginning the third imperialist war. long division of that nation. Washington's bipartisan drive Just how explosive could be glimpsed on July 20, when to develop a missile "defense" system-in reality an of­ tens ofthousands of fishermen, farmers, and workers dem­ Struggle for a proletarian party fensive system designed to give the U.S. rulers a first­ onstrated for the removal of the U.S. bases from Okinawa. This proletarian internationalist course necessarily went strike nuclear capacity-is also aimed against these work­ The repeated incidents of abuse against Okinawan women hand in hand with the party's stepped-up effort to tum to ers states. by U.S. J;IIilitary personnel, as well as the destruction of colonizing industry and the industrial unions, to more U.S. officials argue that the U.S. bases in Okinawa are the environment, have only reinforced mass opposition deeply proletarianize the party, and to chart a clear, con­ needed in face of"instability" in Asia. They have in mind to Washington's military presence. vergent working-class orientation for the youth. rebellious workers and farmers such as those in south Ko­ Protests against the U.S. military in Japan and south The leadership of the youth, Trotsky writes in the pages rea who continue to mobilize in strikes and demonstra­ Korea help to strengthen the fight against the number one of In Defense ofMarxism, "have indubitable virtues and tions for union rights, against economic austerity mea­ enemy of all working people around the globe-Wash­ ability but, alas, they have been educated in the spirit of sures, and for the unification of their country. ington and its war machine. petty-bourgeois combinationism and if they are not wrenched out of their habitual milieu, if they are not sent without high-sounding titles into working-class districts for day-to-day dirty work among the proletariat, they can forever perish for the revolutionary movement" This aspect of the 1939-40 political fight in the SWP is urging retaliation for what he termed a day of'infamy' at Europe, and taking of the Pacific. described more fully in the companion volume by James Pearl Harbor. The capitalist propaganda machine was The wars in Europe and Asia had been joined and the P. Cannon, entitled The Struggle for a Proletarian Party. flooding the country with calls for patriotic support of the conflict had become a truly world war-one whose re­ Simultaneous with the "Quarantine the Aggressor" war effort, and we had just been convicted of advocating sults and aftermath mark the relationship of class forces speech, the Roosevelt administration took steps to pre­ the overthrow of the government by force and violence." and the channels through which the world class struggle pare for war by strengthening the police apparatus of the These class-struggle fighters were given sentences rang­ continues to flow today. imperialist state to wield against the vanguard ofthe work­ ing from 12 to 18 months in federal prison. ing class. In 1939 there was stepped-up FBI harassment ofTeam­ Toward the second world war sters in the Midwest-whose publications proudly op­ The increasingly aggressive course· of the Roosevelt posed any support to imperialist war and championed the administration against Japan (including a tightening na­ UMWArally resistance by the colonial masses and their fight for inde­ val blockade of oil shipments to this island nation) made pendence, regardless of the current leadership.Among the a retaliatory assault by Tokyo inevitable. There is no need Continued from front page first of these government assaults was the frame-up and for conspiracy theories about Roosevelt to explain either not take a step backward." indictment in 1939 of union militants in Sioux City, Iowa, Pearl Harbor or why Washington seized on the bombing Lawrence Oliver, president of UMWA Local 1332 at who were involved in the effort to organize over-the-road to declare that "a state of war has existed" with Japan­ the McKinley mine, said, "We want a contract, and we truckers. this was the opportunity, long awaited by the most ag­ want it now. P&M is trying to take advantage of the treaty gressive wing of the U.S. rulers, to counter widespread rights of the Navajo Nation, and that is as low as you can Smith Act frame-up opposition to war and drum up a patriotic majority for the go. By trying to get miners to use Indian Health Services, In 1940 Roosevelt signed into law the Smith Act, a deployment of U.S. military might. they are trying to take away medical care from Navajo thought-control measure aimed at breaking the class­ By the end of 1941, the interimperialist conflict be­ children." Oliver invited those present to an August 13 struggle vanguard of the labor movement that was lead­ tween the Axis and the Allied powers in Asia, Europe, rally at the McKinley mine. He reported, "Miners from ing opposition to Washington's preparations to drag work­ and North America; the war to defend the Soviet workers Black Mesa and Kayenta will be at McKinley that day." ers and farmers into the slaughter. The following year, 18 state; and the war of the colonial peoples for their libera­ Black Mesa and Kayenta are mines on the Navajo Na­ leaders ofLocal544-CIO in Minnesota and of the Social­ tion had come together in what the communist movement tion; they are owned by Peabody Coal, and their contract ist Workers Party were convicted in federal court of vio­ recognized as "three wars in one." is due to expire August 31. lating that law. As it happened, their sentencing was set Unlike in the First World War, North America was not UMWA international president Cecil Roberts told the for December 8, 1941. drawn in only during the closing 18 months of the conflict. crowd, "Unity is what made the UMWA, and unity is what As Farrell Dobbs recounts in Teamster Bureaucracy, at In the second worldwide slaughter, U.S. troops saw com­ is going to win these strikes." Roberts pledged the full the very moment he and other Minneapolis defendants bat for some three and a half years, and led the Allied im­ backing of the international union to the fight of the entered the courtroom to be sentenced, "Roosevelt was perialist conquest of North Africa, invasion of continental McKinley and Kemmerer miners. 10 The Militant August 14, 2000 iSi se puede! Meat packers vote union Continued from Page 6 If they tried to do something similar to you, worked in the kill for six years, stated, statements to be published in The Workers' season is coming up in a few months. The we'll be ready, we'll be right here. You ·are "When we killed several hundred cattle it Voice calling for a "yes" vote. unemployment rate is low. The company not alone." was considered a record and they gave us The voting began at 2:30p.m. in the com­ will need every single worker." Some members of the International As­ beer, entire meals, and bonuses. Now we kill pany cafeteria. That morning, leaders of the Armando, one of the workers present, sociation of Machinists who work as bag­ 700 and they give us nothing. Cortinas said union organizing drive passed out copies of argued for moving swiftly to the next step. gage handlers at Northwest Airlines also that what The Workers' Voice has published the new color edition of The Workers 'Voice. "We have to launch a fight for a contract. spoke in solidarity. In addition, a few mem­ about the company's production drive was Workers in the cut department kept chant­ We can't wait for a contract to come to us. I bers of other unions such as the American a lie, that they would keep production at 700 ing, "Si se puede," according to workers in do not know ifl'll be around in a year or 10 Federation of State, County and Municipal cattle a day. But I know he is not telling the the department. months. The union now is better." Employees; United Auto Workers; and Pa­ truth. They are installing new rails in the The bosses had some new tricks. Work­ per, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy cooler. They are planning on expanding to ers in the plant report that the company had 'You need a union' tried to allow some quality control Francisco Picado, a meat packer personnel to vote. This was notal­ on leave from his job and currently lowed, however, since quality con­ a full-time organizer for the union, trol employees are part of manage­ read messages of support from other ment. The company tried to allow workers. Two messages were par­ brand-new workers to participate in ticularly well received. One was the vote by switching their blue hats from 120 meat packers at the IBP to white hats to fool other workers plant in Perry, Iowa. It said, "We, into thinking they were eligible to workers at IBP, in Perry, Iowa, wish vote. The workers assigned to be to congratulate you, workers at Da­ union election monitors foiled the kota Beef, in St. Paul, Minnesota, on maneuver. Company supervisors, your victory against. the company however, were successful in a few with your demands for dignity, more instances in preventing pro-union control over the line speed, and fair workers from voting by misleading wages, and we support you in your them about the time they were al­ fight to join the union." lowed to vote. Another message was from a The voting, which continued un­ farmer in southern Georgia, Willie til 5:30 p.m. was conducted by rep­ Head. "I worked at Swift resentatives of the National Labor meatpacking in Moultrie, Georgia, Relations Board. A little after 6:30 for four years. We moved from 4,000 the votes were tabulated and the hogs a day to 4,800 hogs a day in a union victory was announced: 112 short period of time. We were de­ for the UFCW, 71 against. nied the right to go to the bathroom. Union monitors contested 12 We were denied the right to bid on votes. Four votes by union support­ the job of our choice. We were de­ ers were disqualified as not clear. · nied the right to talk to our supervi­ The celebration of the union vic­ sors about working conditions such tory continued until 8:30 that night. as the line speed. We were forced, There were numerous informal dis­ as you have been, to work when in­ cussions about what needed to be jured-<>r get fired. This is why you Workers at Dakota Premium Foods and supporters hold march and rally June 12. Using momentum of done now. need a union more than a paycheck. July 21 election victory, union members are now preparing to wage a fight for a union contract. Jose Mateo, a boner and a leader You really don't have a choice. YOU 900 cattle in nine hours. They promise you of the union drive, told a group of NEED A UNION." Workers attended the event. things and then they break their promises." co-workers, "We need to be even stronger Messages were also read from tomato The high point of the rally was when the Pearson also addressed the kill meeting. now. We don't know the plans of the com­ pickers in a union organizing drive in Ari­ cut workers took the stage at the union hall "At the earlier meeting ofthe cut, there were pany. They will try to take advantage of any zona, from workers in a nonunion Miami for a group photo. Dozens had put on black 80 brothers and sisters. We are strong in weakness. Let's not be provoked." Francisco garment plant, and workers locked out by T-shirts that had printed in red letters across boning. In the kill we can make the differ­ Picado stated, "It's very important not to AK Steel in Ohio. the chest, "Union yes-Si se puede!" The ence. On June 1 you did the bravest thing allow the company to provoke us. We need The meeting of the cut was also addressed . .mood was festive and confident. Workers I've ever seen hi my life. Tomorrow is just to respond collectively." by Alberto Puga, a former farm worker and gave themselves a big ovation. the beginning of a new fight. When we win, Miguel Olvera, another worker in the cut veteran of struggles that forged the United The photograph was printed in color the this starts the battle for the contract. The and leader of the drive, said, "We have to Farm Workers a couple ofdecades ago. Puga following morning in a special last-minute fight will be on for wages, benefits, and dig­ deepen and solidifY leadership in the dif­ was representing Isaiah, a coalition of reli­ edition of The Workers' Voice, designed to nity." ferent departments of the company. And we gious-based community organizations that show the strength of the union-organizing have to win over the 71 who did not vote supports the rights of immigrant workers in drive and answer again the bosses' argu­ 'Who will you call tonight' for the union. We have to strengthen our­ the Twin Cities area. ments. The photo appears on the home A number of workers in the kill depart­ selves for the next stage of the fight. We have page of the Local 789 web site, at ment raised their hands and went to the front to keep the pressure on the company and Threats about immigration www.ufcw789.org. , of the room to address the issues. Messages continue to organize to fight." "As·an immigrant worker who has taken The same issues that were discussed at. of solidarity from other workers were read The next day, at a demonstration of 500 part in unioJLstruggles I know what you are the rally for the cut were discussed at the again. Pablo Tapia, a representative of workers in support of Teamsters on strike going through right now," Puga said. "I've rally for the workers from the kill. Jose Isaiah, asked the kill workers present, "Who against Pepsi-Cola in the Twin Cities, anum­ been told the company is making threats Estrada, a meat packer for 40 years, stated, are you going to call tonight to discuss the ber of workers and union activists com­ about immigration. Don't get intimidated. "On the eve of the vote to decertifY the union need for a union?" He reiterated the com­ mented that they had heard about the union The community and the churches responded eight years ago, the supervisors went around mitment of his organization to the fight for victory and felt boosted by it. to the call of the workers of the Holiday Inn putting a lot of pressure to vote no. And this a contract. The kill workers took the pro" Express when their employer used the INS worked on some people. Yesterday they union T-shirts and put them on. Several gave Tom Fisher is a textile worker in Minnesota. [Immigration and Naturalization Service] were doing some of the same things. But against their organizing drive. The employer don't be afraid. Talk to your co-workers lost and had to compensate those workers about why we need a union." and the INS had to give them work permits. Enrique Flores Sr., a lead man who has LETTERS------'Learn the exploiters' Editor's reply-The excerpt quoted is not FROM PA7HFIIIDER There's a typo, actually a missing word, an error; As a second definition ofthe word in the excerpt from Jack Barnes's new pam­ "learn," Webster's dictionary says: "Non­ Puerto Rico: phlet, The Working Class and the Transfor­ standard: teach." For example: to teach the Independence Is a Necessity mation ofLearning: The Fraud of Educa­ exploiters a lesson. Rafael Cancel Miranda tion Reform under Capitalism, which has The dictionary's editors, in their own In two interviews, Cancel Miranda- one of five now appeared in two consecutive issues of class-biased way, explain the usage as fol­ the Militant, which suggests that the error Puerto Rican Nationalists imprisoned by Washington lows: is in the pamphlet itself. "Learn in the sense of'teach' dates from for more than 25 years until 1979- speaks out on The excerpt reads: " ... for the greatest of the 13th century and was standard until at the brutal reality of U.S. colonial domination, the all battles in the years ahead-the battle to least the early 19th . But by Mark Twain's time it was re­ today. In English and Spanish. Booklet $3 collectively educate ourselves and learn the ceding to a speech form associated chiefly exploiters in the process." with the less educated . The Karl Marx and Frederick Engels finder pamphlet sounds like it's perfect for present-day status of learn has not risen. Founding document of the modern the reality that's unfolding before us. Thanks This use persists in speech, but in writing it working-class movement, published in for publishing it. Now we have to get it into appears mainly in the representation of such 1848. Why communists act on the ba­ workers' hands. The other night I got a call speech, or its deliberate imitation for effect." sis not of preconceived principles but of from an oid friend from high school who's facts springing from the actual class now a teacher in Jersey. We got to talking about education and I told him about Jack's struggle, and why communism, to the new pamphlet and read to him the "Life­ The letters column is an open forum for degree it is a theory, is the generaliza­ time Education for All" section of all viewpoints on subjects of interest to tion of the historical.line of march of Capitalism's World Disorder. He thought it working people. the working c;:lass and politkal condi­ was excellent and is now going to buy a copy Please keep your letters brief. Where tion for its liberation. Booklet $3 for himself. necessary they will be abridged. Please Kevin McGuire indicate if you prefer that your initials by e-mail be used rather than your full name. August 14, 2000 The Militant 11 THE MILITANT Palestinians: no Israeli rule in Jerusalem BY MAURICE WILLIAMS onstrations since the beginning of the Camp In the recent "peace" talks at the Camp David talks, pressing the Palestinian lead­ David site in Maryland, the U.S. and Israeli ership to stiffen its spine in demanding the governments sought to pressure Yasir Arafat, return of all West Bank and Gaza territory president of the Palestinian NationalAuthor­ captured in the 1967 war and the right of ity, to make concessions. At the same time Palestinian refugees and their descendants thousands of Palestinians held demonstra­ to return to their homes in what is now Is­ tions on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tak­ rael. ing advantage of the international debate to About 1,500 people rallied July 22 in draw attention to their struggle for national Gaza and another 500 held a similar dem­ self-determination and a homeland. onstnition in the West Bank town of The talks collapsed July 25 with Wash­ Ramallah that day in actions called by the ington unable to get the concessions it Palestinian group Hamas. wanted from the Palestinian leadership. The Announcement of Palestinian state negotiations revolved around the future of Meanwhile, the Palestinian Central Coun­ Jerusalem, as well as the Palestinian demand cil has set September 13 as a date for estab­ for the right of return of all refugees forced lishing an independent Palestinian state with out of their homeland. East Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestin­ Palestinians have never accepted Israeli ian National Council first proclaimed state­ rule over Jerusalem, which was supposed hood in 1988. to be an "international zone" under a 1947 The talks at Camp David came after seven UN plan to partition Palestine into Israeli years of U.S.-sponsored negotiations. In and Arab states. 1993 Tel Aviv and the PLO held talks in Washington has pretended to be neutral, Oslo, Norway, to establish an interim agree­ asking both sides to compromise, but sid­ ment for Palestinian autonomy in the West ing with the Israeli regime and pressuring Bank and Gaza Strip. The following year, the Palestinians to concede as much as pos­ Tel Aviv withdrew most of its forces from sible. Protesters in East Jerusalem carry signs stating number of years Israeli regime has Gaza and Jericho, the Palestinian National The Israeli regime has insisted on mak­ occupied the city. Palestinians have never accepted Zionist rule over Jerusalem. Authority (PNA) was formed, and Arafat ing Jerusalem its capital. Because of the in­ was elected president of the Palestinian ternational authority won by the Palestin­ (PLO) representative in Washington and After annexing East Jerusalem, the Israeli Authority, which now has administrative ian struggle, however, most governments in spokesperson for Arafat. "We recognize Is­ government enlarged it to about three times and security control over all the major cit­ the world do not recognize Israeli control raeli full sovereignty over West Jerusalem its original size by extending the border to ies in the West Bank and most of the area of over the city. The Zionist forces annexed in return for full Palestinian sovereignty over maximize the land area, while reducing the the Gaza Strip. East Jerusalem shortly after seizing it in the East Jerusalem." number of Palestinians who lived within the The West Bank territory under Palestin­ 1967 war. Abdel-Rahman's remarks were the first city's expanded boundary. The Zionist re­ ian rule comprises only 2 percent of the land Commenting on the Camp David talks, PLO public statement expressing willing­ gime encircled East Jerusalem with Jewish there. Another 14 percent is under joint Israeli cabinet member Michael Melchior ness to recognize 52 years of de facto Is­ suburbs to set up virtual fortresses between PNA-Israeli control. · said July 21 that his government backed a raeli control over West Jerusalem-a sig­ the West Bank and the city. The policy of Under the 1998 Wye River Memoran­ "proposal which accepts Israeli sovereignty nificant concession. successive Israeli governments was to in­ dum, signed by then prime minister Ben­ over all of Jerusalem as an undivided city crease the population of Israelis in that city Five of Zionist occupation jamin Netanyahu oflsrael at the Wye River and has some signs of joint sovereignty, decad~s until they outnumbered the Arabs. Today, Plantation in Maryland, the jointly con­ expanded [Palestinian ] self-administration In 1948 Zionist military forces assaulted however, there are about 200,000 Palestin­ trolled areas and another 13 percent ofWest of some of the Arab Muslim quarters in the Palestinian villages and drove 3 million Pal­ ians and a similar number oflsraelis in East Bank land was to be placed under Palestin­ outskirts of Jerusalem." He said the Zionist estinians from-their homes and out of Pal­ Jerusalem. ian control and Israeli troops removed from regime would also annex nearby Israeli estine-scattering them throughout the By Israeli law, Arab residents of East the area. settlements located in the West Bank. Middle East. The state of Israel was pro­ Jerusalem are entitled to the same benefits The Netanyahu coalition government "It seems to be something new on the face claimed on May 15 that year and West as Jewish residents, such as health insurance, collapsed over implementation of this agree­ of it, but when you look at the substance, Jerusalem was taken over by Tel Aviv. East but the Palestinians overwhelmingly refuse ment and Tel Aviv suspended the Wye deal. there is nothing new," said Palestinian Jerusalem came under Jordanian govern­ to claim Israeli citizenship. Even if the Palestinians regained every inch spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, referring to ment control. "Do yop think that because of the few of West Bank land stolen by the Zionist re­ the talks, which began July 11. She rebuked Jerusalem was divided for 20 years until shekels I get from the national insurance, I gime, it would only amount to 22 percent Melchior's comments about the Israeli re­ 1967, when the U.S.-backedZionistregime want to give up my homeland?" said 70- of the Palestinian land before the 1948 war. gime conceding outlying sections of Jerusa­ launched another war, seizing the Gaza Strip year-old Khader Jabsheh from Shufat, an "We gave already, we gave 78 percent of lem. [Those parts] "are ours anyway," she and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, East Jerusa­ Arab neighborhood that Israel annexed af­ Palestine," said Afif Ahmad, a Palestinian added. lem and the West Bank from Jordan, and ter the 1967 war. "The insurance I get is my official. "What more do the Israelis want "Short of total Palestinian sovereignty the Golan Heights from Syria. In 1980 Tel right. It is not a gift from Israel. I have been from us? They should make peace with us over East Jerusalem, there is not a ground Aviv declared Jerusalem to be its undivided paying taxes for over 30 years and I am en­ while Arafat is still alive." for an agreement," said Hassan Abdel capital to remain "united for ever under Is­ titled to get some of this money back." The various "peace" accords are the prod­ Rahman, Palestine Liberation Organization raeli sovereignty." Palestinians have been waging daily dem- uct of combined factors, both the failure of the Israeli government to crush the Pales­ tinian struggle for self-determination, and the bourgeoisification of the PLO leader~ FBI unleashes 'antiterror' raid inN. .Carolina ship. ·Since the Oslo and Wye accords, the PLO BY LAUREN HART country. Tel Aviv was finally forced to pull the FBI affidavit that the government stool leadership has continued to· tum its eyes pigeon "believes that if [Hezbollah] issued CHARLOTTE, North Carolina-More out of southern Lebanon just two months away from the ranks of the Palestinian work­ an authorization to execute a terrorist act in than 200 FBI agents and other cops raided ago. Washington portrays Hezbollah as a ers and farmers, and to rely more and more homes and businesses throughout this area "terrorist" group. the United States, Mohamad Hammoud on the bourgeois regimes in the region and July 21, arresting 17 people who authori­ The government's affidavit presents as would not hesitate in carrying it out." on reaching an accommodation with Wash­ ties are attempting to smear as "terrorists." sinister the claim that those arrested met in Several Lebanese residents of Charlotte ington in the struggle for a Palestinian na­ The majority of those arrested are of Leba­ each other's homes on Thursday evenings. interviewed by this reporter two days after tion. nese origin. An 18th person is being held in It cites reports by an anonymous informer the raids expressed anger at the "This is the most important thing to us, the Detroit area. that those evenings included reading government's attempt to smear those ar­ the strategic friendship of the United States," Most of the formal charges against the speeches by Hezbollah leaders and others. rested and the entire Arab community as an unnamed Palestinian official told the 18 center on an alleged conspiracy to buy The document also asserts that terrorists. A couple of people pointed out Washington Post. "Without that we have cigarettes cheaply in North Carolina and sell Mohamad Youssef Harnmoud-whom the that we~ sites such as the one Harnmoud is nothing." them in Michigan, where tobacco taxes make cops and big-business media label the "ring­ accused of accessing are often the only Meanwhile, Palestinians' living standards the price much higher. Nearly all ofthem are leader"---downloaded songs and speeches source of information on events in southern have deteriorated since the 1993 Oslo agree­ also accused of "fraudulent marriage" to gain from a Hezbollah web site and communi­ Lebanon. ment. Last year unemployment topped 40 immigration papers. None has been charged cated by e-mail with individuals in Leba­ One man who stopped by a now-closed percent in the West Bank and 55 percent in with any act of terrorism or violence. non. The affidavit includes vague references restaurant and grocery owned by some of Gaza. Tel Aviv still retains tight control over But the police are looking to cook up to supposed military training in the Char­ the defendants noted that many Lebanese borders, economic arrangements, and most further charges. In morning raids on 18 lotte area. immigrants sympathize with an organiza­ trade that reaches the two areas. Many Pal­ homes and businesses owned by the North Sensational press reports aim to paint the tion that has fought the occupation of their estinians, blaming the Israeli government for Carolina defendants, the FBI carted off com­ 18 defendants as guilty, even of things they country. What's wrong with that? he asked. the social crisis, are skeptical about the lat­ puters, documents, and other property. Sev­ have not been charged with. "Terrorist raid He also said it is common for Muslims from est negotiations. eral cars and homes were confiscated, and in Concord," screamed the July 22 banner Lebanon to gather on Thursday evenings for "In 1993 we said 'O.K. the Oslo deal is at least three businesses owned by some of headline of the Independent Tribune, the prayers, and it's their right to do so. not good, but if it does something for the the defendants were shuttered. local daily for the towns of Concord and Six of the 18 people arrested were re­ economy, then all right,"' said Bassem A lengthy affidavit filed in court by the Kannapolis, just north of Charlotte. leased on bond the afternoon of July 21. Tannous, a worker in the West Bank town federal cops July 21 asserts that profits from Harnmoud and his wife Angela Tsioumas, Hearings for the others have been sched­ ofRamallah. "But we've lost so much. We the alleged cigarette smuggling operation who was also arrested, owned a gas station uled, but authorities have made clear they can't travel without restrictions; nothing may have been given to Hezbollah, a group in Concord.- will try to hold some of the defendants with­ moves without Israel's permission. My pri­ in Lebanon that fought against the 22-year N early every report in the capitalist press out bond if they can come up with enough vate opinion? There won't be a good deal Israeli occupation ofthe southern part of that has repeated the inflarnm~tory quote from "evidence" to lay "terrorism" charges. with the Israelis."

12 The Militant August 14, 2000