California Poultry Strikers Deinand Raise
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• AUSTRALIA $2.00 • BELGIUM BF60 • CANADA $2.00 • FRANCE FF1 0 • ICELAND Kr150 • NEW ZEALAND $2.50 • SWEDEN Kr12 • UK £1.00 • U.S. $1.50 INSIDE L.A. meeting p.rotests visa denial to····Cuban· general THE -PAGE 11 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 61 NO. 38 NOVEMEBER 3, 1997 Cubans celebrate California poultry Che,fellow strikers deinand raise combatants 2,300 workers reject company's 'best offer' BY MARTIN KOPPEL BY OSBORNE HART SANTA CLARA, Cuba- "We come not LIVINGSTON, California- Workers at to bid farewell to Che and his heroic com the Foster Farms chicken slaughtering plant rades, but to welcome them," Cuban presi struck the country's largest poultry opera dent Fidel Castro told an overflow crowd in tion here October 6 after rejecting the the Ernesto Che Guevara Plaza here Octo company's offer. ber 17. "I see Che and his men as reinforce Members of United Food and Commer ments, as a detachment of invincible fight cial Workers Locall288- 2,300 strong ers, who this time include not only Cubans set up a 24-hour picket line at the sprawling but Latin Americans coming to fight along plant, 113 miles from San Francisco in side us and write new pages of history and Merced County, in the agriculture produc glory." ing Central Valley. He added, "Che was a genuine commu The workforce of chicken pluckers, cut nist- and today he remains an example, a ters, and packers is about 50 percent Mexi model of a revolutionary and a communist." can, 25 percent are Punjabi, and a smaller Guevara is inseparable from the Cuban percentage of workers are Blacks or Asian, revolution, Castro emphasized, and his po including Hmong and Vietnamese. litical values and principles become more Sukh Purewal, who is Punjabi, has Continued on Page 11 worked at the plant for 15 years. In that time "my pay has gone from $6.70 an hour to $8.08," he said. "Near Christmas time, when they are running turkeys instead of chick Socialist ens, we may only get 22 to 30 hours work a week. It's the same thing again in the Militant/Osborne Hart spring." United Food and Commercial Workers picket Foster Farms poultry plant October 18 candidate Seventy-seven percent of the ranks re workers, are standing firm with the strike, the 1800s when people had to work like jected Foster Farms' "final offer," against despite company pressure to divide them slaves for free." the union's bargaining committee's recom from their fellow strikers. The company's five-year offer includes a backs rail mendation. The 150 mechanics, who earn "They want us to work like slaves," Jose 1.5 percent yearly raise - 65 cents for the workers in more than $4 an hour more than production Castro explained. "This is the '90s. It was Continued on Page 12 N.Y. debate Thousands say, 'Clinton go home' BY RYAN KELLY NEW YORK- "The Socialist Workers Party advocates that working people chart a during his tour in Latin America political course independent from the Demo crats and Republicans, the twin parties of BY BRIAN TAYLOR war, racism, and economic depression, by "Fuera Clinton" (Clinton go home) read With a 12-week subscription $22 using our own collective power through our the lead banner carried by workers protest to the 'Militant' unions and actions in the streets," stated ing the U.S. president's arrival in Argentina. Olga Rodriguez, the Socialist Workers In a time-honored tradition, workers, peas Party's candidate for mayor of New York ants, and young people from Argentina, ~..:.......;..~~...., .1"h•~ha.-ging·•Face of. U.S •. Politics City, during a debate with Democratic can Brazil, and Venezuela greeted William Clin WORKING•CLASS POLITICSANDTHETRADE UNIONS didate Ruth Messinger and the Republican ton with protest marches and street demon jack8arnes incumbent Rudolph Giuliani. The debate, strations throughout his tour of the three A handbook for workers coming into the factories,mines; and mills, which was sponsored by the Campaign Fi Latin American countries. The week-long as·they react to the .. uf1Certain.life, ceaseless turmoil, and brutality. of nance Board, was televised live on New trip, an unusual one for the U.S. president, capitalism in the dosing years of the twentieth century. It shows how York l cable television and on WNYC ra began October 12.1t was designed to shore millions of .workers, as political• resistance grows,.·will ·re\'oll.ltionize dio. up trade pacts, spur austerity measures themselves, their unions, and all. of society. Regular price $19.9Sph.ls Rodriguez, who works as a baggage han aimed against the working class in South $10 for the subscription. dler for Northwest Airlines at Newark air America, and deepen Washington's domi port and is a member of the International nation in the region. Che Guevara: Economics and Politics Association of Machinists, explained that In Caracas, Venezuela, Clinton's first in the Transition to Socialism the working class needs a voice in the elec- stop, protesters spray-painted "Millions for . Continued on Page 4 banks - hunger for the people" and "Raise Quoting extensively from GuE)Vara's writings and speeches on building socialism, this book the general salary" outside the National Pan presef'lt$. the interr-e!aticmship ·of. the ma!"ke~ economic planning. material. incentives, and vol theon, the building where the U.S. president untary work; and why profit an<fother .capitalist. eategories caririot be yardsticks for measur spoke. During his sparsely attended speech ing progress.in the transition tQ socialism. Regular pr-ice $17.95. plus •$10 for the October 13, Clinton praised Venezuelans for subscription. accepting austerity measures and said he "cared" about their future. A Washington Post article the next day, however, ques CIJe Guevara or in Spanish, with a four-month $20 ECCIIOMIA subscription to 'Perspectiva Mundial' tioned whether the "feeling was mutual." YPIIJIICA Some 80 percent of Venezuela's more than en Ia lRANSICION 20 million inhabitants live in poverty, ac al SOCIAUSMO El rostro cambiante de Ia politica cording to the government's estimates. en Estados Unldos On October 14 dozens of Brazilian activ LA POliTICA OBRERAY lOS SINDICATOS ists met Clinton on his arrival at the For Regular price $21.95 plus $6 for the subscription. eign Ministry building in Brasilia chanting, "Clinton go home!" and "Imperialist Yan Che Guevara: economfa y polft'icaCenla kee!" Some protesters burned an effigy of the U.S. president. After the meeting with transicion .·al. socialismo legislators, demonstrators bombarded Regular pti~ $1?.95 plus $6 for the sul:lscriptiqn. Clinton's U.S. embassy-bound limousine Available from boo~rpre$listedol) page .. t2, or ffom·Pathfinder. 41 0 West St., New York, NY 10014c with manure. Many were angry at a state- Fax: (21.2) 727.0 ISO. If ordering by mail; please include $3 to cover shipping and handling. Continued on Page 12 Berkeley students defend affirmative action - page 6 Ecuadorans halt oil transport October 14 ruled against opening up the Oil workers in Ecuador paralyzed pro country to foreign ownership of agricul duction at Petro Ecuador's eight oil wells turalland, sending Budapest into urgent in the Amazonian region after they took negotiations to attempt to reverse the de over the first pumping station in early cision, which was taken just before a October. The strikers halted oil transport scheduled vote on Hungary's member all over the country as they closed high ship in NATO. An October 15 Financial ways and air strips linking the Amazon Times article described the court ruling province to the rest of the country. as "an embarrassing setback for the rul The workers have occupied the oil ing coalition." The Hungarian parliament wells there for more than I 0 days, reduc failed to reach a compromise that would ing daily output by 15 percent. avert a delay of the NATO referendum. Amazonians are demanding among other Meanwhile, the land question "is be things that the government repair and ing taken as an important test" of whether build roads and bridges. there, and that it Budapest is ready to enter the European give wage increases to government-em Union, according to the Financial Times. ployed workers. Meanwhile, the teach Earlier this year the govemm~nt intro ers union workers are also on strike de duced a law that allowed foreign-or do manding a pay hike. mestic-owned Hungarian businesses to own up to 740 acres of agricultural land. Dominicans protest In August, main opposition parties orga deteriorating living conditions nized a petition against foreign land own ership to force a referendum. Demonstrations continue to spread in the Dominican Republic, as working Siberian energy workers strike people demand that the government pro Some I ,500 machine operators struck vide potable water, electricity, and repair Indigenous activists from Lago Agrio, E~uador, marched to Quito in earlr O.ctober, joining the roads. Government-deployed cops workers and peasants in protests demandmg a popular assembly and constitutional reforms. the Chitaenergo company power plant and troops attacked protesters October 14 October 16 demanding payment on the in Villa Mella, a neighborhood in the capi $2.5 million owed to them in back wages. thousands of foreign-born workers in that tries in either of the two countries that ex Most of the maintenance and repair work tal Santo Domingo. Several people were in country - Indian, Pakistani, Filipino, and ceeds $20 million dollars. Gazprom has de jured and dozens of demonstrators were de ers had gone out three days earlier. The Egyptian - are lining embassy offices to fied Washington's threats saying that the workers at Chitaenergo provide electricity tained.