BY ROBERT MILLER
In recent months 21 members of industrial unions contributed more than $22,000 to the Capital Fund, which helps provide for the long-term capital needs of producing Pathfinder books, the Militant, and its Spanish-language sister publication Perspectiva Mundial.

Since 1930 Pathfinder and its predecessors have published Marxist books and pamphlets to reach out and educate workers and youth. Its latest publications include Lenin's Final Fight - Writings and Speeches 1922-23, Why is Mark Curtis still in prison? in both English and Spanish, and a newly designed and improved Spanish-language edition of In Defense of Marxism by Leon Trotsky.

"I'm giving my entire bribe to help produce socialist literature," I told Bud Haithcoath, a co-worker at the Ford Assembly plant in Edison, New Jersey. He smiled and agreed with that characterization of the Ford "bonus" payments this March, but cautioned about letting go of the bonus too soon, saying that work conditions, pay, and health coverage are certain to worsen at Ford. "That's why we need these political weapons," I replied. Bud has recently added Lenin's Final Fight and the pamphlet on Mark Curtis to his collection of Pathfinder titles.

Sixteen members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union at Ford plants in Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, New Jersey, and St. Paul, Minnesota, along with a Chrysler worker in St. Louis contributed $18,018 to the Capital Fund. One of these auto workers wrote, "Don't-fight money" on his check, referring to how the auto bosses and top UAW officialdom collaborate to substitute bonuses for improvements in wages and working conditions.

A member of the United Steelworkers of America in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed his $390 settlement from Trinity Industries for a tear-gas attack the company launched on strikers during the walkout there in 1992. Two rail workers, one in Los Angeles and the other in St. Paul, contributed a total of $1,056. And two members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union in Houston added another $2,550.

These contributions brought the total for the Capital Fund to $22,014.

Robert Miller is a member of UAW Local 980 at the Ford plant in Edison, New Jersey.  
 
 
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