The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.26           July 1, 1996 
 
 
`No To INS Raids!' Says Garza At Packinghouse  

BY EMILY FITZSIMMONS

TOPPENISH, Washington - Cars lined up outside the Washington Beef meatpacking plant here June 10 to take literature in Spanish and English from supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign, who carried signs saying "Equal Rights for All Immigrants! No to INS Raids! Raise the Minimum Wage, Jobs for All!" The plant gate campaigning was part of a full day of activity in the Yakima Valley that kicked off a week-long tour of the Pacific Northwest by vice presidential candidate Laura Garza.

The Toppenish workers recently voted in the United Food and Commercial Workers. Garza and her supporters found the overwhelmingly Mexican workforce very receptive to the socialist campaign. Two car loads of workers stopped to talk to Garza and find out more about her campaign. They explained they had helped organize the union drive, and how immigration cops raided the plant the week before, arresting and deporting 19 workers. They told Garza that they wanted the socialist campaigners to return for more discussion about the Socialist Workers program.

The socialist candidate was interviewed by the Yakima Herald, which ran a prominent article the next day, and on the Spanish- language radio station KDNA.

Later that evening, three members of the Chicano student group MEChA met Garza for dinner and discussed their recent victory at Yakima Valley Community College, where they won a Chicano Studies department. One of them, Sara Carrion, is helping organize for the national immigrant rights march in Washington, D.C., on October 12. All of the students took information on the U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange.

The following day Garza and Jeff Powers, the SWP candidate for governor of Washington, campaigned with six volunteers at the huge Seattle ship repair facility, Todd Shipyard. A number of workers stopped to talk to the socialists, several signed a petition to put the candidates on the ballot, and three bought subscriptions to the Militant or Perspectiva Mundial. While in Seattle, Garza was interviewed by two major local dailies, the Everett Herald, and the Seattle Times.

Garza wrapped up her tour with a campaign rally held at the Pathfinder Bookstore which was attended by 40 people. At the event, supporters of the socialist campaign went over the top on their $5,000 local financial goal.

The rally featured speeches by Garza and Powers as well as talks by Amadee Weld and Jacob Gavin, members of the Young Socialists in Seattle and Vancouver respectively. The event was chaired by Melissa Harris, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Congress in the 7th C.D.

Weld described the week's events and urged young people to join the campaign as Young Socialists for Harris and Garza "to hook up with fighters and unite against a common enemy - capitalism."

Gavin explained that the socialist candidate had spent a day campaigning in Canada because she "recognized the working class was strengthened by linking up with workers from other countries."

In her talk, Garza noted that supporters of her campaign spent part of that day at an anti-Klan rally in Auburn, Washington, which had been organized when an article about Klan recruitment appeared in the morning paper. Fifty people attended the event. "These are the ones we are trying to reach with our campaign," Garza said. "People who don't care if they are the only ones who come out. People who want to fight."

The vice presidential candidate explained that the recent wave of arson attacks on Black churches in the South was a "serious crime" that requires a nationwide response. "What took the cops and federal marshals so long to act and why have they been targeting Black parishioners in their investigations?" Garza said.

Garza said that "the socialist campaign demands that the federal government post marshals to not allow one more church to be burned."

The Socialist Workers Party campaign plans to return to the Yakima Valley next weekend to sell literature and petition to put the candidates on the ballot. BY MEG NOVAK

ST. LOUIS - James Harris traveled here in mid-June to offer solidarity and bring the Socialist Workers campaign to the 6,700 members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) on strike against McDonnell Douglas. Campaign supporters attended a solidarity picnic at the IAM District 837 union hall June 16, where they invited striking workers to attend a meeting with Harris the next night.

Young Socialist Tom Alter and another campaign supporter also met with three St. Louis youth interested in the socialist campaign. One of them bought two subscriptions to the Militant, one for himself and one for his brother in Zimbabwe.

The socialist candidate for U.S. president visited the union hall June 17 to speak with strikers going to and from picket duty. Harris pledged his support to the unionists. "This kind of attack against workers is happening in every capitalist country," Harris said to one striker. "My campaign stresses the importance of working people uniting worldwide to fight for our demands."

Harris spoke to an audience of 20 people later that night at a downtown restaurant.

While in St. Louis, the socialist candidate was interviewed by KMOX radio, the main AM news station, and the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Earlier in the week, Harris toured central Illinois, beginning with a plant gate stop at Caterpillar's Mapleton foundry just outside Peoria. Supporters distributed campaign literature to United Auto Workers members there during their shift change.

The next morning, Harris spoke at a news conference outside of the Federal Building in Peoria where he introduced Angel Lariscy, who announced her campaign as the socialist candidate for U.S. Congress from the 18th congressional district. The news conference was covered by WMBD-TV, a CBS affiliate in Peoria.

Emily Fitzsimmons is a member of United Transportation Union Local 845. Meg Novak is a member of United Paperworkers International Union in Peoria.  
 
 
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