The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.27           August 11, 1997 
 
 
Meeting Celebrates 20 Years Of SWP In N. Carolina, And Openings For Socialists  

BY PETER THIERJUNG
GREENSBORO, North Carolina - A celebration of working- class history in this region and the Socialist Workers Party's 20 years in North Carolina was held here July 12. The meeting marked the closing of the offices of the SWP branch and the Pathfinder Bookstore.

More than 50 people attended, including workers, youth, and local party supporters, as well as Young Socialists and SWP members from Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; and Birmingham, Alabama. Leaders of the SWP's trade union work from around the country who were meeting here that weekend also joined the celebration.

"The branch is not closing because of a lack of opportunities here," said Peter Thierjung, a member of the Greensboro branch who chaired the event. "It is part of a reorganization to strengthen SWP branches in other cities, a move to take advantage of growing openings to win workers and youth to the socialist movement."

Naomi Craine, editor of the Militant and member of the SWP's National Committee, was the evening's featured speaker. In 1992, Craine, a textile worker and leader of the Greensboro branch, was the party's candidate for governor of North Carolina.

"There's an important shift that's taking place today," she noted, in the United States and around the world. "The retreat of the working class has bottomed out, and there is increased resistance by workers who refuse to accept the rulers' demands for sacrifice." She pointed to the elections that had just taken place in Mexico City, where workers overwhelmingly voted out the governing party that had ruled for the last 70 years, and the May elections in France that handed a surprise defeat to the conservatives as reflections of workers' desire to resist.

In the United States, this resistance is reflected in the labor movement. One striking example was the tens of thousands of workers who marched June 21 in Detroit in solidarity with unionists who struck that city's two daily papers for 19 months. The bosses in the region, including the auto giant General Motors, had been looking to this strike to deal a blow to the labor movement that could break workers' spirits.

When the officials of the striking unions made an unconditional back-to-work offer to the news bosses, the rulers thought maybe they had achieved this aim. Instead, workers throughout the Midwest and beyond saw the need to take a stand and turned out for the protest action. This included many workers who had recently been on strike themselves, from GM to Caterpillar.

Another sign of the resistance is the increase in organizing drives. Farm workers in California, Washington state, Florida, and many places in between are currently involved in efforts to unionize and fight for better conditions. This is happening in textile and other industries as well.

This resistance doesn't mean that big class battles are about to break out tomorrow, but it does mean there's greater openings for socialists to recruit and to carry out political work in the trade unions. Socialist workers are looking for and joining in this resistance along with their co-workers and young people who are attracted to the working class.

Craine pointed to the importance of one of the newest books published by Pathfinder Press the Spanish-language edition of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics - Working- Class Politics and the Trade Unions. This book tells the story of what socialist workers have been doing over the last 20 years, and describes the kind of party rooted in the industrial unions that is needed to lead the coming class battles. Among other things, it describes the shifts in working-class politics that led to the SWP's decision to establish a branch in North Carolina in the 1970s.

Civil rights movement changed South
"The idea that the South is politically backward is a myth," Craine said. "The South is more like the rest of the country than ever before because of the impact of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, which dismantled `Jim Crow' racial segregation. That movement was not led by the trade unions, but it was an overwhelmingly working-class movement." Craine noted the Greensboro sit-in battles by Black youth in the early 1960s to desegregate public establishments.

"The confidence and combativeness Black workers gained in defeating Jim Crow had an impact on changing the social consciousness of white workers," Craine said. "This was reflected in the organizing drives and union struggles in the South in the mid and late-1970s. This included an important fight by the Steelworkers union at shipyards in Newport News, Virginia. There Black and white workers were united."

These struggles coincided with the SWP's turn toward basing its political work once again in the industrial unions, Craine said. The turn led to an expansion of the party to several southern cities. The branch in North Carolina was first organized in Raleigh in the mid-1970s. In 1979 the branch moved to this part of the state, an industrial and textile center.

Craine noted that SWP members have supported and been part of efforts by workers to organize unions and win contracts -from a massive Teamster organizing drive in the late 1970s to a current fight by immigrant poultry workers in Morganton to win a contract. Craine pointed to a significant victory last spring when workers fired for union activity won their jobs back at the Fieldcrest Cannon mills in Kannapolis, where more than 6,000 people work. A union organizing drive was narrowly defeated there in 1991. "This points to a future organizing drive," the SWP leader said. "We will be part of this fight as well."

Response to assault by Klan
On Nov. 3, 1979, Klan and Nazi terrorists gunned down five members of the Communist Workers Party who were leading an anti-Klan protest in Greensboro. Four of those killed were union activists, three were textile workers. Government officials tried to cover up the involvement of cop informers in planning the killings.

"The killings were a calculated move by the ruling class to terrorize working people," Craine said. "The textile bosses used the killings and a red-baiting campaign to drive many fighters out of the mills. But they could not close the political space won by working people in previous struggles."

The SWP responded to the killings by campaigning to expose the government cover-up. Socialist campaign supporters used a 1980 statewide ballot drive to reach out to thousands of working people and build a February 1980 march of more than 7,000 to protest the Klan killings. The petitioners collected nearly 19,000 signatures in 13 days. When the Klan and Nazi killers were acquitted in November 1980, the Militant carried front page coverage telling the truth about the killings.

In the late 1980s, socialist workers active in their unions helped organize support for the 686-day strike of the International Association of Machinists against Eastern Airlines. "Socialists here worked with IAM strikers to visit coal miners on strike at the time against Pittston Coal in southwestern Virginia," Craine said.

The party leader described the branch's experiences during the 1990-91 U.S. war against Iraq and how socialist workers campaigned against the imperialist war among co- workers in textile and other industries.

"We deepened the party's work among industrial workers in response to the war, just as the branch did in response to the Klan killings," Craine explained. "SWP members became known and respected as union fighters and socialists even though many did not agree with all of our views."

Over the last few months, Socialist Workers here joined with co-workers to build protests by Black farmers in Tillery who face bank foreclosures and helped organize a speaking tour here for a leader of the Movement of Landless Rural Workers of Brazil. Last April, the SWP led an emergency protest against an arson attack on this city's abortion clinic.

"Two or three months ago I didn't know who Che Guevara was," William Harris, a worker at the Kmart Distribution Center here, told the meeting. "Now I know that he was about bringing freedom to the Cuban people." Harris, a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) Local 2603, said he first learned about Cuba and socialism when he was introduced to Pathfinder books by a co- worker who is a member of the SWP.

"I didn't know they were socialists. I knew they were part of the fight to win a union contract at Kmart," Williams said. "That's what socialists do. They join fights." Workers at Kmart voted in the union in 1993, and won their first contract last year.

Pointing to Pathfinder titles displayed in the bookstore, Harris said, "In those books you will read about people who fought around the world. The books bring these fights to you. You need to read them."

Others who spoke at the meeting included John Armstrong, a member of the Young Socialists who is attending the World Festival of Youth and Students in Cuba. Diane Shur spoke on behalf of party supporters pledging to work with the Atlanta and Washington, D.C., branches to back party campaigns in this area.

Following the meeting, participants took advantage of an 80 percent discount sale and bought 223 titles totaling $1,138. During the two week's prior to the closing, $343 were sold including 25 titles to members of UNITE Local 2603. A fund pitch at the meeting netted $925 in pledges and contributions to the 1997 Pathfinder Fund.

The Greensboro News and Record, High Point Enterprise, Raleigh News and Observer, and TV 45 covered the branch and bookstore closing.  
 
 
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