BY DOUG JENNESS
CHICAGO, Illinois - "I'm half way through Capitalism's
World Disorder. It is like a light coming on in the middle of
the night. It places an entirely new view on events and it
makes a lot of sense." This is how retired Pennsylvania dairy
farmer Linn Hamilton described Pathfinder Press's most recent
book in a letter to Frank Forrestal, director of the Socialist
Workers Party's work among farmers.
Reading Hamilton's letter to a gathering of Socialist Workers in five industrial trade unions here March 13-14, party leader Joel Britton explained that the presentations collected in this volume - the earliest from 1992 - are more timely than ever. Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium, by Jack Barnes, SWP national secretary, Britton explained, "is an important handbook" to get into the hands of hundreds of other fighting workers and farmers.
Initial quotas in a drive to sell this book total 415. They were adopted at separate meetings of members of the United Auto Workers (UAW), United Steelworkers of America (USWA), Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and the International Association of Machinists (IAM). Socialist workers in the United Transportation Union (UTU) will meet in Newark to discuss this campaign and adopt a quota, as will members of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Union (PACE) in Houston.
Party members will soon meet with supporters of the Socialist Workers Party to ask for help in the campaign to sell Capitalism's World Disorder. "We aim to get our supporters to each buy two or three copies - one for themselves - and one or two to sell to co-workers, friends, or others with whom they have political discussions. The explosion of help from supporters of our movement in the past year," Britton said, "shows the kind of response we can expect in this effort too."
He reported that since July supporters and members of the party have contributed more than $700,000 to the Pathfinder Capital Fund and that an additional $250,000 in capital investment is needed to advance the productivity and lower the costs of producing books and pamphlets needed by workers and farmers engaged in struggle. This will allow a substantial upgrade to the press room, including improved dust control, lighting, and a new floor. He cited the important role that the trade union members of the SWP have played in contributing bonuses.
Arrows from politics to tasks
Britton stated that the political underpinning of this
campaign is the new mood and growing confidence among workers
and farmers throughout the country. He quoted from the preface
by Mary-Alice Waters, that this book is so timely today
"precisely because there are increasing opportunities to apply
in practice, to use as a guide to action, the facts and ideas
encountered in these pages. There are increasing opportunities
to measure these analyses against our own daily conditions of
life and struggle, correcting and adjusting them as
necessary." There are many arrows going "directly from the
politics of this book," Britton stated, "to the daily
activities and tasks of socialist workers and young
socialists."
Many examples were cited by participants in the discussions. Ted Leonard, a textile worker from Massachusetts, for example, described discussions in his break room on legislation proposed by the governor to mandate that all public school students wear uniforms. "I explained," he said, "that this new book Capitalism's World Disorder discusses this very issue and takes it up as a class question, as one of the ways that the capitalist system attempts to regiment working- class youth. I haven't sold a book there yet, but think there's a good basis to do so."
Leonard also related that he's been urging co-workers to go with him to protests initiated by students against eliminating affirmative action in admissions policies at nearby Amherst College.
Leonard was hitting on one of the themes of the weekend meetings - that is for working-class fighters to participate in broader social protest actions. "We should help draw vanguard workers who we are working with to participate in actions against police brutality, immigration raids, the death penalty, attacks on abortion clinics, and so on," Britton urged. "We have to see these as union issues."
A panel discussion organized by the Chicago Militant Labor Forum as part of the weekend's activities helped point the way forward along this course. The panelists included Larry Lay, member of UAW Local 974 and a worker at Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois; Theodore Wynn, a member of USWA Local 15271-02 that has been on strike against Tool and Engineering in Chicago since November 30; Ramona Chávez, a member of the UFCW Local 1149 at the Swift meatpacking plant in Marshalltown, Iowa; and Miguel Morales, active in the Committee in Solidarity with José Solís Jordan.
One of the main threads of the presentations and discussion was the role of police repression against fights of working people from the picket line to political and social fights. Lay, who belongs to UAW Local 974's Tactical Response Team, the "Blue Shirts," a grouping of workers that was formed to help mobilize the rank and file in the Caterpillar strike and continues to fight to defend Caterpillar workers and build solidarity with other fighting workers, recounted the role of the "police force that belongs to the wealthy." He cited an incident at the nearby strike at the Tazewell Machine Works in Pekin, Illinois, where a city cop singled out a union picket who is Black to harass. Other unionists, who are white, immediately came to his defense against this provocation.
Wynn described how the bosses attempted to pit white workers against Black workers at the beginning of the strike at Tool and Engineering.
Chávez related the fight Swift workers and others conducted against moves by the Marshalltown city officials to deputize city cops with powers to examine the immigration papers of people they take into custody. As a result of the protests, the chief of police said the deputization plan was off for now due to lack of funds (see article on front page). Reflecting the spirit of the workers, Chávez said, "They can throw us out, but we'll come right back."
Morales reported that José Solís, a Puerto Rican independence fighter was convicted March 12 of frame-up charges in connection with placing bombs outside a military recruitment center in Chicago more than six years ago. Morales said that just before the verdict came down, Solís said, "If convicted, I'll continue to fight. If I'm not convicted Íll continue to fight."
Just before the forum 100 protesters held a candlelight vigil outside the jail where Solís is being held. Joshua Carroll, a steelworker and recently the SWP mayoral candidate in Chicago, who participated in the action, read a message to Solís from the forum participants. "Your courage and fighting spirit in the face of the government and FBI attack," the message affirmed, "has inspired us and deepened our resolve to continue the struggle to expose their vicious frame-up."
Scope of resistance
During the weekend's discussions all the participants got
a better sense of the widespread character of the working-
class and farmer resistance that is unfolding throughout the
country. But there was still an element of being surprised at
openings that suddenly appear or are discovered. For example,
John Sarge, an auto worker from Detroit, recounted that during
the recent drive to get Militant subscribers to renew their
subscriptions, a subscriber in Toledo was called and asked if
he could meet to discuss renewing his subscription. "He said
he couldn't," Sarge recalled, "because workers at the Jeep
plant where he works had just walked off the job to protest an
attempt to impose mandatory overtime. That was the first we
knew about this job action," Sarge said. "We got down there
right away and worked together with our subscriber to sell
Militants. We sold six new subscriptions on the picket lines
and got to know a bunch of workers. I think," Sarge added,
"that this shows the kind of potential that exists for selling
Capitalism's World Disorder."
A worker from a UAW-organized plant in Springfield, Illinois, described a sales team she was part of earlier this month in central Illinois. The team went to mine portals where UMWA workers had struck late last year, Caterpillar plants, and to the picket lines where UAW workers are on strike against Tazewell. They sold scores of copies of the Militant.
At Freeman Crown No. 2 mine, they sold nine papers. "One miner asked if this was the new issue," she reported. "He was one of 13 who had bought the paper at the portal the previous week and wanted to be sure he was getting the current issue." She said that when she went to the National Farmers Union convention in Springfield a farmer from Minnesota asked what she thought about Jesse Ventura, the Reform Party governor of Minnesota. "I explained that I thought his victory was a serious matter and posed a threat to working people. He liked my response. These are the kind of questions being asked more and more that are dealt with in Capitalism's World Disorder," she said.
The scope of the resistance was underlined by Brian Williams, who works at the Bethlehem steel mill in Baltimore, in a report to the socialist steelworkers. He said that current or recent struggles of steelworkers involved over 8,000 workers at 16 companies. He pointed to the possibility of additional contract fights coming up - at the Newport News shipyard, and at a Ravenswood, West Virginia plant.
During the course of the joint session, participants discussed a calendar of upcoming farm and labor actions.
Universal character of changes
In a summary to all the participants, Britton said, "We're
continually being reminded that we are running behind the
changes in consciousness and the breakout of struggles that
are occurring and consequently are being surprised. It may be
that in some jobs, particularly where we have only one
person," he said, "that we've become so routinized in just
getting to work that we haven't been initiating the kind of
discussions or activities that could help test whether changes
in the working class are being reflected there."
Even though there may be no strikes or Blue Shirts in some area at the moment, Britton added, "There is almost certainly workers and farmers who are more receptive to our ideas and will respond favorable to learning about Capitalism's World Disorder and other materials we have."
Each fraction decided to encourage socialist workers to organize sales of the new book beyond the workers in their own plants. The quotas reflect sales that members of local fractions will organize to workers and farmers on picket lines and at protest rallies, conferences, and plant gates. The quotas adopted are: USWA - 80; UFCW - 80; UAW - 75; UNITE - 70; and IAM - 110.
At meetings last fall the national fractions had made helping to rebuild the fractions of socialist workers in the UFCW, UNITE, and the UMWA a major priority. Considerable progress in this effort was registered at the meetings in Chicago. Both the UFCW and UNITE fractions are now comparable in size to the other fractions and have expanded their geographical distribution. They are getting involved in a broad range of activities. Reports were presented on recent teams to the western coal fields and the prospects for getting jobs in the mines.
Maggie Trowe, Betsey Stone, Gale Shangold, and Danny Booher contributed to this article.