BY CECILIA ORTEGA
This column is written and edited by the Young Socialists
(YS), an international organization of young workers,
students, and other youth fighting for socialism. For more
information about the YS write to: Young Socialists, 3284 23rd
St., San Francisco, California, 94110. Tel: (415) 824-1429.
E-mail: 105162.605@compuserve.com
OBERLIN, Ohio - Young Socialists members from Canada, Iceland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States helped to build and participate in the Active Workers Conference that took place here August 5-7. Dozens of the young revolutionaries traveled to the international gathering via car caravan, stopping off to pick up other active workers and distribute the Militant at the plant gates to packinghouse workers, coal miners, and steelworkers.
Classes on Capitalism's World Disorder were held along the way to conclude the curriculum studied during the summer schools held jointly by YS chapters and branches of the Socialist Workers Party. YS members transferred to several "summer school centers" in June to help build the communist movement in different areas, deepen their understanding of the history of the communist movement, and help advance the role that the Young Socialists are playing in increasing socialist workers' activity at industrial workplaces, primarily in garment production, meatpacking, and coal mining.
"The National Committee of the Young Socialists met last night and decided that the summer is not over," declared Samantha Kern, organizer of the Young Socialists National Executive Committee in the United States, at the closing rally of the Active Workers Conference. During a meeting of the Young Socialists held the next day, Kern explained, "What is in the best interest of the Young Socialists is to follow the momentum of the summer schools and caravans and to continue onward to the Red Week."
The Red Week is a political event that many YS members and others drove directly to following the conference, volunteering to paint and refurbish the building where Pathfinder books are published and printed.
The YS members discussed plans to organize regional socialist educational conferences during the Labor Day weekend, at least in the West Coast and Midwest regions. Some people suggested possibilities for conferences on the East Coast and in the South.
The Young Socialists in the United States will be launching a national fund drive at these weekend conferences, to better enable the YS to participate rapidly in working-class resistance and sustain the YS national office. A fund-raising raffle at the Active Workers Conference itself netted more than $1,500 to cover YS national expenses and get two Young Socialists from the U.S. to Cuba to report on and participate in an international conference.
Other reports and discussion at the Young Socialists meeting centered on the success of the summer schools and getting out to the growing working-class resistance across the country. Young Socialists from Alabama explained that they were able to organize regular teams to campuses and mine portals. One very important regional team they were a part of was to various textile plants in the South, including one in Kannapolis, North Carolina, where a victory was recently scored for workers fighting to organize a union for a number of years at Fieldcrest Cannon (now Pillowtex). Young Socialists commented on the usefulness of collaboration between chapters from different cities in their region. The Seattle chapter and the Young Socialists in Vancouver, for example, have joined up to visit the strike picket lines of meatpackers at IBP in Wallula, Washington, and locked-out Kaiser Aluminum workers in Tacoma and Spokane.
The Young Socialists also discussed the organization's participation in the upcoming International Youth and Students Seminar about Neoliberalism in Havana, Cuba. This was the conference that two Cuban youth leaders built while they toured the U.S. to speak with student organizations and workers. Young Socialists delegations from Canada, Sweden, and the United States will attend the conference along with other youth organizations. This conference will be an opportunity for youth from around the world to discuss world politics, the development of class battles around the globe, and the perspectives for struggle.
These projections will put the Young Socialists on the best footing to maximize our opportunities to recruit, join resistance of the working class, and continue to strengthen the proletarian character of our organization.