Perasso stated that there were two main lies under capitalism that workers need to understand. "The first lie is that there is real democracy under capitalist rule. Most workers know this isn't true. The second is less well understood, and that is the lie that all rights workers have are given to them, and that workers cannot make gains through struggle."

He explained that the rights workers have today were won in struggle against the capitalist class and must constantly be defended. As well, the employers pay workers as little as they can get away with, he said, which is the source of conflict and struggle, constantly propelling workers to seek to form unions or strengthen existing ones.

Perasso found real interest in the socialist campaign, conducting discussions with a number of students for more than two hours. Also joining Perasso was a longtime socialist worker and unionist from the United States, Tom Leonard.

One participant asked how the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists plan to mobilize workers to overthrow capitalism. "We can't take on the capitalist system with our small forces," he said. "Revolutions can only be made by the majority. Capitalism has begun to drive workers and farmers en masse to resist and fight the attacks on our rights. We aim to be part of the vanguard that will lead tens of millions of workers and farmers to take on the capitalist system, make a successful revolution, and begin to transform society for the good of humanity."

Perasso related the experience of visiting a picket line in Australia where he was asked by a reporter if there was anything like this strike in the United States today. He said he replied, "If you dropped me in here and told me this was the United States, I wouldn't argue. The accents might be different but the fights are the same. Some of the deepest political discussions are going on at picket lines today. Workers around the world are looking for ways to resist the cutbacks in their pay and conditions on the job, and are standing up for dignity and respect."

There was also discussion of recent events in New Zealand, including a so-called Afghan "terrorist" cell exposed in Auckland. Several members of the Afghani community in Auckland had been smeared through the media by the police for supposedly planning to blow up a nuclear facility in Sydney during the upcoming Olympic games. One of the Afghani immigrants is "guilty of owning a table and a map of Sydney, having military training that many workers around the world also have, and owning a computer," Perasso said. "They use claims of terrorist threats to attack the democratic rights of all."

A student who is Maori asked about how the fight for Maori rights could be linked to union struggles. Perasso extended solidarity to the struggle for Maori rights and told the meeting about the visit he and socialist vice-presidential candidate Margaret Trowe made to Waitara, where they met Maori fighting for justice after the cop shooting there of Steven Wallace.

Perasso raised that a central effort of workers fighting the bosses today must be to transform their unions into fighting instruments that address the needs and concerns of all the exploited and the oppressed, not just the narrow interests of those currently organized in the union. Through such struggles, he said, more workers see the connection between the antiunion assaults by the bosses and police brutality against working people, especially oppressed nationalities.

Supporters of the campaign set up a literature table with Pathfinder books on campus before the meeting and during the event, selling a subscription and four single copies of the Militant, as well as a copy of the pamphlet, The Long View of History by George Novack, and Pathfinder's latest title, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes.

Colin Heath is a member of the National Distribution Union and of the Young Socialists in Auckland, New Zealand.