BY DOUG JENNESS AND ANDY AARONSON
PITTSBURGH - Forty socialist workers, active members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), met here May 3-4 to assess their recent activities and to adopt tasks for the coming months. The meeting registered substantial progress in getting socialist literature into the hands of steelworkers and discussing the central political questions of the day with them.

The socialists sold 47 pamphlets and books distributed by Pathfinder to their co-workers in the USWA in April, an increase over the monthly average of 13 in the previous three months. The participants voted to raise their national monthly sales goal from 46 to 65 books and pamphlets.

"Selling this literature," Sheila Ostrow, member of Local 1843 at the LTV mill in Pittsburgh, stated in the opening report of the meeting, "lays the groundwork for helping to prepare for what capitalism has in store for us as its crisis deepens."

One of the central issues participants agreed needs to be discussed among workers is Washington's drive to enlarge NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary as part of its preparations to use military force to try to restore capitalism in Russia.

In a presentation to the Militant Labor Forum during the weekend, Estelle DeBates, a garment worker from Morgantown, West Virginia, explained, "Increased trade and investment with Russia and Eastern Europe hasn't and can't restore capitalism to these countries. It's going to require military force."

Gaetan Whiston, a member of USWA Local 9198 in Minnesota, summing up the tasks ahead, urged the socialist activists to reproduce recent Militant articles on the imperialist war drive against Russia, fasten them together pamphlet-fashion, and distribute them among co-workers.

Ostrow pointed to the seven-month steelworkers strike against Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. as an important battle that unionists throughout the country should support. The workers are striking eight plants in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Ostrow noted that "this is the longest strike ever in basic steel, yet none of the 4,500 union employees has crossed the lines."

The central issue is restoring the pension plan the workers had before the company declared bankruptcy in 1985. This plan, which is the same type that exists at the other integrated steel mills in the United States, would guarantee a defined monthly retiree payment rather than the company's proposal that it fall or rise according to company profitability.

Several participants in the meeting from Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, and Birmingham described efforts to organize solidarity with the striking workers in plants in their areas, including plant-gate collections.

Ostrow stated that several strikers she talked to said the Militant was the best source of information about the strike. "Helping to get the paper out to co-workers," she explained, "is one of the best ways we have of informing people about the strike."

The day following the meeting, several of the activists visited the picket lines in Steubenville and Yorkville, Ohio. Edmundo Saballos, who works at a small USWA-organized plant in Miami, found that the strikers were surprised to learn that there was a USWA local in Miami. "They had trouble grasping that I make only $5 an hour," Saballos said, "and still am in a union. When they heard that I was an immigrant they wanted to learn more about this."

He took photos of the picket lines and picked up fliers and stickers in the strikers' headquarters to show co-workers in Miami. The strikers welcomed the visiting USWA members and the women's committee invited them to stay for lunch that was being prepared in the big union hall near Steubenville.

During the weekend meeting socialists also reported on visits to the picket lines at Goodyear, where USWA-organized rubber workers had been on strike.

Whiston also proposed that the socialist unionists get out the word about the 14th World Festival and Conference of Youth and Students in Cuba in July and August. He said "it's very possible that we can get some young coworkers interested in participating in this gathering." The festival, he said, will provide an opportunity for young people to get together and discuss all the big political questions of the day.

He also indicated the importance of weekly sales of the Militant at entrances to the factories and mills where we work. "This," he said, "can help stimulate interest in our literature and open the road to more political discussions in the plant."

Betsey Farley, a member of USWA Local 12014 in Birmingham, Alabama, reported that since the last national meeting of the socialist steelworkers in September, the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists members of both organizations in the same industry will jointly organize their political work in the unions. "This underlines," Farley said, "the importance of making sure, where it's possible, to draw younger activists into helping lead on socialist activity in the unions."

This stimulated a lively discussion. One Young Socialists member from Minneapolis-St. Paul explained that he had become active in the search for an industrial job together with other socialists, and decided to join the SWP about the same time as his hiring date. BY MARGRETHE SIEM

SAN FRANCISCO - Socialist rail workers, members of the United Transportation Union (UTU), from around the country met here the first weekend in May to discuss how to carry out socialist propaganda work on the job.

"Our main campaign is to provide co-workers with books that contain the history of the working class, and the class struggle throughout the world. We will also build the World Youth Festival and the International Workers Meeting that will be happening in Cuba this summer," said Sam Manuel, a UTU member from Washington, D.C., reviewing the campaigns of the socialist rail workers.

In April the UTU members sold 51 books and pamphlets on the job, about double their results from the previous month. The single most popular Pathfinder title was American Railroads - The Case for Nationalization by Dick Roberts. Other sales included books of speeches by Malcolm X, on labor history, the Cuban revolution, and the fight for women's liberation. Special "super sale" offers on selected Pathfinder titles will make it possible to have a May blitz as a way of reaching an increasing number of co-workers to discuss politics and to bring them into political activities, Manuel said.

The socialists also discussed the conditions workers on the railroad face on the job, as well as labor activities they had been part of recently. Andrea Morell, a conductor on the commuter rail road in Boston, pointed to how affirmative action is a central issue for the unions to fight for. She described how an official working in the building and bridges department had been physically harassed for advocating affirmative action. Amtrak, the owner of the railroad, said after an investigation, that "it doesn't seem to be a problem," and reiterated that it is an equal opportunity employer. However, among the 144 workers in that department only about a dozen are Black.

"Socialists working together at the same place can help lead discussions on the need for affirmative action and the fight for working people to unite," said Linda Marcus, also from Boston.

A number of the meeting participants had been part of a commemoration march in Washington, D.C., in April, organized by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE). It demanded a safer railroad, where engineers and other union members don't have to die due to the companies refusal to install adequate safety measures on the trains and on the rails.

Others reported on labor rallies they had participated in from the strawberry pickers march of 25,000 in Watsonville, California, to farm workers struggle to organize in Yakima, Washington.

A number of the participants at the meeting work for Conrail, and talked about the uncertain future for them and their co-workers. Manuel characterized the proposed acquisition of Conrail by CSX and Norfolk Southern as simply another way for the wealthy rail companies to squeeze more out of the workforce," he said.

Concessions by workers over the last two decades, such as cuts in crew sizes and greater safety risks, have paved the way for the big rail companies to continue the reorganization to maximize their profits today, he added.

Margrethe Siem is a member of the United Transportation Union in New York.  
 
 
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