BY NAOMI CRAINE
CHICAGO - "We're beginning to make progress in the campaign
to get Capitalism's World Disorder into the hands of working-
class fighters," said Frank Forrestal in a report to the
Socialist Workers Party National Committee, which met here May
30-June 1. Forrestal is a member of the SWP's Trade Union
Committee.
The National Committee decided to extend the sales effort by two weeks - until June 27 - to build on the positive experience of the last two weeks and meet the goals.
"In the last week, socialist workers have sold nearly 50 copies of the book through our work in the industrial trade unions," Forrestal noted. This is the largest one-week increase since the campaign was launched in mid-March. It registers the fact that the steering committees leading the work of socialists in several unions have shifted gears and have now begun to give detailed attention to leading the campaign.
"This leaves a substantial job ahead of us," Forrestal noted, referring to the double goal of selling 500 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium through work in the unions - both among co-workers and at labor and other political actions - and 1,500 copies overall. It means we must sell 69 books a week in the unions and 205 a week total for the next four weeks.
"The party and the Young Socialists have registered our biggest successes, and proven these goals can be met, when we have organized to reach out and participate in the ongoing labor resistance," Forrestal continued. "It seems another opportunity presents itself every day - from the possible strike by car haulers nationwide, [which was called off after all-night negotiations], to the hotly contested union representation election among strawberry workers in California, to the brewing contract vote by members of the Steelworkers union at Century Aluminum in Ravenswood, West Virginia."
The biggest jump in the chart this week is in sales by socialists in the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), who sold 17 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder; they had sold 24 copies in the previous two months. Joshua Carroll, who organizes the steering committee of socialist workers in that union, reported to the National Committee that USWA members were joining that weekend with locked-out Kaiser Aluminum workers in Gramercy, Louisiana; striking Titan Tire workers in Natchez, Mississippi; striking Continental General Tire workers in Charlotte, North Carolina; and unionists on strike at a potato chip plant in Pennsylvania.
Floyd Fowler, a USWA member in Atlanta, sent a note describing the response he received by calling Militant subscribers among the Continental General strikers, and then driving up to visit them. Of the 13 subscribers he spoke to, "11 said they were interested in renewing."
One of the tire workers he spoke to had been a striker against Eastern Airlines during the 1989-91 union battle there. He said, "I have to have that book," when told about Pathfinder's book The Eastern Airlines Strike: Accomplishments of the Rank-and-File Machinists. "Another guy said, `I read the paper cover-to-cover, and then I take it to the union hall.' "
Another worker in Charlotte who has been part of a Teamster organizing drive bought a copy of Capitalism's World Disorder and of New International, "and then volunteered another $10 `for the young people,' " Fowler wrote. "I had mentioned that the YS would be raising money to send members to the Active Workers Conference" in Ohio this summer.
Over the next two weeks, leaders of the party's trade union committees will be heading teams to meet workers in the coalfields and elsewhere. The most recent coal team to West Virginia and Ohio sold six copies of Capitalism's World Disorder, three Militant subscriptions, and more than 150 copies of the Militant. Joe Swanson is leading another week- long coal team in Wyoming that begins June 5. Another team in the works will go to Spokane, Washington, the heart of the Kaiser Aluminum union fight.
The success of this campaign is intertwined with the drive to win new readers to the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and New International. This campaign, which is at the halfway point and ends June 27, is lagging. Over the next four weeks, supporters of the socialist press need to sell 769 introductory Militant subscriptions, 238 to Perspectiva Mundial subs, and 456 copies of New International.
AUCKLAND, New Zealand - Pathfinder sales representatives in New Zealand are finding an interested response to Capitalism's World Disorder from commercial bookstores and libraries.
To date, four bookshops and one public library have ordered copies. This includes an order for six copies from Auckland's largest central city bookstore, together with 29 copies of 10 other titles. Two other shops have also ordered additional Pathfinder titles along with Capitalism's World Disorder.
Several of the 29 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder sold by Pathfinder supporters in New Zealand have been to young people becoming interested in working-class politics. A student from Auckland University pushed a note under the door of the Pathfinder bookstore here saying he was interested in finding out about Marxism and trade unions. A few days later he came into the shop and, after a long political discussion, bought Capitalism's World Disorder and joined the Pathfinder Readers Club.
A worker at a large Auckland factory organized by the Engineers Union, who has been reading the copy he bought from a socialist co-worker there, commented that he appreciated the book's explanation of how capitalism works, as well as the section on education in capitalist society.
A May 23-30 meatpacking team visited towns and packinghouse gates in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota where we met some important fighters and got more hands-on experience with the changes going on in the class struggle. Sixteen members of the socialist movement participated in the team throughout the week, four in the YS.
Workers we met bought 95 copies of the Militant and 48 copies of Perspectiva Mundial. Twenty-four people subscribed to Perspectiva Mundial, and two purchased copies of Capitalism's World Disorder. There is some opposition to the U.S.-NATO war in Yugoslavia, and workers have big questions about it.
There is a lot of interest in reading about union struggles. Many workers are angry about the campaign against immigrant workers being carried out by the immigration cops through Operation Vanguard in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. This includes a number of U.S.-born workers, as we learned not just from the number of Militants we sold, but from the thumbs-up signs we got for our bilingual signs that said "Equal rights for all immigrants."
In South Sioux City we met Silvia and Martín Ledesma. They are fighting for justice for her brother and his brother, who have been in prison since 1995 serving life sentences on frame- up charges of kidnapping and rape. The Ledesmas are fighters for the rights of Mexican workers, and they are union militants as well. Both are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers.
We also learned more about the farm crisis on the trip. We ran into a corn farmer going door-to-door in Fremont, Nebraska. He said, "I pay $2.60 a bushel to grow it, and I only get $1.63 a bushel when I sell it. You can't make any money." He told us he thought prices will not go back up anytime soon.
In Omaha we sold at the gate of Offutt Air Force Base, with a sign that said "U.S./NATO Troops Out of Yugoslavia!" One airman bought a paper, saying he hoped he wouldn't have to go to the Balkans. Several waved or gave us the high sign; only a few yelled hostile comments.