Militant readers may be interested in the following exchange that appeared in the Houston Chronicle in August. I am one of the workers locked out by Crown Central Petroleum three years ago.
The head of Crown's corporate security, Edward M. Parker of Baltimore, recently flew down to Houston to meet with Houston Chronicle columnist L.M. "Wooty" Sixel. As a result of that meeting, the Chronicle gave Crown a sounding board to air their witch-hunt via Sixel's August 13 column, "Is it revolution or just paranoia?"
Sixel writes that Crown is concerned that Houston has become a mecca for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and that I am using Crown to foment revolution in neighboring Pasadena, Texas. Parker contends that I do not want the lockout to end because it is part of a larger struggle against capitalism. (He got the last part right.)
Crown spokesperson Bruce Hicks finds it perplexing that people like the catfish workers from Mississippi and Black farmers from Georgia have been showing up at Crown picket lines. Hicks concludes that these "strange" people are showing up at the picket lines due solely to the SWP.
Hicks says Crown has been pilloried by demonstrations and they've had enough. He says Crown feels the need to speak out.
This need to speak out apparently does not include the need to speak the truth. Instead of talking about the real issues, like the real reason for the lockout, or who is truly responsible for prolonging the lockout, Crown would rather obscure the facts with rhetoric. They contend that I am somehow responsible for the longevity of the lockout and that my membership in the SWP is the root of the problem. But it has been the Crown workers, as a whole, that have rejected Crown's union-busting concessions.
Regardless of my politics or my recent decision to join the Socialist Workers Party, I have only one vote. So then how do you explain the longevity of the lockout, or the fact that workers and farmers travel so far to join in the struggle. Could it be that we can think for ourselves? Could it be that we see our struggles as a common struggle against a common enemy? (Nah —that couldn't be it.)
The Baltimore Business Journal, in its August 23 issue, writes that the SWP has "infiltrated" the union at Crown. Quoting from Sixel's article, it repeats Crown's charges. Incidentally, the article is subtitled, "Workers of the world, unite!" (We're working on it.)
In both articles, it is noted that I, as well as other workers, have been attending meetings at the Pathfinder bookstore to talk about a range of issues from the lockout at Crown to the war in Kosovo. (Blasphemy!)
Crown had hoped their red-baiting would divide the workers and cause us to give up and go away. Crown had hoped that by "exposing" my socialist beliefs they could isolate me from the rest of the group.
This was a desperate act by a desperate company. Much like the civil lawsuit Crown has filed against the workers and their union. Crown has been taking depositions in their "sabotage" suit for more than a year, fishing for anything to use against us.
Is it coincidence that they launch this red-baiting scheme just before they schedule me for a deposition? Did their scheme work? Judging from the letters published in the Chronicle and conversations I've had with other locked-out workers, it did not.
Lockouts, lawsuits and frame-ups, and red-baiting campaigns—this is just a taste of what's to come. As the battles on the picket lines heat up, as the workers of the world unite, and as our unions grow stronger, so will the attacks against us. As you read this there are workers sitting in prison on trumped up charges because they would not give up the fight.
The following article appeared in the Aug. 13, 1999, issue of the Houston Chronicle. Copyright 1999 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
BY L.M. SIXEL
HOUSTON IS HOME to former President Bush and a lot of right-wing political thinkers. But is it also a mecca of the Socialist Workers Party?
That's a concern of officials at Crown Central Petroleum Corp. The Baltimore refiner claims a local union leader who has protested the lockout at Crown's Pasadena refinery is using Crown to foment revolution.
Other union members, they contend, meet at a socialist bookstore each week to talk about causes ranging from Crown to opposing the war in Kosovo.
Those kinds of left-wing political leanings can be found in Madison, Wis., or Berkeley, Calif., but Pasadena, Texas?
It was admittedly strange, said Crown spokesman Bruce Hicks, when company officials first learned that Dean Cook, a longtime Crown employee and one of the leaders of the lockout protest, is a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Hicks said other members of the union local also have attended party functions.
Cook couldn't be reached for comment, but union leaders say the union's protracted battle with Crown has nothing to do with worldwide socialism.
"That's nonsense," said a laughing Tom Gentry, president of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Local 4-227. "Heck, I haven't heard anyone preaching much revolution lately."
"I'm kind of tickled that some character from Crown with his foot on workers' necks is talking about a socialist revolution," Gentry said.
While the two sides continue to try to negotiate a new agreement, they also continue to wage a war of words.
Crown long has portrayed the workers as something other than a local out for higher pay. When the refiner locked out its 260 workers three years ago in the midst of labor negotiations, it said it did so after what it believed to be acts of sabotage by employees.
The union has countered by saying Crown is guilty of a long list of ills from racial discrimination to violating pollution laws.
Hicks said the strangest people have showed up at the rallies by workers. The protesters at rallies to keep the lockout alive as a public issue have included union leaders representing catfish workers and black farmers.
"We couldn't figure out why the catfish farmers were showing up," Hicks said, but then it began to make sense: The link is the Socialist Workers Party.
Edward M. Parker, manager of corporate security for Crown, who flew from his office in Baltimore to discuss suspicions of the left-wing political activity in Pasadena, believes Cook doesn't really want to end the struggle at Crown because he sees it as part of a larger struggle against capitalism.
But Joe Drexler, director of special projects for the international PACE union in Nashville, Tenn., and leader of the refinery workers campaign against Crown, said Cook is no longer on the union's payroll and has no official role in the campaign.
Drexler said he is aware Cook has penned articles for the Militant, the weekly newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, but said he doesn't care if Cook is or isn't a party member. After all, it's not illegal.
Drexler added that he isn't in contact with unions representing workers in catfish processing plants or black farmers.
Sarah White, a service representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1529 in Indianola, Miss., laughed when asked if members of the Socialist Workers Party have a presence in the union representing catfish workers.
"The who?" she asked.
It's unusual for a company to launch a public offensive, as Crown has done. Normally in a situation where both the company and the union have filed lawsuits against one another, the company avoids any comment.
But in this case, Hicks said Crown feels the need to speak out.
"We've been pilloried by lawsuits and we've been pilloried by demonstrations," he said. Initially, Crown ignored the union's campaign, but "we've had enough," Hicks said.
To the union, though, Crown's remarks suggest it's feeling the sting on the union's campaign.
Crown wouldn't be harking back to the witch hunts from the 1950s, Drexler said, if the company wasn't feeling some pressure.
Below are some of the letters published in the Houston Chronicle August 25 responding to the red-baiting attack on the union.
In response to the charges made by the representatives of Crown Central Petroleum as reported in L.M. Sixel's Aug. 13 column ("Is it revolution or just paranoia?"): The lockout of 252 workers at Crown's Pasadena refinery has been ongoing for over three years. Workers did not provoke this lockout and we don't have the power to end or extend it.
Because we would not concede to the outrageous concession demands made during contract negotiations, Crown decided to lock us out. Then, to turn up the heat, they accused the workers of sabotaging the refinery.
The very next day, the same company that locked us out invited us back to work - but only if we signed their proposed contract. We did not go back. We could not accept a contract that did away with our seniority, gave 40 percent of our jobs to contractors and gave Crown the right to contract out the remaining jobs whenever it pleased them. Crown is waging a war against the union.
Regarding the "strange people" showing up at our picket lines: We don't see it as strange when other workers travel hundreds of miles to join our struggle. In fact, we appreciate others participating in our picket lines as part of the growing resistance to management attacks on wages, benefits and our rights as human beings.
Finally, my affiliation with any particular political organization is not the real issue here. The issue is that Crown wanted to crush its workers and their union with this lockout, but their attempt failed. We would not just give up and go away.
Dean Cook
Deer Park
Regarding the charges made by representatives of Crown Central Petroleum in L.M. Sixel's Aug. 13 column, I do not see why Crown officials feel the need to point out the political leanings of one member of the locked-out union, unless it is part of an attempted smear campaign. So Dean Cook is a member of the Socialist Workers Party.… How many union members are Democrats? Republicans? Libertarians? How many voted for Ross Perot? This is a democracy and people are free to join any political party they choose.
Crown is afraid that bad public relations decisions and boycotts are having an effect on the only thing that Crown officials truly care about — their own wallets.
Patrick A. Pierce,
Deer Park
I am one of the locked-out workers at Crown Central Petroleum and I would like to respond to L.M. Sixel's Aug. 13 column. No one person's political persuasion caused the lockout and not a one of us who are locked out are standing in the way of its end.
We did not invent the fact that Crown disregards the health and safety of the community and the environment, nor that it routinely discriminates against women and minorities at its Pasadena refinery. On the other hand, Crown did invent the idea that workers sabotaged the refinery that afforded us and our families a decent livelihood.
You can call it capitalism if you want to, but it looks like greed and union-busting to me.
B.J. Case,
Bacliff
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