BY RYAN KELLY AND GALE SHANGOLD
OAKLAND, California - "Our responsibility today is to act
quickly and decisively in response to the changes going on in
U.S. politics. What we do counts," said Greg McCartan in the
opening report at the February 20-21 Socialist Workers Party
California state convention. The convention was attended by 79
participants. At the end of the two days,
delegates - consisting of party members in California - voted
to recommend to the SWP National Committee forming a
California State organization.
In his report on "Working-class politics in the post- impeachment United States," McCartan, a member of the party's National Committee and organizer of the SWP's national fraction steering committee in the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), emphasized that party members must act in solidarity when strikes and struggles by working farmers take place. "Solidarity organized by the ranks of the unions can favorably impact the outcome of a struggle," McCartan emphasized. "The opposite is also true: If we do nothing to work with other unionists in our areas to aid a struggle, it has a damaging impact."
This theme was struck numerous times in the course of the two-day meeting, which was also attended by delegations of socialist workers and youth from Seattle and Canada, including 13 members of the Young Socialists.
Dissolution of PACE union fraction
Participating in the convention as guests were members of
the SWP's industrial union fraction in the Paper, Allied-
Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union
(PACE), formed in January through a merger of the Paperworkers
and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. The party
members who are in PACE voted the night before the state
convention to recommend to the party's National Committee that
the fraction be dissolved, except for its unit in Houston.
SWP National Committee member Joel Britton focused on this in his report, "Acting as Part of the Communist Vanguard in Formation." Britton noted this decision to dissolve the fraction was initiated by the party's Political Committee for discussion with PACE members after a balance sheet was drawn on the fraction's failure to build the February 5 "Solidarity for Justice Rally" in Pasadena, Texas, organized by Local 4- 227. This event was held on the third anniversary of the workers at Crown Central Petroleum being locked out by that company, because they refused to accept a deep concession contract. Britton noted the February 5 rally was a "splendid event" that attracted unionists and farmers involved in struggles from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, and other states. Fighting workers need to be "blood and bone" with advanced struggles like the one being waged by the brothers and sisters at Crown, said Britton.
The record, he said, shows that only a single SWP PACE fraction member attended the rally from outside of Houston. Party members in the union did not orient unionists from their areas to support this struggle, bring young workers and students to the event, or work to get messages of support for the struggling Crown workers.
This move aimed to strengthen the competent, political functioning in all of the unions where socialist workers concentrate their forces, Britton said. "We have to function on the same high level as those involved in these fights."
During the course of the weekend, statewide meetings were held of socialist workers in California in UNITE, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), International Association of Machinists (IAM), and United Transportation Union (UTU).
The proposal to dissolve the PACE fraction sparked debate in the state convention. One delegate argued against it, stating that the oil industry played a major role in the U.S. economy and that the PACE fraction should be reinforced and rebuilt now. PACE members who were delegates and other unionists took the floor to counter this view. Delegates voted overwhelmingly to concur with the fraction's decision to recommend its dissolution to the political committee. The members of the PACE fraction met following the convention and voted to set a deadline of March 31, the eve of the SWP national party convention, for every fraction member to be out of their jobs in PACE-organized workplaces.
Some examples came out in the course of the discussion that demonstrate the possibilities that exist for work among trade unionists. Laura Anderson, a ramp service worker at United Airlines in Los Angeles, said many pickets have taken place at the airport by contract workers trying to get decent wages and working conditions.
Ove Aspoy, a steelworker at the Posco mill in Pittsburg, California, described a struggle by a layer of workers who are refusing to let the company sweep under the rug facts about the death of a probationary worker several months earlier in the roll shop. The efforts of these unionists, Aspoy said, along with the steelworker's family, have resulted in a recent televised segment on the death and the dangerous roll shop conditions.
A negative example that received considerable discussion was the failure of SWP trade unionists in northern California to join ranks with the Steelworkers from Spokane and Tacoma, Washington, locked out by Kaiser Aluminum, who have been picketing Kaiser's Bay Area corporate offices.
"The new state committee should facilitate our work in taking advantage of the political developments among workers and farmers in the state," said Norton Sandler, organizer of the San Francisco SWP. Sandler noted that very limited progress had been made to date, with members in the state working in only a couple of packing and garment shops. Finding UFCW and UNITE jobs where there are party branches should be taken on as a top priority by the new state committee, Sandler stated.
Sandler proposed the state committee have overall responsibility for the party's work among exploited farmers and farm workers, and work in defense of the Cuban revolution
In the days preceding the convention, a team of party and YS members from Los Angeles and San Francisco spent three days in the Fresno area. One stop was in Orange Cove, a town dominated by the Sunkist Co.'s orchards and packaging and shipping operation. A big freeze devastated the citrus crop earlier this winter. Sandler noted that those hit hardest are small farmers and farm workers in "Sunkist Country."
Team member Francisco Picado said 400 farm workers had turned out in Orange Cove, on February 19 when the team was there, expecting to hear U.S.-government proposals for dispensing food and other desperately needed aid to the thousands of workers hit hard by the freeze. The government official did not show up, Picado stated.
The team also sold 35 copies of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial to meat packers at the UFCW-organized Harris Beef plant, and another dozen to UFCW members at a sizable poultry plant. The team met with students at Fresno State University interested in building a tour stop for two young Cubans, Itamys Caridad García Villar and Luis Ernesto Mo'rejon Rodríguez, who have applied for visas to travel to the United States this spring in a tour organized by the Los Angeles-based Committee on Cuban Youth and Education. The California SWP and Young Socialists put working with others in the Fresno area to arrange a tour stop for the young Cubans as one of their central efforts in the coming weeks.
The California Young Socialists hosted a meeting during the state convention. Samantha Kern, a UFCW member in a meat- processing plant and YS California State organizer, reported on the work the YS had carried out in California since its national convention in December and put forward what could be done now to advance in California. The participants added several proposals to be carried out heading into the SWP's convention in April.
Manual González, a YS member in Santa Cruz, spoke in the convention discussion on the decisions of the state YS meeting. "The YS was adamant that there be a YS member on every trip to the coal mines and on all regional teams; Fresno and elsewhere," González said. The California State YS also passed motions on writing for the YS column in the Militant, participating in the upcoming state MEChA Chicano student conference, organizing report backs from international teams that YS members have participated in to Ireland and Palestine, producing T-shirts and organizing events to raise money for the YS nationally, and to propose to the YS National Executive Committee to open a Web page for the organization.
Before ending the SWP State convention, delegates decided on proposed state by-laws and elected a six-person state committee of Samuel Farley, Cecilia Ortega, Francisco Picado, Verónica Poses, Norton Sandler, and Gale Shangold.