In Sunnyside, in eastern Washington, Harris and a group of campaigners joined the picket line at Valley Manufactured Housing (VMH). The 130 members of the Western Council of Industrial Workers, mostly Mexican-born, have been on strike since August 1999.

Harris was introduced to the pickets by a leader of the strike. They were buoyed by a recent victory in which they defeated a company-inspired attempt to decertify their union, convincing more than half the replacement workers to vote for the union. The company has appealed the election to the National Labor Relations Board.

Pablo, a lead worker with seven years' seniority, explained, "We just got tired of the abuse." He pointed out that the terrible conditions on the job have continued. To fill 200 jobs the company has hired 800 replacement workers since the strike began. Companies like VMH, he said, "think they can hide their abuses in small places like Sunnyside. They know they can get cheap labor in rural places."

Harris expressed his solidarity with their fight stating that "struggles like yours are playing a vanguard role in the union movement today." That evening, several strikers and family members gathered at a striker's trailer home for a barbecue and more discussion. When Harris announced that he had just received word that meat packers had won a union representation vote at Dakota Premium Foods in St. Paul, Minnesota, strikers applauded enthusiastically.

At the house meeting, translated into Spanish, Harris explained, "Immigrant workers are bringing lessons sorely needed by the American working class." Valentín, a Mexican-born striker, added, "And that's why they are not giving us amnesty."

Another striker wanted to know, "What can we do to win support? Who can represent us?" Harris replied, "The solution lies in the people here--you must represent yourselves, and we all must deepen and broaden our collaboration with other fighters to become a social movement."

At the end of the discussion, one of the strikers thanked Harris for coming. "The Socialist Workers Party has been the only party to support us," he stated.

The next day, Harris and two campaign supporters met with 10 steelworkers locked out by Kaiser Aluminum in nearby Tacoma. Nine of them were from Spokane, Washington, and one from Newark, Ohio. They have been in Tacoma for a number of months speaking before unions and other organizations about the union's 22-month-long struggle against Kaiser.

The discussion got really lively when Harris raised his campaign's perspective of what it would take for working people to get rid of cop brutality. The Steelworkers related several incidents of police force used against pickets. Harris encouraged them to go to the August 26 national march on Washington against police brutality.

After Harris explained he had gone to Cuba with U.S. farmers who are fighting for their right to farm and they learned that farmers in Cuba cannot have their land taken away, one Steelworker, a member of the Coeur d'Alene Nation, related his 20-year effort to defend his Native American community's right to part of a lake in Idaho.

At a campaign rally in Seattle, an announcement was made that Harris and his running mate Margaret Trowe had been officially certified to appear on the Washington ballot this year.

Scott Breen is the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate in Washington State. Cecelia Moriarity is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.