The slaughterhouse worker was reading with interest an article in the Spanish-language socialist monthly, Perspectiva Mundial, on the fight by Miami garment worker Michael Italie to get his job back after being fired for speaking out against the U.S. war on Afghanistan, in support of the Cuban Revolution, and in favor of unions.

Kunz's response was common among workers and students in Argentina who met socialist workers from the United States and Canada on a reporting trip there.

"What's been happening in the United States since the attack on the World Trade Center?" asked Julio Araneda, 36, a worker at the Zanón tile factory in this city. He and his co-workers had invited the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial reporters to visit the plant, which the nearly 400 workers have been occupying since early October to oppose the company's mass layoff plans. He was glad to find in Perspectiva Mundial an account of Washington's war on working people in the United States. The ceramics workers were particularly interested in how the U.S. government's so-called antiterrorist campaign is aimed at curtailing the rights of workers and farmers. Araneda ended up buying a copy of the Spanish-language edition of the Pathfinder book The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Unions, by Jack Barnes.

Alejandra Gorosita, 31, standing at the entrance to the EMFER railcar repair plant outside Buenos Aires, where workers are also occupying the facility to oppose mass lay offs, grabbed a copy of Perspectiva Mundial. She wanted to know, "Are there are fights by workers over there [in the United States and Canada] like there are in Argentina?"

José Bascur, who just graduated from high school and was starting classes at the University of Comahue in Neuquén, was excited to meet socialists from North America. The Pathfinder book Cuba and the Coming American Revolution caught his attention. He and his friend Natalia, both members of the youth group of the United Left, had come to show their support for the unemployed workers' protest. He said he was attracted to Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara but had heard that his revolutionary strategy was "more of a strategy based on military action than a political strategy." He got a copy of Che Guevara Talks to Young People to see if it addressed his question about the leadership of the Cuban revolution.
 
 
Related articles:
Workers in Argentina protest peso devaluation
Cancel Argentina's foreign debt!
Unemployed workers describe resistance to crisis in Argentina
Peronist party in Argentina has weaker political hold on working people today
 
 
 
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