Members of the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists at the meeting belong to the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) or are collaborating with co-workers to take steps toward a union in plants and factories where there is not yet one recognized by the bosses. Many at the meeting hold jobs as sewing machine operators in garment shops from Miami to Seattle and from New York to Los Angeles. Others are machine operators in textile mills in Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.

The downtown Los Angeles El Centro area where the meeting was held is one of a number of major garment manufacturing centers in this country. Tens of thousands of skilled sewers and other workers are employed in hundreds of garment shops here, generating profits for the garment bosses and the big clothing companies that contract work out to those operations. A majority of the workers are foreign-born and bring to the U.S. working class their political and class-struggle experiences in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere.  
 
Impact of world political events
One feature of the meeting was how the struggles of garment workers for better wages and conditions on the job is intertwined with political discussions and debate among garment workers on developments in world politics, flowing from immigration and the penetration of the tentacles of U.S. imperialism throughout the world. From the failed U.S.-backed military coup in Venezuela to the Palestinian struggle, participants in the meeting explained the opportunities to talk socialism on the job; introduce co-workers to the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and revolutionary books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder; and bring co-workers to Militant Labor Forums, political events, and strikes and actions by other unionists.

The decades-long offensive by the bosses against garment workers has taken a heavy toll in Los Angeles, where only a handful of garment shops are unionized. The continued weakening of unions in the United States as a result of the class-collaborationist policies of the union officialdom means many workers in the industry earn low wages and receive few benefits. Many workers make ends meet by putting in well over 40 hours a week on the job.

In the morning prior to the meeting, three teams of socialist workers fanned out in El Centro and set up socialist literature tables in order to meet and discuss politics with dozens of garment workers and others at bus stops and street corners in the area. The garment bosses regularly schedule a half day of work on Saturday.

Ned Measel, a textile worker from Atlanta, said dozens of garment workers stopped at the table on their way to work. Two workers bought copies of Perspectiva Mundial and another spent 30 minutes looking through Cuba and the Coming American Revolution by Jack Barnes. Socialists on the early morning teams sold a subscription each to the Militant and PM, 15 single copies of the two periodicals, and two titles published by Pathfinder Press.  
 
Lessons of meat packers’ struggle
A political centerpiece of the fraction meeting was a report given by SWP leader Joel Britton, one of 200 meatpacking workers in Chicago who were illegally fired from their jobs by bosses at the American Meatpacking Corporation (AMPAC) last November.

Since then, the Black, Latino, Polish, and other workers have joined together and reached out for support from working people in Chicago, demanding the company pay back wages and severance benefits, along with extended medical coverage. They have held support meetings as well as a picket line at the plant gate, and are pursuing a legal challenge to the company’s actions.

Britton explained how communist workers at the plant, together with other fighting workers, are part of a broader social movement that is resisting the assaults by the employers and their government. By relying on themselves and seeking support from other workers and working-class organizations, the fired workers have raised the political price the bosses have to pay for denying them rights and benefits. Some of these fighting workers who don’t yet think of themselves as communists are attracted to the working-class explanations provided by members of the SWP and Young Socialists. (A full report on Britton’s presentation is available in last week’s Militant, "Meat packers’ battles are becoming part of a social movement.")

Involvement in the AMPAC workers’ fight has helped the SWP branch in Chicago take steps to proletarianize its functioning and strengthen its revolutionary centralism, in turn contributing to the effectiveness of branch members involved in the fight.

Britton noted that the experience in Chicago is one that communist workers in the garment industry and UNITE can look forward to as their collective political work and experiences take root among that section of the working class.  
 
Fight at Win Fashions
In the discussion Rollande Girard from San Francisco, who works in a pants factory as a label sewer, explained the fight by workers formerly employed at Win Fashions companies. The garment workers were cheated out of thousands of dollars in wages before the company closed its doors. In response, the workers have organized protests to demand back pay and to expose the company’s practices. She noted that historically the bosses have tried to isolate workers whose first language is Chinese from non-Chinese workers. Nevertheless, their fight is receiving some support from other garment workers.

Girard has also been part of discussions at her workplace about the fight by immigrant workers against the state of California’s requirement that people must have a valid Social Security number in order to apply for or renew a driver’s license. There have been a number of demonstrations in the San Francisco area as part of that fight, which is one that objectively opposes the government’s probes to establish a national ID card.

"The structure of the textile industry is changing," said James Harris, a textile worker from Atlanta. "The bosses have eliminated thousands of jobs in four or five states in the south. There has been a massive influx of immigrant labor that changed the character of the towns in the region as workers from Africa and Central America moved into the area. Now, because of the layoffs," he said, "more workers are returning to Mexico. We see an intersection of social questions being posed. It is to these co-workers that we can bring socialist literature." By working to reach these and other layers of textile workers, he said, "we can make our goals in the Militant and PM subscription campaign."  
 
Carrying out political work on the job
Romina Green, a leader of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Workers Party in New York, presented a report to the meeting on the progress in building a fraction of communist workers in that city’s garment districts. Fraction members have in their majority conquered enough sewing skills to make it harder for the bosses to shut them out of factories or not call them back from layoffs. Gaining these skills has marked the recent period in the development of the UNITE fraction, making it possible to now turn confidently to carrying out political work on the job and building the communist movement.

Green reported that all communists working in that city’s garment industry are now organized into a local UNITE fraction, regardless of the skill level of each individual. She pointed to how this will help advance the political work they carry out on the job and in the workers districts, including meeting the goals in the subscription campaign for the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial.

Green described the international collaboration going on between communist organizations along these same lines. She recently worked with members of the Communist League and Young Socialists in Sweden and the United Kingdom to gain sewing skills in order for socialist workers there to build fractions in the garment and textile industries. The UNITE fraction leadership also sent a textile worker to Montreal in January to meet some of the 3,000 workers on strike against companies in the men’s wear garment industry and to report on this important battle for the Militant.

Seth Galinsky, who works in a women’s wear plant in New York City setting waistbands, said a discussion with a co-worker from South America, who is reading a copy of the New International on "Washington’s Assault on Iraq: The Opening Guns of World War III," is one example of the openings to carry out communist work in the industry. Galinsky said one discussion he had with his co-worker was on the military coup against the government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela being prepared at that time with backing from the U.S. government.

Pointing to the political opportunities to deepen communist work within sections of the industrial working class, Lisa Potash, a sewing machine operator in Chicago, initiated a discussion on the importance of weekly sales of socialist literature at plant gates.

She said the regular sales by party and YS members in Chicago to workers at the AMPAC plant gate built up a layer of workers who read the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial over a number of years and reinforced the work of socialists at the plant.

Once the fight began against the company’s unannounced closing of the meatpacking plant, workers asked that "those people who sold the paper outside" be involved in the first meeting organized by the union members.

In order to establish weekly plant gate sales at a major garment shop in the city, the party branch decided they would organize the sale when the most workers were going into the plant instead of around the individual preferences of team members. They also discussed how to overcome some minor tactical and logistical problems at the plant gate that in the past had an impact on the time the sale was done.

Potash explained that the party units in each city can concretely back up the work of the UNITE fraction through this kind of weekly plant gate team. The teams can help fraction members meet workers in their workplaces.

Over the course of the weekend, socialist garment workers in each local discussed and adopted goals for the international subscription drive of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, and for copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution. In addition to sales on the job, fraction members said they plan to reach out to laundry workers on strike in New York and Highwood, north of Chicago, and other places where garment and textile workers are engaged in struggles, as well as to social protest actions.

A dinner and forum were held Saturday night at a hall in the neighborhood where the Pathfinder bookstore in Los Angeles is located. Some 70 people attended, including four young people who are working with the Young Socialists organization in Los Angeles.

Socialist Workers Party leader Norton Sandler presented a talk on world politics that took up the reactionary military coup that had just been carried out in Venezuela, the resistance of Palestinian people to Israel’s assault, the labor resistance in the United States, and the weakening of the Catholic Church resulting from the gains of the women’s movement. A lively discussion ensued. After the program discussions continued into the night at a social event held at the Pathfinder bookstore.

Mary Martin is a garment factory worker in Iowa.  
 
 
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