These workers are among those who have felt the brunt of the bosses’ drive to slash wages, extend work hours, and speed up production at the expense of safety. The socialists campaigned among miners pressing their battle for United Mine Workers union recognition at the Co-Op mine in Huntington, Utah, as well as other miners who are closely watching their example.

Selling the Militant at mine portals, they also spoke with coal truck haulers. Team member Betsy Farley reports that a number were pro-union and were glad meet other union backers, and bought the Militant.

Two team members, retired longshore workers from Los Angeles and Seattle, joined a June 29 picket line organized by the Co-Op miners at the mine entrance. The next day the socialist campaigners participated in a meeting in Salt Lake City organized by Jobs with Justice that featured a Co-Op miner and other workers involved in union-organizing struggles.

In northeast Arizona they met workers at the Black Mesa mine, who face the closing of the Peabody mine, and working people on the Navajo Nation fighting the deadly consequences of uranium mining. Twenty-four miners from the Black Mesa and Kayenta mines bought the Militant.

A health-care worker in Kayenta responded to the explanation in New International no. 13 about the need to back efforts to expand electrification in the semicolonial world. On the Navajo Nation itself, many working people lack electricity. She said she had fought for years to gain electrical access for her home without success. Her home is on Peabody property and the company has blocked the Navajo Nation from running a power line to her house.

Young socialists have participated in these regional teams and in the petitioning efforts to put Socialist Workers candidates on the ballot in several cities, as they prepare to go with a U.S. delegation to Caracas, Venezuela, for the August World Festival of Youth and Students, to join in discussions and debates on fighting imperialism around the world.

Commenting on his discussions with coal miners in Utah and Arizona, Young Socialist Joe Kapsner, 19, said, “The miners I met were very union-conscious.” He noted that some remembered the Militant from previous teams, and many wanted to read it to learn about the Co-Op miners’ fight.  
 
Meat packers in Minnesota
Another team campaigned at a number of packing plants in Minnesota where workers have engaged in organizing struggles. At some, workers have won representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). At others, workers are discussing how to advance their fight in spite of setbacks in union representation elections.

Workers at Long Prairie Packing in Long Prairie, Minnesota, told team members that 80 workers had staged a work stoppage in the plant cafeteria a few months earlier against brutal conditions they face. They said about two dozen workers continued the action despite company threats. UFCW Local 789 organizes workers at that plant and at Dakota Premium Foods in South St. Paul, where workers waged a successful unionization battle a few years ago.

In the last week of July a team will go to towns in Alabama and other southern states where auto companies have built plants with the aim of keeping them nonunion and busting the United Auto Workers. The conditions workers face there are sowing the seeds of resistance.  
 
Conference wind-up
Organizing the summer campaigning was a central focus of the public wind-up of the national conference the evening of June 10. Plans for the U.S. teams got a boost from the talk by Angelica Worth, who described recent trips by Communist League members in New Zealand to report on a struggle by coal miners there and introduce them to the Militant and other socialist literature.

The meeting was chaired by Arrin Hawkins and Norton Sandler. Sandler introduced the party's National Committee chosen by delegates to the convention, which had adjourned that afternoon. Regular members of the National Committee include Jack Barnes, Joel Britton, Róger Calero, Steve Clark, Bill Estrada, James Harris, Alyson Kennedy, Martín Koppel, Argiris Malapanis, Sam Manuel, Doug Nelson, Olympia Newton, Paul Pederson, Jacob Perasso, Norton Sandler, Brian Taylor, and Mary-Alice Waters. Alternate members of the NC include Dennis Richter, Paul Mailhot, Maggie Trowe, Ved Dookhun, Betsy Farley, Arrin Hawkins, Angel Lariscy, Romina Green, and Karl Butts.

Other speakers included Martín Koppel, the SWP candidate for mayor of New York; Karl Butts, a farmer in the Tampa, Florida, area who is moving to Birmingham; Jim Altenberg from San Francisco, a member of the Printing Project Steering Committee; and Paul Mailhot from Salt Lake City, who described the broadening support for the Militant Fighting Fund (see page 6) and explained its goal of raising $60,000 by August 15.
 
 
Related articles:
N.Y. campaigners hit streets to put socialist slate on ballot
As we go to press: Victory in Seattle!  
 
 
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