The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 77/No. 24      June 24, 2013

 
Workers make plans for
socialist conference
 
BY LOUIS MARTIN
“I’m going to the conference to meet people from all over the world, to see what they’re thinking and find out more about what’s happening. From what I can see, workers are facing the same problems everywhere,” Gordon Rainer, a retired pipefitter from Madison, Ala., said, explaining why he decided to attend an active workers conference in Oberlin, Ohio, July 19-20. The event is sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party.

In 2011 and 2012, Rainer, a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, joined several demonstrations against Alabama state law HB 56, which further criminalized undocumented immigrant workers. That’s where he met Militant distributors from Atlanta and got a subscription.

More recently, Rainer joined two rallies by coal miners, in St. Louis and Henderson, Ky., protesting Patriot Coal’s union-busting assault on the United Mine Workers of America, their collective bargaining agreements and health care and pension benefits for retirees and their families. At the actions and door to door, he joined other supporters of the Militant introducing miners and their supporters to the socialist newsweekly.

The two-day conference will draw together members of the SWP and Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom; supporters of the communist movement from around the world who help produce revolutionary literature from Pathfinder Press; and other workers who have been reading and helping to circulate the Militant. Many will bring past and recent experiences and lessons from labor battles, fights against police brutality and other social struggles they have been part of.

Presentations by leaders of the Socialist Workers Party, classes and discussions will address how workers and their allies can build a revolutionary movement of millions that can take power out of the hands of the capitalist rulers, establish their own government and use it to start building a new society based on solidarity, transforming themselves in the process.

Conference organizers urge participants who will be traveling by car or plane to arrive in Oberlin Thursday evening, July 18, in order to be ready and rested for the opening political presentation the next morning.

To find out more about the conference, call Militant distributors in your area (see page 8), or contact us at (212) 244-4899 or themilitant@mac.com.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home