MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Rachele Fruit and Socialist Workers Party campaign supporters spent three days here May 20-22 campaigning and petitioning to put the party on the ballot in Tennessee. They collected 104 signatures toward the 375 required, won five endorsers to the campaign and met with fighting unionists from recent strikes in the area.
Fruit spoke with Jackie Buggs and Nikki Jackson, members of United Auto Workers Local 2406 at the General Motors ACDelco Parts Distribution Center here May 20. They went on strike last October as part of the national auto strikes. At the same time, she met with Andrew Peña and Kayla Chunn. Peña is a member of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 390G, which just ended a hard-fought 10-month strike at International Flavors and Fragrances here. Chunn is Peña’s fiancee and a union supporter.
Buggs and Jackson were regulars on the BCTGM picket line at IFF. “Whenever I see a picket line I have to stop to show support,” said Buggs. “We can only win if we come out for each other.”
Fruit told them about her participation in a trip to the Dominican Republic to attend a conference of the Sugarcane Workers Union. Most of its members are Haitian. “Some of these workers have been cutting cane for 60 years. They are fighting for pensions so they can retire. And the company owns their housing so they wouldn’t have anywhere to live if they stopped working,” Fruit said.
The Dominican unionists had been inspired to hear about the strike at International Flavors and Fragrances and made a banner and sent a letter of support to them. Local 390G members responded by sending a return letter of solidarity to the Dominican workers signed by over 100 workers.
Buggs looked at a photo Fruit showed her of the sugarcane workers with their banner in solidarity with the IFF unionists. “That picture is great,” she said, “It really shows what solidarity means.”
Peña, Buggs and Jackson became endorsers of the Socialist Workers Party campaign and Buggs agreed to serve as a presidential elector.
Fruit also met with Cedric Wilson, president of Local 390G, and with Sweetrica Baker and Kevin Bradshaw from the Memphis Central Labor Council. Their discussions centered on the need for a labor party that can fight in the interests of the entire working class and why the fight against Jew-hatred must be taken up by the labor movement. Wilson endorsed Fruit’s campaign.
Fruit’s supporters met up with BCTGM Local 390G member Effie Graham at her home after she had worked a long shift at International Flavors and Fragrances. Graham, a 32-year employee and stalwart on the picket line during the strike, has been called back to work. She and others will continue the fight for a better contract and working conditions, while working side by side with workers hired during the strike.
“I wasn’t so eager to work there again after all we went through. But new people that the company hired don’t know yet how to work together,” she said. “We have been trying to help them see what the company promises on one hand they take away with the other.” Graham endorsed the SWP campaign.
Memphis is marked by a rich history of intertwined labor battles and the fight to overthrow Jim Crow segregation. Fruit and her supporters visited the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and today is the National Civil Rights Museum. They also toured the I Am a Man Plaza, which is a memorial to the hundreds of sanitation workers who struck for dignity in 1968.
They enjoyed lunch at Ms. Girlee’s Soul Food Restaurant, run by the family of Baxter Leach, one of the striking sanitation workers. Fruit was welcomed by patrons, some of whom signed petitions for the socialist candidate.