BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
"Teamster members at Anheuser-Busch in Merrimack, New
Hampshire, told us they are under threat of a plant closing
if the bosses' contract demands are not met," reports Greg
McCartan, a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial
and Textile Employees.
"They're blackmailing us," one union member said as he drove into the plant. "They are saying, `take the contract or you will loose your jobs." Socialist workers from Boston spoke briefly with about 25 workers driving in and out of the plant during the shift change July 17 and 21.
"Workers here report that the company is using the pretext of high per-barrel costs at the Merrimack plant, and has said it will shut down the plant unless steep concessions are approved by the Teamsters union. Pressure from the company has resulted in many workers voting in favor of the contract," added McCartan.
"The vote was split about 50-50 here," said another union member. "Most of us don't like it, but there are the threats to our jobs from the company," he added. "We have to vote this down," a third-shift worker said, adding "Our union is at stake."
Twenty-four copies of the Militant were sold by socialist workers at the two shift changes.
"One thing we're finding out is that while the media is reporting that all the General Motors plants are shut down, some of the parts plants are still open, although with a reduced workforce," wrote Militant supporter Kevin Dwire from Cleveland.
"On July 16 we sent a sales team to the GM plant in Sandusky, Ohio, where they sold 18 copies of the Militant at the shift change." Several days later socialist workers sold 10 papers at the Ford Brookpark plant in Cleveland.
"Over the past six weeks, we've sold 88 copies of the Militant to auto workers," Dwire continued. "We plan to get a sales team to Warren, Ohio, to talk to workers at GM's Packard Electric plant who are organized by the International Union of Electronic Workers."
Supporters of the Militant in Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama, have also organized regional sales teams to reach out to auto workers and other unionists who are involved in contract fights and organizing drives.
"We teamed up with supporters from Atlanta and traveled to Spring Hill, Tennessee, where more than 5,000 members of the United Auto Workers authorized a strike against Saturn, a division of GM," said Meg Novak, a steelworker from Birmingham. Novak said many workers stopped by the literature table the team had set up to discuss the Militant's front-page coverage of the GM strike in Flint, Michigan, and the recent two-day general strike in Puerto Rico.
Forty-eight copies of the Militant, two copies of A Political Biography of Walter Reuther, and the Pathfinder pamphlet Che Guevara and the Fight for Socialism Today were sold there.
"After the Saturn workers meeting was over we drove to Nashville, Tennessee, to meet with a longtime Militant subscriber who renewed his sub and bought the Pathfinder book Socialism on Trial," she added. "He joined with us to visit the picket line of UAW members on strike against the Peterbilt truck plant."
Other Militant supporters from Birmingham and Houston traveled to New Orleans for a July 19 mass rally of 7,000 people who gathered to support a union organizing drive for hotel and restaurant workers and shipyard workers fighting for union recognition. "We sold 18 copies of the Militant to participants, including several to college students who were involved in the hotel and restaurant workers' organizing drive through the AFL-CIO's union summer," said Susan LaMont from Birmingham.