BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
"We are involved in political activities that will give us
a shot at getting back on schedule," said Willie Reid, an auto
worker in Detroit, referring to the Militant subscription
drive. "We are building a special Militant Labor Forum on
Puerto Rican political prisoners held in U.S. jails," she
added.
Speakers at the forum include Noemí Cortés, a political activist and daughter of Puerto Rican political prisoner Edwin Cortés; Jorge Jiménez, a leader of the Puerto Rican Solidarity Organization at the University of Michigan; and Rosa Garmendía, Socialist Workers candidate for governor of Michigan.
"We ran into Jiménez and Cortés on the campus while selling the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial," she said. "We are building the forum on campuses in the area while getting out the Militant."
"We are also sending a team of supporters to a mass informational picket line October 17 by workers at the Meijer superstore in Toledo, Ohio, who are fighting for better wages and benefits. She said they have met several fighters through getting out the Militant.
Lea Sherman in Houston said activists there are traveling to the picket lines of striking members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) at Titan Tire in Mississippi and Kaiser Aluminum in Louisiana. They will also set up a sales table at a campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and stop in New Orleans.
Activities like these are essential to broaden the reach of the subscription campaign, which is substantially behind schedule. Militant supporters need to sell an average of 202 Militant subscriptions each week in the second half of the drive to make the international goal. Socialist workers and members of the Young Socialists can boost the international campaign by planning actions like the coal team to West Virginia and the team to North Carolina that visited strikers at General Tire and a gigantic meatpacking plant where a UFCW organizing drive has taken place. (See below.)
Supporters in Des Moines are heading out to southwest Kansas October 17 to kick off a team that will reach packinghouse workers in that region. A YS member from Minneapolis, a student from Grinnell College in Iowa, and a meatpacker from Des Moines are already planning to make the trip. Maggie Trowe, another packinghouse worker and the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, will take a week off to campaign there, visiting USWA strikers at Titan Tire, other packing plants, and going door-to-door in working- class communities. Anyone interested in joining these teams can call (515) 277-2121 or contact Militant supporters nearest you listed on page 12 for information on other regional teams.
RALEIGH, North Carolina - Militant supporters based out of Washington, D.C., and Atlanta received an excellent response from textile workers, meatpackers, farmworkers, and striking steelworkers during a five-day visit to North Carolina October 7-12.
We had serious discussions with textile workers employed by Fieldcrest-Cannon in Kannapolis, North Carolina, where workers have made several attempts to organize into the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and its predecessors . Some 5,000 workers are employed at the Fieldcrest-Cannon plants here. The team sold 15 Militants, two copies of Perspectiva Mundial (PM), a PM sub, and New International no. 11 to textile workers here, several of them veterans of earlier union organizing battles in the mills.
We also went to a picket line organized by members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) on strike against Continental General Tire, Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina. Some 1,500 union members walked out on September 20. One of the main issues is a demand for a wage increase. According to workers on the picket line, they have had no raise in nine years and ended up accepting a concession contract after a 68- day strike in 1989. Strikers who were familiar with the USWA strike against Titan Tire in Des Moines, Iowa and Natchez, Mississippi, and eager to get more information bought six copies of the Militant.
Another team of Militant supporters visited the huge hog slaughter facility run by Smithfield Packing Co., in Tarheel, North Carolina. This is one of the largest and most modern slaughterhouses in the world. About 5,000 workers are employed here, many of them in their 20s. Sixty-five percent are African-Americans and nearly 30 percent are from Mexico. The plant is nonunion but workers have made two tries to win representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW). The first lost by 100 votes. The second in August 1997 lost by 600 out of some 3,000 who voted. There were, however, many irregularities in the vote that the UFCW is challenging in court. The meatpackers at this plant were interested in the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial as socialist and prounion publications. During the afternoon we sold 11 copies of the Militant and 10 copies of Perspectiva Mundial to workers at the plant gate. Many voiced their support for having a union organized at this huge plant.
At a meeting organized on October 10 in Durham, North Carolina, by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) of 100 people, participants there purchased three Militant subscriptions; six PM subscriptions; a copy of New International no. 8 on the theme "Che Guevara, Cuba, and the Road to Socialism"; six copies of PM; and seven copies of the Militant. This one-day conference was called by FLOC to discuss the campaign to force the Mount Olive Pickle Co. to sign a union contract with the farmworkers who pick cucumbers in the fields in North Carolina.
Plans were drafted for launching a boycott of Mt. Olive products in March of 1999. Some 25 farmworkers participated in this event together with student activists, representatives from several churches in the area, and the State Federation of Labor. Participants at the meeting were interested in the Militant's and PM's coverage on Cuba and the fight for Puerto Rican independence.