The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.2           January 18, 1999 
 
 
Pathfinder Printshop Tour Highlights Advances, Need To Complete Capital Fund  

BY NAOMI CRAINE
NEW YORK - Participants in the January 1-3 meeting of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee here got a first- hand look at the revolution under way in the Pathfinder Press printshop. The Saturday evening session of the meeting was a tour organized by the shop staff.

Workers in the shop demonstrated how the printshop is using computer-to-plate technology to cut labor time, in the process transforming their methods of working together to produce the books and pamphlets vital to the political work of the communist movement and other vanguard workers and farmers. The next day the National Committee members, trade unionists, SWP branch organizers, and Young Socialists leaders attending the meeting discussed the next steps in leading this transformation.

At the top of the priorities is raising the funds necessary to finish paying for the newly installed Agfa Galileo computer- to-plate system and other printshop needs. Nearly $600,000 has been raised since July as part of this capital fund; another $240,000 is needed over the next two months.

The most striking aspect of the tour was not the machinery, but the increasing confidence of the socialist cadre who work in the shop. These workers are taking more control and responsibility for efficient production and higher quality - from the bindery where the books are finished; to the press operators who are expanding cross-training to be able to run all three presses and produce the plates for them; to the commercial sales effort that financially sustains the shop, which an expanding cross-section of the staff is taking responsibility for (see accompanying photos).

A little more than a month after the Galileo was delivered, and just a few days after Agfa technicians had it fully installed, shop staff members have been able to get the platesetter up and running and make some big steps forward in productivity. In the first three days of full production on the machine - which takes books and other printing projects on computer files and produces press-ready plates within minutes - printshop workers were producing 90 percent of their plates on the Galileo. This included the first pamphlet produced by Pathfinder volunteers as a digitized CD-ROM and printed using the Galileo - Panama: The Truth About the U.S. Invasion.

To give an idea of the time savings, shop staff members pointed out that the plates for the last issue of the Militant were coming out of the Galileo less than an hour after the editors turned over a print-ready file to the shop. Until fairly recently, stripping and plating the Militant took the better part of two days.

One of the workers on night shift, Lisa Rottach, was able to set up the machine to produce 20 plates, press a button, and move on to other tasks in the bindery while the Galileo produced plates. Burning those plates would have taken her a couple hours with the shop's recently installed computer-to- film technology used from August 1998 until last week, and roughly a full shift under the previous hand-stripping methods.

This makes it possible to release more socialist workers to carry out political work in the trade unions and in party branches across the country. Until six months ago, the shop staff size was 47. The steps taken so far have allowed this to be reduced first to 36 in July. With further reductions beginning this month, the staff size will be 32 by the time the SWP convention opens in San Francisco at the beginning of April.

The success in getting the Galileo into the shop and up and running is the result of a couple of other advances: the progress made by more than 100 volunteers around the world who are converting all of Pathfinder's books into fully digital files on CD-ROM, and the big response by supporters of Pathfinder to make contributions to a capital fund to pay for the new equipment.

Developments in politics in the United States and around the world over the past couple of years form the basis of the energetic response. Working-class resistance is deepening. And as unionists, youth, and the oppressed resist and seek to understand what they are involved in, the openness to the revolutionary ideas contained in Pathfinder books increases.

Following the tour of the printshop, participants in the National Committee meeting took part in a dinner and party celebrating 40 years of the Cuban revolution and the advances in Pathfinder press and its printshop. The event was sponsored by the New York and Newark branches of the Socialist Workers Party, and the meal was prepared and served by supporters of the party in the area.

Jack Willey, a union meatpacker from Chicago and a member of the Capital Fund Committee that is organizing the fund-raising to purchase the Galileo, spoke briefly about the importance of the books Pathfinder keeps in print for workers involved in struggles such as the recent 98-day strike at Freeman United Coal in central Illinois.

Maggie Trowe, another member of the Capital Fund Committee, reported on the fund's progress. "The $550,000 fund, launched in October," Trowe said, "comes on top of the fund launched in July at the Active Workers Conference in Pittsburgh. The first fund, which made possible the purchase of the precursor to the Galileo - a computer-to-film imagesetter - and major repairs of the Pathfinder Building, was really not a separate fund. It got us on the track to do what the next fund posed - to purchase the Galileo and meet other capital needs of the shop.

"If we look at it this way, we have an $840,000 fund, and we have already raised $592,000 from well over 100 supporters. That is quite an accomplishment, and we can celebrate it tonight," Trowe said. "We need to raise $45,000 to finish paying for the Galileo, and then another $200,000 over the next two months."

Trowe explained, "We have a Capital Fund Committee, but there are no capitalists on it. Its seven members are all workers who collaborate with socialists throughout the U.S. and in other countries to have discussions with supporters on the political openings and the need to keep Pathfinder books in print. Out of this political process, those who can make contributions of $1,000 or more do so. It's led by workers who, when they get a windfall, are enthusiastic about the opportunity to contribute to the fund. Contributors give to the capital fund for the same reason volunteers in the digitizing campaign put in many hours of work scanning, proofreading, and formatting each week to get the books ready for press."

Trowe explained that since October there have been more than 25 meetings with supporters in 7 countries, resulting in contributions ranging from $1,000 to $50,000. Several contributions that came in during the recent U.S. bombing of Iraq were accompanied by notes from the contributors expressing their satisfaction at being able to strike a blow against the imperialist attack by supporting the effort to get out Pathfinder books. "The response we have gotten so far gives us confidence that we can complete Capital Fund in full and on time," Trowe said. "That is really something to celebrate."

To find out how you can make a capital contribution, write to the Capital Fund Committee, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014.

 
 
 
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