Vol.64/No.3 January 24, 2000
Opportunities for solidarity
{editorial}
Opportunities abound for workers and farmers who have been through struggles to join with other battles as they unfold. At the Martin Luther King Day march and rally farmers, strikers at Overnite trucking, and others will be reaching out to win new support from workers and youth. Word of a number of rallies planned this week by Overnite strikers has reached the Militant, signaling ways for unionists to step in and back up the determination of the strikers.
Fighters can also respond to the call of the United Mine Workers of America and win backing for their fight to defend the Coal Act, a target of the bosses' offensive against the union and coal field communities. Miners in Nova Scotia need solidarity as well, as they face a government drive to shut down the coal mines, dealing a devastating blow to the entire region.
On many of these battlefronts workers and farmers are taking up questions that have broad social implications, such as the length of the working day, access to health care, getting a living wage, defending the ability to earn a living growing food and fiber, and seeking adequate retirement benefits.
These struggles and questions pose the need to forge fighting organizations out of the unions and other working-class formations, and develop a consistent program in the interests of working people worldwide. Selling, reading, and discussing books such as Capitalism's World Disorder is one of the best ways, as we go into struggles and reach out to other fights and skirmishes, to advance the construction of an uncompromising, fighting, and proletarian internationalist leadership.