McCartan, 42, has moved from Boston, where he was a textile worker and member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). The Socialist Workers Party organizes its members who are garment and textile workers in a national fraction in the union, and he is the organizer of the fraction's steering committee. McCartan is also a member of the party's Trade Union Committee.

McCartan previously served on the Militant staff starting in 1989 and was editor of the paper from 1990 to 1992. He served as national director of the Socialist Workers election campaign in 1992 and 1996. Staff writer Brian Williams, 48, has moved from Washington, D.C., where he was a member of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) at the Bethlehem Steel mill outside of Baltimore. Williams is the organizer of the national fraction steering committee of socialist workers in the USWA.

Williams is also doing a second stint on the staff. He joined the staff in 1991 and left in 1994 to build the communist movement in Washington.  
 

Responding to political opportunities

Naomi Craine will be joining a team of socialists establishing an organizing committee of the party in the Carolinas. The SWP and YS are responding to a growing proletarian movement in the cities and countryside, which has many manifestations of resistance across the South. Craine will report on developments in South Carolina where members of the International Longshoremen's Association are fighting to defend their union. The socialists are also following up on other recent labor struggles in that region, which include the successful yearlong strike for a contract by Continental General Tire workers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the victory by shipyard workers in Newport News, Virginia, who won a pay hike and improved pensions.

Prior to coming on the Militant staff in 1992, Craine was a textile worker and an active socialist in the trade union movement in North Carolina. She has written several articles for the paper about various textile organizing drives in the South. Textile workers at the Fieldcrest Cannon mill in Kannapolis, North Carolina, scored a victory last year when a majority of the work force voted to join UNITE after 25 years of unionizing efforts.

Staff writer Argiris Malapanis is en route to Miami, to join socialists there in deepening their work in the city's large garment work force and other industrial workers, among farmers in the state, and with farm workers. Miami is also a city with deep political connections with the Cuban revolution and a major gateway to the struggles of workers and farmers throughout Latin America.

Prior to joining the Militant staff in 1991, Malapanis participated in union activity and farm protests in the Midwest. He has been an editor of the Militant, and traveled to Cuba, the Middle East, and the Balkans to cover political developments for the paper.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home