In Chicago, Trowe visited the picket line at the Five Star Laundry, where workers have been on strike for five weeks to win recognition of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) and a union contract. Strikers told Trowe that after leafleting hotels they succeeded in getting four of them to cut back on contracts with the industrial laundry company.

When Trowe arrived at the picket line of Laborers International Union Local 681 at Appetizers and Inc., dozens of workers were walking the line and chanting, "Sí se puede!" (Yes we can), "El pueblo callado nunca será escuchado!" (A silent people will never be heard), and "No seven days," referring to their fight against the extension of the workweek to include Saturdays and Sundays.

Workers crowded around Trowe and her campaign supporters to discuss their struggle and other fights, such as the successful union organizing drive by meat packers at Dakota Premium in St. Paul, Minnesota. Trowe stressed the role of immigrant workers in leading these strikes.

Security guards at Appetizers and Inc. attempted to intimidate the pickets with video cameras by taking close-up shots of their faces. Trowe got out her umbrella and joined the strikers as they opened the umbrellas they use to protect themselves from the sun to block the cameras' view and chanted, "No tenemos miedo!" (We are not afraid).

When Trowe and supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign returned for the afternoon shift, workers were called together and it was announced that the company had agreed to reopen talks with the union.

Trowe visited Pembroke Township, where Black farmers and members of Pembroke Advocates for Truth have been fighting a plan to impose a women's prison in the area. The socialist candidate was welcomed by Pamela Basu, who gave her a tour of the farm worked by her family. She proudly showed a wide variety of organic vegetables and herbs being grown in rich soil--soil that she said officials pushing the prison dismissed as "scrub land."

Pamela Basu was recently fired from her job as treasurer of the Village of Hopkins Park for speaking out against the prison and is now suing the village over the firing. Commenting on the fight against the prison, Basu said the officials pushing the prison were "waiting until we settle down. "But we're not settling down!"

Trowe met with 13 farmers who gathered before a meeting of the Pembroke farmers' co-op. She stressed the importance of their fight to keep the land and against the prison as an example for working people. After her presentation, the farmers raised a number of questions about her campaign and exchanged views on the most effective ways to fight back.

Trowe and socialist campaign supporters also visited dairy farmers in Wisconsin, where she pledged to support their planned Labor Day milk dumping protest against low prices to dairy farmers.

Trowe was the featured speaker at the grand opening of the new Chicago headquarters of the Pathfinder Bookstore, Socialist Workers Party, and Young Socialists at 1212 N. Ashland.

The meeting opened with a report by Luis Rivera on the Young Socialists summer school in Chicago and its combination of study and political action. A contingent of Young Socialists and a young socialist campaigner, Marlén Ortega, accompanied Trowe to the picket lines.

Campaign supporters at the forum discussed how to continue building support for strikes in the area. Dennis Chambers described an electrical workers strike in southwest Chicago. Teamster truck driver Bert Hestroffer told about a strike of Teamsters Local 142 in northwest Indiana at Globe Building Materials Inc., which makes roofing shingles. The following day, three teams were organized to get the message of the socialist alternative to these and other fighting workers.

Arrin Hawkins is a member of the Chicago chapter of the Young Socialists.  
 
 
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