Each and every union brother and sister is part of a larger whole, and together we are our own giant, the giant known as the UFCW [United Food and Commercial Workers]. As members, we must believe that one person can make a difference, and exercise our rights of speech and peaceful assembly! We must use our right to vote and take part in our national and local elections, and vote for those people who support us and our families!

No one needs much common sense to realize what happens to our basic liberties and standards of living if we fail to act or speak up, and simply expect someone else to speak for us. All you have to do is pick up the latest paper or watch the evening news to see our own sloth in action and watch our rights slip away from us!

We are all together in this battle of wills, it is a fight for not only our respective futures but for that of our children, and our retiring (retired) parents. If we fail to speak for them, and for ourselves now, who will? What kind of future will they have? Corporate giants like Tyson Foods determine much about our lives. Through our pay and our benefits they determine what kind of vehicles we will drive (a new car or a 10-year-old clunker); what kind of homes we will live in (will we rent or will we own); what kind of education our children will receive; and even what kind of food we will eat! (will it be steak or hamburgers again?)

All of these things, these issues, are the basis of our society and the fuel that runs the economy! Is it any wonder than that the economy is in such bad shape? It is good wages and benefits that provide long-term financial gains, not tax rebates, nor smoke and mirrors! It is no wonder that the giants of Industry oppose Unionism or that they have the money to do so. They are, after all, using the money that used to be our wages to do so!

The International Unions need to apply their strength to the fight, and be as strong and resolute as the members of Local 538 are doing even now! We have all paid for their support and paved the way, each small Union supporting the other. No one wants to see another debacle like the air traffic controllers strike in the 80s!

Tyson has weaknesses. He is an egomaniac and hypocrite just for starters. He would love nothing more than to have his name on every food product known to mankind. He would have the general public believe that he is a moral, generous man, who donates food and services to those in need, and certainly that is commendable. What is left untold, however, is that his generosity is a tax write-off and does not come out of his own pocket! Image, not substance, is his stock-in-trade.

Publicity is a two-sided sword, however, and what company can survive if the truth is known? What company can survive if no one buys his products? We must challenge distorted images and questionable morality. We must demand a decent living, with meaningful benefits, and if denied them, use our right to strike! We must support each other and striking workers, now and until a resolution is reached. We can no longer afford to pretend that what happens in another plant, another state, in another town much like our own, does not affect us too! Time passes quickly and the struggle in Jefferson, Wisconsin, will be on our doorstep soon enough!

Troy R. Chindlund
member, UFCW Local 179
Cherokee, Iowa
 
 
Iran correction
Issue number 23 featuring the editorial “Support student protests in Iran,” just arrived in today’s mail. I was very happy to read the clarification of editorial opinion. After the troubling coverage in last week’s issue, the return to the long-standing positions the Militant has defended in the past was very welcome.

Geoff Mirelowitz
Seattle, Washington
 
 
Thanks for your work
Thank you for this paper, and the work you do. I would be proud to associate myself with you.

James Buffaloe
Wartburg, Tennessee
 
 
Turkic or Turkish?
I sent an e-mail, in a format for sending an e-mail to the Militant that I can’t find now, by the way. I want to just say that looking at the overall tone of the article there is no need to make a correction.

In the earlier e-mail, I had suggested a correction to a sentence in the article “Europe and America: to the victors go the spoils,” which said, “He [Ma’mud Shirvani] displayed a special issue of a magazine published by Turkish students at Tehran University commemorating that revolution.”

I was honored to be invited to the meeting. To quibble over whether I heard correctly Turkic or Turkish is really immaterial. I had been reading To See the Dawn: Baku 1920—First Congress of the Peoples of the East and noticed that translations were made into Turkic, which I looked up on the internet and found is sometimes called Azeri. Perhaps when I heard Ma’mud I wanted to hear Turkic, and extrapolated in my mind on its significance.

Denis Hoppe
Ann Arbor, Michigan
 
The reader is correct. The article he refers to—which was published in issue no. 23, dated June 30, 2003—should have said Turkic students, not Turkish.
—Editor

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