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Vol. 75/No. 39      October 31, 2011

 
Longshore workers
snatch up ‘Teamster’ books
 
BY MARY MARTIN  
LONGVIEW, Wash., October 13—Since the end of July, 37 books from the Teamster series by Farrell Dobbs along with 65 subscriptions to the Militant have been sold to members and supporters of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 engaged in a fight against a union-busting campaign at EGT’s grain terminal here.

The best seller at 23 copies is Teamster Rebellion, the first of the four-part series on the working-class battles in Minnesota in 1934 that paved the way for the national rise of the CIO as a fighting social movement. Five workers have bought Teamster Power, the second volume; one got the four-volume set, which includes Teamster Politics and Teamster Bureaucracy.

After picking up a copy of Teamster Power at the picket line, Robert Merli ordered the other three volumes. “I was taught as a small child to never cross a picket line,” he said. “Today people grow up being told to think only about the money and nothing else. This is why knowing the history of the unions is so important.”

Maynard Brent, an active retired member of Local 21, recently finished Teamster Rebellion and picked up a copy of Teamster Power. “This labor history is important,” he said. “You can read in here how the bosses use the same tactics time and again. When they want something, they take you in the office and call you by your first name. Any other time, they don’t know you. Get back with me in a couple of weeks, I’ll be ready for the third volume.”

The books tell the story of how workers in the 1930s successfully fought the courts, cops and the capitalists they serve to establish and use union power. They explain how all of the institutions of the capitalist system are arrayed against the working class, which inevitably leads to class battle. The men and women of ILWU Local 21 in Longview have faced violence and harassment by cops, and slanders of their fight in the big-business press during the course of their battle.

These books were sold mostly on the picket line, at rallies, or door-to-door in working-class neighborhoods here. The workers who bought them are not only ILWU members and supporters from Longview, but also members of the union from Seattle and Vancouver, Wash., as well as Portland, Ore., who have participated in picket lines and union rallies here. Four of the books were sold to ILWU members in Seattle outside their union hall.

The same interest is reflected among sugar workers locked out by American Crystal Sugar in the Upper Midwest since August 1. Some 20 copies of the Teamster books have been sold, the majority being Teamster Rebellion, but also a few copies of Teamster Power. Two workers in Drayton, N.D., picked up the complete series.

Frank Forrestal from Minneapolis contributed to this article.
 
 
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Social crisis, class struggle spur interest in ‘Militant’
Fall 'Militant' subscription campaign Oct. 1-Nov 20 (week 2) (chart)  
 
 
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