The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.18           May 5, 1997 
 
 
Socialists Celebrate 20 Years Of Movement In Utah  

BY DAN FEIN
SALT LAKE CITY - Over 30 members, supporters, and friends of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the local Pathfinder Bookstore, and the Militant attended a Militant Labor Forum here April 18 to mark the closing of the SWP branch and the bookstore.

Leaders of the party branch reported to the meeting on the accomplishments of the movement in Utah and the broader region over the last two decades and saluted all those who had been part of that effort over the years. Given the small size of the branch in the city, party members here decided that the best way to take advantage of the political opportunities to build the movement today was to help reinforce other branches around the country.

Larry Lane, a member of the International Association of Machinists and the SWP in San Francisco, reported on the farm workers march of 25,000 in Watsonville the previous Sunday. "The march was a real merging of labor with the rising Chicano-Mexican nationalist movement," he said. He added that the march was also partially a response to California state propositions 187 and 209 that attack immigrant rights and affirmative action. Lane described the buses that poured into Watsonville from all over California, rented by the trade unions, but filled as well with many students and other young activists.

Doug Jenness, a member of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) in Twin Cities, was the featured speaker at the forum, which aimed to raise funds for the $110,000 Militant fund drive. Jenness, a former editor of the Militant, spoke on "Washington's Drive to Expand NATO Threatens Russia."

Jenness explained the goal of U.S. imperialism in pushing NATO into Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic was to overturn the Soviet Union and Eastern European workers states through war and re-establish capitalism there. "In spite of Boris Yeltsin's smiles when meeting with President William Clinton," he said, "he is not happy about the prospect of U.S. troops right on the Russian border."

Dan Fein, USWA member at Kennecott Utah Copper's smelter and recent chairperson of the Salt Lake City branch of the SWP, spoke on the closing of the branch and the Pathfinder Bookstore.

Fein described some of the highlights of the class struggle in Utah over the past two decades and how the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, Pathfinder books and pamphlets, the Militant Labor Forum, and the Socialist Workers Party election campaigns helped workers to defend their class interests during these battles.

The founding of the SWP branch in Salt Lake City in 1977 was partially the result of Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) members at Utah State University at Logan, Utah successfully campaigning for the 1976 SWP presidential slate. Many joined the party at the time. The YSA was also part of the protests against the execution of Gary Gilmore, the first use of the death penalty in the United States since the 1950s, around this time.

In 1978 the SWP began getting the big majority of its members into jobs in basic industry and the industrial unions. Members in Salt Lake City got jobs at oil refineries, the copper mine, the integrated steel mill, and plants that made equipment for copper mines.

In the early 1980s the party expanded by setting up a branch in Price, Utah, in order to deepen its participation in the struggles of miners. Branch members were hired into the underground coal mines, especially those organized by the United Mine Workers of America. Together with other socialists in Salt Lake City, the they reached out to miners' struggles across the Western mine fields.

When a strike broke out at the Decker mine north of Sheridan, Wyoming, SWP members often drove there to walk the picket lines and write articles for the Militant. When an explosion and fire devastated the Wilberg mine near Price killing one person - the company was trying to set a production record -socialists who were miners fought along with other miners for increased union say on safety issues.

In the mid 1980s, U.S. Steel locked out thousands of USWA members at its Orem mill. Some 13 months later, the mill opened under a new owner as Geneva Steel. SWP members in the union joined others is resisting the deep concessions demanded of the Steelworkers union by the company as a condition for reopening the mill.

Around the same time close to 7,000 miners at Kennecott's huge copper operation were laid-off. Only a fraction of them were called back two years later and the company implemented an inferior union contract as well.

Over the years, SWP members brought a revolutionary working-class program to those involved in actions against apartheid in South Africa, to marches against the U.S. war on Iraq, to Cuba solidarity pickets at the Federal Building, and to labor solidarity tours of striking UMWA members. Most recently, socialists were involved in walk-outs at the high schools to protest the banning of the gay-straight alliance and in plantgate collections at the Kennecott smelter to back the fellow unionists on strike against Wheeling- Pittsburgh.

Fein ended some of the highlights of the past 20 years by saluting all those in the audience and others who helped make this possible. "Tonight we celebrate two decades of revolutionary political work and struggle by the proletarian vanguard in Utah," he said. Some $610 was collected for the Militant Fund, including $94 which was not previously pledged.

Pat Nixon, an oil worker from Los Angeles, was introduced by the chair. The Los Angeles and San Francisco branches of the party will now have Utah as part of the region they reach out to as protest actions and workers' struggles unfold. After the meeting adjourned, many of those present gave their names and phone numbers to Lane and Nixon for future political collaboration.

The following morning, Jenness gave a class at the Pathfinder Bookstore on "The Struggle Against Fascism in France in the 1930s and Its Lessons for Today - Independent Working-Class Political Action vs. Popular Frontism," which was attended by a dozen people.

That afternoon SWP and Young Socialists members had a booth at the "Earth Jam" festival in Liberty Park here. Eight Militant and one Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions were sold, along with 14 Pathfinder books and two copies of New International magazine. A young factory worker named Sausha Lovell wanted to know more about how his bosses make profits through his labor. He bought the pamphlet The Wages System by Frederick Engels and he is interested in joining the Young Socialists.

The Salt Lake Tribune, the main daily in the city, ran a feature article and picture on the closing of the Pathfinder bookstore and the branch of the Socialist Workers Party.

Dan Fein is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 4347  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home