Lessons of Greyhound

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The 12,700 members of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) voted 7,404 to 2,596 to accept a giveback contract after a month-and-a-half-long strike. The results of the mail-ballot referendum were announced on Dec. 19, 1983.

The terms of the contract were little better than those previously rejected by a 96 percent majority. Steep pay cuts were made retroactive to Oct. 3, when the old contract expired. In addition, Greyhound can now hire new people at a lower wage scale.

According to conservative estimates, the average annual wage of Greyhound drivers will be reduced by about $2,000. Furthermore, drivers will now contribute 4 percent of their wages to maintain the level of pension benefits previously paid for entirely by Greyhound. There will be no cost-of-living increases until May 1986, and, in cities such as San Francisco, the workweek will be increased to 40 hours-with no increase in weekly pay.

The strike, which began Nov. 3, was provoked by a company demand for concessions estimated to amount to 20 percent. The new contract imposes about 15 percent in wage and benefit cuts.

Nearly a hundred drivers and station employees have been fired for allegedly causing "personal injury or property damage." Thirty-four of those firedmore than one-third of the nationwide total-are members of San Franciscobased Local Division No. 1225, ATU.

Was defeat inevitable?

In a letter to his local membership on Dec. 7, David E. Mix, president of ATU Local 1225, was extremely critical of the ATU top leadership: "The last five days speni in Washington, D.C., were an absolute disaster.... [On] the very first day we were told that in order to reach an agreement, we must lower our sights and submit a reduced proposal to the Company.... The pressure was definitely on to reach an agreement, regardless of the cost, and I am afraid that the majority of the Council members broke under the pressure and agreed to take this offer back to the membership for a vote and to actually recommend it.

"It is difficult for me to believe that immediately following the day we received a 96 percent rejection on the last offer we are throwing in the towel. I fail to understand [why] at the same time we are having a mass rally in San Francisco, we are in Washington, D.C., giving away the store.

Urging rejection of the tentative agreement, President Mix went on to refute the argument made in a Dec. 3 letter to the membership by the top ATU officials, who maintained that acceptance of the admittedly bad terms of the company proposal was "the only way to save the jobs of our members."

"It appears to be a repeat of the Chrysler and UAW situation," Mix warned. "Approximately three-and-a-half years ago they gave concessions to save jobs. That was just the beginning; they have made concession after concession and

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(continued from page 1: “A strategy to disarm the warmakers”)

Chile, Portugal, etc.) underscore the continued structural crisis of the world capitalist system.

Whai is misrepresented as "Soviet expansionism" by the U.S. rulers actually reflects a basic reality of world politics—since World War Il the historic decay of the imperialist system expresses itself in a continuous series of revolutionary crises on a world scale.

The "free world" includes any regime—no matter how brutally repressive- that guarantees "freedom" for American corporations to profit from the markets, raw materials, and other products of its country. The dictatorships in Chile, South Africa, Turkey, South Korea, El Salvador, and the Philippines (among others) all share the dubious honor of being called a "friend" of the United States by enforcing, through torture and mass repression, the sanctity of free enterprise.

Contrary to the apologists for American foreign policy, it is not the lack of democracy that is at the heart of U.S. hostility toward the Soviet Union and other workers' states, but rather the fact that these countries have abolished capitalism and no longer offer foreign finance capital the freedom to exploit the markets of these nations as they see fit. Washington's saber rattling and weapons buildup is motivated by its well-based fear of the socialist revolution's extension to other countries. This is the principal explanation for American military aggression against Nicaragua and El Salvador, and for the recent invasion of Grenada.

Today a determined effort is under way to mitigate the effects of the Vietnam syndrome which has so hampered the use of the military option by the United States. The initial victory of the Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions in 1979, for example, found the United States hamstrung, by domestic opposition, from resorting to military force against these countries.

Events of the last few years make very clear the serious extent of Washington's war moves. Carter's aborted "rescue mission" in Iran, the war of attrition against Nicaragua, unyielding support for the death squad government in El Salvador, the invasion and occupation of Grenada, the deployment of the Marines to Lebanon all underscore the determination of American imperialism to drown in blood any struggle that threatens to challenge the eternal glory of the capitalist system.

The nuclear freeze Washington's nuclear breast-beating has provoked widespread public support for the antinuclear weapons, antiwar movement. In the United States the latest resurgence of the antinuclear weapons movement took its initial form in the campaign for a bilateral freeze of the 2 Socia ist Action January 1984 arms race by the United States and the Soviet Union. Ballot propositions in eight of nine states and hundreds of cities have expressed widespread support for the bilateral freeze proposal.

While the proposal appeared at first glance to be equally directed at the United States and the Soviet Union, the great majority of the activists in the movement, as well as the millions who joined the periodic antinuclear actions across the country, saw the freeze as primarily directed against the policies of the U.S. government. This flowed from the simple fact that it is only the United States that threatens to deploy new and qualitatively superior weapons.

Every demonstration for a nuclear freeze has also shown by its banners, slogans, and speakers a natural tendency to oppose U.S. intervention in Central America, and to counterpose the billions of dollars spent on arms to the lack of funds for jobs and social services.

In the Winter 1983-1984 issue of New International, a theoretical magazine published by the U.S. Socialist Workers Party, Brian Grogan, a British Marxist, argues that the bilateral freeze campaign is a Democratic Party trap designed to "channel growing opposition to nuclear weapons and government war policies into a class-collaborationist framework that bolsters illusions in imperialist political rule.... " Grogan says liberal capitalist politicians have eagerly jumped on the freeze bandwagon since it "covers up imperialism's responsibilty, for the nuclear arms buildup" by making any freeze by the United States conditional on mutual moves by the Soviet Union.

But Grogan ignores the fact that the Soviet Union has declared its support for a nuclear freeze. The inescapable logic of the freeze demand then is for the United States, not the Soviet Union, to agree. And it is precisely the U.S. refusal to back off on its plan to deploy the new and more deadly missiles in Europe that guarantees the focus against U.S. policy will deepen.

It is certainly true that the leaders of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign risk derailing the movement through their policy of reliance on the Democratic Party. At their annual conference this past December, they announced a major campaign to support "pro-freeze" candidates in local, state, and national elections in 1984. At the heart of their strategy will be a campaign to replace Ronald Reagan with the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.

But Grogan misses the boat on the nuclear freeze movement in his effort to reduce it to a Democratic Party maneuver both to take the heat off Washington's "real" war in Central America and to hold the Soviet Union equally liable for the threat of nuclear war.

The ability of the antinuclear weapons movement to organize as an independent, non exclusive campaign oriented toward involving the largest number of people through mass action and mobilization around the anticapitalist demand, "No Nuclear Weapons," directed at the rulers of our own country will be the measure of its strength and success.

The ultimate capacity of the movement to find an organizational expression in the U.S labor movement will also prove to be an indication of its future growth and power.

Democratic Party politicians who claim support for the nuclear freeze understand the extent of popular support for an end to the arms race, but they fear the thrust of an independent mass movement against Washington's war drive.

Wasn't this also the case during the movement against the Vietnam. War? When the first demonstration against the war was held in April 1965 in Washington, D.C., the 20,000 demonstrators faced considerable hostility from a large sector of the American population. But the campaign of mass action, demonstrations, teach-ins and student strikes never let up, and the antiwar movement eventually won the hearts and minds of a majority of the American people. The antiwar movement was not only an instrumental factor in forcing the United States out of Vietnam. It so profoundly altered the political climate in this country that the American ruling class still strains against the albatross of the Vietnam syndrome.

In contrast to Grogan's cynicism, the movement against the war in Vietnam showed the power of masses of peoplemobilized in the streets and in broad, democratic decision-making conferences-to win the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and to overcome the maneuvers of forces oriented toward the Democratic Party.

Today with the cutbacks in social services, massive unemployment, attacks on minority and women's rights, and attacks against the unions, the potential power of the antiwar, antinuclear weapons movement is even greater than during the 1960s. While less than 14 percent of the public supported "immediate withdrawal" from Vietnam in 1965, today a large majority not only oppose new U.S. weapons in Europe but are against U.S. intervention in Central America.

Crucial to building a large and powerful antiwar movement today is the need to understand that, far from being a barrier to a more massive movement against U.S. intervention in Central America, the nuclear freeze movement brings that issue to the attention of millions.

Unilateral disarmament

Despite the formal wording of the freeze resolution for a bilateral freeze, there is an inherent dynamic to this campaign that focuses on the U.S. role in the arms race. It is the United States that is unilaterally raising the stakes of the arms race by its relentless military buildup.

When a million people demonstrate in this country against nuclear weapons, isn't the thrust of this action aimed directly at Washington? When citizens in Utah and Montana demand that no MX missiles be placed in their state, isn't this a unilateral demand on the U.S. government? When demonstrators call for "Jobs, not Bombs," or "No Neutron Bombs," isn't this aimed unilaterally at Washington?

Moreover, Washington escalate the arms race, the demand for a nuclear freeze will increasingly tend to give way to concrete unilateral demands, such as no new missiles in Europe. Are the supporters of a nuclear freeze ready to "freeze" the now existing Cruise and Pershing II missiles in Europe. Obviously not.

As socialists, we understand that there can be no lasting disarmament, no lasting security from the threat of nuclear destruction until the capitalist system, which has spawned the horrible possibility of nuclear war, is eliminated. But saying this does not make irrelevant the deployment of Cruise and Pershing II missiles in Europe. The peace movement certainly earned a victory in 1963 when a ban on atmospheric nuclear tests was ratified. Any and every step toward the disarmament of capitalism is in the interests of the working class. The best way to counter liberal Democrats' intentions to turn the freeze campaign into a petty diplomatic affair in the hip pocket of the Democratic Party is to steer the antinuclear weapons movement toward a clear mass-action perspective challenging every front of Reagan's military buildup from nuclear weapons to intervention in Central America.

The real dynamic of the antinuclear weapons movement lies in its potential challenge to the "right" of the government to decide the life and death questions posed by the existence of its nuclear arsenal. Speaking to the real concerns of millions of ordinary Americans, the antiwar and antinuclear weapons movement can mobilize a broad mass struggle that will not only throw a wrench into the military objectives of the government but, as more and more people are drawn into political action, deepen the political awareness, experience, and capacity for organization of the majority of working people.

Soviet Union's role

The Soviet Union, for its part, has declared its support for a nuclear freeze. They have also raised the demand, similar to the call of some European peace groups, for a nuclear-free zone from the "Mid-Atlantic to the Urals." These are positive moves. But there can be absolutely no illusion that the Soviet bureaucrats can be counted on to end the threat of nuclear war.

There is no doubt that the possession of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Unión Socialist Action January 1984 Editorial Board: Les Evans, Dianne Feeley, Jeff Mackler, Jim Richter, Nat Weinstein.

Staff: Larry Cooperman, Kate Curry, May May Gong, Don Mahoney, Linda Ray, Jim Richter, Michael Schreiber, Shannon Sheppard, Jan Snipper, Marion Syrek, Sylvia Weinstein.

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...Strategy for antiwar