Bill Farrell's life celebrated

Scan page 8

goons to build guard posts on the roof of the plant. AP workers continued to work, but the company imposed its new package unilaterally breaking seniority and craft work rules.

More than 100 workers were laid off and others were disciplined for not working fast enough under the new speed-up conditions. Drinking coffee and chewing gum became disciplining offenses. Workers began to wear their disciplinary slips in their hats.

Under increasing harassment, the AP unit of Local 14 went on strike on May 2. The union attempted to stop scabs with a mass picket in early May, but the company obtained an injunction that limited pickets to six per gate. Finally, negotiaions broke down on May 19, by which time 120 scabs were crossing picket lines daily, escorted by the hired goons. This led to the demonstration on May 21.

The company has requested that the restraining order on pickets be expanded to include all unions that have Socialist Action Over 100 comrades, friends, and family of Bill Farrell met in Berkeley, Calif., on May 6 to celebrate the life of this veteran Trotskyist. Bill Farrell was born in New York City in 1910 and died in Moraga, Calif., on April 1, 1984.

People spoke of Bill's sense of humor, his kindness, and his political and intellectual influence on their lives. One young woman said, "I was a wideeyed 13-year-old when I first went into Bill's bookstore, asking, 'What is this world?'... Bill and Ada played a vital role in who I am today.' I first met Bill in 1938. We were both founding members of the Socialist Workers Party. He was a merchant seaman, a member of the Sailors Union of the Pacific. Bill had a rare talent for communicating political ideas (and he was a great story teller). He played an important part in building the party's June 1984 influence among maritime workers prior to World War II. He wrote a very popular column for The Militant called "On the Line" which dealt with workers' problems.

Back on the West Coast, Bill participated in the great post-war maritime strikes of 1946 and 1948. In the winter of 1949, on the "Alaska Run," Bill contracted pneumonia, which he had previously suffered from, and his illness developed into tuberculosis. This time he was in the San Francisco Marine Hospital from 1950 to 1955. He didn't waste his time. He organized his fellow patients into a discussion group, distributed the party press, and wrote "Stories for Kevin" for his young son, who was not permited into the hospital.

Bill came out of the hospital with only one lung, unable to go back to sea. Now Bill's education came to the rescue. He became a bookseller. In a few years, Farrell's Bookstore, on Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue, had become a local institution. It carried all kinds of books, but specialized in radical writers like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, James P. Cannon, and others. When Bill retired he turned his store over to the SWP, who ran it for a while as Gramma Books.

For health reasons he resigned from the SWP, but he never ceased being a dedicated revolutionist, a loyal Trotskyist. After the Barnes group cancelled the 1983 SWP convention and bureaucratically expelled the opposition, Bill and Ada were among the first to express support for Socialist Action, to subscribe to the newspaper, and to make a financial contribution.

The last time I saw Bill, a week before he died, he questioned me about Socialist Action. How were we doing— new subs-new recruits-young students-workers? I answered yes to all his questions. He smiled and gave me the "V for Victory" sign.

Scan page 9

LABOR DISCUSSION