Mobilization for Peace, Jobs & Justte San Francisco April 20

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major papers ran extensive front-page stories describing the wide support the protest had received from hundreds of labor, church, peace, and community groups. Under the banner headline, "50,000 rally in S.F. against apartheid, Reagan, the April 21 Examiner noted that the contingent organized by the Santa Clara Central Labor Council had attracted "2500 members of community groups...aboard a chartered 'Spring Mobilization' train."

April Examiner had SOCIALIST ACTION Ryan Socialist front-page story titled, "Unions undertake new alliance with activist causes."

The unions' new alliances The article noted the "unprecedented show of force by Northern California unions, from Painters Local 4 to the ILWU International Executive Board. Every labor council in the five-county Bay Area endorsed the march, as did virtually every local union local."

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, business (continued on page 9)

MAY 1985

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Jack Henning, labor leader, speaks to S.F. rally 8 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1985 Huge protests (continued from page 1: “Apartheid agony continues despite latest ‹reforms'”) labor-these are the characteristics of the rising anti-apartheid movement.

All these actions culminated on April 24 in a coordinated nationwide student strike. On 90 campuses, tens of thousands of students boycotted classes to protest apartheid.

At Berkeley, 7000 students rallied at Steve Biko Plaza (formerly Sproul Plaza) and then filled the Harmon Gymnasium, where they urged the university's regents to withdraw the $1.8 billion they have invested in companies that do business in South Africa. A local paper called it "the biggest student gathering of its type since May 1970, after four students were killed at Kent State University in Ohio."

An estimated 2500 rallied at the University of California at Davis; 1500 at San Francisco State University; 1000 at San Jose State; and 2000 at UCLA, the campus' largest demonstration since the Vietnam War. Nearly 400 were arrested nationwide that day, including at least 325 who occupied an administration building at Cornell University.

At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, approximately 200 demonstrators occupied a conference room at the state Capitol.

No mandate for war Reagan has no mandate to finance the murder machine in South Africa or to provide aid to the contras seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

A February ABC News/ Washington Post poll showed that 70 percent of the American people were opposed to any form of aid to the contras. The House of Representatives, feeling the pressure of this opposition, voted against aid to the contras by a vote of 303 to 123. April 20 had an impact.

The movement against war and austerity has been given a gigantic boost by the April 20 antiwar demonstrations and the recent campus upsurge. Yet these actions have barely begun to organize the potential opposition to the government's policies.

It is urgent to extend and deepen the important gains made in building the April 20 actions. Nationally coordinated fall actions around the four LOS ANGELES-Marking the largest antiwar demonstration since the days of the Vietnam War protests, 7000 to 8000 activists, representing over 100 organizations, marched down Broadway to the Los Angeles City Hall. Hundreds more attended the rally there.

Because of the unique ethnic makeup of the city, with its Latino population of over 3 million, the accent of the Los Angeles action was on Central America. At the same time, this event marked the first large, broad-based demonstration in Los Angeles with a significant Black presence. The Filipino community also was extremely active in the April 20 Coalition-another first for this city.

Chairpersons for the event were Los Angeles City Council member Robert Farrell, who heads the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials; Jack Foley, district director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union; Jackie Goldberg, Los Angeles Board of Education member; Sumi Haru, national recording secretary of the Screen Actors Guild; and Father Luis Olivares of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church.

SOCIALIST APRIL 20 ROUNDUP The following are major excerpts from the introductory speech given by Jack Henning, executive secretary-treasurer of the California AFL-CIO and one of the rally's emcees, to the San Francisco April 20 antiwar rally.

On peace: We want the United States out of Latin America. Precisely, we want it out of Nicaragua where the Reagan administration is using mercenaries and assassins to interfere with the rights of the people to determine their own form of government. And we want an end to their accord with the powers in El Salvador that, for generations, have exploited the poor and the workers and are a threat actually to democracy themes of the spring mobilizations are a vital necessity. Greater numbers and new forces can be brought in to make the fall actions an even greater show of strength against the warmakers.

Fall actions needed

A first step to prepare these actions would be the holding of regional antiwar conferences during the summer or the early fall. The local coalitions that emerged for April 20 can provide the initial organizational backbone for these conferences.

The conferences must be open to all Among the speakers were Angela Davis, Marta Alicia Rivera of ANDES (the Salvadoran Teachers Union), Sabino Virgo of Jews United for Peace and Justice, Salah Amin of the November 29 Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Antonio Rodriquez of the Coalition for Visas and Rights for the Undocumented, and Mitchell Learner of the American Indian Movement.

Notable was the low-key presence of April 20 in San Francisco in all of Latin America.

And particularly because of the events of the past few weeks, we want America to end what is in effect a blood alliance with the murder-machine that calls itself the government of South Africa.

The word, brothers and sisters, on justice: There is no justice in a society that's polarized economically. We have 35 million Americans today living in absolute poverty. We have hundreds of thousands sleeping in the alleyways, on the sidewalks and on the streets of America-the homeless of AmericaReagan's greatest contribution to America the beautiful.

And, as far as jobs are those who support the four April 20 demands. Adding new demands to make the coalitions more "anti-imperialist" would only limit the ability to draw in the new forces-particularly the unions-that are willing to join in this antiwar united front.

The national steering committee of the Washington, D.C., April Actions will be meeting at the beginning of June. Their decision to call for regional conferences—and ultimately even a national antiwar conference-to prepare nationally coordinated fall actions would give a tremendous boost and the infamous Los Angeles Police Department. Two days before the demonstration, in a sudden about-face, the Police Department informed the coalition that instead of allowing us to march down only half the street, which in the past has made it impossible to fully unfurl banners, we could have the entire street, which would be cordoned off to traffic.

This resulted in a demonstration entirely free of the tensions that such actions have elicited in the past.

Peacefully, united and strong, we carried our message: Build a just society-through peace, jobs, and justice. We feel that we can grow.

Socialist Action/Joe Ryan There's been a murmur of recovery in the economy yet millions are unemployed in America-nearly a million jobless in the state of California. But we should remember this-that the murmurs of recovery are resulting from the Third-Reich economy of the Reagan administration, a Third-Reich economy founded solely upon defense expenditures....

Well we want jobs. We don't want $14 million sent, either in arms or economic aid, to the subversive forces of Nicaragua at the very time Reagan is cutting aid from the senior citizens, from the welfare people of America, and from the students of America.

clear the antiwar ment.

A new kind of coalition-one with the unions in the forefront-began to develop in San Francisco. Coalitions such as this one on a national level can mobilize the power of labor and give direction to the tremendous energy manifested in the April protest activities.

April 1985 can be a turning point. The potential is there. It has been expressed in the ni tion's streets and on its campuses. Now is the time to prepare for the next step.- The editors Mario Savio:

The following are major excerpts from the speech given by Mario Savio, co-founder of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s, to the San Francisco April 20 antiwar rally.

I'd like to say it's very encouraging to see so much support from organized labor. Without organized labor we can't win. With organized labor we will prevall....

Thank you to the Trans-Africa demonstrators, to the sanctuary churches, and to the solidarity networks.... And a thank you from the bottom of our hearts to the Berkeley students.

Reports of the death of the movement were obviously greatly exaggerated. The movement continues....

As we know, right now [the Congress and the government] are searching for a compromise to the president's plan for aid to the contra terrorists. The president's plan was described by a Republican as an "apple with a razor blade."

The president's men on the hill are trying to find a way to shine that apple up so that enough Democrats will be persuaded that it would be a fitting gift for Nicaragua....Since when has it become acceptable public policy to extend even "humanitarian" aid to terrorists?

The time to war is now.

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(continued from page spending and cuts in social services helped involve numerous unemployed, Black, senior citizen, and community groups.

The weaknesses of the demonstration, however, were most clearly reflected in the labor contingent. A number of international unions endorsed the demonstration, but no efforts were made to involve them in the planning. No speaker from the labor movement, for example, addressed the rally.

Although some trade unions-most noticeably the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, United Auto Workers District 65, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-had contingents, there was little organized participation from the trade unions.

Nevertheless, large numbers of tradeunion members attended, showing the potential for actively involving the trade unions in the future.

The depth of the opposition to U.S. foreign policy was reflected in the geographic areas represented. In addition to buses from New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, there were buses from cities as far west as St. Louis and as far south as Miami.

"No more Vietnams"

At the main rally, speakers representing the Revolutionary Democratic Front of El Salvador (FDR), the National Union of Nicaraguan Students, the African National Congress, and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee stressed the support that U.S. foreign policy offers right-wing military dictatorships throughout the world.

Disabled Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic explained that even though the Vietnam War ended only 10 years ago, the U.S. government is clearly planning a repeat performance in Central America. He made an emotional plea that no more young Americans be allowed to die or become permanently disabled in such a new Vietnam.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) discussed the devastating effects the military budget has on the U.S. economy. He also described congressional hearings to investigate FBI harassment of U.S. citizens who have traveled to Nicaragua.

The best-received speaker of the day was the Rev. Jesse Jackson who opened his remarks by explaining that "peace, jobs, and justice are transcendent dreams that draw us together."

His announcement of a planned student strike against apartheid met with prolonged applause.

As buses arrived, marshalls distributed a hand-out including a section entitled, "What's Next."

This flier stressed lobbying against U.S. aid to the contras, for sanctions against South Africa, for cuts in military spending, against cuts in social services, and for a jobs bill. It also mentioned the annual August 6-9 local activities commemorating the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Participants left the demonstration encouraged by the large turnout and optimistic about the prospects of building a broad, mass movement in opposition to the U.S. war policies.

AMERICA 20 showed that we're not just a student¡AFL-CIO RESOLVES: "No U.S. military assistance shallbe provided toany country citizens and...that denies the!! right of workers to organize"

A/. M0 (mention. 198)

JIROOPS Socialist Acion/Joe Ryan