Labor Marches As 50,000 Join Mobilization

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SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1985 11 coalition.

Socialist Action's starting point is the consciousness of the American working class. We advocate the inclusion of slogans and speakers which we believe are best suited to galvanize the workers into action against the government.

Socialist Action doesn't harbor the illusion that working people equally oppose the aims of U.S. imperialism in every part of the world or that the American majority which opposes intervention in Central America also subjectively supports the revolutions in that region.

We don't insist upon opposition to the imperialist role in the Middle East or support to speakers from the FDR/FMLN or the FSLN as preconditions for organizing united fronttype coalitions around the four crucial demands raised by the San Francisco coalition.

Genuine working-class solidarity will grow as the antiwar movement grows and develops politically. But the power to son.

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residentatives on presentativeocal nnel directo. w wi! de Finana Trade unions, peace activist groups and community organizations put 50,000 marchers onto Market Street in San Francisco Saturday, April 20, in protest of Ronald Reagan's weapons spending, economic and social priorities, intervention in Central America and attitude toward apartheid.

It was the largest of several such Spring Mobilization rallies held across the country.

The march, starting shortly after Embarcadero 1o Civic Center with demonstrators carrying hundreds of banners and signs.

Al a rally in front of City Hall after the march, common interest in the causes of social and economic justice was voiced by speakers including members of Congress, a Central American refugee, labor leaders, student activists, a nun, a stand-up comic and a member of the Gray Panthers.

Marchers still were filing into Civic Center Plaza when a company of Zulu dancers took the stage to the delight of the thousands who were present lo protest apartheid.

John F. Henning, executive secrelary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, who marched in the front rank and was a master of ceremonies, stated organized labor's reasons for participating in terms of peace, jobs and justice, the theme of the day. Of peace. Henning said, "We want the United States out of Latin America. Precisely, we want it our John F. Henning addresses rally. les and assassins to deny the rights of people to determine their own form of government. We want an end to the accord with the powers in El Salvador that for generations have exploited the poor and the workers and are a threat to democracy 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 murwould have pulled out of the coalition. The united front of labor would have been broken. The tremendous momentum would have been lost. And the turnout on April 20 would have been significantly smaller. This is not idle speculation but simple fact, attested to by the labor organizations themselves.

It should also be pointed out that all groups advocating the inclusion of the Middle East slogan were free to carry whatever banners they wished with whatever slogans they wished on April 20. The debate centered on the appropriateness of the Middle East slogan for the coalition as a whole.

Instead of seeing the April 20 action as a good place to help the process of educating American working people about the reactionary role of U.S. support to the Zionist oppressors of the Palestinian people, many left papers took the attitude that without the Middle East slogan, the action was hardly worth supporting. Most of these left papers con(continued on page 12, in “["The struggles of workers cannot be advanced Inside…]”)

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