How students ignited apartheid protests

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Supporters of striking cannery workers rally in Watsonville, Calif., on Oct. 7. Eric Auchard, a recent graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and a leader of the campus Campaign Against Apartheid. The interview was conducted in late September by Millie Gonzalez.

Socialist Action: What is the background of the anti-apartheid at Berkeley?

Eric Auchard: The boycott of the South African elections in August 1984 and the protests in South Africa over the past year made us think that now was the time to try to force the university to divest its $2.4 billion of staff and faculty pension funds from companies that do business in that country.

At the start of spring semester, the University of California Divestment Coalition was formed, which drew in the labor unions on campus, graduate student groups, and student political groups. The coalition began petitioning to demand that the university divest.

Events moved fast, and a series of demonstrations took place last spring, one of which was an evening march that ended with a sit-in in front of the undergraduate library.

The police drove a car into the middle of the sit-in, forcing people out of the way. They came in with clubs and started attacking everyone. Undergraduates who had been studying in the library were hit.

Meanwhile, violence in South Africa had increased noticeably. On April 4, students at Columbia University in New York staged a sit-in.

A rally was held here on April 10 in support of the Columbia students. That led to another student sit-in at Biko Piaza [Sproul Hall], which grew to about 200 students. This wasn't organized by any particular group.

At first the administration said the sit-in was legal and gave us a paternalistic pat on the back. But within a week they grew disenchanted with it and decided to make arrests. They did this in the early hours of the morning, with a WATSONVILLE, Calif.—More than 3000 people from across Northern California marched on Oct. 7 in support of cannery workers involved in a bitter and violent strike here. It was the largest and most militant demonstration of labor solidarity this small agricultural community has ever seen.

Most of the 2000 workers on strike are Hispanic women, half of whom speak little or no English. They constitute a vital part of California's agricultural industry. More frozen food is produced in Watsonville than anywhere else in the United States.

The strike began on Sept. 9. The members of Teamster Local 912 rejected wage and benefit cuts announced by both Watsonville Canning and Richard Shaw Inc. Under the contract proposed by Shaw, new workers could earn as little as $2.43 an hour.

The march on Oct. 7 included students from University of California campuses at Santa Cruz and Berkeley, members of the United Farm Workers (UFW), and members of Teamster locals from throughout Northern California. But by far the largest presence was that of the Hispanic working people of Watsonville, who turned out in large numbers to show their support for the strikers.

After a rally at downtown Callaghan Park, the demonstrators marched through Watsonville's working-class neighborhoods to the facilities of Watsonville Canning, one of two firms involved in the strike.

As marchers approached the plant gate, their chanting reached a fever 6 SOCIALIST ACTION massive police presence in riot gear.

First, they arrested the students at the sit-in. Then they proceeded to arrest a majority of the student government, who sat-in at the administration hall later in the day.

The week prior to the national antiwar demonstrations on April 20, smaller demonstrations took place all across the country. There were mass protests at Berkeley on April 16, the day we were arrested. An evening rally attracted 2000 to 3000 people.

The next day a large number of students stayed away from classes and went to a mass rally. On April 18 there was a student-labor rally where a host pitch, and there were tense moments when some attempted to surge forward through police lines. March organizers, however, decided not to confront the police, who were dressed in full riot gear-including four-foot long clubs.

Strikers defy court order The march was seen as a setback to the attempts of management and the police to intimidate the strikers and isolate them from community support. One week after the strike broke out, the company had obtained a court order limiting the number of pickets to 4 per gate and prohibiting any public gathering within 100 yards of the plant.

One goal of the Oct. 7 march was to defy the court order, which was seen as a violation of the strikers' First AmendNOVEMBER 1985 of Bay Area labor leaders turned out, as well as 500 members of the longshore union. (The national convention of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which was meeting in San Francisco, adjourned to attend the rally.] That was quite a day.

Within a week we started calling around to other campuses and together a national day of action was called for April 24 against apartheid and in support of protests at Berkeley, Columbia, and Cornell universities. About 100 schools took part.

S.A.: What's the present state of the anti-apartheid at U.C.

ment right to free assembly. Despite the large display of support, however, the harassment of individual strikers has increased in recent weeks.

At a meeting with students at the University of California at Santa Cruz, one striker recounted how she was given a citation for speaking to a fellow worker on the picket line. She had apparently violated a court injunction requiring pickets to keep a distance of 20 feet between each other.

The strikers have also spoken of their complete unwillingness to accept the 28 percent to 56 percent wage cuts proposed by the cannery owners. Guillarmina Ramirez, in an interview with City on a Hill Press, described the $4.25 an hour she would receive under the proposed contract as "miserable pay."

"It's not enough to live on, she added. My rent alone is $400 a month, and if medical benefits are cut, I won't be able to pay my doctor bills."

Chavelo Moreno, who has worked at Watsonville Canning for 23 years, said, "if we let the patrones do what they Socialist Action/Millie Gonzałes Berkeley?

Auchard: Now with the state of emergency in South Africa there is greater pressure to divest. Columbia University is in the process of divesting. We're going to force divestment back on the agenda. Demonstrations are being organized leading up to the next Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco.

S.A.: There are nine students, including yourself, who are currently on trial for anti-apartheid activities at Berkeley. Can you give us an update on the situation?

Auchard: There were over 600 people arrested during the demonstrations last year. But a lot of the charges were later dropped. Numerous trials occurred over the summer that ended in acquittals.

Student organizations had been petitioning for months, asking to meet with [University President] Gardner. It was obvious that he was trying to hide on the issue. So we went in to talk to him, but since he wouldn't speak to us we decided to sit down and wait.

The university was in no mood to have student activists sitting in at the president's office and they arrested us very quickly. In addition to being charged with trespassing, two of us were charged (myself included) with battery on a secretary. It is a trumped-up charge.

This sets an ugly tone to our trial. We are trying to get the charges dropped but the university and the district attorney seem unwilling to do so. They want to make an example of us. They are trying to criminalize political protests here on the campus.

S.A.: What's the future for the anti-apartheid movement at U.C. Berkeley?

Auchard: U.S. involvement in South Africa has never been so clearly revealed as it is now. I think protests will continue at Berkeley, both because of the ongoing terror in South Africa and because of the illegitimacy of the university's attempt to deny free speech on the campus.

want to do, they'll lower everyone else's wages. It's important to get the word out to everyone that it's not worth it to work for so little money."

The strike got off the ground despite the early inactivity of local Teamster officials. They approved the strike only two months after the workers voted 475-15 at Shaw and 545-6 at Watsonville Canning to authorize a walkout.

Ranks take initiative

Most of the initiative in this strike has, in fact, come from the rank and file. As one striker, Chavelo Martinez put it, "in this strike we've learned to organize ourselves."

Violence surrounding the strike increased recently when fires were set at two food processing plants and a cafe frequented by local business executives and police. The fires have received extensive coverage in the Northern California media-which have attributed them to the "frustration" of the strikers.

The companies have used the incidents as an excuse to break off negotiations with the union. It is highly doubtful, however, , that any strikers are involved in setting the fires.

As one Teamster official told a local newspaper, "Our people are watched so closely by the police there is no way it could be us."

A worker on the picket line at Watsonville Canning added, "I don't believe a striker set the fire. We don't want any violence. Why would we hurt the plant's equipment? We want to go back to work and we know the company will need the equipment to employ us when it's over."

The need is critical to bring the full strength of organized labor behind the cannery workers. To this end, continued marches and actions are being planned by the strikers. Committees in support of the strikers have also been formed at various campuses and cities throughout Northern California.

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(continued from page 1) argued that U.S. foreign policy is an extension of its racist domestic policy. "However America treats people within,' he said, "that is the way she treats people outside because her foreign policy is an extension of her own philosophy, values, and cultural upbringing."

Farrakhan continued, "America's foreign policy toward Central America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America is a reflection of its own wickedness toward these peoples." Farrakhan has been an outspoken critic of Reagan's policy of "constructive engagement" in South Africa.

In the same speech Farrakhan defied the FBI to arrest him as he agitated against Blacks joining the U.S. Armed Forces or "responding to the draft." He argued, "America is the number one enemy of freedom-loving peoples on earth. What business do you have fighting for such wickedness?"

This is Farrakhan's main message against the racism and imperialism of capitalist America that has inspired the media barrage against him, not his lapses into anti-Semitic generalizations.

Anti-Semites for Israel

There is, of course, real cause for concern that anti-Semitism will again serve the interests of "another Hitler, this time in our own country.

But if there are any among the antiFarrakhan chorus who are genuinely concerned over a new rise of anti-Semitism, they are looking in the wrong direction. The real anti-Semites, of the most virulent variety, are to be found today among the lily-white friends of the racist Israeli state.

It is an open secret that the militant, mass-based, right-wing movements are both pro-Israel and anti-Jewish. It is the likes of the Jerry Falwells, who say things like "the Jews can't get into heaven, who constitute the fertile soil for a mass fascist movement.

Unlike Farrakhan, who for whatever reasons wrongly amalgamates Zionism and people of Jewish descent, the Falwells clearly distinguish between Zionists and Jews. They love Israel and hate Jews. And, unlike Farrakhan, they also hate Blacks, Catholics, unions, and of course, communists and socialists of any variety.

It is, of course, true that Jews in their great majority support Zionism. It is also true that most politicians who are Jewish seek to wield their influence among Jews and others to back up the pro-Israeli policy of the U.S. government. But this only seems to support the notion voiced by Farrakhan that a "powerful Jewish lobbv" determines governmental policy in the Middle East.

A closer look at the facts proves the contrary. It was only after U.S. imperialism-with the support of every major power, including the Stalinist government of the Soviet Union-decided at the end of World War Il to carve out a Jewish state in Palestine, that mass sentiment was generated for Zionism.

Before that time, the predominant tendency among Jews in capitalist countries like the United States was to look to the labor movement as their ally in the struggle against oppression. And the vanguard of Jewish workers looked to socialist revolution for a final abolition of racial and national oppression.

Israel was created, financed, and armed to the teeth for one purpose: to suppress the simmering Arab revolution and maintain imperialist domination and super-exploitation of the Middle East. A settler state. comnletelv denendent for its existence upon U.S. imperialism and destined to be a virtual nation of mercenaries in the service of U.S. foreign policy, was set up in Palestine against the will of the indigenous population.

This is when and why mass support for Zionism was manufactured by the American capitalist class-not the "Jewish lobby." The capitalist monopoly on the machinery of opinion-molding was set into motion in a massive propaganda offensive to sell the racist/ Zionist Jewish settler state to the American people.

The holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were exterminated, was used as a justification for imperialist violations of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. It was also a club wielded to silence anyone with an instinct for international class solidarity and simple justice.

People who might inquire as to the rights of the Palestinians were portrayed as indifferent to the historic persecution of the Jewish people, if not themselves anti-Semites.

"Jewish capitalist" scapegoat

The labor bureaucracy played a particularly reprehensible role, dragooning the unions into an unprecedented campaign to sell Zionism to workers in this country.

This betrayal by the labor bureaucracy effectively stifled opposition within the labor movement to U.S. imperialist policy. It also contributed to the victory of reactionary, pro-capitalist Zionism over the proud, proletarian-internation alist heritage of Jewish workers.

But this "victory" by the labor bureaucrats only serves to fuel the antiSemitic bomb that ticks away in the heart of capitalist America.

"Anti-Semitism is the socialism [the anti-capitalism] of idiots, Lenin once said. And just as Hitler diverted the middle class of Germany from a growing anti-capitalist consciousness, so too will the fascist saviors of capitalism seek to divert Americans toward venting their anti-capitalism against a "Jewish capitalist" scapegoat in America.

Farrakhan-based in the oppressed Black community, which has no objective interest in the capitalist system— cannot play this role. Actually, he may well be compelled to guard against amalgamating the Zionists with the Jewish people. But the longer he persists in such errors, the more disservice he does to himself, to the cause of Black nationalism, and to the general struggle against racism and imperialism.

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WE SUPPORT CANNERY STRIKERS