We're two years old and taking some big steps

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Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, S.F. CA ACTiON Enclosed is $_ fund Name Address City State Telephone $6 FOR 1-YEAR SU BSCRI PTION $14.00—Other countries (surface) $30.00-Other countries (airmail)

$12.50—Canada and Mexico Zip ing big steps forward every day.

Thanks to you, our readers, we've sur passed our goal of 225 new long-term sub -scriptions to Socialist Action. And we're close to our $10,000 fund drive goal, which ends on Dec. 2. Close to $12,200 has been pledged, and over $8500 already collected.

Socialist Action branches have brought in most of the new subscriptions through sales to other antiwar activists, students, and workers. Single copy sales in Min -nesota grew considerably as a result of our coverage of the Hormel strike. One hotshot Twin Cities salesperson sold 45 of the November issue himself.

The Cincinnati branch of Socialist Ac -tion, in the course of the subscription drive, sold 34 subs and set up campus groups of Students for Socialist Action at four colleges.

We appreciate the comments and suggestions we're getting in letters and calls from our readers. Your opinions are helping us shape the paper and broaden its appeal.

And we've kept our part of the bargain. drive. This paper was produced for the first time by our own computerized typesetting equipment-purchased with the funds col -lected so far in the drive.

In next month's Socialist Action we'll offer the second issue of International Outlook, our theoretical supplement. This will include documents from South Africa on the debate over revolutionary strategy, as well as articles on Chile and Eastern Europe.

The funds still to be collected in the re -maining weeks of the fund drive have been earmarked for a project we feel is over -due-publishing inexpensive pamphlets of -fering a strategy for the antiwar movement, the struggle for women's rights, and much more.

We are also researching the possibility of re-issuing some of the classical works of revolutionary socialism. You might have guessed that we're a pretty optimistic group. With the world revolution for so -cialism on the rise, we have every reason to be. If you haven't yet made your contri -bution to our fund drive, it's not too late!

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Concessions

(continued from page through difficult financial times.

But workers soon found out that con -cessions do not save jobs. However, they were so unprepared to deal with the bosses' continual takeback demands that a wage freeze or slight cut came to be regarded as a victory.

Many labor officials excuse sub-standard contracts by saying "the courts are killing us" and it's impossible to get a favorable National Labor Relations Board ruling these days.

Yet, this is nothing new. Workers have never been able to rely on the courts or government agencies to protect their interests.

In 1978, the federal government backed down on an order requiring striking coal miners to return to work. The miners re -fused, expressing their determination to stay out until an equitable agreement was reached.

When Wheeling-Pittsburgh tried to move steel to meet customers' orders, steel -Solidarity is the obvious answer to the attempts to play one group of workers off against another. Whenever a group of workers is forced on strike, it's important that other workers turn out in sup -port—helping on the picket line, attending rallies, organizing material assistance, and helping in educational efforts to inform community residents how the strike affects them. This is what the packing-house workers at Local P-9 in Austin, Minn., have done so successfully.

No politician ever gave workers any -thing. Whatever they won, they achieved through their own struggle. Tremendous union resources continue to be wasted in the vain hope that the Democrats are somehow better than the Republicans.

The labor movement must end its re -liance on the politicians of the two bigbusiness parties and form a labor party based on the trade unions. Such a party could campaign for a law making con -cessions illegal and demanding that all workers receive a living wage. Any com -pany which demonstrated its inability to provide safe working conditions and a living wage could be nationalized under the control of the workers working there.

Does this doom workers to suffer defeat after defeat until such a long-term fightback strategy is implemented? No, workers have shown that by standing up to the bosses and fighting back, some of the company's demands can be beaten back.

Even such serious concession settlements as the Wheeling-Pittsburgh agreement were much better than what would have been forced on the workers without a fight. The fightbacks of the Greyhound bus drivers, United Airlines pilots, Wheeling-Pitts -burgh steelworkers, and others also had another important result.

Thousands who had never before been involved in their unions actively demon -strated in defense of their rights, proving the power of the workers to shut down production and force the company to back down from supposedly non-negotiable positions.

Unlike the demoralizing experiences of accepting losses without a fight, this will strengthen the membership's resolve and better prepare them for future battles.

An effective fightback that can turn the concessions tide, however, will require a strategy that as its first priority does not subordinate workers' interests to profits. I