A note of controversy
1986 1986-05Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 9 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 9
One question that was raised during the course of organizing the demonstration on April 19 was whether a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local P-9 should speak at the rally.
Local P-9 is waging a struggle that has national implications for the American labor movement. Its heroic struggle against concessions and union busting by the Hormel company, however, has not been supported by the International UFCW or the AFL-CIO.
Coordinators of the Mobilization realized that having a P-9 speaker would be seen by the local APL-CIO affiliates, which are a key component of the coalition, as a provocation.
The fight of P-9 is a reflection of a tragic split in the labor movement. Undoubtedly, the majority of members of the Mo - bilization support the fight of P-9. Some members of the Mobilization, through their unions, helped organize a support rally of over 600 people for P-9 in San Francisco on March 12. This was one of the most successful support rallies anywhere in the country.
Undoubtedly, it would have added to the April 19 rally to have a P-9 speaker. Yet the overriding need to maintain the strong unity in action of the coalition necessitated a tactical decision to not push the issue. It would not have helped the coalition nor the P-9 strike to have made the Mobilization a battleground for this dispute.
It will be workers in their unions who will settle labor's crisis of leadership and transform the unions into fighting instruments against the employers. This is what the P-9 struggle is all about. —J.R Name: Address City Tel.
94110.
Scan page 10
→ THEORY/HISTORY