Packinghouse workers discuss union strategy

Scan page 6

Socialist Action/Kathleen O'Nan PRIT OKAW SAYS NO!

TO DRUG * ALCONL TESTING TECTING CHEVRON SAS YO OCAW SIN To DrociAt ST. PAUL, Minn.—Eighty-five packinghouse workers and union activists from across the country met in Austin, Minn., on May 1-3 to "discuss the common problems which exist in the packing industry."

The meeting was organized by rank-and-file unionists throughout the upper Midwest. They included members of the North American Meat Packers Union (NAMPU), an independent union organized by former P-9ers after their strike against the Hormel Co. was broken by the company with the collusion of the leadership of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW).

Other participants included striking workers from the Cuddahy plant in Wisconsin; workers from Ottumwa, Iowa, and Fremont, Neb., who lost their jobs for supporting the P-9 struggle; as well as workers from as far away as Edmonton, Canada, and Birmingham, Ala.

The meeting was presided by Lynn Huston, a former executive board member of P-9. Non-packinghouse participants included such "honored guests" as Jake Cooper and Peter Rachleff, leaders of the Twin Cities P-9 Support Committee, and Rowena Moore, a 76-year-old Black organizer of a meatpacking union in Oklahoma 50 years ago.

After lengthy discussion of the employers' drive for concessions and the role of the UFCW officialdom, the participants adopted a "Workers' Bill of Rights."

No effective strategy While the need to fight back against concessions was underscored by all participants, the conference failed to put forward a program that could effectively confront the employers' concessions drive.

Mid-way through the conference, attorney David Twadell gave a major presentation in which he outlined the strategy of the Corporate Campaign. Twadell explained that strikes are "unwinnable and even save the companies money"-whereas the Corporate Campaign is designed to impose the maximum amount of expense and inconvenience on the employer.

Twadell's presentation, which is based on the erroneous concept that workers are in a "new period" of struggle, was flawed from start to finish. It failed to point out that employers will pay whatever amount of money is necessary to bust unions and atomize the labor movement.

Twadell also dismissed as "obsolete" the lessons of the early labor struggles that led to the formation of the industrial unions. Twadell, for example, argued that it was hopeless for P-9 workers to challenge the National Guard, which was brought in during the strike by the Hormel company in order to escort scabs through the gates.

Twadell's proposals fly in the face of the history of the labor movement of this country. Workers have had to confront the bosses, the undemocratic injunctions by the courts, and the cops in order to defend their picket lines. In fact, the class-struggle strategies of the 1930s and '40s—mass picket lines, sit-down strikes, and labor solidarity—are more urgent today than ever before.

Jake Cooper spoke during the discussion period and explained that strikes are not "obsolete." Workers in a strike situation must shut down the entire operation of the employer and stop the flow of profits, he said. He pointed to the need to unleash the power of labor's rank and file against the capitalists, the courts, and the politicians.

While the conference had many shortcomings, all the participants seemed to feel it was an important and worthwhile event.

As one of the organizers noted, "This conference was a modest step forward in that, for the first time, it brought together a militant layer of packinghouse workers to discuss these issues."