Corporate Campaign

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SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 198‹ 5 (continued from preceding page)

the bosses would retreat.

The P-9 workers were involved in a struggle around class demands which united the employer class. A profit-hungry company like Hormel could not be "embarrassed" into acquiescing to the workers' demands. Nor could they have been divided from their class on moral grounds. Only the threat of a localized strike struggle triggering a generalized labor upsurge could impel the employers—the ruling class—to force one of their own to back down.

Civil disobedience?

Ray Rogers' advocacy of the tactic of civil disobedience disarmed the P-9 workers because it appealed to what was perceived as a weakness: that the workers, by their numbers and determination, were incapable of winning a direct confrontation on the real field of battle-the picketline.

The substitute tactic of laying down at the plant gate and allowing police to escort scabs through was completely ineffective. Ordering strikers to meekly allow themselves to be picked up bodily and thrown into police vans was guaranteed to create the illusion of powerlessness. This mistaken defeatist policy underlying the "Corporate Campaign," steadily drained P-9 members of their self-confidence and steadily increased their sense of demoralization.

In early February 1986, Ray Rogers' naiveté was revealed when he attempted to negotiate a deal with local law-enforcement officials to allow the striking workers to challenge the injunction against mass picketing by commiting civil disobedience (sitting down) at the plant gate, thus closing the plant. The P-9 members and their supporters, Rogers promised, would then allow the police to arrest them.

Sheriff Wayne Goodnature [sic], who was in charge of the cops, rejected this bizarre request. "I don't believe we can do that, because our responsibility is to keep those roads open," the bemused sheriff told the press. "The company has a right to run its business and I don't see anyway that I can possibly participate in that kind of action."

It certainly is a "new" tactic to expect strikebreakers-the cops and the National Guard-to collaborate in efforts to shut down a plant. As Frank Ellis, a founding leader of P-9, said: Injunctions and cops are used only to defend property rights, not human rights.

Weak forces for one-shot actions After the police rejected Rogers' proposals, sporadic one-shot attempts to challenge and protest the "unfairness" of Hormel were organized. These actions eventually turned into symbolic acts, resulting in arrests and suspended sentences for the best of the P-9 activists.

For example, on Feb. 6, 1986, 27 P-9 members were arrested for blocking a Highway 90 off-ramp near the Hormel plant. Ray Rogers was among those arrested. In a token gesture, these unionists vainly attempted to challenge an injunction that was issued to keep striking workers away from the plant. But their numbers were woefully inadequate to do more than get themselves arrested.

The authorities charged Rogers with "criminal syndicalism." This law was a World War I sedition statute designed for the repression of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Non- Partisan League.

The P-9 leadership was now facing stiff jail sentences. What should have been a misdemeanor was turned by the authorities into a felony. The police and the courts wanted to intimidate the strikers. Rogers faced a $5000 fine and five years in prison for "criminal syndicalism." Rogers and the other arrested strikers were given suspended sentences. But the message was clear. If they were arrested again, the suspended sentences would be invoked.

The severity of the charges was designed to intimidate other P-9 members from challenging the strikebreaking by Hormel, the cops, and the courts. In this regard, the authorities were somewhat successful. P-9 members were not inclined to make futile, symbolic "gestures" that would result in nothing more than their arrest and imprisonment. Furthermore, the central leadership of P-9 had to maintain a low profile to avoid the axe coming down on their own necks for the rest of the strike.

The leadership was victimized because they tried to substitute themselves for the 1500 strikers they neglected to mobilize. Throughout the strike, and particularly after Hormel attempted to open, the workers almost begged to be turned loose to shut down the plant. But the most the P-9 leadership did was to stand aside and permit Emest Mandel in San Francisco leaderless strikers to attempt this difficult task—a task which required the complete participation of a fully mobilized rank and file and its elected leadership to succeed.

"Corporate Campaigners" in the leadership of the P-9 strike against Hormel rationalized their passive picketing policy in the name of "non-violence." But violence against workers is inflicted every day by the boss. Violence is when the company and the laws prevent working people from earning enough money to properly feed, clothe, and house their families.

Isn't it violence when a scab with police protection crashes through a picketline and injures or kills a union worker? Isn't it violence when the police and National Guard crack workers' skulls so the boss can break their union? Isn't there a qualitative difference between this kind of violence and defensive action by the worker victims?

Tape 1:

Leon Trotsky's speech on the Founding of the Fourth International (12 min.), and Esteban Volkov, Trotsky's grandson's, speech to Socialist Action 50th anniversary rally (23 min) printe in this issue of Socialist Action.

Tape 2:

Ernest Mandel's speech to Socia ist Action Forum in S.F. on April 13, 1988, on the "Meaning of the Stock Market Crash." (22 min.)

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