Bush plays Johnny Appleseed for the cameras Behind the Lines

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Staff: Paul Colvin, May May Gong, David Kirschner, Hayden Perry, Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly for $8 per year Francisco, CA 94110. Second-class postage is paid at San Francisco, Calif.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Socialist Action, 3435 Army RATES: For one year (12 issues)—U.S. 2nd Class: $8, 1st Class: $12; Canada and Mexico 2nd Class: $12, 1st Class: $15; All other countries 2nd Class: $15, 1st Class: $30. (Canada money orders or checks should be in 2 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1989 needed by the poor. The money will be used to increase the number of prisons, to pay for the use of the National Guard wherever called for, more federal prosecutors, more federal courts, and more U.S. marshals.

Damned little will be given to drug rehabilitation programs for the hundreds of thousands. who are unable to get into them because they are too crowded. The government is also talking about the need to be allowed assassination squads, if called on, to stop drugs. In other words, this anti-drug war is aimed at the poor and the oppressed-just as was the Vietnam War.

Not one expert, even within the government, has even the slightest hope of stopping this scourge by the methods presently adopted by Congress and the president.

However, there is one "drug war" we could win. That is the fight for AZT and other drugs needed to fight Editor: ALAN BENJAMIN Asst. Editors: MICHAEL SCHREIBER Kwame M.A. Somburu, Sylvia Weinstein.

Business Manager: KATHY SANDS St., No. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110.

U.S. dollars.)

Signed articles do not necessarily represent the These are expressed in editorials. White House, Bush has actually acknowledged that air and water pollution, soil erosion, and diminishing wildlife are severe problems in this country. But planting a few symbolic seedlings hardly means that the federal government intends to protect our woods and streams.

Cutting of the forests is at an alltime high. Vast woodlands, nominally owned by the people of the United States, have been signed over to the big lumber corporaClo ing d Jef to 30, tions. As the supply of privately owned timberland declines, federal officials are pushing to clearcut our old-growth habitats. Public "wilderness" areas are being demolished faster than they can be regenerated.

Over the border

Last month, I took a trip by bus and ferry from San Francisco through the Northwest into British Columbia. Overcutting of the forests is rampant on both sides of the border, I found. From the highways, I could see vast sun-baked patches on what were once green mountainsides.

In Vancouver, B.C., I spoke with Paul George, of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. He pointed out that modern machinery allows the timber companies to clearcut steep slopes that were previousiy unreachable or too expensive. But this has caused forest soils to erode at a startling rate. Replanting the mountainsides becomes next to impossible.

"Cutting down a forest is not like harvesting corn," George said. Government authorities and the timber companies have joined forces in slick advertising campaigns to publicize their "reforesting" programs. But George told me that seedlings are often planted four times or more in the clearcut areas before they begin to take root.

"An old-growth forest is a complete system," he explained. Leaf canopies provide shade for young trees. Roots keep the soil in place. Fallen branches can take 200 or 300 years to decompose, giving nourishment to the soil. Small animals and seedling roots find life in the moisture that the logs retain.

Robber barons

While I was traveling through the state of Washington, the timber companies were in the midst of a huge propaganda campaign to justify their destruction of the oldgrowth forests. Lumber workers were given a paid holiday in order to participate in rallies where company spokespeople denounced the efforts of environmentalists to save the stands of ancient trees.

But the corporation heads—who are shameless union-busters every one-have played a cruel joke on their employees. Their current lev(Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascade, Potlatch, etc.) is logging at a rate that exceeds sustained yield," writes B.J. Williams in the January 1989 issue of Pacific Northwest magazine. For example, Williams notes, the Plum Creek corporation "is logging off its mature timber at a rate that will liquidate those holdings in 10 to 12 years."

Plum Creek manages the forests owned by the Burlington Northern (BN) corporation, which received its land free from the government when the railroads were built. Now, after holding the land for a century, the BN magnates want to take advantage of current high prices— even if they no longer have any trees to cut after 10 years!

Politicians from the statehouse up to the White House have bent over backward to ensure that the corporations continue to rake in their superprofits. The government has given away public lands or sold the timber rights at give-away prices. Logging roads are built into the forests—all at the expense of the taxpayers. Local and state police are used to keep protesters at bay.

This land is being raped by profit-hungry capitalists while George Bush preens for the cameras and plants a seedling. Much, much more must be done. The forests, fields, and waterways-which are our birthright—must be taken out of the hands of the capitalists and managed for the public welfare. The earth's survival is at stake.

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Thirty-three union sympathizers were arrested on Saturday, Sept. 9, during a protest against the use of scab labor at the mill.

By JACK REVERS ST. PAUL, Minn.—On Sept. 16, more than 10,000 union supporters rallied here on the steps of the Minnesota state capitol building to protest the union-busting activities of Boise Cascade Inc. and the Alabamabased BE&K construction company.

In recent months, Boise began construction work on a $535 million expansion of its paper and pulp mill in International Falls, Minn. One of the largest private construction projects in Minnesota history, it is being carried out with an 80 percent non-union labor force.

Faced with an openly anti-union atmosphere, increasing harassment, unsafe working conditions, and the aggressive recruitment of ever more non-union workers, union members walked off the job on strike.

The Boise construction project is seen by everyone throughout Minnesota-labor spokespersons, business figures, the news media and the general public-as a watershed challenge to the state's strong union traditions dating back to the famous 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strike.

From the outset, Boise had a clear plan and strategy for challenging and defeating the construction unions. They awarded the multimillion-dollar construction contract to the notorious union-busting BE&K construction firm. BE&K has built its reputation by organizing the importation of scab labor, especially from Alabama and Texas, into traditionally union areas.

Boise and BE&K have a well-developed partnership in which BE&K has organized scab labor at other Boise plants in Rumford, Maine; Jackson, Ala.; DeRidder, La.; and St. Helens, Ore.

BE&K construction openly markets itself as a union-busting service and boasts in its promotional material: "BE&K has extensive experience in introducing merit construction and maintenance in the areas that traditionally performed construction on a union basis."

Who started the violence?

Along with BE&K, Boise also acquired the services of the Vance Corporation, a security firm which specializes in strike-breaking. Vance Security agents have strikers outnumbered at least three to one, and their occupation of International Falls has many residents terrified.

Vance has not only terrorized union workers on strike but it has roamed the city terrorizing strikers' families and homes. Vance guards are pulling over cars as if they were cops, rousting bystanders they think are loitering (even if they are on public property), and following cars they think might contain union sympathizers.

In a Sept. 12 Minneapolis Star-Tribune interview, Building and Trades Union chief Bill Peterson states: "BE&K scabs beat a union picket at an apartment away from the papermill last week. Picketers have been taunted by construction buses full of scabs on their way to the jobsite."

Peterson also described an incident where a driver delivering materials to the mill deliberately veered toward pickets, smashing their chairs, and causing them to run to the plant gates for cover. The scab-driver was fined and given a suspended jail sentence.

Violence against union members has taken less direct forms also. In another interview, an International Falls union worker described Fences: "wildcat" status.

The Building and Trades Council, by calling their membership's strike a wildcat strike, put the workers at the mercy of the company, the cops, and the courts. Today, fewer than 25 building trades workers are still actively striking against Boise Cacade.

Ron Del Pup, an unemployed ironworker who has been helping walk the picketline, said in a Sept. 15 St. Paul Pioneer Press interview that the remaining workers are a loosely oranized group with no formal leaders or direction from the Building Trades Council. "Nobody's telling us what to do," Del Pup said. "Nobody's the boss."

This seemingly schizophrenic policy followed by the labor officials is reflected in statements by Brad Skarich, president of the Iron Range Building Council. While refusing to sanction the strike, Skarich says that the 25 strikers are fighting for a cause that can't be abandoned. Other companies, he points out, will begin using non-union contractors if the building trades disband their effort.

Big business charges "terrorism"

It was this atmosphere of anger and frustration, with virtually no effective leadership provided by the official labor movement, that led to a Sept. 9 attack on the scab housing compound set up by Boise.

About 150 strike supporters, many from out of state, broke down the chain-link fence surrounding Boise's hated scab housing facility and destroyed a number of the trailerlike units. Thirty of the demonstrators were arrested and had full cash bails as high as $50,000 set.

Business leaders, politicians, and the news media immediately launched a propaganda campaign characterizing the incident as a "labor riot" and accusing union members of convince Boise Cascade and others that they could successfully go the non-union route in Minnesota.

The state AFL-CIO leadership, in which the building trades play a very prominent role, not only made no attempt to mobilize a massive opposition to Perpich's use of the guard against Hormel union members, but even refrained from criticizing Perpich for his union-busting action.

The union leadership went so far as to adopt the role of Perpich's "lawyer," defending him from widespread criticism by rank-and-file union members throughout the state. This certainly played a role in convincing Boise and others that Minnesota was ripe pickings for the expansion of non-union operations.

The policy of relying on Democratic Party politicians continued as one of the major themes at the Sept. 16 support rally at the capitol. Scores of printed placards proclaimed "Teamsters For Perpich."

The only thing this policy has achieved is a commitment by Perpich to financially reimburse all Northern Minnesota Police Departments who sent forces to protect the scabs in International Falls. Perpich also promised to act faster next time if the National Guard is needed to quell further "union violence."

The Judas goat During my days in the meatpacking industry, we had an animal called the Judas goat. Cattle in holding pens would be bellowing, stamping, and pawing at the ground—sensing that something terrible was arry Oakes/Minn awaiting them beyond the chute. It was particularly difficult to move them from the holding pens to the kill floor.

We'd send a tame goat in to mix with the cattle. After a while, the cattle would get used to the goat and even accept the goat as one of them. At the appropriate time, someone would lead the tame goat up onto the kill floor and the cattle would follow.

That's the role that Perpich and other so-called "friends of labor" in the Democratic Party play. These politicians mix with us, convince us that they are one of us then at the appropriate moment deliver us to the slaughter.

Only the massive mobilization of organized labor and its allies in action aimed at stopping production will be successful in defeating the union-busting drive of companies like Boise Cascade and BE&K Construction. That's how our labor unions were originally built-not by relying on favors from politicians.

The moral right to strike to defend basic living standards for ourselves and our families is greater than any law. The capitalist class turns all struggles on their head. The workers who fought at Boise Cascade are heroes and not terrorists. They fought for what was theirs—the right to work at union wages and the right to defend their union.

Organized labor and their allies should come to their support and start a defense fund on their behalf. The workers should tell the boss class: "Let our people go!"

Meanwhile, contributions and statements of support to the Boise Cascade strikers should be sent to the "Strike Fund Legal Fee," P.O. Box 86, Ranier, Minn. 56668.

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CTION end women's rights

By Michael Schreibei Schreib