Farmworkers call boycott of Safeway to protest cancer-causing pesticides

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SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1989 13 OAKLAND, Calif.—Speaking to a Sept. 20 rally on the steps of Safeway Corp.'s world headquarters, United Farm Workers of America (UFW) President Cesar Chavez gave the multi-billion-dollar agribusiness conglomerate two days to remove all pesticideridden grapes from their stores or face a nationwide boycott.

Three hundred Bay Area trade unionists, religious leaders, and farmworker supporters joined Chavez and some 50 UFW members to present their demands. Chavez explained that 300,000 farmworkers are poisoned each year by the cancer-causing pesticides sprayed on the grape crop. Children of farmworkers have serious birth defects due to the toxic chemicals.

California growers have been engaged in a decades-long war to keep the UPW from representing the farmworkers. Agribusiness in California, "the world's seventh richest nation," is dominated by giant conglomerates such as Safeway. In addition to its thousands of supermarkets, Safeway owns and/or controls key sectors of the food production industry-from the trucking lines and slaughter houses to the land itself.

Organizing efforts by the UFW are regularly met with the opposition of local police and goon squads hired by the growers—as well as their pro-capitalist allies in the state legislature and courts.

The UFW membership, overwhelmingly composed of Latino and Mexican immigrants, carries with it the proud traditions of neverending struggle for elementary trade-union and human rights.

The Safeway boycott to protest the deadly pesticides (as well as low wages and harassment by the growers) is, nevertheless, a continuing indication of the union's weakened position in relation to the growers. This, in turn, is a product of the indifference of California's trade-union bureaucracy, which stands by idly as the UFW faces seemingly all-powerful obstacles.

In order to trade blows on an equal footing .. Drugs (continued from page military presence in Latin America. Bush recently signed a secret national security directive permitting U.S. advisors in the "drug war" to move outside their base camps in Latin America to better "secure" the areas.

The United States is sending 100 soldiers and $100 million in military aid to Colombia. The Bush administration wants to aid Colombia (and Bolivia, Peru, and other countries) in waging war, not against the drug cartels, but against their own restive populations. It's no accident that the "war on drugs" campaign coincides with the imposition of IMF austerity drives against the working classes of these countries.

Government aid to drug smuggling Bush's phony war is also designed to provide a smokescreen to hide the U.S. government's own complicity in the international drug trade. The U.S. government has been deeply involved-directly and indirectly-in drug-smuggling rings and with drug dealers ever since the years of the "liberal" Kennedy administration.

The on-going lawsuit of the Christic Institute has been particularly valuable in exposing and documenting the details of this involvement. The Christic Institute notes that as long ago as 1966, in Laos, the CIA provided air support and military assistance to the kingpin of the massive illegal opium trade, Van Pao. This was done on the basis that Van Pao was an anti-communist.

In 1974, the CIA organized the infamous operation Phoenix, a program designed to cripple the infrastructure of Vietnam. This included the assassination of some 60,000 village mayors, treasurers, school teachers, and other administrators. The program again was financed by using Van Pao opium money. The opium accounts were administered by a U.S. Navy official in Saigon out of the U.S. Office of Naval Operations.

Throughout the Vietnam War years, the CIA-controlled airline, Air America, was routinely used to transport drugs in and out of Southeast Asia. Beginning in 1979, the same procedure was employed once again in Costa Rica and Honduras. U.S. government officials used drug shipments to finance the contras in the war against Nicaragua.

According to the Christic Institute, over one-sixth of the pages of Oliver North's and register gains for California's most exploited workers, the UFW must eventually take on the growers at the site of production itself. The UFW decision to resort to a boycott is another reminder that the effectiveness of the union picket line in the fields has been reduced to little more than token value.

The full and active support of an aroused labor movement is vital to a resurgence of the U.S. Army helicopters in Bogotá, Colombia.

notebooks contain references to drugs. One entry indicates, for example, that a plane used to carry weapons for the contras out of New Orleans "is probably being used for drug runs into U.S."

A key component of U.S. contra aid was the construction of a secret contra base and airstrip on a cattle ranch on Costa Rica's Nicaraguan border. Heading this program was John Hull, a CIA operative and businessman, whose private ranch became the staging area for contra operations.

Hull also operated a program to ship large quantities of cocaine from Colombia to his ranch, using the airstrip built with U.S. funds. The same planes used to deliver arms for the contras were then used to fly the drugs out. It's interesting to note that Hull's cocaine shipments came from the very same Medellin drug cartel that is one of the main focuses of the present phony "war on drugs."

As a legacy of previous "wars on drugs," there's a law on the books in this country that no foreign government can receive U.S. military or economic aid if it is complicit with illegal drug activities. Under this law, the president is responsible for certifying that these governments are not so involved.

During its first months in office, the Bush administration, through the State Department, submitted its report to Congress on international drug trafficking as required by this law. UFW. The unions centrally involved in the industry, representing the Teamster truckdrivers and warehouse workers and members of the United Food and Commercial Workers-not to mention the trade-union movement as a whole—must forge the same kind of alliance to advance their members' class interests as the corporate giants have done to defend their own interests.

Bill Gentile i The report whitewashed scores of governments notorious for their drug trade involvement. It once again recommended against imposing any sanctions on the major cocaineproducing nations for fear of "destabilizing" them.

It's not surprising that the report, according to one newspaper account, "was printed in a small quantity and will not be made available to the public." Both Bush and the Democrats are particularly concerned that the American public not become aware of the notorious drug activities of the Mujahadeen "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, who weekly receive millions in U.S. military aid.

Who are the criminals?

Malcolm X had a way of cutting through all the hypocrisy and going right to the nub of a question. In a 1964 speech in Harlem, Malcolm said, "When a person is a drug addict, he's not the criminal; he's the victim of the criminal. The criminal is the man downtown who brings this drug into the country."

"Blacks can't bring drugs into the country," he continued, "You don't have any boats. You don't have any airplanes. You don't have diplomatic immunity. It's not you who are responsible for bringing the drugs. You are just a tool that is used by the man downtown."

Malcolm continued, "The man that controls In the face of a united labor movement, the growers will be reminded again that labor's picket lines are not to be taken lightly.

In the meantime, the farmworkers-despite the limitations imposed on them by forces outside their immediate control-will continue to inspire all those whose hearts reach out when the most oppressed stand up for their rights.

the drug traffic sits in city hall or he sits in the state house. Big shots who are respected, who function in high circles-those are the ones who control these things. And you and I will never strike at the root of it until we strike at the man downtown."

The drug trade, as Malcolm explained, is part of big business. Legal or illegal, the police are there to protect big business and not to wage war against it. Emergency Program Officials from the Bush administration concede that their goal of a "victory over drugs" cannot be achieved in this generation. A senior White House official told The New York Times last month that the government expects only to "make some gradual headway" in bringing the country's drug problem "under some degree of control."

But-Bush to the contrary-an effective "war on drugs" can be mounted and won. It requires an emergency program to rebuild our inner cities. Rather than spend money on death machines like the Stealth Bomber, the government should provide new and rehabilitated housing, schools, clinics, parks and recreation facilities-and other services that people need.

Unemployment must end. Everyone can be put to work immediately-at union-scale wages-to provide for the needs of our society.

Drug addicts must be included in this emergency program. Government-funded drug treatment centers should provide free education up to the university level, jobtraining and placement services, and 24hour childcare facilities. Free medical, nutritional, and dental care should be included as part of the treatment.

The money is there for such an emergency program. We must demand that the government tax the rich, end the military budget, and wage a real war to save the lives of millions of Americans. If the Republicans and the Democrats won't do it, then working people should elect candidates from our own party—a labor party. Ultimately, a workers' government is necessary to provide for our elementary human needs.—the editors