A Pro-Labor Youth Activist’s Perspective

“What’s Going On At the D.C. Demonstrations”

by Jennie Mahalick

The following report was sent by e-mail on April 14 to Students Against Sweatshops members at the University of Arizona. The author was part of a group of anti-sweatshop students who met earlier in the year with Steelworkers members in the Detroit area. An article about that meeting by four of the student participants appeared in the February 2000 Labor Notes, along with a photo of Jennie Mahalick. USAS (United Students Against Sweatshops) is the national umbrella group linking dozens of pro-union student groups at campuses across the U.S. This report, and the accompanying sidebar, illustrate that there is a strong internationalist current in the demonstrations, that the Pat Buchanan “America First” mentality frequently played up in the mass media is by no means the dominant point of view among demonstrators.

So, here’s what we have been or will be up to.

USAS students attended a candlelight vigil with 1,500 steelworkers for oppressed workers throughout the world. A lot of attention was paid to sweatshops, and a student from Purdue spoke about the sit-in and hunger strike at Purdue. The student was met with the most applause; it was so amazing. These workers love us, respect us, and have so much appreciation for our struggles. International speakers stressed international solidarity.

USAS students met with the President of the Steelworkers and 1,500 rank and file members, along with Charles Kernigan of the National Labor Committee [a union-backed organization that helps build pro-labor student groups]. This meeting was historic. The purpose was to build connections and discuss our common struggle in support of oppressed workers. The speakers were all amazing and inspiring. The message was that together we are beginning to challenge this global system, together we are creating a vision of a better world for all. Together we are also helping make this world a reality. Again, these people love us. Again, international speakers stressed solidarity.

USAS students got the front page of the “Life” section of USA Today. The strongest student movement and strongest human rights movement alive today is discussed, and it’s us.

USAS students attended a sweatshop teach-in. Lots of personal testimonies.

USAS students attended a meeting with Honduran labor rights worker and then had the first of three official USAS meetings.

USAS students painted a beautiful and very, very large mural for the legal rally on Sunday. It is of two chained hands. The chains say IMF and WTO… the chains are breaking and the hands turn into a bird flying over the Earth.

USAS students will protest in front of Nike with workers from UNITE and Steelworkers tomorrow. STUDENTS AND STEELWORKERS AGAINST SWEATSHOPS. STUDENTS AND STEELWORKERS STRONGER TOGETHER.

Students will protest the IMF because IMF Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) aggravate sweatshop conditions [in poor countries]. For instance, IMF SAPs call for lax governmental regulations…without regulations unions cannot organize, pollutants adversely affect the environment and communities, toxins in the factories harm workers, pregnancy tests are given to women, people are fired randomly or for trying to organize or for being pregnant, wages are low, abuse is high, etc…Also, IMF SAPs call for cuts in government spending and subsidies so poor people do not get help with food and often cannot afford it on their own, so malnutrition goes up.

Also, IMF SAPs make it easy for multinational corporations to set up shop by making them tax exempt. These policies are for the benefit of the companies…it’s an effort to encourage foreign investment into the economies [of Third World countries], but it hurts everyday people. The poor are especially hurt, and when you consider that almost half of Mexican people are impoverished, for example, that is a lot of people.

The IMF says that these people are only hurt short-term and in the long run everyone will benefit. Mexico has been involved with the IMF for almost two decades and things are worse for people. Babies on the U.S.-Mexican border are often born with birth defects, some are born dead, without brains, due to all the pollution. Real wages are down.

Furthermore, the Mexican constitution says that the National University shall be free, so that all people can get an education. The IMF has made them start charging tuition…this money goes to debt repayment. The students at UNAM (the National Autonomous University of Mexico) went on strike. Their president wouldn’t meet with them and over 700 people got arrested and many were beaten. The list goes on and on. I wrote a paper called: “The Effects of IMF Structural Adjustment Programs on Mexican Workers and Students.” This is being shared with people up here [in Washington, D.C.].

So, we are busy…but this is very inspiring. People are ready and willing to work and suffer for change…so here we go.

Solidarity,

Jennie

Upsurge in Youth Activism Against Global Capitalism

A friend of our magazine, a college teacher, reports: “Seattle has the kids wild with enthusiasm.” In one class a student “a great young leader of the Brown University contingent, actually an Asian-American girl in the YCL,” reported her experience of what had gone on in Seattle. Instead of 50 students in class that day, there were 130. In another class, our teacher friend says: “I put a Seattle video up next to (after) the 1877 ‘Grand Army of Starvation’ film by the New York Social History group. The parallels were staggering, even to me; for the kids, it made more sense of history than I could have managed.”

“The activists are building for the April 15–16 demo in DC at the World Bank/IMF meetings. And that’s the weekend of the CLR James Conference here! Oh well…”

“It looks rather like the beginning of another adventure for another generation. All the best across the years.”

Another friend of our magazine, a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts, reports the following about a meeting in Western Massachusetts building for the April 16 AFL-CIO demonstration in Washington, D.C.: “[speaking at the meeting] was another trade unionist who even talked of international trade unions, cooperation with Chinese workers, and anti-capitalism, and he was the only one to spell out the word exploitation. But his every sentence was interrupted by cheers from the audience. So this made me hopeful about the possibility of a new upsurge and organization in Western Mass. There is something like a group of 500 going to DC.”

Labor Party Activist on April 16 March and Rally

A young Labor Party activist reported the following:

“I was in DC on Sunday [April 16]. I got the impression that labor did not participate as much as it did in Seattle, at least on Sunday. Labor had its own rally on Wednesday against China’s admission to the WTO.

“However, that’s not to say that they weren’t there at all. George Becker of the Steelworkers, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka, and AFSCME President Gerald McEntee all spoke at the main rally on the Ellipse. UE had a large contingent, including ‘Build the Labor Party’ and ‘Where is Al Gore?’ signs, and I even saw some Steelworkers doing civil disobedience.

“George Becker told the protesters that the students in DC were ‘the best this country has to offer’ and he made comparisons between us and our counterparts in the 1960s. The majority of the protesters were students and young people. I really felt that this was a turning point, that the neoliberal, social-program destroying, union-busting paradigm set by Thatcher and Reagan, and continued by Blair and Clinton, is finally falling apart. When I saw 10–15,000 of my brothers and sisters dedicated and fighting on the streets of Washington I got the feeling that we’re no longer on the defensive, that this is a turning point.

“While the people there were not mainly union members, they were in solidarity with unions and willing and able to find common cause with them. How this bodes for the Labor Party I don’t know, but it can’t hurt us. A vital, basically anti-corporate movement, based somewhat but not completely around class issues, and made up of dedicated individuals, should revitalize the labor movement, including the Labor Party, especially if its leaders do what Becker’s done and try to meet it half-way.”