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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 19, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Detroit newspaper strikers discuss tactics

By Workers World Detroit bureau

Two hundred newspaper strikers and supporters met in Detroit Dec. 7 in a spirited labor conference entitled "How to Win Strikes in the 1990s." The event was organized by the Action Coalition of Strikers and Supporters, an entirely rank-and-file group that has been active in the Detroit newspaper strike for many months.

UAW Local 2334 President David Sole delivered opening remarks. Sole traced the history of union busting in the United States from the years after the Civil War to the 1930s. He stressed that the great struggles of the Depression were "led by militant rank-and-file workers along with radicals, socialists and communists."

The battles of the 1930s, he said, "created a political crisis for the entire ruling class of this country. In the end the bosses decided they would rather live with unions than face a full-scale civil war, a class war."

Sole declared that the Detroit newspaper strike could become "an historic test of wills, a critical political confrontation" if a "clarion call to action" were issued.

Participants in the conference discussed a recent "Appeal for a National Labor Solidarity March" signed by 840 of the striking newspaper workers. Efforts to press the national AFL-CIO leadership to agree to organize such an action in Detroit are under way.

How to win?

The meeting, billed as a strategy conference, featured speakers from other recent strikes.

James Gibbs of the Mine Workers discussed the experience of the Pittston coal strike. He described how mass civil disobedience stopped coal trucks. He emphasized how important labor solidarity was.

The conference also heard from him about how strikers took over one of the coal-processing plants. That led to a final settlement.

Juan Gonzalez of the Newspaper Guild was a leader of the 1991 strike at the New York Daily News. He described many of the tactics in that strike.

Strikers in the audience responded enthusiastically when he said the unions had offered to pay strikers "full pay if they would work full-time on the strike." Three hundred agreed, and the strike was strengthened by their tireless efforts.

Gonzalez said "the American labor movement could win the Detroit strike any time it put its mind to it" by mobilizing all its resources behind the walkout.

Mike Legel, who was a Caterpillar striker, described the difficult conditions now facing those who have returned to work since the Auto Workers leadership called off the strike without a contract settlement last year. Les Caulford reported on the Bridgestone-Firestone settlement.

Canadian Auto Workers representative John Paquette got a warm response by describing the militant tactics Canadian labor has been using in the past year. "City-wide general strikes and the recent 'days of protest'" that shut down Toronto are, he said, to continue in other areas of the country.

A panel made up of rank-and-file strikers and strike supporters gave their views about different tactics that can be employed in the strike against the Detroit News and Free Press, which is now 17 months old. Dozens of audience members also had a chance to ask questions or comment on the issues raised by the panelists.

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