This article was reprinted from the June 14, 1997 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.
The National Labor Commission of the Communist Party USA, meeting in Chicago Saturday, June 7, issued the following call:
Steelworkers in Steubenville, Ohio, are saying, "Wheeling- Pitt is becoming another Little Steel strike!" There is no better way to understand the crisis nature of this mounting, titanic struggle.
The Great Steel Strike of 1919, the Homestead Strike of 1892, the Little Steel Strike of 1937 - all were watershed battles for the whole working class. So, today, is the Wheeling-Pitt strike.
It has become crystal clear that the future course of our labor movement rests on the outcome of this strike. Ruling class attacks of the last 50 years against our movement will pale in comparison with what's ahead if this strike is lost. The ruling class will escalate its warfare against the entire labor movement and its allies.
On the other hand, a victory for these workers in basic industry will shift the balance of the class struggle in favor of further advances for the entire working class. It will lay the basis for going on the offensive to win new gains at the bargaining table and in the halls of Congress.
Some 4,500 Wheeling-Pitt steelworkers, their families, and the United Steelworkers of America have broadened their eight-month battle with a corporate campaign to demand that the main Wheeling-Pitt shareholders pressure WHX chief, Ron LaBow, to return to the bargaining table.
Instead of pulling out their stock, these shareholders, among the biggest banks in the country, are giving LaBow enough support to keep him afloat. It is proof positive that the top centers of corporate and finance capital see LaBow as their pit bull and are using him to break the union. We can't let that happen!
Wheeling-Pitt shareholders have their tentacles all over the country. They can be cut off at their roots by mass pressure organized in working class communities.
Targets can be selected for Wheeling-Pitt solidarity picketlines in nearly every city. Support committees can be built around actions against these targets.
Essential to building support committees are grassroots initiatives by the entire labor movement, local unions, religious and community organizations.
A second essential feature is circulation of the People's Weekly World. We urge mass distribution of the paper with its extensive coverage of the strike as a most effective means of building support. Trade union centers, local unions, mills and shops, and especially working class communities, need to see the PWW.
Winning this strike will help galvanize the entire country into a political and economic offensive the likes of which we have not seen since the organization of the industrial unions. Let's do it!
Read the Peoples Weekly World
Sub info: pww@igc.apc.org
235
W. 23rd St. NYC 10011
$20/yr - $1-2 mos trial sub
Return to the top or to the People's Weekly World home page.