sakaisettlersocr

"Times are changing in the U.S. labor movement.
When a major union recognizes the unity between the
struggles of U.S. workers and workers abroad, it is a sharp
departure from the usual union campaign of 'Be
American, Buy American', which fails to distinguish the
common interests of workers throughout the world. It is
even more significant when the U.S. workers are from the
South and the workers abroad are Afrikan ..."
This was truly unbelievable. How could the UMW
and its mass of Euro-Amerikan members - who had a
proven record of white-supremacist attacks on Afrikan
workers - literally overnight without a struggle be converted
to Proletarian Internationalism? Yet the Euro-
Amerikan "left" was responsible for that new alliance.
Some of the organizations involved in uniting with the
UMW were the Revolutionary Union (now the Revolutionary
Communist Party), the October League (now
CPUSA-ML), The Black Workers Congress, some
elements from the Southern Conference Education Fund
and the Atlanta African Liberation Support Committee.
On the basis of its new found "solidarity" with
Afrikan Liberation, the UMW District 20 officers approached
the Afrikan dockworkers in Mobile, Alabama
(where the South Afrikan coal was to be unloaded) and
asked them to join the campaign and not unload the coal.
The Afrikan dockworkers in Mobile refused. And at that
point the whole treacherous scheme by the UMW and the
settler radicals blew apart at the seams.
It turned out that the UMW District 20 leadership
was, of course, totally reactionary and white-supremacist .
They were, in fact, the labor arm in the area of the rabid
George Wallace "American Independence Party" movement.
Their settler union had also endorsed the then
Attorney-General Bill Baxley, who was appealing to Euro-
Amerikan voters by personally trying to get the death
penalty for the Atmore-Holman Brothers. Inside the mines
they openly promoted the most vicious race-baiting -
knowing all this, the Afrikan dockworkers refused to have
anything to do with them. (8)
The genesis of that strange charade began with the
UMW's decision to fight importation of all foreign coal.
The decision by the Southern Power Co. to import $50
million worth of low-sulfur South Afrikan coal was singled
out. At that point the District 20 reactionaries were quietly
approached by some Euro-Amerikan radicals, who convinced
them that by falsely adopting "Anti-imperialist"
slogans they could trick the Afrikan dockworkers into
fighting to save Euro-Amerikan jobs (stolen from
Afrikans, of course). That's what all that treachery was
about - "tactical unity" based on settler self-interest.
That's why we saw the unreal spectacle of racist Alabama
settlers marching around with signs saying "Support South
African Liberation."
Finally, the UMW miners had to tell the radicals to
leave the boycott picket lines or get tossed out. An article
in the Sept. 11, 1974 Guardian said that even though the
Alabama UMW was now cooperating with the FBI and the
Alabama State Police, the radical Coalition To Stop South
African Coal still wanted to unite with them and still supported
their settler boycott.
The entire example of attempted tactical unity
shows how strongly the oppressor nation character of both
the settler unions and the settler "Left" determines their
actions. The settler "Left" tried to reach an opportunistic
deal with reactionary labor leaders, hoping that Afrikan
workers could be used to pay the price for their alliance.
While the settler radicals professed a heart-felt
concern with helping the liberation struggle in South
Afrika, we notice that they were totally unconcerned with
the long-standing genocidal attack of the UMW against the
economic base of Afrikans in the occupied South. Further,
they covered up for their settler fellow citizens as much as
possible. What is evident is that despite the tactical division
between the rabid, George Wallace-loving settlers and the
radical settlers, their common national position as oppressors
gave them a strategic unity in opposing the interests
of the oppressed.
After an emotional meeting in their local union
hall with a representative from Zimbabwe, the Afrikan
longshoremen temporarily held off the orders of their local
union president and stalled for a day in unloading the
South Afrikan coal. They desired to show support for the
liberation struggle of their brothers and sisters in Southern
Afrika. However incomplete and still undeveloped, that
desire for solidarity was real. But in regards to the attempted
UMW boycott, the Afrikan longshoremen were firm in
their refusal to have anything to do with it.
That attempted maneuver was crude and obvious,
no matter how lovingly the settler radicals wrapped it up in
a camouflage of "anti-imperialist" slogans and postures.
The Afrikan longshoremen saw right through it, right to its
rip-off, reactionary essence. How come the Black Workers
Congress couldn't unmask it? How come all the assorted
Frustrated, the Klan-like unionists turned on the
settler radicals and denounced them. Soon the Guardian
and the other settler "left" organizations had to admit that
the UMW leaders were not as they'd originally pictured
1 them. Even after the UMW admitted that they didn't care
I about any Afrikan liberation, but only wanted to boycott
all foreign coal to save settler jobs, the Euro-Amerikan
radicals kept trying to support them.