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Break with the Strikebreaking Democratic and Republican
Parties!
The labor movement must have its own political party, a
workers party based on the unions, committed to the fight for our interests, up
to and including a workers government! Not a dime, not a vote for the
strikebreaking, racist Democrats and Republicans! The Democrats and Republicans
have taken us to war four times in this century and now threaten to do it
again. It is our sons and daughters who will die in Saudi ArabiaNo to
Bushs war for Big Oil!
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For a Four-Day, 30-Hour Workweek, With No Loss in
Pay!
The answer to unemployment, homelessness and poverty is not
some phony guaranteed job that disappears when the
individual named on a list retires (or the company goes bankrupt). The answer
is a shorter work-week with no loss in pay. The right to a job should be the
birthright of every worker!
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For a 100% Cost-of-Living Clause in Every
Contract!
The Voodoo Economics of the
Carter/Reagan/ Bush administrations have resulted in a loss in real wages for
the American worker. The real wages (after inflation) in the newspapers in
Local 21 have declined more than $100 a week since 1975.
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For a Merger with the Guild and GCIU!
The day of the print crafts is over. The employers we face
today are multi-national conglomerates, and the crying need in this industry is
for one big union of all communication and print workers, with company-wide and
industry-wide contracts.
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For a Fight to Protect and Regain our
Jurisdiction!
In their haste to appease the employers, previous
administrations signed contracts that gave away much of our jurisdiction on the
spurious basis that it was lost to automation. In
reality, much of the work was only moved to other departments and is still
being done there. Page makeup, proofreading and typesetting is our work!
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Picket Lines Mean Dont Cross!
No crossing of picket lines for any reason. The last 15
years have seen a virtual orgy of union-busting with the employers using us and
other unions to break strikes (Chicago, Washington D.C., etc.).
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For Union Action Against the Racist Skinhead Nazis and
Klan!
For a return to the days when the union movement in this
country stood with the oppressed against the night riders and Hitler-loving
thugs like the Nazis. For Labor/Black defense against Klan/Nazi terror!
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Organize the Unorganized!
For a serious and aggressive organizing drive to get the
hundreds of non-union printers in the Bay Area into this union! Anaggressive,
fighting union that wins a few struggles will have the appeal to pull in the
unorganizedwho in turn will increase the unions clout in future
confrontations. Only by reversing the attrition of the union membership can we
ensure that the industrial pension remains sound. Lets not have
tomorrows pensioners end up on welfare, as happened when the ITU
Fraternal Pension went broke!
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No Lawsuits Against the Union!
Every time a member sues the union, the courts and government
use it as an excuse to gain just a little more control over our affairs! (Six
years ago we had the ludicrous example of then-First Vice-President Robert
McMichen and his fellow playmates in Colorado Springs dragging the union and
each other into court over election irregularities).
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Take Back and Use the Strike Weapon!
Local 21, the CWA and much of the rest of the labor movement
have virtually abandoned the strike as a weapon. Most of the problems facing
the union can be traced in the long run to this policy. Organizing unorganized
workers, for example, can hardly succeed when the employers know that even in
the unlikely event that there is a strike, the worst that will happen is an
impotent consumer boycott (Chicago, Vallejo, etc.). The same is true in the
fight for a shorter workweek, cost-of-living contracts, etc. The employers must
know that we are able and that we have the will to strike. The strike,
the only real weapon workers have, is essentially a political question. A
strike, any strike, almost immediately becomes a confrontation with the city,
state or national government when the employer asks for and gets police to
bring scabs into the plant and a court injunction against pickets (PATCO,
meatcutters, Greyhound, Eastern Airlines, etc., etc.). A militant leadership
must be prepared to show active solidarity with other unions engaged in
struggles with the corporate pirates. The problems we face as a union have been
a long time in the making and there certainly are no overnight answers, but
taking back the right to strike is the place to begin. Carefully prepared,
militantly prosecuted strikes, with mass picket lines and a leadership
committed to winning, are the key to putting this union back on its feet.