From: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth)
Subject: PRINCIPLES OF THE SOLIDARITY ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 22:46:53 GMT

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PRINCIPLES OF THE SOLIDARITY ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
 
                     S.O.C. IT TO THE BOSSES!
 
  The 1980s were a low point for the labor movement. Employers 
broke strikes, busted unions and , with the help of the 
government, made scabbing legal. Major strikes dropped to an all-
time low in 1988. Workers have been on the defensive and taking 
it on the chin, with wage-cuts, two-tier wage systems, 
concessions, give-backs and plant closings. The big turning point 
was the smashing of the air controllers' union and strike. But 
recently there have been signs of a renewed militancy.
  More and more workers are seeing that give-backs don't save 
jobs. They want to fight back. Things cannot continue the way 
they've been going. The signers of this statement all agree that 
it's time for us to take the offensive. Therefore, as a group of 
trade unionists, we are launching the Solidarity Organizing 
Committee--S.O.C. We have chosen this name to symbolize the main 
ingredient needed to begin this counter-offensive.
  S.O.C. wants to spread the following ideas in the labor 
movement, ideas which built the unions in the first place 50 
years ago, ideas leading to aciton.
 
(1) Strike Solidarity: All workers unite to support those on 
strike. We can do this by joining each other's picket lines, 
surrounding struck facilities to stop scabs, and collecting food, 
clothing and money to prevent employers from starving strikers 
into submission. It means uniting all workers, employed and 
unemployed, unionized and unorganized, in the same company 
nationally and multinationally, and across all company lines 
locally. And it means building this solidarity internationally.
 
(2) Multi-racial Unity; Fight Racism: Solidarity means multi-
racial unity of all workers, regardless of color, nationality, 
regligion, sex or age, unity of immigrant and citizen. It means 
fighting any racist attacks by the employers or their agents.
 
(3) No Contract, No Work: The time-tested principle of unions 
anywhere; real strikes, complete shut-downs of bosses' operations 
until demands are won.
 
(4) No Scabs Allowed: The scab is still the lowest form of life. 
Use any means necessary to stop scabs from stealing our jobs and 
breaking our strikes.
 
(5) Militancy, Not Pacifism: Lying down in the street, being 
carted off to jail is a loser. That never organized any union. 
Militant action to shut it down and shut it tight is the only 
answer to the employers' all-out asault on our wages and working 
conditions.
 
(6) No Reliance On The Government and Its Anti-Labor Laws: The 
employers got laws passed that break our strikes and bust our 
unions, and the government enforces them. No jude's injunction 
ever ordered an employer to sign a decent contract. No cop ever 
beat up a boss until he gave in to strikers' demands. All these 
government instruments are used against workers, not for us. Just 
as the Civil Rights movement defied undemocratic laws in the 
figtht for equality, so, too, must we defy the government and its 
anti-labor laws which protect scabs, bust strikes and impose the 
bosses' will on the workers' backs.
 
  It was these principles that organized the unions in the first 
place. The so-called American Standard of Living--whatever that 
may have been--was not handed to the rank and file on a silver 
platter. It was fought for every step of the way, by militant 
walk-outs, sit-down strikes that occupied plants, and battles by 
tens of thousands of workers supporting their brothers and 
sisters against attacks by the employers, their armed thugs, the 
cops and National Guard, and their anti-labor laws.
  Combining these principles means we can stop planes from 
flying in an airline strike, stop scap coal from moving during a 
mine strike, stop utilities from operating by sit-down strikes 
that halt their computerized equipment.
  We say it is time to apply these principles again, and to move 
beyond that when necessary.
  "United we stand; divided we fall. An injury to one is an 
injury to all."
 
For more information write: Solidarity Organizing Committee, P.O. 
Box 1917, GPO, Brooklyn, NY 11202. To subscribe to the S.O.C. 
newsletter, send $5.00 for 12 issues.
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