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Truth
[Chicago/Detroit]

(1974-2000)

Truth was first published September, 1974, in Chicago. The comrades of Truth had been expelled from the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL). During the next months, The Truth group met with representatives of the International League/rebuilder of the Fourth International, an international Trotskyist tendency. The Truth group joined the International League in February, 1975, changing its name to the Trotskyist Organization of the United States (TO/US). It continued to publish Truth.

In 1987, the Fourth International (Rebuilt) decided that the rebuilding of the Fourth International had not been successful. The members changed its name back to the International League (IL). The IL began to explore various ways we could collaborate with other Trotskyists.

We responded favorably to an invitation to open discussions about joining Socialist Action. Within months, we joined Socialist Action and dissolved the TO. The merger was not completely successful. Some of us left and we began to publish Truth again in 1988.

An important part of our organizing work since 1974 had been to support or run candidates for local, state and national offices. In the first issue of Truth, we supported Workers League candidates for local office. We had write-in candidates for president and vice-president in the 1976 elections and candidates for Detroit mayor in 1977 and 1981. After leaving SA, Truth was relaunched as a “Trotskyist Bulletin for a labor party” and supported candidates of different Trotskyist groups on the ballot. In 1989, Truth ran a candidate for Detroit City Council in 1989 on the platform: Equality, Labor Party, Socialism.

Labor Party Advocates

Labor Party Advocates was initiated by the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) in 1989 to build support for a labor party. LPA urged unions to conduct a survey of their membership to see how much support there was for the Democratic and Republican parties and the idea of a labor party. Invariably, the survey showed much support among rank and file workers for a labor party. LPA literature said, “the bosses have two parties, the workers should have one.” Those who wanted a labor party in the United States needed first to win unions to a labor party to provide the organizational support and grounding, and then develop a program and run candidates for public office.

In addition to the survey, LPA mailed an invitation to join LPA to every known union local in the country — some 36,000 locals.

LPA did not want to undermine the current political work of the unions, largely based on electing Democrats. They asked union local political action committees to use the survey among their members. With this approach, LPA grew. LPA won the official backing 7% of organized labor representing over 2 million members — including the largest railway union, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way, (BMWE), as well as the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), and FLOC (the Farm Labor Organizing Committee). Locals of other unions signed on.

In Detroit we developed relations with OCAW members and leaders who were active in LPA. We worked to recruit local leaders who were supportive of a labor party. There was a long-standing tendency among skilled trades in the UAW supporting a labor party. They had elected officers who openly supported a labor party.

Russ Leone, secretary-treasurer of UAW Local 600, came from the Tool and Die unit in the Ford Rouge Complex. He was supportive of a labor party. He arranged for Detroit LPA to hold its monthly organizing meetings at UAW Local 600 as well as informational forums. We soon had assembled a substantial group of labor party activists including UAW local leaders. Detroit had the only local LPA chapter representative on the first LPA Council.

There was a wave of local strikes pushing back against union-busting by corporations. We urged free LPA membership for striking workers. When the workers in Decatur, Illinois went on strike in the early 1990s— the Staley workers of the Allied Industrial Union, the Caterpillar workers of the UAW, and the rubber workers at Bridgestone, LPA supported their efforts. We were able to hold an LPA meeting at the Caterpillar local with LPA leaders with over a hundred striking workers. We signed up workers to LPA. One-third of Decatur was on strike (or locked out). There were handmade signs against economic terrorism all over town. Dave Watts, the president of the Staley workers local, ran for Decatur City Council. Detroit LPAers campaigned door to door in Decatur for him. We reached out to the New Directions movement in the UAW and recruited UAW 599 (Flint Buick local) leaders.

A key struggle for the Labor Party movement was the Detroit Newspapers strike of July 1995.

Detroit LPA members were on the picket lines of the Detroit Newspapers from the beginning with our t-shirts, and literature. We found support and were invited to speak regularly at rallies. We talked to workers over and over again about the labor party. We eventually recruited over fifty striking workers to LPA. A high point of the founding convention of the Labor Party July, 1996 in Cleveland was the appearance of dozens of striking newspaper workers supporting the Labor Party.

In 1995, the International League reached an agreement with Trotskyists from the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) in Argentina to form a new international organization. The name of the new organization was Unidad Internationale de los Trabajadores/International Workers Unity (UIT/IWU).

The goal of the new organization was to rebuild the Fourth International through common work and agreements with other Trotskyist organizations. The IWU published International Correspondence in English and Spanish. Through this organization we formed links to revolutionaries in Brazil. We participated in the World Social Forum movement which began in 2001, based organizationally in the Workers Party of Brazil.

Truth [Chicago/Detroit]

(1974-2000)

Labor Party Advocates

Truth
[Chicago/Detroit]