Farm Labor Organizing

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

So I just moved here to California and live near a cabbage field. I went on a walk yesterday with the dog to explore the area and met some nice farm workers who live in really bad conditions and are obviously working for some corporate landowners. I spent all day trying to find materiel on the regional cultivation of cabbage, vegetable market shares, land ownership and prices; did not find too much helpful stuff about the subject however.

Now, I plan to organize these people but have not even found any leftist organization of my own. Going alone is not advisable to organize people in my experience; a collective/organizational, mobilizing appearance has to be given, and for this and my studies I need at least one compeer. If someone knows any communists here I would appreciate it if you could contact me by PM, I send you my address for you to give to comrades in the area.

I plan to study the land ownership relation here, the cabbage crop cultivation, average wages, and district areas to concentrate on. If anyone has a leftist contact in the Monterrey Bay area, please PM me.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Well I do know that the PSL has a presence in California and I imagine they could provide logicstical support (advertisement, funding, paper pushing). I don't know what your exact political line is but from what I've seen with your posts I think it's fair to say that you have similar views with that party. They are essentially Marxist-Leninists with a heavy influnce from the American Trotskyist tradition. I'll do a wee bit of research and see if any other groups are out there that are similar to your politics, if you wouldn't mind, could you please give me a summary so I know what to look for?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Well I do know that the PSL has a presence in California and I imagine they could provide logicstical support (advertisement, funding, paper pushing). I don't know what your exact political line is but from what I've seen with your posts I think it's fair to say that you have similar views with that party. They are essentially Marxist-Leninists with a heavy influnce from the American Trotskyist tradition. I'll do a wee bit of research and see if any other groups are out there that are similar to your politics, if you wouldn't mind, could you please give me a summary so I know what to look for?

I am a Marxist revolutionary, quite anti-liberal which will most likely be difficult in California. My position on persons like Stalin, Trotsky and all others is one of public unity of the left and internal critical culture. At the moment I am not yet thinking of any political ambitions; the point at the moment is to build cadres. I agree with the PSL's focus on building cadres. In this way one can call me a Marxist-Leninist.

But the basics of Marxism (Leninism) have to be remembered: of building a revolutionary party that does not ally with any other organization which talks with the class enemy. That means the current existing bourgeois unions in the US have to be avoided by the party organization at all costs.

Building Cadres/Education (Discussion Meetings, Book Trades and Newpaper), Marxist Party Secularism, and Left Unity are three main principles upon which a workers' revolutionary party needs to be built. Also, the US has a horrible cultural situation which needs to be seen as an opportunity upon which a mass socialist party has to engage once a certain base membership/revenue has been built.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Yea, then I think you will fit in with the party culture since they would agree with you on every point there. They do need to fix some chinks in their theoretical line, but I feel that if you pull this through then you might have a large enough tendency within the party to drive it to a more anti-revisionist direction.

But from what I've heard the PSL is pretty diverse with ML's, Trots, and even a couple ML-Mao-Zedong thought folks hanging around. There really isn't any revisionist tendencies in there and they flat out reject the line of the CPUSA but I do feel like they could use someone like you to "re-educate" them in theoretical issues.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Building Cadres/Education (Discussion Meetings, Book Trades and Newpaper), Marxist Party Secularism, and Left Unity are three main principles upon which a workers' revolutionary party needs to be built. Also, the US has a horrible cultural situation which needs to be seen as an opportunity upon which a mass socialist party has to engage once a certain base membership/revenue has been built.


They've got all three of those. I don't think they own a book store but they do have weekly meetings in some areas, and a comrade of mine once said they have the finest Marxist newspaper in the states (though I would disagree with that, It's still pretty good). And they've got a mass bass, in the election for governor of long island their candidate won over 10% of the vote, which is pretty fucking huge for a non-trot openly communist party in the USA.

Here is their website: http://pslweb.org/

As you can see they have pretty good web design and they update frequently. Their "why did I join" section contains alot of stories from working class members.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

They've got all three of those. I don't think they own a book store but they do have weekly meetings in some areas, and a comrade of mine once said they have the finest Marxist newspaper in the states (though I would disagree with that, It's still pretty good). And they've got a mass bass, in the election for governor of long island their candidate won over 10% of the vote, which is pretty fucking huge for a non-trot openly communist party in the USA.

Here is their website: http://pslweb.org/

As you can see they have pretty good web design and they update frequently. Their "why did I join" section contains alot of stories from working class members.

One thing i notice that i don't like about the PSL is that most of its news and activism seems to focus against War, Sexual Discrimination, Racism, and for civil rights etc.

This is a huge problem. Put yourself in the shoes of working people: You have hardly any time to really educate yourself politically and watch the mainstream tv news every few days to stay informed. Most of the local corporate news stations report on how another black guy robbed some house, how some latin americans raped a woman. So our little worker a) feels like shit because he is being exploited every day, b) sees in the corporate hegemonic news how people with other skin colors act disproportionately different than him and c) hears republicans giving through the leaf racist political campaigns.

You see the problem here?

If you want to be a revolutionary, you have to get rid of all the left-liberal garbage. You have to stop giving your opinions on how horrible war is and how bad ethnic minorities are being treated.

As a Marxist organizer you need to find a way to connect to the working class. A large section of the working class are crypto-racists because their minds are controlled by the capitalists' propaganda to split working class consciousness. If you just complain about how bad capitalists are making white workers treat black workers, you enter their little game. Same thing goes for war.

Now, this is not to say that we should not be against these things or even publish these humanist views. But the main thing of focus has to be Capital.

It is no surprise that leftists do not get ahead when they cry about how bad racism is. People have been complaining about racism, sexism and the various forms of slavery since centuries, but nothing has happened. Racism is still here because the class enemy is still here. Instead of having a cover about how horrible racism against certain ethnicities in the US is, we should expose the capitalists' conspiracies to split the working class through their monopoly ownership on biased media.

Use populist terminology but orthodox sentences is a must to organize for a revolutionary cause.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Generally I'd have to agree, but I don't think it reflects any major defect on it's political practice. Of all the current communist parties, they are the most "workerist" (well, maybe the SEP with it's journalism might win that title) insofar that they have the largest support from the working class.

Edited: Replaced "correct" with "current". Honest mistake, my bad

[blake 3:17]

On the OP, I'd suggest actually just talking to some of the farm workers. What difficulties are they facing? What solutions do they see? What obstacles are there for finding those solutions?

Having been a socialist and worker in the difficult-to-organize sectors of the economy, and knowing people who've done successful organization in these same sectors, the two biggest things are 1)what do workers actually want and 2)what are the most powerful forces which will have interests and abilities to stop them.

Have you looked into local organizations outside the sectarian Left which might take an interest?


You might well want to study the example of Cezar Chaves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez

http://www.chavezfoundation.org/

http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?inc=history/07.html&menu=research

[blake 3:17]

Of all the correct communist parties, they are the most "workerist" (well, maybe the SEP with it's journalism might win that title) insofar that they have the largest support from the working class.
This is the worst formula for community-labor organizing....

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

This is the worst formula for community-labor organizing....

Sorry, I meant to type "current" but it came out as "correct", I'm dyslexic so you'll have to excuse me. But other than that how so?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

On the OP, I'd suggest actually just talking to some of the farm workers. What difficulties are they facing? What solutions do they see? What obstacles are there for finding those solutions?

Having been a socialist and worker in the difficult-to-organize sectors of the economy, and knowing people who've done successful organization in these same sectors, the two biggest things are 1)what do workers actually want and 2)what are the most powerful forces which will have interests and abilities to stop them.

Have you looked into local organizations outside the sectarian Left which might take an interest?


You might well want to study the example of Cezar Chaves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez

http://www.chavezfoundation.org/

http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?inc=history/07.html&menu=research

Hey man, my pro-Obama Liberal Aunt talks about "Cesar Chavez"...

I'm not trying to do "community organizing" to build park benches and restrooms with the money of fellow working people;

I'm trying to organize the poorest people into a socialist party movement to expropriate the landowners land, the capitalist's machinery and take collective control of their profits. Their problems are that they are proletarian wage slaves in poverty, the solution is to get them to see the enemy and fight the enemy, Education. To get them to listen to me and read whatever materiel the PSL provides me with maybe, I need respect.

Its quite simple to get people to turned into pro-communists if you do it correctly. I just need to get some statistics about the land ownership in the region. I already know the price of cabbage, it sells for $68Cents per pound. All I need now is some oversight over regional labor and the company that owns the land.

Once I know the company, I know the profits. Once I know the average field machinery depreciation, fertilizer, driving and transportation costs, I know the rate of exploitation. Once I find out how many profits the owning Company makes (I have a data program for this), I can go there with a comrade, listen to their problems, and inspire them to become pro-communists. The problems are obvious: poverty, hunger and insecurity.

Confidence and leadership inspires; is a trait all Communists should work toward.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Hey man, my pro-Obama Liberal Aunt talks about "Cesar Chavez"...

I'm not trying to do "community organizing" to build park benches and restrooms with the money of fellow working people;

I'm trying to organize the poorest people into a socialist party movement to expropriate the landowners land, the capitalist's machinery and take collective control of their profits. Their problems are that they are proletarian wage slaves in poverty, the solution is to get them to see the enemy and fight the enemy, Education. To get them to listen to me and read whatever materiel the PSL provides me with maybe, I need respect.

Its quite simple to get people to turned into pro-communists if you do it correctly. I just need to get some statistics about the land ownership in the region. I already know the price of cabbage, it sells for $68Cents per pound. All I need now is some oversight over regional labor and the company that owns the land.

Once I know the company, I know the profits. Once I know the average field machinery depreciation, fertilizer, driving and transportation costs, I know the rate of exploitation. Once I find out how many profits the owning Company makes (I have a data program for this), I can go there with a comrade, listen to their problems, and inspire them to become pro-communists. The problems are obvious: poverty, hunger and insecurity.

Confidence and leadership inspires; is a trait all Communists should work toward.

You know, if you started a party I'd join it and make a branch near me, after all I was trying to get a study group started.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

So, what's your plan? I don't have much sway in the left but I do have a position in a prominent blog of r/communism to promote your effort with.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

So, what's your plan? I don't have much sway in the left but I do have a position in a prominent blog of r/communism to promote your effort with.

My ambition is to create a popular mass movement for Socialism. I convinced my cousins of the absurdity of US Imperialism, the positivity of socialism and got one to ask me for a non-bias book about Stalin in two days.

What is missing is not a perfect party, an outline, a path or the current and future economic situation. What is missing are revolutionary individuals.

So my realistic immediate goal at the moment is to create cadres, develop honest communists. Once a dozen or so truly revolutionary, educated cadres are within a short distance of each other and organized within some socialist party, we can start thinking larger: establish a revolutionary library, print an own newspaper, create a "party", then begin to engage in mass party strategies of allowing all workers to enter regardless of their consciousness, alternative culture building, presentations/lessons, open meetings, taking part in elections and eventually creatings a party and funding worker militias.

But it's a long long way to then. First we have to build cadres out of the biggest existing socialist party members in our localities, organize enough workers, gain strength within the existing communist worker parties. Once there, Left Unity, organizational alliances with any type of worker parties, needs to be a priority.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

When you say farm labor organizing what do you mean? Organize into what? A party, a union? Because I don't think I've ever really seen any socialist parties do much outreach to these people, which is a shame considering the large amount of agricultural laborers out here in California. The only union type of organization that seems to have really ever made an impact in California were the United Farm Workers.You shouldn't be brushing Cesar Chavez off because your liberal aunt says something nice about the guy. If you really want to organize farm workers at least talking to folks in the UFW is a very good start and you live in an area where they are more active with a branch in nearby Salinas.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Also I'd note that organizing farm workers can be hard because a lot of them are migrant workers who move from here to there picking different crops when they're ready to be picked. Another thing is a great many of these workers are here "illegally" so they fear any type of organizing because they know they can easily just be handed in to ICE by the bosses if they make a peep.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

When you say farm labor organizing what do you mean? Organize into what? A party, a union? Because I don't think I've ever really seen any socialist parties do much outreach to these people, which is a shame considering the large amount of agricultural laborers out here in California. The only union type of organization that seems to have really ever made an impact in California were the United Farm Workers.You shouldn't be brushing Cesar Chavez off because your liberal aunt says something nice about the guy. If you really want to organize farm workers at least talking to folks in the UFW is a very good start and you live in an area where they are more active with a branch in nearby Salinas.

I'm not "brushing off" Cesar Chavez, I am saying that it is not my goal or ambition as a communist to put a band aide on the fallout of the capitalist system. Workers will help each other materially once they are organized, the point is to create an organization of workers under orthodox Marxist principles. The goal is not to help working people materially, it is class and political struggle towards social revolution; a social, communicative, active struggle for the consciousness of the working class.
The reason my aunt can talk about Cesar Chavez is because he fits into the system. You know, 'suffering capitalist unemployment, hunger wage income or social oppression, there will always be those nice socialists to clean it up'.. but the alternative, of seeing that there is an enemy, a system, and that this enemy can be fought and defeated, is not "salonfaehig" as we say in german. Fittingly, Martin Luther King, “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

What is needed is an organization of revolutionary communist individuals who realize and openly carry the greatness of what is communism. A Party along orthodox Leninist Marxist principles is the goal of course down the line, but until a few dozen socialists have been turned into educated communists and this scientific socialist group has gained esteem, we will have to use existing communist parties, like the PSL, and gain influence in it.

[ellipsis]

I could provide info on the bay area but Santa Cruz is close but no Cigar. I could make some inquiries of anarchist contacts in that neck of the woods, but that's clearly not the model for you. maybe the Iso has a chapter at ucsc?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I understand what you're saying, I'm just saying it would help you to get in touch with farmers who are already active in workplace and political struggle as farm workers.

[blake 3:17]

This is the worst formula for community-labor organizing....

Community-labor solidarity movement need to be based on both a vision of a better world and practical forms of solidarity.

While very much remaining a socialist, I'm increasing skeptical of the ability of most people and organizations that proclaim themselves socialist to accomplish very much.

If groups like PSL, etc., help build socialism in North America, then great!

The Marxist sect model can be very good at educating people and coordinating movement work. I'd never gotten involved in the movement work I'm most proud of without having been part of a small socialist group.

If you are going to deeply involve yourself in a movement, and you're in a small socialist group, the contradictions often become too much. Some people end up kicked out of one or both, or, if you're prominent enough, you might get it easy on both sides.

There's only so many meetings a person can attend.

I don't mean to dis anybody on the board -- I am quite frustrated at the moment with a couple of left groups I'm affiliated with, where people aim to break with poor practices on the radical Left, but keep doing them...

I'm maybe more than bit cranky these days...

[GoddessCleoLover]

Community-labor solidarity movement need to be based on both a vision of a better world and practical forms of solidarity.

While very much remaining a socialist, I'm increasing skeptical of the ability of most people and organizations that proclaim themselves socialist to accomplish very much.

If groups like PSL, etc., help build socialism in North America, then great!

The Marxist sect model can be very good at educating people and coordinating movement work. I'd never gotten involved in the movement work I'm most proud of without having been part of a small socialist group.

If you are going to deeply involve yourself in a movement, and you're in a small socialist group, the contradictions often become too much. Some people end up kicked out of one or both, or, if you're prominent enough, you might get it easy on both sides.

There's only so many meetings a person can attend.

I don't mean to dis anybody on the board -- I am quite frustrated at the moment with a couple of left groups I'm affiliated with, where people aim to break with poor practices on the radical Left, but keep doing them...

I'm maybe more than bit cranky these days...

Since joining this board i have been impressed with many posters, including Blake 3:17, and this post exemplifies the high regard in which I hold this poster. Spot on.