Marxism, looks at the history of the battle for an Equal he CIA support with weapons, money, and talk of "religious freedom." These
Rights Amendment and the lessons of that experience for are the people who killed Benjamin
Linder. They committed this heinous crime because Linder was working to build a better future for impoverished people whom he loved deeply. The term "reactionary" is abundantly appropriate when applied to Linder's assassins. They want to kill not only this man, but the entire future for which he was working. Their desire is to return to the brutal past in which they, and others like them, were free to prey upon the Nicaraguan people.
Only the further advance of the Nicaraguan people's revolution can compensate us for the great loss we have suffered. Our revenge for Linder's killing must be taken with the same spirit and understanding that Tomas Borge [the
Minister of the Interior] showed when he spoke to his former jailers and torturers from the National Guard: "My revenge will be to see your children well fed, well educated and healthy."
"We can live without compromise"
Ben cannot be replaced. His death is a certain loss: for his family, for those who knew him, and most of all for Nicaragua. But others will come forward to carry on his work — to help to fill the void created by his murder. Ben's existence demonstrates once again that a life dedicated to the advancement of working people everywhere in the world — the poor, the oppressed, the exploited — is not utopian. It is real, it is concrete, it is possible. We can live without compromise, struggle without giving up. In death, as in life, he is an example to us, one which illustrates full well the validity of the
Sandinista slogan: "Aqui ni se vende!
Aqui ni se rinde!" -
"Here we don't sell out! Here we don't surrender!"
[From the June issue of the US journal published by the Fourth International Tendency, Bulletin in Defense of
Marxism.] * today. EVELYN SELL
URRENTLY the largest wompaign "to include women in the with a national mailing to all members outlining the cam-
Lobbying activities were kicked off by sending postcards to the two majority leaders in Congress. Future plans include: phone-banking to pressure US congresspersons in key districts; contacting members of Congress as the new ERA comes up for committee and floor votes; and holding the NOW national conference in Philadelphia during the week of July 16 — the same time and place where Congress will gather to commemorate the bicentennial of the US Constitution.
In the "Bicentennial Membership Action Alert" packet sent out by NOW, it is explained, "The mistake can be corrected - two hundred years after Abigail Adams urged the Constitutional Convention to include women in the fundamental law of the land, our elected representatives once again have anoth er chance to right a grave wrong."
The men who wrote the Constitution deliberately excluded women — it was no mistake! It was also no mistake when the 14th Amendment specified "male citizens" in safeguarding voting rights for ex-slaves. The Constitution was deliberately constructed to maintain the privileges of an elite minority of property holders. It required revolutionary struggles to add the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights) and then to abolish slavery and to spell out legal rights of Blacks. It took a powerful and persistent women's movement to add the 19th Amendment in 1920. Voting rights for women were won after suffragists carried out 480 campaigns to get state legislatures to submit their amendment to voters, 277 state and 30 national campaigns to get party conventions to include women's suffrage planks in their platforms, 19 campaigns for the amendment in 19 successive Congresses, and many other battles over a 72-year period
ERA battle started in 1923
Suffrage leader Alice Paul proposed the next step: an Equal Rights Amendment. Feminists started their effort to win an ERA in 1923. For many years ERA resolutions were bottled up in the House Judiciary Committee which was ruled by anti-feminist Emmanuel Celler. In the late 1960s, however, the organized women's liberation movement powerfully challenged traditional attitudes and practices. The first Women's Strike for Equality Day was held in 1970, and immediately became an annual event to press for feminist demands.
The impact of this development reached into Congress. A significant breakthrough came in the spring of 1970 when Congresswoman Martha Griffiths collected more than enough signatures on a discharge petition to bypass the Judiciary Committee and take the ERA directly to a floor debate.
The House of Representatives approved 1
the resolution 346 to 15 — but the Senate did not approve the resolution. The ERA was again stopped dead in its tracks. That's part of the ingenious 3 system erected by the Constitutionmakers to thwart the popular will and preserve the status quo: toss measures June 15, 1987 • International Viewpoint
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
USA
USA back and forth from one part of Congress to the other.
In 1971 the House again approved the ERA resolution by 354 to 23 but again the Senate blocked further progress. Significant sections of the women's rights movement gave the ERA top priority, and the march and rally for the 1972 Women's Equality Day was organized with a focus on the ERA. Responding to mounting pressures, the US Senate finally approved the ERA resolution on March 22, 1972, by a vote of 84 to 8. Then came the next series of roadblocks set up by the Constitution-makers: 38 state legislatures had to approve the ERA before it could be included in the Constitution.
### Anti-feminist forces galvanized
At first it appeared that the ERA was rushing towards victory. Thirty states approved the amendment during the first year. But ratification sputtered from that point. The total crept up to 34 by the beginning of the 1976 bicentennial year. Four more states were needed. Then, Indiana ratified in 1977 - the last state to do so before the March 22, 1979, deadline.
The initial success of the ERA - reflected majority support for women's rights — galvanized antifeminist and reactionary forces across the US. Stop ERA became the best known of these. Opponents of the ERA argued that child support and alimony benefits will be abolished; women will be drafted into the armed services and thrown into frontline battles; women will lose their right to privacy in public restrooms, dressing rooms and prisons; homosexuality will be legalized;
will lose existing protective laws covering rest periods, maternity leave and other job-related measures.
These myths and outright lies were answered by a wide variety of means: publications of fact sheets, meetings and conferences, media debates, presentations at marches and rallies, advertisements in all types of media and informational picketing.
Although NOW relied most heavily on direct lobbying of state legislators, other tactics were utilized to pressure legislators and to involve women's rights supporters in ERA campaigns. For example, in February 1976, NOW called an economic boycott and urged organizations not to hold their conven-
1
tions in states which had not ratified. Within eighteen months, 45 groups had pledged not to meet in the targeted
When the attorney general of Missouri unsuccessfully sued NOW for damages, he stated that the boycott had cost St. Louis $11 million and Kansas International Viewpoint • June 15, 1987
City $8 million in convention busi-
NOW received most of the media attention but many established organizations campaigned for the ERA and new as ERAmerica, formed. Pressed to put more weight be-
This pro-ERA stance, President Carter proclaimed August 26, 1977, "Women's Equality Day." The ERA was the focus of events held around the
"Star power" was utilized in fundraising parties, media statements appeals to legislators. 1978 party at Marlo Thomas's estate drew 500 film industry celebrities who paid $100 each. Director Robert Altman pledged the £2 million profit he expected to make from his film, The Wedding. As part of a special project of the National Women's Political Caucus, Carol Burnett and Valerie Harper pushed for the ERA during talk shows. Fund-raising dinners in New York City were sponsored by well-known theater, film and television figures.
In 1978, ERAmerica worked hard to get pro-ERA supporters to the polls in Florida and Virginia to elect candidates pledged to ratification. The limitations of such election efforts were shown over and over. The ERA was killed in the South Carolina Senate when five legislators withdrew their support after they had assured their constituents that they would vote for the ERA. Ratification was blocked in the Illinois As-
La series of switched votes and abstentions — including one proERA legislator who abstained because he said he was tired of voting so often on the ERA! In Nevada and North Carolina, the ERA vote was lost when legislators who made election promises to vote "yes" cast "no" votes at the last minute. ERA campaigners were hit hard when ratification lost by six votes in the Illinois legislature in June 1978 — the second time in a year - in spite of $150,000 spent lobbying legislators, efforts to defeat antiERA candidates and a personal appeal to the state's attorney general from President Carter.
ERA supported by majority of Americans
With the deadline less than one year away and ratification completely stalled, ERA supporters mobilized to win an extension. It appeared that given another seven years (until March 22, 1986) all obstacles would be overcome since the ERA continued to be supported by the majority of Americans. In the week before the Florida legislature rejected ratification by two votes, 65 percent of those polled in the state wanted the ERA to be part of the Constitution. In Virginia, where 59 per cent wanted the ERA, the resolution was killed in a committee before the full house could vote on it. In Arizona, 54 per cent of the people supported the
To pressure Congress to extend the deadline, a march and rally were held in Washington DC on July 9, 1978. It was the largest women's rights demonstration in US history. The movement won a limited victory in October when Congress voted to extend 39 months,
This new lease of life spurred the renewed lobbying efforts. 1979, a strategy-planning meeting was held by representatives of 200 pro-ERA groups. Individuals and groups which
July 1978: 100,000 marched in Washingt had been silent up to this time began to speak out in favor of the ERA. But the drive to win three more states was hit by one blow after another. Ratification was blocked or defeated again and again. Responding to conservative pressures and positioning itself for the 1980 Reagan presidential campaign, the Republican platform committee canceled the party's forty-year support
With only one year of the extension left, NOW organized "ERA countdown rallies" in about 180 cities on May 30, 1981. In August, NOW's Countdown Campaign raised over $1 million in walkathons around the US. In October, NOW carried out its first-ever multi-million dollar media blitz to raise funds to fight for the ERA. NOW President Eleanor Smeal announced that women
were taking time off from jobs and college classes to work for the ERA "missionary project" — a campaign in states which had not yet ratified. NOW activists concentrated on Illinois, Oklahoma, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Missouri while other groups, such as the National Women's Political Caucus, focused on Virginia and Georgia.
As 1982 opened, ratification efforts were defeated in Oklahoma, Illinois, Georgia and Virginia. During the hundred days left before the June 30 deadline, ERA forces stepped up their activities in a final push. Large advertisements appeared in major newspapers, door-to-door canvassing took place in targeted states, millions of letters were for equal rights (DR) sent to legislators, television commercials in targeted states featured Alan Alda, Betty Ford and Representative Claude Pepper. NOW organized mass rallies on June 6 in the capitols of four target states. About 10,000 rallied in Tallahassee, Florida; 7,000 in Springfield, Illinois; 11,000 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and over 5,000 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The final nails in the coffin were hammered in when the ERA was defeated again in Florida and Illinois. Not one state had been won over during the 39-month extension although a national poll, taken just before the deadline, showed that there was 73 per cent sup port for the ERA. Over 450 national organizations, representing 50 million Americans, endorsed the ERA; most of these groups had actively worked for ratification. The 35 states which had ratified contained a majority of the American population. In terms of legislators' votes, the losing margin was so tiny that a change in ten votes in three key states would have resulted in an ERA victory.
After the ten-year fight ended in defeat, ERA supporters offered various assessments of why they had failed: the country had swung to the right, the economic downturn in the 1970s engendered fear of change, the ERA movement hadn't organized itself early and strongly enough, but had been too complacent about the irresistible power of the women's movement, legislators had been antagonized by militant" activities, the ERA movement was weakened by differences over strategy and tactics while its opponents were strengthened by the combined power of conservative forces (major church groups, political groups like the John Birch Society, antifeminist organizations like the Eagle Forum founded by Phyllis Schlafly). Wheeling and dealing in the electoral arena
NOW President Smeal charged, "History will record that President Reagan and the Republican right were the people most responsible for blocking the equal right amendment." Smeal, still focused on wheeling and dealing within the electoral/legislative arena, wrote in her January letter to NOW members: "I believe the time is ripe for a new ERA. We have a clear signal to take action. The results of the 1986 present a rare opportunity. The US Senate is now back in the hands of a pro-ERA majority. The House of Representatives has a stronger pro-ERA majority than ever."
However, Smeal's attention on the US Congress is misplaced. It shows that she has learned little from the defeat of the last campaign for the ERA - in which NOW and others poured millions of dollars into lobbying electoral efforts. Mass mobilizations to express popular sentiment were rare and exceptional events, secondary and the lobbying There is, today, a "clear signal to take action" again on the ERA, but it comes from another source and indicates a dif-
Over the past few years intervention and anti-apartheid movements in this country have displayed an impressive growth and vigor, which can encourage and stimulate other struggles. Student activism is on the rise - a sign of fresh resources to be tapped. The women's rights movement has continued to defend past gains and to win new victories in spite of right-
USA violence and an economic downturn. The enthusiasm for mass actions to defend abortion rights was proven by last year's demonstrations of over 125,000 in Washington DC and Los Angeles. Women recently won important victories in comparable worth and affirmative action cases — rulings that show that advances can be made. There is a favorable climate for a renewed fight for the ERA.
Obviously the battles to come must include tactics to win legally required votes in Congress and state legislatures. But as the 1972-82 experiences prove, lobbying efforts are not the primary nor the most effective means "to the Constitution." The key to success is a strategy which mobilizes the pro-ERA majority for independent mass actions. Such actions educate and win over hesitant elements in the population — including legislators who must retain the support of their constituents or find another line
Pressures exerted 200 years ago resulted in the amendments. Persistent mass mobilizations can win the new Equal Rights Amendment. *
INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT
BACK ISSUES Back issues of IV are available from 1982 onwards. For full details of prices or indexes, please write to IV Distribution, 2 rue Richard
Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France.
International MEWPOINT INSIDE nternational WEWPOINT ASIDE SOUTHACA June 15, 1987 • International Viewpoint
BRITAIN
Teachers
face an
uphill
struggle
THE CONFERENCE of the National Union of Teachers (NUT — the largest teaching union in England and Wales) has stepped back from the challenge thrown to it by the Tory government. Instead, the Broad Left leadership (which includes Communist Party and rightwing Labour supporters) have embarked on a course of compliance with Tory plans and hostility to the left of the union, in particular the Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA).1 RAY SIROTKIN T HIS STRATEGY represented the
NUT's response to Education Minister Kenneth Baker's new legislation, imposing new, harsher working conditions upon teachers.
Since 1985, teachers in England and Wales have been involved in a battle over pay and conditions. 2 This struggle has never amounted to all-out strike action, but due to both leadership from the left and pressure from the membership there has been considerable limited strike action combined with a generalized work-to-rule. Most successful and popular has been "no-cover" action: refusal to cover for absent colleagues.
As a result of radicalization and a growth in trade-union consciousness during this period the STA has grown rapidly both in terms of numbers and influence.
At the height of the action on pay, 35.000 teachers marched through central London. This was followed up at the 1986 NUT conference with a vote to merge with the second largest teachers' union, the National Association of Schoomasters/Union of Women TeachInternational Viewpoint • June 15, 1987 ers. Its realization will qualitatively more powerful union in
Ho-dominated Mecy ie the Brai
neered things so that the course of the action has turned to an avenue of disaster. This started by calling off the planned strike action and weakening the no-cover action in return for an interim pay award. However, this betrayal was opposed vigorously throughout the country and much of the no-cover