SWP Runs Woman for Vice Vice President

By Mary Walsh.

Matilde Zimmermann, Vice Presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, visited Cleveland recently as part of her party's campaign to get on the national presidential ballot in 30 states, including Ohio. Out of the 500,000 signatures the SWP needs to achieve this goal, 101,000 have been gathered in California alone and efforts in other states are meeting with success. Zimmermann feels that since the SWP exists in every major American city, it is in the best position among leftist groups to run a national campaign, presenting alternatives to the existing political system. The Socialist Workers Party garnered 100,000 votes in the 1976 presidential eiection.

Zimmermann was chosen as her party's national Vice Presidential candidate, along with Andrew Pulley as Presidential candidate, at an August 1979 convention in Oberlin, Ohio, attended by 1,500 delegates. She has been a member of the Young Socialist League and the Socialist Workers Party since 1967, and has also been active in the women's movement for many years, campaigning for affirmative action, passage of the ERA and reproductive rights. In 1972 Zimmermann was National Coordinator of the Women's National Abortion Action Coalition, travelling around the country debating “right-to-lifers". She is currently a member of NOW and a staff writer for the Militant, newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party.

Zimmermann's activities reflect her party's consistent position on women's rights; the platform of the SWP includes the following plank:

"The right of women to full social, economic, and political equality-To help insure equality under the

Capitalism is when they decide whether we get a gold watch or a pink slip.

peg averill/LNS

law, the ERA should be adopted and implemented without further delay. Women must have the right to decide if and when to have children. This includes the right to abortion and contraception on demand, as well as protection from forced sterilization. The growing numbers of women workers need government-financed, free child-care centers. Maternity leaves with full pay must be provided. Barriers keeping women out of job classifications must be re‹ moved, and women must receive equal pay for equal work."

The principal goal of the Socialist Workers Party is the formation of a labor party, an independent political party based on the unions, to fight for the interests of working people. Such a party would represent the vast majority in this country, who now have only a limited choice between two capitalist political parties ruled by the rich. Zimmermann sees the existence of a labor party as a giant step for women: growing numbers of women workers would play a large role in advancing union awareness of

social issues and in changing the orientation of union leadership toward those humanistic goals. The SWP believes that the labor movement has the power and leverage necessary to facilitate this change, but can only do so by breaking the existing ties of union leadership to the Democratic and Republican parties.

The ruling classes have so far been successful in dividing workers by encouraging white male workers to view women, minorities, youth and the unemployed as "them" rather than "us". This strategy must be counteracted by solidarity among workers and a recognition that all workers are benefited by the elimination of oppression of any of their numbers. Thus the SWP wholeheartedly supports such events as the January LERN march, where women and labor marched together in support of the ERA. Having attended the LERN march, Zimmermann will also attend the ERA ratification march scheduled for May 10 in Chicago.

Women have also been extremely influential in the anti-draft movement. Zimmermann believes that Carter's proposal to register women for the draft was a direct blow at the ERA, as well as an attempt to defuse anti-draft sentiment by dividing it on the phony issue of the drafting of women. Not an isolated issue, draft registration is aimed at protect-

ing American corporate interests abroad and at supporting the oppressive policies of many of our allies. Thus the SWP, like many workers, is firmly opposed on many grounds to any new military registration for the draft and to any new U.S. military adventures in the 1980's.

The SWP is also campaigning for full employment through an emergency public works program and a shorter work week at full pay, for the shutdown of all nuclear plants, and for the right to an adequate income, protected against inflation. They also demand that full democratic and human rights be extended to gay people, foreign-born workers, the handicapped, prisoners, GI's and the young and elderly. Another campaign position advocated by SWP is the right to decide political policies that affect our lives, including a national referendum prior to any attempt to enter another war.

Matilde Zimmermann is likely to be one of only two women running for national office, the other being Deirdre Griswold, Presidential candidate of the Workers World Party (see WSW, March 1980). While women are making gains in the political arena, it is sobering to realize that only leftist political parties have the courage to run women as serious candidates in a national campaign.

Women's Studies Wins Reprieve

Over 600 students rallied in support of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on April 16. The rally, organized by the Coalition to Save Women's Studies, ---was endorsed by 37 campus-and-commnnity organizations.

Under a rare sunny sky, the crowd listened to singers and speakers' analyses of the role of feminist scholarship in patriarchal institutions of higher education. After the rally, 450 of the demonstrators marched to the Dean's office to present their demands, focusing on the preservation of the program's major and curriculum. Dean Billy Frye was abruptly interrupted from his lunch with former President Gerald Ford and forced to hurry back to his office to cope with the massive sit-in. Secret Service agents, preparing the building's security for Ford's visit in the afternoon, were among those who witnessed Dean Frye's insistent confirmation of the college's support for the program. He attempt to persuade the demonstrators that proposed changes in the program's curriculum are for their own good. His efforts, however, were unsuccessful.

The proposed changes included a reduction in the number of courses the nationally recognized program could offer. The impetus for the change was provided by the academic review of the program last fall.

Despite the review committee's praise of the program's teaching record, finding it to be one of the finest in the country and a forerunner in curricular development, the college administration took initiatives to cut the curriculum in half. The University seeks to remove graduate student teaching assistants from teaching upper level courses without providing the funds to replace them with regular faculty.

Moving quickly in response to the proposed changes, the Coalition has so far won numerous concessions. The college has promised at least a one-year delay from removal of graduate student teachers, has promised funds to hire at least two tenured faculty, is funding curricular development, and has publicly committed itself to the preservation of the Women's Studies major.

This is encouraging news to the more than 300 other Women's Studies programs in the country at a time of severe budget reductions. The women's coalition at Michigan intends to share its experience and skill with other programs and will remain organized throughout the next year to oversee the implementation of program changes. It will mobilize more militant collective actions if college administrators renew their attacks on the program's curriculum and autonomy.

Computers Oust Women from Jobs

(HerSay)—A study on the automation of office work released last month in Los Angeles by a national clerical workers organization is predicting harsh times ahead for women in office jobs. The study, entitled "Race Against Time," details the probable results of the increased use of computers in white collar settings.

While computers may make work easier for ,women, the report says, for many their introduction will result in poorer working conditions or loss of jobs altogether. Office computer terminals, called VDT's, have already been blamed for a number of health problems, including eyestrain, backaches and stress, the report says, and workers using the terminals are subjected to small doses of radiation from

the screens.

In addition, says the study, many women's jobs will disappear altogether. The study cites a report by an international clerical workers organization which predicts that as many as 25 percent of all office jobs in Europe--or 5 million jobs-will disappear by the end of the decade because of automation.

In the United States, the report says, women make up four-fifths of the nation's 18 million office workers. However, the U.S. Labor Department has not yet even figured out a way to calculate how the computerization of offices would affect these women's jobs.

Working women have reportedly called on Congress to open hearings into the matter.