During that tumultuous period of working class militancy that I talked about before there was the onset of the recession. At the same time as a citizen you checked your rights at the company door. There was a younger generation that was already rebellious for a number of reasons. We put out a lot of literature and it was valid. Yet the whole approach was overly literary and abstract, but it couldn’t be otherwise at that point.

We were emphasizing that there was this mass ferment and openness to revolutionary ideas. So we were pushing on the one hand, the idea that labor should cohere all the movements that were less fortunate. On the other we were formulating that labor should be calling for congresses of the oppressed to figure out how to struggle against the state and capitalists. We were trying to paint a picture in people’s mind of how things could be done. This is the kind of the broad thing we were trying to do.

We were saying that the partial labor victories were being reversed a year or two later. It was coupled with reform demands. Things like union leaders off the wage boards. We were talking about the need to deal with inner city unemployment by cutting the forced overtime and implementing 30 hours work for 40 hours pay. For the internal regime we raised the idea of an innocent until proven guilty grievance procedure; union control over hiring and firing as well as production standards.

We kept pushing to carry out these reforms, but in the context of the bigger ideas. Something like industry-wide strikes that used the whole social weight of the industry instead of UAW broken-up strategies that failed. This is what we were pushing. We tied it to the idea of production workers councils that oversaw things because you can’t rely on the union bureaucracy. When union officials deviated from what you wanted we said take things into your own hands. But like I said, this was largely literary and abstract.

So when I got into auto on the other side of the recession we decided to make a turn in the organization to bend the stick the other way. We weren’t junking these formulations or ideas. The struggles weren’t as intense on the other side of the recession. We still used the auto Revolutionary Worker to build caucuses of workers themselves. We started to build a personal and political base. We started to focus a lot of our attention in the bulletins on internal factory matters—although we brought in international issues—for example in my factory we had a wave of firings for a mix of reasons. We started a broad direct action campaign against the company and the union to get these people rehired who were fired for racist, sexist, or refusing to do outrageous things.

Before we had the idea of building a party fraction in these workplaces. We still saw it as building revolutionary formations that were directly allied to us in a certain sense. We would boil down 500 positions into 5 positions but they still were capped off with calls for socialist revolution. They were in a sense an arm of the organization. We set the tone and people came and hung with it who liked the ideas. We were doing South African solidarity, showing films, organizing picnics. Personal friendships were built this way. We had pickets and storming union halls against union officials who weren’t taking action.

Also during this period there was a major wave of the Klan—with Duke and Wilkinson on the rise. There were Nazi formations like National Socialists Movement (NSM), which is back again today, and the SS Action group. Separated from this rise and sometimes connected to it was a lot of racist violence. This was because, part of people having those postal, steel and auto wages, was that segregation was breaking down. White flight and white racist attacks were the result. We prioritized anti-racist work in response and got involved in united fronts around armed self-defense. We became a network force in this.

NB: Why is anti-fascism within the working class so important?

Ermler: Well, there is racism in the working class. Nazis and Klan are not just isolated nuts. Some people say, “Why are you chasing them?” They say, “These people’s politics are so demented what influence could they have?” But they underestimate what impact they can have. They had a small base but could have a lot of influence on people poisoned by U.S. racist history. It was also a good training ground for anti-racist militants in terms of skills and street action necessary for a working class movement. You would also find out that it brought you into a lot of cities and situations where confrontations and tensions with the police had a history and where multi-racial crowds were united against the local cops who were protecting Nazis and Klan.

Besides attacking fascists we would go door-to-door in tense neighborhoods and find white people who didn’t like what was going on or those who would be swayed by racist arguments and talked to them. We wouldn’t try to ignore it. But we would try to build a unity.

We used this same method in anti-gay and anti-women attacks. For example, one co-worker, who was a lesbian, was attacked along with her partner by their neighbors. She was attacked with scalding water and the partner stabbed the offender in response. The police showed up and put the partners in jail. We started a defense campaign about that and put out information about it in the auto plants. To raise money for the legal defense, we organized and sold tickets in all the plants to a gay rights, armed self-defense cabaret disco party. Many gay workers, including those who people didn’t even know were gay, came out.

Fascist networks exist. They have cadres that shrink and grow. When there is a time of political and economic crisis as we have seen here they try to reorient themselves and make moves. They not only start growing by ones and twos. Their contribution to violence and scapegoating propaganda can be part of shifting the whole thing to the right and more racist turns. Even if people don’t directly join their organizations they get that racial debate going.

It is important in the workplace because it affects workers. You are always finding someone who knew someone who was under attack. It’s not only the right thing to do and you can’t rely on the state, it’s also a case of self-help and mutual aid. It is also a case where you have black workers having to deal in the factory in an environment where it is racist. You can also show here is a multi-racial crew not a bunch of do-good liberals. This can sway white workers. It shows there doesn’t have to be a racially divisive future. Bringing working class solutions as opposed to ethnic divisiveness you can talk about the need to get a broader movement together for jobs and decent education, etc., for all. It cuts off racial tensions getting out of control under the right conditions.

Now again we seem to be moving into another period where it will be an issue again, at least here in Michigan. There’s some people probably aware of the recent National Socialist Alliance rallies. Twice at Toledo which provoked a rebellion and the city was on lock down for a couple of days.

Then there was the recent appearance up in Lansing. The National Socialist Alliance is more and more agitating for instance in Michigan before the Lansing thing went through the town and the affirmative action thing went on the ballot here. They were calling on white workers to smash affirmative action. I mean there is a whole other discussion involved with that, but it’s certainly an issue for them and they’ve also taken up the immigration issue and trying to jive with the whole fascist, semi-fascist Minuteman thing.

So that’s going on but people still may say - well, they’re isolated, ignored and stuff - but they must be a problem cause all we have to do is look at the state – knows that there is a deeper problem and fear, cause there’s two conferences by invitation only, one at U of M Dearborn and one here in the city recently that have been for elected officials, law enforcement and various people from civil rights and community organizations that have been addressed by an array of officials, also the Klan watch-types and the FBI, about the growing fascist threat from these groups. They’re worried about it.

The FBI chapter here, which was beefed up with the whole Mideast thing with the Arab population here, recently I was listening to an interview with the head of the FBI office for Detroit on radio and he said they’ve increased their separate task force on the question, and I can’t remember their figures now, but they’ve significantly increased their task force on racial violence on the Klan. They’ve brought in more people so they know that something’s coming, something’s up.

Just looking at that the fact that the mayor of Dearborn Heights community had a whole lot of racial vandalism, and though they kept it quiet they more or less indicated that it wasn’t organized fascists and terror and he was pointing out that they can’t have this heavily black youth rebellion against police, they also got to check the fascists because their provocations can lead to other oppressed populations blowing up and becoming a real problem. He said the cities are in need of economic reinvestment and development but fascist attacks will scare it away and there’s a lot of potential flashpoints coming.

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