Organized draft resistance was a new phenomenon last fall. But there are now some two dozen draft unions--groups of men who have publicly declared they won't go to Vietnam. The Boston Draft Resistance Group is trying to call a national conference of resistors for sometime in August in order to establish some sort of national machinery. At present, the local groups are very loosely coordinated.

The third group active in Cambridge is the Vote on Vietnam project, which is circulating a petition to put a "Get Out of Vietnam" resolution on the ballot in the city-wide election next November.

A popular initiative must get the signatures of eight per cent of the registered voters--about 4000 names--before the Cambridge charter requires the City Council to put it on the ballot.

Steve Newman, a member of the group, claimed they have already collected about 3000 names.

The Vote on Vietnam Group was organized by three members of the Progressive Labor Party, a Marxist-Leninist organization that sides with Peking in the Sino-Soviet rift over coexistence vs. revolution. Although nearly all of their 50 canvassers describe themselves as "independent radicals," the wording of the petition largely reflects PL's philosophy, especially in its appeal to the working class.

The petition reads: "We are opposed to the U.S. policy in Vietnam. The war in Vietnam is against the interests of American workers and students because it spends our men and our money to suppress the Vietnamese. The war serves only the interest of business. The U.S. should get out of Vietnam."

The Vote on Vietnam canvassers have concentrated exclusively on working class parts of Cambridge, mostly north and east of Central Square. Getting the resolution on the ballot is only a secondary goal, much as Vietnam hearings are secondary for the CNC. The primary purpose, according to one member, is to start working class people thinking about the war.

The canvassers try to convince the people they approach that the war is imperialistic and that imperialism is not in the interest of American workers. They argue that business, with its "drive to keep access to the cheap labor and resources of Vietnam," is responsible for the war. They often draw an analogy to "runaway shops" in the U.S.

"People up here have a very clear understanding of what runaway shops means," a report by the group reads. "A lot of towns around Boston have been 'depressed areas' for a generation since the textile and leather mills packed up and headed South. Running away to cheap labor of Asia is very understandable to workers around Boston."

When a Vote on Vietnam canvasser runs into a pro-war worker, he tries to stir him up by asking questions such as:

* Who is the enemy in Vietnam?

* How come the enemy holds out in spite of the material superiority of the U.S. forces?

* How come the South Vietnamese don't "defend" themselves against the National Liberation Front (the Vietcong)?

* Why are the Vietnamese fighting so hard?

* Would you let some guy come along and take 50 per cent of your income as rent?