Comparison Between NSLA and SDS Is Useless

To the editors:

I was dissatisfied with the way in which this weekend's student/labor solidarity conference was covered (News, April 19). The article focused excessively on useless comparisons between the newly-formed National Student Labor Alliance (NSLA) and the ever-glorified Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) of old. I wish to clarify several misconceptions of the NSLA and the conference that could be drawn from that article.

The NSLA should be seen not so much as a new organism but as a collection of over 70 different campus-based student groups which more or less resemble the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) of this campus. The NSLA will act as a network between these various student groups in order to ease communication and fundraising. Through this confederacy, other PSLMs around the country will be able to link their campaigns, participate in national ones, and help students start up their own PSLM-like organizations.

The purpose of last weekend's conference, which I think it fulfilled, was to educate ourselves and others in the community of the many very complicated issues faced by the labor movement.. The formation of the NSLA should not overshadow the importance of the conversations that took place in the conference's workshops and panels.

Will Erickson '00-'01

April 20, 1999