Some of the club owners in Des Moines have now decided to not ban entrance to people wearing specific designer labels. Those of us in the Citizens for Justice see this as a partial victory in the fight against racism. But one of the TV stations did an undercover profile of night clubs here and found that whites and Blacks wearing the same clothes were treated differently. Whites were admitted and Blacks were denied entry.

This ongoing movement in Des Moines is not only about getting justice for Charles Lovelady. It is also about exposing and helping end a form of institutional racism that probably exists elsewhere.

Edwin Fruit
Des Moines, Iowa  
 
 
Janitors march for union
More than 200 students from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, rallied and marched May 25 in support of the demands of janitors at the campus and in the San Francisco Bay Area for an increase in wages and benefits. The march was one of several held in the area recently by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877, which represents some 5,500 janitors. Rallies also occurred in San Jose, Pleasanton, and in front of Hewlett-Packards's headquarters in Palo Alto. In all, close to 1,000 janitors and their supporters demonstrated.

Chanting slogans in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Hindi, beating drums and blowing whistles, the students marched through the campus to the offices of ABM (American Building Maintenance), the service contracted by Stanford, which employs 80 janitors on campus. Once there the students met a delegation of 20 janitors and other SEIU members to take the demand to ABM that they cease the intimidation of union members on campus. The students, organized into a support committee for the janitors, had also collected more than 1,000 signatures on petitions, which were presented to the Vice Provost of Facilities demanding the university publicly support the union's demands for higher wages and maintain its contract with a union contractor regardless of the outcome of the current negotiations. The current contract expires May 31.

Raul Gonzalez
Redwood City, California  
 
 
Socialist campaign
John Sarge, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress in Michigan, opened his campaign with a public forum assailing the INS assault in Miami as an "attack on democratic rights of working people in the United States" and a continuation of the relentless attacks on Cuba's "sovereignty and revolution." Sarge, an auto worker, is running in Detroit's 15th Congressional District.

Workers and farmers for two centuries "fought bloody battles for the Bill of Rights," Sarge said. "My campaign will continue to defend" democratic rights of working people, which suffered a serious blow with the INS commando-style assault in Miami.

Linking the INS Miami raid to the military assault on the island of Vieques, Sarge urged every "worker and young person to join in protests opposing this act of aggression against a colonized people."

Sarge and his supporters campaigned at the annual Cinco de Mayo celebration held in the city's Latino community. In a media statement and leaflet that was well received at the event, the Socialist Workers candidate denounced the FBI and U.S. marshals' raid on Vieques demanding, "U.S. hands off Vieques!"

Sarge walked in an afternoon picket line at the federal building with others organized by the Detroit Justice for Cuba Coalition. Two days later he campaigned at a rally in the Middle Eastern community opposing the U.S. sanctions on Iraq.

Bill Schmitt
Detroit, Michigan  
 
 
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