The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 73/No. 11      March 23, 2009

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
March 23, 1984
When employees of the Thief River Falls, Minnesota, county office of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) arrived at work Wednesday morning, February 22, they found their office completely surrounded by a tractorcade made up of 20 powerful tractors, numerous large grain trucks, and several pickups, all driven by 100 angry farmers who are “fed up” with the callous and indifferent treatment they receive at local FmHA offices in northwestern Minnesota.

The farmers are members of the Northwestern Minnesota Emergency Action Committee, which was organized in July 1983 by Willard Brunelle, a farmer from Crookston, Minnesota. Brunelle told the Militant there are at least 3,000 farmers in five counties in northwestern Minnesota who are in trouble.  
 
March 23, 1959
The revolt attempted by army officers two weeks ago in northern Iraq was completely smashed when Premier Kassim called upon the Iraqi workers and peasants to save his regime. The response of the masses was so great and so militant that it melted away most of the troops under the command of the insurgent militarists. In a last minute attempt to redeem themselves those troops still with Colonel Abdel Shawaf, the leader of the revolt, turned on him and killed him.

The power demonstrated by the Iraqi masses, and the fact that the Popular Resistance Forces (the militias) still retain their weapons, promise to give a new impulse to the Iraqi revolution. But the Iraqi masses’ victory is in the first place a serious defeat for American imperialism, which hopes to regain power in the Middle East.  
 
March 24, 1934
The taxi drivers of New York City are striking back at the growing menace of company unions. The Panken-Ernst “settlement” of the February strike left the men without recognition of their union and constituted an encouragement to the fleet owners to proceed with the organization of company unions. The men struck.

After eight days of an indecisive struggle, the union called a general strike. The estimates of the response vary from 27 to 45 thousand. The main demand is recognition of the union and abolition of the black list.

The impending strike of the auto workers is of the utmost importance to the taxi drivers. Not only is the issue of the right of workers to organize in their own organizations the same, but both have exactly the same enemies in the most direct and immediate sense.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home