Vol. 79/No. 9 March 16, 2015
March 16, 1990
On March 3 striking Greyhound bus driver Bob Waterhouse was killed on the picket line in Redding, California. Waterhouse, a 30-year veteran at Greyhound, was crushed against a wall and run over by the rear wheels of a scab-driven bus. The death was ruled accidental and the driver released. Waterhouse was a member of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1225, based in San Francisco.The killing came just one day after a national walkout by more than 9,000 ATU members at Greyhound began. The strikers include 6,300 drivers and some 3,000 mechanics, cleaners, and clerks. A nationwide protest was called by the Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions for March 9.
March 15, 1965
MARCH 10 — Like a sly fox, President Lyndon B. Johnson mouthed hypocritical civil-rights talk but when the showdown came he sided with Alabama Governor George C. Wallace and Dallas County Sheriff James Clark in stopping the March 9 freedom march of Negroes and their white supporters from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.Wallace’s storm-troop commander, Al Lingo, and Clark’s whip-wielding possemen had stopped the attempted march two days before with a brutal assault that injured at least 86 marchers. TV viewers across the country watched the first part of the bloody attack by the troopers and possemen on the unarmed marchers.
March 16, 1940
The fight of the Transport Workers Union of New York against Mayor La Guardia and the bankers whom he represents is of profound importance for the entire labor movement of the country.At this moment the workers on the subways, elevated lines and buses are working under closed-shop union contracts, which they wrested from the bosses after long and bitter struggle. All that the union is asking is that the present contracts continue in force.
But Mayor La Guardia declares that when the city takes over these transportation lines he will outlaw these contracts and any others proposed by the union.
This is as plain a case of union-busting as has ever been attempted.
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