November 27, 1970
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - More than 5,000 members of Local 808
of the International Union of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO,
have been on the picket line since Oct. 18, when they met
here in a football stadium and voted overwhelmingly to
strike Whirpool Corporation, the largest single employer in
southwest Indiana. Only four voted against the strike
The central issue is wages. The union is asking for a modest $1.81 cents per hour increase over a three-year period. Whirlpool management refused to negotiate this offer and finally made its counter offer of 66 cents just two days before the contract deadline.
The meager Whirlpool offer is not even enough to cover the added costs of living over the next three years. In addition, Whirpool is trying to rob its workers of rights already won. The new contract offered by management contains a clause which, in effect, deprives many workers of their right to a paid vacation. Now, anyone who has worked a full year receives a one-week vacation. After 10 years of service, a worker has a three-week vacation.
Through a new method of measuring length of service, the corporation is hoping to rob all new workers hired this year of their right to a paid vacation next year. The new contract management is trying to force on the union provides that any worker who has not completed one full year of service by January 1971 cannot expect a vacation next year. (Formerly, the eligibility date was July 1, the end of the fiscal years.)
November 24, 1945
BALIKPAPAN, Borneo, Oct. 25 - In this village of 14,000
there is only one dispensary. Its small staff is capable of
administering only first aid and yet it must handle
advanced cases of tuberculosis, beri-beri, elephantiasis,
venereal diseases, and a thousand and one other serious
cases.
More than 1,500 patients daily line up for "treatment." To take care of the hospital and the "more serious cases" there are one Chinese doctor and two Dutch nurses. The hospital is usually the last resort. So long as a man is able to stand on his feet and walk to the dispensary he's well enough to remain out of the hospital. The toll of deaths is frightful. Mass graves are dug to bury the dead.
Australian soldiers here are well aware of the stakes in the present conflict. Like their brother dock-workers on the mainland they resent the policy of the Australian government which is helping to restore Dutch colonial exploitation.
In Australia they refused to load Dutch ships with supplies and troops destined for Java. In the Indies, soldiers have signed petitions demanding that the Australian government recognize the Indonesian independence movements. Signs were painted by Australian soldiers amid the ruins of war-bombed oil refineries in Balikpapan. They expressed the sympathy of Australian troops with the independence movement.