Attempts of the ship operators to divert big luxury passenger liners as well as freighters to Halifax, Nova Scotia, have failed. Dock workers in Halifax have refused to unload boats originally scheduled for strike-bound ports.
Negotiations between the ILA officials and the New York Shipping Association have been stalemated to date by the arrogant refusal of the employers to yield an inch. The union committee turned down a proposition to discuss a welfare plan after the men ended their strike.
The struggle began Nov. 10 as a spontaneous revolt against a sell-out contract which [ILA president Joseph] Ryan and his committee had already agreed to present to the membership with a recommendation for acceptance. Within three days, some 45,000 men "voted with their feet" against Ryan's contract. Ryan then agreed to "lead" the strike.
November 30, 1973
If anyone still thinks that even-handed justice is dispensed
by the courts and government wage-control agencies, the brutal
discrimination against 30,000 low-paid hospital workers, mostly
Black and Puerto Ricans, should dispel that illusion.
In New York City the orderlies, kitchen help, technicians, and other workers in 48 hospitals and nursing homes walked out on Nov. 5. They had been waiting four months for the Cost of Living Council (CLC) in Washington to approve a pay raise recommended almost a year and a half ago by a state arbitration panel. Wages for the vast majority were low to begin with, only $142 a week before taxes, and their raise was only $12.
The striking hospital workers were determined to challenge the authority of the Cost of Living Council. They could have succeeded if the labor officials who sit as Nixon-appointed advisers to that council had resigned, broken with the wage- control policies, and organized labor solidarity with the hospital workers. Instead, the bureaucrats continued to lend their authority to the back-stabbing operations of the council.