Before the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, Korda was a well-known fashion photographer. Like thousands of others, he was in the streets of Havana to welcome the Rebel Army when it marched into the city. His photograph of Fidel Castro together with revolutionary leader Camilo Cienfuegos appeared in the newspaper Revolución. Shortly thereafter Korda was asked to become Fidel’s photographer and in that capacity traveled with the revolutionary leader throughout Cuba and around the world. Many of his images are among the best known from the early period of the Cuban Revolution.

In December 1998, Korda visited Seattle at the invitation of local photographers who had met him in Cuba. An overflow crowd of more than 300 people heard him speak at Seattle University and scores of others welcomed him at a reception at Seattle’s Northwest Photographic Center, where a selection of his work was being shown.

One of Korda’s most well-known images was a picture of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara that came to be known as the "Heroic Guerrilla." At the request of a leader of the revolution Korda gave this photo to an Italian visitor to Cuba in the 1960s. Subsequently it became one of the most widely reproduced photographs anywhere in the world.

A Reuters obituary noted that Korda never received royalties for the photo. "Korda never objected to mass use of his photo as a protest symbol," the obituary explained, "but in recent years he began to fight its commercial reproduction in ways he said ‘dishonored’ his subject."

Lisa Ahlberg
Seattle, Washington
 
 
Teamsters walk out
Teamsters Local 877 carried out a "walkout on Wednesday" at lunch time and an afternoon rally June 6. This was the kick off of a corporate campaign at the Tosco/Phillips refinery in Bayway, New Jersey. At the noontime rally more than 150 maintenance workers and others marched out of the plant and circled the company’s headquarters before returning to work.

Some 250 workers gathered in the afternoon at the main gates to hear speakers next to a giant rat with Tosco’s head boss name on it. The rally was chaired by local president Kurt Greder and featured addresses by Bill Kane of the Inter Union Council (an organization of industrial unions), Bernie Lazo representing striking workers at Pepsi Cola, other union officials, and a number of Democratic and Republican party local politicians. Unionists from PACE, hospital workers Local 1199, Communication Workers of America, and United Food and Commercial Workers also attended.

Tosco acquired the Exxon refinery in 1993. The company has imposed cuts in the workforce without regards to seniority, lowered wages and benefits of those remaining, and eroded pensions.

Tosco carried out similar attacks on oil workers at the former British Petroleum refinery in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, and at its California refineries.

The rallies were called to prepare for the upcoming negotiations with the major oil companies over the coming year. The aim of the workers is to "get back what was lost" in face of soaring oil company profits.

Robert Robertson
Bloomfield, New Jersey

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Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
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