I would also like information about how to write to the five Cuban men being held on false charges in American prisons. I would like to write to them for nothing more than to let them know there are some Americans who care and are praying for them.

A prisoner
Canon City, Colorado
 
 
Waterfront struggles
Thanks for the excellent article on the increased attacks on waterfront workers in last week's paper. I work as a mechanic at the port of Marseille and an incident that took place here two weeks ago demonstrates perfectly the intertwining of imperialism's war in Afghanistan and assaults on worker's rights.

The U.S. navy's aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt stopped over in Marseille for four days on its way back stateside after months of murderous service in the Indian Ocean. The French authorities provided "security" measures for the visit. This meant everywhere you looked in the port there were machine gun-toting troops, snipers on the roof tops.

But it was my CGT union brothers from the ship repair yard that got a real taste of so-called security. They were blocking one of the access roads into the port as they have been doing off and on for a year now as part of the fight to save their jobs in the face of threats to shut down the company. In the past cops had not been called out, but this time the workers were brutally assaulted by antiriot units.

One worker suffered a broken nose and another a dislocated shoulder. The next day police authorities justified the attack in the name of protecting U.S. sailors from possible violence.

Marc Kinzel
Marseille, France
 
 
There is power in a union
It's like clockwork. Every three years the University of Michigan and the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO, the union that represents graduate student classroom instructors) have to sign another contract, and every year the university says that they don't have the money to give GEO what it wants.

This year, on February 1, the contract expired, and the University kept saying during negotiations that they couldn't afford child care for instructors or a clause that protects employees against harassment. But Dan Gamble and the other negotiators for the University couldn't battle against the thousands of undergrads and GEO members walking out of class together and picketing on March 11. A week later, the University folded and granted GEO all things they once said were economically "impossible."

Michigan can afford to give graduate student instructors child care the same way Harvard can afford to give their janitors a living wage. It all comes down to pressure and asserting power. And once again, it has been proven that worker's power is in a union.

Ari Paul
Ann Arbor, Michigan  
 
 
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