The most disquieting feature of the strike [by the Lakeland Federation of Teachers] was the ruthless and effective use of New York State’s strikebreaking Taylor Law. The small (450-member) local was fined $92,500. Eight teachers were arrested and thrown into the county jail. Six union officers were sentenced to thirty days each.

AFT [American Federation of Teachers] president Albert Shanker was moved to comment on the Lakeland teachers’ plight and the Taylor Law in his union-paid column in the October 30 New York Times. Teachers might expect their union president to demand the immediate repeal of the Taylor Law. But no--Shanker explains that "aspects of the law were a step forward for public employees." The essence of the Taylor Law--its outlawing of public employee strikes--goes unchallenged by Shanker.

In Shanker’s eyes, the Taylor Law guarantees union recognition. But union recognition is not the gift of law or employer. It is the unavoidable acknowledgement of the real collective power of an active and organized membership.

As the economic crisis deepens and the attacks on organized labor escalate, the response not only of Shanker but of the entire top union officialdom is to turn more and more away from mobilizing the union ranks and toward relying on the courts and capitalist party politicians.  
 
December 8, 1952
Anti-Rhee guerrillas by the thousands are still operating behind the battle-lines in South Korea.

Life discloses the surprising extent of the guerrilla warfare "about 150 miles to the rear of the Korean battle-line... in territory officially held by U.N.-forces." It conservatively estimates that "perhaps 10,000" guerrilla fighters are pinning down several times that number of South Korean police and armed guards "aided by U.S. arms and advisors."

Margaret Bourke-White’s photographs graphically present the ferocity of the Rhee forces. Several photographs of young guerrilla prisoners awaiting trial--including a moving study of captured girl guerrillas--are included in Life. They are in striking contrast with fat, cruel-looking provincial police chief Jan Kyon Lok, shown celebrating the "victory" of 900 of his police against a hundred guerrillas at a party where he is "regaling his men and ‘Kisseng girls’ (Korean geishas)."

A year ago, in Dec. 1961, the Rhee government announced a "final mopping-up, extermination" campaign against a claimed 10,000 surviving guerrillas. Now we are informed that after "the hunters have killed 13,000 in 13 months, captured thousands more, converted many to the Republic’s side," the guerrillas are as numerous as ever and "still a formidable foe." Evidently their forces are being constantly replenished and augmented by the people.  
 
 
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