Ms. González is a professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte, and a soloist at the Centro Nacional de Música de Concierto in Havana. She had been scheduled to perform at the convention.

By denying Ms. González a visa, the ruling class prevented a free exchange of ideas from taking place at the convention.

I am sure that Niurka González would have contributed immensely to the convention had she been allowed to attend.

Sylvia Hansen
 
 
Organizing Wal-Mart
In a report published in the August 25 Militant on a Chicago meeting of socialist meat packers, a participant from Canada reported that the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) in Canada had succeeded in organizing a Wal-Mart store in Thompson, Manitoba.

The report on the UFCW success was premature. An article in the August 20 Globe and Mail and the UFCW Canada website report that the unionizing drive was defeated by a close vote of 61-54 of the store employees. Of the 144 registered voters 117 voted and two ballots were spoiled.

The vote was held on June 27 after a lengthy door-to-door drive of UFCW Local 832. The local represents about 15,000 workers, including those at Maple Leaf Foods, Safeway, and Westfair foods.

The ballots had been sealed until the August 19 count because of a dispute between Wal-Mart and the UFCW over who should be included in the bargaining unit.

UFCW officials called the results a “setback” but announced their intention to continue the drive to organize Wal-Mart workers. Up to now no Wal-Mart store has been organized in Canada or the United States. Wal-Mart operates 213 department stores in Canada and plans to open some grocery retail operations this fall.

John Steele
Toronto, Ontario
 
 
First Nations and labor
A First Nations elder, a First Nations wing chief, and two members of Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union Local 298 support picket line were arrested and charged with obstructing a police officer today in a successful attempt to stop the removal for auction of equipment key to the operation of an idled sawmill. Very strong ties are being created between the union movement and the First Nations in a usually redneck right-wing area of the province.

Jack McCamy
British Columbia, Canada
 
 
1973 coup in Chile
Ever since the 9/11 coup in Chile in 1973 I have worked with many of the exiles who fled Chile in order to save their lives and those of their families. Many of these working people were very active in the MIR [Left Revolutionary Movement].

Many times over I heard from the mouths of these working people that Salvador Allende was a good President but he failed to mobilize the masses of working people within Chile to defend the revolution. Even when all the evidence was clear the CIA was plotting with Pinochet.

The coup was handled like clockwork. Very much like the Palmer raids in the U.S. with an additional added feature of mass murder and graves.

We all lost comrades in Chile and I recently heard to watch for the General Strike being called on Aug. 14, 2003. It happened! Also the working people in Chile have been reorganizing themselves before Pinochet left in 1990.

I thank the Militant for keeping not only the working people here in the U.S. informed but the workers of the world. The official ruling class media is so far saying very little of the recent events because they know American workers are taking notice of what our sisters and brothers are doing not only in Chile but all of Latin America.

Tom Siblo
Saugerties, New York
 
 
Baballah wins asylum
On July 11, Ibrahim Baballah won political asylum in the United States after suffering systematic persecution by Israeli naval forces in the Mediterranean town of Akko. Son of an Arab father and a Jewish mother, a federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that Baballah’s “life and livelihood were threatened because of his ethnicity and religion” in Israel. Baballah, his wife, and oldest son are the first Israeli citizens to be granted political asylum. They now live in San Jose, California.

Trained as an accountant, then a lifeguard and diver, employers refused to hire Baballah, calling him “goy,” which means “non-Jew.” Israeli naval crews also taunted him throughout the years he worked as a fisherman. They damaged his fishing nets with their propellers, circled his boat at high speeds, sprayed the boat with water cannons, and shot bullets over his head. After one such occasion, they had his brother arrested and imprisoned for over a year. In a purported rescue, a naval crew destroyed the boat and wrecked his livelihood.

An immigration judge ruled that, while she believed Baballah’s account, his experiences were merely a result of “serious tension” between Arabs and Jews. The Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco rejected that argument, noting that when many members of a group are targeted for persecution, an individual such as Baballah is required to prove even less.

In the Israeli daily Ha’aretz , an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman noted that political asylum for an Israeli citizen is “a troubling precedent.”

Kathleen Denny
Oakland, California
 
 
Deaths on the job
Socialist Workers Party candidate for Allegheny County Executive Chris Remple is to be commended for calling on District Attorney Stephen Zappalla to investigate the asphyxiation death of Charles A. Dixon in an encounter with police (“Socialist Workers candidates run in 9 US States” September 8 Militant). Allegheny County Coroner Dr. Cyril Wecht recommended that homicide charges be filed in this case and denounced the police procedure that led to Mr. Dixon’s death. At the recommendation of Dr. Wecht, District Attorney Zappalla needs to investigate this case and report his findings to the community.

In this same spirit, candidate Remple should call upon the DA to report to the community the results of the investigation into the death of Paul Corsi at the convention center truss collapse in February 2002. Almost a year has gone by since Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht investigated this death and found “failures so blatant and overwhelming that a person could only conclude that the actions, errors and omissions more than rise to a level of recklessness and grossly negligent conduct” and recommended that the Dick Corporation be held criminally liable. DA Zappalla was to investigate this death at the recommendation of Dr. Wecht.

In appalling contrast, the Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration (OSHA) found no evidence of criminal violations. The Dick Corporation was able to “negotiate” with OSHA to have two of the citations issued reclassified as “other than serious” and one dropped completely, which resulted in a reduction of fines to a paltry $12,000.

Families of victims killed on the job, whose tax dollars fund OSHA, have no such access to “negotiate” with OSHA and no method of readdressing negligence that indeed may be criminal. As my brother, Gary Puleio, was killed in an industrial accident, I have experienced this firsthand. OSHA patronizingly dismisses the concerns of families as due to inexperience or emotional distress. Delays in obtaining information from OSHA prevents families from having cases reinvestigated and having additional charges filed, because under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, all penalties must be issued within six months of the “alleged violations” as workers’ deaths are euphemistically phrased. Certainly Dr. Wecht’s concerns cannot be written off by OSHA in the condescending manner that family members’ concerns are. Reporting the facts of this investigation, will be a step in balancing the scales of justice for Paul Corsi, my brother Gary, and the approximately 6,000 workers killed yearly on the job.

Donna Puleio Spadaro
Franklin, Pennsylvania

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.

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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