None lived to see their names in print.

Carter, Hall, and Johnson were three of six steelworkers killed during 1978 at Sparrows Point. Six in one year is a record number of deaths at the Point since the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health unit (MOSH) began counting five years ago.

Cutthroat domestic and international competition is driving steel companies hard to squeeze more profits from fewer workers. “Productivity” is the code word for this profit drive. It means automation; closing older, less efficient facilities. It means new installations built with only minimum safety and health standards

That is what sent more than 4,700 workers—nearly one-third of the plant work force—to the Sparrows Point dispensary in 1978. That is what killed Carter, Hall, and Johnson.

The rash of deaths at Sparrows Point provoked wide discussion among steelworkers. They wanted to know why training is inadequate; why jobs are understaffed; why equipment is left unrepaired; why steelworkers have to pay with their lives and limbs for a job.

President [James] Carter is squarely behind the steel industry’s drive for increased productivity. Eliminating safety regulations helps cut corporate costs and fits neatly into the administration’s “inflation fighting” plans.

OSHA recently indicated its enthusiasm for the so-called war on inflation by axing 1,000 safety regulations.  
 
January 18, 1954
In a bid to take first place in the witch-hunting pack, President Eisenhower, in his Jan. 7 State of the Union message, demanded an unconstitutional law to strip “subversives” of their citizenship, create a new category of native-born “aliens” in the United States, establish an internal passport system, and give the witch hunt a powerful shove—to help make it the central issue of the 1954 elections as McCarthy has demanded.

Thus ended the first round of the “stop McCarthy” session of the 83rd Congress.

Does it matter that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly prohibits Eisenhower’s proposed law? Who among the present members of Congress will dare stick to that objection if the witch-hunt pack begins to howl for its enactment?

The fact is that despite the clear meaning of the 14th Amendment the witch hunters have already taken a considerable number of steps violating the constitutional rights of American citizens. The McCarran Immigration Act already provides for “alienizing” naturalized citizens. Conviction under the Smith “gag” Act already means loss of many citizenship rights, such as the right to vote and hold office. Passports are denied persons suspected of harboring “dangerous thoughts.”

It is time for the labor movement to stop listening to liberal prattle about built-in safeguards of American democracy. Eisenhower’s proposal to destroy the rights of American citizenship should have been greeted the next morning by a 24-hour general protest strike. But the parasitic slugs of the labor bureaucracy are capable of nothing but deadening the militant reflexes of the rank and file.  
 
 
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