The Reagan administration attack on the air controllers is one of the biggest union-busting drives by the federal government in American history. All the strikers have been fired. The union’s strike fund has been impounded.

It is a threat to every union. The bosses and their government are united in this attack. There are no Democratic or Republican Party politicians who are friends of labor now, when labor is under the gun.  
 
August 27, 1956
Radical workers who want to vote socialist in this election have an apparent choice of three different tickets—the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, and the Socialist Labor Party. The stand of the SWP is to be found clearly stated in its election platform printed in this issue. The SWP is for the colonial revolution, for the defense of the Soviet nationalized economy born of the October 1917 Revolution, and for the extension of that revolution throughout the rest of the world. The SWP’s struggle against the reactionary Soviet bureaucracy is waged within that context.

The SLP declares itself against both the Soviet Union and U.S. imperialism. The program of the Socialist Party is best described as “State Department socialism.” The SP lines up for “democracy” against “totalitarian Communism.”

The SWP is against imperialism and for the world socialist revolution. The SLP is “neutral.” The SP is on the side of imperialism. It is on this basis that socialist-minded workers should choose among them on Nov. 6.  
 
August 29, 1931
Before the echoes of the big strikes in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky have died out, and while the rumblings of new anti-starvation rebellions are being heard again in the coal fields, miners by the dozens are being dragged into coal operators’ courts to be railroaded to the electric chair or to long terms of imprisonment.

In Harlan, Kentucky, the grand jury is still in session and continues to turn out one indictment for murder after another. The thirty-four miners who are up for trial in connection with killings that occurred last May at Evarts with four fatalities, now have more than a hundred indictments issued against them.

In Washington, Pa., the trial of another 18 miners has begun. Were it not for the tragic implications of the case, its farcical aspects would assert themselves. In this principality of coal and steel, the jury was selected secretly. The defense attorney was not even given the right to question prospective jurors.  
 
 
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