Vol. 73/No. 4      February 2, 2009

The union on strike, Local 1-326 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW), called a memorial march for Goobic January 25. Memorials were also to take place at other Union Oil operations around the country, including the company’s refinery at Wilmington, California, which is also being struck.

Goobic was killed while picketing at the Union Oil refinery’s main gate the evening of January 19. He was 20 years old. An 18-wheel truck driven by a nonunion driver ran a red light and failed to stop or even slow down as it approached the main gate. Eyewitnesses report that the truck actually sped up, knocking down Goobic and running over him.  
 
February 2, 1959
The Committee to Combat Racial Injustice has protested misinformation issued by the U.S. Embassy in Holland about the sentencing of James Hanover Thompson, 10, and David Simpson, 8, to indeterminate sentences in a North Carolina reformatory because a 7-year-old white girl had kissed the older boy.

Press services reported that the chief press officer of the Embassy in Holland had told protesters that no racial discrimination was involved and that the boys had been sent up for “thefts.”

The CCRI, which is seeking release of the two children, cabled its protest to the U.S. press officer in Holland and wrote to [U.S. Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles demanding that the Embassy in Holland be silenced and that an investigation of the issuance of the false information be made. On January 15 school children in the Hague gave the press a copy of a letter to the U.S. Ambassador expressing their indignation.  
 
February 2, 1934
The strike wave launched by the general strike of the hotel and restaurant workers in New York has spread to the taxicab industry. 30,000 cab drivers went on strike today. The last straw which let loose the accumulation of bitter grievances was the disposition of the 5 cent tax on all rides.

The strike is spreading like wildfire. The New York Evening Journal admitted on February 2 that “they crippled service at the Grand Central Terminal, for example, that scarcely one cab was available there—generally there are five hundred.”

Old-timers who have been through other strikes say this is one of the greatest demonstrations of solidarity in the history of the industry. By a unanimous vote of the strike meeting of the United Taxi Drivers Union of Greater New York, every cab was ordered off the street.  
 
 
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