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Vol. 73/No. 32      August 24, 2009

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
August 31, 1984
NEW YORK—More than 15,000 predominantly Black, Latino, and female hospital workers crowded into New York’s Madison Square Garden the night of August 21 and decided, amid a roar of cheers, to continue their 41-day strike against 30 private hospitals and 15 nursing homes in the city.

In response, hospital officials renewed threats to hire scabs to permanently replace the strikers—members of District 1199, Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers Union, AFL-CIO.

[Hospital officials] threatened to hire permanent replacements earlier. But it is only now that the hospitals have set a definite date when they will attempt to bring hired scabs across the militant 1199 picket lines. Should the hospitals follow through on their threat it can set the stage for a major confrontation with the city’s labor union movement.  
 
August 24, 1959
NEW YORK, August 17—Police Commissioner Kennedy has responded to an East Bronx demonstration against police brutality by assigning more cops to the area. Meanwhile, a charge of additional brutality has been made by one of the men involved in the Aug. 9 incident when a crowd of 300 converged to stop two cops from beating a prisoner on the street.

Two near-riots in the poverty-stricken, Negro-Puerto Rican community came when Detectives Martino and O’Connor arrested restaurant proprietor Tyson King for alleged possession of illegal alcohol. They also arrested a customer, Robert Edwards. The crowd moved in and roughed up the cops when they dragged Edwards to the street and began beating him with a gun. The cops claimed that the prisoners had resisted arrest and had incited the crowd to riot.  
 
August 25, 1934
MINNEAPOLIS, August 22—Triumphant [Teamsters local] 574 is celebrating tonight.

The Minneapolis drivers have battled through five weeks of the toughest strike struggle in recent times and have emerged from it with a victory that will warm the hearts of the militants from Maine to California.

In the most significant duel in years between reaction, the bosses, the governor, the soldiers, the cops, the press, the radio, the church, on the one side and the dauntless militancy of 574 supported by the Minneapolis working class on the other, labor has won.

[The bosses organization] wanted to smash 574 and organized labor. But though it was backed by all the gold of Wall Street, it has cracked like an egg shell under the fist of the truckers union.  
 
 
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