Vol. 73/No. 37      September 28, 2009

Capitalist politicians and church officials, as well as the big business media, portray abortion as a complex “moral” and “religious” question.

This is false. The abortion issue has to do with one and only one thing: Does a woman have the right to decide for herself whether to bear a child? Or should this decision be dictated to her by politicians, priests, doctors, or family?

Millions of working women and men affirm that a woman must have the right to control her own body. The right to control her own body is a prerequisite for controlling her own destiny—the ability to hold a job, to get an education, to participate actively in her union.  
 
September 28, 1959
Moving in with the new antilabor club shaped by Congress, Secretary of Labor [James] Mitchell announced September 18 that he had sent a telegram to Teamsters Union President James Hoffa instructing him to provide the names of any officers convicted of felonies and to report what action was being taken to remove such officials.

The Labor Secretary chose the national AFL-CIO convention for the announcement. He also said his department already had the wheels in motion for investigating other unions that Congressional hearings had indicated “are infiltrated with known Communists or felons.”

The section of the new addition to the Taft-Hartley law, which Mitchell has seized hold of so quickly, was part of the original Kennedy bill passed by the Senate last spring.  
 
September 29, 1934
Once again the unemployed relief structure of the city of New York broke down, throwing thousands of desperate workers to the mercies of conniving politicians and banks demanding their pound of flesh. But poorly fed, badly clothed, destitute human beings are not to be trifled with. The capitalists and their flunkeys know that jobs or relief must be forthcoming or the jobless will take matters in their own hands—individually or collectively.

After a bitter fight the city administration adopted a three-point program to raise fifty million dollars.

The Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations are up in arms. They propose a 2-cent levy on subway and other fares. They want to pass the burden of maintaining the jobless on to the workers. In the meantime the unemployed are organizing for the fight.  
 
 
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