Vol. 75/No. 40      November 7, 2011

November 7, 1986
SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Members of International Association of Machinists District 508 voted to reject a contract offer by Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. A total of 57 percent of the valid votes authorized a strike.

The contract called for maintaining the two-tier pay system that has weakened the union. It also called for a wage freeze, even though the company is reporting high profits. Instead of raises, the company dangled lump-sum bonuses of 12 percent this year and 5 percent the next two years in front of the workers.

“We pay bills monthly. You try and tell your bill collectors to wait till you get your bonus and see what they say,” District President Ken Benda pointed out. “Even a 4 percent raise each year would pay more over the life of the contract than this bonus.”  
 
November 6, 1961
General Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy’s special military advisor, has returned from Saigon with a request from the government of Ngo Dinh Diem for U.S. combat units to be committed to the guerrilla warfare in South Vietnam.

The U.S. government has already sunk $1.5 billion into Diem’s government and already has a group of U.S. military men “in the field” against the guerrillas. But even the U.S. commercial press cannot conceal the fact that Diem’s government is hated by the mass of the people of South Vietnam.

It is an outrage that U.S. soldiers should be sent to risk their lives defending such a regime against the justified wrath of the Vietnamese population. The request for further commitment of U.S. forces should be refused and all forces and aid presently committed should be immediately withdrawn.  
 
December 5, 1936
A state of peonage and terrible exploitation of the Negro turpentine workers in Florida were revealed in a graphic report to the American Federation of Labor convention at Tampa.

At MacClenny, thirty miles west of Jacksonville, workers there “stated categorically that all the Negro people in this community were held in slavery.

“None is allowed to leave the place. The owner has two stool pigeons who … even slip under the shacks at night and listen in on the conversation.

“Any desire on the part of inmates to escape is effectively thwarted. Men may suffer beatings, their lives may be threatened if they attempt to leave. The turpentine workers are forced to toil from day-light until they can no longer see at night. They receive 50 cents to $1 a day.”  
 
 
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