Vol. 75/No. 44      December 5, 2011

December 5, 1986
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa—Meatpackers began to cheer loudly when it was announced that the latest contract offer from Swift Independent Packing Co. had been voted down.

Members of Local 50 of the National Brotherhood of Packinghouse and Industrial Workers have been on strike since the end of September.

The rejected contract was similar to the takeback contract voted down before the strike. Takebacks the company is demanding include an 80-cents-an-hour cut in pay, a reduction in pension benefits, the creation of a “permanent flexible workweek,” a part-time work force of up to 15 percent of the employees in the plant, and mandatory drug tests.

Swift began hiring scabs as soon as the strike began. The 250 scabs are being paid $5.60 an hour. The hourly wage was $8.80 an hour before the strike.  
 
December 4, 1961
The continued presence of U.S. warships off the coast of the Dominican Republic while the Dominican workers are engaged in a general strike to oust Trujillo’s appointee, President Balaguer, makes clear that Washington’s intervention is not intended to bring democracy to that island.

The menace of the Marine-filled ships was further emphasized by Adlai Stevenson’s sudden flight to Trinidad. His object was to pressure Argentine President Frondizi into supporting OAS action for what he described as “the security of the continent against intervention from extra-continental sources.”

The urgency of this diplomatically worded demand for support of a gang-up against Cuba is particularly ominous. A carefully faked “Cuban invasion” of the country could provide the pretext for sending the U.S. ships now off the Dominican coast the few miles across to Cuba.  
 
December 5, 1936
Not the least of the reasons for the renewed vitality and firm healthy growth of the Socialist movement in California is the newly developed activity of many of its members in trade unions and the increased attention the party as a whole is devoting to this field.

The theory of Marxism is a guide to action. Effective revolutionists unite theory and practice in all their activity.

The purposeful activism of the educated socialist must be directed primarily into the trade unions precisely because they are the immediate connecting link with a broader circle of workers and therefore the most fruitful field of activity.

In the trade union struggle the party tests and corrects itself in action. It hardens and grows up to the level of its historic task as the workers’ vanguard in the coming revolution.  
 
 
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