Vol. 76/No. 20 May 21, 2012
May 22, 1987
LOS ANGELES—An immigration judge dropped all charges against seven Palestinians and one Kenyan facing deportation.The eight were arrested January 26 and held for almost three weeks in solitary confinement on charges of violating the McCarran-Walter Act. This law turns constitutionally protected political activities into grounds for deportation if the government deems the activities subversive. The government claimed the eight are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The government had sought their deportation on McCarran Act charges of association with an organization that advocates “destruction of property.” Not one shred of evidence of any illegal activity on the part of any of the eight has been produced.
May 21, 1962
Threats and arrests by Generalissimo Franco in Spain and Dictator Salazar in Portugal have failed to hold back the mounting wave of strikes and demonstrations by both workers and students.In Spain the strikes, which began last month with the Asturias miners, have spread throughout the provinces. The small raises demanded by the miners were generally conceded to be justified.
Even the mine owners agreed to grant them when the government approved increases in coal prices. But the government stalled on the actual signing of new contracts, reportedly reluctant to lose face since all strikes are “illegal.” Instead it declared a state of emergency, saturated the area with police and jailed dozens of strike leaders.
May 1, 1937
The sit-down strike implies a blow to the system of private ownership which is quite clear to the property owners and their puppets and protectors: legislatures and the law courts.Those who are attacking the sit-down make heavy attempts to convince the public that they are great defenders of labor’s “right to strike” (with reservations, of course), but the sit-down gets them where it hurts—on their monopoly of ownership over the production of things man needs.
When workers will sweat long hours and allow the employer to take the major share of their wages without protest, they are “loyal employees.” When they organize an effective pressure to improve working conditions and increase their wages, they become “trespassers.”
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