Vol. 76/No. 46 December 17, 2012
December 18, 1987
PRICE, Utah—Nineteen union coal miners and eight company personnel were killed on Dec. 19, 1984, in a fire at the Wilberg mine near here.Recently, the U.S. appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration “overstepped its bounds” by allowing only two-entry mining in the Wilberg and Deer Creek mines prior to the 1984 disaster.
In their push for higher profits, the operators have been trying to reduce the number of entries used to set up a longwall mining section.
Under federal law, two-entry mining is only allowed in mines constructed prior to 1969, or if MSHA grants a “variance.”
The court said MSHA violated the Federal Mine Safety Act by disregarding the rights of United Mine Workers of America members when it did not include them in decision making on two-entry mining at Wilberg.
December 17, 1962
On December 11 in Washington, D.C., the trial of the Communist Party under the McCarran Act began. For the first time in U.S. history, a political party was brought into criminal court and placed on trial.This trial is part of the drive of the Kennedy administration—carried over from previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican—to outlaw the Communist Party.
The drive is aimed at the entire workers’ movement. The purpose is to maintain a witch-hunt atmosphere in which persecution of unpopular political ideas becomes customary and to establish precedents for subsequent use against other sections of the workers’ movement.
Differences with the ideas of the Communist Party should not deter anyone sincerely concerned with the defense of civil liberties from defending the Communist Party against this attack.
December 18, 1937
All our sympathy and support go to the valiant Chinese people who are fighting against such terrific odds to preserve their independence from Japan’s attempt to convert the country into a colony. In China, it is the elementary duty of every man and woman to fight to the bitter end against the monstrous invasion by Japan. In Japan, it is the elementary duty of every working man, every peasant, to promote the defeat of his ruling class, to overturn its despotic sway by revolution. In the United States it is the duty of every worker, especially everyone in the maritime industry, to refuse to load any ships destined for Japan and to speed all ships destined for China.We haven’t the slightest iota of confidence in the capitalist government of the United States. Any fight it undertakes with Japan is not for aiding China, but for extending American imperialist interests against Japanese imperialist interests.
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