Vol. 77/No. 19 May 20, 2013
May 20, 1988
LONDON — Thousands of seafarers around Britain are battling to defend their union from a massive attack by the shipping companies.Dock workers from Merseyside in Liverpool have called for a national dockers’ strike to back the seafarers.
In addition, hundreds of independent lorry drivers (truckers) from several countries, who are trying to get goods across the English Channel, have blockaded the ports of Dover in England, and Calais and Dunkirk in France.
The seafarers’ strike began Feb. 2. Members of the National Union of Seamen walked off the job in Dover trying to prevent a union-busting attempt by P&O European Ferries. Management is trying to eliminate jobs and make drastic inroads into wages and working conditions of seafarers who operate ferries between Britain and the European continent.
May 20, 1963
NEW YORK, May 15 — Several thousand persons attended a Harlem street-corner rally here last night and demanded that federal troops be used to support the Negroes of Birmingham. The rally adopted a series of demands including:1) The sending of federal troops to Alabama; 2) the arrest and jailing of any government official using dogs or fire hoses against demonstrators; 3) immediate release of all arrested demonstrators and that none will be prosecuted; 4) an end to job discrimination.
The two themes that got the biggest response were that the problem of racial injustice is intolerable in the North too, and neither Democrats nor Republicans deserve the support of Negroes.
Malcolm X, who spoke briefly in the early part of the meeting, observed that Kennedy had not acted until the Negroes struck back at the white violence.
May 21, 1938
NEW YORK — The aerial might of American imperialism was put on display here this week as the maneuvers of the Army’s General Headquarters Air Force ended exercises which extended over a week, following closely the navy exercises in the Pacific. Army maneuvers, organized on the largest scale ever witnessed, are still proceeding and will not be completed until Fall.Bearing witness to the fact that the Roosevelt government considers U.S. involvement in war nearer than at any time during the past 20 years, every endeavor was made in the air force maneuvers to simulate, as closely as possible, actual wartime conditions.
It is obvious that, in the first place, the aerial maneuvers and their results are to be used as justification for voting additional huge air force appropriation — to accelerate the war preparations program of the Roosevelt administration.