Vol. 80/No. 20      May 23, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

May 24, 1991

BRAMPTON, Ontario — Two hundred members of Local 252 of the Canadian Auto Workers union occupied the Caterpillar of Canada plant here for six days. The action followed the company’s decision to close the plant July 12 and move the production lines to its U.S. plant in Raleigh, North Carolina, by the end of the year. The occupation ended April 30 after Caterpillar officials agreed to hold discussions with union representatives.

“Originally 40 of us sat in after working our shift,” Ron Ottaway, a stores controller who has worked at Caterpillar for 12 years, said. “The local set up a picket line near the door to ask workers coming if they would support us.…We asked everyone to join us and we got a 100 percent response.”

May 23, 1966

Premier Ky’s blitzkrieg attack on Danang May 15 ends any pretense that the U.S. puppet will allow the south Vietnamese to elect a Buddhist-dominated government in the proposed elections — if these elections are to be held at all. Danang is the largest city in the overwhelmingly Buddhist northern region of south Vietnam.

It was there that the civilian movement was launched which almost toppled the Ky regime last month.

What worried Washington about these elections, however, was not so much the fact that they would bring in a new government, as the strong probability that any genuinely representative government would seek an end to the war through negotiations with the National Liberation Front.

May 24, 1941

Roosevelt and Churchill suffered a serious diplomatic reverse when the Vichy government [of France] moved towards closer “collaboration” with Hitler. The real extent of the collaboration has not yet been revealed. It can be assumed, however, that Hitler’s pressure has succeeded in completely tying Vichy to his “new order.”

An immediate result of the agreement was the granting of permission for Nazi planes to land in Syria on the way to help the Iraq government fighting against British armies. The British did not hesitate to bomb the Syrian airfields and the probability of a real struggle between French and British forces is becoming ever more serious.  
 
 
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