Vol. 80/No. 35      September 19, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

September 20, 1991

SHERIDAN, Wyoming — United Mine Workers Local 1972 approved a contract settlement here 153-44 after a nearly four-year struggle against industry giants Peter Kiewit Co. and Pacificorp., owners of Decker Coal Co.

The United Mine Workers have been locked in a battle against Decker since 1983 for union recognition and a contract. Local 1972, and Local 2055 at Big Horn Coal, a small mine near Sheridan owned by Kiewit which also ratified a contract, have been important union outposts near the coal rich but unorganized Powder River Basin and Thunder River Basin. There are at least 14 nonunion coal operations there, one of the largest coal-producing areas in the world.

It was not until 1986 that the company agreed to a one-year contract. When that expired, Decker refused to negotiate with the union and forced a strike.

September 19, 1966

There is a mounting drive afoot to destroy the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The most ominous move in this direction has been the Atlanta indictment of SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael and 14 others on frame-up charges of inciting to riot. SNCC’s Atlanta Project director, William Ware, has been indicted for inciting to riot and for creating an “insurrection.” Under a Georgia statute, the latter charge provides penalties up to death.

The arrests were made as outbreaks occurred in Atlanta’s ghetto. The first outbreak occurred after a white cop shot an innocent Negro. Further demonstrations were touched off when a blood-thirsty racist drove into the ghetto and killed one Negro youth in cold blood and wounded another.

The outbreaks were intensified by savage police repressions.

September 20, 1941

Why is there unemployment in the midst of the biggest boom? Why do the monopolies, the “leaders of industry,” run their business in such a way that unemployment results even when production is expanding?

The current wave of unemployment, which is caused by the lack of steel, aluminum and other materials, is a direct result of the attempts of the big corporations, acting through the government war agencies, to ensure themselves huge war profits, at the least risk and to maintain their monopolistic stranglehold on American industry.

The monopolies do not want to risk private investment in the expansion of their own plants or in new plants. They want to make all the war profits possible. They will not risk any of their surplus billions in new capital investments.  
 
 
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