Vol. 80/No. 39      October 17, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

October 18, 1991

LIBERAL, Kansas — Workers at National Beef Packing Co. won a union representation election here September 13. The night of the victory, hundreds celebrated in the streets until dawn.

National Beef is one of the largest beef packinghouses in the United States, employing 1,900 workers, of whom 85 percent are Latinos mainly from Mexico and 10 percent are Asians from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

United Food and Commercial Workers organizer Terry Gash characterized the victory as a “major” one, not only for the UFCW, but for all workers.

The workers began organizing a union in the plant in order to improve intolerable work and safety conditions and secure better wages and health benefits. The organizing drive grew more urgent when three workers were killed in June on top of a blood tank.

October 17, 1966

Undoubtedly encouraged by the New York City administration silence over the fire-bombing of the Socialist Workers Party headquarters Sept. 29 and the Sept. 4 bombing of the Communist Party headquarters, right-wing hoodlums struck again in the city Oct. 8. This time the target was the new Harlem bookstore “Communist Party USA — Marxist-Leninist” which was burned by arsonists.

The failure of the police and city administration to “link” the wave of rightist bombings or do anything effective to halt them must be denounced. All who believe in civil liberties must express their solidarity with the victims of this latest attack, and the antiwar movement, which these bombings aim to intimidate, must redouble its efforts to end the war in Vietnam.

October 18, 1941

Roosevelt has taken another major step to drag this country into the imperialist war, by demanding the repeal of that section of the Neutrality Act which bars the arming of American merchant ships.

As in almost every other instance when Roosevelt has sought Congressional action, this latest step is intended merely to give legal sanction to measures he has already taken.

American merchant ships — under cover of Panama registry — are already travelling armed on the high seas. The arming was done secretly on orders of the Navy Department.

The fiction of “neutrality” was useful in concealing his war designs behind a screen of “peaceful intent.” But the Neutrality Act no longer serves this purpose for Roosevelt. He is preparing for all-out war, and soon.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home