Vol. 80/No. 42      November 7, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

November 8, 1991

Hundreds of thousands of auto workers, nurses, farmers, and other working people in France have gone on strike, demonstrated, or taken other actions during the past weeks to protest the effects of the economic crisis there.

Most of the giant Renault auto production operations remain shut down. The Renault workers’ actions come in response to years of attrition on the work force. The state-owned auto manufacturer has cut back the numbers employed from 214,000 in 1983 to 160,000 by the end of 1989. During this period speedup has meant that fewer workers produce the same number of cars.

In September Renault announced a new plan to cut the number of workers by a further 40 percent over the next seven years. This has led to a movement throughout the Renault plants, coupled with demands for higher wages.

November 7, 1966

The Manila Conference of [U.S. President Lyndon] Johnson and his Asian puppets has set the stage for a new escalation of the Vietnam war. This was made crystal clear by Johnson’s “peace” offer.

Stripped of its double-speak verbiage, the Johnson “offer” boiled down to this. The U.S. says it will pull out six months after it is satisfied the following conditions have been met: All forces of the “other side” have been withdrawn from the south. All north Vietnamese aid to the guerrilla fights has been halted. All “violence” in the south has subsided. The south Vietnamese dictatorship agrees that the U.S. should leave.

In short, the U.S. will consider leaving only after the complete capitulation or crushing of the liberation movement. Such aims can only mean further escalation of the war.

November 8, 1941

The Roosevelt administration and the steel corporations have failed to force the United Mine Workers of America, CIO, to accept compulsory arbitration as a basis for settlement of the strike of 53,000 workers for the union shop in the “captive” coal mines.

Called on midnight, October 25, by UMW President John L. Lewis, in spite of Roosevelt’s demand that the miners stay on the job and continue to work without a contract, the strike was temporarily halted on October 30 under terms of a 15-day truce.

The refusal of the NDMB [National Defense Mediation Board] to take a position on the union-shop issue was in line with the demands of the steel corporations, which are determined to establish a precedent for continuing the open shop in steel plants employing over 600,000 workers.  
 
 
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