Vol. 81/No. 5      February 6, 2017

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

February 7, 1992

PEORIA, Ill. — Some 5,000 people gathered for a rally here January 26 to support the fight by the United Auto Workers for a contract at Caterpillar.

The rally was organized by United Auto Workers Local 974, which represents the 8,000 workers at the massive Caterpillar complex across the Illinois river in East Peoria. It was one of a series of rallies being organized by the union locals at Caterpillar plants across the country this week.

Caterpillar has refused to negotiate with the UAW. The union called a selective strike involving 400 workers in East Peoria and 2,000 in Decatur, Illinois. In retaliation, the company locked out 6,000 workers here.

While the majority of the participants were Caterpillar workers on strike or locked out, there were also Caterpillar workers still on the job.

February 6, 1967

During his recent visit to Puerto Rico, Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, concluded an agreement of mutual support and solidarity between his organization and the two leading pro-independence organizations of Puerto Rico, the Movement for Puerto Rican Independence (MPI), and the Federation of University Students for Independence (FUPI).

Carmichael’s press statement [said]: “Brothers, we see our struggle linked to the struggles of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America against foreign oppression, particularly by the United States. We all have the same enemy. For this reason, we strongly support your just struggle for independence. For this reason we support all peoples who are struggling for self-determination.”

February 7, 1942

Fraud is the only word to describe the War-Time Price Control Bill signed last week by President Roosevelt.

Instead of halting price inflation, this measure will induce further price rises and protect the price-fixing practices of the big monopolies. It will give a legal cover to price-gouging.

Not even its sponsors have been able to say an unconditionally kind word for it.

The Office of Price Administration stated that it expected “nothing sweeping or radical” from the measure, but that it might have a “psychological” effect on manufacturers and merchants to curb their prices. The real “psychological” effect intended, however, is to deceive the workers and poor farmers into the belief that “something is being done” to protect them from inflation and its attendant war profiteering.  
 
 
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