Vol. 81/No. 36      October 2, 2017

 

25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

 

October 2, 1992

ORANGE, California — It is 5:00 a.m. and the Carpenter’s union hall is already filling up with workers. Pretty soon shouts of “vámonos” (let’s go) ring out and workers begin to pile into pick-up trucks and campers. This is the way each day starts for many of the more than 3,500 drywall construction workers who are striking to win a union.

Every day hundreds of workers go out to construction sites ranging from north of Los Angeles to San Diego. Their goal: to shut down the sites and convince the approximately 3,000 drywall workers who are still working to join their strike.

This is a strike being led and organized by the drywallers themselves. After three months on strike, they have contracts, including benefits and better wages, with eight companies.

October 2, 1967

NEW YORK — Fred Halstead, Socialist Workers candidate for President, assailed the latest Organization of American States anti-Cuban agreement as one more move by Washington to subvert the legitimate government of the Cuban people.

“It is an incredible reminder of Hitler’s big lie technique,” Halstead said Sept. 26, “for Washington to talk of the need to act against governments which interfere in the affairs of other countries. Is there any government in the world that can match the U.S. record in doing precisely that?”

Insofar as Cuba is concerned, Halstead said, it not only has the right but the revolutionary duty to give every possible aid to those who struggle against tyranny in Latin America.

October 3, 1942

Oral argument on the appeal of the Minneapolis labor “conspiracy” trial of 18 Socialist Workers Party and CIO members will be heard on Nov. 5 in the Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.

Attorneys Osmund Frankel of the American Civil Liberties Union and Albert Goldman will present the argument for the defense.

The defense contention is that the Smith “Gag” Act, under which the Minneapolis defendants were found guilty is unconstitutional. The defense also argues that the Socialist Workers Party does not advocate violence, but simply predicts that the capitalist minority will not permit the majority to take power and will use violence to prevent the majority from doing so, and workers should defend their right to take power.  
 
 
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