November 9, 1998
YAKIMA, Washington — Chanting “Work, Yes! Raids, No!” and “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” about 300 people marched Oct. 18 protesting Immigration and Naturalization Service raids.
The protesters came from up and down the Yakima Valley, home to a large number of immigrant workers from Mexico. They have come to this area to pick the apples, pears, and other fruits; tend the orchards, vineyards, and the vegetable fields; and work in the fruit warehouses that are the economic backbone here.
The Yakima Valley has become the center of union organizing drives by farm workers in the fields and by workers in the fruit packing warehouses. Under the impact of these drives, the employers have turned to the INS to try to intimidate the predominantly Latino workforce.
November 9, 1973
The Political Rights Defense Fund is building support and raising money for a lawsuit aimed at bringing a halt to government spying and harassment. Plaintiffs are the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance.
The suit seeks a court injunction against wiretapping, bugging, burglary, and infiltration of political groups. Syd Stapleton, national secretary of the PRDF, told the Militant that media is extremely interested. “People realize that we’re talking about the basic civil liberties of the American people. With a little effort we can get on every radio and TV station in a city we visit.”
The PRDF is soliciting sponsorship from individuals and groups. Support has come from unions, civil libertarians, leaders of the Black movement, activists in the women’s movement, representatives of the academic community, and many others.
November 8, 1948
United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis’s appeal for support to the striking French miners has sounded a clarion call for international labor solidarity. For the first time in years a top-ranking union leader has voiced the identity of class interests between the American workers and those of another land.
Lewis wrote AFL President William Green on Oct. 27 asking Green, as a supporter of Truman and his foreign policies, “why do you not have him stop the shooting of French coal miners who are hungry?”
Green said that the AFL could not support a strike seeking “to establish a Communist dictatorship.” The argument that a strike is “politically inspired” is taken directly from the arsenal of the capitalists. They attack all strikes that threaten their profits and privilege as “red,” “subversive,” and “communist.”