July 19, 1999
The following statement was issued by the Communist League in Canada.
The labor movement across Canada must transform the huge sympathy for the 47,500 Quebec nurses into actions in the streets. We must call for repeal of laws 160 and 72 and the granting of the nurses’ just demands.
The strike is the most recent in a class battle across Canada. In Saskatchewan nurses defied back-to-work legislation imposed by a New Democratic Party government, a social-democratic party with links to the trade unions.
The battle is an opening for workers to begin discussing the need for their unions to break away from their decade-long support for the Parti Quebecois, a capitalist party, and to build their own party. The PQ is today dismantling some of the central gains made by hard-fought struggles — including the right to unionize and strike.
July 26, 1974
On July 15 the city of Luanda in Angola was almost paralyzed by a general strike called by Black workers to protest continued Portuguese control of the colony. The same day, Portuguese troops shot at two demonstrations of Blacks, killing up to 20 and wounding 60.
The previous week, attacks by Angola’s white minority provoked two nights of violence. During that time six Blacks and one white were killed and 40 wounded. Thirty thousand people attended the funeral ceremony for four of the slain Blacks.
The independence struggle has sharpened in Mozambique as well. Portuguese rule is facing serious challenge from the actions of the guerrilla forces of Frelimo. Frelimo troops have blown up sections of the vital Beira-Tete railway line every week for the past three weeks. Frelimo has also stepped up its actions against Portuguese troops.
July 25, 1949
LOS ANGELES — Total condemnation of the use of the red scare, the witch-hunt and the “subversive” list as instruments of government policy, and the call for a gigantic mass conference in Washington to demand civil rights legislation were the outstanding achievements of the 40th annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The conference called upon President Truman “to summon Congress back for a special session for the express and exclusive purpose of passing civil rights laws.” The delegates also condemned the president’s loyalty order as resulting in “police inquisition, star-chamber proceedings and grave injustice.” The convention called for repeal of the Taft-Hartley law.
The call for a march on Washington in favor of passage of civil rights legislation should be widely supported.