December 27, 1999
The following statement was issued by the New York Socialist Workers Party.
The rulers of New York City and the state have launched a vicious attack on the rights of the transit workers who run New York City’s subways and buses. They are threatening to use the cops and courts to impose astronomical fines and arrest not only against any worker who strikes, but against anyone who advocates exercising the basic right to withhold one’s labor.
This blatant government intervention is aimed not only against the Transport Workers Union members, but all working people in the city and beyond.
The TWU membership will now be voting on a proposed contract. Whatever gains they make will have been the result of the determined stance of the ranks. We need to stand in solidarity with the transit workers and demand: Hands off the TWU!
December 27, 1974
BOSTON — “Keep the buses rolling!” rang out through the streets as thousands poured into this city in the first national response to the racist attacks on school desegregation here. The Dec. 13-14 teach-in and march marked a turning point.
The action marked the first time supporters of busing have outmobilized the “antibusing” bigots in the streets. Militant reporters estimated the size at about 12,000. By comparison, only 5,000 people turned out the next day for an “antibusing” march organized by the racists. It was a big setback for the segregationist forces.
Eunetta Pierce of Chicago, who began marching for Black freedom in 1954, came in a contingent of trade unionists from Amalgamated Meat Cutters Local P-500. “Marches like this are the only way you achieved your civil rights in the 1960s. If it takes that in the 1970s, we’ll do it again.”
December 26, 1949
In the midst of the Greek rulers war on the partisans, off the southern tip of Attica lies the island of Makronissos whose name has become synonymous with horror for the working masses of Greece.
The sadistic bourgeoisie of Greece chose Makronissos as the site for its camp of extermination. For three years all workers, peasants and soldiers whom the rulers view with suspicion have been shipped here. Under indescribable terror and torture, the bourgeoisie seeks to root out every trace of class consciousness.
Most insufferable is the psychological pressure. They are compelled to sign declarations repudiating their ideas. Those who don’t are immediately sent to “the Syrma,” a special department for incorrigibles. To this day, after three years of the existence of the camp, not a single person has come back from this Syrma.