April 24, 2000
DENNILTON, South Africa — “Our mission here is not just to help people — it is political. Cuba is making a contribution. We are representatives of the continuity of Cubans who fought and who are still fighting today,” said Antonio Valdez, 37, one of 379 internationalist doctors who are working in South Africa.
“The poorest of the poor want us here,” said Antonio Otelo, 34, an orthopedic surgeon. “We are working in rural areas basically where no one else wants to work.” The first Cuban doctors began arriving at the request of the ANC government in 1996.
Nearly all patients are black. Many are farm workers employed on capitalist farms, still more are unemployed. “South Africa is a country of two worlds. In the world of whites, hospitals have everything; in the world of blacks, rural hospitals like this one are very different,” said Otelo.
April 25, 1975
Postal workers, who are opening contract talks April 21, are victims of a double-bludgeon operation. On one hand they must deal with the noose of government-imposed arbitration, curbing their right to strike. On the other hand they are up against the profit-seeking “private management” that Congress in 1971 put in charge of the mails.
The Postal Service plans further cuts by refusing modest wage increases demanded by the unions in the negotiations this year. Postal officials do not fear a strike. They are counting on Congress to “keep the mails moving.”
The postal unions have said, “No contract, no work.” If they strike it will be an opportunity to demand a public review of the whole crooked scheme and to replace it with a nonprofit postal service operated under workers’ control. That is the only way low-cost postal service can be restored.
April 24, 1950
On this May Day, the Socialist Workers Party addresses the American workers in the tradition and spirit of those labor heroes and martyrs of 1886 who led the first May Day struggle.
The American workers have it in their power to end unemployment, witch-hunts and imperialist war. The key not only to their own salvation, but to the emancipation of all mankind is class unity in economic and political struggle against capitalist rule at home and class solidarity with the workers of Europe and the colonial peoples fighting for socialism and independence abroad.
We call on the working masses of America to break all links with capitalist politics and politicians.
Support the Socialist Workers Party candidates. Join with the SWP to forge working-class solidarity in battle against capitalism for plenty, security, and peace.