July 17, 2000
SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minnesota — With two and half weeks left before workers at Dakota Premium Foods will vote to decide whether or not they will be members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789, tensions are increasing.
Line speed was the main issue that galvanized the workers who organized a seven-and-half-hour sit-down strike on June 1. The day of the strike, workers contacted Local 789 for help and launched an organizing drive to bring the union back.
The workers ended their strike only after plant manager Steve Cortinas conceded a number of the workers’ demands. These included slowing down the line and instituting worker representatives to keep an eye on the line speed. On June 12, the workers organized a march and rally in front of the plant demanding the company recognize their right to collective bargaining.
July 18, 1975
Confronted by the first substantial rebellion against the shah’s regime since 1963, the government-controlled Iranian press reported June 10 that “street riots” broke out in the city of Qum, ninety miles south of Tehran.
Tehran’s two major evening newspapers published identical reports. It said the demonstrations began June 5 and continued June 7. “Shouting antipatriotic slogans and waving red flags,” the demonstrators “recalled one of the most shameful events in 1963, initiated by black reactionaries in our country.”
Despite the shah’s claim that the opposition is confined to “black reactionaries and stateless reds,” a more general discontent appears to be rising, particularly among the youth. In part, this is because the regime has failed to meet growing expectations that increased oil revenue would improve the standard of living.
July 17, 1950
According to the Constitution, Congress alone has the right to declare war. But President Truman, taking advantage of the flimsy subterfuge that he has not “declared” war, has put the United States into a war that is as real and as bloody as if it had formally been “declared.”
It’s not Truman who will be sent to duck bullets and shells in Korean foxholes, and neither will the members of Congress. No, it’s always the people who do the dying and the sacrificing in war. Who has a better right to decide whether or not this country should go to war?
The candidates of the Socialist Workers Party are not afraid to submit to the wishes of the people on the overriding issue of war or peace. Let the people decide! If you agree, then your place is at the side of the Socialist Workers Party in the current war crisis and 1950 election campaign.