October 16, 2000
The labor movement needs to defend the rights of immigrant workers, from protesting the violent assault on two workers in Long Island, New York, to opposing the factory raids and deportations carried out daily by the U.S. immigration police around the country.
The government, Democrats and Republicans, is responsible for the attacks. By targeting workers who originally hail from other countries, the employers and their government seek to divide working people. The attempt to criminalize a section of the working class is aimed at pitting us against each other.
It’s capitalism that generates unemployment and other fundamental problems facing workers and farmers. The unions need to reject any “America first” framework of defending jobs. Instead, what is needed is a fight to win jobs for all and to organize all workers into the unions.
October 17, 1975
BOSTON — For the past weeks, hardly a day has gone by here without a demonstration at the Massachusetts Statehouse. And for good reason, the Massachusetts legislature is debating a state budget that, if it passes, one effect will be to deprive 100,000 working poor and 28,000 disabled people on welfare of all medical care.
On Sept. 30, 2,000 of the many thousands who will be affected by the cutbacks in human services held a rally and march. Later in the afternoon, 3,000 members of AFSCME and SEIU demonstrated to demand an end to government layoffs and restoration of their promised cost-of-living wage increase.
On Oct. 1, several hundred senior citizens who stand to lose Medicaid benefits if the budget passes came to protest. Students from 19 state colleges and universities will rally Oct. 8 to demand an end to the cutbacks in higher education.
October 16, 1950
The 24th Infantry Regiment is a regiment of Negroes. When the war broke out in Korea it was one of the first regiments dispatched to the war zone. At Yechon the regiment defeated North Korean forces. The capitalist press announced it as the first victory of American arms and played up the fact that it had been won by Negroes.
The Pittsburgh Courier now reports: Certain elements in the U.S. command disapproved of the favorable publicity given to the Negroes. The regiment was compelled to continue fighting week after week with the inevitable results. Obviously, North Korean forces broke through American ranks many times. But the failures of the 24th were magnified out of all proportion.
The ruling class has its own war against the oppressed, particularly those who show determination in resisting the blood suckers who live off of them.