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Cover-Up at Three Mile Island Why Labor Should Take on-lhe-scene report cover-up at Three Mile Island APRIL 10, 1979 25 CENTS SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY/PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE Why labor should take the lead The following statement was released one at Three Mile Island. But the administra­ that radiation levels are "quite safe for all April 1 by Andrew Pulley and Nora Da­ tion did nothing-except to hush it up. Just as concerned" and that the top priority of the nielson. Pulley is the Socialist Workers the government has hushed up and lied about authorities is "the health and safety of the Party candidate for mayor of Chicago the hazards of nuclear power for decades. people." and a member of the United Steelworkers So now the accident the public was always Yet the day before, speaking in Wisconsin, of America Local 1066. Danielson, SWP assured was "impossible" has happened. The Carter vowed that nuclear power plants "will mayoralty candidate in Philadelphia, is a horrible possibility remains that a meltdown be continued." member of the Brotherhood of Railway or explosion could still send deadly clouds of The disaster at Three Mile Island proves and Airline Clerks Lodge 518. radiation over the surrounding cities and coun­ that nuclear energy is totally unsafe, that tryside. "Atoms for Peace" is a myth, and that all The Carter administration and the Demo­ Even if this most terrible outcome is averted, nuclear reactors and processing plants, both cratic and Republican parties bear full respon­ no one knows how many people, including commercial and military, should be closed sibility for jeopardizing millions of lives in the workers exposed in the plant itself, have been down immediately. Three Mile Island nuclear accident. harmed by the radiation that has already As one worker who lives in the shadow of Government inspectors knew months ago escaped. the Three Mile Island plant said, "It's like about problems in the cooling systems of On April 1 Carter flew into Middletown, living with a rattlesnake. Sooner or later it's Babcock and Wilcox reactors, including the Pennsylvania, just long enough to proclaim Continued on next page campaign to improve their competitive posi­ tion by squeezing more profits out of workers ... time bomb in this country. Continued from preceding page As every worker knows, they have launched going to bite you. You just don't.know when." a war on many fronts to accomplish this. It State and federal officials; the Metropolitan includes speedup, reversing on-the-job health Edison Company and its owner, General Pub­ and safety rules, forced overtime, higher taxes, lic Utilities; the Nuclear Regulatory Commis­ and cutbacks in social services. sion; and the scientist-hirelings of the employ­ Wages are held down by Carter's 7 percent ers have lied from the beginning about what is guidelines while prices soar at 15 percent a happening. year. They are lying now. They contradict each Laws protecting the environment are rolled other, they contradict themselves, and they back under the pretense of fighting inflation. refuse to give the American people straight The employers are out to weaken and if answers. Scarcely a person now believes a possible destroy the unions-the chief obstacle word they say about this accident. to their goals. Thousands who live near the crippled reac­ Part of this offensive is the rulers' attempt to tor are showing how much confidence they prepare us to accept the use of American have in the official promises of safety-they military might to defend their interests in are fleeing the area. other countries-especially where they are From its very beginning in the 1940s, the under attack now by the workers and peasants development of nuclear energy has been of Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle cloaked in secrecy. The dangers have been East. either denied or downplayed. The nuclear industry is part of the employ­ Why the secrecy? Why the lies? ers' war drive from top to bottom. The nuclear The capitalist class doesn't dare tell the industry originated with the race to develop truth about nuclear energy any more than and use the atomic bomb during World War II. they do about how they plan shortages and fix Today it services the entire nuclear arsenal, prices. To tell the truth, they would have to 1\le'l~ MI"I(A Nf. which the Pentagon sees as essential to its war say: a1ms. "We took billions of dollars from taxes paid CARTER: Tells Middletown residents not to worry, So we are faced with seventy operating by working people to finance the research and while he pushes for more nukes around the country. commercial reactors-each capable of repeat­ development of nuclear weapons and nuclear ing the crisis of the Three Mile Island plant­ energy. along with scores of processing plants, reac­ "We knew all about the hazards. But we At the same time he promises to keep us tors, and waste depots directly related to suppressed or censored reports on the likeli­ informed, Carter has imposed an unprece­ military purposes. hood of catastrophic accidents, car.cer epidem­ dented censorship order barring the Progres­ ics, birth deformities, and other consequences sive magazine from printing an article about The disaster at Three Mile Island will give we didn't want the public to know about. the hydrogen bomb. The Democrats and Re­ tremendous impetus to the rapidly developing "We fired scientists who got too nosy. We publicans are desperately pushing for more antinuclear movement-not only in this coun­ didn't hesitate to kill people like Karen Silk­ secrecy, not less. try but throughout the world. Millions, maybe wood who threatened to blow the whistle on The Socialist Workers Party says that the tens of millions, more people are now con­ the nuclear danger. entire record from both government and pri­ vinced that nuclear power should be stopped. "We need nuclear weapons to police the vate industry on nuclear energy-every secret Protests have already begun, and we can be world for U.S. corporate interests. study and hearing, every technical and finan­ sure the actions planned for later this spring "And there are big profits to be made from cial detail, every medical record-should be will be much larger than originally expected. nuclear energy." opened up for public scrutiny and debate. The Socialist Workers Party is participating This is what the employers and their biparti­ The labor movement should take the lead in in and helping to make these actions as san representatives in Washington would say fighting for this. Meanwhile nuclear power successful as possible. The solidarity the Ger­ if they told the truth. But they don't. should be stopped cold. man antinuke demonstrators expressed this In his Middletown speech, Carter declared Just as the doubletalk about what happened week in their slogan, "We all live in Pennsyl­ he would take personal responsibility for "tho­ at Three Mile Island reveals the destructive vania!" should be the watchword for all of us. roughly informing the American people" about and antidemocratic nature of capitalist rule, so The key to success for the forces organizing the lessons of the disaster. Democrats and do the disastrous implications of the accident. against nuclear power is to link up with those Republicans in Congress are already talking Three Mile Island is not an exceptional inci­ in the labor movement who are opposed to about a blue-ribbon investigation. dent. It epitomizes the nightmarish prospects nuclear power and to win the entire labor We have no reason to trust those who have of capitalist society today. movement to this fight. That's where the covered up the nuclear danger for all these The employing class and its insatiable drive strength lies to make this fight victorious. years. for profits are taking us down a road to catas­ The antinuke resolutions adopted by Meat trophe: Cutters District 2, by the United Auto Workers Runaway inflation and mass layoffs can in Ohio, by Steelworkers District 31 in overnight shatter the lives of millions of Chicago-Gary-along with the formation of working people. antinuke committees in some unions-show Monopoly-rigged shortages of key commodi­ the growing sentiment inside the labor move­ ties can trigger price explosions. ment. Young workers will be sent to die in other The struggle against nuclear power and all lands-not to defend their own interests, but its hazards is part of the overall struggle those of the bosses. against the capitalist catastrophe that threat­ Imperialist wars threaten to lead us to a ens the entire working class. nuclear holocaust. That catastrophe can be prevented only if This threat of catastrophe is sharpened by the working class organizes itself and its allies the fact that the capitalists in this country to take political power away from the capital­ face stiffer competition from their counterparts ist rulers, who are willing to risk the fate of in Western Europe and Japan. Since the 1974- humanity in their drive for profits. 75 depression, they have been on a stepped-up To carry out this struggle for power the working class will have to break from the war parties, the nuclear energy parties, the capital­ ist parties-the Democratic and Republican twins. Join the fight ... We need a labor party based on our own organizations, the unions. A labor party will • for a labor party, for a government run by Name and in the Interests of working people be an antiwar party, an antinuclear party, a Address --------------­ party that fights for the rights of Blacks, • for a society free from racism, sexism, City ---------------- latinos, and women.
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