PORTUGAL: Which Way to the Revolution? .. 6 Postal Strike
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2s¢ WflRIlERS VIIN'(JIIRIJ:",::,:;:•. : X-523 No. 48 5 July 1974 Pickets during Dodge Truck wildcat, Warren, Michigan. .~~."." 1;; weeps • ~~ • .... -.... ,_~, 'H WV PHOTO Throughout the capitalist world the against gas rationing and the escalating the current rate of inflation and could volved around nurses' right to have a past few years have seen a rising line strike of San Francisco cit y employ- have been negotiated withou' any strike say in patient care-to achieve adequate of class struggle as organizedlabor has . ees-indicate that the 1972-73periodof at all. staif for patient saiety, to ensure that class peace may be ending. In both of only specialized nurses would work in faced rampant inflation, often being The localized character of the pres shackled with state wage controls. Only these, the militant actions were out of specialty areas, etc. Slogans carried proportion to the modest goals and the ent strikes means that the militant on placards at a June 13 rally in San in the U.S. did the trade-union move rank-and-file ups u r g e continuously actions cannot fundamentally affect the Francisco's Union Square inc 1 u de d ment abandon any attempt to protect bordered on a mass political/industrial condition of those key sections of the the workers from the ravages of rising confrontation with the ruling class." "Patients Deserve Better Care" and in d us t ria 1 proletariat (steel, auto, "Better Staffing-one night nurse for 38 prices. Despite comparable rates of - Workers Vanguard, 29 March 1974 trucking) whose contracts are (and patients is unsafe. n inflation, during 1973 hourly manu should be) nationally negotiated. Among As could be expected, hospital man facturing wages rose only 8 percent industrial workers, only for the con Strike Wave of Spring 1974 agement waged a demagogic campaign in the U.So compared with 13 percent struction trades has the current wave to portray the striking nurses as ruth in West Germany, 18 percent in Britain of walkouts produced major gains. And and 25 percent in Japan (New York The March San Francisco events less mercenaries who would use pa (", -~~'. )"";"'-1.q .. ~ "1+r0~:gh i~ ";r("'..~)ri 'Times, 26 May). were indeed not an isolated local epl uems' bves as a weapon to secure prefer absolute peace and quiet, is The American labor bureaucracy sode, but rather the beginning of a new their greedy self-interest. The bosses' quite willing to allow pent-up militan responded to Nixon's 1971 wage freeze upsurge of labor struggles. Two and a pious concern for the patients' welfare cy to burn itself out in local strikes and controls not merely with fulsome half years of relative class peace ended was contemptible posturing as demon which do not seriously damage the cooperation, but launched an extraor with a bang this spring. According to the strated by Kaiser hospitals' refusal to monopolies which dominate the U.S. dinary anti-militancy campaign. This Bureau of Labor Statistics, time lost allow striking nurses to organize and economy. sellout policy was typified by Abel's due to strikes went from 1.1 million perform care of the critically ill during no-strike pact with the steel companies man-days in February to 2.0 million in the strike as they attempted to do. This and the 1,000-man goon squad the March (the latest available figures). In Highest-Ever Labor Unrest fact did not prevent ominous threats UA W' s Woodcock regime mobilized to other words, it roughly doubled in the on West Coast to sue the striking nurses for "en smash wildcats in Detroit auto last space of a month. What makes these fig dangering the lives of the patients," As reported in the San Francisco August. ures so impressive was that there was a proposal whose union-busting impli Examiner (20 June) some 100 strikes By early 1974, the bureaucracy's no major national strike, but rather an cations are obvious. were in progress in the 13 western anti-militancy drive had reduced explosion of local actions. In March Though the strike lasted three weeks states in the middle of last month. This strikes to a virtual all-time low; real some 480 strikes began, the largest and reflected militant determination on is the highest figure in history, ac wages had fallen fully 5 ·percent from number for that month since 1937! the part of the ranks, the nurses went cording to government statistics. In the mid-1973 (Economist. 15 June). The As yet, the current strike upsurge Bay Area alone walkouts have taken back to work June 28 with a pathetic capacity of Meany-Abel- Woodcock to has not produced a major national place among nurses and carpenters, settlement-a caricature of their de hold down the ranks had become des strike. The steel settlement negotiated mands. The manual and clerical work as well as un its of the Machin perately strained, particularly as the in April under the provisions of the ists Union, Teamsters, IBEW, ers of Hospital and Institutional Work moral authority of the central govern company-union no-strike pledge con Longshoremen/Warehousemen and the ers' Local 250, AFL-CIO, in the Bay ment plummetted to double zero be tinued the sellout pattern that has Printing Specialties Union. Area had crossed the nurses' picket cause of Watergate. recently enabled the American working lines throughout the strike as ordered San Francisco city workers struck class to "enjoy" a sharply negative Receiving most publicity was the by their president, Tim Twomey, des in March with an enthusiasm that soon trend in real wages (factory workers' strike by the California NurSing Asso pite their sentiments of support. affected other sections of the local real earnings down by over 10 percent ciation (CNA) which, beginning June 7, This gross betrayal, along with the working class, leading to walkouts by since late 1972). A partial exception pulled out about 4,500 nurses from Sac CNA leadership's refusal to fight for teachers and transit workers. The to the generalization about national ramento to the Bay Area, affecting all AFL-CIO support and stage a statewide rapid escalation led to the very brink of strikes was the Amalgamated Clothing Kaiser Foundation hospitals and clinics hospital strike, was a knife in the back a citywide general strike in a matter Workers' brief strike against tailored as well as 17 private hospitals. The that spelled defeat for the nurses. The of days. At the time we noted that the clothing manufacturers in early June. nurses walked out in response to hos official vote to go back to work was San Francisco events, particularly as However, the Amalgamated strike was pital managements' attempts to make 1,670-494, but even as the CNA leader evidenced by the mood of the workers, simply a ploy by the Finley-Sheinkman worse the already notoriously rotten ship explained the contract terms at the indicated an end to the post-1971 Nixon regime to allow militants to blow off working conditions of nurses. ratification meeting, placards appeared Meany era of labor peace: steam and not a serious attempt to The issues were not primarily eco among the ranks in the audience de "Two events in the past month-the force better terms out of the com nomic, as indicated by the mere 5.5 nouncing the contract as a sellout and West Vir gin i a coal miners' strike panies. The wage settlement was below percent wage increase demand, but re- continued on page 4 PORTUGAL: Which Way to the Revolution? .. 6 Postal Strike Defeated ...7 My Lai Mass Murderer -Lelle,.____ _ workers that their enemy is not capital Los Angeles ism but white, male workers. The so June 20, 1974 c a 11 e d affirmative action programs serve as an arm for the capitalists and Must Not Go Free! Dear Editors, their government in their union-busting We greatly appreciate the coverage attacks by undermining the seniority you gave to the defense campaign of the system, a hard-won job-security gain of organized labor, The leadership's More than six years ago, on 16 Militant Caucus of AFSCME 2070. The -- answer to our opposition to union parti March 1968, at least 100 and perhaps censure motion brought by the Local ~(0~11S ARMY INfANTRYCEi....l cipation in these committees was a as many as 400 unarmed men, women leadership against the caucus is not a slander campaign calling our members and children were massacred by mem TEN unique infringement of our democratic ~ . 51 .STQCK "racist," and ultimately a slur in the bers of the Americal Division of the U.S. rights, but one of a series of bureau ~~, ~.: "t"4",.~?:-~ADc Local's press, calling us a "small band Army in the village of My Lai, Vietnam. ",'"'' ;",',. f if: 5; 11;, cratic harassrr.ents which exposes the ,,.1, '~". r of reactionaries." The Local's press, The Army, reluctantly prodded into an leadership's inability to deal with our investigation by letters sent to public class-struggle politics. by the way, is censored to all views but those of the present leadership. officials from an eyewitness, eventually The major issues over which the But, most importantly, what the charged a total of 25 officers and en caucus has confronted the fledgling re present leadership lacks is even a hint listed men with crimes including rape, formist bureaucracy, ironically known of a class-struggle approach, a strategy sodomy, torture, maiming, indecent as as the "Unity Committee," have been of independent union action that means sault and premeditated murder.