The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.59/No.34           September 18, 1995 
 
 
25 And 50 Years Ago  

September 18, 1970
SEATTLE - On Sept. 4, 30 families walked out of the largest of the Yakima Chief ranches, the largest hop growers in Washington State. At a meeting in Granger that night, approximately 150 voted unanimously to go on strike, demanding a wage increase and the right to unionize.

Two more ranches were struck the morning of Sept. 7. Now 250 field workers and their families are involved. Ninety percent of them are participating in the picket lines. A temporary kitchen has been set up, and attempts are being made to establish a child-care center in order to free the Chicanas so they can join the picket lines.

The ranch has hired high school workers over the Labor Day weekend, but this has not been successful, since the output has been less than half what it was before.

Conditions in the Yakima Valley have helped lay the basis for this kind of action for a long time.

Not only do Chicanos suffer low wages and terrible living conditions, but when they have complained about it they have been attacked. In the past month alone, three have been attacked by Anglo foremen.

In a move to break the strike Granger High School in Yakima Valley released its students to help harvest the crops.

September 15, 1945
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 3 - Demonstrating a revival of their militant spirit of the prewar years, some 30,000 CIO workers here today marched down Market Street to demand action from the government against mass layoffs and for an effective full employment program.

"Jobs For All" was the slogan of the day, blazoned on placards and streamers carried by the long lines of marchers. The slogan was echoed by the additional thousands who viewed the parade.

Returned veterans, members of the CIO, were in the line of march and pointed to the fact that only "Jobs For All" would solve the veterans' problems. Thousands of Negro unionists marched with their white brothers and the slogan of "Outlaw Race Discrimination" was combined with "Jobs For All." Seamen demanding a living wage and a 40-hour week participated prominently.

Although the AFL had requested its members not to participate in the parade but to "go to church and pray" on Labor Day, thousands of workers wearing AFL buttons thronged through the line of march and cheered the protesters.

The speakers at the reviewing stand offered nothing by way of an effective fighting program to match the militant spirit of the marchers. But underlying the "peaceful" surface of the parade itself was an awareness that jobs and decent wages would be won only through struggle.

 
 
 
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