BY JOHN SARGE
DETROIT - Three members of the U.S. delegation to an international trade union conference recently held in Havana were detained, questioned, and had materials seized by U.S. Customs agents on their return from Cuba August 9. Two people were stopped at the Detroit and one person at the Philadelphia airports. They were part of 92 trade unionists and other activists from the United States who attended the gathering, including nine from Detroit.

David Sole, president of United Auto Workers Local 2334 described the incidents at an August 15 press conference in the Detroit city council chambers. It was called by the U.S.- Cuba Labor Exchange, one of the groups that organized travel to Cuba for the trade union gathering. Sole said two of the delegates were held "over three hours" in Detroit and the third nearly five hours in Philadelphia.

Sole said the delegates were placed in separate rooms and denied legal representation when they requested to call a lawyer. "We were improperly questioned," he said. "They asked questions like who did we vote for in the last election. They asked us about our political beliefs." He said Customs agents made allegations that the second detainee in Detroit could be involved in industrial espionage because he is an engineer.

The agents had a prepared questionnaire they gave to each person to fill. The unionists refused to answer questions that demanded names of other participants or organizations. The agents seized literature and video tapes from Cuba, before allowing the delegates to leave. The unionists will file a legal complaint with U.S. Customs demanding the return of all seized articles.

Two members of the Detroit City Council, Maryann Mahaffey and Clyde Cleveland, took part in the press conference along with Father John Nolan. City Council President Mahaffey told the press the actions Sole described "smacked of McCarthyism."

On August 23 the U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange hosted a report-back meeting, where several unionists who traveled to Cuba and a delegate to the world youth festival, which preceded the trade union conference in the Caribbean island, spoke to about 40 people. Rick Farquharson, a locked-out member of the Pressmen's union at the Detroit Newspaper Agency who attended the Havana gathering, said he "was surprised at the interest that the Cuban and other unionists had in the struggle by newspaper workers in the United States."

John Sarge is a member of the United Auto Workers in Detroit.  
 
 
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