Like the recent strike by UAW workers in Lordstown, Ohio, the Norwood strike also stems from the replacement of two managements - Fisher Body and Chevrolet Division - with a single management, the General Motors Assembly Division (GMAD). The goal of GMAD is to increase "efficiency" in the plants, and this was done by laying off 749 workers without decreasing the assembly line speed.

In addition to the speedup, management is trying to use the negotiations for a new GMAD contract to get rid of certain pay scales, seniority rights, and other provisions favorable to the workers in the old Fisher Body and Chevrolet contracts.

Minton thought morale among the strikers was "awfully good." He said, "I've talked to a majority of the people, and they still main the same position as they did April 7. They say, `We're not going back under the same conditions in the plant.' "

Another Local 674 member had a somewhat different evaluation. "It depends on who you talk to. I know some fellows whose morale is pretty high, and then again among some it's pretty low. There are fellows who are hard hit, let's be honest about it. And they have children, families, school's starting."

September 22, 1947
A new revolutionary upsurge is convulsing Italy. Grinding hunger and poverty, coupled with alarm over the swift growth of armed fascist bands, are driving the workers and farm laborers into action against the deGasperi government.

On Sept. 1 some 1,000 partisans marched into Casale Monferrato, a city of about 30,000 inhabitants in Northwestern Italy. Together with 1,200 local partisans they took over the government. They then called a general strike, which lasted a number of days.

This demonstration was occasioned by the Government's freeing of six local fascists who had been condemned to death by Popular Tribunals after the fall of Mussolini.

On Sept. 8, an estimated 600,000 to 1,000,000 agricultural workers went out on strike at the height of the harvesting season. They demanded (1) jobs for the unemployed; (2) wage increases; (3) regulations to prevent unjustified dismissals; (4) cost-of-living and family bonuses.

The recent swift growth of the fascist danger has alarmed the workers. There are more than 60 underground fascist- minded military formations. They are armed to the teeth in preparation for civil war. The number of armed fascist forces far exceeds the number of working-class partisans still in possession of arms.

The most powerful of these groups are the ECLA (Clandestine Anti-Communists Liberation Army), the "Fascist Italian Social Movement," and the FAR (Fasces of Revolutionary Action). These groups are closely interlinked.  
 
 
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