June 28, 1974
OXNARD, California - The militant strike here of strawberry
pickers, mostly Chicanos, is 80 percent effective, despite
police attacks and attempted intimidation. It is estimated
that growers are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars
because of the walkout.
The strike began May 24 when the entire crew of 80 workers at American Food Company left the fields in protest over low wages and poor working conditions. By June 7, the strike had spread to all 23 of the area's strawberry ranches. At this point in the harvest, 5,000 workers are needed to pick the crops. Only an estimated 750 remain in the fields.
On May 31 police and deputies arrested 31 people for allegedly violating the injunction. Roberto García, UFW [United Farm Workers] coordinator for the strike, pointed out how blatantly illegal the arrests were. Some of those picked up had just arrived at the picket line and were arrested before they even got out of their cars.
More than 3,000 workers and supporters marched through Oxnard's barrio June 1 to protest the arrests. The police attacks have strengthened the resolve of the strikers to fight until they win a UFW contract. García said that if the growers refuse to sign a contract this year, the UFW will return next season to continue the struggle.
June 20, 1949
The curtain was lifted on a small corner of the FBI's
secret political activities when a judge permitted the
introduction of several FBI reports as evidence at the Coplon
spy trial in Washington on June 8. It showed that America is
rapidly becoming the land of the police spy and the home of
the stoolpigeon.
For several days the government fought heatedly to prevent the reading of these documents. To do so, claimed the prosecutor, would "endanger the national security" and confront the government with the "sad choice of exposing vital secrets" or dropping its case against Judith Coplon, former Department of Justice employee being tried for alleged theft of these and other government secrets in order to aid the Soviet Union.
To make matters still worse, Congress has just passed a bill establishing a Central Intelligence Agency, most of whose provisions are a secret not only to the public but to the members of Congress who voted for it. No one outside this new agency's administrators will have any knowledge of its activities or any authority over them. Again, of course, the pretext is the protection of "vital secrets." But again the curtain has slipped a little and we are permitted to know that the Intelligence Agency has the power "to assign its agents to schools, industrial organizations, labor unions and other groups in this country."