Vol. 72/No. 3      January 21, 2008

The “creditors” Manville wants protection from are the plaintiffs in some 16,500 lawsuits seeking damages from the company for illness resulting from exposure to asbestos. Among their number are shipyard workers, pipefitters, insulation workers, and brake mechanics. All have or had asbestosis or cancer or both.

Underlying Manville’s maneuver is what medical experts describe as “the nation’s worst occupational health disaster.” It is estimated that 9 million people were exposed to asbestos on the job between 1940 and 1980 and that 1.6 million will eventually die from an asbestos-related disease.  
 
January 20, 1958
United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther has decided to use Russia’s Sputniks as an excuse for dropping the shorter work-week as a demand for the 1958 auto negotiations. The shorter work-week demand was proposed, fought for over the years, accepted by the auto workers generally, and finally adopted by two UAW conventions, as an effective method of fighting unemployment. Now, just when unemployment is rapidly rising to pre-World War II levels, Reuther has dropped the demand.

Reuther’s statement says he dropped the shorter work-week demand because “the problem symbolized by the Russian earth satellites has drastically changed what appeared to be the situation at the time of the 1957 convention.” Now, says Reuther, it is necessary for the workers to work long hours in order to contribute to the missiles race.  
 
January 21, 1933
The rattle of the sabre grows louder in the Far East. As the Japanese conquest grows in scope grave events of international consequence loom on the horizon. Fear for their territory and sources of exploitation have struck fear into the hearts of American and British imperialism.

At the outset, when it seemed that the Japanese military expedition might end in intervention against the Soviet Union, the diplomatic circles in Washington were quiet as the grave. But now, when it appears that American profits and the huge Chinese colonial market will be swallowed up by Japanese capitalism, a virtual furor of protest has emerged from the Washington watchdogs of the Wall Street bankers’, munition makers’ and manufacturers’ interests in every part of the globe.  
 
 
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