Vol. 73/No. 1      January 12, 2009

Striking hundreds of miles into that independent, Black-ruled country, South African air and ground forces have inflicted heavy damage and taken hundreds of lives. But they have also met with stiff Angolan resistance.

Angola, which has heroically stood up to repeated South African aggressions over the years, is again confronting the full power of the apartheid regime’s military might. While Washington claims to favor “peace” in southern Africa, it has consistently sought to shore up the apartheid regime’s position, provide it with the means to carry out its attacks against neighboring countries, and politically justify invasions like the one in Angola.  
 
January 5, 1959
DETROIT—An agreement reached Dec. 19 ended the strike of 7,100 Dodge Main plant workers, members of Dodge Local 3, United Auto Workers. The strike lasted 18 days.

It took place primarily over conditions in Department 76—the body shop. Past practice over some 20 years called for the lines to shut down ten minutes every hour because of fumes, heat, heavy labor and generally hazardous and difficult jobs such as welding and soldering.

In early 1957, in one of the company’s speed-up drives the relief time was cut in half to five minutes each hour. Last January another speed-up was instituted, and the relief time was cut to 12 minutes in the morning, and 12 minutes in the afternoon.

Because workers resisted new work quotas, they were sent home after one or two hours of work per day.  
 
January 6, 1934
The unemployed seamen of New York are subjected to severe ill treatment and abuse down in the Seamen’s Institute.

If a seaman comes ashore and applies for a cheap bed at the Institute’s dormitory, the first question asked there by the clerk is “Have you got money?” Then he is grilled about his credentials as a bonafide seaman, when and where born, citizen or not, mother’s maiden name, religion, what companies sailed on and, finally, the clerk takes a deep smell of the applicant’s breath.

The seamen today are in a very desperate mood and are looking with anxiety toward a militant organization. Whether such an organization will come and take the initiative in the coming struggles of the seamen, depends upon the active seamen, who are themselves unorganized as yet.  
 
 
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