Vol. 76/No. 15 April 16, 2012
Willie Anaya
Shop floor leader, strike leader and union militant Willie Anaya passed away Feb. 4 in the foundry at US Magnesium, a smelter in the desert 60 miles west of Salt Lake City, Utah. His viewing was attended by over 500 people. I looked through the crowd and asked people there if any bosses were present. There were none.Willie liked the Militant. He once took an ad from the paper, or it may have been the actual cover of In Defense of Socialism with Fidel [Castro]’s image on it, and pasted it on his hardhat. He kept it there for months.
Willie worked in the foundry for over 35 years. Leading up to the strike in 1988 he worked tirelessly to build solidarity among his coworkers. He continued to fight the company up until his death.
John Langford
Park City, Utah
Blood money
In late March, Eva Chertov’s pension money was released by the teachers pension fund. I received the note below from Judi Chertov, Eva’s sister, when I informed her we received Eva Chertov’s “pension bequest.”Eva was a member of the communist movement for over half a century. An appreciation of her life appeared in the Militant on Oct. 3, 2011.
I thought Militant readers would appreciate this “blood money” account.
Dave Prince
New York, N.Y.
Dave,
I’ve always referred to Eva’s pension account not as “Eva’s bequest” but rather her “blood money.” And it truly was!
Over the years that Eva taught in the New York school system, she had to fight to stay out of the rubber room where teachers who were “troublemakers” were sent. Eva particularly liked to share these stories with us and family members who have become educators to try and bring them back to reality of education under capitalism.
Some of her stories were unbelievable, and were thought to be exaggerations. They were in fact the reality Eva faced most often during her teaching days. Eva was a fighter and I think that was appreciated by her students and fellow teachers alike.
Judi
Editor’s note: The Militant features a periodic column on blood money contributions to the communist movement for long-term projects, from so-called bonuses and other bribes from the bosses to get workers to accept concession contracts, speedup, wage cuts and other attacks on conditions they face.
The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.
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