Vol. 81/No. 10      March 13, 2017

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

March 13, 1992

Despite a federal court injunction, longshore workers shut down virtually all West Coast shipping February 17. Ships sat idle in ports from California to Alaska as 4,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU) rallied and demonstrated in support of 351 brothers and sisters fired by the Southern Pacific railroad from the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICTF) that serves the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The firings are widely seen as a sharp attack on what many workers consider the strongest union on the West Coast.

On December 16 Southern Pacific gave a 60-day cancellation notice to Pacific Rail Services, which managed the ICTF. This meant that ILWU Local 13, Allied Division, would be terminated in the facility. The ICTF yard employees voted for ILWU representation in 1987.

March 13, 1967

In an act of naked racism, congress has denied Adam Clayton Powell his seat. The way was opened for this display of anti-Negro sentiment by the report of the committee set up to make a “recommendation” on Powell, headed by liberal Emanuel Cellers of New York. The Cellers committee, which included Negro Democrat John Conyers, found Powell “guilty,” and recommended he be seated with punishments, including fines. This wasn’t enough blood to suit the congressional lynchers, however, and they increased the sentence to expulsion.

Their action exposes the deep racism of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and of all wings of those parties, including the Northern liberals.

The Democrats and the Republicans represent the ruling circles who benefit from racism and who are determined to preserve the racist system.

March 14, 1942

American workers will get their first taste of government rationing when sugar rationing goes into effect within the next few weeks. This is the beginning of a policy that will certainly be extended to other necessities as the war goes on.

Ostensibly, this rationing will be undertaken to insure an equitable distribution of scarce commodities and to prevent price extortion. The lesson of Britain shows, however, that rationing under government and capitalist control limits the amount of goods that the masses may secure, but does not prevent those with large incomes from obtaining all they want of both necessities and luxuries.

One of the chief reasons that rationed commodities prove insufficient is that a great amount of them are sluiced off into the Black Market, where they are easily obtainable — at greatly inflated prices.  
 
 
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