>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 16, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>KENTUCKY: LEVI STRAUSS WORKERS FIGHT FOR JOBS
>
>By Mary Owen
>
>High technology has brought high anxiety to hundreds of
>workers at a Levi Strauss plant in Florence, Ky. For 50
>years, the blue-jean giant has operated a shipping
>operation in Florence, employing more than 500 stock
>workers and pick packers who manually fill orders.
>
>"You'd get your order form, then run to a bin to check the
>SKU number and pull the orders," explained Pat King, a
>"pick packer" at the Florence plant for over four years.
>"It was hustle, hustle, hustle. Sometimes you'd carry 60 to
>70 pounds, depending on how heavy the jeans were." Still,
>King loved her job because she was always busy.
>
>About six months ago, the company announced it was closing
>the Florence operation and shifting work to an automated
>shipping center ten minutes away in Hebron, Ky. The move
>could cost over 350 Florence workers their jobs because
>there are fewer positions at the Hebron plant, and because
>the company has filled many positions--especially on day
>shift--with temporary workers who receive no benefits.
>
>"At the new plant, everything is computerized, and there
>are huge conveyors that bring the jeans to you," King
>explained. "So you stand in one spot and watch for what you
>need to fill your order."
>
>The Florence workers, who belong to the UNITE union, are
>fighting to assure jobs at Hebron for all workers who want
>them and to obtain severance packages for workers who do
>not go to the new plant. But Levi Strauss has announced
>that only workers with five or more years at Florence could
>bid for jobs on the first and second shift at Hebron, or they
>could agree to a "staying bonus" if they remained until the
>plant closed.
>
>Workers with less seniority could bid, but in most cases
>they would have to work second shift at the new plant. For
>many, this was impossible due to family situations, King
>said. For the workers who couldn't make the move, a
>severance package was important. But the company kept
>changing its tune on who could get severance, and when the
>severance would begin, making it hard for workers to plan.
>
>The company's arbitrariness has created tensions on the
>job. Workers' frustrations with the Levi Strauss have also
>led to exasperation with their union, which they feel is
>keeping information from them and not doing enough to fight
>on their behalf.
>
>According to King, UNITE has filed charges against the
>Levi Strauss management for going back on its word
>regarding severance packages. But in late February Levi
>Strauss still took severance away from about a dozen
>workers, ordering them to resign or go to the new plant--a
>dead-end choice. "There are no jobs there," said King. "If
>the workers refuse, they will be laid off with a one-year
>call back. They would lose everything."
>
>And Levi Strauss has reportedly resorted to attempts to
>intimidate and divide the Florence workers in the final
>months before the plant closes. Workers have been called in
>individually and offered widely different severance
>packages. Some of those who resisted described finding
>their car tires slashed in the company parking lot. One
>worker discovered her son's psychiatric record posted on a
>company bulletin board in the personnel office.
>
>Levi Strauss has a history of automating its operations,
>then laying off workers at its older plants. The company
>did it in Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas. In Texas, the
>mainly Latina workers formed La Fuerza Unida (United Force)
>to fight for a decent severance package.
>
>Now Levi Strauss workers in Florence, Kentucky are trying
>to fight a similar move by the clothing giant--and they
>need support. For more information on how you can help,
>contact Pat King at (513) 722-0417.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <005201bf8e95$2ffb1a80$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Why Pennsylvania shooting was not 'racist'
>Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 10:43:18 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 16, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>WHY PENNSYLVANIA SHOOTINGS WERE NOT "RACIST"
>
>By John Catalinotto
>
>The police are usually reluctant to classify assaults as
>"hate crimes," even when white bigots use racial slurs as
>they attack African Americans.
>
>Likewise, the big-business media in the U.S. hardly ever
>use the word "racist" to describe discrimination against
>African Americans, especially in headlines.
>
>You never see a headline such as, "Cops accused in racist
>shooting of Diallo," or "New Jersey state troopers charged
>with racist profiling," or even "Affirmative action needed
>to overcome institutional racism."
>
>The word "racist" in a headline, therefore, leaps off the
>page.
>
>On March 3, the usually sedate New York Times used the
>headline "Accused killer of three is linked to racist
>writing" above an Associated Press report about a person
>charged not only with murder but with a "hate crime."
>
>Why did the Times make this exception? It turned out that
>this rare use of the word "racism" was a complete
>distortion of its true meaning.
>
>The story was about the shooting of five white men in
>Wilkinsburg, Pa., a town of 22,000 people six miles east of
>Pittsburgh. Accused of killing them is Ronald Taylor, a
>jobless 39-year-old Black man. Three of those hit by the
>bullets subsequently died.
>
>Police say that Taylor had singled out white men and that
>they had found anti-white writings in his apartment. So,
>along with charging him with criminal homicide and
>aggravated assault, they charged him with "ethnic
>intimidation," Pennsylvania's term for a hate crime.
>
>Why do the media jump on the word "racist" here but refuse
>to use it in situations like the Diallo case? Is it because
>they are trying to distort, even reverse, the true meaning
>of the word?
>
>Racism in the United States has a clear history and
>origin. An entire body of racist ideology was created to
>justify the capture and enslavement of African people to
>provide cheap labor for the plantation system in the South.
>
>The conditions of the slave trade and slave labor, which
>over the course of centuries led to the murder of tens of
>millions of African people, were so horrendous that the
>oppressors had to concoct an entire mythology portraying
>African people as less than human. This racist ideology was
>the underpinning of the legal system, of what was taught in
>the schools, and of what was preached from the pulpit for
>hundreds of years.
>
>It allowed large Southern landowners to become extremely
>wealthy as they worked African American field hands nearly
>to death in the cultivation of cotton, tobacco and other
>cash crops.
>
>This is what racism is: institutionalized inequality and
>oppression justified by a pernicious ideology of racial
>inferiority. It grew out of the slave system that developed
>alongside capitalism. It was and is directed against people
>with roots in Africa and has been extended against other
>people of color, especially the Indigenous peoples who were
>massacred and driven off their land by the European
>settlers.
>
>Has this long history of racist oppression engendered
>hatred of whites among some Black people? There's no
>question about it. But that is not racism. It is a response
>to racism.
>
>What is amazing is that so many African Americans try hard
>to treat their white fellow workers with kindness and
>courtesy and raise their children not to hate, despite all
>the years of injustice that still weigh upon them. The
>formal institutions of slavery and segregation may have
>been overcome, but there is racist violence against African
>Americans every day in this country, especially by the
>agents of the capitalist state.
>
>The media and the Pennsylvania courts deliberately ignore
>the truth when they put an equal sign between the
>Wilkinsburg shootings and the racist killings by white
>supremacists or cops that take place here all too often.
>
>It is most likely that the racism of this society is what
>pushed Taylor over the edge. He was unemployed at a time
>when there are supposed to be jobs everywhere. If he saw
>television or read the newspapers, he had to be aware of
>the acquittal of the Diallo cops, which gave a new green
>light to racist killings, and of the massive frameups of
>Black and Latino people by the Los Angeles police.
>
>One could say that the men who were shot suffered
>indirectly because of this racist system. But to call
>Taylor a racist is ridiculous. He is a victim of racism.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <005801bf8e95$4afa9270$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Firsthand report from north Korea
>Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 10:44:04 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 16, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>FIRSTHAND REPORT FROM NORTH KOREA
>
>By Sharon Ayling
>
>A delegation from Workers World Party, including Brian
>Becker and this reporter, visited the Democratic People's
>Republic of Korea (DPRK) in February at the invitation of
>the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea.
>
>Wherever we went and whomever we spoke with, what
>impressed us the most was the unbreakable determination of
>the north Korean people to defend their socialist society
>against U.S. imperialism.
>
>This proud defiance was much in evidence when we paid a
>visit to the home of Jong Song Ok and her family in the
>beautiful capital city of Pyongyang.
>
>Jong is a world marathon champion. She is also a national
>hero. When Jong won the women's marathon race at the World
>Track and Field Championships in Spain last August, a
>million people lined the streets to welcome her home.
>Commemorative coins, postage stamps and a TV drama are all
>in the works. Thousands of young girls are asking to
>receive training in marathon racing.
>
>When Jong welcomed us into her home, we saw right away why
>this young athlete has inspired such affection.
>
>Jong did not focus on her own achievements when we asked
>how she became a world-class athlete. Instead she replied,
>"I come from a family of workers."
>
>Gesturing to her parents, she continued, "My mother is an
>ordinary worker and my father is a driver. Yet I have been
>able to succeed because of the rights and benefits that are
>guaranteed to our people. Our young people now have the
>benefits of compulsory education.
>
>"If you are an athlete, you have the chance to attend the
>Sports College. And these are all free, including college.
>Foreigners may not understand this point, but that is why
>we have such confidence in our leadership--in our late
>President Kim Il Sung and now Comrade Kim Jong Il."
>
>I replied that there is much that working people elsewhere
>can learn from Korea's leadership and people about building
>a people-centered society. For example, unlike in the DPRK
>where there is equal access to sports, youth from working
>class and poor families in the U.S. are denied adequate
>access to sports programs, facilities and funding.
>
>Jong asked what our impressions were of her country.
>Becker replied, "Just today we visited a day care center
>and the vast People's Study House in the center of
>Pyongyang. It is clear from how these institutions are
>organized that the government is attempting to meet the
>needs of working people in spite of deep economic problems
>caused by U.S. sanctions."
>
>As she showed us around her home and introduced us to her
>grandmothers, Jong told us, "The U.S. has divided our
>country and put economic sanctions on our people. But we
>are not afraid of economic sanctions. As you have seen, in
>many ways ours is a well-off nation. And of course we want
>to reunite our country, but we are not begging them for
>reunification."
>
>TENSION AT THE DMZ
>
>Our military guide at Panmunjom, in the demilitarized zone
>(DMZ) that divides Korea, displayed the same confident
>strength.
>
>Panmunjom is where the U.S. and DPRK signed the 1953
>cease-fire agreement ending the Korean War. To this day,
>the U.S. has refused to sign a peace treaty.
>
>The DPRK soldier expressed anger at the half-century of
>U.S. military occupation of south Korea, which is solely
>responsible for the artificial division of the peninsula.
>The DPRK has no troops outside its borders and has attacked
>no one, he said. However, it is ready to repulse any and
>all imperialist aggression.
>
>As we took pictures of U.S. and south Korean soldiers
>busily recording and videotaping our visit, he explained
>that tension was very high all along the DMZ, with
>provocations from the other side occurring daily.
>
>At that moment, the U.S. and south Korea were staging a
>large-scale joint air strike operation, which the DPRK
>characterized as "provocative and offensive."
>
>Our guide also told us his family's bitter experience
>during the war. "Eleven of my own relatives were killed by
>the U.S. occupiers during the Korean War, including two
>grandparents. My grandfather was killed by dismemberment--
>his body was pulled apart."
>
>These atrocities continue. During our visit, angry
>demonstrators were in the streets of Seoul, south Korea,
>protesting the strangling death of a Korean woman by
>Specialist Christopher McCarthy, one of the 38,000
>occupying U.S. troops.
>
>Before we left the DMZ, we pledged to continue to wage a
>vigorous struggle demanding that the U.S. withdraw U.S.
>troops from Korea and that it finally sign a peace treaty
>with the DPRK.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
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