WW News Service Digest #345
1) Threats against Planned Parenthood
by WW
2) Labor calls day of action for Charleston 5
by WW
3) Forced labor at U.S. postal facilities
by WW
4) Tips on getting out the truth
by WW
5) Colombian unionists on Coca-Cola and death-squad killings
by WW
6) All out for Mumia Dec. 7-9
by WW
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
THREATS AGAINST PLANNED PARENTHOOD
By Naomi Cohen
A recent message sent to supporters of Planned Parenthood
revealed that in just 10 days the women's health-care org a
nization had received at least 137 letters threatening its
staff with anthrax and assassination. The message reads in
part:
"In a despicable act of cowardice, anti-choice extremists
are flooding Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers and
offices with envelopes containing threatening letters and a
powdery substance. The letters--all similar in appearance--
typically have law enforcement return addresses and many
make the following claim: 'You have been exposed to anthrax.
We are going to kill you all. Army of God.' "
While the threats of anthrax contamination have proven empty
so far, a terrorist campaign of assassinations and bombings
of women's clinics began over a decade ago. This campaign
has taken the lives of a number of health-care workers and
professionals. It is aimed at denying women access to the
health-care services, including abortion, that they are
entitled to.
While anti-choice terrorists use internet websites to openly
advocate killing those who would safeguard women's right to
choose, the FBI and other "law enforcement" agencies have
not moved to hunt down or arrest these criminals. This has
meant that organizations like Planned Parenthood have had to
divert precious resources to security just to be able to
continue to function.
The fact that thousands of health-care workers and advocates
for women's right to choose have continued to run the
clinics and provide much-needed services in the face of
these threats makes them unsung heroes.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
TRIAL STARTS NOV. 14:
LABOR CALLS DAY OF ACTION FOR CHARLESTON 5
By Milt Neidenberg
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is calling for a National Day
of Action to Support the Charleston Five on Nov. 14--the
opening day of the long-delayed trial of five unionists on
trumped-up felony charges. Sweeney motivated the labor
movement to support the day of actions in a letter to AFL-
CIO state federations and central labor councils.
The five unionists include four Black workers from Local
1422 and one white worker from Local 1771. Both locals of
the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) are in
Charleston, S.C. If convicted, each worker faces a sentence
of five years or more in prison.
The five won a significant yet incomplete victory on Oct.
15. On that date, after nearly two years under house arrest,
interrupted only by job assignments, they were freed from
the shackles of their homes by a release order signed by
Judge Vic Rawl.
Just a week earlier, in a move that activists feel shows the
state's case is crumbling, South Carolina Attorney General
Charlie Condon, who was prosecuting the five, removed
himself from the case after defense lawyers demanded he step
down because of gross misconduct.
The charges against the five unionists stem from a
courageous, lawful stand against a vicious police assault
against 130 members of the two Longshore locals in January
2000. The union members had set up a legal informational
picket line at a ship being unloaded by non-union labor. Six
hundred cops--in riot gear, with armored tanks, police
wagons, helicopters and horses--assaulted the picketers.
This assault was not only anti-union. It was thoroughly
racist.
The membership of these ILA locals is overwhelmingly Black.
Their leadership has taken progressive stands. Ken Riley--
the African American president of ILA Local 1422 who
suffered head injuries during the attack--had been in the
forefront of an earlier struggle to bring down the
Confederate flag that flew from the statehouse. Riley was
slated to be elected to the Port Commission.
CLASS WAR ON THE WATERFRONT
The cause of the Charleston Five has become a rallying cry
across the continent and abroad. On the West Coast, the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is in the
forefront of this worldwide effort to free the five. These
workers recognize the struggle to free the five as part of
their own battle against the bosses.
There is class war on the waterfront--increased production
and speedups, and union busting. Rules and regulations
governing safety and job security are violated daily.
This struggle has become national and international. From
ships to shore, dock workers, truckers, railroad workers and
their unions are on the front line of the anti-globalization
fight. NAFTA and other global trade agreements play right
into the hands of the U.S. transnational corporations and
banks that dominate the world's markets and resources.
President George W. Bush has now introduced fast-track
legislation. It would give him the power to establish more
NAFTAs, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
FTAA will encompass the Caribbean, Central and South
America, and increase production and profits for the banks
and corporations at the expense of workers and peasants
throughout the hemisphere.
Struggles on the waterfront have taken a more ominous turn
as the Bush administration and Congress have whipped up war
frenzy in the name of fighting "terrorism." Since Oct. 7,
while the Pentagon daily and mercilessly drops bombs and
missiles on the innocent population of Afghanistan, Congress
has been deliberating a bill that threatens the civil rights
and liberties of port and transport workers.
It mandates background checks and screening workers who are
deemed "security risks." It gives unlimited powers to the
military--in this case the Coast Guard--to weed out union
activists, progressives, those opposed to the war and other
dissidents.
Called the Port and Maritime Security Act, the bill has the
support of the Bush administration, Sen. John McCain--a
Republican from Arizona, another "right-to-scab" state--and
other war hawks from both parties.
Sponsored by Democrats Fritz Hollings of South Carolina and
Bob Graham of Florida, this repressive legislation is
directed against all workers with access to the country's
harbors. Hollings is a patron of the waterfront bosses who
are part of the conspiracy against the Charleston Five.
He is also an ardent supporter of South Carolina "right-to-
scab" law. Less than 4 percent of the entire work force in
the state belongs to unions. Hollings is also an advocate of
the Confederate flag.
LABOR FIGHTS BACK
The ILWU leadership that has been leading the fight to free
the Charleston Five is now organizing its members to fight
the Hollings legislation. The U.S. military offensive has
already had dire effects on the civil liberties of workers
here in the United States, particularly the undocumented and
immigrants of color, most specifically those from the Middle
East and Central and South Asia.
The ILWU has issued a statement through its International
Executive Board to "redouble our efforts to fight these
injustices, and we must not allow those who oppose our goals
to use a national crisis as an excuse to assault our civil
and economic rights."
In the September issue of The Dispatcher, a widely read
monthly of the ILWU, the union reminded members of their
experiences half a century ago, when they fought the
government's abuses that were mounted in the name of
national security and war frenzy.
The article reminded members: "In 1950, at the height of the
McCarthy witch hunt, and the beginning of the Korean war,
Democrat President Harry Truman signed an executive order
that called for Coast Guard screening of all ship and shore
workers ... the sole purpose of the order was to rid the
waterfront of dissidents who criticized America's
involvement in the Korean conflict."
The Dispatcher warned workers and unions in other industries
that they will be subjected to similar repression in the
name of national security. In emphasizing its concerns about
this legislation, the union pointed out that background
checks and screening workers will be used to weed out
workers who protest and get arrested because of their
opposition to U.S. policy such as the World Trade
Organization agreement, and IMF and World Bank policies.
It is incontrovertible that the Bush administration and its
allies in both major parties have the organized labor
movement in their crosshairs.
The current economic recession is national and worldwide. It
has brought about massive layoffs, plant and office closings-
-all of which has intensified misery and hardship for the
labor movement and the unorganized.
Will the AFL-CIO encourage the thousands of labor and
community activists who have supported the Charleston Five
struggle over the last two years to oppose the war, fallout
from the recession and threats to the multinational labor
force's civil liberties?
The ILWU has begun to answer with a strong "Yes!"
All out on Nov. 14 to free the Charleston Five.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FORCED LABOR AT POSTAL FACILITIES:
UNION SUES GOV'T OVER ANTHRAX DANGER
By G. Dunkel
New York
The New York Metro Area Postal Union is suing the United
States Postal Service because management won't close and
decontaminate the Morgan Station post office in mid-
Manhattan.
On Oct. 25, postal officials found that four of the huge
sorters on the facility's third floor were tainted with
anthrax. Yet the bosses merely put warning tape around the
machines.
They ordered workers to continue running two nearby sorters.
Soon both those machines and the dust catcher on the ceiling
also tested positive for anthrax. (Daily News, Nov. 2)
Workers at Morgan felt that the contamination of the dust
catcher indicates that anthrax is floating in the air
throughout the building.
So the union is demanding that this main postal facility in
Manhattan, which moves an average of 12.5 million pieces of
mail a day, be shut down until it can be cleaned up and made
safe for workers.
Of the 19 cases of anthrax in the United States confirmed by
the "Office of Homeland Security" on Nov. 4, nine were
postal workers. Two letter carriers in Washington have
already died from the disease. And anthrax contamination has
been found in other mail-processing centers.
When Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle received a letter
containing anthrax spores, the Senate offices were closed
until they could be disinfected. The Supreme Court building
was also shut down when anthrax spores were detected in its
mailroom.
Denis O'Neil, a post office employee who worked on the
Morgan Station sorters, asked reporters: "So why won't they
close this building? Are they waiting for someone to die?
The fact is the building is contaminated."
William Smith, president of the New York Metro Area Postal
Union, urged the 5,500 workers at Morgan Station to exercise
their contract right not to work in dangerous conditions and
to stay home. "They have to close it up to clean it up,"
Smith said.
According to management, absenteeism at Morgan is currently
30 percent. It is normally 5 to 6 percent. (New York Times,
Oct. 27)
Postal workers in New Jersey, a state in which anthrax
spores have also been discovered in mail facilities, are
worried and angry as well. Recently in Jersey City, 200 mail
handlers picketed during their lunch outside the bulk mail
processing facility there, which is the largest in the
United States.
They wanted the facility tested, explained Larry Adams,
president of Local 300 of the National Postal Mail Handlers
Union. "They want feedback," said Adams. "They want
information."
A Bronx postal worker, who asked that his name not be used
since he is on probation, told Workers World: "Management is
much more interested in moving mail than the safety of Post
Office employees who do the sorting and carrying or the
people who receive it.
"When we get gloves, they rip and tear. We only got masks
once. Even though my office gets plenty of mail from
Manhattan, it hasn't been tested for anthrax, to the best of
my knowledge."
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
TIPS ON GETTING OUT THE TRUTH
By Leslie Feinberg
If you live in Buffalo, N.Y., the newspaper you're reading
right now might be in your hands because Terry Hannon
dropped it off at a location in your neighborhood. Hannon
knows a lot of tricks of the trade about newspaper
distribution. He makes his living as a truck-driving
Teamster who delivers the Buffalo News.
How long has he been doing that job? He laughs wryly: "Too
long! I started on the job 27 years ago." When asked his
opinion about the Buffalo News, Hannon's answer in
unprintable, except for his addendum that it reflects the
interests of Corporate America.
But when he talks about Workers World newspaper, his voice
fills with warmth and pride.
"I started out taking the papers to two or three locations
in my neighborhood and I've just expanded it over the
years," Hannon recalls. "Now I'm doing 25 to 30 stops a
week. I can do even more than that during the summer time
because I have more flexibility about stops on my bicycle.
During the harsh Buffalo winters I have to rely on my car or
travel on foot or by public transportation."
How many newspapers does he distribute? He computes in his
head: "I get out about 225-240 a week."
He ticks off on his fingers, "I take them to the colleges
and universities--Buffalo State, the two campuses at the
State University of New York at Buffalo, Erie Country
Community College city campus--neighborhood delicatessens,
restaurants, laundromats, newsstands, coffee shops,
bookstores, the food co-op."
Hannon sees growing interest in Workers World newspaper on
campuses. "Two years ago I'd put five papers at the Buffalo
State Student Union each week and get two or three back. Now
I'm putting 15 a week and I'm not getting any back. And the
same is true at the four to five buildings at the north
campus and two to three at the south campus of UB. I can see
that the students are picking up the paper. Things like this
are very encouraging."
When it comes to community locations, he stresses, "Almost
completely I try to drop the papers off in neighborhoods of
working class and poor people. The locations where I put the
paper is where people would be most interested in building a
revolutionary movement in the United States."
Hannon is very systematic. "I keep a record of how many
papers I put in a particular location. This helps me to
gauge how many newspapers are being picked up and read and I
can know when to increase or decrease how many papers I put
in any location."
Hannon consults his weekly chart. "I put 10 papers at the
laundry last week and they were all gone. So I bumped it up
a bit to 15. These are little tricks I learned from being a
truck driver for the Buffalo News. You see what they do with
the corporate rag.
"I try to build up a readership by dropping off the papers
at the same locations every week. It gives the person who
picks up the paper an opportunity to return the following
week."
But Hannon also tries new locations. "Last week we held a
street meeting against the war and racism at the Broadway
Market--a completely multinational shopping center in a
working class, poor neighborhood. I put newspapers there for
the first time last week and I'll do it on a regular basis
and see how it goes."
Hannon is going to start slipping a subscription blank in
the newspapers he distributes to give readers a chance to
get Workers World mailed directly to their homes.
Hannon also distributes Workers World to a handful of his co-
workers every week. "I get good feedback from them," he
exclaims. "One guy is ecstatic over the paper--that's not an
exaggeration. He'll read this and get a big kick out of it."
Hannon says with conviction, "I'm compelled to get the paper
out. I think it's absolutely essential that this paper get
into the hands of working and progressive people because the
big business media--I hold it in such contempt. It's
disinformation. It's a distortion of the truth. It's
outright lies. It's a pillar of the corporate establishment.
I just got back from the laundromat where I left 15 papers.
The television there was tuned into Fox News and it was on
and on about Afghanistan and the war frenzy.
"A revolutionary, Marxist newspaper is so essential,
especially today. I'm very encouraged by the fact that many
people are picking up Workers World," he concludes. "It's
rewarding because I keep a record of this and I can see that
it's working. I can see that people are interested in it. It
makes me feel proud."
Are you ready to help get Workers World into more hands?
Order a weekly bundle by writing: Subscription Department,
Workers World, 55 West 17 St., New York, NY 10011. Or call
(212) 627-2994.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
COLOMBIAN UNIONISTS TOUR U.S.:
CITE COCA-COLA IN DEATH-SQUAD KILLINGS
By Rebeca Toledo
New York
Two union leaders from Colombia--from the Central Trade
Union and the national union of food and beverage workers--
kicked off a U.S. tour here Nov. 3. They came to the United
States to acquaint people with a lawsuit, filed in the
Southern District of Florida, that their union has brought
against the Coca-Cola Co.
Edgar Paiez told the audience that over the past 15 years,
more than 4,000 labor unionists have been assassinated in
Colombia. According to the United Nations, this is the
highest rate of assassinations in the world.
This year alone, 125 union leaders have been killed by the
paramilitaries. Of these, seven were Coca-Cola workers.
Paiez says the lawsuit charges Coca-Cola with systematically
violating workers' fundamental human rights, as reflected in
assassinations, detentions, forced displacement, firings,
violations of collective conventions of work, and the
persecution of the labor union.
The case is moving forward in Florida. To complement the
lawsuit, Paiez said, "We will be holding public hearings
around the world next year to present evidence against both
Coca-Cola and the Colombian government for their continued
persecution."
The first will be held in Atlanta next July 22. Atlanta is
the headquarters of Coca-Cola.
It will be followed by an August hearing in Brussels,
Belgium. In September the last one will be held in Bogota,
Colombia, itself.
Paiez appealed to all those fighting against injustices and
for union rights in the United States to join the campaign
and get involved in organizing for the Atlanta hearing.
Speaking about the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States,
Paiez said: "We would like to send our deepest condolences
to the families of the victims of the attacks. The loss of
life has affected us deeply, because we too suffer such
attacks, only they are acts of state terror."
Since Sept. 11, the Colombian government has increased its
attacks on the people in the name of fighting terrorism. Any
act of protest is now labeled as terrorism.
Paiez said war is not the answer to the tragic events of
Sept. 11.
VIDEO ABOUT MASSACRE WITH U.S. CLUSTER BOMBS
Samuel Morales Florez introduced a video entitled "The Other
Bloody Sunday" that documented a massacre carried out by the
Colombian military on Dec. 13, 1998, in the village of Santo
Domingo.
He charged, "The cluster bombs used were donated to the
Colombian military by the U.S. and were dropped by U.S.
pilots."
Seventeen people were killed, including seven children.
Twenty-five people were wounded.
In the film a survivor tells how helicopters and planes
circled overhead. At first, they dropped propaganda
materials. Then they dropped bombs right in the center of
town, where many people had gathered. There were explosions,
followed by loud screams.
The Colombian military at first denied that it used bombs at
all, but quickly had to retract this in the face of
overwhelming evidence. No one was ever charged with this
massacre.
It is just this kind of injustice that the Stop Impunity:
Colombia Demands Justice Campaign wants to put an end to.
"The Colombian government must be held accountable for these
acts of terror," concluded Morales Florez.
Thomas McGregor of the Impunity Campaign described it as an
international campaign to bring about justice for the people
of Colombia. He asked that U.S. activists pressure the
government to cut all military funding to the Colombian
government.
McGregor also spoke about the fumigation of peasant lands:
"Fifty percent of all crops sprayed have been food crops.
And it is no accident, because one can clearly tell the
difference between a coca crop and a food crop; they are
grown separately."
The peasants have presented the government with proposals
for growing alternative crops instead of coca. The
government has refused them all. The speaker said this
showed that the Colombian and U.S. governments are not
interested in ending narcotrafficking.
"Along with the terror of the paramilitaries, this is an
effort to displace and depopulate lands so that the
paramilitaries can turn them over to the landowners," said
McGregor.
In a lively discussion after the presentations, Morales
Florez commented that the Colombian government has supported
terrorism in his country for years. Just recently, it
created, nourished and armed paramilitary groups.
"Today the government says it will combat the
paramilitaries. But how can it combat something that is
within it, something that has benefited the government so
much? Before, the Colombian military carried out these
terror attacks; now the paramilitaries carry out this dirty
war."
The paramilitaries carry out such horrific massacres of the
people that they are infamous for the use of chainsaws on
their victims.
Elaborating on the attacks on the Coca-Cola workers, Paiez
gave this example: "At one plant, while the trade union was
negotiating for better wages and more job security, three
leaders were assassinated right in the plant at 8:30 a.m. At
9:30 a.m., paramilitaries kidnapped a fourth leader. At
midnight, the union offices were set on fire and all the
archives lost.
"The next day, the paramilitaries called a meeting inside
the plant to tell the workers to resign from the union by 4
p.m. or else. This is the kind of relationship that Coca-
Cola maintains with the paramilitaries."
Although the government originally detained some plant
personnel, no one was ever charged with these terror
tactics. The panel urged everyone to get involved with the
campaign to gain justice for these workers, and also to
oppose the U.S. government's Plan Colombia and Andean
Initiative.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 15, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
ALL OUT FOR MUMIA DEC. 7-9:
PRISONER FIGHTS WALL OF SILENCE
By Greg Butterfield
Mumia Abu-Jamal's name has all but disappeared from the big-
business media since Sept. 11. But that doesn't mean
federal, state and local authorities have halted their plans
to kill this Black freedom fighter and revolutionary
journalist.
In response, Abu-Jamal's supporters have called on people of
conscience worldwide to rally on the weekend of Dec. 7-9,
the 20th anniversary of the incident that led to his frame-
up.
On Oct. 15, U.S. District Court Judge William H. Yohn denied
a request by Abu-Jamal's new legal team to suspend federal
appeals proceedings as they seek to reopen his state appeal
in the Pennsylvania courts.
The political prisoner, his lawyers and defense committee
didn't learn of the judge's decision until Oct. 27, when a
report was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.
"Judge Yohn has denied the request to suspend federal
appeals, again using the Herrara case and the Effective
Death Penalty Act as an excuse to murder an innocent man,"
said Kevin, a member of International Concerned Family &
Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. "Yohn has shown that he has
absolutely no intention of doing justice, so people must get
moving now to expose this conspiracy to murder."
In the Herrara case--one of the first applications of the
Effective Death Penalty Act signed by Bill Clinton--federal
courts allowed an execution to proceed despite new evidence
of the prisoner's innocence. The excuse? The new evidence
had emerged after a strict time limit prescribed by the
Effective Death Penalty Act had expired.
But death-penalty foes argue that it's never too late to
save an innocent person.
Abu-Jamal's defense team wants the Pennsylvania courts to
enter into evidence the confession of Arnold Beverly--a self-
described mob hit man who in a videotaped deposition says he
killed Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec.
9, 1981. Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death for
Faulkner's killing, but has always maintained his innocence.
He has spent over 19 years on death row.
Getting the state court to accept Beverly's confession as
part of the legal record is the only way to ensure that Yohn
must acknowledge this crucial new evidence. In August,
attorneys Marlene Kamish and Elliot Grossman filed a motion
with state Judge Pamela Dembe for a hearing to present the
confession. Prosecutors replied Oct. 12, claiming it was
"too late" for new evidence.
Dembe could make a ruling soon.
GOV'T COULD 'CAPITALIZE ON REACTIONARY CLIMATE'
"The possibility is very real that those government and
judicial officials who are attempting to hold Mumia's life
in their hands will try to capitalize on the current
reactionary, jingoistic, racist climate," warned an Oct. 28
ICFFMAJ statement. "In one quick motion, they could deny
Mumia's appeals and set his date for death.
"It unfortunately may not be a hard sell for many in this
nation ... a Black man with long dreadlocks, a revolutionary
belief, and an Arabic-sounding name could be seen as just
another enemy casualty in Bush's 'crusade' on terror."
The already tense atmosphere in Philadelphia has been
further charged by District Attorney Lynn Abraham's re-
election campaign. The "deadliest D.A. in the U.S." has run
radio ads citing her opposition to a new trial for Abu-Jamal
to bolster her appeal to local racists.
As a judge in 1985 Abraham authorized the deadly police
attack on the MOVE organization that left 11 people dead and
an entire Black neighborhood destroyed.
"While the truth, and all that is right, screams out for
Mumia to be spared the punishment imposed upon him by his
racially-stacked jury," continued the defense committee's
statement, "we know it is an axiom that in war, the first
casualty is the truth.
"Those who are aware of Abu-Jamal's case must be more
vigilant than ever and not allow themselves to be distracted
or discouraged by the flag-waving, shallow, trendy
patriotism that envelops this nation. ... Supporters of
Mumia have not only an obligation to fight harder for
freedom, we also have a new-found obligation to fight
against this vicious war being waged against all of us."
Now more than ever, supporters say, it is crucial to draw
public attention to Abu-Jamal's case, the racist injustice
it represents and the political prisoner's courageous
opposition to the U.S. war. Actions planned for Dec. 7-9
include:
* Student walkouts on Friday, Dec. 7
* A mass rally and march in Philadelphia on Saturday, Dec.
8, gathering at noon at Broad and Market streets
* Protests, marches and teach-ins in cities around the globe
on Dec. 8-9
A flier about the events can be downloaded from
www.mumia.org. For those in the Philadelphia area, a
planning and strategy meeting is scheduled for noon on Nov.
10 at 4601 Market St., 5th floor. For more information, call
ICFFMAJ at (215) 476-8812.
