WFTU condemns jailings of Indonesian workers, SOBSI ban

=== [PDF page 1] === DAILY WORLD By GEORGE MORRIS Abels economy gymnastics Abel’s Economy Gymnastics Mark down June 22, 1975, as a great day. On that day, interviewed over the CBS network, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Ad visers, announced that the economic crisis was over. Thursday, July 3,1975 Page 5 Is the depression over? Ask jobless auto workers By WILLIAM ALLAN DETROIT, July 2 — The TV, the radio and the local newspapers, all of whom owe their continued existence to advertising, greeted with glee the statement by Alan Green span, advisor to President Ford, that the depression was over. However, a quick travel around got 40 signatures in one hour and ies. proclaimed, “Jobs, Jobs, grTTf:?: Unfortunately many employers Detroit Unemployment Compen 20 minutes. Most who signed Jobs> Ptent Conversions to Assure have not yet heard the great sation offices produced comments were either laid off or were on Work for Thousands in Michigan.” news, because they keep laying Conversion to small cars that a family newspaper can’t short work weeks. off thousands of workers. The media reports that the auto print from embittered workers' “That man in the White House industry is spending $6 billion for President Ford announced the waiting in lines. has got to go,” was the comment “plant reconversion” to cars end of the crisis more than a This reporter was on Detroit heard most often. week earlier. But it seems amny smaller than the Vega of GM. streets last week seeking signa employers, particularly in the With the industry going over in Headlines in the Detroit News, tures to put the Michigan Commu steel industry, have neither read the main to small cars, another organ the auto companhouse nist Party on the ballot in 1976. He the papers nor listened to the air huge slice of the work force will waves In fact, on the day that get the axe, anywhere from 200,Greenspan ended the crisis. Na 000 and up. This is in addition to tional Steel workers were told the 250,000 already laid off. of the layoff of about 600 at the A cry is thundering through the Weirton, West Va., plant. TV tubes, on radios and in the We have had several announce press. The cry is, “Job Enrich ments in recent months that the DETROIT ment.” recession is “bottoming out,” UNEMPLOYMENT IN MICHIGAN is still over 500,000 that is of A new speedup term somewhat like Herbert Hoover’s the number of those drawing unemployment compensation. It is 225,Charlie Brooks, president of frequent announcements in 1931-32 000 more than a year ago. In the Detroit area, unemployment was Chrysler Local 444 of the United that “prosperity is around the 110,000 higher than a year ago at the end of May, with 40 percent of Auto Workers in Windsor, Canada, comer.’’ Hoover never told the the Black workers unemployed. comments in the “444 News” of people which comer he had in June, “Job enrichment is the auto mind. industry’s newest term for what Greenspan's announcement was every depression or recession is PRESIDENT FORD, who says the depression is ending, should is commonly known as plain also a bit fuzzy. He said that under way. The call-back to work visit his home state for a closer look. speedup. while the crisis was “over” he is much slower than the layoff, “The trick is slick; encourage couldn’t predict when recovery and large numbers never get workers to use his ingenuity to would start. That could be a long called back. THE MICHIGAN AFL-CIO NEWS RUNS a box story: “As the shortcut the job, or work like hell, time. As for unemployment, he Witness, for example, a full- Speaker announced that the President’s Veto on the jobs bill was on the pretence that the time he couldn’t see any decline until Jan page ad in the Wall Street Journal sustained, Republicans stood and cheered.” saves he can use for his own. It uary, if then, of the current gov by Inland Steel on the day that works until the first chance the ernment-conceded joblessness of Greenspan’s prediction was the company efficiency boys get to nine million, plus another 1.1 “big” news. The ad announced A CAMPAIGN is on to have people buy homes in order to “lick take a crack at the new man on million too “discouraged” to even that the company was increasing the depression.” In case you might get taken in by this snake-oil the job. look for a job. its production capacity by 25 per propaganda, jot down these figures; It had been projected that it Greenspan further predicted cent a “program of more than one A new home as of last January cost $37,600. with high interest would take 200 to 300 more work that through 1976. with an antici billion as we break ground for a rates (about nine percent), a bomebuyer ends up paying $102,000 for ers to build the $7,000 Cordoba. pated full-blown “recovery,” giant 7,000 ton blast furnace,” said that $37,600 house. The brokers, bankers, money lenders, get more Actually, as reported by Brooks, we’ll have a rate of 7.5 percent Inland Steel, listing other tech than $64,000. The workers who build the house are paid only $5,640, Chrysler built the Cordoba in unemployment—seven million, nological plans. compared to the $64,000 the bankers get. .Windsor, and had made similar that is. reductions in other shops. Steel workers know, of ocurse, Ironically, it was I. W. Abel, that each time such innovations This explains why thousands president of the United Steel are made, less labor is required THEY PUT UP A STATUE to Henry Ford the First the other of cars are being recalled by auto Workers of America and head of for every ton of steel. day. The architect said he made it to show Ford in a pensive companies for some faults. the AFL-CIO’s Economic Policy 9-hour work in 8 Abel’s verbal attack on Green mood, not striding up and down the plant. He could have added that Committee, who promptly issued span can hardly be taken seri when Henry Ford strode in the plant he fired workers right and Lee Cain, member of the UAW a statement rapping Greenspan’s ously in view of his role in left, ordered his service thugs to fire anyone who dared to join a Dodge Local 3 board, reports end-of-the-crisis assertion. that in the large Hamtramck negotiating an agreement with union. A few short months ago, Abel steel industry employers for a ban On March 7, 1932, four workers were killed in a hunger march assembly plant “the line is jump was making speeches and issuing on strikes to 1980 and for a policy on Miller Road, Dearborn, when they came looking for jobs at the ing” so that as many Chryslerstatements boasting that the steel of higher procuctivity as the solu Ford plant. The Communist Party, the Unemployed Councils, the Dodge cars are being turned out workers had been spared from the tion of steel’s problems. United Auto Workers organized that hunger march. The statue in eight hours as were turned out in nine hours before the layoff last depression because of the Ex The employers angled for the should be to the martyred dead. perimental National Agreement deal because they wanted a strikespring. Workers are being threat ened with firing if they take a day (ENA) and the joint employer- less six years during which the union cooperation to boost steel industry’s capacity could be USSR-U.S. detente is coming into your living room. ABC and off, and are told, “There are lots production, provided in that con raised and its manpower cut sub Soviet broadcasting officials have signed a pact to bring a series of of guys out of work if you don’t tract along with a ban of strikes stantially. programs to U.S. viewers. The programs will be presented some want to work.” “Job Enrichment” is also the It appears the employers are de time this year, and include a three-hour prime time special on life for six years until 1980. As we observed a number of termined to hold Abel t the deal in the Soviet Union. “AM America” and the “ABC Wide World of cry in Dodge Main, where 7,000 times in this column, Abel was and the 40-hour week, and they Entertainment” will prepare broadcasts from the Soviet Union. work, with the same amount of production as when 10,000 used to really whistling in the dark. The seem to have an influence in the Make sure your local ABC outlet carries the program. work. The Dodge Dart is Chryscrisis came belatedly in steel. For internal affairs of the steel union. aftu condemns jailings a stretch of 10 weeks, steel pro ler’s best seller. Abel is currently campaigning HOSPITAL WORKERS WIN OF INDONESIAN WORKERS duction declined uninterruptedly for a constitutional change in the NEW BARGAINING UNITS Soon Chysler will start spending WASHINGTON - The National most of a billion dollars to produce and now stands at about one third union’s convention next year so PRAGUE — The World Federa its small car, with engines built Labor Relations Board has desig below the production level of a he could run again in the Febru tion of Trade Unions has sharply in the Simca plant in France and year ago, ENA’s high level of ary, 1977, election. At this writing nated new collective bargaining condemned the imprisonment of assembled all over the world. units in voluntary hospitals that about three million tons weekly. two districts of the union run by thousands political prisoners will apply to union representation The propaganda of “Depression Production was down to 2,064,000 his cronies have already voted in now being held in Indonesian mili Ends”, means for Chrysler work elections for some 6,000 hospital tons in the week by mid-June conferences for a constitutional tary compounds and called upon ers the shutting down Aug. 15 of workers in 19 voluntary hospitals. This means that in terms of the revision of the rule that would The NLRB decision followed a workers and trade unions to in the Jefferson plant, possibly the input of hours of labor there has disqualify Abel and secretarylong battle by workers in various tensify the international campaign Newark plant, and as Chrysler been a cut of at least a third treasurer Walter Burke from run hospitals in the Northeast and for their release. president Lynn Townshend pre of the work force, whether in out ning for reelection on the grounds More than 55,000 trade union dicted some months ago, “small Midwest and the National Hospital right unemployment or a cut in that they’d be past the 65-year and political leaders have been cars mean 40 percent less of a hours and earnings. From all in age limit. Union. jailed, man for 10 years. The work force for us.” Chrysler now The new bargaining categories dications, unemployment in basic The employers iu basic steel WFTU also demands that the ban employs 132,000. are registered nurses, technical steel, copper and aluminum, is want the man they made the deal TTiere are 150 million unsold employees, service and mainten imposed on the largest trade union about as serious as it is in auto with, a deal that served them well ance, business office clericals and center, SOBSI, in Indonesia be cars in the stockpile, 1975s. At and construction. in profits and productivity, to stay least 100,000 more a month are a unit for other professionals lifted. on for full duration of the sixThe imprisonment and the ban being produced than sold. Soon which has yet detailed the year no-strike contract. For Greenspan and Ford, “re on SOBSI are in violation of the the plants will go down for 8 to 10 NLRB covery” begins when the flow of Universal Declaration of Human weeks for model change as sum The board’s action comes after profits gets swifter. But for steel, ASK YOUR NEWSDEALER Rights and the International La mer ends. Congress approved NLRB juris copper, aluminum, auto and other FOR THE DAILY WORLD Half a million auto workers bor Organization conventions on diction workers voluntary industry workers, another cycle civil and trade union rights. oould be jobless. hospitals last August. of the usual experience anfter autotown alley