[Si, Se Puede! (in 2008), Exposing FBI Crimes (1973), Bartenders
Win Half a Loaf (1948), Great Art at Greater Prices (1933), Dont
Forget the Genocide Convention (1948), Dont Forget Human Rights,
Either (1948), $1 Million Is Chump Change ]
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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, DEC 5–11  
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_ Si, Se Puede! (in 2008), Exposing FBI Crimes (1973), Bartenders Win
Half a Loaf (1948), Great Art at Greater Prices (1933), Don't Forget
the Genocide Convention (1948), Don't Forget Human Rights, Either
(1948), $1 Million Is Chump Change _

, UE News

 

_SI, SE PUEDE!_

15 YEARS AGO, on December 5, 2008, in the midst of the 2008 financial
meltdown, some 250 workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago
began a successful sit-down strike against layoffs. The workers,
members of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of
America, had learned only days earlier that the factory was about to
close and they were all about to be laid off without severance pay and
without payment of what they were owed for accrued vacation time.
Failure to pay 60-days severance and vacation pay would have been a
violation of federal law.  When the workers began to occupy the
factory around the clock, they were, in effect, holding hostage the
plant and equipment, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
finished windows and doors that were awaiting shipment. The workers,
most of whom were Latine or Black, had tremendous community support,
which included the support of many local politicians, who pointedly
warned the police to not intervene and let the workers and plant
owners come to an agreement. Days after the workers occupied the
plant, its owners agreed to negotiation with the union and with
officials from the Bank of America.  Six days after the occupation of
the plant began, the bankers agreed to lend the owners the money
needed to pay the required severance and vacation pay. When the deal
was presented to the workers in the plant, they approved it
unanimously and marched out chanting Si, Se Puede!
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_EXPOSING FBI CRIMES _

50 YEARS AGO, on December 6, 1973, NBC became the first news outlet to
disclose details about the FBI's hitherto top-secret
counterintelligence program code-named COINTELPRO, thanks to reporter
Carl Stern and to the federal Freedom of Information Act.

COINTELPRO was a secret because it was the FBI's 17-year-old program
of using brazenly illegal methods, such as burglary, forgery, perjury,
illegal wiretaps, wrongful imprisonment and assassination. Its targets
included a long list of individuals and groups that opposed the U.S.
war against Vietnam or that sought to promote civil rights, feminism,
environmentalism, union organizing, Black power, and the rights of
Native Americans and Latinos. Also targeted were  organizations that
favored radical change, such as the Communist Party, the Socialist
Workers Party, and Students for a Democratic Society.

As important as the NBC report was, it only scratched the surface of
the FBI's COIINTELPRO-connected lawbreaking, which was exposed much
more thoroughly in 1976, when the Senate Select Committee to Study
Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities
released the results of its investigation. For a sobering introduction
the the history of COINTELPRO, visit
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_BARTENDERS WIN HALF A LOAF_

75 YEARS AGO, on December 7, 1948, some two thousand workers employed
by 650 New York City bars, members of Bartenders Union Local 15, went
on strike. They were asking for a 20-percent pay increase and the
creation of a welfare fund. At the time, some 90 percent of the seven
thousand bartenders in New York City were members of the bartenders'
union.

The strike was long and acrimonious. All the struck bars remained
open. The strike was settled after seven weeks, when the employers
agreed to make monthly contributions to a new welfare fund, but
refused to increase wages. The employers did, however, agree to a
contract with an automatic cost-of-living adjustment.
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_GREAT ART AT PRICES THAT CAN'T BE BEAT_

90 YEARS AGO, on December 8, 1933, at the depths of the Great
Depression, the U.S. government established the Public Works of Art
Project. The Project put nearly 3800 artists on the payroll, who
together produced nearly 16 thousand paintings, murals, prints, crafts
and sculptures for government buildings around the country. The
government paid the artists a total of $1,184,000, an average of
$75.59 per artwork, pretty good value even then.
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_DON'T FORGET THE GENOCIDE CONVENTION_

75 YEARS AGO, on December 9, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide. The Genocide Convention is an international treaty that
criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the
enforcement of its prohibition. It was the first legal instrument to
codify genocide as a crime.
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_DON'T FORGET HUMAN RIGHTS, EITHER_

75 YEARS AGO, on December 10, 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines the rights
and freedoms of all human beings.
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_$1 MILLION IS CHUMP CHANGE_

55 YEARS AGO, on December 11, 1968, the Dodge Revolutionary Union
Movement (DRUM), a group of radical Black auto workers in Detroit,
denounced the Chrysler Corporation's "milestone agreement" to invest
$1 million in Black-owned banks in Detroit, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
DRUM declared that it was merely a milestone "in bullshit and nonsense
-- since the combined population of those three communities is,
roughly, two million Black people. This means that even if the money
were to be divided equally among the Black people of the three
communities, each person would get just 50 cents. If they should ever
really want to do some good, perhaps some of the mini-brained
executive pigs of Chrysler Corporation will devote some of their
not-too-valuable time to correcting racist practices in their plants
in Detroit and elsewhere, instead of using it to devise bullshit
pacification programs that are nothing but rank insults to the Black
community."
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* U.S. history
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* 2008 Financial Crisis
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* Sit-Down Strikes
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* United Electrical Workers Union
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* WPA
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* Genocide
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* Human Rights
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* autoworkers
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