Datelines
al., Marcia Z. Nelson et.
Santa's Angry Helpers CHICAGO This Christmas, the role of Ebenezer Scrooge is being played by Hasbro Bradley, the giant toy manufacturer. The company plans to shutter a Playskool factory in...
...the manufacturer had previously patronized a supplier in Taiwan...
...We do not have time to weep for our dead," she says...
...In March 1984, Ian MacGregor, chairman of the National Coal Board, announced a plan for massive closures of "uneconomic" pits—a move that would eliminate 20,000 jobs in 1984 and 50,000 more within five years...
...L-P Double Fault...
...And Ottawa, Kansas, hopes to produce alcohol from the waste heat generated by the municipally owned power plants...
...the average tenure at the plant is ten years...
...As the strike drags on, the Thatcher government has stepped up its attacks on the miners, calling National Union of Miners President Arthur Scargill a "Stalinist" and leader of "an organized revolutionary minority...
...The group has asked the company to leave the Playskool plant-valued at around $5 million— in the hands of the Network and the city of Chicago, or pay $ 1 million in reparations to the workers and the community...
...The cold and the fear, the fear of tortures...
...And in November, thousands of miners broke ranks, accepting the lure of Christmas bonuses for those who cross picket lines...
...Under the Refugee Act of 1980, aliens have a right to reside in the United States if they come here out of a "well-founded fear of persecution...
...MacGregor's plan would spell the end of the close-knit mining towns and villages, reducing them to industrial wastelands...
...The strike is more than an industrial dispute...
...To travel even thirty miles away, he needed a written permit...
...Seeking remedy at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the union charged that the company had bargained in bad faith by deliberately provoking a strike...
...His crime: giving two Sal-vadorans a six-mile ride from Casa Romero to a bus stop in Harlingen, Texas...
...I'm going to be sixty in January," says Helen Surman, a twenty-year veteran...
...The miners know that we will never sell them down the river or make sweetheart deals with the National Coal Board as previous union leaderships have done...
...Government's complicity in them...
...The U.S...
...The city also conducts free fire- and crime-prevention audits...
...There are many of us who feel that if a business is going to be the recipient of public money, then they owe the public something in return," says Alderman Danny K. Davis, who represents part of the west side...
...And British courts have moved to seize the union's assets in lieu of the payment of $250,000 in fines...
...It appears to us that some decision was made, either regionally or in Washington, to break the sanctuary movement," says Stephen Cooper, Elder's attorney...
...Roslik and his wife, Maria Cristina Zabalkin, guessed it was an urgent call from a friend or neighbor...
...What is at stake is nothing less than the future of British trade unionism...
...Firefighters in Mill Valley have completed more than 200 audits, at no extra cost to the city...
...His ankles were bruised from kicks he received during planton, in which prisoners are beaten standing up until they crumble...
...Jeff After (Jeff Apter covers European labor and politics from London and Paris...
...Maria Cristina managed to squeeze a pair of socks into her husband's pocket and throw a woolen jacket over his shoulders...
...The prospect of finding another job is particularly grim for Playskool's older workers...
...At his tomb, the baby and I swore to do him justice...
...They were wrong...
...the city, in turn, purchases the recycled products...
...But he is unbowed...
...We'll administer the union from street corners if that's what it takes," vows Heathfield...
...Thatcher who has an iron will," says Peter Heathfield, general secretary of the National Union of Miners...
...A glimmer of hope flickered in April 1984 when NLRB general counsel William Lubbers, Jimmy Carter's last remaining appointee on the board, sided with the union and ordered filing of an unfair labor practice against the company...
...He called out the name of his four-month-old son, Val?ry Andres, and pleaded, "Not again, no, no...
...It was very traumatic for my husband to enter the police station," says Maria Cristina...
...in exchange, the city receives up to 20 per cent of total homeowner insurance premiums...
...Fifty-three thousand miners' jobs have been lost under existing policy since this government was elected in 1979," says Heathfield...
...The company demanded a one-year contract, a $2-an-hour reduction in the starting wage, elimination of the union-run health plan, mandatory overtime, a variable workweek, and tougher eligibility requirements for vacations and holidays...
...ethnic meals are no longer served on local holidays, and Russian is not spoken except in the home...
...It was the first time since the 1973 coup that public outcry had forced the military to acknowledge a human rights violation under its jurisdiction...
...In Woodbury, New Jersey, for instance, the city has saved $280,000 in the three years since it passed an ordinance mandating home separation of recyclable items...
...The U.S...
...But the celebration on the picket lines was short-lived...
...Salvadoran refugees awaiting asylum hearings are routinely housed by the INS in detention centers in "remote, rural areas" in Arizona and Texas, far from legal help and media attention, says the National Lawyers Guild...
...Every Monday, even on a radiant summer day, he would go padded in warm clothing...
...With the merger, Hasbro Bradley stands to become the nation's largest toy manufacturer...
...And spending weeks without natural light...
...last April 15, there was a pounding on the door of Doctor Vladimir Roslik's house in the tiny Uruguayan village of San Javier, 220 miles north of Montevideo...
...The pickets were calling attention to their dispute with the tournament's sponsor, the Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, headquartered in this city...
...Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) denies asylum status to 97 per cent of Salvadoran applicants, according to the American Civil Liberties Union...
...Mercedes Sayagues (Mercedes Sayagues is a Uruguayan journalist living in New York...
...The fledgling National Human Rights Commission and the opposition press supported her...
...The union's defeat, the pundits say, is just a matter of time...
...proclaimed one billboard facing the stadium...
...involvement in Central America...
...Submarino, another frequent practice, involved thrusting the prisoner's head into a bucket of water mixed with vomit and urine...
...Homeowners get the benefit of rates slightly lower than those of other plans...
...Miners Dig ToNDON Now in its eighth month, the nationwide strike by British coal miners has become more than a test of will between union leaders and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher...
...There is one drawback, however: CHIP is owned by a large finance company...
...Coalition members, too, sound a pessimistic note, but they are determined to see some permanent constraints put on companies that close plants...
...It also called for a Christmas boycott in the Chicago area of all Playskool, Milton Bradley, and Hasbro toys, including such best-sellers as G.I...
...She helped him put his shoes on, and they embraced, weeping...
...I hadn't planned on leaving," says union steward Jim Gannon...
...The novel currency, intended to shield the community from the vagaries of national and international economics, is only one of several approaches communities are adopting to strengthen their own economies...
...Soldiers carrying machine guns surrounded Roslik and handcuffed him...
...The point is to maintain an inflation-free currency...
...The War at Home NEW YORK CITY Jack Elder, the director of Casa Oscar Romero, a Catholic Church-supported sanctuary in San Benito, Texas, faces a maximum penalty of fifteen years in prison and a $6,000 fine...
...Trade unions throughout Britain have organized miners' support groups to collect food, clothing, paper goods, and cash for the strikers...
...I shall find the truth, whatever it takes...
...Rosiik returned from prison with scars on his knuckles and fingertips...
...SHARE is urging local businesses to pay their employees with cordwood notes and to accept the notes in payment for goods and services...
...Government is charging Elder with transporting illegal aliens...
...My whole family decided right from the beginning that we were going to stay with this thing for however long it took, until we win it...
...If the dollar declines, the value of a cordwood note stays the same," says Robert Swann, director of the Self-Help Association for a Regional Economy (SHARE), which devised the system...
...According to the death certificate issued by the military, Roslik had died "of cardiac arrest with no signs of violence" during interrogation...
...A Death in Uruguay MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY At 4 a.m...
...In response to public pressure, the military announced charges against two middle-level officers, charging one with homicide and the other with negligence...
...But despite the odds against them, the coal miners are not likely to become the British equivalent of the air traffic controllers' union in the United States...
...One congregation a week joins the list, and the sanctuaries now shelter several hundred Central Americans...
...Of Cordwood and Community Control COURTENAY, BRITISH COLUMBIA Floating a loan has a new meaning in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a community that is circulating its own currency, based on wood...
...It's the longest, most bitter strike in the history of the U.S...
...The Reagan Administration claims the refugees are merely looking for a higher standard of living...
...The several hundred thousand dollars L-P is spending on this tournament to boost its corporate image could have been better used to pay its employees a decent wage," says Don Sappington, a fiftyone-year-old striker who put in ten years at the company's plant in Moyie Springs, Idaho...
...The Administration "has intensified its campaign against Central American refugees and against North Americans who consider it their moral and civil duty to help them," says the Lawyers Guild...
...Francis J. Flaherty (Francis J. Flaherty, a contributing editor of The Progressive, is a reporter for the National Law Journal...
...Since then, sanctuaries have been formed in more than 150 churches of all major denominations...
...Using a credit fund in a host bank, ARABLE members help review loans with criteria that benefit the entire local food system—from growers and market gardeners to retailers and food-buyers...
...After fifteen months of detention in the infamous Libertad prison, Rosiik was freed in June 1981, only to live under rigid surveillance...
...The November election of a civilian government headed by Julio Maria Sanguinetti holds out little promise for cleaning up the armed forces...
...Far from being modern-day Luddites, the miners are demanding new investment and equipment to save their industry, jobs, and communities...
...His hands trembled so much he couldn't hold a fork...
...But mainly he was afraid of the cold...
...When he returned he saw gray for a while...
...Out on the picket line, it's been a long haul...
...The company, not surprisingly, won landslide victories from its scab work force...
...They are not satisfied with blood...
...Recycling can also assist communities in preserving capital...
...I have hot water, my family, the dog, nice things to eat...
...We always kept the house extra warm...
...Replacing imports with local products is one of the most effective ways for communities to build local self-reliance...
...The city is now considering legal action against Hasbro Bradley...
...When the union, trying to break the impasse, offered to accept a one-year contract, the company responded with a demand for an open shop...
...They're making profits here," says Nick Jones, president of Local 20 of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union that represents the workers...
...Russian folk dancing is no longer taught or performed...
...they want bone marrow...
...Shortly after Roslik's death, Maria Cristina traveled to Montevideo demanding an investigation into her husband's death...
...bombings, shootings, and sporadic brawls betweeen strikers and scabs have punctuated the conflict...
...This campaign is part of an effort to keep the American public in the dark about U.S...
...And unions in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia have also chipped in...
...timber industry...
...But though Thatcher can seize assets, she cannot impound the hearts of mining men and women...
...The soldiers cast a black hood over Roslik's head and dragged him out into the cold autumn dawn...
...In addition to Elder, at least four sanctuary workers were arrested in 1984, leading, so far, to one conviction and one dismissal...
...Lubbers's term on the NLRB expired three days later, and as soon as he was gone, Louisiana-Pacific filed an unprecedented motion to have his decision nullified...
...Instead, employment shrank during the next four years by almost that number...
...But the employees are fighting the proposed shutdown, and they have won the support of a broad alliance...
...I am a deluxe prisoner," he used to joke...
...Who'll take me...
...In Eugene, Oregon, members of the Association for Regional Agriculture Building the Local Economy (ARABLE) are pooling their deposits...
...He had to report weekly to the local police station...
...Play-skool's employees, 60 per cent of whom are women and 75 per cent black or Hispanic, earn an average of $7 an hour...
...The public's interests need to be put explicitly on the table and addressed," says Center Director Dan Swinney...
...The frequent raids, interrogations, and arrests have broken community life in San Javier...
...L-P out of bounds with its workers, families, and communities...
...In Eugene, the Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation helped a bike-trailer manufacturer find a local supplier of parts...
...But the Conservative government wants to abandon the still-productive mines...
...While we may not be able to stop the plant closing, perhaps our organizing will move the city to do something...
...These officers were not directly involved in the torture, but were in command of the battalion where Rosiik died...
...The Neighborhood Corporation also established some seventy jobs as part of a "Buy Oregon" campaign...
...You don't do this kind of thing to people who've been productive workers, who've taken a lot of pride in their work and their company," says Sappington...
...In June 1983, the union members walked out...
...On Monday, April 16, the local police told Maria Cristina she could claim her husband's body at Fray Bentos, forty miles south of San Javier...
...The sums serve as collateral on loans to local farmers, food processors, distributors, and retailers...
...In 1980, Hasbro Bradley obtained a $1 million low-interest industrial revenue bond, backed by Chicago, in exchange for a promise to create 446 new jobs...
...I simply cannot leave San Javier...
...During the election campaign, Sanguinetti made a pact with the armed forces not to purge or prosecute the military for human rights abuses...
...The coalition was mobilized with the help of the Midwest Center for Labor Research, which received $55,000 from the city of Chicago to develop an early-warning system to monitor plant closings on the industrial west side, where at least 8,000 jobs have been displaced since 1981...
...Tennis and Timber Portland Tennis fans who came to Portland Memorial Coliseum to watch the Davis Cup matches last September were greeted at the gates by 200 striking mill-workers and union sympathizers...
...The community has to be answered to," says James Le-monides, a member of the steering committee of the West Side Jobs Retention Network, a coalition of more than two dozen business, labor, and community organizations...
...Marcia Z. Nelson (Marcia Z. Nelson is an editorial intern at The Progressive...
...The dispute began during contract negotiations in the spring of 1983, when Harry Merlo, president and chief executive officer of Louisiana-Pacific, announced that the union, the Western Council of the Lumber Production and Industrial Workers, would either have to make severe concessions or face more layoffs and plant closures...
...The Board agreed, clearing the way for decertification elections pending at nine of the struck plants...
...It is not only Mrs...
...Roslik had been arrested once before, in 1980, when he and twenty-four others from San Javier were charged with subversion...
...Instead of enticing distant corporations, many communities are plugging monetary leaks...
...The company plans to shutter a Playskool factory in Chicago, which it acquired in a recent corporate merger, once the plant's 700 workers have helped it meet peak holiday demand for Lincoln Logs and other popular toddler toys...
...For Maria Cristina, that can hardly be good news, but her resolve does not weaken...
...Police have repeatedly searched the local Maximo Gorki club for weapons and propaganda...
...The first sanctuary for Central American refugees was established in Tucson in March 1982...
...Workers at eighteen Louisiana-Pacific Mills on the West Coast have been on strike for more than a year and a half...
...I think our action will raise the level of outrage and consciousness about corporate disinvestment and corporate flight," says Susan Rosenblum of the Network...
...Peter Dammann (Peter Dammann is a staff writer for Willamette Week, an alternative weekly newspaper in Portland...
...The 1980 arrest was a nightmare, and the worst was the cold...
...said another...
...They are discovering that, like insulating a house, it pays to minimize capital loss...
...Portland, Oregon, expects to earn $130,000 a year from sales of methane from its sewage plant to a local roofing manufacturer...
...You're sort of playing Russian roulette with the bills," says Sappington, who is trying to support his wife and two children on $100 a week in strike benefits...
...Saying that the factory had become "too uneconomical" to operate, Playskool announced the plant closing shortly after its parent company, Milton Bradley, was purchased in September by Hasbro Industries...
...But Maria Cristina learned that her husband showed traces of high voltage charges, suffered a badly damaged liver and spleen, and died with his lungs full of water...
...Playskool workers feel betrayed by the company...
...Joe dolls...
...Kris Nelson (Kris Nelson is a free-lance writer in Courtenay, British Columbia...
...An unabashedly radical union leadership and picket-line confrontations with police have turned public sympathy toward the government, according to the conventional wisdom...
...The worst for Vladimir was planton, hours standing in the long winter night with only a shirt on," says Cristina...
...The movement benefits mostly Salvadorans, notes Cooper, and the Reagan Administration "fears that having Salvadorans around, publicly available to speak, will make the American public more aware of the atrocities in El Salvador"-and the U.S...
...But with high unemployment plaguing much of the Northwest, the company had little trouble filling its plants with new workers...
...In Mill Valley, California, the city endorses the Cooperative Homeowners Insurance Program (CHIP), which allows CHIP easy market penetration...
...The new local tender equates 100 cordwood notes with one cord of wood defined by dryness and size...
...Many observers say the miners' union—the most militant, disciplined, and tradition-rich in all of Britain—has met its match in Thatcher...
...San Javier, population 1,000, was founded by Russian immigrants...
...Local processors buy and recycle the used items...
...the miners are fighting for their way of life...
Vol. 49 • January 1985 • No. 1
