Mar 8, 2003

BALTIMORE – Dr. Evelyn Martinez de Calderon told a crowd here, Feb. 28., that 5,500 medical doctors in El Salvador are still standing strong despite death threats aimed at smashing their five-month strike against privatization of the nation’s health care system.

ICFTU: Give peace a chance / India: Left Front wins in Tripura / Chile: Pinochet officers charged in car bomb killing / in car bomb killing / Afghanistan: Latest U.S. bombing kills many civilians / Bangladesh: General strike called for March 10 / Algeria: Gov’t workers strike vs privatization

Worker’s Correspondence


BRONX, N.Y. – It all started when my family was visiting New York. They wanted to see all the sights: Times Square, Coney Island, the Staten Island Ferry, Chinatown; so we got them unlimited Metro passes. But, as we were leaving Chinatown headed to FAO Schwarz, we got stuck.

DETROIT – “We all signed union cards, the whole department. I thought if we stuck together, we could win. Surely they couldn’t get rid of the whole department? I was wrong,” testified Charles Hardin to the Southeast Michigan Workers’ Rights Board in Detroit on Feb. 26.

In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx warned that Communism was haunting Europe. While many writers have proclaimed the death of Communism, Karl Marx continues to haunt intellectuals. Two recent articles – one in The Economist (Dec. 21, 2002) and the other in Foreign Policy (Nov.-Dec. 2002) – grudgingly concede the continued interest and respect for the thinking of Karl Marx.

AUSTIN – In Texas and at least 36 other states facing big budget deficits, activists are working to unite their forces and fight back before the state legislature enacts vicious cuts against working families.

The latest outrage of the Bush White House is the brutal attempt to kill the 40-year-old federal Medicaid program, the health program that is the final health and safety net for the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly and other low-income people.

As part of its campaign to put a four-year limit on George W. Bush’s tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the AFL-CIO has drawn up what might be called the “Outrage of the Month” list of attacks against working people by the Bush administration since taking office in January 2001.

(see related story below)

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