.',
Me lM ii n Pai1Ij
Eighty-,Six Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Tuesday, October 7, 1975
News Phone: 764-0552
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104
Nixon court needs Douglas
THE NINE U. S. Supreme Court Jus-
tices yesterday filed into their
majestic chambers to begin the 1975-
76 term - a session during which
they will consider cases with major
impact in the areas of campaign fi-
nancing reform, abortion, and capi-
tal punishment.
But uppermost in the minds of
many court watchers is not how those
cases will be decided. Rather, atten-
tion seems to be focused on whether
Justice William Douglas will be able
to shake off the effects of the stroke
which felled him on December 31,
and participate in the proceedings.
Douglas, who will be 77 later this
month, has been slow to recover from
his illness. It has been suggested that
he ought to step down so that some
one better able to bear the burden of
the heavy case load might be ap-
pointed to the court.
The most durable Justice in the
court's history, Douglas was appoint-
ed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1939.
Throughout his tenure, he has been
a consistent and competent defender
of civil liberties, equality under the
law, and the rights of the individual
when weighed against those of the
corporation.
Douglas, along with Justice Thur-
good Marshall, represents the last
bastion of liberalism typified by the
Warren Court of the past two dec-
ades. Currently the court is laden
with N i x o n Administration ap-
pointees whose views reflect a con-
servative, strict - interpretationist
philosophy.
Often, cases are now decided by a
single vote, as several of the Jus-
tices cast their lots with either the
liberals or conservatives depending
on the issue at hand.
What is particularly disturbing
about Douglas's position is that he is
probably not up to the rigors impos-
ed by the court and its activities.
But having a partially incapaci-
tated Douglas on the bench seems far
preferable to seating whomever Presi-
dent Gerald Ford might nominate -
and whom the Senate would then
presumably confirm --- to take his
place.
One name that has been tossed
about is that of Senator Robert Grif-
fin, Ford's crony from his days as a
member of the Michigan Congres-
sional delegation. Griffin's politics
tend to mirror those of Ford: conser-
vative and too often callous.
He would not be a welcome addi-
tion to the Supreme Court.,
In urging Douglas to remain, how-
ever, it is necessary to stress the
need for some mechanism of remov-
ing a totally disabled Justice from
the court.
Currently, the Constitution pro-
vides no formal means of easing out
such a person who is appointed to
his position on the high court for life.
There is no easy road to travel re-
garding this delicate matter. But it
should be up to the court to suggest
a possible method. And it should be
done with all possible speed.
Seeds
By DAVID SUPER
and MARIA CATALFIO
THE HALF dozen people hud-
dled together on a cool March
evening in a run down shack
outside of Delano, California,
had no idea of all the things
they were starting. They had
no idea that when they agreed
to spend a little of their time
to listen to a small man
from the fields named Cesar
Chavez they were the beginning
of a movement that was to with-
in a few years bring strikes
across California and spilling
into other states of the South-
west and as far as Florida; na-
tionwide boycotts of grapes,
then head lettuce and then of the
giant Gallo Winery of Modesto;
that would see the powerful
Teamsters' Union join hands
with farm owners to try and
drive farmworkers back into
poverty; that would see farm-
workers for the first time sitting
down at a bargaining table with
their employers as equals; and
would see a law passed to pro-
tect their long-overlooked rights
only to be systematically ig-
nored and abused.
All they knew was that a
friend asked them at work to
come over for an hour to listen
to a man who said he was build-
ing an organization of farm-
workers. First Chavez talked
about things familiar to all of
them: low wages, which hov-
ered around $1 an hour; the
dangers of the fields, such as
the rampant use of dangerous
insecticides; and of the camp
housing, for which they paid out-
rageous rents, yet- of which 80
per cent was unsafe to live in.
He spoke of all the injustices
farm workers had suffered: of
of just
having to beg a labor contractor
for a job just to feed their chil-
dren, and how after getting a
job, they had to watch labor
contractors insult and proposi-
tion their wives, and order their
children into the fields to per-
form the most back-breaking
work.
THEN CHAVEZ spoke of this
organization, which would help
solve these problems. It would
provide a medical program con-
trolled by farm workers, a farm
worker credit union to lend
money to workers when the
growers' banks would not, and
in the future a union, of and by
farm workers, which would help
them not, only improve wages,
but put an end to begging for
jobs by establishing a demo-
cratic, worker-controlled hiring
hall and grievance procedures.
In 1965 the first grape strikes
were called in Delano. The
strike was quickly broken by
growers bringing in large num-
bers of desperately poor work-
ers from Mexico and other parts
of the U.S. Although many
joined the strike, there were
still enough others to pick the
grapes. Given no other choice,
the workers called a nationwide
boycott of grapes and sent mem-
bers to the cities to gain con-
sumer support.
After five-long years, the pub-
lic's response to the farm work-
ers was enough to force the gi-
ants of agribusiness, including
Tenneco and Superior Oil Com-
panies and the 12,000 acre Giu-
marra ranch to sit down with
workers' representatives, nego-
tiate and sign the first contracts
between growers and farm
workers ever. These contracts
ice:
UFW
Goldwater: Visions in Red
overcomes
INCREDIBLE THOUGH it may seem,
the Red scare is alive and kick-
ing. Senator Barry Goldwater, that
paragon of Republican respectability
from Arizona, has charged that Com-
munist spies may have infiltrated
several Senate offices and that this
information has been deleted from
the Rockefeller Commission's report
on Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) activities.
Goldwater has reportedly requested
that Senate investigators be assign-
ed to assemble information on this
subject towards a possible future Sen-
ate hearing.
We wonder if perhaps Senator
Goldwater is reading from an old
speech file because he lacks the ener-
gy to say anything new. This type of
anti-Communist paranoia may have
-made headlines and won votes in the
TODAY'S STAFF:
News: Barb Cornell, Angelique Mat-
ney, Rob Meachum, Cheryl Pilate,
Jeff Sorensen
Editorial Page: Marc Basson, Steve
Harvey, Paul Haskins, Debra Hur-
witz, Linda Kloote, Ted Lambert,
Tom Stevens
Arts Page: David Blomquist
Photo Technician: Ken Fink
'1IE SPA' WHO GAMS *4
McCarthy era, but American citizens
have become slightly more sophisti-
cated over the last twenty years,
even if their Senators have not, and
they are no longer gullible enough to
swallow such preposterous charges
with a straight face.
WE LIVE IN an era that fears not
an Alger Hiss but a Richard Nix-
on. Clearly, the senate investigators
should not waste their time chasing
hypothetical fellows in trenchcoats
and dark glasses when there are
plenty of real spies at home that
merit further investigation: the CIA,
the FBI and so on.
Vice President Rockefeller's com-
mission has presented us with a real
basis for fear. The intervention of
government agencies in every facet
of our lives in just such an effort as
Goldwater's to trap Communists, non-
Establishment figures, and dissenters
is grounds for a fear much more
soundly based than Goldwater's para-
noia. It is time that the manipula-
tion of people with Red scare stories
be recognized as immature, detrimen-
tal, and truly dangerous in itself.
There is certainly no dearth of legi-
timate concerns for the Senate's in-
vestigators. Before we resort to non-
sense like Goldwater's to waste our
time, let's handle the real problems.
Decadence:,A
national fixture
By DAVID L. RAVID
SITTING IN THE posh office of a psychology teaching-fel-
low, I was quick to note the importance of his insightful
statement that the first thing a UM student asks is What's
your name?' and the second is 'What's your grade point?'.
Confronted with visions of Nero, the fall of the Roman Em-
pire, and pre-Nazi Germany, I began to explore the deca-
dence of contemporary America.
Certainly, there is much to be feared in terms of the
decay of our society. Numerous examples of bureaucratic
corruption ranging from Serpico's expose of the New York
police force to Watergate and the CIA's training program
for Asian leaders put a damper on All-State's motto, "You're
in good hands . . ." In our "have it your way at Burger
King" society, murder rates spiral ever upward, prison
recidivism rates refuse to decline, and the general populace
seems to have taken a course in "how to be a Pollyanna."
It is not only the sociological and political aspects of
America which are suffering; the cultural aspect has prob-
lems too. Andy Warhol, the man who calls himself a ma-
chine, graphically relates the refuse of our civilization as an
art form. Rock'n'Roll has lost its capacity to promote soli-
darity among American youth, and the cultural hub of the
country, New York City, is on the verge of default.
NOW THAT YOU'RE all excited about your move to
northern Canada, a short review of the more apparent ele-
ments of American decadence is in order. Since long hair
is now gauche and everyone is wearing Levis, where is it all
going? The trend certainly seems to be toward aluminum
ashtrays, San-a-flush, and platform shoes (which, no doubt,
will soon be as gauche as long hair). Law school admissions
are decadent and so is Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.
Although gum-on-your-shoe is here to stay, the new fad of
decadence will probably lay in the area of vibrators, com-
munal livinng, and lubricated prophylactics.
dealt with problems Chavez had
spoken of in his house meeting
in 1962: wages were raised, la-
bor contractors were eliminat-
ed, pesticides were regulated,
housing was upgraded, griev-
ance procedures were estab-
lished and workers no longer
had to fear for their jobs. Most
importantly, workers were freed
from the humiliation that had
followed them for so many
years.
WHEN THE United Farm
Workers (UFW) asked for work-
er elections and contract nego-
tiations in the lettuce fields, the
lettuce growers signed sweet-
heart contracts with the giant
Teamsters Union. When the let-
tuce workers found out, 7,000
struck, paralyzing production.
The growers broke this strike
by again bringing in workers
from Mexico. Again, workers
were forced to boycott.
When the grape contracts ex-
pired in 1973, grape growers and
the Gallo Wine Corporation fol-
lowed the lettuce growers'
precedent and signed sweetheart
contracts with the Teamsters,
repealing all the UFW contracts
had done. Again, the workers
struck. This time, they were not
only met with thousands of
strike breakers but with three
hundred Teamster-hired thugs,
and with anti-strike injunctions
issued by grower-dominated
courts and enforced by grower-
dominated sheriff's depart-
ments. Together, the goons and
the sheriffs jailed 3,000, at-
tacked hundreds, shot twenty
and killed two, all for peaceful
picketing. With their lives in
danger, farm workers again
went out to the cities to ask for
support for the boycotts of
grapes, head lettuce, and Gallo
wines.
LAST YEAR, signs of the boy-
cott's growing effectiveness be-
came more evident. Although
Gallo is not required to report
volume nationwide, in Michigan,
Gallo sales were down almost
half a million galons from 1973
to 1974. Month by month figures
this year have shown even more
-marked drops, while union wine
companies have picked up all of
Gallo's lost volume. U.S. De-
partment of Agriculture figures
last year showed over seven
millioneboxes of unsold scab
grapes in cold storage, breaking
all records of boycott effective-
ness and more than doubling the
pre-boycott storage figures. And
lettuce growers were admitting
the effectiveness of the boycott.
To avoid further bad publicity
the growers droppedttheir long-
standing opposition to a bill in
California establishing a Gover-
nor - appointed, five - member
board and general counsel to
supervise free secret ballot elec-
tions in the fields. The bill en-
sures elections being held when
most of the workers are on the
ranches, empowers the board to
make rules to give all unions a
chance to speak with the work-
ers, and defines unfair labor
practices such as intimidation,
grower favoritism between un-
ions or against unions, firing and
hiring discrimination, cheating
on payroll records submitted to
board agents, and denying ac-
cess in violation of board-estab-
lished rule. If the board finds
any party is guilty of an unfair
labor practice, it can set aside
tainted elections, obtain injunc-
tions against offending parties,
and order those illegally fired
reinstated.
UNFORTUNATELY, as soon
as the law was on the books, the.
"Last year, signs of the boycott's growing
effectiveness became more evident. Although
Gallo is not required to report volume nation-
wide, in Michigan, Gallo sales were down almost
half a million gallons from 1973 to 1974."
S I::lA:::;:::.::::":::S::, I: ::"'"^.':: ":": :; : S'i :
growers began to demonstrate
that they had no intention of giv-
ing up their fight against self-
determination for farm workers.
Growers, led by Gallo, screened
workers for this year's work
force, so that when the law went
into effect on August 28, all
workers who were informed and
supportive of the UFW didn't
have jobs. The growers, working
hand in hand with the Team-
sters, have been constantly com-
mitting the following unfair la-
bor acts, both before and after
the law went into effect:
-Firing workers wearing
UFW buttons,, signing authori-
latest figures, UFW has won
over half outright, with the re-
sults of the majority of the rest
being held up by Teamster-
grower challenges of the right
of the 1973 strikers to vote, or
being cases of blatant grower-
Teamster unfair labor practices
which will probably be thrown
out and new elections held un-
der more controlled circum-
stances.
At Gallo, the UFW is the ap-
parent winner, although the
Teamsters are challenging over
130 strikers' votes which would
swing it their way. Without the
strikers, the vote would be
Cesar Chavez
nation cards or otherwise show-
ing support or the UFW; at the
same time, company supervi-
sors campaignedmside-by-side
with the Teamsters.
-Threatening to fire and evict
from camp housing workers who
vote for UFW.
-Giving Teamsters total ac-
cess to fields and labor camps
while arresting and assaulting
UFW organizers during non-
work hours under board rules.,
-Using guns and physical
threats against organizers and
workers.
-Providing false lists of work-
ers to board representatives, ex-
cluding whole crews thought to
be sympathetic to the UFW.
ALTHOUGH these things can
be dealt with under the law, the
growers and Teamsters can stall
true free elections for years
through lengthy court cases,
some of which they have al-
ready started.
Election results to date have
been mixed. According to the
Teamsters 223, UFW 131. At
Inter-Harvest, the nation's larg-
est lettuce prodcer, workers
voted 1,167 for UFW, 28 for the
Teamsters, and 16 for "no un-
ion.,
However, even when fair elec-
tions are held, there is nothing
in the law that would stop the
growers from delaying meaning-
fil negotiations indefinitely so
that farm workers would never
get the protections of union con-
tracts as, they had from 1970 to
1973. Therefore, it is of para-
mount importlmce that the boy-
cotts of non-UFW grapes, head
lettuce and Gallo wines be con-
tinued. The boycott will not be
over until strong contracts have
been negotiated and signed, con-
tracts which will finally help
solve the problems that were so
important to the workers in the
Delano house meeting in March,
1962.
David Super and Maria Ca-
talfis work with the Ann Ar-
bor Farmworkers Support Com-
mittee, 4114 Michigan Union.
Letters,
To The Daily:
I AM NOW MORE than $400
in debt since the University
placement counselors have so
little interest in their graduates
positions in the state of Mich-
igan or surrounding environs
that U-M graduates must go
abroad to seek employment.
This is the result of putting
elderly women who are out of
touch in education in positions
of power where their negligence
is astounding.
A prime example of this neg-
ligence is the recruitment of
teachers abroad by professional
recruiters, read that labor con-
tractors, from out-of-state. To
be specific, in March, 1974, the
Victoria Teacher Selection Pro-
gram run out of Cal State Hay-
ward was in Ann Arbor round-
ing up teachers to send to Aus-
tralia. Apparently no one at
the Placement Bureau ever
thought of checking up on the
information they were giving
the many teachers they inter-
viewed.
I SPECIFICALLY ASKED
what the chances were of get-
ting a permanent tenured po-
sition in Australia would be and
I was told that the chances
were good if our teaching per-
formance proved satisfactory.
On that understanding, which
I am sure was repeated to many
other recruits, I signed a con-
tract to go to Australia. More-
over, complying with the strin-
gent requirements of that pro-
em cost moiea atof
Placement staff out-wof-touch
4
teaching and tenure in Austra-
lia are carefully pointed out in
a four page document I got re-
cently at the Chicago office of
Australian consulate. For ex-
ample, requirements for tenure
vary from state to state and in-
clude some of the following
items depending on the state:
that no teacher be given ten-
ure unless he takes Australian
citizenship; that a teacher who
doesn't speak English in the
Australian manner not be given
tenure; that only unmarried wo-
men receive tenure. None of
this was ever stated by the pro-
fessional recruitment staff from
Cal State and had it been, I for
one would never have consid-
ered going, not'being willing to
give up on the United States
where my ancestors have lived
for 200 years.
IN ADDITION, THE Chicago
consulate stated that an Aus-
tralian must review qualifica-
tions, and in particular, a can-
didate must have a personal
interview by an Asurtalian. No
Australian ever visited the
Placement Bureau or ever
answered our questions.
When I declined to go on the
plane, a representative of the
Victoria Teacher Selection Staff
threatened me at the airport
when I saw things were not be-
ing managed with any degree
of professional standards ined-
ucation and honest recruit-
ment, that she was going to re-
port me to the U-M Placement
T r f " . ,
nia but it should definitely be
forbidden at U-M.
I THINK FOR the $2,900 I
spent getting an advanced de-
gree at U-M, I deserve place-
ment personnel who are totally
in touch with all aspects of ed-
ucation. This lets out the older
women working there. People
with necessary qualifications as
well as the contacts in educa-
tion are now necessary in the
competitive job market that
exists today. The fact that I
have five years of college teach-
ing experience and am qualified
to do college teaching appar-
ently escaped Mrs. Oerther who
is busier with the PhD candi-
dates and prefers to relegate
people with an M.A. to the sec-
ondary level, preferably out of
the country, out of sight.
If the Placement Bureau can't
accommodate the graduates in
education then perhaps U-M
should drop its Education Dept.
and concentrate what seems to
be the main business lately, big
business.
Sue Smith
East Lansing
Sept. 19, 1975
clericals
To The Daily:
I AM. WRITING this letter to
directly appeal to theteditors of
The Daily to correct the shoddy
journalism which was evident in
the article on Local 2001 in
Tuesday's paper.
First. Elaine Fletcher who
bership showed up for a meet-
ing to vote on the bylaws of the
clerical union was not even
mentioned in The Daily article.
Why?
Second. Fletcher quoted Jane
Gould as saying, "The mem-
bership handled themselves
beautifully." The vast majority
of the members were not there.
That makes it difficult for them
to handle themselves in any
manner whatsoever. Gould be-
ing quoted in this way, with the
fact that there were so few
members present, is deliberate-
ly misleading. It conjures up
visions of an enraged member-
ship rising up to smite the Bar-
gaining Committee. This did not
happen.
Third. Mr. Clarence Contrat-
to of the UAW did inform the
membership that if the meeting
went ahead and elected a by-
laws committee without having
notified the other members of
the election, one member not in
attendance at that meeting
could have challenged the elec-
tion and it would have been de-
clared null. Contratto said that
this was in the UAW constitu-
tion, which 2001 is legally bound
by. The first time this is men-
tioned in the article is when
Fletcher quotes Carolyn Weeks,
who accuses Mr. Contratto of
lying. Is this objective report-
ing? Couldn't the accusation
have waited until at least the
next sentence? Fletcher then
quotes Gould as saying that she
agreed with Contratto that the
election would have become
laws committee from a minis-
cule portion of the membership.
The Dearborn member of the
elections committee was select-
ed (I can't really say elected)
by one union member-the only
one there from Dearborn. Why
wasn't this fact reported?
Fourth. The names of those
seven members elected to the
Elections Committee were not
reported. (We are told that
three of them are CDU sup-
porters). The purpose of the
Elections Committee as voted
on by the people there was not
reported. Very few facts were
reported. Out of the 18 para-
graphs in the story, 11 were
quotes from CDU factionalists.
Two were comprised of quotes
by Jean Jones, of the Bargain-
ing Committee.
Given that the CDU is one
faction of local 2001, is that any
reason for The Daily to become
its mouthpiece? Doesn't The
Daily owe coverage to others
who have been involved in and
worked for the local?
I AM APPALLED at this lack
of objectivity and responsibility
on the part of The Daily. I ask
the editors of The Daily to per-
sonally respond to this letter,
and to assign someone with less
discernable biases to cover the
2001 meetings.
Susan G. S. McGee
Member, Local 2001
Sept. 30
kudos
I.,
m