BLACK WOMEN CHARGE DISCRIMINATION

New York (LNS)--Three black women who were fired from South Chicago's U.S. Steel South Works plant have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and with their union local charging the company with racial and sex discrimination.

Margaret Robbins, Denise Watson and Trina Freeny were fired from South Works in October during their probationary period. They charge that they never received disciplinary warnings before their discharges; that they were required to undertake jobs not assigned to white women workers, and that they were subjected to sexual and racial insults by their supervisors.

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"At least six other black women probationary employees have been discharged in a similar fashion over the last five months, wrote former Steelworkers Union Local 65 Civil Rights Chairman Randy Potts in a letter accompanying the EEOC complaint.

Potts described a "pattern of discrimination" emerging from recent company practices, including: --The systematic hiring of women and minorities to meet court-ordered anti-discrimination guidelines and then the equally systematic firing of such employees during their probation; and

-an increase of disciplinary actions, layoffs and discharges of minority workers--especially of black women--during periods of economic difficulties.

He also noted that 90 percent of plant discharges are minority workers, although black and Latino workers constitute only 53 percent of the company workforce.

Potts was removed from his post as chairperson of the local's civil rights committee at the same time the EEOC complaint was filed. However, the Local 65 President has denied that Pott's removal was related to his performance as committee chair. If the EEOC finds merit in the charges, the agency will file a sult in behalf of the fired workers against U.S. Steel.

NURSES WIN NEW TRIAL

(LNS) Months after a Detroit jury convicted two Filipina nurses of poisoning patients, the judge who presided over the case has thrown out the verdict, citing the government's "persistent misconduct," and ordering a new trial. Leonora Perez and Filipina Narciso were convicted in July 1977 of poisoning patients, at the Ann Arbor Michigan Veterans Administration Hospital.

Following that sensational trial, the Michigan Nurses Association (MNS) accused the prosecution of basing its case entirely on the circumstantial evidence that the women were nurses and happened to be on the same floor at the time of the alleged poisonings. The MNA charged that as a result of the convictions, all nurses are in danger of being charged haphazardly with the deaths of patients they might be working with.

Leonora Perez

Filipina Narciso

AP

"Our belief that we were not given a fair trial is confirmed by the judge," noted a jubilant Perez at a press conference she and Narciso gave following Judge Phillip Pratt's order on December 19, 1977.

The judge gave his order a full seven weeks after defense lawyers made appeal motions on November 7, 1977. All summer and autumn, support committees for the two nurses in 33 cities across the U.S., Canada. and Guam waged campaigns to expose the racist nature of the trial and to call for overturning the verdict. "In the final analysis," noted one New York City support committee organ. izer, "the judge had to go along and confirm the issues raised by public pressure.

The defense lawyers are expected to request that the charges now be dropped. And the government

may yet decide not to pursue a second trial, having already spent over one million dollars at the first trial, building what proved to be a very weak case. The judge's December order said that during the trial, the nurses were never shown to have had the powerfull muscle relaxant which allegedly caused the deaths in their possession, or to have injected anything into the victims.

Mary Tratner, a spokeswoman for the MNA, has charged that no studies were conducted by sources outside the Veterans Hospital to determine if the drug Pavulon might have been contaminated (The laboratory which manufactures the drug was closed down by the FDA several weeks after the FBI began investigating the poisonings. Reportedly, the drugs at the lab were being improperly handled ).

Judge Pratt concluded that the government's case against the two was "merely circumstantial. In addition, the judge wrote that "overwhelming prejudice to the defendents arising from the government's persistent misconduct prevented the jurors from receiving the case free from taint."

Ever since the two nurses were indicted, their supporters have viewed the charges as an incident of "anti-alien slander" put together hastily by the gavernment and the FBI to "solve" the mysterious deaths of a number of patients. Their analysis gained broad support across the country, and even during the trial, a number of the charges were dropped as contradictions in the case were exposed. All but one murder charge was dropped, and Filipina Narciso was aquitted of that charge.

A strategy meeting of the 33 support committees was held in Detroit January 7-8 to discuss future plans in the event that a second trial is convened. Meanwhile, the racist fears stirred up by the case still linger. The Bay Area Defense Committee for Narciso and Perez charges that some patients in the Bay Area hospitals are refusing treatment by Filipino medical personnel. There is also concern that the recruitment, hiring, and promotion of other Asian medical personnel may be cut back.

"One Filipina nurse in a Philadelphia Veterans Hospital was asked by a patient, 'Are you sure you know what you're doing?' Others have gotten mysterious phone calls asking 'Who are you going to poison next?""' noted a member of the New York support committee. "These incidents point out that there is really a deep discrimination and racism in this country that can boil over into a situation like that of the two nurses."

J.P. STEVENS FOUND GUILTY

(LNS) J.P. Stevens, the nation's number one labor law violator, has again been found guilty of violating the rights of workers. On December 28, 1977, an administrative judge of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that Stevens had bargained in bad faith and without any intention of concluding a collective bargaining agreement with over 3000 workers at seven Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina plants. Although the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union of America (ACTWU) won a representational election at the plants in 1974, there is still no union contract, nor is there any at any of Stevens 85 plants.

In his ruling, Judge Bernard Reis said that the company's record "as a whole indicates that it approached these negotiations with all the tractability and openmindedness of Sherman on the outskirts of Atlanta." (Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground in 1864) Reis recommended that broad

sanctions be imposed against Stevens and stated that the failure to bargain in good faith at Roanoke Rapids resulted in part from an attempt by the company to "chill the ardor" of employees seeking to organize Stevens plants elsewhere. The ACTWU has launched organizing campaigns at all Stevens plants.

Since 1963, Stevens has been sited 15 times for violations of the National Labor Relations Act, a federal law which is supposed to protect the rights of unions and union members, to prevent unfair labor practices, and to stop companies from interfering with workers' right to organize.

However, the NLRB, which administers the act, and the federal courts, that have upheld most of their decisions against Stevens, have been unable to protect these rights for Stevens workers.

Stevens has moved most of their production to the South, where it has taken advantage of lower wages,

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taxes, energy costs, and the lack of unionization. Most of the company's plants are located in North and South Carolina. North Carolina is the least unionized state in the united states, with only 6.9% of its non-farm workers organized, compared with the national average of 26%. Wages at J.P. Stevens and Company are 31% lower than the national average for factory workers

Union organizers and workers at Stevens are now hoping that an international boycott of all Stevens products called in 1976 will aid in their effort to achieve a union contract. However, a major obstacle boycott organizers stress is the difficulty most consumers have in identifying Stevens products. 70% of all Stevens products lose their identity at the retail level, where they carry other brand names. Despite this obstacle, however, support for the boycott has grown.

What She Wants/lar.1978/page 5