First Published: Workers Viewpoint, Vol. 5, No. 17, May 19, 1980.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In the middle of the redbaiting anti-communist attacks that hit the Party following the Nov. 3 assassinations, two Communist Workers Party supporters in the South were fired from their jobs. Dori Blitz of Martinsville, Virginia was fired from Budd Trucking and Tom Clark of Durham, North Carolina was fired from Durham Country General Hospital. Recently victories have been won in both cases because, guided by the Party’s line, comrades took the political offensive against the redbaiting and did bold communist propaganda to expose these attacks. Only by taking the struggle to the bourgeoisie, putting them on the spot to defend their capitalist system, can the initiatives of communists and advanced fighters be unleashed and redbaiting be beaten back.
Tom Clark has been reinstated and the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) has agreed to re-open Dori Blitz’s case for another investigation. Both victories are the result of the Party correctly taking the offensive in the firings. The Party has taken up both cases in a political struggle to beat back the attacks coming down from the government on communists and all progressive people.
In Tom Clark’s case he had been fired following his arrest and conviction for carrying weapons during the state of emergency on the day of the funeral march-November 11. Durham County General Hospital dredged up a seldom-used work rule that said if any employee is convicted of a crime then he can be fired. Of course management chooses when to use the rule–using it to get rid of employees who struggle against the rotten working conditions in the hospital. Tom filed a grievance to get his job back. His claim was that he was unjustly fired and that the work rule is used arbitrarily. Case after case was shown how upper level employees have been convicted and yet never fired. One case was of a doctor at the hospital who had been convicted for driving under the influence of alcohol. Of course he was not disciplined in any way. Tom claimed he was singled out because of his open support for the Communist Workers Party (CWP) and because he is a recognized leader of the Workers Association at the hospital.
The Party was preparing to file a civil suit when he won his job back. His conviction was overturned in the courts along with the other CWP supporters who were arrested Nov. 11 for having weapons to protect themselves in case of a police or Klan attack on the funeral march. Several days after his conviction was overturned he received a letter from the hospital. It told him that seeing as how his conviction no longer stood in the courts they would be nice enough to take him back. Included was a check for the back pay they owed him. Seem fair? He didn’t get a penny of it. First the company took out money for the vacation and sick-leave they had paid him when he was fired, then he found out he has to pay back unemployment for all the unemployment compensation he collected after he was fired, then when he pays his lawyer fee that will just about take care of his check. There is nothing left over to compensate for the pressure and headaches his family has been through since his firing.
Dori Blitz was fired after Nov. 3 by Budd for “making disparaging remarks against the company” and for falsifying her employment application one year earlier. Right before her firing, the company with the help of the Teamsters Union carried out an all out anti-communist campaign against her. The union took away her position as steward just days before the firing. And after the firing the union leadership refused to carry her case all the way to arbitration.
Since then Dori has fought against the firing both in the union and in the courts putting political pressure on both. When hundreds of workers were laid off at Budd soon after Dori was fired, workers began seeing the connection between the firing and what was coming down. Several other stewards had been fired at the same time. Workers have come to see that Dori was fired because as a communist she is the best fighter for their interests. The company wanted to get rid of the leaders in the plant in order to break any resistance to the layoffs.
Dori filed an NLRB suit claiming that the real reason she was fired was because of her leadership in the union. And worker after worker came forward to give testimony to back her up giving the whole history of Dori’s leadership in the shop committee and the company’s antiunion tactics. The NLRB turned down the charges.
But later at an unemployment hearing the company personnel manager admitted that the Budd headquarters in Philadelphia had requested a copy of her employment application so they could do a thorough investigation. This happened back in October long before the Nov. 3 assassination and long before her so called “disparaging comments” against the company. He also stated that the FBI had come to Budd Co. to inquire about Dori’s union activities. Based on this new evidence the NLRB has decided to re-open her case.
Both Tom Clark and Dori Blitz were recognized by other workers as communists, as labor leaders, and especially important, as CWP supporters, doing propaganda on the job. The tactics the two companies used were different but both were aimed at the Party. Budd stepped up harassment of workers with firings, layoffs and speedups becoming a daily occurrence. At the same time it carried out its anti-communist campaign against Dori. At the same time Durham County General Hospital, wanting to maintain its “fair” image, announced that in firing Tom the same would have happened to any other employee who broke the law–that his firing had nothing to do with his attitude toward the company. Following Tom’s return to his job a fellow worker put a clipping about Tom’s firing on the department bulletin board. Management decided it was time to give the board a spring cleaning. Next morning workers came back to an empty bulletin board.
What has turned these two cases around? The Party and the government are engaged in a toe to toe battle. Tire capitalists know that what is at stake is state power. They can see their political system crumbling before their very eyes. They are desperate. In both these firings the main concern of the companies involved and the government was to break the leadership of the Party. In both places the CWP has significantly gained the respect of many workers.
What was the key thing is that the Party did not take these firings laying back. We went on the offensive at both Budd and Durham County General Hospital explaining to workers what was behind the firings and mobilizing workers to fight back. It was the threat of exposure that forced the NLRB to re-open Dori’s case and the hospital to rehire Tom.
Durham County General Hospital was so afraid of being exposed that it had the Durham Sun run a lead editorial on the firing. Entitled “Freedom At Work,” its main point was that the system works even for communists, making it seem like Tom won his job back because the system protects his rights too. Here is the text of the editorial:
Freedom at work
We hope the Communist Workers Party paid close attention last week when one of its supporters, Tom C. Clark, was reinstated to his job in the emergency room at Durham County General Hospital.
In case the party didn’t notice, the very system it so fervently hopes to topple worked with fairness and dignity.
Clark, as hospital policy dictates, was fired because he had been convicted of a crime. He was found guilty of carrying a weapon during a funeral march for the five persons killed last November in an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in Greensboro. His dismissal had nothing to do with his political beliefs.
On appeal, however, his conviction was overturned. Last week, he was reinstated. . . .
We wonder if the same treatment would have been afforded a capitalist or other dissenter in any of the world’s Communist dictatorships.
You know revolution is around the corner when the capitalists in their own newspapers are forced to defend their record against the propaganda the Party is putting out.