Newspapers / Green Line (Asheville, N.C.) / June 1, 1992, edition 1 / Page 4
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'jiuj Sandy Mush Herb Nursery WREATHS • POTPOURRI • HERBS • TOPIARY Complete Herb Catalog - $4.00 describes more than 600 plants from Aloe to Yarrow Rt.2 • Surrett Cove Road Leicester, North Carolina 2 8 7 4 8 Please phone for an appointment to visit 683-2014 23 PAGE AT THE HAYWOOD PARK PAGE INTRODUCES The Front Page Casual Dining in the Most Comfortable Lounge in Town Bistro Menu under $1200 Casual Attire Entertainment Many Evenings Dancing when the mood strikes Nightly LOWER LEVEL OF THE HAYWOOD PARK HOTEL 1 BATTERY PARK AVE. DOWNTOWN ASHEVILLE 252-368S L OPEN DOOR I HO Biltmore Oil andCitgo: Partners in Service. For sixty-one years, Biltmore Oil Company has been supplying West ern North Carolina with the finest quality petroleum products obtain able. Now our retail dealerships and Short Stop Stores have joined forces with CITGO, the fastest growing gasoline brand in the United States. So now you've got the best of both worlds~Biltmore Oil's dependabil ity and integrity, and world-class CITGO performance-right in your own neighborhood. Stop in today and apply for your CITGO Plus credit card. You'll be glad you did, partner. Biltmore OIL A . CITGO Help protect our environment: use clean-burning CITGO products-anal check your car s emission system often. Catharine Brown ■ Margaret Rogers Porcelain Figures APRIL 11 - JUNE 30 OPENING RECEPTION-April II, 6pm-8pm HEARTWOo'D CONTEMPORARY CRAFTS GALLERY MAIN STREET SALUDA, NC 28773 704/749-9365 To be, or not to be SAFE ON THE JOB by Bill Branyon On May 2, more than 1,000 people gath ered in front of the burned-out remains of the Imperial Foods Bant in Hamlet, N.C., to dra matize the need for workers of all races to tims of the fire and a repeal of Section 14-B of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which allows states to pass right-to-work laws — or, as Smith called them, right-to-work-for-less laws. James organize for safety and well being. The group in cluded eight busloads of union 9 members from the 1 Hospital Workers p of New York City, ( the United Elec- |j trical Workers of ■ Minneapolis and the United Auto Workers of De troit, as well as ■ hundreds of union members and union sympathiz March for workers’ rights, Hamlet, NC, May 2, 1992. Photo courtesy of Clean Water Fund of North Carolina. Andrews, head of the 175,000 member North Carolina AFL CIO, warned that politicians had better not “do the I short-memory 1 trick” in regard to I the Hamlet trag I edy. Workers will I remember on 1 Nov. 5, he main i tained. Bob Brown, vice presi dent ofthe United ere from all over the South. The march and rally were peaceful, with police politely controlling traffic and marchers. That same day, in parts of Los Angeles, more than5,000 members of the National Guard had begun to quiet the most destructive riot in America in 75 years. In Hamlet, several preachers prayed for the dead workers on the chicken plant’s small ff ont porch, just outside the only door that was left unlocked during working hours. Inside the factory, sunlight poured through a hole in the roof on a tangled mass of girders, pipes, boilers and a charred conveyer belt. The room in which 25 workers died and 56 were injured measured 40 feet by 75 feet More than 80 people tried to escape the gas explosion and fire that turned the brick and metal box into a crowded oven. Children living across the street heard their parents’ screams, said Ashaki Binta, an organizer of the march and head of North Carolina’s Black Workers for Justice. The march left the factory and proceeded down the main street of Hamlet. Just before the fire, the town’s quaint storefronts and 1920s railroad station had been the setting for the movie Bifly Bathgate. Local residents who watched the march were respectful, and many seemed supportive. But Glenn Sumpter of the local daily newspa per, The Richmond County Journal, said the townspeople mostly viewed the march as the atre, and weren’t concerned about it one way or the other. The Hamlet fire and the political response to it have given North Carolina an “impetus to consider what is needed for workplace safety,” said Russ Edmonston, director of communica tions for the N.C. Department of Labor. The General Assembly began reviewing the state Commission on Fire and Workplace Safety’s suggestions on May 26. Legislators will then try to formulate a more comprehensive safety pro gram for the state during the summer session, Edmonston said. State voters have already fired the head of the state Department of Labor, with Harry Payne defeating incumbent John Brooks in the May 5th Democratic primary. Marchers walked a winding 2-1/2 miles to a rally by a lake at Richmond County Commu nity College. They chanted slogans such as “United we bargain, divided we beg.” Cassandra Smith, representing CARE, (Citizens Against Repulsive Environments), a Hamlet organiza tion formed to help the affected workers, spoke first She called for just compensation for vie Electrical Workers of Minneapolis, said that such gatherings, combined with the Rodney King verdict in LA., could be the “spark that creates a movement for social and economic justice that can’t be stopped.” In Los Angeles, however, people were already trying to di vide black and white workers over the King incident and riots, he observed. Workers have more in common “with the unemployed and homeless than with the business roundtables,” Brown said, adding that they “should organize with the attitude of the homeless, as if there is nothing left to lose.” As Brown talked, a woman passed wearing a shirt that said “Home Street Home” on the front and "There is no justice, there’s just us” on the back. Many marchers wore shirts with the names of the 25 who died in the Hamlet fire: David Albright* Pegg Anderson, Margaret Banks, Fred Barrington, Josephine Barrington, Eliazbeth Bellamy, Gail Campbell, Rosie Chambers, Josie Coulter, Phil Dawkins, John Gagnon, Bertha Jarrell, Brenda Kelly, Janice Lynch, Michael Morrison, Rose Peele, Cynthia Ratliff, Martha Ratliff, Donald Rich, Mary Rurick, Minnie Thompson, Cynthia Wall, Mary Wall, Jeffrey Webb and Rose Wilkens. Their average age was 39. ♦ r Who ebe b at risk? The HamletResponseCoalitionon Work place Reform (HRC) is urging citizens to write or call legislators in support of a new N.C Occupational Safety and Health Act proposed by HRC, including: • mandatory health and safety committees for employers with 11 or more employees • expanded whistleblower protection • more health and safety inspectors • extended OSHA penalties to public sector employers • civil liability for employers who remove safety devices • removal of the 6-year limit oh filing for compensation The coalition was formed in the wake of the Imperial Foods fire in Hamlet, N.C, in September 1991. Since the fire, more than 35 industrial accidents have occurred in the state; three workers die every week in on-the-job accidents, according to HRC For a list of legis lators on the Senate Manufacturing and Labor Committee, or to join the coalition, call Laura Gordon at (704) 258-8521.
Green Line (Asheville, N.C.)
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