Company violence increasing against striking News workers
1990 1990-12Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 17 →
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16 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1990 In its attempt to break the striking Daily News unions, the owners have hired special security guards from several out-of-state companies to intimidate the strikers and their supporters.
The most sinister of these strikebreaking groups is the Special Response Corporation, whose guards have been nicknamed the "ninjas" because of their black combat fatigue uniforms. The SRC, whose motto is "a private army when you need it most," is a Marylandbased paramilitary outfit that recruits former soldiers and cops and trains them in the techniques of breaking strikes.
One of SRC's ads states: "We can provide 1-200 specially trained professionals eguipped with the latest in Special Response Corp:
security technology: non-lethal weaponry, night vision equipment, and specially-designed vehicles that enable employees to cross picketlines safely.
Already, these "professionals" have demonstrated their "special training" in several major incidents during the course of the strike. On Nov. 9, a melee broke out at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, as guards escorting scab delivery trucks atiacked strikers attempting to prevent delivery of the News. Eyewitnesses reported that guards continued to arrive of city police. Six guards and two strikers were arrested on illegal weapons and riot charges. The guards arrested were armed with a hammer, lead pipes, and martial arts chucka sticks.
The same day, several strike supporters from Hospital Workers Local 1199 were assaulted by guards as they were disposing of two bundles of the News they had purchased from a homeless hawker for $60. Both confrontations that day resulted in injuries requiring hospital treatment.
In another incident, a New York Times driver, Dan Seymour, was attacked by guards with nightsticks while he was walking a picketline outside the News printing plant in Secaucus, N.J. He was then dragged into the plant. Another picketer called the police, who found Seymour handcuffed and tied to a chair, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. Similar incidents have occurred in other
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'a private army when you need it most.'