Word: strikes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since traffic jams are almost synonymous with urban growth, they have been building for a long time. (The term gridlock apparently came into common use in New York City during a transit workers' strike in 1980, when a surge of commuter autos paralyzed Manhattan's street grid.) Congestion on two-lane highways in the 1950s hastened construction of the 42,797-mile interstate system, which will be officially completed in 1991 (estimated final cost: $108 billion). But the interstates eased overcrowding only temporarily. Says Transportation Secretary James Burnley: "It's not a problem that will be resolved in a final...
...government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski played on such popular fears by giving unprecedented television coverage to the strikes. Alluding to the demand for the legalization of Solidarity, Government Spokesman Jerzy Urban ruled out "gunpoint negotiations with strikers on political issues." A curfew was called in the heart of the mining-strike region near Katowice, and others were authorized for the port cities of Szczecin and Gdansk. After declaring the strikes illegal, authorities accelerated trials, and jail sentences of up to three months were imposed on charged strikers...
...pristine produce as a major selling point and competitive issue. In California "certified clean" has become a battle cry among rival grocery chains. The pesticide fears have been fanned this summer by Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers of America president, who last week concluded a 36-day hunger strike protesting the exposure of laborers to allegedly harmful chemicals in fields and vineyards...
...furor has put chemical companies on the defensive as well. The Chavez hunger strike, accompanied by a boycott of California grapes and several supermarket chains, was partly inspired by an incident last year in which 75 farmworkers harvesting grapes sprayed with the insecticide Zolone came down with flulike symptoms. Under pressure from state agriculture officials, the chemical's manufacturer, Rhone-Poulenc, stopped selling the substance to grape growers. This year Rhone-Poulenc is carrying out a controversial test in which it paid 25 college students as much as $1,500 for one week to harvest a central California vineyard that...
...disaster was one of the worst to strike Lisbon in centuries. A ruinous fire last week swept through the Chiado, the capital's historic central shopping district, gutting dozens of buildings and sending shocked residents into mourning for a charred heritage. The conflagration left one dead, 41 injured, 300 homeless and 2,000 shopworkers unemployed. Portuguese officials promised that rebuilding of the Chiado would begin as soon as possible, but for now Lisbon must live with a disfiguring wound...