|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
|
News :: Labor |
|
Union Members Organizing Against War |
Current rating: 0 |
by Ricky Baldwin
Email: baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-356-2205
Address: 606 West White St, Champaign IL 61820 |
07 Feb 2003
|
|
In recent months, the anti-war movement within organized labor has been exploding, led by rank-and-file members and a handful of union officials. US Labor Against the War held its first meeting in Chicago less than a month ago, and since then their numbers have more than doubled. |
Union Members Organizing Against War
By Ricky Baldwin
Gene Bruskin, long-time labor activist who coordinated the first meeting of US Labor Against the War (USLAW) January 11 in Chicago, says rank-and-file union members are organizing against war with Iraq faster than organizers can sign them up. Michael Eisenscher, coordinator of San Francisco's Labor Committee for Peace and Justice and one of USLAW's founders, makes a similar observation. Hundreds of union locals and labor councils have passed anti-war resolutions, they point out proudly, from the Central Labor Council of Troy, NY, to Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2 in San Francisco.
Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago, for example, is the second largest Teamsters local in the country. Secretary-Treasurer Gerry Zero expected a contentious debate when an anti-war resolution was proposed at a membership meeting in October. But to Zero's surprise, member after member rose to speak against war with Iraq, including several veterans. The resolution passed 402-1. "Our membership is split 50-50," said Zero. "Fifty percent don't believe a thing President Bush says, and fifty percent think he's a liar."
Over 100 union delegates attended the first USLAW meeting, representing an estimated two million workers around the country. The delegates produced a public declaration against "Bush's war drive," patterned after the resolution adopted by Local 705. The USLAW statement cites lack of evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaeda or any threat to the US, noting, "we have no quarrel with the ordinary working class men, women and children of Iraq, or any other country."
Since then, the movement has been spreading like wildfire. Unions representing around four million workers have now issued statements or passed resolutions against war, Bruskin says. That's twice as many as three weeks ago ("a conservative estimate"). "For example," he says, "the LA County Federation of Labor signed on, and so did [the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] with a million members. Now, AFSCME is also part of the LA County Fed, so we didn't count those members twice."
The Communications Workers of America, the American Postal Workers Union, and other big national unions have recently issued statements against the war. And several statewide organizations like Service Employees 1199 New York and the conservative Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees of Pennsylvania have now passed anti-war resolutions.
Eisenscher points out that some of these resolutions are not as strong as many anti-war activists would like. "Iwould have written them differently," he says. And not all the anti-war resolutions have breezed through, notes Bruskin. One resolution calling on the White House to exhaust all other means before going to war had a tough time getting through the Buffalo AFL-CIO, for example. But consider the fact that the war on Iraq hasn’t started yet, says Eisenscher -- unless you count the on-going bombing raids in the US-imposed "no-fly" zones. The current anti-war movement in labor is head and shoulders above labor's opposition to any previous conflict this early on.
When the Philadelphia Central Labor Council (CLC) was debating its resolution January 8, in fact, one of the delegates objected to the resolution because "we didn't pass resolutions like this when the US invaded Haiti." In response, Pat Gillespie, a vice president of the CLC and head of the area building trades, had this to say: "We should have had a resolution then and that's why we need it now. That whole Gulf of Tonkin Resolution [authorizing overt war in Vietnam] was a big lie. It's a good thing we have organizations like this one that are willing to challenge the President."
But the shift within organized labor is just months old. Just a year ago, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was expressing "shoulder to shoulder" unity with White House war plans. And he wasn't alone. "After 9-11," says Bruskin, "people were in shock. It was a pretty horrible thing. Most folks were not into criticizing the government, because they wanted someone to protect them, and they rallied around the flag."
But as the year went on, Bruskin says, "people started seeing problems with Bush's handling of the war, and a whole series of anti-union activities were coming out of the White House." Airlines in the US, for example, took all the money the federal government could dish out and still laid off tens of thousands of workers, demanding concessions from those who remained.
Michael Eisenscher agrees: "The Bush Administration invoked the Taft-Hartley Act against the ILWU [Longshoremen]. The Homeland Security Act deprived 170,000 federal employees of their union rights. And it became clear that Bush was fighting a two-front war: one was the so-called 'war on terror' and the other was a war on the American working people."
Eisenscher also says there was some opposition to war within labor from the beginning, including scattered participation in the first demonstrations against the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. "About three weeks after 9-11," Eisenscher says, "over 70 union members from about 35 labor organizations gathered in the Bay Area [to oppose the war], and about the same time, the New York Committee Against War was formed. There were others around the country, but most of them didn't know about each other. So we started to network with one another."
Labor's part in anti-war protests was diffuse and hard to spot at first. But as it grew, it gained momentum and organizational structure. Bob Muehlencamp, President of the Duluth Central Labor Council, publicly criticized AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's failure to oppose war.
Since then, Sweeney has attacked the Bush Administration's rush to war, and union members have been increasingly visible at national anti-war protests. By January 18, labor unions were an unmistakable part of the national demonstrations in Washington DC and San Francisco.
Now anti-war unionists are looking forward to worldwide protests February 15, where USLAW plans to turn out a well-organized labor contingent. "We are reaching out to unions around the world," says Eisenscher. "We are gearing up to do whatever it takes to stop this madman in the White House."
|
