Attention Vermonters! Iraqi Union Leader Speaking In Montpelier Saturday

[Itsthetruth]

Iraqi labor leader to hold Montpelier forum

June 17, 2005
Times Argus Staff

MONTPELIER – A 56-year-old leader of the Iraqi trade union movement will discuss the Iraqi labor movement and U.S. occupation in Iraq at a potluck dinner Saturday.

The public is invited to a dinner and question-and-answer meeting at Trinity Church on Main Street in Montpelier. Adnan Rashed, executive officer of the Union of Mechanics, Printing and Metal Workers, will talk about how the Bush administration's effort to privatize once public industries like oil is hurting Iraqis, according to Traven Layshon, a Vermont labor organizer who is traveling with Rashed.

U.S. Labor Against the War wants to build support among union members in the United States against the war in Iraq, as well as help support Iraqis in their efforts to unionize. Unions were illegal under Saddam Hussein, and now labor activists want to make sure unions help draw up laws to protect organized labor, according to Layshon.

This event, slated for 6 p.m., is co-sponsored by the Vermont American Friends Service Committee, PeaceVermont, the Peace and Justice Center, and the Vermont Livable Wage Campaign.

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