|
Just received this email this morning:
From: "david bacon"
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 9:21 PM
Subject: afl-cio calls for troop withdrawal from iraq
AFL-CIO CONVENTION CALLS FOR TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ
By David Bacon
CHICAGO, IL (7/26/05) - On the second day of its convention
in Chicago, the AFL-CIO took an historic step, calling for the rapid
withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and an end to the country's
occupation. Public attention has focused largely on the split in US
labor, and the decision by two of the federation's largest unions to
leave. Yet the impact of this call will reverberate for years, with
as profound effect on the future of US workers and their unions.
Brooks Sunkett, vice-president of the Communications Workers
of America (CWA), started a train of passionate speeches on the
convention floor, saying that the government had lied to him when it
sent him to war in Vietnam three decades ago. "We have to stop it
from lying to a new generation now," he implored. Henry Nicholas, a
hospital union leader in the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees, told delegates that his son, who has served four
tours of duty in Iraq, is now threatened with yet another.
Speaker after speaker rose to condemn the war and occupation,
and to demand the return of the troops. No one dared defend a policy
that has caused revulsion throughout US unions.
Watching from the visitors' gallery was a handful of Iraqi
union leaders. One of them had traveled to the US two months ago,
with five other union activists, to plead the case of Iraqi workers.
For 16 days they traveled to more than 50 cities, often speaking
before hundreds of angry workers, demanding an end to the occupation.
The Iraqis urged their US union counterparts to take action.
The resolution at the convention was the answer to this call.
It was the culmination as well of an upsurge that has swept through
US unions since before the war started two years ago. From the point
when it became clear that the Bush administration intended to invade
Iraq, union activists began organizing a national network to oppose
it, US Labor Against the War. What started as a collection of small
groups, in a handful of unions, has today to become a coalition of
unions representing over a million members.
The network organized the tour of the Iraqi unionists, to
provide them a chance to speak directly to US workers. "We believed
strongly that if unions in our country could hear their Iraqi
brothers and sisters asking for the withdrawal of US troops, they
would respond in a spirit of solidarity and human sympathy," said
Gene Bruskin, one of USLAW's national coordinators. "We were right."
Resolutions calling for troop withdrawal poured in from
unions, labor councils, and state labor federations across the
country. But as the convention began, AFL-CIO national staff tried
to substitute another resolution that called for ending the
occupation "as soon as possible." This was the same position as that
put forward by the Bush administration.
Delegates at the convention, who belong to the USLAW network
then called for using instead the phrase "rapid withdrawal" of the
troops. At a strategy-planning session attended by over 150
delegates, US and Iraqi unionists joined together to plan a fight on
the convention floor to win that language. Before it could take
place, however, CWA Vice-president Larry Cohen went to the AFL-CIO
executive council, the federation's ruling body, and asked them to
accept the change.
Knowing that a fight was in store, and suddenly unsure of
their ability to win it, the council agreed.
The resolution was put on the floor of the convention Tuesday
afternoon, two days before the scheduled debate on Iraq. When the
proposal for rapid withdrawal was introduced by Fred Mason, head of
the AFL-CIO in Maryland, it was obvious what he meant by the words.
His call to "get out now" became a chorus thundering from speaker
after speaker. The new language was adopted with the votes of an
overwhelming majority.
The resolution marks a watershed moment in modern US labor
history. It is the product of grassroots action at the bottom of the
US labor movement, not a directive from top leaders. The call for
bringing the troops home echoes the sentiments of thousands of
ordinary workers and rank-and-file union members, whose children and
family have been called on to fight the war. A growing number, who
now form a majority in US unions, believe the best way to protect
them is to bring them home.
The resolution represents a deeper understanding that is
making its way into thousands of discussions in workplaces and union
halls. The war in Iraq never had much credibility as an effort to
find weapons of mass destruction, since none were ever found. The
administration's claim that it is fighting to bring democracy to
Iraqi people inspired a similar disbelief. After five years of
administration attacks on US workers and unions, none but the most
diehard of its supporters have much faith left in its pro-democracy
pronouncements.
Over the last year, however, the Iraqis themselves have
provided a new understanding of the occupation's anti-democratic
impact. American military authorities, they told US union members,
have banned labor organization in oil fields, factories and other
Iraqi public enterprises. Meanwhile, Bush political operatives have
begun to engineer the sell off of those enterprises to foreign
corporations, with a potential loss of thousands of jobs and the
income needed to rebuild the country.
"This is not liberation. It is occupation," said Ghasib
Hassan, a leader of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, one of the
unions that sent its members to speak in the US. "At the beginning
of the 21st century, we thought we'd seen the end of colonies, but
now we're entering a new era of colonization."
In the many meetings and discussions that finally led to the
resolution, union members understood the purpose of the occupation in
a new way - as the imposition, at gunpoint, of Bush administration
free market policies on Iraq. After the resolution's passage, the
Iraqis called on delegates to act on that understanding, and asked
the AFL-CIO to bring its members out to coming national
demonstrations against the war.
Rapid withdrawal means more than just bringing US soldiers
home. Calling for it puts American workers on the side of Iraqis, as
they resist the transformation of their country for the benefit of a
wealthy global elite. Brooks Sunkett, Vietnam vet turned union
leader, spoke powerfully for this renewed unwillingness to wage wars
based on lies and greed. His call for rapid withdrawal breathes new
life into the Vietnam syndrome - so feared by US administrations
intent on military intervention to defend their free market policies
around the world.
(End of message)
I've got to leave for work now, but has anyone seen any mention of this in the MSM? Anyone have other sources actually at the convention?
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
