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> My letter to the National Treasury Employees Union re. Bush's war
>
> >From : "Nancy A. Hey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject : Why workers should not support Bush's war
> Date : Thu, 10 Jan 2002 12:22:54 -0500
>
> Ms. Colleen M. Kelley,
> National President,
> National Treasury Employees Union
>
> Dear Ms. Kelley,
>
> I would like to ask you to please read the attached letter from
> UAW Local 2334 President David Sole to the UAW International Executive
> Board, on why President Bush's so-called "war on
> terrorism" is actually against the interests of workers in the United
> States.
>
> I think that Mr. Sole makes an excellent point about the
> hypocrisy of the Bush Administration's claims that his war in Afghanistan is
> being fought in the name of protecting Americans, when in fact his record
> shows a very hostile attitude toward American workers and their unions, as
> refelcted, for example, in his cutting of social security, increases in
> military spending, his support for so-called "free trade" agreements, which
> cost American workers their jobs, and his USA Patriot Act, which curtails
> the civil liberties and freedom of speech of American workers.
>
> Most recently, President Bush dismissed the seven members of the
> Federal Service Impasses Panel and denied union representation to employees
> in five sections of the Justice Department,and issued an executive order
> barring unions from U.S. attorney's offices, the Justice Department's
> Criminal Division, the U.S. National Central Bureau of Interpol, the
> National Drug Intelligence Center and Office of Intelligence Policy and
> Review.
>
> Pres. Bush cited reasons of "national security" for his decision.
>
> Because of his decision, several hundred employees, like clerks,
> receptionists or messengers, will likely lose their union representation.
>
> The impasses panel is the last step in the federal collective
> bargaining process, since strikes and lockouts are not allowed.
>
> I am a member of NTEU Chapter 209. I, and my co-workers were
> very traumatized when we learned of the hijackings and crashes while at our
> work on September 11th. From our building, we could see the smoke arising
> from the pentagon after it had been hit. Our building was evacuated a few
> minutes after that, and we were all sent home on administrative leave.
>
> When we returned to work, our Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
> counselors organized counseling sessions to help us cope with the trauma. I
> attended two such sessions. I heard many people there speak about their
> fears arising from this event, and their fears of more such attacks in the
> future. At that time, the Bush Administration had already started talking
> about military retaliation. Several people in our group had relatives who
> were enlisted in the military, and their fears over terrorism were
> compounded by their concerns that their loved ones would be put in harm's
> way. Some felt concern that U.S. retaliation would encourage more terrorism
> against the United States.
>
> I do not feel safer for what the Bush Administration is doing in
> Afghanistan. I also am very concerned about the fact that most of the
> people being killed by American bombs in Afghanistan
> are innocent civilians, citizens of a very poor country who have long
> struggled just to make ends meet, as do many low-wage American workers. We
> have more in common with these people than with our politicians and their
> corporate supporters who are pushing this war.
>
> I think Mr. Sole's claims that oil profits are the real motives
> for the war in Afghanistan are further supported by the recent announcement
> of President Bush of the appointment of a former aide to
> the American oil company Unocal, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as special
> envoy to Afghanistan. Pres. Bush announced this nomination on December 31,
> nine days after the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai took office
> in Kabul.
>
> This special envoy has been intimately involved in the
> long-running US efforts to obtain direct access to the oil and gas resources
> of the region, largely unexploited but believed to be the second largest in
> the world after the Persian Gulf.
>
> As an adviser for Unocal, Khalilzad drew up a risk analysis of a
> proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across
> Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. He
> participated in talks between the oil company and Taliban officials in 1997,
> which were aimed at implementing a 1995 agreement to build the pipeline
> across western Afghanistan.
>
> It seems clear to me that the organized labor movement in this
> country should not support a war that only benefits wealthy corporations,
> kills and injures poor and working-class people in
> Afghanistan, and whatever other Third World countries the war may spread to,
> and takes money away from American working-class people and curtails their
> civil liberties and unions.
>
> In light of this, I strongly urge the leadership of the National
> Treasury Employees Union to follow the advice of David Sole, and take a
> strong stand against President Bush's war.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Nancy Hey
>
> FROM A UAW LOCAL PRESIDENT:
> "WORKERS SHOULD NOT SUPPORT THIS WAR"
>
> [The following letter on the current war was sent by the
> president of a United Auto Workers local in Detroit, USA, to the UAW
> International Executive Board and President Stephen P. Yokich in early
> December. It was also mass distributed to a UAW Region 1 leadership meeting
> of several hundred local union officers.]
>
> Dear Brother Yokich and members of the International Executive
> Board:
>
> The war against Afghanistan holds great dangers to workers, our
> families and our unions. The politicians and mass media promote the war,
> declaring it will "end terrorism." But the labor movement should know
> better than to support this war.
>
> Remember how on Sept. 10 most people in this country saw George
> Bush and his appointees as labor haters, racists, anti-women, anti-gay
> bigots, pro-big business and a vote-stealing gang? UAW's Solidarity magazine
> was filled with articles exposing Bush & Co. Did Sept. 11 change their
> character?
>
> No one can seriously argue that Bush cares anything for the
> working people of this nation. He has hijacked the horror of Sept. 11 to ram
> through his anti-labor, anti-people program. No wonder UAW President Stephen
> Yokich noted that, "even before the dust had settled in lower Manhattan,
> some conservatives and corporate executives were trying to exploit this
> national crisis" (Solidarity, November 2001, p.4).
>
> With almost no opposition Congress voted to let Bush raid Social
> Security for military spending. Fast Track for the Free Trade Area of the
> Americas bill is being pushed in Congress even though it has nothing to do
> with domestic security, and will hurt workers in the U.S. and Latin America.
> The "Patriot Act" was rammed through curtailing long cherished civil
> liberties.
>
> Attorney General Ashcroft (the guy who admires the slave-driving
> Confederacy) is in charge of our civil rights! That should make us all
> nervous. Racist murders have occurred; places of worship have been attacked;
> racial profiling is being defended; over 1,000 people have disappeared into
> jail with no charges. Strikers have been vilified as unpatriotic. Ashcroft
> intends to intensify surveillance of peaceful, legal organizations committed
> to peace and social justice.
>
> The Bush Gang is giving billions in bailouts to the airline
> industry and the stock-jobbers on Wall Street. But when it came to helping
> the airline and aircraft workers who have lost their jobs, Bush & Co. said
> "NO!"
>
> So what is the war really about? A top oil executive testified
> before Congress back in 1998 that the oil industry wanted to put a pipeline
> through Afghanistan and needed a more pliable regime in Kabul.
> The big oil companies and Bush, who serves them, are out to grab
> the vast oil wealth of the former Soviet Central Asia. This is a war for OIL
> PROFITS and profits for the military-industrial complex.
>
> The war has nothing at all to do with terrorism. The U.S.
> government trained, financed and armed bin Laden and the Taliban to
> overthrow a progressive, secular government. Anti-union death squad regimes
> around the world keep getting U.S. support. September 11 hasn't changed
> U.S. sponsorship of terrorist training at the Army School of the Americas
> ("School of the Assassins") at Fort Benning. It hasn't changed the U.S.
> plans to send $7 billion to Colombia where death squads have murdered 4,000
> union leaders in the past 15 years! It hasn't changed U.S. policy to starve
> the civilian population of Iraq even though the UN has shown that nearly 1
> million children have died as a result of U.S. sanctions.
>
> It is a sad commentary that most U.S. labor leaders were slow to
> oppose the Vietnam War. We must not be silent now. Labor must join the
> youth, church leaders and community leaders who are demanding an end to the
> bombing and an end to this war. Calls to patriotism cannot mask the real
> intentof Bush & Co. to crush civil rights, fill the pockets of the
> super-rich and destroy the labor movement. We should not help them. We need
> money for jobs, education and health care. We need a foreign policy based
> on justice for all people
> and nations. Only this can remove the roots of international
> violence.
>
> I urge the International Executive Board to take a stand against
> Bush's war.
>
> Sincerely,
> David Sole
> President, UAW Local 2334
>
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