RESOLUTION PROPOSING A MILLION WORKERS MARCH ON WASHINGTON ADOPTED BY ILWU LOCAL
Whereas: our ancestors fought tirelessly in this country for the right to organize unions and ensure that our government recognized this right because it is a cornerstone of democracy, and Whereas: that because of unions and solidarity among working people we have been able to win basic human rights, including employer paid health care, social security and retirement benefits, safe working conditions, decent hours and wages, education for our children, social services for the disadvantaged, civil liberties, and most important, the right to political influence over our nation's foreign and domestic policies, and Whereas: Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address in 1944 acknowledged our rights, saying, "We have come to the realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." and Whereas: the current administration, with the complicity of congress, has cooperated with big business in attacking our rights, using legislation such as the Patriot Acts I and II, denying the right of hundreds of thousands of Federal employees to belong to unions and bargain, forcing longshore workers to work under a Taft-Hartley Act injunction and threats of Federal intervention, and Whereas: the administration, with the complicity of congress, has negotiated trade agreements costing the jobs of hundreds of thousands of US workers, calling this a move towards a healthy economy, while promoting other economic policies, such as privatization and deregulation which has resulted in the loss of over 3 million jobs since taking office, and Whereas: the administration, with the complicity of congress has given corporations and the wealthy huge tax breaks, while cutting billions of dollars in spending for social services, education, and other government programs won by working people through decades of effort, and Whereas: the Bush administration, with the complicity of congress, has excused all these policies by using the terrible events of September 11 to label any opposition unpatriotic and a threat to national security, has taken our country into an unjust war under the false assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, costing the lives of hundreds of US service members and innocent Iraqi civilians, and is whipping up fear and even further to try to stampede the public into giving it another term in office, Be it therefore resolved: that Local 10 of the ILWU calls on unions and working people generally to go to Washington DC for a Million Worker March, to demand that politicians and the administration listen to the people who pay their salaries, rather than the voices of big business and the rich, and more Be it further resolved: that this resolution be forwarded to unions, labor councils and labor organizations, as well as other organizations to which workers belong, whether organized or not, so that they can take similar action to organize this March as soon as possible. Be it finally resolved: that this event coincide with all labor organized voter registration drives planned for the next election. ENDORSED BY______________________________________ LOCAL____________________________________________ LABOR COUNCIL______________________________________ INDIVIDUAL__________________________________________ PLEASE FORWARD BY EMAIL TO: TRENT WILLIS, BUSINESS AGENT, ILWU LOCAL 10 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.millionworkermarch.org fax: attention: Trent Willis (510) 441 0610
