------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 20, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
LABOR'S ANTI-WAR STANCE DRAWS FIRE FROM RIGHT By Milt Neidenberg Retired Teamster As the Bush administration continues to assemble weapons of mass destruction against the Iraqi people, the labor movement is mounting an anti-war opposition that is growing by leaps and bounds, fueled by the catastrophic capitalist crisis of war and recession. This crisis has endangered many union contracts that provide health and pension benefits for their members and retirees. More than 2 million jobs have been lost since March 2002, according to the Labor Department. Almost 1.9 million people who are still actively job hunting have been unemployed for at least six months. That is triple the number of two years ago. Since last June, the number of adults who have dropped out of the labor force has jumped by more than 1 million. (New York Times, Feb. 6) "Since November, AOL Time Warner, Boeing, Dow Jones, Eastman Kodak, Good year, J.C. Penney, McDonald's, Merrill Lynch, Sara Lee and Verizon announced layoffs," the Times reported. "Manufacturers of durable goods like computers, furniture and steel have made the deepest cuts." The Bush administration is well aware that the union movement has begun to confront its plans for a "pre-emptive strike"--against organized labor and against the Iraqi people. The class struggle is heating up and the anti-war labor movement is growing. Bush and his Wall Street collaborators have begun a campaign to stop it. They want to convince the public that the labor movement is "unpatriotic." And they hope that repressive laws like the "Patriot Act" will free them to pursue imperialist objectives under the guise of national security. This tactic was demonstrated in the Feb. 8 New York Times under the headline "Patriotism of Labor Called Into Question." The Times reported that last month Tom DeLay, the powerful House Republican majority leader from Texas, signed a letter charging that union "bosses" use "national emergencies" to "grab more power." The fundraising letter was written by the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, a well-funded union-busting organization with connections to the Bush administration. The letter said strikes are a danger to the government. It cited a machinists' union strike at Lockheed-Martin last year. The work ers build F-22 fighter jets and C-130-J military transports. Their strike was characterized as an example of "shamefully exploiting the nation's critical war needs." The letter described other unions--including firefighters, 343 of whom died in the World Trade Center attack, and longshore workers--as unpatriotic and a "clear and present danger to the security of the United States." The letter falsely accused the Inter national Longshore Workers Union of shutting down West Coast ports recently. That was, in fact, a lockout by the bosses. The progressive record of this proud union, one of the first to lead and build the anti-war labor movement, is the real reason for this attack. DeLay is an ultra-right, imperialist war hawk, dubbed "the Hammer" in Congress. He has been at the forefront of reactionary, racist, anti- union, and anti-lesbian/gay legislation. He supported South African apartheid. He is known to be up to his eyeballs in the corrupt and criminal activities of the oil and gas tycoons. And his career was inextricably tied to Enron and its former CEO, Kenneth Lay. Along with President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, not to mention Gen. Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, DeLay has espoused the transnational oil interests of ExxonMobil, Halliburton, Chevron/ Texaco and British Petroleum--all plotting with the military for the takeover of Iraqi oil following a pre-emptive attack. But DeLay had to reverse himself and claim he had never signed the letter. He reportedly did so after he got an indignant response from Teamster President James Hoffa, who scolded DeLay for questioning "the patriotism of myself and a particular affront to our Teamster Brothers and Sisters who are called to active duty." DeLay would only backtrack on orders from the Bush administration. Hoffa, a favorite at the White House, recently became a founding member of a group called "The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq." He has developed close ties to Rumsfeld and Cheney, who sit on the committee's board along with executives from Lockheed-Martin, Lehman Brothers, Bech tel and Charles Schwab. They weren't about to antagonize this important labor contact. Hoffa is looking over his shoulder at Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago, the second-biggest Teamster local and the biggest truck driver and warehouse union in the country. Recently the local passed an anti-war resolution by 399 to one stating, "We value the lives of our brothers and sisters more than Bush's control of Middle East oil profits." Hoffa may not want to get isolated from rank-and-file Teamsters and the emerging progressive development in the labor movement. He may yet have to back off from the White House war criminals and their oil and gas conspirators. The White House gang was embarrassed when Hoffa exposed their machinations. DeLay fumbled the campaign to link strikes and unions as unpatriotic. Chalk this one up for the young but growing anti-war labor movement. BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT The young anti-war movement in labor's ranks began when Bush started the war against the Afghani people. Unionists joined the tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators who responded quickly to that war. They brought their experiences back to their union sisters and brothers and, as a result, anti-war labor resolutions began to emerge. As the war threats against Iraq accelerated, anti-war protests grew. Organized by the International ANSWER--Act Now to Stop War & End Racism-- Coalition, coordinated protests on Oct. 26 and Jan. 18 attracted millions of anti-war and anti-racist activists in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and many other cities in the United States and around the world. Unionists, many of them inspired by Black leaders, helped swell the ranks of these protests. AFSCME District Council 1707 President Brenda Stokely and Clarence Thomas, an officer of ILWU Local 10, spoke from the podium at the massive anti-war demonstrations. Thomas brought the impressive ILWU drill team all the way from San Francisco to the Oct. 26 rally in Washington, D.C. They led the march, which attracted a substantial number of union workers. As anti-war labor resolutions were passed across the country--by local unions, central labor councils and state federations too many to list-- it was clear that an anti-war movement in the progressive sector of labor was being born. And it was becoming more effective and influential, reaching the highest levels of the AFL-CIO. Most important, the texts of the anti-war resolutions had a common thread. They connected the war to the economic crisis, attacks on labor, layoffs, budget cuts, and threats to civil liberties and civil rights. The resolutions reminded the public that it is the sons and daughters of working-class families who bear the brunt of war and recession. Most of the resolutions attacked the hundreds of billions of dollars handed over to the Pentagon, Office of Homeland Security and military- industrial empires-- Lockheed-Martin, Boeing and others--leading to shortchanging Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the discretionary spending so desperately needed by poor and oppressed communities. Expectations are high that on Feb. 15, a day of national and international anti-war rallies, labor will demonstrate its resistance to war and recession in even greater numbers. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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