------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 3, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AS 'SHOCK AND AWE' INTENSIFIES:
CAN LABOR SHUT IT DOWN AND SAVE LIVES?
By Milt Neidenberg
"Shut it down! Walk off the job!" These chants are ringing out at massive anti-war demonstrations here and abroad. Since the U.S. imperialist invasion of Iraq began, raining waves of "shock and awe" bombs and missiles on Baghdad, students and youth have provided a splendid example. They walked out of high schools and colleges to protest the illegal war.
Even before the war began, tens of thousands of workers across Europe participated in short strikes. A European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) spokesperson told CNN that "unions in 12 countries--France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portu gal, Austria, and some of the North ern European countries, confirmed their participation." The Associated Press reported that tens of thousand dropped their tools in Germany.
In Britain, the Rail, Maritime and Trans port Union, comprised of train drivers and subway workers, and the Com munication Workers Union, representing British Telecom and post office employees, called all their members to "take pro test action on the day war is officially declared." Bob Crowe, RMT general secretary, has urged workers to "Pile on the pressure. ... If it means sitting on motorways, sitting on streets, or occupying factories, so be it." His members have already caused an enormous disruption of the public transportation network. Political strikes are illegal, but both unions promised to defend their members.
Nothing so militant has occurred here. Nevertheless, an anti-war sector continues to grow within the AFL-CIO. A young, progressive development, it will ultimately change the relationship of forces within organized labor.
Over the past year, anti-war resolutions have swept through the labor movement --from local unions, central labor councils, state federations and even a few international unions. Rank-and-file unionists joined hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators, who responded first to the war against Afghanistan and then to the buildup of this war.
The crushing economic assault on jobs, wages and benefits has spurred the emergence of anti-war resolutions that connect the war to economic cuts and threats to civil liberties and civil rights. They remind millions of unionists that the sons and daughters of working class families bear the brunt of war and recession.
As more of the ranks of labor join forces with the many millions of constituents comprising the anti-war, anti-racist movement, the potential for creative job actions at the workplace has become more favorable. They may come sooner than later, and possibly start as an economic strike.
In February, U.S. Labor Against the War held an international telephone news conference. More than 200 unions from 53 countries on five continents, represent ing over 130 million workers, agreed on a joint statement rejecting a U.S. war against Iraq.
On March 12, USLAW called for coordinated anti-war activities that were primar ily educational. It was an effort to over come the Bush/Pentagon lies and forged documents, so pervasively repeated by the corporate media--lies like "Iraq is an imminent threat to the U.S. population" and "Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center," among others.
Many trade unionists are not buying into the phony propaganda. They added their voices to the massive demonstrations on March 15 and 22 here and around the world. As U.S. soldiers come home in body bags and more Iraqis die, the anger of the movement will rise.
Even before casualties take full effect, Wall Street is involved in billions of confidential contracts being handed out by the Bush administration to its oil buddies, enhancing their wealth, power and profit. The beneficiaries of these "cost plus fixed fees" include the Halliburton company, headed by Dick Cheney before he became Bush's vice president, and Bechtel, whose directors include former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger.
Richard Perle was appointed by Secre tary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to chair the powerful Defense Policy Board. Perle recently got a $750,000 retainer from WorldCom, a bankrupt telecommunications corporation now under criminal investigation that is lobbying the government for lucrative contracts.
The "No blood for oil" placards carried by demonstrators expose the real motives of the Wall Street/Washington/Pentagon war against the Iraqi people.
Since the U.S. invaded Iraq with only the British ruling class at their side, the AFL-CIO national leaders have stood on the sidelines. Ignoring the huge outpourings of anti-war demonstrators, including thousands of union members, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney issued a statement that could have been written by his Democratic Party friends. These labor leaders are isolating themselves from an important power base that can help in the struggle against the insidious, all-out attacks on labor that accompany the war.
History has confirmed over and over that all profound social change comes from below--from the workers and the oppressed nationalities. It is only from their sacrifices that new and creative forms of struggle will develop to end this barbaric system of wars and recessions. n
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