Iraqi Workers Want Unions

Statement by

Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions

to 2008 Chevron and ExxonMobil Shareholder Meetings
by Hassan Juma'a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions

c/o USLAW

On May 28, 2008, Chevron and ExxonMobil Corporations will each conduct their annual shareholder meetings. Chevron will convene its meeting at its world headquarters in San Ramon, CA. ExxonMobil will conduct its meeting in Dallas, Texas. Antiwar, environmental and other social justice organizations will conduct protests at each event.
The following statement from the Federation of Oil Unions in Iraq to the shareholders of each corporation will be presented at press conferences conducted in conjunction with these protests. The statement was transmitted by Hassan Juma'a Awad, President of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, to U.S. Labor Against the War for presentation at these events.

To: The Shareholders of ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporations and All Peace Loving People of the World

From: Hassan Juma'a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)

We call upon the governments, corporations and other institutions behind the ongoing occupation of Iraq to respond to our demands for real democracy, true sovereignty and self-determination, free of all foreign interference.

Five years of invasion, war and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery and suffering to our people. In the name of our "liberation," more than a million of our citizens have been killed or wounded, our nation's schools, hospitals and other infrastructure have been destroyed, our neighbourhoods have been bombed, our homes have been broken into, our children have been traumatized, many of our family members and neighbours have been assaulted and arrested, our national treasures have been looted, and nearly twenty percent of our people have been turned into refugees.

The continued occupation fuels the violence in Iraq rather than alleviating it. The occupation has helped to foment and then exploit sectarian divisions and terror attacks where there had been none.

The Ba'athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect and continues to be enforced against us. Our union offices have been raided. Union property has been seized and destroyed. Our bank accounts have been frozen. Our leaders have been beaten, arrested, abducted and assassinated. Our rights as workers are routinely violated. This is an attack on our rights and the basic precepts of a democratic society. It is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country.

We call upon you and all the world's peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.

1. We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country, and utterly reject the agreement being negotiated with the USA for long-term bases and a military presence. Iraq must be returned to full sovereignty.
2. We demand the passage of a labour law promised by our Constitution, that adheres to ILO principles to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain and strike, independent of state control and interference and on which Iraqi trade unionists have been fully consulted.
3. We demand an end to meddling in our sovereign economic affairs by the International Monetary Fund, the USA and UK, and multinational energy corporations, and recognition that no major economic decisions concerning our services and resources can be made while foreign troops occupy our country.
4. We demand that the US government, oil companies and others immediately cease lobbying for the oil law which would fracture the country and hand control over our oil to multinational companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron. We demand that all oil companies be prevented from entering into any long-term agreement concerning oil while Iraq remains occupied. The Iraqi government must tear up the current draft of the oil law, and begin to develop a legitimate oil policy based on full and genuine consultation with the Iraqi people. Only after all occupation forces are gone should a long term plan for the development of our oil resources be adopted.

We seek your support and solidarity to help us end the military and economic occupation of our country.

We look forward to the day when we have a world based on co-operation and solidarity. We look forward to a world free from war, sectarianism, competition and exploitation.

May 28, 2008

http://uslaboragainstwar.org/

Why May Day is Labor's Victory Day

We must never forget our history because it will sustain us in the dark days when we indulge in negative ruminations about the "good old days," which never existed. Please read David Swanson brief historical essay to help put into perspective the various converging forces who will seize upon May Day with righteous passion, and it should be so.
MAY DAY: A Call To Action
Submitted by davidswanson on
Mon, 2008-03-24 13:32
May 1st is shaping up to be quite a day of resistance, with strikes by the ILWU and other unions, plus immigrant rights rallies, and peace and impeachment activities.
It's Mission Accomplished Day (5 Years!)
It's Downing Street Minutes Day (3 Years!)
It's Impeachment Off the Table Day (2 Years!)
It's May Day, the original Labor Day (122 Years!)
If you care about the future of our republic, we encourage you to visit your congress member's nearest office at high noon, local time, on May 1st, and ask for impeachment hearings for the Vice President for Torture, Dick Cheney. Let us know you plan to do it, and find others to do it with you at http://democrats.com/mayday
[...]
The ILWU has committed to blocking ports on May 1st in opposition to the occupation of Iraq.
May Day, the First of May, 2008, is a Thursday.
According to the Bush Administration it is Loyalty Day. Are you feeling loyal?
In case you aren't, FEMA has planned terrorism scare "exercises" on May 1st.
May Day is the real labor day, the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre and the fight for an 8-hour day in Chicago – an American holiday celebrated everywhere except in America.
May Day had a long history in Europe as a seasonal celebration of rebirth and hope. It was also the first of a month, an ideal time for strikes in industrialized nineteenth-century America where workers tended to be paid at the end of the month. At its 1884 convention the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution that all labor would strike on May 1, 1886, to demand an eight-hour day. The media, which in this country has always been completely fair and balanced, predicted a violent Communist insurrection. The Chicago Tribune reported responsibly: "Every lamp-post in Chicago will be decorated with a communistic carcass if necessary to prevent wholesale incendiarism or prevent any attempt at it."
As documented in "Labor's Untold Story" By Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, 62,000 workers in Chicago committed to strike on May 1, another 25,000 demanded an eight-hour day without threatening to strike, and 20,000 were given the eight-hour day before May 1. Meanwhile, the Armours, Swifts, Medills, Fields, and McCormicks [my bold] (Chicago's royalty, people who would have adored Loyalty Day) mobilized the National Guard, the Pinkertons, and specially deputized police.
Workers marched down Michigan Avenue in Chicago instead of working on May 1, 1886, and 340,000 did the same nationwide. Albert Parsons and August Spies spoke at the rally in Chicago, which ended peacefully. [my bold] The Communist insurrection proved as real as Saddam Hussein's long-range missiles. But two days later, Chicago police shot striking workers [my bold] outside McCormick Harvester Works, and labor leaders organized a protest in Haymarket Square for the next day. In the meantime, thousands of workers all over the country were winning the eight-hour day and returning to work.
As the relatively small and peaceful meeting at Haymarket Square was wrapping up, 180 policemen marched on the crowd, and a bomb went off -- which many believe was thrown by an agent provocateur. The Chicago Tribune demanded that Parsons, Spies, Michael Schwab, and Samuel Fielden be hanged for murder. The police began smashing up labor offices and beating up innocent people. "Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards," said John Ashcroft - oops, I mean Julius Grinnell, Chicago's State's Attorney. The four men named above were indicted for murder, along with George Engel, Adolph Fisher, and Louis Lingg. Parsons, who had escaped, became a modern Socrates and turned himself in to face certain death. Testimony from "witnesses" who had been threatened with torture and others who had been paid turned out so contradictory that the prosecution shifted to a focus on the defendants' thoughts and politics. Fielden and Schwab ended up with life sentences; Lingg died in his cell; the others were hung. Parsons left behind a note to his children that included this:
"We show our love by living for our loved ones. We also prove our love by dying, when necessary, for them."
In the tradition of those who have gone before us and sacrificed so much for so many benefits that we take for granted, we are proposing a day of action on May 1, 2008, to include a general strike for peace, impeachment, and human rights. Here are proposals that have already been made from a variety of quarters:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/mayday

May Day -- A World Without Bosses & Borders

NEFAC-NYC calls for contingent at NYC May Day march!

For a World Without Bosses - For a World Without Borders
MAY DAY NYC!
For the International Solidarity of the Working Class!

1pm - Join the IWW march at Cadman Plaza, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Look for the Red & Black flags and banners.
2pm - Rally with the Break the Chains Campaign at Chinatown's Roosevelt Park
4pm - March & Rally with the May 1 Coalition at Union Square
Last Stop - Headquarters of Immigration & Customs Enforcement
This May Day we are marching as workers in struggle against all those who seek to divide us, exploit us, evict us, starve us, attack us,
and kill us.
We are marching as workers in solidarity with workers everywhere.
We are marching as sisters and brothers of the immigrant workers who build this society, who face the exploitation, the deportations, and the terror of the state with dignity and resistance.
We are marching as comrades to the courageous workers on strike this May Day:
To the heroic longshore workers who are striking down the war machine at the ports.
To the insurgent truckers who are striking back on the roads.
We are marching as internationalists who, on this International Workers Day, salute the struggles of workers all over the world, from Mexico to Iran, from Haiti to South Africa, from Colombia to China.
We are marching as anarchists who remember our fallen martyrs and freedom fighters, from the Haymarket 120 years ago to the death rows and death squads of our own time, and who celebrate our proud history this May Day.
We are marching as revolutionaries who believe that liberation will only come when we the workers cast off our own chains, overthrow capitalism, abolish the state, and smash racism and patriarchy once and for all.
Down with the bosses!
Down with the borders!
Long live the struggle of all working people!

JOIN US THIS MAY DAY
workers, comrades, internationalists, anarchists
revolutionaries
Pass it on
We are NEFAC-NYC

By NEFAC-NYC antithesisnyc@gmail.com http://www.nefac.net

Progressives Together on May Day

AN APPEAL TO
THE PROGESSIVE COMMUNITY

From the Troops Out Now Coalition

UNITE & MARCH TOGETHER
ON MAYDAY 2008
IN NEW YORK CITY
GATHER ON THURSDAY, MAY 1 AT 12:00 P.M.
4:00 P.M. RALLY, MUSIC & MARCH AT
UNION SQUARE PARK ON 14TH ST.

Sponsored by: THE MAY 1ST COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT & WORKERS RIGHTS
WORLD EVENTS have made May Day 2008 a turning point. AT NO OTHER TIME in our lives has it been more critical to march together and work together.
WE NOW FACE AN ECONOMIC CRISIS the likes of which we have not seen in our lifetimes that is throwing millions out of their homes, jobs and making it more difficult to get healthcare, an education or even gas and food.
A WAR AGAINST IMMIGRANTS whose true intent is to render millions of workers powerless, and have working people fighting each other when they should be standing together.
AN ILLEGAL COLONIAL WAR that is destroying lives as well as creating a fortune of wealth, making the economic crises far worse.
A SURGE OF RACISM that has immigrant families living in fear that their homes and work places could be raided at any moment.
- That makes more police executions of Black youth inevitable.
- That has become the biggest factor in the presidential elections.
MORE THAN EVER, economic and social justice, peace and the eradication of racism, imperialism, poverty, inequality, exploitation, sexism, homophobia, and the future of our planet has never been more dependent on our solidarity.
OUR CAPACITY TO TRANSFORM--through struggle--a world beset by economic crises and war, into a world where people come before profits is profoundly dependent on forging the level of solidarity that May Day, International Workers Day, has historically always been about--OUR SURVIVAL IS DEPENDENT ON SOLIDARITY.
SPREAD THE WORD, coming together on May Day is a declaration that we will not be divided, we will fight back and we will survive.
MARCH ON MAY DAY
MARCH FOR IMMIGRANT WORKERS RIGHTS:
STOP THE RAIDS
STOP THE DEPORTATIONS
MARCH FOR THE RIGHTS OF WORKERS AND POOR PEOPLE EVERYWHERE and for their right to organize and fight
MARCH TO END THE WAR:
And in solidarity with those in the labor movement, like the International Long Shore Workers Union on the West Coast – that will be walking off the Job on May 1 to protest the war.
MARCH TO STOP HOME FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS
While the Banks are bailed out
MARCH TO STOP LAYOFFS AND UNION BUSTING
And for the right to healthcare
MARCH TO ROLL BACK RISING GAS & FOOD PRICES
MARCH TO FIGHT RACISM AND REPRESSION from New Orleans to the Mexican Border

• ENDORSE the call to unite and march together on May 1 http://www.may1.info/endorse.shtml
• DONATE to help with organizing expenses http://www.leftshift.org/may1/donate.shtml

May Day... No Peace? No Work!

I'm all for a general strike, as long as people really and truly commit to following through. So far, Americans have resisted putting their opinions on the line at the job site, and with good reason. This is where the power is, in our unity as workers and consumers. So I say, don't just refuse to work., but also refuse to BUY ANYTHING! (Can you hear me, Rev. Billy?)
ILWU Coast Longshore Caucus Calls for May Day Work Stoppages Against the War
by Bob McEllrath, International President, ILWU
FOR WORKERS' ACTION TO STOP THE WAR
ILWU Coast Longshore Caucus Calls for
May Day Work Stoppages Against the War
by Bob McEllrath, International President, ILWU
WHEREAS: On May 1, 2003, at the ILWU Convention in San Francisco resolutions were passed calling for an end to the war and occupation in Iraq; and
WHEREAS: ILWU took the lead among labor unions in opposing this bloody war and occupation for imperial domination; and
WHEREAS: Many unions and the overwhelming majority of the American people now oppose this bipartisan and unjustifiable war in Iraq and Afghanistan but the two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans continue to fund the war; and
WHEREAS: Millions worldwide have marched and demonstrated against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but have been unable to stop the wars; and
WHEREAS: ILWU's historic dock actions,
1) like the refusal of Local 10 longshoremen to load bombs for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1978 and military cargo to the Salvadoran military dictatorship in 1981 and
2) the honoring of the teachers' union antiwar picket May 19, 2007 against SSA in the port of Oakland stand as a limited but shining example of how to oppose these wars; and
WHEREAS: The spread of war in the Middle East is threatened with U. S. air strikes in Iran or possible military intervention in Syria or the destabilized Pakistan;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
That it is time to take labor's protest to a more powerful level of struggle by calling on unions and working people in the U. S. and internationally to mobilize for a "No Peace No Work Holiday" May 1, 2008 for 8 hours to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U. S. troops from the Middle East; and
FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED:
That a clarion call from the ILWU be sent with an urgent appeal for unity of action to the AFL-CIO, the Change to Win Coalition and all of the international labor organizations to which we are affiliated to bring an end to this bloody war once and for all.
Submitted by:
ILWU Local 10

passed overwhelmingly after thorough debate

If you need any further information or wish to send messages of support and solidarity please contact Bob McEllrath, International President, ILWU, 1188 Franklin Street, San Francisco, California 94109. Tel: (+1 415) 775 0533 Fax: (+1 415) 775 1302. Email: robert.mcellrath@ilwu.org

http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=15428

Change Can Come

All text & photos are from:

GI SPECIAL 6A18

Gaza: This Is What Liberation Looks Like

We Feel A Little More Free Today.
It's A Good Thing For The Gazans To Be Able To Breathe

An Egyptian soldier, left, makes no effort to stop Palestinians from Gaza flooding across the border with Egypt, breaking the Zionist siege.

Jan 23 By IBRAHIM BARZAK
Associated Press Writer [Excerpts]

On foot, in cars and in donkey carts, tens of thousands of Gazans flooded into Egypt on Wednesday through a border fence blown up by militants puncturing a gaping hole in Israel's airtight closure
of the Gaza Strip and giving a boost to Hamas.

In a shopping spree that was both festive and frenzied, Gazans cleared out stores in an Egyptian border town, buying up everything from TV sets to soft drinks to cigarettes.

As waves of people swarmed through the destroyed barrier -- some estimated the crowd in the hundreds of thousands -- Egyptian security forces lined up on one side of the border and Hamas forces lined up on the other side.

None of them interfered in any way, and it appeared Hamas militants actively participated in the border breach.

A Transformative Moment Of Respect
An Egyptian riot police hand signals respect for liberated Palestinians at the breached border between Rafah, southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, Jan. 27, 2008.
(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)