NYCLAW Support for ILWU May Day
Antiwar Work Stoppage
NYCLAW salutes:
The ILWU's Pacific Coast May Day
Shutdown to Stop the War in Iraq and Afghanistan By New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)
It will take a mutiny to end this war. The ILWU has a proud tradition of work stoppages to protest South African apartheid and U.S. death squads in Central America. Your May Day action shows how workers -- both in and out of uniform -- have the collective power to end this war, bring the troops home now, and get the U.S. out of the Middle East.
From the beginning, Bush & Co. have sought to justify this war for oil and empire with phony claims about "fighting terrorism," finding "weapons of mass destruction," and spreading "democracy." Despite overwhelming rejection of its policies at the polls, the administration has steadily escalated its war in the Middle East.
This has meant not only ordering thousands more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, but also arming and financing Israel's war on Lebanon and its increasingly brutal slow-genocide of the Palestinians, launching a proxy invasion of Somalia, bombing Pakistan, and threatening to attack Iran.
As in all such wars, ordinary working people pay the price. In Iraq and Afghanistan, this war has killed more than a million people, caused more than 50,000 G.I. casualties, promoted civil war, cost at least $1.2 trillion and pushed the economy into crisis — with no end in sight.
At home, the administration continues to attack civil liberties, the Arab-Muslim community, undocumented immigrants, Katrina refugees, people of color and labor.
Yet this is a bipartisan war. Congressional Democrats -- including senators Clinton and Obama -- have given Bush every penny he has asked for. They have refused to filibuster war spending (which requires only 41 Senate votes) and won't even promise to get out by the end of the next presidential term in 2013. At most, they call for "redeployment" to maintain U.S. control of the region.
A generation ago, a war ended when Vietnamese resistance and the Black freedom movement ignited a grassroots working class mutiny in the military, auto plants, ghettos and barrios, against what Martin Luther King Jr. accurately called "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today . . . my own government."
It will take a similar mutiny to end this war. The ILWU has a proud tradition of work stoppages to protest South African apartheid and U.S. death squads in Central America. Your May Day action shows how workers -- both in and out of uniform -- have the collective power to end this war, bring the troops home now, and get the U.S. out of the Middle East.
Issued by NYCLAW Co-Conveners
(Other affiliations listed for identification only): Larry Adams, Former President, NPMHU Local 300, Michael Letwin, Former President, UAW Local 2325/Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys, Brenda Stokely, Former President, AFSCME DC 1707; N.E. Regional Coordinator, Million, Worker March Movement
By New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW) nyclaw01@gmail.com
April 26, 2008
NYC Lawyers for May Day
April 24, 2008
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 Coa
st 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: 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
September 3, 2007
Labor's failure
James Carroll has written very insightful books about Vietnam and our current imperial quagmire. Check out “Prince of Peace” for a heartbreaking indictment of the Catholic Church in Vietnam. Meanwhile, here’s his Boston Globe essay for Labor Day:
Labor's failure
By James Carroll, Globe Columnist | September 3, 2007
Goodbye borders. Goodbye regulation. Welcome to the free market, a free-for-all that destroys freedom. The very conditions of transcendent inequality that gave rise to the labor movement in the first place are now being rapidly re-created on a global scale, with unions reduced to the role of sputtering kibitzers.http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/03/labors_failure/