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
May Day -- A World Without Bosses & Borders
NEFAC-NYC calls for contingent at NYC May Day march!
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
April 25, 2008
Progressives Together on May Day
AN APPEAL TOTHE PROGESSIVE COMMUNITY
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 ECO
NOMIC 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
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
