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CounterPunch
January
17, 2003
Workers Against
War
"Our
member are split 50/50 on Bush. Fifty don't believe a word he
says. Fifty think he's a liar."
by JOANN WYPIJEWSKI
As entrails to ancient augurs, the water in toilets
on upper floors of the Sears Tower presents to us signs, omens,
the coded messages from which to coax the metaphors for our age.
Lapping back and forth within the bowls, the water betrays the
ceaseless stress and sway of America's tallest building. "The
whole thing is basically just a steel skeleton. Think of the
steel as a wire", my friend Marty Conlisk, a union electrician
who has worked on just about every skyscraper in Chicago, suggested.
"What happens when you put stress on a wire? It bends. Enough
stress, over enough time, and it snaps." Outside the Tower
a banner exhorts passersby, "Stand Tall America". Marty
figures that "one day they're going to have to take the
building down, or it's going to come down".
I was in Chicago for a meeting on January
11 of about 100 union antiwar advocates or activists from across
the country, gathered there to initiate a national labor organization
against a war that, in its hottest phase, has yet to begin. The
term "historic", used throughout the day, was not misplaced.
Among the group were Staughton Lynd from Youngstown, who'd chaired
the first demonstration on Washington against the Vietnam War
in April of 1965; Frank Emspak from Wisconsin, who'd chaired
the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam
when it called the first mass days of protest in October 1965;
and Jerry Tucker from St. Louis, who was present when unions
formed a peace faction outside the ultra-hawkish AFL-CIO in 1971,
by which time, as he notes, the Vietnamese had won the war. Something
profoundly different is happening now, and while it's unclear
how broad labor opposition will become, its very existence, now
given national expression, represents the deepest crack in the
supposed consensus for war.
The working class, unions particularly,
aren't usually associated with antiwar sentiment. Immediately
after 9.11, the Machinists famously bellowed for "vengeance
not justice," John Sweeney said the unions stood "shoulder
to shoulder" with George Bush in the war on terror, and
many labor leftists dove for cover, saying even raising a discussion
on the prospect of endless war was too risky. There was a war
at home the latter argued-the sinking economy, assaults on immigrants-and
it could be neatly filleted from the war abroad.
At least as many people were killed in
Afghanistan as died in New York, and in exchange for fealty to
national security through slaughter, the Machinists at got layoffs
at Boeing, layoffs in the airline industry, a concessionary contract
at Lockheed Martin. Sweeney and Co. got to watch as Bush intervened
against the West Coast longshore workers and threatened to strip
dockworkers permanently of the right to strike, as civil servants
first in the US Attorneys' offices, then in the Office of Homeland
Security lost collective bargaining rights, as immigrants were
fired from their airport screening jobs and unions forbidden
to organize, as 850,000 government jobs crept toward the privatizing
block, as unemployment rose, benefits ran out, the rich got goodies
and government workers, soldiers included, were stiffed on pay.
For its part, the timorous left got more evidence than needed
of the naivete of its argument. (It also has to be said that
a few bold labor leftists have paid for their early stance against
war with the loss of their elective offices, but they were never
under illusions that principle comes without a price.)
Now enters US Labor Against the War.
Its creation does not signal an about-face by top union leadership,
though that is to be desired, but rather the convergence of an
antiwar spirit first expressed in ad hoc labor organizations
in New York, San Francisco and Washington, then in an increasing
number of local labor bodies throughout the country. The AFL-CIO
is still in the war column, though more reluctantly. The executive
council of only one International union, AFSCME, has passed a
resolution against war on Iraq. That one considers such an invasion
a distraction from the war on terror and "a last resort",
assuming the UN gives the go-ahead, but it is interesting because
at the union's convention last June the leadership did all it
could to silence and isolate antiwar delegates. Ultimately, it
could not ignore what was percolating from below.
US Labor Against the War is the result
of a similar process. Since 9.11 at least forty-two locals, fourteen
district or regional councils, thirteen central labor councils,
five state federations, four national labor organizations and
twenty-two local committees have passed antiwar resolutions.
These represent more than two million people, and that estimate
is low, as many more labor bodies have gone on record than were
counted in time for the Chicago meeting.
"We are having this meeting because
our members demanded it", Jerry Zero, secretary treasurer
of Teamsters Local 705 in Chicago, which hosted the gathering,
said at the outset. "Our membership is split 50-50. Fifty
percent don't believe a thing President Bush says, and 50 percent
think he's a liar."
Local 705 is the second-largest local
in the Teamsters. Zero, who has long been identified with progressive
causes, calls its members largely conservative. While there are
members who dispute this, it's fair to say that truck drivers
in the Heartland do not fit any standard antiwar profile. Last
October at a general meeting a member of the local introduced
an antiwar resolution. His father fought in Vietnam and bears
the psychic scars. The statement does not embrace or even mention
the war on terror, the disarming of Saddam, UN inspections or
international military coalitions. It simply states, "We
value the lives of our sons and daughters, of our brothers and
sisters more that Bush's control of Middle East oil profits",
and "We have no quarrel with the ordinary working-class
men, women and children of Iraq who will suffer the most in any
war". After noting the economic implications for the US
working class, it resolves that "Teamsters Local 705 stands
firmly against Bush's drive for war". Zero said he had expected
vigorous disagreement and was stunned when, out of 403 members
present, no one spoke in favor of war. The resolution passed
402 to 1. 705's resolution became the template for the resolution
ultimately adopted, with additions and alterations, as the statement
of US Labor Against the War. (See below.) Here, though, there
was lengthy, passionate debate. It's worth reviewing that briefly
for the larger lessons it holds.
First, disagreement needn't lead to ruin.
As Bob Muehlenkamp, a longtime labor organizer who coordinated
the Chicago meeting, noted, the subject at hand was one of the
most emotionally and politically charged issues humanity faces.
It would have been bizarre, even troubling, if everyone present-from
union staff to principal officers to radical rank and file-had
moved in sheeplike agreement. People got excited, ideas were
fought over, compromises reached; no one stormed out or tried
to scuttle the project, and by the end of the day people who
had been at opposite poles of the debate said they could work
with the result. Second, a united front requires a confrontation
on just what is unifying. Debate hinged on whether the new group
should support the disarming of Iraq, containment of Iraq, UN
multilateralism and inspections, or whether, like 705's statement,
it should stick to simple principles of national and international
class interest and opposition to war. The whole morning had been
spent setting the table for the group to adopt the former position.
Muehlenkamp pointed out a series of internal union polls showing
that people are more likely to oppose war if the US goes ahead
without UN approval. David Cortwright of Keep America Safe/Win
Without War, which he described as "a mainstream patriotic
coalition of Americans who are concerned about Iraq but don't
want to go to war" and which includes the Sierra Club, Business
Leaders for Sensible Priorities, the NAACP and religious groups,
had been invited to speak. He went into copious detail about
UN procedures-a subject guaranteed to encourage the average person
to switch off-and explained how "we can win against Iraq,
we can win the war on terrorism" without an invasion or
other US unilateral action. It was all perfectly understandable.
Washington is crawling with labor officials,
some International union presidents, who would like to take a
stand against war but are scared. They might be emboldened behind
the shield of the UN, shoulder to shoulder now with liberal business
leaders. The problem is, at least half the people in the room
believe that the war on terror, the threats to Iraq are part
of a US imperial policy, that the US has and will manipulate
the UN, that evidence against Iraq can always be manufactured
or exaggerated for convenience sake, that solidarity with workers
of the world places labor in natural opposition to a war agenda
and that any talk about crises in the Middle East cannot ignore
the question of Palestine. Bill Fletcher, formerly education
director of the AFL-CIO, now the head of TransAfrica and a convener
of the United for Peace and Justice coalition, spoke strongly
on these issues and then warned, "We have to have a broad
level of unity. If we make anti-imperialism the premise of our
work then we're building a sect, and I'm too old for that".
Somehow along the way, though, the UN
position got defined as the neutral one. A draft resolution was
presented reflecting that, to which a group of delegates counterpoised
a modified version of 705's resolution. Thus began the debate.
(Interest declared: I attended the meeting as a delegate from
New York City Labor Against the War, which was formed soon after
September 11, and this substitute draft resolution was initiated
by two of our group's conveners, Michael Letwin and Brenda Stokely.)
There were flared tempers, even moments of redbaiting. It seems
some people had so prepared themselves for a sectarian hijacking
of the proceedings that they were responding to some imagined
revolutionary manifesto rather than to the plainspoken prose
of a Chicago truck driver. And of course other people stood to
denounce labor bureaucrats, the Democratic Party, or sometimes
just to hear themselves talk. Out of this wrangle came a basic
understanding: unity demands simplicity and allows for differences.
The final resolution has elements of both proposed drafts and
includes neither patriotism nor Palestine; it makes no rhetorical
flourish on the nature of fundamentalism or capitalism; it neither
embraces the UN nor denounces American imperialism. It therefore
allows all of those subjects and many more to be freely explored
and debated in discussion and organization among workers, which
is, or should be, the whole point.
Third, no one has a monopoly on representing
workers' view of the world. It's not true that workers are all
conservative flag-wavers any more than it's true that they're
all organic anticapitalists waiting to be turned loose against
the system. One of the problems with drafting resolutions that
are meant to reflect what workers think or what workers will
be comfortable with is that the process can so easily tip into
essentialism. In Chicago there were moments when it seemed all
of organized labor was being characterized as obsessed with terrorism
and national security, scared to death, inclined to support military
action though movable depending on the details. Yet again and
again delegates would tell of how the workers had surprised them:
how they voted unanimously against war, how discussion was heartfelt
and strangely one-sided, how the head of the local building trades
council, against all expectation, took an antiwar stand. Many
things determine the picture: race, sex, age, income, experience-and
sometimes nothing anyone could have predicted. What can probably
be said without fear of contradiction is that a lot of people
are confused and their information is bad, and that even if they
have misgivings about war they don't think it's a subject for
the union to take up. That last is a legacy of decades in which
unions either recused themselves from discussion on the most
compelling political issues of the day or were complicit with
government policy and thus developed no independent analysis.
Given how anxious union leaders are said to be about sticking
their necks out on the war question, maybe the most valuable
thing they could do is to initiate open forums, where information
could be shared and issues engaged in freewheeling fashion. As
at Local 705, their members might surprise them. Similarly, those
labor bodies that have taken a stand might further the discussions
they've already had. If they've passed resolutions supporting
UN but not US intervention in Iraq, what if the UN gives America
its fig leaf and the sons and daughters of the working class
go into battle? What if the go-ahead is bought with US bribes
and threats? If labor bodies have passed straight-up antiwar
resolutions, what happens if a war on Iraq begins and is answered
by terrorist attacks in the United States? The debates are far
from exhausted, and this is a time to talk with people, not at
them.
In this spirit, on the night before the
Chicago meeting, Local 705 co-sponsored, with local labor antiwar
activists, a panel discussion the likes of which ought to be
replicated in union halls, schools, community centers, veterans
groups, anywhere that people open to experience and to the strong,
true voice of the heart may gather. It was billed as "Labor
Voices and Veteran Voices Against War" but that hardly captures
it. Bill Davis, an early joiner of Vietnam Veterans Against the
War and the chief steward of a UPS Machinists local in Chicago,
called it "a dream come true", merging his labor and
antiwar identities. And his talk, about the nature of the military
and its recruitment, the economic draft, the plight of veterans,
the history of the American Legion as a home for strikebreakers,
vigilantes, Klansmen and warmongers, put the class angle of militarism
up front, inescapably.
Loretta Byrd, recording secretary of
Teamsters Local 738 in Chicago, talked about family and home,
the twin threats of war and joblessness, and proved there are
more compelling ways to say no to war than through union resolutions,
prompting the audience, "We've all heard that song 'War-What
is it good for?''" and then, shaking her finger, "'Absolutely
nothing.'" I imagined that through everyone's head might
have been running "It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker/friend
only to the undertaker...induction, then destruction, who wants
to die?"
Trent Willis of ILWU Local 10 out of
Oakland described the heavy weather for longshore workers. Brenda
Stokely, who is also president of AFSCME District Council 1707
in New York, reminded people that "the things that are worth
fighting for always take a lot of nerve" and then challenged
the crowd, in words applicable far beyond that room: "If
you cannot talk to your relatives about your politics, your politics
are irrelevant. If you cannot talk to your neighbors about your
politics, your politics are irrelevant. If you cannot talk to
your co-workers about your politics, your politics ain't worth
having." Dan Lane, who trade unionists across the country
know from his galvanizing role in the Staley struggle of the
early 1990s in Decatur, spoke of growing up in a boys' home and
entering the Marine Corps at 17 because "it was just a natural
progression" from the boot-camp style home and Saturday
afternoons spent watching Hollywood war movies. He did two tours
of duty in Vietnam, saw more carnage than a soul is meant to
handle, beat up an officer, was demoted from sergeant, collapsed,
came home and went through twenty-two jobs in four years. He
recalled that during the Staley struggle Illinois was called
"The War Zone" because of all the strikes or lockouts
there at the time. "There is a war that is continually being
waged against workers", he said. "That is the way of
life. It's a war where people don't usually come out and have
strikes. It's a war where someone is just forced to sign a piece
of paper. Because that's what most people deal with going into
negotiations every day. It's not about negotiations; it's about
them telling you what you're supposed to accept. And most of
the time, people accept; you don't hear about them." The
war abroad had come home. It just took a while to realize it
had always been home.
Rather than spend gobs of money on ads
in The New York Times that nobody reads, antiwar groups, particularly
those like US Labor Against the War, ought to take this kind
of talk on the road. There isn't so much support for the war
program that some real soul-to-soul and pressure in the right
places can't turn it around. During question time an 18-year-old
from DePaul University who is trying to rouse students against
the war said he thought the veterans should come to his school.
After all, he said, he has only 18 years of knowledge and experience,
"and that's not a lot".
Footnote: US Labor Against the War has as its immediate
objective building the largest possible labor participation in
the January 18 demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco.
Workers, friends and family are urged to assemble in DC, with
union colors and banners ablaze, at 12 PM at 4th and Jefferson
Dr. SW (at the northeast corner - 2 blocks south and west of
3rd & Constitution). In San Francisco, they are asked to
meet at 11 AM at Drumm and Market Streets, in front of the Hyatt
Hotel. Another aim is to get as many unions and labor bodies
to adopt or endorse the founding resolution. For more information,
contact Kabob240@aol.com,
or G8751@erols.com.
WE ESTABLISH U.S.
LABOR AGAINST THE WAR
WHEREAS, over 100 trade unionists from
76 local, regional and national unions, central labor councils
and other labor organizations representing over 2 million members
gathered in Chicago for an unprecedented meeting to discuss our
concerns about the Bush administration's threat of war; and
WHEREAS, union members and leaders have
the responsibility to inform all working people about issues
that affect their lives, jobs and families, and to be heard in
the national debate on these issues; and
WHEREAS, the principal victims of any
military action in Iraq will be the sons and daughters of working
class families serving in the military who will be put in harm's
way, and innocent Iraqi civilians who have already suffered so
much; and
Whereas, we have no quarrel with the
ordinary working class men, women and children of Iraq, or any
other country; and
Whereas, the billions of dollars spent
to stage and execute this war are being taken away from our schools,
hospitals, housing and Social Security; and
Whereas, the war is a pretext for attacks
on labor, civil, immigrant and human rights at home; and
Whereas, Bush's drive for war serves
as a cover and distraction for the sinking economy, corporate
corruption and layoffs; and
Whereas, such military action is predicted
actually to increase the likelihood of retaliatory terrorist
acts; and
Whereas, there is no convincing link
between Iraq and Al Qaeda or the attacks on Sept. 11, and neither
the Bush administration nor the UN inspections have demonstrated
that Iraq poses a real threat to Americans; and
Whereas, U.S. military action against
Iraq threatens the peaceful resolution of disputes among states,
jeopardizing the safety and security of the entire world, including
Americans; and
Whereas, labor has had an historic role
in fighting for justice; therefore
We hereby establish the "U.S. Labor
Against the War' (USLAW)"; and
Resolve that U.S. Labor Against the War
stands firmly against Bush's war drive; and
Further resolve that U.S. Labor Against
the War will publicize this statement, and promote union, labor
and community antiwar activity.
Adopted January 11, 2003 in Chicago,
IL.
JoAnn Wypijewski,
a journalist in New York, is a member of the National Writers
Union/UAW 1981 and New York City Labor Against the War. She can
be reached at: jw@counterpunch.org
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January
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