>file. These sent a message to the mayor that the workers
>were prepared to strike for economic justice--despite the
>infamous, anti-union, strike-breaking Taylor Law that would
>fine them two days' pay for each day on strike.
>
>On the final day of the old contract, the mayor got a
>judge to put a gun to the head of the union to head off the
>strike. The judge issued an injunction that threatened
>fines of $25,000 and up for each striker and $1 million for
>the union--if they even talked about striking, let alone
>actually struck.
>
>It was an unprecedented, unconstitutional use of the
>powers of the mayor, the courts, and the cops--who
>threatened to round up members if they even said the word
>strike or carried a sign. Hillary Rodham Clinton,
>Giuliani's Democratic senatorial opponent, joined in by
>voicing support for the Taylor Law and denouncing any
>attempt by public-sector workers to strike.
>
>Unfortunately, the local and national AFL-CIO leadership
>failed to respond to these vicious strike-breaking tactics.
>The strike never materialized.
>
>Clearly, this was more than a struggle for a decent
>contract. It was class war unfolding. And it highlighted as
>a primary issue public-sector workers' right to strike.
>
>A great deal of credit should be given to New Directions.
>Its members aroused, organized and gave leadership to
>workers in the struggle to challenge the Taylor Law. And
>they stood up as well as they could to the anti-union
>drumbeat from the mayor, the media and Wall Street.
>
>The 33,000 MTA workers face another union election in the
>near future. The lessons of this bitter struggle and the
>conduct of those leaders who fought the hardest against the
>MTA, Giuliani and Wall Street should remain fresh in their
>minds at voting time. Inevitably, it will be these leaders
>who will have to again face the class enemies who are
>determined to undermine their union contract and deny them
>their basic constitutional right to strike.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <009801bf7ff6$ec2010b0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Groups plan to shut down IMF meeting in April
>Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:15:08 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 2, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>BATTLE OF SEATTLE II:
>GROUPS PLAN TO SHUT DOWN IMF MEETING IN APRIL
>
>By John Catalinotto
>
>Building on the enthusiasm from the successful confrontation
>with the World Trade Organization in Seattle last November,
>groups all over the United States have called for a protest to
>shut down the International Monetary Fund meeting in
>Washington on April 16.
>
>While organizing is in its early stages, students from many
>campuses and activists in other areas have indicated to
>Workers World that the movement that began in Seattle will
>have its first encore in Washington this spring.
>
>Even more than the WTO, the IMF is a direct expression of
>the desires of the major banks in the big imperialist
>countries. U.S., West European and Japanese big capital calls
>the shots in this institution. The World Bank, whose meeting
>is set for April 17, is in the same category.
>
>Almost all countries--certainly all countries that depend on
>the capitalist-run international economy--must be able to
>obtain credit to carry out international trade. They can't
>obtain credit unless the IMF approves their economic policies.
>
>But IMF approval is based on one major consideration: Will
>the banks that loaned money to the government or to firms in
>the particular country be paid back? To guarantee the payback,
>the IMF usually insists that the government balance the
>budget, end subsidies on items like food and gasoline, and cut
>government medical care and other social benefits. Poorer
>countries that rely on imports are required to drop trade
>barriers that hamper economic penetration by the richest
>imperialist powers.
>
>The latest big IMF squeeze, after the market and currency
>crash in Asia, led to millions of job losses and
>impoverishment of tens of millions of workers and their
>families in Indonesia, south Korea, Russia and elsewhere.
>
>People all over the world are encouraged to see young people
>in the United States protesting against the IMF and the World
>Bank and the WTO--because these organizations are the
>instruments the big banks and monopolies in the imperialist
>countries use to exploit labor worldwide.
>
>At a conference on "Globalization and Development
>Problems" held in Havana at the end of January, Cuban
>President Fidel Castro said Cuba is able to survive
>"because we don't belong to the IMF." He added that by
>maintaining state ownership and control of its economy and
>a socialist system of distribution, Cuba is better
>protected against the financial shocks that have shaken the
>increasingly globalized world economic system.
>
>Castro hit the IMF as "the executioner that pulls the string
>so that the guillotine's blade falls on the heads of Third
>World nations."
>
>SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING OF THE VULTURES
>
>IMF ministers meet every six months in Washington. Their
>next meeting, in mid-April, is expected to be the scene of
>Seattle-like protests.
>
>Already, groups from New York, San Francisco, Seattle,
>Winnipeg, Bloomington, Ind., Chicago and many other
>communities are planning to confront them, according to
>organizers.
>
>Groups in Haiti, Thailand, Mali, Brazil, south Korea, India,
>Pakistan, Kenya, and the Philippines--countries hurt the most
>by the IMF--as well as in Canada, France and Britain, also
>want to send members to Washington or hold protests in their
>own country.
>
>Groups plan activities for the week before April 16. These
>will lead up to actions by "affinity groups" on the day itself
>with the aim of stopping the most powerful financial ministers
>in the world from conducting business as usual.
>
>The organizations working on the April mobilization locally,
>nationally, and internationally include Direct Action Network,
>the Freedom from Debt Coalition (Philippines), PAPDA (Haiti),
>the Kenya Human Rights Commission, the Metropolitan Washington
>Council of the AFL-CIO, Alliance for Global Justice, Global
>Exchange, Rainforest Action Network, the 50 Years Is Enough
>Network and others.
>
>Workers World spoke with Sarah Sloan, one of the youth
>organizers at the International Action Center, about her
>group's participation in the planned actions in Washington.
>
>"Most of the IAC's actions in the past," said Sloan, "have
>been directed against the military policy of U.S. imperialism.
>We have protested the U.S./NATO war against Yugoslavia, for
>example.
>
>"But NATO can be considered the military wing of the IMF.
>It's the armed collection agency for the banks. Countries
>like Yugoslavia and Iraq that refuse to submit to IMF
>dictates find themselves targeted by the Pentagon and NATO.
>We plan to participate with many other groups and
>organizations in this protest against the bankers and
>financial ministers," said Sloan, "and to show the
>connection between the banks and the bombs."
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <009e01bf7ff7$03338160$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] AFL-CIO and immigrant workers
>Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:15:47 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 2, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL: AFL-CIO & IMMIGRANT WORKERS
>
>The U.S. labor movement's drive to organize new workers,
>especially low-wage workers, is right on target. Any new
>step in this direction must be applauded. The AFL-CIO's new
>position on the rights of immigrant workers is, for the
>most part, such a step.
>
>On Feb. 16 at its mid-winter meeting in New Orleans, the
>AFL-CIO Executive Council passed a resolution declaring
>that labor "stands in solidarity with immigrant workers."
>With this resolution the federation goes on record calling
>for amnesty for all undocumented workers and their
>families.
>
>Along with amnesty, the AFL-CIO is demanding the full
>range of union and legal rights for immigrant workers,
>opposing racist targeting of immigrants of particular
>nationalities, and insisting that "employer discrimination
>against people who look or sound foreign" must end. The
>resolution specifically calls for an end to the "shameless
>delays" in granting legal status to the half-million
>Salvadorans, Guate mal ans, Hondurans and Haitians who fled
>their countries in the 1980s and 1990s. Finally, the
>federation demands a halt to efforts to create a new "guest
>worker" or bracero program.
>
>The new position falls short in some respects. It calls
>for changing, not abolishing, restrictions on immigration
>and sanctions against employers who illegally bring in
>immigrant workers. But why should labor want to prevent any
>worker from coming here? And don't anti-immigrant sanctions
>always end up hurting the workers, not the bosses?
>
>Indeed, the labor movement would be strengthened by more
>international solidarity, without the limitations that
>ultimately prevent full unity of labor. Nothing would
>strengthen the U.S. unions more than completely breaking
>their ties with the bosses here and really standing in
>solidarity with workers around the world. This means
>demanding an end to all immigration restrictions, period.
>But there's more.
>
>Take the colonized nation of Puerto Rico. Workers in
>Puerto Rico are not U.S. workers. In January the AFL-CIO
>hailed the Labor Department's announcement that the unions
>had brought in 265,000 new members in the United States in
>1999. It turns out, however, that 65,000 of these new union
>members are workers in Puerto Rico. The AFL-CIO should have
>pointed out that to count them as U.S. workers negates the
>Puerto Rican nation's struggle to free itself of colonial
>status. That would have been a show of solidarity.
>
>Then there's China. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has
>engaged in a full-throttle Cold War campaign of lies and
>invective against this socialist nation. The AFL-CIO and
>member unions make all sorts of wild claims in their drive
>to bar China from full access to world trade. They claim,
>for example, that unions are illegal in China. In fact, 103
>million Chinese workers are represented by industrial
>unions, a greater proportion of industrial workers than
>have union rights in the United States.
>
>For public-relations purposes, Sweeney and the unions
>frame the anti-China campaign as a battle against big
>corporations that want to do business with China. Actually,
>however, labor has turned its guns against Chinese
>socialism.
>
>But socialist China is not the enemy. Labor's real
>adversary is the U.S.-based corporations that seek to
>super-exploit the Chinese workers and undermine the Chinese
>state. Labor should take a lesson from what happened with
>the overturning of socialism in the former Soviet Union.
>There, life for workers has seriously deteriorated. Pay and
>working conditions have gone from being some of the best in
>the world to among the worst. Industrial accidents and
>pollution have risen sharply. This and worse is what would
>happen to workers in China if the socialist state were
>dismantled.
>
>The AFL-CIO's statements on China have left the impression
>that the U.S. labor federation is hostile to both the
>Chinese people and socialism. That is certainly how workers
>in China see it. That alone should be reason enough for the
>AFL-CIO to reconsider what it is saying and doing on China.
>
>The U.S. labor federation has started to reverse previous
>chauvinist policies and move in the right direction on
>supporting the rights of immigrant workers. But it has more
>to do to embrace international labor solidarity.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
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