------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 22, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
BUSH IS A THREAT, BUT KERRY'S NOT THE SOLUTION: MILLION WORKER MARCH SHOWS LABOR ON THE MOVE
By Milt Neidenberg
Timing is often critical when taking on a struggle to advance the cause of the workers and oppressed. And political program is primary for prosecuting the class struggle. On both counts, the proposal for an Oct. 17 Million Worker March (MWM) on Washington gets high marks. Although time is short and resources are slim, fulfillment of this splendid objective will lay the basis for building an independent, class-wide movement.
On Feb. 26, as the election-year rhetoric of the capitalist parties began to heat up, Local 10 of the International Long shore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in San Francisco proposed this bold initiative. They passed a resolution that a call be sent out to "unions, labor councils and labor organizations, as well as other organizations to which workers belong, whether organized or not, so they can take similar actions to organize this march as soon as possible."
THE MILLION WORKER MARCH WAS BORN.
This militant union is nationally known for its leading role in the struggle against the Iraq war and the anti-labor offensive at home. On April 7, 2003, ILWU Local 10 was involved in a demonstration against the Iraq war. They honored a picket line outside the Oakland terminals of the Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), a major contractor chosen by the Defense Department to rebuild the largest seaport in Iraq. The protest shut the SSA down.
The action led to a brutal attack by the Oakland police. The April ILWU Dispatch vividly describes the event: "They unleashed waves of terror with barrages of lethal rubber bullets, concussion grenades and bean bags filled with metal shot and wooden pellets, to break up the picket line. Scores were injured, many sent to the hospital with severe wounds. Twenty-four protesters and an ILWU business agent were arrested."
Marking the one-year anniversary on April 7, 2004, hundreds of protesters held a rally at the Alameda County court house, marched to an SSA terminal and shut down the entire second shift. Two weeks later the Alameda district attorney dropped all charges against the protesters.
TIME FOR INDEPENDENT STRUGGLE
Following the victory, on May 22, an MWM kickoff rally was held. It sent a strong message that it is time to take the road of independent class struggle and break labor's traditional ties to the "lesser of two evils"- -the Democratic Party.
Clarence Thomas, executive board member of ILWU Local 10 and a nationally-known African American labor union leader, issued the appeal. "This is a Call to working people to unite and mobilize around our own agenda. For the past decade we have been subjected to an unrestrained corporate assault. This is the moment, this is the time for us to advance our own demands, our needs and to proclaim a political agenda in our own vital interests."
Thomas and Trent Willis, another Local 10 leader who is African American, were declared co-conveners for MWM.
Over 250 participated in the rally, representing labor unionists, community acti vists and anti-war protesters from around the country. Chris Silvera--secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 808 in Long Island City, N.Y., and chairperson of the Teamster's National Black Caucus-- summed up the sentiment of the rally. "Now you can sit around and wait for Kerry to do something. But we are going to Washington to shake up the house. We need to take back our country, take back our rights and rip up the Patriot Act."
Individual endorsers included community org ani zers, anti-war representatives and fighters for civil rights like Dick Gregory, Danny Glover and Casey Kasem. The undocumented were represented by the San Fran cisco Day Laborers Pro gram. Within a short time, the entire ILWU Long shore Division endorsed MWM, in spite of the ILWU Inter national endorse ment of John Kerry.
Brenda Stokely gave a passionate appeal to build MWM. She is president of District Council 1707 of the American Federation of State, County, Muni ci pal Employees in New York, and a nationally-known African American woman who is a labor leader and a strong opponent of the Iraq war.
At the recent AFSCME convention of more than 3,000 delegates held in Anaheim, Calif., Stokely was among a number of progressive and anti-war delegates who presented a resolution to end the occupation and bring the troops home. It passed overwhelmingly in spite of an effort by International President Gerald McEntee to water it down.
Under Stokely's leadership, District Council 1707 proposed a resolution to support the MWM. The resolution was tabled, but the AFSCME constitution provides avenues for the fight to continue. The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the South Carolina State AFL-CIO and numerous other locals and councils have joined the initiative.
The National Education Association (NEA), with 2.7 million members, announ ced it is backing the MWM. The NEA has affiliates in every state who work in education--from pre-school to university grad uate programs. Its affiliates are in more than 13,000 communities across the U.S.
The MWM is growing in influence and numbers.
BREAK WITH BIG-BUSINESS PARTIES
Fearful that this development will undermine the "anybody but Bush" campaign, the AFL-CIO leadership has opened up an attack on the MWM.
On June 23, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, through the director of the Field Mobilization Department, sent a memorandum to all State Federations and Cen tral Labor Councils of the AFL-CIO. It read in part, "The AFL-CIO is not a co-sponsor of this effort and we will not be devoting resources or energies toward mobilizing demonstrations this fall. ... We think it is absolutely crucial that we commit the efforts of our labor movement to removing George W. Bush from office."
In a column entitled "Reclaim America," Sween ey praises Kerry's record on behalf of labor. "President Bush's failed policies and Senator John Kerry's (D-Mass) plans to create good jobs," Sweeney wrote, "ensure health coverage and restore pride and momentum to a nation tarnished by the Bush administration's domestic heartlessness and international incompetence." (America at Work, June/July 2004)
By "international incompetence," Sweeney is referring to the U.S. quagmire in Iraq.
The Democrats and Kerry are for internationalizing the conflict and putting more troops and resources into the occupation that has already led to mounting casualties and the diversion of huge amounts of money from social services to the Pentagon. It will only prolong death and destruction for the Iraqi people as well. Kerry voted for the Iraq War and recently the Senate voted 98-0 to expand the Pentagon budget to more than $400 billion.
It would be wise for the AFL-CIO to distance itself from the Democrats' position on the war and to demand: end the occupation and bring the troops home now. The Service Employees International Union, the largest AFL-CIO affiliate, overwhelmingly passed this anti-war resolution at its June convention.
To build an independent, class-wide movement, it is indispensable to break with the two capitalist parties. The AFL-CIO must break the chains binding it to Kerry and the Democratic Party.
Kerry's labor record has to be exposed, not covered up. It has been 10 years since the North American Free Trade Agree ment (NAFTA) passed with his blessing, and to this day he is a supporter of NAFTA as an exemplary model for all U.S. imperialist trade agreements. NAFTA has been a horrendous disaster for the workers, oppressed and impoverished. In the U.S. factories have been shut down, thousands of jobs lost, outsourced to low-paid non-union labor in countries like Mexico, leaving ghost towns in many states.
The Mexican government estimates that between 800,000 and 2.5 million children work instead of attending school. Serious health and safety violations are common in the workplace and sinister environmental dangers pervade the communities surrounding the factories. U.S. corporations collude with local managers. Wall Street bankers and corporate bosses accumulate huge profits as they privatize large swaths of valuable property in underdeveloped countries.
KERRY'S CABAL
Kerry has surrounded himself with a cabal of these bankers and big- business advisors. He has selected as his running mate Sen. John Edwards from North Carolina, where workers, particularly in the textile industries, have suffered under NAFTA. North Carolina is a "right to work" state--that is, a scab state. Laws that exist there and in 20 other states have decimated every gain made by labor, includ ing the right to organize unions.
The Kerry/Edwards slate is an insult to the 13 million organized workers, as well as millions more who yearn to be in unions.
Kerry supports a miserly raise in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7 over two years that will keep most low-paid workers and their families in poverty. He was responsible for the defeat of an extension of unemployment insurance, which lost by one vote, by not showing up. Kerry supports the Clinton workfare program, which has created an underclass of workers and eliminated good-paying union jobs, depriving oppressed workers- including many women of color and single mothers--of daycare, decent housing and educational opportunities.
Kerry has no plans for a massive jobs creation program to alleviate the conditions of millions of unemployed workers. He has supported the massive raids by the Immigration and Naturalization Service--now part of the so-called Department of Homeland Security--on the undocumented. And he has not spoken out against the repressive Patriot Act nor supported same-sex marriage.
How can AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, with his line of "anybody but Bush," ignore all this?
The AFL-CIO is racked with problems and internal tensions. Its leadership needs to support, not attack, an independent class-struggle movement that along with the oppressed nationalities will forge the unity that is so necessary and timely. It is a dangerous oversight for the AFL-CIO to key up the rank and file and their local unions that their saviors are the Kerry/ Edwards ticket.
MWM leaders have eloquently res ponded to Sweeney's opposition to building an independent class-wide movement. This movement will not go away, regardless of the difficulties and obstacles placed in its way. The labor movement and its allies have an alternative to voting for the capitalist "lesser of two evils"--a no-win strategy for the workers and the oppressed nationalities.
That alternative is: Build the Oct. 17 Million Worker March on Washington.
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