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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=lduncan@igc.org href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org">Larry Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=lduncan@igc.org href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org">Larry
Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, October 17, 2011 8:27 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Occupy Wall Street, the Trade Union Movement and the Fight
to Stop the Cuts & Concessions -- Statement by the Editorial Board of The
Organizer Newspaper</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial><B>The
ORGANIZER Newspaper</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>P.O.
Box 40009</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>San
Francisco, CA 94114</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial><A
href="mailto:theorganizer@earthlink.net">theorganizer@earthlink.net</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Tel.
415-641-8616</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>----------</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Occupy Wall Street, the Trade Union Movement and the Fight to Stop
the Cuts & Concessions</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; FONT: 27px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Statement by the Editorial Board of The Organizer
Newspaper</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; FONT: 27px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Tens
of thousands -- if not hundreds of thousands -- of people have taken to the
streets over the past four weeks across the United States as part of an Occupy
Wall Street movement to protest the intolerable conditions of massive
unemployment, growing inequality, rampant home foreclosures, and stepped-up cuts
in the social safety net. Their outrage has been especially focused against the
bailout of Wall Street, while Main Street has been left to languish, and the
takeover of the political system by big-money interests.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>A
growing number of trade unionists have joined this movement, first as individual
workers, then as part of an increasing number of union contingents that have
joined the OWS activists to build large protest actions, often with more focused
political demands.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>One of
the largest actions in the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, witnessed
thousands of union and community activists -- mostly Black and Latino --
marching to Wells Fargo Bank on October 12 in response to a call by the
union-based Jobs with Justice, Causa Justa and other organizations to demand an
immediate halt to home evictions and a moratorium on foreclosures. Their leaflet
included the following wording:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>"We
are the 99%. From Wall Street to Market St., we demand an end to racist
profiteering off of foreclosure and immigrant detention! We demand full
employment, social services and civil liberty for all. From San Francisco to
Kabul, we demand an end to corporate war and militarism that target communities
of color, tearing our families and planet apart."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>This
explosion of anger against the unbridled greed of the capitalists --
particularly the banksters and speculators -- is legitimate. The protesters
speak for millions of people in this country. They speak for the working-class
majority. They speak for the 99% -- all of whom have said in one form or
another, "Enough is Enough!"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Obama and Democrats Seek to Co-Opt the Movement</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>President Barack Obama says he shares the values of the Occupy
movement. "I think people are frustrated, and the protesters are giving voice to
a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works," Obama
declared.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>MoveOn.org, Progressive Democrats of America and many other liberal
groups have explicitly urged their supporters to join OWS to help steer this
movement toward their overall goals, including their goal of "stopping the right
wing in November 2012" -- by which they mean vote for Obama. Some prominent
figures are calling for the OWS to play the same role in relation to the
Democratic Party that the Tea Party has played in relation to the Republican
Party.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>But
what is the Obama administration doing? What is the record of his
administration? The Obama administration had a majority in the Congress. It
could have challenged Wall Street and begun to implement the change that the
millions of people across the nation had demanded when they voted for Obama in
2008. But it did just the opposite. It bailed out the banksters and speculators
to the tune of more than $4 trillion -- more than half of which is still sitting
in the Wall Street coffers collecting interest while more than 27 million people
are unemployed and more than 50 million people face foreclosures.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>And
today, Obama and the bipartisan congressional "Super Committee of 12" are
pushing forward with even more devastating plans. Obama, in keeping with the
"Grand Bargain" deal he had struck with House Majority Leader John Boehner last
spring regarding the budget deficit, is urging the "Super Committee" to enact
cuts of up to $3.5 million in the social safety net -- particularly in Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- over the next 10 years.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
program most immediately targeted by the politicians in the pay of the Wall
Street operatives is Medicaid, which affects the lives of 58 million recipients
and their family members. Forty-nine percent of Medicaid recipients are
children, 25% are adults, 10% are older Americans, 15% are disabled, and all are
low-income.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Cuts
to Medicaid are especially dangerous for Blacks and Latinos, who are more likely
to rely on this vital program. If people on Medicaid lose their benefits, the
results will be greater illness and disability, increased poverty, and even
death.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>This
is why the central question facing the OWS movement -- and the working class
majority as a whole -- is putting an end to the murderous cuts against working
people, beginning with an end to the cuts in Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid -- all of which are imposed by the Wall Street/credit agencies'
dictates, in the name of balancing the budget deficits.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
demand that needs to be raised louder and louder to ensure the independence and
fighting unity of this movement is: "Make Wall Street Pay For the Crisis, NOT
Working People! STOP THE CUTS AND CONCESSIONS, NOW!"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>And
this demand -- coupled with specific demands to address the crisis such as
"Nationalize the Banks!" or "Repossess the $2.2 Trillion in the Wall Street
Coffers to Fund a Public Works Program to Put 27 Million People Back to Work!"
-- must be addressed to the politicians in Washington. They are the ones who
make the decisions. They are the ones who can make Wall Street pay.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Responsibility of the Trade Union Officials</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Toward
this end, the entire working class, beginning with the trade unions and their
community partners, needs to be mobilized. It is the responsibility of the trade
union officials to organize everywhere this mass mobilization, independently of
the Democratic and Republican parties, which have been bailing out the banksters
and pushing the bosses' austerity measures. And this all-out mobilization of the
working class has to take place at the federal, state and local
levels.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
trade unions have the means to organize these mass mobilizations and strike
actions to demand: "No more concessions! Make Wall Street Pay for the Crisis!"
With the growing momentum created by the OWS movement, the time is now for labor
and its community allies to pull out all the stops and organize the kind of
fightback that can put a stop to the ruling-class assault and turn things around
in the interests of the working-class majority.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>But,
clearly, the trade union officials are not doing this. AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka has given lip service in support to the OWS movement, but he has not
called out all the troops to take to the streets to demand "Stop the Cuts!" or
"Jobs For All!" Instead, he is urging union members and their supporters to
support Obama's new Jobs Act, which at best would create jobs for 1 to 2 million
people, while furthering depleting the Social Security fund to pay for his jobs
program -- which is unacceptable.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Likewise, Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America
(USWA), has lavished great praise upon the OWS, but only to urge the movement to
help labor fight the Republicans in 2012.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>This
"support" by the labor officialdom for the OWS is a convenient way for them to
get off the hook. It is easy for the labor officials and their Democratic Party
allies to point their fingers at Wall Street. Even the Tea Party people have
targeted Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Bank. But the union tops are not
putting any resources into mobilizing their members, and -- more important --
they are not confronting the politicians that have enabled the Wall Street fat
cats to get even fatter on the backs of working people.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
labor officialdom's silence in relation to the impending assault on Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid is deafening. Without a doubt, a deal has been
struck between Obama and Trumka to get labor to go along with these cuts in
exchange for a pledge by Obama to seek some meager sources of tax revenue from
Wall Street and the rich.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>What Way Forward?</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>In the
San Francisco Bay Area, a large number of local trade unions have come together
with a wide array of community organizations in a Re-Fund California coalition.
They are calling for major protests in San Francisco and Long Beach, California,
on November 9-17, when the regents of the University of California and the
California State University systems gather to discuss implementing major tuition
increases and program cuts (including cuts to ethnic studies departments
statewide) that would further devastate these once proud public university
systems.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
Re-Fund California call states, in part:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>"Our
growing movement is not a moment too soon. This week, state budget analysts are
expected to propose about $2.5 billion in new cuts to education.
...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>"Our
November Week of Actions will come on the heels of thousands taking to the
streets this month. Our Week of Actions are about making Wall Street and the
rich pay."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
California Faculty Association has called for strikes at two CSU campuses (East
Bay Hayward and Dominguez Hills) during this period to demand NO
CUTS!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Student and union activists -- including general assemblies of the
Occupy Wall Street movement at campuses such as San Francisco State University
-- are coming together across California to support this November Week of
Actions. Demanding "No Cuts, No Concessions!" and building mass mobilizations,
organizing walkouts and sit-ins, and promoting strike actions on other CSU
campuses are the order of the day.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial><B>"No
Cuts to the Social Safety Net!"</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Building on the momentum of the OWS movement and forging united-front
coalitions such as those taking shape in California to stop the cuts in public
education can and must take place across the country around this or other
crucial demands of concern to working people.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Most
important, these actions can become stepping stones in the fight to stop the
massive cuts in the social safety net -- perhaps the biggest attacks ever on the
working class and all the oppressed in the history of this country.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>In the
San Francisco Bay Area, trade unions and their community allies are beginning to
organize for a mass action the first week of December to demand "No Cuts to
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The "Super Committee of 12" is expected
to release its recommendations to the Congress at the end of November, and the
Congress is expected to vote on these recommendations before the end of the
year.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
San Francisco Labor Council is organizing a teach-in on October 24 to educate
about the impending attacks on the social safety net and to build a coalition --
together with other Bay Area labor councils, CARA, Jobs with Justice, and other
community organizations -- with the aim of organizing a mass action in the
streets that can send a powerful signal that working people will not accept the
cuts. Similar teach-ins and coalitions can and must be organized all across the
country.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Most
important, if working people are to succeed in forcing the Congress to say "No"
to the Cuts in the social safety net, it will be necessary for the AFL-CIO,
Change to Win, the NAACP, the main retiree organizations -- and all the
organizations that over the past four weeks have supported the Occupy Wall
Street movement -- to draw a line in the sand and fight the cuts by any means
necessary, including organizing a one-day walk-out/sick-out/strike/day of
action, together with the OWS movement, around the specific demand of "NO Cuts,
No Concessions!"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>To get
there, it will be necessary to organize "No Cuts/No Concessions Committees" in
unions and community organizations to (1) build local actions against the cuts
in the social safety net and (2) press the national leadership of the trade
union movement to issue a national call to action against these cuts, preferably
during the first week of December.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
tide of resistance is rising. The time for action is now!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
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