[Peace-discuss] labor and News notes 030817

[Ricky Baldwin]

Great job, as always, Carl-

I didn't want to seem to quibble at the meeting,
because (as a dues-paying member of the IWW, by the
way) I certainly appreciate this historical note and
relevance to the present...

> Eighty-five years ago, some hundred members of the
> IWW union were
> sentenced in Chicago for opposing US participation
> in WW I, some receiving
> sentences of 20 years in prison. Collectively, the
> defendants were fined a
> total of $2,500,000. The IWW was virtually
> destroyed. The suppression of
> dissent in the US during and after the first World
> War -- when "liberal"
> presidents and judges jailed even presidential
> candidates -- suggests
> comparisons with the present. After all these years,
> the labor movement
> remains obsequious: "The AFL-CIO Executive Council,
> at its meeting in
> Chicago on Aug. 5-6, decided to continue its
> virtually unbroken silence
> about events in Afghanistan, the Middle East and the
> war in Iraq. At a
> press conference, AFL-CIO's political director Karen
> Ackerman stated that
> organized labor would have the 'biggest ever'
> campaign to defeat President
> George Bush in the 2004 elections. But in response
> to reporters'
> questions, she said that the AFL-CIO campaign would
> focus exclusively on
> domestic issues." [PR 0817]

... the AFL-CIO certainly purports to represent
organized labor in this country, though there are
still a few unions that don't belong to the AFL-CIO -
like the IWW, United Electrical Workers, National
Education Association - and now the Carpenters Union
(for better or worse).  Even the member unions, in
fact, don't necessarily line up with the AFL-CIO on
any number of issues, but the AFL-CIO's positions are
certainly a significant indicator for where labor is.

One additional note, however: thousands of union
members, hundreds of local unions, some multi-union
councils (Philadelphia's Central Labor Council, for
one) and a few national unions have endorsed US Labor
Against the War (USLAW) since its founding in Chicago
this winter.  Together these organizations represent a
couple of million workers, altho all of them certainly
would not agree with USLAW.  Still, it's significant
in a similar way to the AFL-CIO's positions, albeit on
a smaller scale.

These anti-war unionists have been increasingly
visible at the national anti-war demos, build more and
stronger ties to an international
labor-against-the-war movement, and are having a big
anti-war "labor assembly" in Chicago in October to
make some further plans to 'agitate, educate and
organize' against the Bush wars (see Al Kagan's
forward to this list for more info).

I'm sure Carl doesn't mean to belittle these efforts. 
He has a lot of territory to cover every week, after
all.  Just thought I'd throw it in.

Ricky 


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