[Peace-discuss] co-sponsor the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Here's another take on the matter. --CGE]

	A Community Labor News Feature
	Visit our site at www.CLNews.org/
	Join the discussion at www.CLNews.org/forums/
	======================================

At the August meeting of my Local, AFSCME 444 in Oakland CA, we voted not
to donate money to the AFL-CIO's Freedom Ride after a presentation by an
AFL-CIO staffer.  At September's membership meeting the following letter
was introduced and passed and will be sent to John Sweeney, AFL-CIO
president.

Richard Mellor

---------------------------------------------------------------

September 18, 2003

Dear Brother Sweeney:

On August 21, 2003, AFSCME Local 444 received a guest speaker from the
AFL-CIO. This brother made an appeal to our local that we support the
"Freedom Ride" for the rights of undocumented immigrant workers.  After
considerable debate we voted not to make a donation. Our reasons had
nothing to do with any reluctance to support the rights and interests of
these workers.

We understand that the substandard rights and wages of undocumented
workers is used to drive down the wages of all workers here in the US. If
they are prevented from coming here, this means an even larger pool of
cheap labor in those countries and even more companies
 leaving here to take advantage of that situation. We also understand the
hardship and suffering these brothers and sisters must feel, being unable
to return home to visit their families and friends there, for fear of
being unable to return back to this country.

However, we are very skeptical of what this "Freedom Ride" is really all
about. The original Freedom Rides were part of a mass mobilization of
hundreds of thousands of young people and others to fight against a
vicious racism in the South. They openly defied the law and they had no
real support from the Democrats or Republicans. We must say that the
present "Freedom Ride" does not do justice to that name or the heritage of
that struggle.

We are profoundly critical of the refusal of the AFL-CIO to seriously
mobilize any sector of its membership to fight against the attacks
American workers have faced in recent years. The results are there for all
to see. While productivity has grown by 66% over the last 30 years, the
average wage has grown by 7%. In their never-ending drive to maximize
profits, the corporations break the law at every turn. So do the
politicians. Yet the AFL-CIO slavishly obeys every union-busting judge and
anti-labor law, and the result is lower wages, fewer decent jobs and
weaker unions year after year.

The AFL-CIO and the heads of its affiliated unions have refused to
mobilize their members,and their surrounding communities,to fight for
higher wages and better conditions on the job. Instead they pressure their
members to accept one cut back after another. Politically, they insist
that labor must remain as the spear carrier for the Democratic Party. As
far as increasing the competition between workers here and abroad for who
will work cheapest ("globalization" and "free trade" it's called),there is
no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.

This policy of the leadership of the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions has
failed miserably. AFSCME Local 444 represents blue collar workers in the
local water district, EBMUD. We have fewer workers doing more work and
each contract negotiations it becomes more difficult to maintain our
benefits, wages and contractual protections.

Our members are forced to live further and further from their jobs because
they cannot afford to buy homes closer in. Their children face an
underfunded public education system that is failing them as a result. Once
they graduate, they face an increasingly uncertain future. We all face an
environment that is being wrecked by the corporations and is destroying
our health and that of future generations.

Your failure to lead a real fight for a better life for all workers in
this country - and internationally - is demoralizing and also leads to
divisiveness. In the absence of such a broader fight, millions of workers
see the idea of full citizenship for undocumented immigrant workers as
more people fighting for fewer jobs and resources.

We know that the AFL-CIO leadership claims that they merely follow the
policies of the affiliated unions. This is misleading. The International
leadership of the affiliated unions collaborate together to maintain
"labor peace", meaning lower wages and worse conditions.  The leadership
of the AFL-CIO (from the national level on down to the various central
labor councils) does everything in its power to help the leadership of its
affiliates keep its membership in line.

We look forward to the day that the labor movement, or some section of
it,joins with the present youth movement as well as community groups and
fights for what working people, citizen and immigrant alike need;
guaranteed jobs with a $15 per hour minimum wage free, nationalized health
care, affordable housing, a healthy environment, good schools, full rights
in the workplace for all.

To win such demands, organized labor must do two things:

1)Organize a mass mobilization starting in the work places and working
class communities. This mobilization would do true justice to
 the images of the civil rights movement, as opposed to your present
"freedom ride".

2) Break with the Democrats and run candidates who represent working class
and poor people, as a step towards building a mass workers' party in the
United States.

When the AFL-CIO takes this path, we would be happy to make a sizeable
donation and fight towards these goals.

	Sincerely, 
	Reggie Moore 
	President, on behalf of AFSCME Local 444

-----------------------------------------------------------------