[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [uslawaffiliates] UE National Convention
Resolution on Iraq War/Occupation; New Crackdown on Iraqi Unions;
There is one area in Iraq where democracy is taking root: in its
rapidly growing trade unions
Alfred Kagan
akagan at uiuc.edu
Fri Aug 26 08:47:01 CDT 2005
FYI, an indication of what is going on in the union movement. I am
getting quite a few similar messages.
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "U.S. Labor Against the War" <uslaw at igc.org>
> Date: August 25, 2005 10:56:23 PM CDT
> To: uslawaffiliates at lists.riseup.net
> Subject: [uslawaffiliates] UE National Convention Resolution on Iraq
> War/Occupation; New Crackdown on Iraqi Unions; There is one area in
> Iraq where democracy is taking root: in its rapidly growing trade
> unions
>
> Attached is the resolution "Bring the Troops Home - End the Occupation
> Now!" that was passed unanimously yesterday, August 24, during the UE
> National Convention. The resolution supports the demonstration on
> September 24. We handed out USLAW local affiliation forms to all the
> delegates. The debate was very moving and determined to end this
> insane war. No one rose to criticize any points of the resolution
> except for one who said he wished it had been stronger. A Latina
> delegate from a newly organized shop in Chicago, who's son just came
> back from Iraq (and who is planning to come to DC on the 24th with a
> delegation from Chicago), gave a very moving talk which created such
> emotion for a District 2 delegate, who did not speak and who's husband
> is in Iraq, that she had to leave the floor to relieve her stress and
> gather her strength. It was a very powerful and moving day.
>
> In solidarity,
>
> Peter
>
>
> BRING THE TROOPS HOME — END THE OCCUPATION NOW!
> Passed unanimously by delegates to the 69th UE National Convention -
> August 24, 2005
>
> In the more than two years since the invasion of Iraq, it has become
> crystal clear that the Bush Administration deliberately misled the
> American people about the causes for launching a war against that
> distant country. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had no weapons of mass
> destruction. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed no imminent threat to the
> United States. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
>
> But Saddam Hussein did have control of the world’s second largest oil
> reserves and the strategic importance of that fact is what drove the
> war. According to the July 2002 “Downing Street Memo,” a secret
> British government document made public earlier this year, the Bush
> Administration regarded war “inevitable” almost a year before the
> invasion. Even as the White House insisted that war would be a “last
> resort” the Administration was manipulating the intelligence around
> weapons of mass destruction to justify invasion.
>
> The expectation of rapturous welcome for our troops and swift
> transition to democracy following a quick and easy victory were
> equally false.
>
> A war based on a makeshift of lies, half-truths and misrepresentation
> does not protect our democracy, but defiles and diminishes it.
>
> Falsehoods and miscalculation have led to repeated and unexpected
> tours of duty for our troops, who were sent into combat without being
> properly equipped with protective body gear and armored vehicles. Many
> of our troops are union members or from families of union members;
> most are from working-class families. They have faced extraordinary
> danger with courage. We recognize their valor, determination and
> sacrifices, and honor those who have given their lives. As we meet in
> convention, nearly 2,000 of our servicewomen and servicemen have been
> killed in the line of duty, and thousands more have sustained
> injuries, many of them debilitating.
>
> Bringing our troops home now is the best means of protecting them and
> honoring them. They and their families should not suffer because
> politicians lied.
>
> Meanwhile, many thousands of Iraqis are dead, wounded and displaced.
> The continued occupation is making Iraq less secure. Iraq has now
> become the staging ground for terrorists it was supposed to have been
> prior to the invasion; that supposed justification for war has become
> true as a result of a disastrously misconceived Presidential
> directive. The U.S.-supervised transition to civilian rule in Iraq is
> failing to achieve a peaceful democratic society and is instead
> disintegrating into a bloody civil war.
>
> Leaders of Iraqi unions who toured the U.S. earlier this year under
> the sponsorship of U.S. Labor Against the War declared, “The principal
> obstacle to peace, stability, and the reconstruction of Iraq is the
> occupation. The occupation is the problem, not the solution. Iraqi
> sovereignty and independence must be restored. The occupation must
> end in all its forms, including military bases and economic
> domination.” The occupation, the Iraqi unionists said, “has been a
> catastrophe for both our peoples.”
>
> It is outrageous that despite the talk of establishing democracy in
> Iraq, the decree issued by Saddam in 1987 that abolished union rights
> for workers in the extensive Iraqi public sector is still on the
> books. Iraqi workers are denied elementary trade union rights
> guaranteed by internationally recognized International Labor
> Organization conventions. Under current law not even payroll
> deductions for union dues are permitted. The continuing lack of labor
> rights threatens to turn Iraq into another low-wage “free trade” zone
> for runaway jobs.
>
> Meanwhile, private contractors benefit from billions of dollars in
> Pentagon contracts and scheme for even greater riches once the Iraqi
> public sector is dismantled. The logistics contract between
> Haliburton, the military contractor formerly run by Vice Pres. Dick
> Cheney, has been worth at least $9.6 billion since the start of the
> war and is mounting at a cost of about $6 billion a year. Other
> beneficiaries have been St. Louis?based defense contractor Engineered
> Support Systems Inc., and its board member William H.T. “Bucky” Bush,
> uncle of the president and youngest brother of former President George
> H.W. Bush. In January 2005 this Bush cashed in ESSI stock options
> with a net value of nearly half a million dollars. The company, which
> supplies armor and other materials to U.S. troops, has seen its stock
> prices soar in recent years.
>
> Continued U.S. military occupation of Iraq does little to benefit the
> vast majority of the American or Iraqi people. For the sake of
> Americans and Iraqis, for the sake of democracy and peace, bring our
> troops home and end the occupation now!
>
> THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 69TH UE CONVENTION:
>
> Calls on the Bush Administration to immediately cease military
> operations in Iraq and to bring home U.S. military personnel, and to
> turn over the task of rebuilding Iraq to a genuine, multinational
> effort led by the United Nations, with the United States making good
> on its obligation to finance rebuilding;
> Calls on Congress and the Bush Administration to expand and fully fund
> benefits for veterans, including a G.I. Bill for returning Iraq
> veterans and a Veterans Administration housing program;
> Backs the call of Iraqi workers for free and independent labor unions
> based on internationally recognized ILO conventions guaranteeing the
> right to organize free of all government interference and including
> full equality for women workers. Calls for the direct participation
> of labor and workers’ representatives in drafting the new labor code,
> in determining government policies affecting unions and workers’
> interests, and in drafting the new constitution;
> Condemns the continued enforcement of Saddam’s decree number 150
> issued in 1987 that abolished union rights for workers in the Iraqi
> public sector and calls for its immediate repeal;
> Supports Congressional hearings on the Downing Street Memo’s
> revelations that the Bush Administration falsified intelligence used
> to justify the Iraq war;
> Calls for Congressional investigation of war profiteering and
> closed-bid reconstruction contracts in Iraq;
> Condemns the terrorism in Iraq directed against civilians and deplores
> the assassination of Iraqi union leaders and activists;
>
> Renews UE’s support for activities against the occupation and
> participation in the U.S. Labor Against the War coalition (including
> the massive demonstrations planned for September 24, 2005);
>
> Urges UE at all levels to continue education and discussion on the
> Iraq war and occupation and the implications of U.S. foreign policy
> for working people here and abroad;
> Calls on the Bush Administration to remove any and all restrictions,
> including time limits, means testing and salary caps, that would
> interfere with veterans receiving all medical care.
> ===============================================================
>
> News online
> ITF slams new Iraqi crackdown on unions
> http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/576
> 24 August 2005
>
> The ITF has condemned a new decree in Iraq that crushes trade unions’
> right to operate free of government interference or harassment.
>
> The decree, passed on 7 August, revokes decisions taken on union
> rights by Iraq’s provisional government and permits the control and
> confiscation of trade union monies by the current authorities. It also
> states that the right to carry out union activities is to be reviewed.
>
> In a letter dated 24 August, ITF General Secretary David Cockroft,
> told Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari: “We are concerned that
> control of Iraqi trade unions’ monies might lead to the weakening of
> the Iraqi unions’ capabilities,” and added: “This is considered a
> clear breach of the International Labour Organization (ILO) core
> labour standards on freedom of association and a direct attack on
> human rights in Iraq.”
>
> He also called on the government to discuss any future review of
> trade union activities with the unions themselves and raised concerns
> that laws dating from 1987, forbidding union organisation in the
> public sector, remain in place.
>
> Cockroft pledged to raise these issues with the ILO through the
> International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
>
> Commenting on the situation, Bilal Malkawi, ITF Arab World Offices
> said: “While the ITF, Global Union Federations, and many international
> trade union organisations are working intensively to support Iraqi
> workers, the government is taking this action instead of helping
> unions to face the challenges ahead. I am really shocked by these
> measures, but I know for sure that the Iraqi unions are in a strong
> enough position to keep moving forward.”
> =====================================================
>
> August 23, 2005
> Iraqi trade unions under threat
> UNISON NEWS
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000363.html
>
> (22/8/05) The new Iraqi government is attempting to control trade
> union activity by overturning an agreement that allowed them to
> operate without any undue interference or harassment from the state.
>
> A new decree adopted by the Iraqi Council of Ministers stated that
> the government would be ‘taking control of all monies belonging to the
> trade unions to prevent them from dispensing any such monies.’
>
> The decree also says that a new paper on how trade unions should
> function, operate and organise will be prepared.
>
> In a letter to the foreign secretary Jack Straw, UNISON general
> secretary Dave Prentis said the decree represents a major attack on
> the ability of independent and democratic trade unions to organise.
>
> He pointed out that under the former agreement trade union issues
> were the responsibility of the Labour and Social Rights Committee
> whereas now the responsibility has been transferred to a new committee
> which will include a number of government ministers, but not the
> employment and social affairs minister.
>
> “I am concerned that this decree, and especially the measures
> relating to trade union financial assets, is an attempt to curb the
> growth of free trade unions in Iraq,” said Prentis.
>
> “On behalf of UNISON I would request that you raise this matter with
> the Iraqi authorities at the first possible occasion.”
>
> Posted by abdullah at August 23, 2005 06:25 PM
> ============================================================
>
> Progress: Features
> September 05/October 05
> http://www.progressives.org.uk/magazine/default.asp?
> action=magazine&articleid=915
> Hard labour
>
> There is one area in Iraq where democracy is taking root: in its
> rapidly growing trade unions. Matthew Harwood reports
>
> Amid the carnage and devastation of occupied Iraq, a movement is
> vying for the nation's future. This movement hopes to build a new Iraq
> - one Iraq - that's democratic, multi-ethnic, and multiconfessional.
> This movement isn't centered on the various political coalitions of
> the 30 January elections or the Iraqi transitional government, but in
> the country's newly reconstructed labour unions. Indeed, this is
> fitting, considering recent history teaches the unique, muscular role
> trade unionism has played in democratising countries emerging from
> tyranny. Think Solidarity in Poland or the Congress of South African
> Trade Unions in South Africa.
>
> When Saddam Hussein fell, Iraq's progressive forces - out of exile,
> out of prison, out from the underground - finally had the breathing
> room to coalesce into a labour movement committed to a democratic,
> secular and pluralist Iraq. The three most important elements of this
> movement are the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, the Federation of
> Worker Councils and Unions of Iraq, and General Union of Oil Employees
> in Basra.
>
>
> “Recent history teaches the unique, muscular role trade unionism has
> played in democratising countries emerging from tyranny. Think
> Solidarity in Poland or the Congress of South African Trade Unions in
> South Africa”
> IFTU emerged in May 2003, just a month after Saddam's fall, out of
> the underground Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement. Today, the
> IFTU boasts over 200,000 members organised in every important sector
> of the Iraqi economy. Of the twelve unions that comprise the
> federation, six have held worker conferences that democratically
> determined their unions' leadership. The most moderate of the three,
> IFTU supported Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's interim government, the
> various UN resolutions governing the occupation of Iraq and its
> transition to democracy, the 30 January elections, and, most
> controversially, the continued presence of coalition troops for
> security - although this view has changed. IFTU is the only trade
> union federation to be officially recognised by the Iraqi government.
> In 2004, Jack Straw recognised the federation as England's union
> partner in rebuilding post-invasion Iraq.
>
> With Iraq being plagued by an unemployment rate that unionists argue
> rose to 90 per cent during the first few months of the occupation, a
> network of activists organised the Union of Unemployed in Iraq that
> led an 18-day demonstration outside the Coalition Provisional
> Authority's offices demanding jobs and social provisions.
>
> Out of this initial splurge of spontaneous organising arose the
> FWCUI. The FWCUI is a much more militant labour federation than IFTU.
> In their view, 'the occupation is the source of all problems in Iraq
> and without ending it there will be no improvement in the disastrous
> situation in Iraq'. Since its inception, the FWCUI has called for the
> immediate withdrawal of US and UK troops and were highly critical of
> the 30 January elections.
>
> Yet the most exciting developments in Iraq's new trade union movement
> are occurring in British-occupied Basra. There, workers at the
> Southern Oil Company threw out employees of US contractor Kellogg,
> Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, rooted out former
> Baathist managers and began autonomously to reconstruct their
> workplaces and ready oil for export. This initial surge of worker
> militancy became institutionalised into the GUOE.
>
> Today, the GUOE claims 23,000 members federated throughout the many
> oil unions of Basra. Their threat to shut down oil exports and arm
> themselves last December led the CPA to almost double their wages.
> This 17 July, the GUOE led a 24-hour strike that cut most oil exports
> from southern Iraq. The union demanded, with the support of the local
> governor, that a bigger cut of Basra's oil revenue be reinvested
> locally.
>
> While differences crop up between them at times, there's one topic
> that unites them in opposition: the privatisation of Iraq's economy.
> In September 2003, the head of the CPA, Paul Bremer, issued Order 39,
> which unilaterally - and against international law - allowed the
> privatisation of nearly all of Iraq's 200 state-owned firms, while
> allowing 100 per cent foreign ownership. On the same date, the CPA
> published Order 37, which capped individual and corporate income tax
> rates at no higher than 15 per cent.
>
> It was a neoliberal's dream state. As Bjorn Brandtzaeg, a former
> British CPA team leader for trade and industry, wrote in the Financial
> Times, 'Instead of focusing on restarting the main industrial
> complexes as soon as possible after the end of hostilities, a team of
> ideologically motivated CPA officials with close ties to the US
> administration pursued a narrow privatisation strategy. The result...
> several hundred thousand people remain out of work.' Aggravating
> unemployment further, foreign companies with reconstruction contracts
> routinely hire foreign workers instead of their Iraqi counterparts.
> Today, unemployment hovers between 25 and 40 per cent.
>
> A further dose of neoliberal reforms are scheduled to occur soon due
> to a debt-reduction agreement made between the government and the
> International Monetary Fund. Much of Iraq's budget is devoted to
> supplying ordinary Iraqis with a basic needs subsidy. The IMF wants
> this subsidy cut if debt-reduction is to proceed.
>
> While Bremer and company single-handedly restructured Iraq's economy
> and legal structure, there was one law they didn't repeal: Saddam's
> draconian 1987 labour law. That year, Saddam Hussein outlawed unions
> throughout the public sector, declaring that 'workers' were now
> 'employees' of the state and therefore had no right to bargain
> collectively. Since 70 per cent of Iraq's economy was state-owned,
> independent trade unionism was annihilated. Because the CPA failed to
> repeal the 1987 labour law, union organising has remained illegal.
>
> Iraq's trade union movement has disregarded this law, organising
> workers and striking for jobs and better wages throughout Iraq. This
> has led to some hostile run-ins with occupational forces. In December
> 2003, troops stormed the headquarters of the IFTU headquarters in
> Baghdad, arrested eight of its leaders, and shut down the office for
> seven months. The FWCUI claims it leaders have been arrested and
> tortured by the US while their peaceful demonstrations have been fired
> on by US soldiers and associated Iraqi security forces. To complicate
> matters more, the trade unionists' fight for a progressive Iraq has
> made them a target of Islamic terrorists and Baathist leftovers. On 4
> January of this year, the IFTU's international secretary Hadi Saleh
> was savagely tortured and murdered in his home by what the IFTU
> believes to be Saddam loyalists - remnants of his secret police force,
> the Mukhabarat.
>
> Still, this hasn't stopped Iraq's trade union movement from
> continuing their work. Recently, each of the union federations sent
> delegates throughout
> the US for exposure and to rustle up support. The unions are
> extremely cash-poor - most union staff are volunteers. There is also a
> dearth of communication equipment needed to conduct everyday business.
> As a recent FWCUI urgent appeal stated, 'our federation has been
> relying almost entirely on donations from supporters abroad.' Its
> request is simple and direct: send us your support financially if you
> can. For progressives, the best way to show solidarity with Iraq's
> nascent labor movement is in the form of a cheque and to urge the
> various media outlets to cover the emergence of Iraq's newly
> reconstituted trade union movement.
>
>
> Matthew Harwood is a freelance journalist about to read for an MLitt
> in International Security Studies at St Anderews
>
> ////////
> \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
> \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
> \\\\\\\\
>
> U.S. Labor Against War (USLAW)
> \\\\\\\\
> //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> ////////
> www.uslaboragainstwar.org
> Email: <info at uslaboragainstwar.org>
> {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
> PMB 153
> 1718 "M" Street, NW
> Washington, D.C. 20036
> {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
>
> Co-convenors: Gene Bruskin, Maria Guillen, Fred Mason,
> Bob Muehlenkamp, and Nancy Wohlforth
> Michael Eisenscher, National Organizer & Website Coordinator
> Adrienne Nicosia, Administrative Staff
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801
tel. 217-333-6519
fax 217-333-2214
akagan at uiuc.edu
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