UE Convention Urges: Bring The Troops Home!

68th National UE Convention Daily Summaries: Tuesday Afternoon: On the afternoon of Tuesday, August 26, 68th Convention delegates call for an end to the occupation of Iraq and a democratic, worker-friendly foreign policy.

Pittsburgh

68th National UE Convention Daily Summaries Tuesday Afternoon, August 26th, 2003

General President John Hovis introduced someone whom many in the hall needed no introduction – veteran organizer and union leader Amy Newell, who served as UE general secretary-treasurer from 1985 to 1994. Hovis observed that his own first assignment as a field organizer newly hired out of the shop was to work with Newell, who was an in-plant organizer in a Silicon Valley electronics plant. Delegates greeted Sister Newell with a standing ovation.

As a first order of business, the speaker delivered greetings from her father, now nearly 96, who was a founder of the union.

Today, Sister Newell is an organizer for U.S. Labor Against War, and she came to the convention with a report on this significant undertaking. Beginning in February of this year, this coalition has brought together a number of national unions and hundreds and hundreds of locals and intermediate bodies, together representing more than 3 million workers. This led to an unprecedented statement by the AFL-CIO critical of the war plans prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Newell reminded delegates that considerable death and destruction had already taken place before the labor movement experienced the first tentative steps toward questioning the Vietnam War – a consequence of Cold War-enforced conformity. This makes U.S. Labor Against War (USLAW) "a new thing, something promising, significant," Newell asserted.

USLAW set up a web site, "a tremendous source of information and solidarity," and launched an international labor declaration against the war which within10 days was signed by labor unions, confederations, and individual leaders, representing 130 million workers around the world. Newell observed that for these foreign union members, the fact that the statement originated in the U.S. was a "great source of strength." because it allowed for an anti-war stance without being anti-American. USLAW organized an international, on-line press conference.

Despite these efforts, Newell said, "the world’s greatest superpower waged war against a weakened, impoverished country," which failed to get one plane in the air. The war was launched for "reasons based on lies, forgeries, misrepresentation." Today, she said, the U.S. is bogged down, not in a war of liberation but of occupation. Our government is now the government of Iraq.

A leadership meeting of USLAW in Chicago in April adopted a four-part plan in response to the war and occupation, Newell said. These included: A campaign launched by veterans and military families to bring the troops home, now. Secondly, support for Iraq’s unions. "There can be no democracy without strong and independent unions," said Newell. She met with unionists, including leaders of Arab unions, during meetings in Geneva and Paris in June. USLAW issued a report on the U.S. corporate invasion of Iraq in support of this campaign. Thirdly, transform USLAW into an ongoing coalition within labor movement, with an "Assembly for Peace" in Chicago Oct. 24-5

"We really need to fight for the soul of our country," Newell insisted. This involves determining the proper role that the U.S. should be playing in the world. Bush and his cronies envision such a role as " the new world imperial power," with the right to preemptively wage war, Newell said. Such a policy, she said, will "only foster hatred and resentment and make us less secure." Instead, the U.S. should work in concert with other nations, turning to diplomacy rather than war, and seeking global economic justice and equality.

The fight for the soul of our country is also about domestic issues, about what kind of country we wish to live in, Newell proposed. To gasps, she pointed out that one month of military operations in Iraq would pay the annual salaries of 70,000 teachers. The AFL-CIO will not be raising foreign-policy issues in the context of the 2004 elections, Newell predicted. This makes the Assembly for Peace more crucial, she said.

Following a reading of the resolution "Bring the Troops Home Now" by Bill Lobaugh, Local 506, the convention heard from the founders of Military Families Speak Out. Attending the conveniton as workshop presenters, Charlie Richardson and Nancy Lessin have a son in Marines who served in the Iraq War. Lessin pointed out that the number of U.S. casualties in Iraq since the announced end of hostilities now surpasses the number killed prior to the announced end of hostilities. Those home, like her son, face post-traumatic stress syndrome, the effects of depleted uranium and Gulf War syndrome. President Bush said to the Iraqi resistance, "bring ’em on," Lessin observed. "We say, bring them home." And there are calls by politicians to send more. "There’s more than 50,000 names on a black wall in Washington that says something different," Lessin declared. "It was wrong for us to invade, it’s wrong to be occupying. There’s no right way to a wrong thing."

Richardson held up a poster with a picture of son Joe and the legend, "Stop Bush’s War for Oil and Empire." "We went every where with this poster," he said. While some called the couple "a disgrace," Richardson said, they thought it "disgraceful that our troops should be used as cannon fodder." Some critics objected in emails that "the troops volunteered, so what’s the complaint?" Richardson’s rejoinder: "They don’t volunteer to fight in stupid wars." He said a Vietnam veteran put it best, that the troops make a contract with the politicians, in which the politicians promise to take care of them. That contract has been broken.

Military Families Speak Out and the Bring Them Home Now campaign want to pressure Congress to take back the approving the war. "We are concerned that Bush wants to send in more troops, our friends’ son, and the children of people from other countries," Richardson said. He encouraged delegates to visit these networks’ web sites at www.bringthemhomenow.org and www.mfso.org. "Now is the time to support our troops and bring them home now," he concluded.

The resolution "Bring The Troops Home Now," which calls for an end to U.S. military operations in Iraq and endorses these organization, was adopted unanimously.

President Hovis noted that following UE’s opposition to the war, some members objected that the union had no business dealing with political issues. "Our delegates gave us the authority by passing a resolution last year. We were carrying out UE policy, which you can be sure we will do in the years ahead."

Resolutions Committee member George Stinson, Local 203, read "For Peace and Jobs." Speaking on the resolution, Carl Rosen, District 11, hailed the October Assembly for Peace as "a really important development for the labor movement." He reminded delegates that the Cold War split in the labor movement turned in part on foreign policy. Some unions agreed to shut up about foreign policy and the activities of U.S. companies abroad. U.S. foreign policy assisted corporations in moving American jobs all over the world, while "shoving money into some of the big corporations in the military-industrial complex." The Assembly for Peace, Rosen said, represents the beginnings of the labor movement again addressing foreign policy, as it did during World War II and immediately after. This is about our jobs, and our standard of living, he said: "School crossing guards are being laid off in Pittsburgh not because Pittsburgh has a problem, but because the nation has a problem about how it allocates resources."

Matt McCracken, Local 506, offered an amendment that demands that the Bush Administration and its successors live up to promises made to veterans when they come home, particularly with regards to the funding of the Veterans Administration.

The amended resolution was unanimously carried.

As the convention recessed, delegates passed the hat for candidate Kucinich.

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