CWA 1180 - Political Action

AFL-CIO passes historic resolution
Labor's anti-war commitment grows as protests continue
March 2003

"Money for jobs, not for war!" Money for schools, not for war!" Thousands of union members have chanted those words at many anti-war demonstrations in the last several months. Following the historic February 15 worldwide demonstrations (updated information indicates that protests took place in 793 cities; click here for more on that day), anti-war activity continued to escalate, and labor has continued to play a crucial role. In February, the AFL-CIO unanimously passed an anti-war resolution, an unprecedented stance in the history of the federation. On March 22, a quarter of a million people or more marched in New York City to protest the war, including a large labor contingent. Countless other protests have taken place all over the country.

The AFL resolution culminated six months of intense organizing within the labor movement. More than 200 U.S. labor bodies had passed anti-war resolutions prior to the AFL-CIO action—local unions, central labor councils, regional bodies, state federations and national unions. In January, over 100 unionists from all over the country came together to form U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW). In February, the new organization circulated a declaration against war among international unions; in just 10 days, 200 unions from 53 countries representing 130 million workers had signed on. Not since World War I has there been as much anti-war sentiment within the ranks of labor, and never has American labor's top body taken a stand against a U.S. war. Labor's enlistment in the anti-war column makes it part of a huge, broad-based movement; to which it can contribute people, resources and expertise, and from which it can gain momentum and new allies. It is an important development for both labor and the anti-war movement.

There are many reasons why trade unionists are opposed to the war (the fact that it is illegal, for instance, or the fact that it is slaughtering innocent civilians who posed no threat to the U.S.) but among them are two that are particularly relevant to labor's agenda.

The first is the tanking economy and the unavoidable conclusion that "President" Bush is willing to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign military adventures that he is not willing to invest in desperately needed domestic priorities (see Linda Jenkins' column for more on the costs of war). The second is the direct and sustained attack on union rights. The most obvious examples include the denial of union rights to workers in the Department of Homeland Security, the Executive order stripping workers in the U.S. Attorney's Office of their longstanding rights to belong to unions, and invoking Taft-Hartley intervention in the ILWU contract struggle. All of these were characterized by the willingness of the administration to use sham "national security" concerns to justify the attack. Unionists aren't fooled by that excuse; furthermore, it makes it clear that the broader attack on the Constitution and civil liberties has a direct, detrimental effect on workers' rights. Both the economic and the civil liberties issues make it impossible to escape the conclusion that the war in Iraq is of a piece with the class war of the Bush Administration, and that is a major reason why the labor movement has opposed it.

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