State of the Union
The Iraq war continues to decimate the lives of thousands of innocent people. Working class and low-income people try to find a life without fear of imminent death and destruction awaiting them around the corner. These aren't just American soldiers, but the Iraqi civilians who are trying to put back their lives since the war started four years ago.
Before Saddam Hussein came to power and eliminated a historically vigorous trade union movement, unions were important players in the economic arena, supporting workers' rights in countering corporate and government influence.
Since the U.S. military invaded Iraq and the Bush administration's hand-picked corporate leaders took control of industry, the labor movement in Iraq has been reborn, but it is facing the same fights we find right here in America. Workers struggle to find jobs, to keep the jobs they now have from being privatized and to find ways to improve their economic standing under the assault of corporate monarchy.
Believe it or not, even under the stress of war and uncertainty, workers are fighting back and putting life back into the Iraq labor movement.
The AFL-CIO recently denounced the current war by declaring, "It is time to bring our military involvement in Iraq to an end" and set up a timetable to disengage from further military actions.
It's been refreshing to hear a public denouncement of a war from our national labor representatives who at one time, under a different and more conservative leadership, helped suppress war opponents during the Vietnam era.
However, just as more needs to be done here, more needs to be done in Iraq. The re-ignited labor movement is fighting for women's rights, a true democracy and rights in the workplace.
As with any movement that is successful in challenging the powers that be, intimidation, threats and violence have become a new reality for the Iraqi labor leaders and its members.
The Iraqi government, taking direction from the Bush administration, has another mission that it wants to accomplish — complete control of industry without interference in making tremendous amounts of money.
The workers are battling to keep the ports, oil industry, electric power plants and hospitals from being sold to private companies. The right of unions to exist is an ongoing battle, as current labor laws are ambiguous in their intent.
It has been reported that anti-union and union busting law firms from the United States are being recruited to draft new labor laws.
Union officials have been arrested. Hadi Saleh, the International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions was murdered. The bank accounts of labor organizations have been frozen. Union business offices have been ransacked, with their records and computers confiscated. And the United Nations International Labor Organization's labor standards have been ignored
When the United States sends billions of dollars to fight a war half way around the globe, workers from here are killed, families lose relatives, and the suffering is insurmountable.
As of today, over $409 billion has been spent on a war that could be providing national health care, new schools and financial security for workers in their retirement. Or it is $409 billion that didn't have to be spent, leaving our future more financially safe and secure with less of the death and destruction.
Workers are paying for it all. We are paying tax dollars to fund wars that attack other workers and ourselves. We need to take care of ourselves, take care of others and say, "No More War!
What you can do
USLAW asks unions, labor councils, state federations and labor and other social justice activists across the United States to protest the Iraqi regime's interference with and harassment of Iraqi unions.
Demand that union bank accounts be unfrozen, that Saddam Hussein's Law 150 and Decree 8750 be annulled and that labor rights be immediately recognized and fully respected in Iraq.
The ICEM, the Global Union Federation for oil workers, is calling for "strong condemnation" of the two recent U.S. and Iraqi military raids on union offices in Baghdad. One worker was arrested, and computers and fax machines at the central office of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW) confiscated.
The ICEM is calling on trade unions worldwide to directly protest this unprovoked attack on a trade union federation.
ICEM is calling on trade unions and others to write to Iraqi embassies in their home countries and to send messages of solidarity to GFIW leaders.
Trade unions are asked to register a protest with the Iraqi embassy or consulate in their country by visiting: www.mofa.gov.iq/index.aspx.
They are strongly urged to write GFIW leaders in Baghdad to tell them they protest these forceful and menacing acts. Send messages to :
abdullahmuhsin@iraqitradeunions.org or adnalsaffar@yahoo.com.
Tom Szymanski can be reached at toms@ibew725.org.