Will the Drive to War Kill International Labor Solidarity?

A Labor Notes Editorial by Teófilo Reyes

We are all horrified by the terrorist attacks on New York
City and Washington. Thousands of working men and women were
senselessly murdered, and unions across the world have
joined to condemn the act.

We are proud of how working people, and unions in
particular, have responded to support the victims of
terror. The firefighters who died in the rescue attempt, the
volunteers searching for survivors, the nurses tending the
wounded, the Ironworkers sent to shore up buildings, the
locals that organized gate collections and blood drives have
shown the generosity of spirit that is our best hope for a
collective and humane solution to these horrors and others
still to come.

 CROSSROADS

As the U.S. government prepares for war, the labor movement
should reflect on what the impact of the attacks will be,
and proceed with caution. The labor movement has been trying
to rebuild itself, in fits and starts, for the past six
years, and the new situation places us at a crossroads.

Will we continue to fight against corporate globalization
and deepen ties to workers in other countries, or will we
fall in with an "America First" attitude? Will we continue
to fight for immigrant rights, or will we fall out along
national fault lines? Will we continue to search for new
organizing strategies if union campaigns in certain
industries are labeled divisive and "un-American"? Will we
fight concessions when corporations promise layoffs?

In short, will we step up to our responsibility to be the
voice for what's best in American workers' hearts? Or will
we slip further into irrelevancy, as corporate America
wishes, by giving up our right to challenge the consensus?

The early responses from labor offer both possibilities.

The AFL-CIO quickly declared full support for any actions
President Bush chose to carry out, and the UAW followed
suit.  The Teamsters recovered their Reagan-era fervor and
immediately called for war against all states harboring
terrorists. John Sweeney said he had called President Bush
to offer support and said, "We stand fully behind the
President and the leadership of our nation in this time of
national crisis..We will fully support the appropriate
American response."

The Steelworkers called for justice, but added that the U.S.
should not harm innocent civilians and pointed to the
poverty and injustice that provides "recruits for the armies
of the intolerant."

The SEIU, with a large immigrant membership, called for all
appropriate measures to be taken but strongly warned against
scapegoating immigrants and Arabs in particular. The United
Farm Workers also called for retribution, but tempered it by
drawing on the memory of Cesar Chavez and his legacy of
nonviolence. The UFW has continued its corporate campaign
against Pict-Sweet through prayer vigils, and the UFW and
SEIU have called unity marches to help fight anti-Arab and
anti-immigrant backlash.

 BACK BURNER

Perhaps the greatest danger facing the labor movement in the
coming months will be the government's attempt to
manufacture a consensus around war and all the ugly things
that go with it. In wartime all the legitimate demands of
labor or of any other group in society (save the
corporations that make the weapons) are deemed to be
selfish--note the immediate calls for raiding workers'
Social Security funds.

Any questioning of our leaders-even on issues unrelated to
the war- is seen as wrong. This is how the government
defends curtailment of the right not to be spied upon and
how some Congressmen can justify their attempt to ram a
"bipartisan" Fast Track bill through Congress in the coming
weeks.

 RISE TO THE CHALLENGE

This tragedy is a challenge for the American labor movement
to deepen its internationalist stance. The AFL-CIO is unique
among labor in industrialized nations in the degree to which
it has joined, if not always consistently, in the broader
movement against globalization.

Many union members have responded warmly to calls for
international solidarity, as evidenced in campaigns for
justice in sweatshops and maquiladoras. In the United States
recently some rank and file activists have been pushing for
the AFL-CIO to open its Cold War files to repudiate its past
actions against labor movements in other countries and to
strengthen trust with workers there.

Union activists who are shocked by the rush to war should
call for a rethinking of U.S. international priorities and
actions, and deepen their solidarity with labor across the
globe. The human costs of war will be borne first and
foremost by the dispossessed and the working class in each
country. Leo Gerard, the Steelworkers' new president, has
noted that poverty and injustice swell the ranks of fanatic
organizations. It is labor's duty, now more than ever, to
push for a new social order.

 WHY THE HATRED?

Hatred of America abroad is based largely on the behavior of
U.S. corporations in other countries and the military might
that the U.S. government uses to back up the existing order.
But corporations are not "America." They are the same forces
with the same dog-eat-dog values that labor and the global
justice movement are fighting.

Our movements are, in a very real sense, the only
alternative to the irrational forces that arise from
frustration combined with fanaticism. International
organized labor and the global justice movement can be the
alternative beacon that says to the world: There is another
way that is democratic to the core and whose power derives
from our numbers--not wealth, terror, or military
might. There is hope.

To put aside our oppositional character is to surrender that
alternative, that hope. To offer a blank check to the Bush
Administration, the most anti-labor administration in
decades, is to invite the drowning of any alternative in the
tide of military might and terrorist escalation.

The globalized economy means that both the terrorist attacks
on September 11 and the actions the U.S. takes in response
will affect workers the world over. American labor has made
progress in throwing in its lot with workers across the
globe.  Can labor step back up to the plate, or will only
peace activists do that now?

International solidarity is the high road, and it is the
course that should be followed ever more resolutely in the
months ahead.



[This editorial was printed in the
October issue of Labor Notes.

In every workplace workers are discussing the terrorist
attacks and the possibility of war. This issue of Labor
Notes can help union members sort through their options.

To order copies, at 35c apiece (plus shipping),
call us at 313/842-6262 or
email liza@labornotes.org.

For more Labor Notes coverage on the Sept. 11th e
vents see our website at http://www.labornotes.org