Antiwar resolution to be presented at TSEU general assembly
Activists will present a resolution opposing the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the general assembly of the Texas State Employees Union/CWA Local 6186, to be held Oct. 3 – 5 in Austin. The resolution will be an endorsement of the antiwar resolution passed in June at the national convention of the Communication Workers of America, TSEU’s parent union.
Here’s the CWA resolution. We will publish the proposed TSEU resolution when its wording is finalized.
2008 CWA Convention Resolution: Working for Peace and Labor Rights in Iraq
Communications Workers of America
June 28th, 2008
Resolution 70A-08-9
The military actions of the Bush administration in the Middle East have reached a critical point, one which may commit future administrations to an expanded war. The costs of that war are now running over $341 million per day and total more than $531 billion to date. These costs will be borne by generations to come.
The money spent on this war could be spent to repair our nation’s infrastructure and restore social programs that have been devastated by years of Republican neglect. But the cost in human Iives is even more important, with 4,104 of our young men and women killed to date, over 30,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children killed.
The Iraqi labor movement also has been devastated. It is increasingly dangerous to be a union leader in Iraq. The Iraqi labor movement reports that union property has been seized and destroyed, bank accounts have been frozen, and leaders have been abducted, arrested and assassinated. With their lives in danger, many labor leaders have been forced to leave the country.
Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority kept intact a 1987 decree by Saddam Hussein outlawing unions in the public sector and in public enterprises. This ban has been continued by the current government of Nouri Al-Maliki. In place of free union elections, the government is imposing an elections process. This is an affront to the principles of free trade unionism and counter to the Iraqi government’s 2004 pledge to create a law that would comply with International Labor Organization (ILO) standards and guarantee workers the right to form their own trade unions.
A coalition of international labor rights organizations, including the AFL-CIO, is calling for the lraqi government to cease its interference with lraqi unions and to respect workers’ rights to form unions. In the United States, local unions, state and regional labor organizations and others have built a solidarity network – U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW). USLAW has sponsored two visits by lraqi trade unionists to the United States and continues to provide a key link between U.S. workers and our brothers and sisters in the Iraqi labor movement.
RESOLVED: CWA continues to support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and believes that the best support is to bring them home and give them all medical treatment, care and benefits they need and deserve.
RESOLVED: CWA encourages all Locals to unite with labor unions here and internationally in the growing movement against the war and to deepen their active solidarity with the Iraqi trade unionists.
RESOLVED: CWA Joins with the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations to call on the lraqi government to take immediate steps to bring Iraq into compliance with International Labor Organization core labor standards.
Tags: afghanistan, antiwar, Communication Workers of America, CWA, Iraq, labor rights, labor union, Texas State Employees Union, troops, TSEU, U.S. Labor Against the War, USLAW
