[lbo-talk] million worker march

[joanna bujes]

> From: "dmacdonald94591" <doug at clafightback.org>
> Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 00:42:41 -0000
> Subject: million worker march
> Reply-To: GreenAllianceUSA at yahoogroups.com
>
> Please Join Us in a Million Worker March
>
> The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10, recently
> passed a resolution proposing a million worker march on Washington
> in 2004.  Mid October has been chosen for the march with an exact
> date to be determined in the coming weeks. This mobilization is
> being proposed in response to the attacks upon working families in
> America and the millions of jobs lost during the Bush administration
> and with the complicity of Congress.  The working class has not
> suffered such hardships since the Great Depression.
>
> We are encouraging everyone to have the attached resolution adopted
> by your membership or organization.  We are also asking that your
> organization start a Million Workers March Committee to mobilize
> organized/unorganized labor and our community and religious allies
> in your area, ultimately merging with a National Committee to be
> formed at a later date. Finally, we are asking for a financial
> contribution from your organization to be sent to the address below
> until a national Committee is created.
>
> The Bush Administration and Congress's focus of placing the
> acquisition of capital and the quest for profits above the needs of
> working people is undermining the economic security of working
> people and the nation as a whole.
>
> Now is the time for organized/unorganized labor, the interfaith and
> community organizations to show solidarity and demand that all
> elected officials address the needs of working people.  As working
> class people, we know more than any others the difficulties and
> limitations we face both in our communities and workplaces. We shall
> therefore be representing ourselves during this march, independent
> from all politicians, while putting forward to the entire country,
> our program for the betterment of America's majority working
> population.
>
> While we are in the early stages of planning this action, we are
> urging organizations to join us in making this march a reality.  We
> need you and your organizations help.  The crises we face is
> severe.  By mobilizing and uniting organized and unorganized labor
> with our community and religious allies we will be able to more
> effectively stop the attack on working people and improve our living
> and working conditions
>
>
>
> Please contact:
>
> MILLION WORKER MARCH COMMITTEE
> ILWU, Local 10
> 400 North Point
> San Francisco, CA 94133
> (415) 441-0610
> Email: millionwokermarch at comcast.net
>
>
> RESOLUTION PROPOSING A MILLION WORKER MARCH ON WASHINGTON DC
>
> Whereas:  Our ancestors fought tirelessly in this country for the
> right to organize unions and ensure that our government recognized
> this right because it is a cornerstone of democracy, and
>
> Whereas: that because of unions and solidarity among working people
> we have been able to win basic human rights, including employer paid
> healthcare, social security and retirement benefits, safe working
> conditions, decent hours and wages, education for our children,
> social services for the disadvantaged, civil liberties, and most
> important the right to political influence over our nations foreign
> and domestic policies, and
>
> Whereas:  Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address
> in 1944 acknowledged our rights, saying, " We have come to the
> realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist
> without economic security and independence.  Necessitous men are not
> free men.  People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of
> which dictatorships are made." And
>
> Whereas: the current administration with the complicity of Congress,
> has cooperated with big business in attacking our rights, using
> legislation such as the Patriot Acts I and II, denying the right of
> hundreds of thousands of Federal employees to belong to unions and
> bargain, forcing longshore workers to work under a Taft-Hartley Act
> injunction and threats of Federal intervention, and
>
> Whereas: the administration with the complicity of Congress has
> negotiated trade agreements costing the jobs of hundreds of
> thousands of US workers, calling this a move towards a healthy
> economy, while promoting other economic policies, such as
> privatization and deregulation, which have resulted in the loss of
> over 3 million jobs since taking office, and
>
> Whereas:  the administration with the complicity of Congress has
> excused all these policies by using the terrible events of September
> 11 to label any opposition unpatriotic and a threat to national
> security, has taken our country into an unjust war under the false
> assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, costing
> the lives of hundreds of US service members and innocent Iraqi
> civilians, and is whipping up fear and hysteria even further to try
> and stampede the public into giving them another term in office,
>
> Be it therefore resolved: that Local 10 of the ILWU calls on unions
> and working people generally to go to Washington DC for a Million
> Worker March, to demand that politicians and the administration
> listen to the people who pay their salaries, rather than the voices
> of big business and the rich and
>
> Be it further resolved:  that this resolution be forwarded to
> unions, labor councils and labor organizations, as well as other
> organizations to which workers belong, whether organized or not, so
> that they can take similar action to organize this march as soon as
> possible.
>
> Be it finally resolved: that this event coincide with all labor
> organized voter registration drives planned for the next election.