'Mumia is a labor issue'
WW Party Conference: Excerpts from a talk by Steve
Kirschbaum
Last December at the Communist Manifesto conference we all
dedicated ourselves to broadening out the movement so that the
name of Mumia Abu-Jamal would become a household word, so that
no matter what union hall we were in, no matter what community
or what school, we would bring the message about the struggle
to free our brother Mumia Abu-Jamal.
My union local represents 1,200 school bus drivers and
monitors in the city of Boston. And our local has been a
long-time supporter in the struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. In
fact, we not only passed a resolution to help finance and bring
members down to the 1995 march in Philadelphia to stop the
execution of Mumia, some of our militant stewards and executive
board members helped to do security at that march.
We have to understand that Mumia Abu-Jamal is a labor
issue.
As we said in the resolution we passed at the time of the
April 24 demonstration, "The death penalty has been
historically used as the most vicious anti-labor, anti-union
tool--from the Haymarket martyrs in Chicago, to Joe Hill in
Utah, to Sacco and Vanzetti right in Massachusetts. We must
make a stand. We must make sure we do all we can to defend the
life of this heroic, revolutionary brother."
I believe much of our mission has to be bringing
revolutionary, multinational class consciousness to our class
in order to win the white workers to anti-racist consciousness.
And it can be done based on the living, breathing struggle.
We've tried to bring the voice of Mumia Abu-Jamal--who is
known as the voice of the voiceless--to our members. Mumia
Abu-Jamal is a revolutionary who speaks out--including against
the NATO war against Yugoslavia. So we see what the ruling
class has got planned for Mumia, has got planned for anybody
who stands up and speaks out.
Because of the struggle in the streets, because of the
struggle of the masses, they had to declare the stay of
execution. But what we have to do now is get the evidentiary
hearing.
We've got to mount a struggle to make sure that throughout
all of our unions, all of our communities we organize,
organize, organize and organize. Because we want to see the
day, not too far away, when we get that evidentiary hearing,
and they bring our brother Mumia Abu-Jamal into court. And then
we will bring the thousands down there to show them that "Brick
by brick, wall by wall, we're going to free Mumia
Abu-Jamal."
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