New York labor against war
By Deirdre Griswold
New York
On Oct. 4 a newly formed group, New York City Labor Against
War, held a press conference at Union Square here to affirm
that there are many progressives in the labor movement who will
not go along with the Bush administration's assault on
Afghanistan.
The group issued a statement signed by nine local union
presidents and hundreds of other union members that called for
a just and effective response to Sept. 11 based on five
demands: no war; justice, not vengeance; opposition to racism
and defense of civil liberties; aid for the needy, not the
greedy; and no labor "austerity."
The statement was read by Michael Letwin of the Association
of Legal Aid Attorneys, one of the nine union presidents to
sign on. The other eight are Larry Adams of the Postal Mail
Handlers Local 300; Barbara Bowen of the Professional Staff
Congress; Arthur Cheliotes of Communications Workers Local
1180; Jill Levy of the American Federation of School
Administrators Local 1; Maida Rosenstein of the Autoworkers
Local 2110; Joel Schwartz of the Civil Services Employees Local
446; Brenda Stokely of AFSCME Local 215; and Jonathan Tasini of
the National Writers Union Local 1981.
Taking note of the fact that 1,000 union members were among
those killed in New York on Sept. 11, and that an estimated
100,000 New Yorkers will lose their jobs, the statement went on
to say that "George Bush's war is not the answer. No one should
suffer what we experienced on Sept. 11. Yet war will inevitably
harm countless innocent civilians, strengthen American
alliances with brutal dictatorships and deepen global
poverty--just as the United States and its allies have already
inflicted widespread suffering on innocent people in such
places as Iraq, Sudan, Israel and the Occupied Territories, the
former Yugoslavia and Latin America."
Other speakers at the press conference included Brenda
Stokely, Mike Gimbel and Ray Laforest of AFSCME, and Miguel
Maldonado of the Immigrant Workers Association.
Reprinted from the Oct. 18, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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