Million Worker March Movement to host town hall meeting

The Million Worker March Movement (MWMM) will be holding an important all-day town hall meeting on Friday, Oct. 14, in Washington, D.C. It is being held on the “Day of Absence” called by the Millions More Movement (MMM),which is urging people not to go to work or school to protest against all forms of injustice.

The MMM will be holding a mass rally the next day at the National Mall to mark the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March, which attracted more than 1 million, predominantly Black, men in 1995. The principal spokesperson for the Millions More Movement is Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan.

The MWMM, one of the official nation al co-conveners of the Millions More Move ment, is calling upon activists who represent labor, organized and unorganized, working class issues and anti-war groups to attend the town hall meeting in order to strategize to help build a powerful, united movement against government-sponsored wars against the workers and the poor at home and abroad.

Fighting against the racism and poverty that Hurricane Katrina helped to expose will be a main focus of this meeting. Some of the issues to be addressed are: taking to task a criminal government that serves the interests of only a wealthy few; supporting the right to return to the Gulf Coast region of thousands of mainly Black and poor people displaced by Katrina; fighting so they can determine how their communities should be restored; the freezing of all Halliburton-type contracts to rebuild for profit; reinstating the prevailing wage under the Davis-Bacon Act; stopping the military recruitment of people of color and other poor youth to fight in wars for profits, like in Iraq.

Speakers at the town hall meeting will include Clarence Thomas, Brenda Stokely, Chris Silvera and Saladin Muhammad, all national leaders of the Million Worker March Movement; Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council organizer; author Jack Rasmus; Larry Holmes, Troops Out Now Coalition representative; and John Parker, International Action Center-Los Angeles.

The MWMM founding national D.C. rally a year ago brought together thousands of rank and file workers, the unemployed, immigrants, women, youth, anti-war activists and LGBT people in a call for an independent workers’ movement to demand universal health care, repeal of the U.S. Patriot Act, bring U.S. troops home now, the protection of Social Security and pensions and much more. The MWMM is based on the principle of workers speaking in their own name.

The Oct. 14 town hall meeting will take place at Local 639 Teamsters Local Hall, 3100 Ames Place NE, from 10 a.m. to
10 p.m. Call (510) 444-6272 for more information.