[Nasional-e] ANTI-WAR LABOR MOVEMENT GROWS

[Ambon]

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

AS BUSH SAVORS ELECTION VICTORY: 
ANTI-WAR LABOR MOVEMENT GROWS


By Milt Neidenberg

Hardly any attention has been paid in the media to the labor 
movement's role in the Nov. 5 elections and how labor will 
be affected in their aftermath. The AFL-CIO, except for a 
few defections to Republican candidates, went all out to 
defeat the Bush administration. It failed. Much can be 
learned from defeats; maybe these leaders will do some heavy 
soul searching in the stormy period ahead.

One fact stands out. The AFL-CIO's support for the 
Democratic Party and its liberal wing cost dearly. 
Republican and Democratic campaigns alike buried the issue 
uppermost in workers' minds: the economic crisis. Waging war 
against Iraq along with homeland security and the so-called 
war on terrorism overwhelmed the electorate. The AFL-CIO's 
top leaders got entangled in the capitalist web.

Millions of the multinational work force--people of color, 
women, youths and seniors, unemployed, lesbian, gay, bi and 
trans workers, the poor--stood on the sidelines as the 
Democrats succumbed to the blitz by Bush and his billionaire 
supporters. Only 39 percent of eligible voters pulled the 
levers in this lackluster election.

The workers expected a vigorous campaign to take on the 
greedy, profit-driven moguls. It didn't happen.

AFL-CIO National Political Director Steve Rosenthal, who 
directed labor's election strategy, ignored all these 
critical factors in explaining labor's setback. He offered a 
tepid criticism of the Democrats: "Overall, a lot of the 
building blocks you need to put together Democratic 
victories just weren't there in a lot of states. ... 
Republicans gave their voters a reason to go out and vote 
and the Democrats did not."

Nevertheless, the AFL-CIO leadership tried to overcome the 
fruitless, do-nothing Democratic campaign. Led by AFL-CIO 
President John Sweeney, they put on a massive push using 
union power, money and other resources to get out the 
membership to support the very same Democrats who had failed 
their constituencies--labor, African Americans, Latinos, 
women and the rest of the workers.

They contacted each of the 13.5 million members at least 
four times. They deployed 750 full-time political organizers 
across the country, handed out 20 million leaflets and 
arranged transportation to the polls for tens of thousands 
of workers.

In Las Vegas alone, they tracked over 10,000 union 
households a day with high-tech PalmPilots and then 
downloaded the data every night into a central computer. 
They followed this up with an army of door knockers to get 
out the vote to elect "labor-friendly" Democratic 
candidates. A password-protected web site made this campaign 
available to many other cities.

In late May, the AFL-CIO General Executive Board levied an 
increase of four cents, making a total of 10 cents, on each 
member of the 66 affiliates to build up the organizing and 
electoral funds. How many millions of dollars were spent has 
not been announced, but the labor movement was totally 
outspent by its Democratic "friends" and billionaire 
Republicans.

Now the Bush administration intends to turn back the clock 
on many of the laws that labor fought for and won over 
decades of struggle. Corporate America has begun to target 
the labor movement. A Wall Street Journal headline on Nov. 
8, only three days after the Bush victory, gloated: "Big 
Labor Could Pay Price After GOP Gains." The article cited 
only a few of the labor-friendly laws still on the books 
that have to go.

The Fair Labor Standards Act is one. It protects workers' 
rights with many regulations. Employers want to lengthen the 
40-hour week to the "good ol' days" before unions were 
organized. They want to weaken the Family and Medical Leave 
Act that gives workers as much as 12 weeks of unpaid leave 
for health and related problems. The bosses want these 
workers on the job. Forget about their health and safety and 
that of their loved ones.

Then there is the concern that the International Longshore 
and Warehouse Union is too strong. Options include placing 
dock workers under the auspices of the Railway Labor Act. 
That would make government intervention against the union 
easier than using the Taft-Hartley Act. An ILWU spokesperson 
quoted in the Journal said these threats "are unlikely to 
succeed."

There is a resistance emerging from below that could take 
the glow out of the Bush electoral victory. The Wall Street 
tycoons' shameless conduct has infuriated millions of 
workers. They identify the Bush administration with the 
obscene wealth that has been ripped off at their expense.

New York Times labor writer Steven Greenhouse, who has 
extensive ties to both labor and management, wrote in an 
Oct. 29 article that "the ebullient mood of American workers 
during the 1990s boom has evaporated over the last two 
years, a victim of recession, rising unemployment, a hobbled 
stock market and scandals at WorldCom, Enron and other 
corporations."

In the piece, headlined "The Mood at Work: Anger and 
Anxiety" and published a week before the election, 
Greenhouse warned his liberal capitalist constituents that 
workers are fed up with the direction of the economy and 
that major class struggles may soon break out:

"Most workers surveyed said they would vote to join a union. 
... Workers are voicing a sense of anger, even betrayal 
toward top executives. ... They're asking people to make 
sacrifices ... [while they're] feeding at the trough to 
enrich themselves."

Opposition to the Bush billionaire clique and their lies 
about Iraq, homeland security, and the so-called war on 
terror is growing. A sector of the organized labor movement 
and a significant number of AFL-CIO labor councils have 
taken up this attack. From the Washington State Federation 
of Labor to the second-largest Teamsters union in the 
country to the Albany Central Labor Council, many unions, 
too numerous to mention, have passed anti-war resolutions 
with overwhelming votes.

They oppose the Bush strategy to feed the war drive and the 
military-industrial complex with billions of dollars that 
could go toward desperately needed social and economic 
programs.

As the anti-war labor movement grows, the labor bureaucracy 
will feel the pressure to change direction. They have 
reached a crossroad. The AFL-CIO must break with the two-
party system and the warmongers who speak for different 
wings of the capitalist bosses. The labor movement's destiny 
lies with the millions of anti-war activists and their many 
constituencies that include anti-racist, anti-globalization 
fighters, youths, seniors, women, and others. In the stormy 
period ahead, there is no other way.

- END -

(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to 
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but 
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact 
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: 
ww@wwpublish.com. Subscribe wwnews-on@wwpublish.com. 
Unsubscribe wwnews-off@wwpublish.com. Support the voice of 
resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)