Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We join with you in solidarity and support for your 72 hour strike
against the war and against union busting. Your action will give inspiration
to workers in the US and around the world that they are not alone in
challenging the warmongers and real terrorists of the world. The warm
that the US and the UK have launched with the support of the governments
of Spain, Bulgaria and Japan among others is an act of barbarism and
as such is a war crime against humanity and the Iraqi people.
Despite mass opposition in the United States of millions, the Bush
cabal with the support of the Democrats have launched this murderous
attack on the people of Iraq. In San Francisco this past week over
2,000 people were arrested who were protesting the war. Hundreds of
thousands have marched week after week to demand an end to this insanity.
This war is about stealing the oil from the Iraqi people and placing
this resource under the control of the US robber barons. Already Bush
connected companies such as Halliburton, Bechtel and anti-labor shipping
companies Stevedore Services Inc. are getting US contracts to rebuild,
take-over and run the oil, shipping and entire infrastructure. This
is what the war is about. Privatizing the entire Iraqi economy to benefit
US multi-nationals.
They are getting these contracts even before the war is over. Their
main concern was protecting the oil wells for their voracious appetites.
This war also launches a new stage in the US class struggle. In the
United States, the Bush administration is seeking to privatize all
public jobs in the federal government. This would amount to 850,000
workers. Over 100,000 teachers in California alone have received layoff
notices and the jobs of millions of workers are now threatened At the
same time the economic crisis is being used as a pretext in the airline
industry to declare bankruptcy and to use the bankruptcy laws to destroy
all union contracts and labor conditions. The paralysis of the AFL-CIO
and their support for the war on Iraq are very much connected. They
fear to mobilize the working class by the millions because they realize
this mobilization will sweep them away as well.
Along side these economic attacks is the effort to eliminate democratic
rights with laws such as the Maritime Security Act, Patriot Act and
the Homeland Security Act. The US government is engaged in a racist
round-up of hundreds of thousands of boys and men who are Muslim and
from the Middle East.
What is critical in the battles ahead is that we educate and organize
within the working class to fight these attacks.
The power to stop the war is by direct industrial action by millions
of workers to stop the planes, trains and trucks. Workers in the United
States are beginning to question the war and many unionists have joined
the demonstrations as individuals but need to bring the organized labor
movement into action as a collective fist.
We are also working to reclaim MayDay for the American working class.
The bosses and the Democrats and Republicans have sought to separate
the world wide struggle of workers on May Day from any action by US
workers. We will be fighting for a day of action of all workers to
oppose the war, oppose the union busting, privatization and for the
rebuilding of the labor movement on a democratic class struggle basis.
Your action is taking this step forward for all working people.
Victory In Your Struggle, Long Live the Unity of Working People Throughout
the World We have nothing to lose but our chains.
In Solidarity,
Steve Zeltzer
Campaign Against Taft-Hartley, Repression & Privatization
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