Update from Iraq Union Campaign

[LincolnMcGrath]

Earlier this week I sent out an urgent message to all of you asking for
you to send on messages to President Bush demanding that the US
investigate the raid on the Iraqi trade union headquarters one week ago
-- and provide reassurances that it will not happen again.

Your response has been fantastic. You have been sending on the messages
and more important, telling your friends and fellow trade unionists. One
of our readers in Australia wrote to tell me that the campaign was
spreading like wildfire -- that he'd received six or seven copies of our
appeal from different friends. As I write this, several thousand email
messages have reached the White House -- with copies to the Iraqi
Federation of Trade Unions, who are enormously pleased with the response.

The campaign continues to grow. Harry Barnes, a Labour Member of
Parliament, raised the issue in the House of Commons here in Britain and
got a response from a government minister. Many of you have been
contacting the media, writing to the State Department, to the Democratic
candidates for President in the US, to the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Baghdad, even to the US military's Central Command. Several
major trade unions, including COSATU in South Africa, the RMT in
Britain, the Scottish TUC, the Italian metalworkers and the Italian CGIL
have issued strong statements. All of this is documented -- with much
more information -- on our special web page about Iraq:

http://www.labourstart.org/iraq/

If you have not yet done so, please make sure to send off your message
to President Bush today, from this page:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=22

Pass that URL (web address) on to others -- let's keep up the momentum.

Finally, shortly after the campaign was launched I published an article
about it -- and there have already been several interesting comments
posted by readers. I invite you to read the article and to add your
thoughts, here:

http://www.ericlee.me.uk/archive/000065.html

Thanks very much.

Eric Lee