What if Labor Opposed War

[JohnyCanuck]

What if Labor Opposed War

By David Swanson

I think the peace movement and every justice movement in the United States should simply overwhelm Congress members during the next two months with one and only one demand: Pass the Employee Free Choice Act in January. This is, of course, the bill that the labor movement has been trying to pass for years, and that Democrats in Congress and President Elect Obama have committed to making law: http://aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca

SNIP

The EFCA puts teeth behind legalizing the right to organize a union. We need it because a strengthened labor movement will almost certainly bring great benefits to workers, and because it just might bring benefits to our broader civil society. Peace groups need to push the EFCA so that labor unions owe peace groups a favor.

For all the effort the peace movement has put in, and for all the influence the antiwar message has had on pubic opinion (without which Barack Obama would not have been elected), the peace movement has almost no ability to influence Congress or the president elect. Take a look at Obama's short list for possible appointees to the Pentagon, or his vice presidential pick, or his chief of staff: there's nobody within a mile of the new administration who opposed the war. In stark contrast, check out the names under consideration for Secretary of Labor: they actually know and support the labor movement.

Were the labor movement to put its growing strength behind a demand for peace, the chances of success for the peace movement would increase dramatically. And, of course, lives would be saved, relations improved, and the economy benefitted. Within the labor movement there has been a great deal of peace activism, led by the tremendous work of U.S. Labor Against the War http://uslaboragainstwar.org but, while many unions have formally passed resolutions opposing the war, none has put major resources into lobbying to end it.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/37634