Thousands of unionists say "no"to red-baiting

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NoU.S. Intervention

Central America & the Caribbeam No ioterrencion delos ALU, en Centroamerica clarbe Over 80,000 marched in the April 25 Western States Mobilization in $9331 TROOPS TO CENTRAL AMERICA "Red-baiting, Shanker-style!" received a sledge hammer-blow on April 25, as tens of thousands of trade unionists marched on the nation's capital.

This expression, targeting Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, appeared as the headline of a quarter-page, union-sponsored New York Times advertisement (April 24, 1987) that urged a mass outpouring against the war policies of the U.S. government.

The ad charged Shanker with "dragging up the tired cliches about 'radical left-wing groups... who use trade unionists, religious leaders, community activists and other people of good will." It was placed in the Times by Stanley Hill, executive director of District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest union in the New York City area.

The ad was written in response to Shanker's weekly paid column in the same newspaper the previous week. Shanker's column consisted of a red-baiting tirade against the leadership of the organizers of the April 25 protest.

Shanker drew heavily on a 16-page report released by President John T. Joyce of the International Union of Bricklayers. This report was distributed nationally with the assistance of the U.S. government/CIAinfluenced American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD). It was sent to AFL-CIO affiliates with an accompanying "memorandum" from AIPLD functionary David Jessup. American history. And officers in labor who warned against it then, now proudly proclaim the inspiration and achievement of that march."

"That march," Hill continued, "made Hill's ad publicly and aptly characterized Bricklayer President Joyce as "an active pro-contra supporter," who "also felt it necessary to warn about 'Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries. ,181 But Hill's boldness in the face of a public declaration of war against the march by AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, which included written threats of charter revocation directed at all those state and local AFL-CIO bodies that formally supported the April 25 protest, was not the courageous act of an isolated individual.

The April 25 protest was supported by the presidents of 19 national unions, editor strict NEIN YORE including five of the six largest AFL-CIO affiliates, and by an unprecedented number of local, state, and regional trade-union bodies representing the majority of the organized labor movement in the United States.

"You can't hang back"

Hill did not neglect to state this key point emphatically. He noted:

"Nobody's going to mislead anybody on this march. Presidents of the United Auto Workers; Communication Workers; Machinists; Amalgamated Clothing Wor -kers; SEIU; Food and Commercial Workers; 1199; my international union, AFSCME; and 11 other international unions will be marching with their rank and file tomorrow:

"They'll be walking away from the old Action/Joe Ryan Soci San Francisco.

ideas and feeble rhetoric that has served labor so poorly recently. I will be proud to be with them—and with 50 busloads of DC 37 members who will head for Washington at 6:45 a.m."

Hill concluded with a reference to the advice Shanker had received from his mother regarding who you should hang out with. Hill noted, "My mother warned me too. Her warning may have been more important. She said that when the need is there 'you can't hang back."

"We are right now"

More than one-third of the marchers on April 25 in Washington, D.C., were trade unionists from across the country who were organized in the lead contingent.

They obviously believed that the "need was there" to protest against the war moves of the government and its refusal to break with the racist apartheid government of South Africa. They called for "Jobs, Not War." Half of this contingent was comprised of Black trade unionists.

Kenneth T. Blaylock, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, put the number of trade unionists present at 45,000.

Blaylock observed, "There's a difference of opinion, obviously, within organized labor about the problems of Central America. But that doesn't bother me. We are right. Labor was split in 1963 on civil rights. It was split later over the Vietnam War. We were right then and we are right now.

One of the keynote speakers at the Washington demonstration was Ed Asner, actor and past president of the Screen Actors Guild. In his remarks to the rally, Asner addressed the AFL-CIO's policies in Central America:

"It's hard to swallow the AFL-CIO's rhetoric about democratic trade unionism when we're faced with the shady, truly subversive activities of their American Institute for Free Labor Development-its meddling in the politics of Central America, mirroring the role of the administration and quite possibly the CIA."

"Disregard for free speech"

Asner also felt compelled to take up the Shanker/Kirkland smears of the demonstration. "It is hard to believe the AFL-CIO's rhetoric about free speech abroad in the face of their abysmal disregard for free speech at home," he said.

This was an obvious reference to Kirkland's letter of March 23, 1987, in which he cited the AFL-CIO constitution (continued on page 5)