Support the Million Worker March!

by Jeff Mackler

Initiated by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 in San Francisco and today supported by an impressive list of major trade union bodies across the country, the Oct. 17, Washington, D.C. Million Worker March (MWM) has created quite a stir in the U.S. labor movement.

March organizers describe the event as "an independent mobilization of working people" and their allies to fight for a political and social agenda that benefits the vast majority.

The agenda includes clear demands for a national living wage, protection and enhancement of Social Security, universal single-payer health care and guaranteed pensions.

The call for the march demands the cancellations of all corporate "free" trade agreements, massive funding of public education, a program to finance "an army of teachers to end functional illiteracy," a "mobilization against all racist and discriminatory acts, including those based upon gender and sexual orientation, in the workplace and in our communities and an amnesty for all undocumented workers.

The march champions a fight for progressive taxation aimed at the corporate rich, repeal of the Taft Hartley and Patriot Acts and massive cuts in the military budget in the trillions of dollars.

Also included are demands to "open the books on the secret budgets of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies in the service of corporations and banksS" that pursue "imperial war on the poor everywhere."

The Washington, D.C. mobilization also features a critical demand to "End the U.S. war in Iraq; end the occupation and bring the troops home now!" The MWM organizing committee has sought the support and collaboration of International ANSWER, one of the major national antiwar coalitions, to help build the D.C. protest. ANSWER leaders report, as of September 27, that more than 100 buses have been chartered on the East Coast. The United for Peace and Justice coalition is also on board and building the event. March organizes told Socialist Action that participants are scheduled to attend from over 100 U.S. cities.

In contrast to the recent marches at the Democratic and Republican Party conventions in Boston and New York, where antiwar organizations like United for Peace and Justice sought to orient social movements to "Defeat George Bush" and elect John Kerry as the solution to the growing social crisis and mounting wars for profit, the Million Worker March is seen by its initiators as a mobilization to foster the development of independent anti-corporate working class power.

A vote of the MWM organizing committee excludes elected officials and candidates for office from speaking at the march.

It was not long before the National AFL-CIO issued a condemnation of the Million Worker March and a directive to its national, state and local affiliates and central labor councils to reject endorsement and support. MWM leaders responded with a withering and incisive repudiation of the AFL-CIO directive. Entitled "NOW IS THE TIME TO SHOW OUR STRENGTH AND TO FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS" we are reprinting in this article, along with our own commentary, the main body of their reply. The complete text can be found at: www.millionworkermarch.org.

"On June 23, 2004, at the behest of John Sweeny and the leadership of the AFL-CIO, Marilyn C. Sneiderman, Director of the Field Mobilization Department of the AFL-CIO, sent out a Memorandum to 'All State Federations and Central Labor Councils of the AFL-CIO' referencing the 'Million Worker March,' and directing them 'not to sponsor or devote resources to the demonstration in Washington, D.C.'"

The MWM reply continued: "We take note of the fact that this Memorandum was dispatched without any prior communication with the organizers and official endorsers of the Million Worker March. These include the entire ILWU Long shore Division, the National Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, South Carolina State AFL-CIO Labor Federation, Labor Councils across the United States and national organizations such as the International Action Center and Global Exchange.

"In effect, the leadership of the AFL-CIO has gone over the heads of significant sectors of the labor, anti-war, community and inter-faith organizations in issuing a directive to boycott a labor mobilization in Washington, D.C.

"This is unprecedented and requires us to pose the question: Why would the leadership of the AFL-CIO feel threatened by a labor mobilization that confronts the crisis facing working people in America and seeks to reverse the wholesale attacks on our living standards, social services, housing, health, and education while challenging the diversion of trillions of dollars derived from the labor of working people to fund permanent war over decades and a brutal war for oil and occupation in Iraq? "

The MWM response continues:

"The Memorandum from the AFL-CIO states: 'While we may agree with many of the aims and issues of the March, the AFL-CIO is NOT a co-sponsor of this effort and we will not be devoting resources or energies toward mobilizing demonstrations this fall. ... We think it is absolutely crucial that we commit the efforts of our labor movement to removing George W. Bush from office.'

'We encourage our state federations, area councils and central labor councils not to sponsor or devote resources to the demonstrations in Washington, D.C. but instead to remain focused on the election...'"

In a trenchant and well-conceived counter to the AFL-CIO's pro-capitalist and Democratic Party orientation the MWM organizing committee statement replied:

"The Million Worker March is organizing working people to put forth our needs and our agenda independently of politicians and parties. We say that only by acting in our name can we build a movement that advances our needs. The very formation of the trade union movement was the result of independent organizing and mobilizing of working people. The struggle for industrial unionism, the movement for women's suffrage, the great movements for civil rights -- all these flowed from the will to mobilize independently and in our own name.

"Our aims, with which the AFL-CIO leadership purports to agree, include universal single-payer health care from the cradle to the grave -- that ends the stranglehold of greedy insurance companies. Will the defeat of George Bush result in this?

"Our aims include an end to the corporate trade agreements that pit workers against each other everywhere in a mad race to the sweat-shop bottom. Will the defeat of George Bush change this when the Democratic Party brought us NAFTA, MAI and Fast Track with Disney and J. C. Penny paying Haitian workers 21 cents per hour?

"Will the defeat of George Bush end privatization and the destruction of unions in the public sector when the Democratic Party privatized and outsourced our jobs under the rubric of 'downsizing government?' What were downsized were our social services while corporate profits and the military sucked trillions of dollars taken from the sweat of our collective labor.

"Will the defeat of George Bush bring a crash program to restore our decaying and devastated public schools, replacing them with state of the art public education in every community in America?

"Will the defeat of George Bush result in the rebuilding of our inner cities with free modern, state of the art housing and an end to homelessness?

Will that presumptive defeat see the launching of a national training program in skills and capacities that enlist our people in rebuilding this country?

"Will it end the criminalization of poverty or abolish the prison-industrial complex that has destroyed generations of Black and Latino youth?

Will the defeat of George Bush roll back the bi-partisan union-busting and anti-labor legislation, such as Taft-Hartley, that has been on the books for 67 years?

It has been quite some time, several decades indeed, since forces emanating from the labor movement have so intelligently explained the reality of the dual nature of capitalism's twin parties. Having indirectly explained that the Democrats offer no alternative to the anti-worker course of the Republicans, the MWM organizing committee lays the basis for an open and factually documented attack on John Kerry. The MWM open letter continues:

"John Kerry, outflanking Bush from the far right, has called for an intensification of the so-called 'war on terror' by targeting people 'before they act'-- giving explicit sanction to secret arrests, detention without trial and the labeling of opponents as 'terrorists.'

"Will the removal of George Bush preserve the Bill of Rights, repeal the Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and all the repressive legislation that has set the stage for a Police State in America?

"Will the defeat of George Bush recover the $4.4 trillion dollars that disappeared from the Pentagon and the Department of Defense as the military industrial complex loots and hijacks government in America?

"John Kerry, the presumptive candidate of the Democratic Party, has demanded a dramatic increase in the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and the extension of U.S. military control in the Middle East and beyond.

"Will the defeat of George Bush end the occupation in Iraq and the plans for greater imperial war?

"Will his defeat bring the troops home now or is the plan after the election, as widely reported, for conscription of working class youth and an expansion of militarism in America?

"Today, 71% of U.S. corporations pay no taxes but John Kerry's principal economic adviser is Wall Street's Warren Buffett, who, along with George Schultz, performs the identical role for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Do John McCain, who John Kerry sought as his running mate or Lee Iacocca of General Motors and Chrysler, who endorsed Kerry, represent the interests of labor and working people?

"Working people in America are under siege. The corporate and banking oligarchy that has power in this society is waging class war against us all.

In the face of attack after attack, the response of the leaders of the AFL-CIO has been silence and default. Their voices are stilled. They dare not cry out 'enough is enough.' They fail to take note that the two parties are financed by the same people and their address is Wall Street.

"36 years ago Martin Luther King summoned our people to a great Poor Peoples March on Washington to address a system in crisis and to confront the hijacking of our government and our country by a banking and corporate oligarchy that has captured the two political parties in America. Would the AFL-CIO dare send out a directive to all of labor to boycott and sabotage the marches and mobilizations of the great civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez?

"In a very real sense, the labor movement in America is facing a crisis of its own. The unrelenting class war that has been waged against us has reduced the number of unionized workers to twelve percent. This is the result of a conscious campaign by that one percent of the population that owns and controls ninety percent of the national wealth.

"Labor is under siege because the corporate bosses know that the trade union movement is the organized expression of all working people and of the vast majority of the population of the United States.

"We are at the point of production and when we mobilize our ranks, we represent a force that no illicit power, however concentrated, can hold back.

"We have taken the pulse of the rank and file and of unorganized labor. The overwhelming majority of working people want an end to permanent war and the hemorrhage of national resources into military production and war.

"Just this weekend, AFSCME and SEIU, two of the largest trade unions in America, passed unanimous resolutions calling for an immediate end to the war in Iraq, an end to the occupation and a return of all U.S. troops.

"That is why the Million Worker March reaches out to labor. We are proud that labor councils across America have endorsed the March. We are inspired by the knowledge that every ILWU local from San Diego to Anchorage has endorsed. We are energized by the endorsement of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and by national organizations for immigrant rights.

"We are organizing in every trade union in America and drawing upon the energy and passion of the labor movement wherever people desire change.

"We are summoning working people from every walk of life to mobilize around a working peoples' agenda, and a vision of an America transformed

"Ours is a March and a Mobilization for all who say 'enough is enough.' Infant mortality in Harlem is greater than in Bangladesh and in Bangladesh the same Stevedore Association that sought to break the ILWU is privatizing their ports and imposing starvation wages.

"Unemployment in our inner cities has reached catastrophic proportions with over 60% of black male youth without work while militarized police units are deployed as an occupation army.

"One out of four children in America goes to bed hungry but hundreds of millions of dollars of our union dues fund politicians who do nothing about it.

"Our labor movement has the opportunity and the obligation to reach out to hundreds of millions of working people, organized and unorganized. We need not hand politicians a blank check so they can soft soap us at election time and destroy our jobs, benefits and social services all the time in between.

"We say to every union member, to every union local and to every labor council, to every State Federation and to Central Labor Council, let labor's voice be heard.

"Join us in standing up for our rights. Join us in advancing our own agenda. Join us in fighting for our communities and our jobs.

"Support the ILWU workers who shut down the port to protest apartheid and launched a mobilization against Taft-Hartley and all repressive anti-labor legislation.

"Support the one and quarter of a million women who marched and mobilized in Washington D.C. for reproductive rights and equal pay for equal work.

"Send a message to all the politicians -- whoever they are and under whatever banner they parade: We are not for sale; we cannot be soft-soaped, lied to or taken for granted.

"Let them know that we have our own agenda based upon our own experience, our own needs and our own vision and that we shall hold everyone's feet to the fire.

"We say to the leadership of the AFL-CIO and to all and everyone who has hopes or expectations of John Kerry or any politician seeking our support: do not take us for granted; do not confound silence at the top for acquiescence at the base.

"Labor has issued too many blank checks only to have our pockets picked and our aspirations ignored.

"Let us join together -- everyone in the house of labor. Every gain we have ever made has been won under the signal banner of labor: we are working people proud and strong, union strong, and we fight for our rights with our own voice and in our own name.

"Come together, sisters and brothers. Let us tap into our great strength - the desire for change and for social justice.

"We call on everyone to endorse, build, finance and mobilize the Million Worker March on Washington, D.C. on October 17 -- a day when we demonstrate across the United States that labor and working people are on the march and will no longer be denied. "

Undaunted by the AFL-CIO's rebuff, MWM organizers proceeded with plans to organize a march with the broadest possible support. An impressive series of interventions by march supporters at national and regional union conventions across the country met with surprisingly success. The 400,000-member American Postal Workers Union breached the labor federation's endorsement ban along with major district councils of AFSCME and the national union itself. The influential Teamsters Black Caucus came on board and with it significant funds and more support from some top national Teamster officials.

The postal worker endorsement was not quite unexpected. Both George Bush and John Kerry favor the privatization of the Post Office, a move that all understand will result in massive job cuts and related assaults of workers' living standards.

Concerned that it was faced with far greater defections, and having no viable alternative to defend labor from the ruling class assault, the AFL-CIO bureaucrats decided on a tactical retreat.

This was confirmed in a September 16, 2004 Scripps Howard Wire Service story by Rebecca Trela entitled, "Million Worker March to Voice Labor Movement Concerns."

Trela wrote: "Recently, AFL-CIO Field Mobilization Director Marilyn C. Sneiderman was criticized by some union workers for public remarks discouraging union members from attending the [Million Worker] march.

"A spokeswoman for the labor union coalition, however, attempted on Thursday to clarify its position. 'We've never said that we're against the march,' said Lane Windham. 'Certainly we support the goals, but we don't think this is the right time. We think that all the labor movement's efforts should be going into battleground states.' Windham suggested a Washington event after the election."

The AFL-CIO's retreat opened the door wider to additional endorsements and support. New York City's massive Hospital Workers Local 1199 switched gears and joined the city's dominant AFSCME and SEIU District Councils to virtually sow up the public employee union support. A local New York City MWM organizing committee is chartering buses with union support. District Council 1707's top official and MWM organizer, Brenda Stokley, has opened the union's offices to building for the march. Stokley spoke in support of the march at a recent Socialist Action forum entitled, "Anybody But Bush?"

Similarly, US Labor Against War (USLAW), a trade union-based coalition of some 50 national, state and local union bodies is rumored to be reconsidering a referendum vote that originally rejected by a 17-27 margin endorsement of the march.

An August 12, 2004 letter from USLAW to the MWM organizing committee read:

"You should know that in the discussion of this question, there was broad support for the concept of the Million Worker March and the program of demands it has enunciated. The principal reason that many of USLAW affiliates declined to endorse was not the concept or program but rather the timing of the MWM just two weeks prior to the November 2nd election which will determine the outcome of thousands of local, state and national public offices and initiative questions of great importance to USLAW affiliates, in addition to the presidency. Had the demonstration been scheduled after the election, it is highly likely that a large majority of our affiliates would have endorsed and enthusiastically organized participation by their members."

The letter, signed by USLAW Co-Convenor, Bob Muehlenkamp, concluded, "While USLAW is not endorsing the October 17 demonstration on Washington, D.C., no doubt some of our affiliates will participate in their own behalf. We wish you much success in your efforts."

Among those USLAW affiliates that cast their votes in favor of the MWM march were the 1.8 million-member California Labor Federation and its San Francisco and Los Angeles County Central Labor Council affiliates.

MWM March Co-Chair Clarence Thomas, a Longshore and Warehouse Union official and past Secretary Treasurer of San Francisco's Local 10, confirmed that march organizers were shooting for 100,000 at be present at the Lincoln Memorial rally site.

"We're not saying that there will be a million people there, but a million people will be represented," said Thomas.

Regardless of the turnout, the simple fact that a relatively small West Coast ILWU local of some 1,000 members could take on a principled project that in its essence challenges virtually the entire misleadership of the AFL-CIO is remarkable. What is even more remarkable is that Local 10 has demonstrated that working people across the country are far more angrier and willing to struggle than most labor officials believed.

The vehicle of a mass, independent mobilization for labor's demands, including outright opposition to imperialist war and political independence from capitalism's twin parties, has proven to be a powerful weapon in labor's hands.

The support that has already been won for the Million Worker March is an initial indication, albeit on a tiny scale, of what will happen when militant trade unionists and the working class as a whole begin to challenge their dead end leaders and chart a course of independent political and economic action.

While we far from this point the experience and lessons of the fight to build a Million Worker March is worthy of careful study. At the same time, it should be noted that the march comes at a time when the level of labor combativity and organization has reached historic lows. Almost 88 percent of U.S. workers have no union at all, a reason in itself, a shocking fact that has justifiably led MWM organizers to seek the broad support of social forces not directly affiliated with the organized union movement.

It is to the credit of MWM leaders that they reached out to the broad antiwar movement and to major civil rights organizations. Rev. E. Randall Osburn of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has agreed to speak as has The Rev. Jesse Jackson.

In Jackson's case march organizers have made it clear that his participation is to be limited to support of the objectives of the march and NOT to advocacy for or against any candidate for office. Should Jackson, a well-known supporter of the Democratic Party, violate this agreement to respect the MWM's political independence, there will no doubt be speakers who follow him who will reassert the MWM viewpoint.

There is no doubt that the march is replete with its own inevitable contradictions. Virtually all of the many endorsing unions, including the 1.5 million member National Education Association (NEA) and the ILWU itself, are supporters of the Democratic Party and the John Kerry's presidential campaign. Yet they have agreed to at least endorse a march that points to the need for labor to break with capitalism's boss-controlled parties.

They have been driven to do so because it has become clear to many, especially millions in the rank-and-file, that neither party of the corporate elite offers anything to working people other than deepening attacks on their basic rights and living standards.

The NEA, by coincidence, is organizing some 50,000 teachers to lobby in Washington, likely to urge Democratic Party politicians for a few crumbs, on same weekend as the MWM march. Undoubtedly, MWM leaders will seek the NEA's participation at the Sunday, October 17 march, a correct approach that will afford teachers an opportunity to hear speakers with a political viewpoint championing working class independence as opposed to reliance on liberal Democrats.

It is impossible at this time to estimate the size of the march. It is unlikely that the broad endorsements already achieved will be matched by union action designed to systematically mobilize labor's ranks. Thus far, only modest efforts have been recorded in this regard.

But the size of the march, even if qualitatively less than has been projected, will not be the sole measure of its success. MWM organizers have demonstrated that in these troubled times, when neither party of the ruling class is capable of offering anything but more pain and suffering to U.S. workers, the growing rank-and-file opposition to the status, offers serious trade unionists and worker advocates, more room to maneuver and mobilize than in quite some time.

Build the Million Worker March! All Out for Washington, D.C. on Sunday, October 17!

The Million Worker March can be contacted at: