South Carolina AFL-CIO Endorses DC March for Jobs, Peace and Justice!
WORKERS EMERGENCY RECOVERY CAMPAIGN
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140 Tel. (415)
641-8616; fax: (415) 626-1217 email:
wercampaign@gmail.com website: www.wercampaign.org
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[please excuse duplicate postings, and please
distribute widely]
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
Rank-and-file unions from various parts of the country,
as well as Central Labor Councils, have been passing
resolutions calling on the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to
organize a massive Solidarity Day III demonstration in
Washington to demand job-creation programs as well as
other programs vital to working people. [See initial
list of endorsers of this call below.]
This campaign just took a qualitative leap forward when
the statewide South Carolina AFL-CIO passed a similar
resolution, which you will find below.
These resolutions have a receptive audience. AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka recently argued: "It's not
time to leave it to any political party to take care of
us once we put them in office. It's time to organize
and mobilize as never before to make every elected or
aspiring leader PROVE he or she will create the jobs we
need in an economy we need with the healthcare we need.
I know we are the people who can mobilize a massive
army to force elected leaders to deliver."
Together, these developments signal that now is the
time to act. We want to encourage all of you to raise
similar resolutions in your union locals and
labor/community organizations. Every resolution will
help, and any single resolution might just provide the
essential tipping point that results in a nationwide
call for a Solidarity Day III demonstration.
Every recent poll has concluded that job loss is the
top concern of the American public. If we succeed in
winning a call for Solidarity Day III march in
Washington, this diffuse sentiment will achieve
concrete expression in the streets as working people
across the country mobilize under the banner of a
demand for job-creation programs, single-payer
healthcare, an end to home foreclosures and evictions
and war, money for education and vital social services,
and so on.
The labor movement in this country represents the
interests of the majority of the people in this
country. The bankers do not. We have a solemn duty to
press for Solidarity Day III so that the collective
voice of the majority of working people can be heard
across the nation.
In Solidarity,
Alan Benjamin and Bill Leumer WERC Co-Conveners
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SOUTH CAROLINA AFL-CIO
Post Office Box 39
Swansea, S.C. 29160
* (803) 798-8300 * Toll free 866-798-8300 *
FAX (803) 798-2231 * E-Mail: scaflcio@bellsouth.net
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Resolution in Support of a Labor-Sponsored March on
Washington WHEREAS in the aftermath of the
Massachusetts special senatorial election, AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka issued a statement declaring,
"It's time to organize and mobilize as never before to
make every elected or aspiring leader PROVE he or she
will create the jobs we need in an economy we need with
the healthcare we need. I know we are the people who
can mobilize a massive army to force elected leaders to
deliver;" and
WHEREAS despite the so-called economic recovery, the
economic crisis for working people has continued
unabated, with growing unemployment and
underemployment, rising home foreclosures and
evictions, and the underfunding of public education and
vitally needed social services; and
WHEREAS the government has bestowed billions of bailout
dollars on the financial institutions whose
recklessness and greed created this economic crisis and
who are rewarding those responsible with obscene
gigantic bonuses; and WHEREAS the labor movement's
legislative priorities -- a massive program for jobs,
true universal healthcare, and enactment of the
Employee Free Choice Act -- are all in great peril; and
WHEREAS while the government has no problem allocating
a trillion dollars for two wars thousands of miles
away, it has not committed funds critically needed to
put America back to work, with healthcare and quality
education for all; and
WHEREAS right wing, anti-labor forces, such as the Tea
Bag movement, have brought hundreds of thousands of
people into the streets to advance their reactionary
demands; and WHEREAS there is a growing movement within
the House of Labor to counter the right-wing offensive
against workers' living standards with our own massive
mobilization; and
WHEREAS various union bodies, including the South Bay
Labor Council (CA), acting on a resolution submitted by
Plumbers and Fitters Local 393, Troy Area Labor Council
(NY), and the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO,
have adopted resolutions calling upon the AFL-CIO and
Change to Win to organize a Solidarity Day III March on
Washington D.C. in the spring of 2010 to demand jobs,
healthcare, housing, full funding for public education
and social services, and peace; now therefore be it
RESOLVED that the South Carolina AFL-CIO joins with our
brothers and sisters in calling for a labor-sponsored
march on Washington for jobs, peace and justice, which
would have the capability of mobilizing the kind of
massive army Brother Trumka spoke of; and be it finally
RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be sent to the
AFL-CIO and to Change to Win. (Adopted by the SC AFL-
CIO Executive Board - February 2nd, 2010)
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Initial list of endorsers of Call for a Labor-Sponsored
Demonstration in Washington for Jobs, Peace and Justice
- South Carolina State AFL-CIO - San Francisco Labor
Council - South Bay Labor Council (San Jose, Calif.) -
San Mateo Central Labor Council - Hartford (CT) Central
Labor Council - Troy (NY) Central Labor Council - AFT
Local 1021 (Los Angeles) - Executive Council, AFT
Missouri - California Peace and Freedom Party - Harlem
Tenants Council - Harlem Antiwar Coalition - Bay Area
Labor Committee for Peace and Justice - Ohio State
Labor Party - Railroad Workers United - Painters and
Dry Wall workers Local 93 (Bay Area)
- Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report) - Donna Smith,
American SiCKO, American Patients United - Harry Kelber
(Labor Educator) - Sharon Black (Organizer, Bail Out
the People Movement) - Monadel Herzallah (Arab American
Union Members Council) - Andy Griggs (UTLA member) -
Don Bechler (chair, Single Payer Now!) - Larry Duncan
(Labor Beat-Chicago) - Allan Fisher (AFT 2121) - Fred
Hirsch (South Bay Labor Council) - Jerry Gordon (Ohio
State Labor Party) - Bill Balderston (Bay Area Labor
Committee for Peace and Justice)
WERC Interim National Committee Members:
- Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Gulf Coast
Reconstruction activist - Alan Benjamin,* Executive
Committee member, San Francisco Labor Council - Mike
Carano, Progressive Democrats of America - Colia Clark,
Veteran, Civil Rights Movement - Donna Dewitt*,
President, South Carolina AFL-CIO - Pat Gowens,
National organizer, Welfare Warriors - Bill Leumer,*
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 853
(ret.) - Luis Maga単a, Coordinator, Organization of
Farmworkers of California (OTAC) - Cynthia McKinney,
Former Member of Congress, 2009 Green Party
presidential candidate - Jack Rasmus, Economist,
Professor at St. Mary's College - Al Rojas,
Coordinator, Frente de Mexicanos en el Exterior - Marc
Rich, United Teachers of Los Angeles - Cindy Sheehan,
Gold Star mother, antiwar activist - Clarence Thomas,
Member, ILWU Local 10 - Mark Vorpahl*, SEIU Local 49,
Portland, OR - Nancy Wohlforth*, Co-Pres., Pride at
Work/AFL-CIO, Vice Pres.,California Federation of Labor