Solidarity in Wartime

David Bacon

In a Service Employees union hall in Boston, a hospital worker raises her hand. "If Saddam Hussein was such a bad guy," she asks, "why is the U.S. enforcing his law banning unions in Iraq?"

Since January, workers like this orderly have been listening to the answers to their questions given by Iraqi workers themselves, courtesy of U.S. Labor Against the War, a network that now includes dozens of union locals and labour councils nationally. USLAW's campaign for labour rights in Iraq is also bringing reports, videos, and testimony of American unionists who have travelled to Iraq into union halls in California, Washington, Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., and beyond. As a result, hundreds of union members have suddenly been able to see Iraq not just as a scene of violent conflict but also as a complex nation of 24 million people, with trade unions, political parties, and civil organisations trying desperately to win back control of their country.

Full: http://www.sevenoaksmag.com/features/17_iraq.html