December 4-6, 2009 – Wyndham O’Hare Hotel, Chicago, IL
An International Call to Labor for World Wide Peace with Economic and Social Justice in a Time of War and Economic Crisis
Featuring:
Iraqi Oil Worker Union Leaders
Pakistani Women, Youth & Labor leaders
Scholars and Policy Experts on Afghanistan
Antiwar Trade Unionists from Across the US
Iraq & Afghan War Veterans
We are at a turning point in US History. In 2008 the labor movement had a moment of triumph, playing a critical role in electing Barack Obama and a majority Democratic Congress. In 2009 we find ourselves still in the middle of a devastating economic crisis with wars and militarism standing between working people and the peaceful just world we seek and deserve.
This is a moment of both peril and promise. USLAW is challenged to develop a program and organizing strategy that will expand and deepen the influence and effectiveness of antiwar forces within the labor movement, while continuing to play a leading role within the broader antiwar movement.
This is the context in which USLAW will convene its third National Assembly in Chicago, December 4-6th.
The Assembly is open to delegates from USLAW affiliates as well as individual associate members. It is the highest decision-making body of USLAW where we debate and adopt resolutions on a range of issues that establish USLAW policy and strategic direction for the next three years. The Assembly will elect the leadership that will guide the organization, and has the authority to make changes in the By-Laws that govern USLAW.
In the Fall of 2009, the need to organize based on these principles is greater than ever.
IRAQ
Despite hundreds of billions of dollars, more than 4300 US fatalities and an unknown number of Iraqi deaths and personal trauma, the people of Iraq and the US have little to show for it. Violence and economic devastation abound. More than 130,000 US troops and an even greater number of private contractors remain on Iraqi soil. Iraqi workers still have no right to union representation, as the US supported government clings to Saddam’s 1987 anti-union labor law. Global corporations hover over Iraq like vultures waiting for the opportunity to seize control of Iraqi resources
AFGHANISTAN
In Afghanistan, after 8 years of war the US faces another quagmire of death, dollars and destruction, with the added elements of drug lords, massive corruption and untold human dislocation and suffering. This is now President Obama’s war – a war that threatens to undermine both Obama’s and labor’s domestic agenda, much as Vietnam did to LBJ’s.
USLAW has had a powerful effect in the labor movement since its formation in 2003, helping to alter how organized labor views foreign policy. But our mission is far from over. USLAW is the only voice of workers that brings them to the forefront in linking the struggle for a just society to the struggle for a just foreign policy.
U.S. labor needs a larger, more powerful and influential USLAW.
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=20274Come to Chicago to help US Labor Against the War Chart a Path to Peace with Justice
For registration and hotel reservation information:
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2488/t/3434/l/eng/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=53476