Escorted by the ILWU longshore Local 10 drill team, Hassan Juma’a Awad, president of Iraq’s General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE) strode into St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley, California June 19. GUOE General Secretary Fateh Abbood Umara walked beside him as the 250 people in the church stood clapping and cheering, some with fists in the air.
Juma’a and Abbood came to the Bay Area as part of a 25-city tour organized and sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW). Six Iraqi union leaders, representing three of Iraq’s major post-Saddam labor federations, toured the U.S. between June 10 and 25. Two representatives of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) toured the East Coast and two from the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) went to the Midwest, while the brothers from GUOE came west. The six headlined a total of 45 events and 10 press conferences, speaking to thousands of working people, union and social justice activists and religious, community and political leaders, including members of Congress.
Members of the ILWU family organized or co-sponsored several of the West Coast events. Longshore Local 10 and marine clerks’ Local 34 welcomed Abbood to their June 16 membership meetings, passing the hat and raising more than $1,200 for the tour. The Harry Bridges Institute hosted a tour of the Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor June 17, followed by a luncheon that drew more than 70 labor and community activists. These included ILWU Coast Committeeman Ray Ortiz, marine clerks’ Local 63 President Adrian Diaz and members of Locals 13, 63 and 94, as well as the IBU, the Pensioners’ Club and Ladies Auxiliary #8.
The ILWU International opened its offices for a press conference June 20. Members of longshore Local 8 met with the Iraqis at Portland’s Terminal 6 June 22 and provided security for them until they left for Seattle, where longshore Local 19 co-sponsored a rally in front of Stevedoring Services of America headquarters June 23.
“The ILWU has looked at the situation in Iraq very hard and examined all the issues,” said International Secretary-Treasurer William E. Adams in welcoming attendees to the press conference. “At our last Executive Board meeting [March/April 2005] the ILWU went on record with a resolution that calls on Bush to bring the troops home from Iraq now and reject the philosophy of pre-emptive war.”
The Iraqi unionists’ tour threw a spotlight on the hardships caused by the military occupation and the corporate invasion that has come with it, and on the common problems faced by working people in Iraq and the U.S.
Since the U.S. invasion, unemployment has spiked to 70 percent in some parts of Iraq. Wages have fallen, the cost of living has skyrocketed and infrastructure remains in shambles.
“They have destroyed our electricity, our water, our factories, even schools and hospitals,” said Juma’a. “Our communities have been attacked with chemicals and cluster bombs and our people have been tortured, raped and killed in our homes.”
Unions have been outlawed and their leaders arrested and assassinated—but pressed by necessity, workers have kept organizing to confront the abuses. (See story pages 6-7.)
Most recently, Iraqi unions have stepped up the fight against privatization.
“The second front of the war will be against privatization,” Juma’a said. “We see privatization as an attempt to impose a permanent economic occupation to follow the military occupation.”
One privatization attempt hit close to home for the ILWU: Stevedoring Services of America got a no-bid contract to privatize the Iraqi port of Um Qasr even before the invasion, as Local 8 President Leal Sundet pointed out when the Iraqis visited Portland.
“With the help of the oil workers, a dock workers’ union was established in 2003 and by 2004 SSA was forced out—privatization failed,” Sundet said. “Our future and your future are locked together. We do the same work and have the same enemies—George Bush and the multinational corporations whose only allegiance is money.”
USLAW and the Iraqi labor leaders issued a joint statement at the end of the tour calling for an end to the occupation, opposing privatization and highlighting the importance of the labor movements in both countries.
“The bedrock of any democracy is a strong, free and democratic labor movement,” it said. “We demand strong labor rights in Iraq at the same time that we strive to reverse the erosion of labor rights in the United States and elsewhere around the world where they are threatened.”
Throughout the tour, the brothers from the GUOE spoke a language of solidarity that needed no translation. At the largest public event in Los Angeles, Fernando Suarez of Military Families Speak Out shared the bill with Juma’a and Abood.
“Suarez told, with obvious grief, the story of his son who was killed after stepping on a cluster bomb in Iraq,” said USLAW West Coast Tour Coordinator Kathy Lipscomb. “Later, when it was Faleh Abbood Umarra’s turn to speak, he asked for a prayer for the lost soldier and Hassan Juma’a Alwad, sitting on the stage, rose to lead it.”
Concluding his talk at St. Joseph’s, Abbood held out his arms as if to give a hug, and interlaced his fingers.
“I feel I am among family here,” he said, but the audience understood the gesture and started clapping before they heard the translation.
—Marcy Rein
USLAW—a national coalition of 112 labor organizations representing more than four million members—still needs help defraying the $55,000 cost of the tour, despite the generosity of audiences around the country. If you can help, write a check to “USLAW/Iraq Solidarity Fund,” and send it to USLAW, PMB 153, 1718 M St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036.
