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| Introduction by Workers Action Workers Action is pleased to publish the following resolution from the South Carolina State AFL-CIO in Support of a Labor-Sponsored March on Washington Demanding Jobs. This is the first statewide AFL-CIO to endorse this call. As such, this must be seen as a major step forward to bring this united labor effort to reality. We urge all labor activists to make this call known to their union brothers and sisters and to raise it as a model in their own locals, districts, and local Labor Councils. For more information, please visit to the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign. |
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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 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 |
| 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 Resolution in Support of a 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
WERC Interim National Committee Members:
(* titles & org. for id. only) 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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