Labor Solidarity and the Anti-War Movement Are the Same Thing
by Anne Winkler-Morey, WAMM

Consider this: The Persian Gulf War helped secure one of the most oppressive migrant labor systems in the world. Foreign workers—many of them Palestinian, many others from Thailand—provide labor for multinational oil companies with drilling productions all over the Middle East. The work is dangerous, low paying, temporary, and, of course, non-union. With these rock-bottom labor costs, multinational oil companies can provide the cheap oil that makes our car culture in the United States possible.

So, what does this have to do with U.S. domestic labor conditions? After the Persian Gulf War, auto companies in Detroit that closed in the late 1980s were able to reopen with a new labor system, using fewer workers who work more hours for less money, under more dangerous conditions. In effect, Detroit workers who served in the Persian Gulf War were unknowingly fighting to decrease their job security and wages, and increase their workload at the auto plants. The Persian Gulf War was, in part, about controlling the cost of labor—ours and that of workers in the Middle East region.

Consider also these facts:

On September 11, 2001, Minnesota State Employees woke up believing it would be their last day of work before their strike. The strike was postponed for a few days in deference to the victims of the attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. When the walkout began, 30,000 Minnesota workers became the target of national news commentators who questioned their patriotism. Strikers walked the picket lines waving flags, some bigger than their picket signs. But this was not enough to protect them from charges of disloyalty levied by media and government figures, from Jesse Ventura to the New York Times. Yet when Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines laid off thousands of workers, their loyalty was not questioned.

In the spring of 2002, when the United Food and Commercial Workers local in St. Paul tried to help organize workers (the majority of them Latino) at the Dakota Premium Plant in St. Paul, they faced a new roadblock: the Supreme Court ruling that allowed employers to deny labor rights to undocumented workers. The new immigrant policy was justified by the Administration as a security measure—part of the “War on Terrorism.”

Throughout 2001 and 2002, the AFL–CIO worked nationally to stop the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. After September 11, 2001, supporters of the FTAA used the “War on Terrorism” to justify their agenda and questioned the patriotism of those who opposed them.

In October of 2002, President Bush intervened in a labor dispute between longshoremen and managers in order to insure the steady supply of Christmas sales items in the stores and the steady supply of military hardware to the Middle East.

These are just a few examples of the myriad interconnections between domestic labor and current U.S. foreign policy. U.S. corporations pledge allegiance to the country with the lowest wages, yet when workers try to fight for their rights, they are labeled traitors. Labor unions are discovering that, in going about the business of supporting workers, they are forced to confront a broader U.S. global agenda. One of the central goals of U.S. foreign policy is to keep labor costs low for global corporations.

Those of us involved in anti-war and global justice work and those of us involved in domestic labor rights organizing must work together if we are to make any progress. Today, as our civil liberties erode in the name of a “War on Terrorism,” coalition building across the borders of the labor rights and anti-war social movements becomes even more challenging . . . and important! As David Montgomery, premier labor historian and activist, wrote in response to September 11 and the “War on Terrorism”: “We have sung, ‘Solidarity Forever,’ but solidarity is now more important than ever—solidarity among working people of all kinds, and solidarity across national boundaries. We are all in the same boat.”

(Anne Winkler-Morey thanks Peter Rachleff for the David Montgomery essay and Tyrone P. Woods for his research on the Persian Gulf/Detroit Auto Workers connection.)