[bru-info] March for Economic Human Rights!

[bru-info at lists.resist.ca]

***************Please Post Widely********************************************

                      MARCH FOR ECONOMIC HUMAN RIGHTS!

         Jobs with Justice and Dignity! * Health for our Communities! *
              Universal Education! *  Affordable Housing for All! *
                Affordable and Accessible Public Transit for All!

Sunday September 19, 2004
Main Street Skytrain Station * 1:00 p.m.

        On Sunday, September 19th the Bus Riders Union presents the Second
Annual March for Economic Human Rights: For our communities  right
to jobs,
health, education, housing and transit.  In preparation for the March,
the BRU will also host a community Forum on Economic Human Rights on
Thursday, September 16, at 7 PM at the Vancouver Public Library.

        The call for economic human rights echoes the last campaign
conceived and led by the great civil rights leader Martin Luther
King before his
assassination by the U.S. state.  The Poor People’s March for Economic
Human Rights directly challenged the U.S. Establishment to end its attack
on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and make the needs of poor people, who were
mostly Black, Mexican-American, Puerto Rican and Native American, and
majority women, the top economic and political priority of the nation.
The march aimed to bring an “army of the poor” into the heart of
Washington, D.C. to demand that congress enact an Economic Bill of
Rights.

        Today the call for economic human rights is as necessary as ever as
billions of people internationally are denied our basic human needs due
to war, the ongoing plunder of the Third World, forced migration, the
continued theft of Indigenous land, and the imposition of neoliberal
privatization, deregulation and liberalization.

        In India, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Iraq and
throughout the Third World, the right to adequate housing,
meaningful work with justice
and dignity, healthcare and healthy communities, meaningful education,
and unhindered mobility are violated daily. Workers of the Third World
create the majority of the world’s wealth but are denied both economic
and political rights as the wealth and resources flow out of Third World
nations and into the pockets of Canadian, European and U.S. based
corporations. A small elite in the Third World benefits from a
partnership with multinational capital, imperialist governments, and
financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank.

        In the countries of the imperialist centre, the attack on the
basic economic human rights of working class communities is also
intensifying.  As wealth is accumulated from the ongoing theft and
plunder of Indigenous resources and the intensification of
profit-motivated ‘development’, more and more workers are forced
into low-wage, part-time, ‘flexible’ and insecure jobs.   The BC
Liberals have gutted the labour code, torn up contracts, and
implemented the $6/hour training wage.  The health of our
communities suffer as public services and basic rights such as
affordable housing, health care, childcare, women’s centres,
welfare, transit and other vital necessities become more
inaccessible due to program cuts and established patterns of
privatization.

        The Bus Riders Union campaign to Stop the Fare Increase is an
attempt to organize communities that are most impacted to fight
for our economic human rights.  The fare increase is a clear and
obvious strategy to take money directly out of the pockets of
low-income transit-dependent people, who are majority women and
disproportionately people of colour, to pay for privatization
schemes like the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver line.  When we stand
against the fare increase, we join with militant women who lead
struggles across the globe.  As we struggle against the fare
increase, we demand that the needs of the majority become the top
economic and political priority in our region, in our country and
in our world.

       We call on all those who share a vision of economic justice and the
redistribution of wealth – regionally, nationally and
internationally – to join us and take to the streets, as we demand
Economic Human Rights for All!

Bus Riders Union
407-119 West Pender Street, Vancouver
(604) 215-2775
http://bru.resist.ca/
bru at resist.ca