[news] Behind the AFL-CIO's call for a "a new labor code for Iraq"

[Resist! Collective]

US: Behind the AFL-CIO's call for a "a new labor code for Iraq"
By Jamie Chapman
11 February 2004
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/feb2004/afl-f11.shtml

A January 22 statement issued by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
calling for a "new labor code for Iraq" would at first glance appear
to be a long overdue defense of Iraqi workers, who are suffering even
greater privations under the US/British occupation than they faced
under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

With unemployment reaching as high as 70 percent, workers have taken
to the streets in defiance of the Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA) to demand jobs. Leaders of such protests have been arrested.
When British troops were called out early last month to help Iraqi
police put down the demonstrations, a number of protesters were shot
and killed.

Most who have jobs are being given an "emergency" wage of a mere $60
a month, with no overtime pay, even though they often must work
12-hour or longer shifts daily. The CPA has abolished previously
existing bonuses that constituted as much as half of most workers'
overall compensation. Those who are working are usually required to
support large extended families that are without jobs. Prices are
constantly rising.

Visitors to the Al Daura oil refinery near Baghdad report workers
have none of the required safety equipment, such as hard-toed shoes,
gloves and goggles. At times they have to turn valves using only
rags. A similar lack of basic safety precautions is typical
throughout Iraqi industry.

Meanwhile, an injury is a disaster for the worker, who loses pay for
the time he cannot work and also runs up bills for any medical care,
if he is lucky enough to obtain it. There is no system of
compensation for the costs of workplace injuries.

For an organization that purports to represent American workers to
come to the defense of the embattled Iraqi working class would
clearly be appropriate. Such a gesture is hardly characteristic,
however, of the AFL-CIO officialdom, which usually spends its
energies fulminating against foreign workers for "stealing" American
jobs.

A closer reading of Sweeney's statement suggests that something other
than solidarity is motivating the AFL-CIO. He condemns neither the
occupation nor the war itself, nor even the deplorable conditions of
life and work in Iraq. Rather, he singles out the policy of CPA
administrator Paul Bremer in enforcing a 1987 law passed under Saddam
Hussein prohibiting the organization of trade unions in the public
sector, which encompasses the large majority of the Iraqi workforce.

No doubt, the continuing use of this 1987 law against workers
demonstrates the fraud of US claims to be bringing "freedom" and
"democracy" to the Iraqi people, and deserves to be condemned.

Sweeney's point, however, is not to stand up for the democratic
rights of Iraqi workers, but to create room for the AFL-CIO-in return
for a handsome fee-to play the rule of adjunct and advisor to the US
occupation authority in Iraq.

Sweeney hints at his real purpose when he writes in his letter,
"Training and other kinds of support from the international trade
union movement should be encouraged."

The timing of Sweeney's letter is no coincidence. It came only two
days after the State of the Union speech, in which President Bush
proposed to double funding for the government-financed National
Endowment for Democracy (NED). The additional $40 million is to go
entirely to programs in the Middle East.

One week before Bush's speech, Democratic presidential candidate John
Edwards made a nearly identical appeal to double the NED funding.

The AFL-CIO, through its American Center for International Labor
Solidarity, or "Solidarity Center," is a constituent element of the
NED, competing with fronts for the Democratic and Republican parties
and the "Center for International Private Enterprise," which
represents big business, for the government funding.

Congress created the NED in 1983 as a means of influencing and
financing various groups around the world seen as capable of
countering popular opposition to US policies. It became a conduit for
funds that previously were funneled covertly from the CIA. It
immediately played a prominent part in Washington's efforts to
subvert and overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

The NED used AFL-CIO affiliates to provide money and technical
support to conservative, pro-US trade unions in countries like Korea,
as an alternative to the more radical unions that organized the
strikes and factory occupations that led to the overthrow of the
US-backed military dictatorship there.

These efforts were a continuation of the activities previously
carried out by the AFL-CIO through various "labor fronts" created in
collaboration with the CIA. The most infamous was the one in Latin
America, the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD),
which was deeply implicated in the overthrow of governments deemed
inimical to US interests.

The AIFLD advised the so-called "labor" opposition to the Chilean
Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, helping to sow the
confusion and unrest that provided a critical backdrop to the bloody
coup by General Pinochet in 1973. The AFL-CIO has never acknowledged
its role in those events.

Such interventions are by no means a thing of the distant past. Using
NED money, the AFL-CIO worked hand-in-glove with the CIA and the US
State Department in preparing the aborted April 2002 coup against
Venezuela's populist president Hugo Chavez. The US union bureaucrats
provided financial aid and "technical advisors" to Venezuela's CTV
union federation, which worked together with the main big business
association in organizing "strikes" aimed at destabilizing the regime
and preparing the coup attempt.

Last November 6, Bush spoke before the NED to proclaim a new US
policy towards the Middle East. The conquest of Iraq, he said, was
only the first step in a war for "democracy" that would continue for
"decades to come."

On the same day, Sweeney issued a special statement on the 20th
anniversary of the founding of the NED. He solidarized himself with
Bush's war against "the threat of global terrorism" and went on to
express support for the US occupation of Iraq, stating, "The AFL-CIO,
in concert with the international trade union movement, stands ready
to participate in the Iraq reconstruction effort."

A recent report posted on the NED's web site entitled "NED expands
work in Iraq" indicates that while the Democratic, Republican and big
business-affiliated organizations have been brought into Iraq-helping
to create the framework for a US-backed puppet regime, participating
in the drafting of a new constitution and advising on "economic
reforms" and "market values"-the AFL-CIO's front group thus far has
been frozen out.

Sweeney is making a pitch for some of the contract work. Having
presided over a long string of betrayals, concessions and layoffs for
workers in the US itself, the AFL-CIO is offering to use its
expertise in cobbling together a servile Iraqi union organization.
Such an organization would support continued US control over the
country, oppose any militant struggles and act to subordinate Iraqi
workers to the interests of the US oil companies and other American
business interests seeking to profit off the country's subjugation.

Maintaining its sources of government funding-including from the
right-wing administration of George W. Bush-has become all the more
important as the AFL-CIO has seen its membership dues base sink to
historic lows.

Well before the war started, in October 2002, when a war resolution
was being debated in Congress, Sweeney indicated his acceptance of
the basis for the impending slaughter. He wrote to US lawmakers then,
"Saddam Hussein is a menace-to his own people, to stability in a
critical region of the world and potentially to America and our
allies."

On the day the bombing began, he wrote again, "The Iraqi regime is a
brutal dictatorship that is a threat to its neighbors and its own
citizens. We support fully the goal of ridding Iraq of weapons of
mass destruction. We sincerely hope this conflict will result in a
more democratic and prosperous IraqS" Echoing Bush's own phony appeal
to patriotism, he continued, "[W]e are unequivocal in our support of
our country."

Only five days later, Sweeney issued another statement endorsing
Bush's request to Congress for a supplemental $79 billion in order to
carry out the onslaught.

There are elements within the antiwar protest milieu who have hailed
Sweeney's January 22 statement as an important sign of growing US
labor opposition to the occupation of Iraq. Such a viewpoint can be
explained in some cases by naiveté and ignorance of the AFL-CIO's
long record of betrayal and collaboration. Others, however, have
sought to make political careers providing a "left" cover for the
trade union officialdom. Whatever the reason, the attempt to cast
this moribund labor bureaucracy as an instrument for struggle against
war flies in the face of reality.

The mobilization of American working people against the occupation
and future wars is possible only in direct opposition to the AFL-CIO
bureaucracy, which shares political responsibility for the killing in
Iraq and is seeking to fatten its expense accounts by collaborating
in the occupation.

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