Anti-war activists around the world have been inspired by two train drivers who, on January 8, refused to drive a freight train from Glasgow to the Glen Douglas NATO base on Scotland's west coast. The drivers believed the train was carrying ammunition destined for British forces being deployed in the Gulf.
Although the driver's union, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, did not initiate the protest, it refused demands from railway management that it persuade the drivers to transport the war materiel. ASLEF is opposed to any attack on Iraq.
The train drivers' industrial power came from the fact that they are the only drivers trained to drive on the route. Their actions dramatically illustrated the power that workers have to take action to stop war.
The main anti-war organisations in Britain are campaigning for trade unions to hold a one-hour stoppage on the day after the war begins. Many anti-war activists are building this and seeking to encourage even wider strike action.
The Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union's construction division, at its December branch meeting, unanimously passed a motion which recommended that the state management committee consider holding a lunch-time action in the Melbourne CBD if a war against Iraq begins.
Although the motion is not binding, it is a good indication of the sentiments of the CFMEU's main activists. Other state branches of the CFMEU and other unions should emulate this example.
Could the CFMEU and other unions sponsor similar motions at trades and labour councils and in the ACTU? It would be a huge boost for the anti-war movement if unions mobilise against a war which will only harm working-class and poor people in Iraq.
There is a precedent for anti-war industrial action in Australia. In the 1960s and 1970s, members of around 20 unions frequently took industrial action against the slaughter of the Vietnamese people by US, Australian and New Zealand troops.
In 1999, at the height of the Indonesian military's massacres of the East Timorese people after their vote for independence, CFMEU construction division members in Victoria and NSW closed down big CBD building sites in order to attend big protests. CFMEU activists also initiated blockades of the Indonesian airline Garuda.
In the United States, trade unionists are also beginning to move into action against the war. On January 11, more than 100 trade union leaders and activists gathered in Chicago to launch US Labor Against the War to mobilise anti-war sentiment within the union movement. The meeting was initiated by Teamsters Local 705, the second largest Teamsters local in the country.
The meeting passed a resolution which included the following points:
- "the principal victims of any military action in Iraq will be the sons and daughters of working-class families serving in the military who will be put in harms way, and innocent Iraqi civilians who have already suffered so much";
- "the billions of dollars spent to stage and execute this war are being taken away from our schools, hospitals, housing and social security";
- "the war is a pretext for attacks on labour, civil, immigrant and human rights at home"; and
- "[US President George} Bush's drive for war serves as a cover and distraction for the sinking economy, corporate corruption and layoffs."
Trade union locals and labour councils across the US have expressed opposition to a US war on Iraq. One of the toughest was the resolution of the Washington State Labour Convention (WSLC) last August, which condemned the US peak trade union body's, the AFL-CIO, support for the war.
The WSLC urged the AFL-CIO and its affiliates "to oppose the US government's open-ended 'war on terrorism' and participate in rallies, marches and other activities ... to stop the war and redirect the money from corporate handouts and the military budget to assist laid-off workers, restore and expand public services, and promote global justice".
The Australian union movement too needs to convince union members that the US-led, Australian-backed war on Iraq is not in their interests and should be opposed with industrial action and protests.
The actions of the British train drivers are a powerful example of how, if the entire union movement was to mobilise against the impending war, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians could be prevented.
The union movement in Australia needs to come behind proposals for industrial action on the first working day after the war breaks out, as well as supporting whatever mass anti-war protest actions are being organised.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, January 22, 2003.
Visit the