Leslie Feinberg, New York
"We have called on the anti-war and peace movements to join us on October 17 and they are coming by the tens of thousands", Million Worker March leader Clarence Thomas explains, "because the war in Iraq, just like the Vietnam War of Dr King's time, is destroying people and precious resources that should be used for health insurance, jobs, housing and education."
Thomas is a member of the San Francisco-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 — which has earned its reputation as a fighting, militant union. Local 10 first issued the call for a Million Worker March more than six months ago.
Thomas stresses that a "big part of the Million Worker March message is that war and occupation are the enemies of working people, and we have to bring the troops home right now".
An October 5 MWM news release reports: "On October 17 buses full of unionized workers and workers who want to be in unions will be rolling in to the capital to rally at the Lincoln Monument [in Washington, DC] for guaranteed health insurance, a raise in workers' wages, and a dramatic expansion of workers' rights.
"This rally, 'The Million Worker March', proudly taking its inspiration from a rally in Washington nine years ago, has amassed the support of hundreds of local unions, and several national trade unions including the American Postal Workers Union, the National Education Association, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and the National Teamsters Black Caucus.
"Some major regional labor powerhouses such as the Health and Hospital Workers Local 1199 SEIU [Service Employees International Union], and AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] District Council 37 in New York have added their names as well as commitments to send busloads of workers to the event.
"Actor and activist Danny Glover, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and comedian and human rights campaigner Dick Gregory are scheduled to address a sea of workers and anti-war protesters from the exact spot on the steps of the Lincoln Monument where Dr Martin Luther King Jr spoke to the famous 1963 civil rights rally."
MWM committee treasurer Keith Shanklen, a member of ILWU Local 10, says that following in the footsteps of Dr King is the right thing to do because, "in this time of profit-mad globalisation, all one needs do is look at the silent catastrophe of lost jobs, dwindling wages, lost health care along with one abuse and indignity after another that is the plight of your average worker, and you have to conclude that the struggle for workers' rights is the new civil rights movement of our time".
MWM organisers on October 4 met for the third time with officials from the national parks department, which has jurisdiction over the Lincoln Monument, and the Metro Police to finalise permit agreements for the rally, which will begin at noon, after pre-rally entertainment beginning at 11 am.
"After meeting at the parks department offices, Shanklen and his team of event coordinators and technicians surveyed the site of the rally, going over everything, from where sound system speakers would be placed, and where elevated platforms would be constructed for the media, to where portable restrooms would be placed", the news release continues.
"A few important things are yet to be finalized, such as where the hundreds of buses full of marchers will drop their passengers off. Metro Police prefer that buses drop people off long distances away from the rally site, while Million Worker March organizers want the buses to bring passengers directly to, or at least near the Lincoln Monument."
[Abridged from Workers Worker, weekly paper of the US Workers World Party. Visit .]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, October 27, 2004.
Visit the