COGS News
December 2003
USLAW meets to map future directions
COGS’ delegate Jen Sherer reports from Chicago conference
In late October, I attended the National Labor Assembly for Peace in Chicago on behalf of COGS-UE 896 along with 200 other delegates representing around 500,000 union members from across the country. The Assembly was called to discuss the future of U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), a national coalition that both COGS members and our national union (UE) voted to join shortly after it formed in January 2003 during the buildup to the Iraq war.
USLAW was founded to oppose the war in Iraq as well as to highlight how movement toward a “permanent war economy” affects workers, jobs, and domestic economic priorities such as education and health care.
In its first year, USLAW organized a network of labor groups opposed to the war, mobilized participation in antiwar actions, and developed education and publicity materials. Significantly, the group helped encourage the national AFL-CIO to break with its tradition of supporting U.S. foreign policy and to oppose the drive to war in Iraq. USLAW also forged ties with unions in other countries and launched a campaign for labor rights in postwar Iraq. Recently the group sponsored a delegation to investigate working conditions in occupied Iraq and published a report documenting the labor and human rights records of the major U.S. corporations given contracts in Iraq.
Assembly delegates discussed priorities for future work and voted to transform USLAW into a permanent organization with an expanded mission that recognizes “We cannot solve economic and social problems without addressing U.S. foreign policy and its consequences.”
New USLAW task forces will focus in the coming year on domestic economic issues, civil liberties and labor rights, defending immigrants and communities of color, popular education, and international solidarity and Iraqi labor rights. COGS members will discuss and vote on whether to re-affiliate with USLAW at our December membership meeting and how to be a part of this work.
Full Assembly reports, news, and many other USLAW documents are available at www.uslaboragainstwar.org
--Jen Sherer, conference delegate
Principles adopted in the new USLAW mission statement:
Linking human rights and workers’ rights: Labor Solidarity Committee sponsors a community forum on the issues.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states “Everyone has the rights to rofm and to join trade unions,” and the U.S. Constitution guarantees all citizens’ rights to freedom of association... yet workers in the U.S. and around the world today are routinely fired, harassed, or threatened for organizing. This year on International Human Rights Day, December 10th, the UE, along with Jobs With Justice, the AFL-CIO, and others organized public events and actions across the country to focus attention on the fight for the freedom to form unions.
To mark the day locally, the Labor Solidarity Committee hosted a community forum at the COGS office on the relationship between human and workers’ rights.
Jake Wedemeyer and John McKerley, two COGS members who recently met with workers in Mexico, spoke about their experiences. They were joined by UI History Professor Ken Cmiel, whose teaching and research interests include the history of human rights; Jen Sherer, a former COGS president who attended the US Labor Against the War convention as a COGS delegate; and Maria Hope, a former UI student and United Students Against Sweatshops member who will speak on Coca-Cola’s abuse of workers in Columbia.
--Compiled from reports by John McKerley & Jen Sherer
Did You Know?
Until 1999 graduate employees with dependents paid the full cost of insurance for their children and/or spouses. Making this a priority issue in negotiations that year, COGS members rallied, picketed, and held firm in bargaining until the University and Board of Regents relented and agreed to pay 70% of the cost of dependent insurance (the same amount paid by the University for year round, full time employees).
