RESOLUTION PROPOSING A MILLION WORKERS MARCH ON WASHINGTON ADOPTED BY ILWU LOCAL 10

Whereas: our ancestors fought tirelessly in this
country for the right to organize unions and ensure that
our government recognized this right because it is a
cornerstone of democracy, and

Whereas: that because of unions and solidarity among
working people we have been able to win basic human
rights, including employer paid health care, social
security and retirement benefits, safe working
conditions, decent hours and wages, education for our
children, social services for the disadvantaged, civil
liberties, and most important, the right to political
influence over our nation’s foreign and domestic
policies, and

Whereas: Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the
Union address in 1944 acknowledged our rights, saying,
"We have come to the realization of the fact that true
individual freedom cannot exist without economic
security and independence. Necessitous men are not free
men.=20 People who are hungry and out of a job are the
stuff of which dictatorships are made." and

Whereas: the current administration, with the
complicity of congress, has cooperated with big business
in attacking our rights, using legislation such as the
Patriot Acts I and II, denying the right of hundreds of
thousands of Federal employees to belong to unions and
bargain, forcing longshore workers to work under a Taft-
Hartley Act injunction and threats of Federal
intervention, and

Whereas: the administration, with the complicity of
congress, has negotiated trade agreements costing the
jobs of hundreds of thousands of US workers, calling
this a move towards a healthy economy, while promoting
other economic policies, such as privatization and
deregulation which has resulted in the loss of over 3
million jobs since taking office, and

Whereas: the administration, with the complicity of
congress has given corporations and the wealthy huge tax
breaks, while cutting billions of dollars in spending
for social services, education, and other government
programs won by working people through decades of
effort, and

Whereas: the Bush administration, with the complicity
of congress, has excused all these policies by using the
terrible events of September 11 to label any opposition
unpatriotic and a threat to national security, has taken
our country into an unjust war under the false assertion
that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, costing
the lives of hundreds of US service members and innocent
Iraqi civilians, and is whipping up fear and even
further to try to stampede the public into giving it
another term in office,

Be it therefore resolved: that Local 10 of the ILWU
calls on unions and working people generally to go to
Washington DC for a Million Worker March, to demand that
politicians and the administration listen to the people
who pay their salaries, rather than the voices of big
business and the rich, and

Be it further resolved: that this resolution be
forwarded to unions, labor councils and labor
organizations, as well as other organizations to
whichworkers belong, whether organized or not, so that
they can take similar action to organize this March as
soon as possible.

Be it finally resolved: that this event coincide with
all labor organized voter registration drives planned
for the next election.

ENDORSED BY______________________________________

LOCAL____________________________________________

LABOR COUNCIL______________________________________

INDIVIDUAL__________________________________________

PLEASE FORWARD BY EMAIL TO:
TRENT WILLIS, BUSINESS AGENT, ILWU LOCAL 10
willislocal10@comcast.net
www.millionworkermarch.org
fax: attention: Trent Willis (510) 441 0610