Abstract

Solidarity in Wartime

Since January 2004, workers in the United States have been listening to answers to their questions on conditions in Iraq given by Iraqi workers themselves, courtesy of U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), a network that includes dozens of union locals and labor councils nationally. USLAW's campaign for labor rights in Iraq is also bringing reports, videos and testimony of U.S. unionists who have traveled to Iraq into union halls around the United States. USLAW's campaign is aimed at unmasking the occupation's economic agenda, the hallmarks of which are privatizing Iraq's state-owned factories and workplaces (still the employer of most Iraqi workers). Coalition troops even arrested leaders of the Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions (IFTU) and the Union of the Unemployed. The IFTU and another union, the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions, are challenging the occupation's economic program and have appealed for support from U.S. labor.