Remarks of Bruce Popper, Rally on the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War

(Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation)Remarks of Bruce Popper
First Vice-president, Rochester and Vicinity Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Rochesterians Against War
Rally on the 5th Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq

Liberty Pole Square
Rochester, New York
March 19, 2008

        In my own union, Local 1199, we are proud to have been the first
union to oppose U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia and the war in Vietnam
a generation ago.

        We are also proud that Local 1199 and the Rochester Labor Council
were among the first labor organizations to oppose the U.S. invasion of
Iraq.

        We are sometimes asked why opposing unjust war is an issue for
union members.

        At a cost of $12 billion a month for the war in Iraq, we will never
solve the health care crisis in this country.  We will never rebuild our
crumbling infrastructure and create jobs.  We will never improve our
educational system.  We will certainly never eradicate poverty and hunger
in the wealthiest nation on earth.  That's why the war is a union issue.

        The soldiers fighting this war are disproportionately from working
class families.  They are the dads and moms, the sons and daughters, the
brothers and sisters of union members.  They are union members themselves.
They now number nearly 4,000 dead, and countless more maimed, wounded, or
disabled for life.  That's why the war is a union issue.

        Big oil, big corporations, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney, these
are the very people and institutions who are taking away workers' rights
every day.  It's their war, not ours.  That's why the war is a union issue.

        We must dispense with the lie that this war has anything to do with
national defense.  It is a national offense, and a national tragedy.

        Finally, unions are fundamentally about justice.  As we are about
to mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., we recall that he was killed while supporting a strike by union
workers.  Dr. King opposed the unjust war of his time, and he supported the
fights of these and many other workers.  Dr. King knew that the struggle
for social justice and the struggle for economic justice are one and the
same.  That we can not win one without winning the other.  That's why the
war is a union issue.

        Today, we must rededicate ourselves.  We must end this unjust war
and win the struggle until social and economic justice 'rolls down like
waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream' all across this land.