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June 24, 2005Scabbing on the IFTU: a reply to the New York City Labour Against the War and an urgent question for USLAW affiliates
Alan Johnson Please read these two quotes: QUOTE 1: November 17, 2004 IFTU STATEMENT ON THE BOMBING OF FALLUJA. “The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions wishes to make our position on the current bloody chaos in parts of Iraq absolutely clear. Firstly, the IFTU opposes the use of military force against civilian areas, such as the city of Falluja. The IFTU believes that a far greater effort needs to be made to negotiate as far as possible, a peaceful ending to the lawlessness, violence and imposition of illegitimate and extreme fundamentalist and totalitarian rule by armed groups in few Iraqi cities. We ask the international labour movement to join us in committing ourselves to a just and peaceful future for an Iraq, free from the occupation and from terrorism. We opposed the war, the invasion and the occupation of our country because we knew the deadly consequences, which would follow. Those who suffer are as always, the unarmed civilian population. Iraq once had the strongest labour movement in the Middle East and some million people joined the May Day march in Baghdad in 1959. All that may seem far off now as our country is turn apart by the extreme use of military force by the occupying forces, the fanatics, fundamentalists and terrorists. But the IFTU must remain steadfast in its course and to continue to build the forces of civil society, to support democracy, progress and a peaceful future for the Iraqi people”. QUOTE 2: June 20 2005 Statement by New York City Labour Against the War “The IFTU is a pro-occupation mouthpiece … in bed with the "AFL-CIA" alliance… the ICP/IFTU has consistently supported every major aspect of the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq … it has not opposed even the most brutal crimes of U.S. occupation: massacres in Fallujah and other cities..” (Trojan Horse in the Antiwar Movement: Facts About the IFTU, New York City Labor Against the War [NYCLAW] June 20, 2005) Another vicious assault on the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions has been launched by the extreme fringe of the US left. Its reliability can be judged by comparing the two quotes above. The real question is this: what is the US labour movement, immediately the affiliates of NTCLAW, and other USLAW branches, going to do about the scabbing that is being conducted in its name? USLAW itself has itself been a solid and valued supporter of the IFTU and is currently touring IFTU representatives, along with representatives from the other Iraqi unions, around the USA. The tour is a great success. So, what’s happened in the New York City branch? I’ll bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that extreme pro-‘resistance’ ‘left’ activists have taken over NYCLAW and are issuing statements in the name of union affiliates who would be appalled and ashamed and angry that the free trade unionists of Iraq are being fingered and the AFL-CIO is being traduced as a CIA front. Always a few pages short of a full shooting script this extreme fringe of the US far left has gone beyond anything it has done before. It is important to register this. NYCLAW has posted on the internet what amounts to an incitement. Every time one thinks the nadir has been reached one discovers it has not. My earlier reply to a less hysterical version of the NYCLAW assault, from which I reproduce some lengthy passages here, can be found at The NYCLAW makes 15 claims as far as I can see. I deal with each and then make the point that this is all really about politics (ultra-left politics and their poverty) and not conspiracy. NYCLAW Claim 1. The IFTU is ‘in bed’ with the CIA Evidence provided? None whatsoever. But the charge is enough to get IFTU militants killed. It is breathtakingly irresponsible, quite as if ultra-left or anarchist kids had taken over NYCLAW. Have they? NYCLAW Claim 2. The IFTU is in bed with the Iraqi Communist Party and the Iraqi National Accord (the party headed by Iyad Allawi). The IFTU has links to both the ICP and the INA, yes. There are some leading figures in the ICP and INA that are involved in the leadership of the IFTU. So what? 30 years of totalitarianism left few outside the religious groups, the CP and the exiles with viable networks and a cadre. Thank goodness the ICP were able to help launch the IFTU. Throughout the history of the international labour movement the left has played a similar role, as early organisers and pioneers of the mass unions. Truth is NYCLAW is not bothered that there are ICP’ers in the IFTU. It is bothered about the decision of the ICP to support the UN-backed political process rather than the ‘resistance’. It all about politics. In fact the IFTU is independent of the ICP, the ICP have only a minority on the leading committee, and the ICP demonstrably seek a strong democratic union as part of a vibrant Iraqi civil society, and not a party ‘front’. Nothing But Genuine One anarchist critic of the IFTU, Ewa Jasiewicz, who has spent time Iraq (and is cited as an authority by NYCLAW) is more candid than most. She has argued that while the IFTU unions and representatives are ‘nothing but genuine’ (note that) the IFTU should nonetheless be attacked ‘angrily and uncompromisingly’. Huh? How come a trade union federation that is ‘nothing but genuine’ should be attacked? Because the IFTU has the wrong politics. It does not support the resistance. It does not support the this-morning immediate withdrawal of coalition forces. It backs the political process. It is not ‘insurrectionary’. Therefore down with the IFTU. She wrote in these terms about the assault on the IFTU at the European Social Forum: ‘The anger witnessed from those protesting against the General Secretary of the IFTU can be explained by the fact that Iraqi working class people are, for the first time in 35 years, in a position to form radical unions, new unions, unions which are capable of [being] insurrectionary’. Note well: the IFTU is ‘nothing but genuine’, the workers need solidarity, but the politics of the IFTU won’t do. The IFTU is not ‘insurrectionary’, you see. Ewa Jasiewicz argues that ‘Many Iraqis feel no new constitution; government or election can have any credibility, let alone represent any ‘radical’ [the word was Abdullah Muhsin’s] potential when created under occupation’. But what if the political judgement of the 200,000 strong IFTU in Iraq is better than the political judgement of Ewa Jasiewicz? What about that? What if the best hope to gain sovereignty and democracy without civil war and balkanization of Iraq turns out to be to back the political process critically, while building up one’s own forces? What if the judgement of Iraqis who live in Iraq is more reliable than activists, however brave and selfless, who visit Iraq? The fact is most Iraqis want to give the political process a go, to try and make it work. They want to give trade unions a go. The IFTU has organized 200,000 of them. The Shia wants to give the political process a go. The Kurds want to give the political process a go. Many Sunni want to give the political process a go. Ewa Jasiewicz writes ‘The issue at stake is not whether workers in Iraq need solidarity and support, nor whether they are genuine or not if members of an IFTU union. The issue at stake is the political allegiances and agenda of their leadership’. I think Ewa Jasiewicz says what NYCLAW thinks. It is to her credit that she cuts to the chase: the IFTU have the wrong politics. It is to her credit that she does not try and present the IFTU as anything but a genuine trade union. But we are under no obligation to follow her judgement (‘ultra-left’ it used to be called) that only ‘insurrectionary’ trade unions deserve solidarity. Yes, the IFTU has sat on some governing committees in the last few years. They were absolutely right to do so. There they worked against privatisation, for a decent labour code, for decent pensions, progressive social policy, and for democracy. They represented the interests of their members. Only if you accept NYCLAW’s unspoken premise - that the entire political process is a fake and any involvement in it is pro-imperialist collaboration – does the conclusion – that the IFTU were wrong to sit on those committees or have anything to do with the institutions of the transition - follow. But his premise is mistaken. The General Secretary of the IFTU explained to The Morning Star newspaper why the decision to sit on governing committees was taken. “Since the Iraqi governing council recognised the IFTU, it has been allowed to sit on government committees dealing with the new labour code, social provision and pensions - both of which were enshrined in the transitional administrative law - as well as those dealing with health and dismissals. Mr Mashadani is keen to emphasise the independence of the IFTU from the state - understandable, given the subservience of Saddam's collaborationist "yellow unions." "Although we sit on some committees, we do so because we want to keep an eye on the situation, to have a stronger say in the welfare of working people," he says. http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000063.html NYCLAW Claim 3. The IFTU is the only recognised trade union body (implication: the IFTU is a state union, or a yellow union) Another fake ‘scandal’. The former Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) recognized the IFTU as a legal and legitimate trade union movement in its Decree No 16 on 28 January 2004 (issued by IGC President Adnan Pachachi). The word ‘sole’ does not appear in any document. On 10 July 2004 The Interim Government sent Official memo No 743 to state ministries and agencies stating that it considered the former IGC's Decree No 16 valid and the IFTU a legal and legitimate trade union. The original decision was intended to end the monopoly power of Saddam’s yellow union. The IFTU does not consider itself to be the ‘sole’ union federation, demonstrably opposes such a notion, and works actively for the adoption of ILO conventions, including Articles 87 and 98 which declare that establishing labour unions is the right of the workers themselves, and that governments must not intervene in this issue. The IFTU also point to the relevant clauses of the supreme Transitional Administrative Law. Clause (d) of Article 13 of the TAL protects “The right of free peaceable assembly and the right to join associations freely, as well as the right to form and join unions and political parties freely, in accordance with the law, shall be guaranteed”. The word ‘sole’ does not appear in the TAL either. The IFTU stands for the adoption by Iraq of all ILO codes and standards. It has led the way demanding this for the new Iraq. When the IFTU presented its proposals for the new labour code it presented demands for rights for all Iraqi workers not exclusive rights for the IFTU! This proposed labour code had received input from the other federations in Iraq. In other words the IFTU leads the fight for the adoption of a labour code that would guarantee rights to organise for all Iraq’s unions! Gene Bruskin of USLAW met Abdullah Muhsin in London and reported “Abdullah and a representative of the Iraqi government met with representatives of the ILO, on several occasions to discuss the creation of a new labor law. The IFTU has contact with and recognizes the transitional Iraqi government. Abdullah told me that the ILO has reportedly completed a first draft of the labor law that he hopes will assure the right to join unions and give unions the right to bargain, organize and strike, as guaranteed by ILO conventions (emphasis added)”. Yes, it is vital that ILO standards are applied in the new Iraq and that the practice – ubiquitous throughout the region - of the state deciding on an ‘official’ union federation is rejected in the new Iraq. The point, however, is that the IFTU fights for the adoption of ILO standards. Another non-existent ‘scandal’. NYCLAW Claim 4. The IFTU is in bed with the AFL-CIO Solidarity Centre Look, what can one say? Really, when a union (the IFTU) is being condemned for having a good relationship with the solidarity centre of another national federation (the AFL-CIO) what is there to say? Is this where we have reached, in the company of the revolutionaries of the NYCLAW? Are we now to condemn those unions that forge links of international union solidarity with the AFL-CIO? NYCLAW Claim 5. ‘The ICP/IFTU has consistently supported every major aspect of the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq’. The IFTU opposed the war. NYCLAW knows this and given the context is that IFTU militants have been assassinated by the ‘resistance’ this kind of talk really is shameful. The big battalions of the US labour movement have a solemn duty to do whatever they can to stop this kind of lying and fingering (for that is what it is) being presented as the voice of US Labour. Abdullah Muhsin said this recently to the British TUC's South West regional conference held in Croyde Bay, Devon on 22-23 April 2005. "Most of you will, like me and my comrades in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), have opposed the war. I don't regret doing so and I would do so again. I believed that the Iraqi people had other ways to overthrow Saddam Hussein's despicable fascist-type dictatorship. But things have changed for us Iraqis. Our new priorities are to keep Iraq intact (the risks of Iraq descending into civil war are still real), to build a strong independent and democratic trade union movement and to create a federal democratic and fully sovereign Iraq”. The IFTU opposed the military action in Falluja the very opposite of what NYCLAW claim (see quotes at top of this post). This is nothing but lying about the IFTU’s record and fingering the IFTU before the most reactionary elements. Fingering is bad enough in a workplace setting. In Iraq it is a matter of life and death. NYCLAW Claim 6. The elections of January 30, 2005 were a ‘sham’. No they were not. They were imperfect but overall they were a tremendous step forward for Iraq. Eight and a half million people voted, and they held their purple fingers aloft and danced with joy. The result has been a transitional assembly, a constitutional referendum is planned, and further elections, to elect a sovereign Iraqi government, in December 2005. The western left came to a crossroads with the January election in Iraq. Whatever our view of the invasion in 2003 (I opposed it) the choice in January 2005 was stark. To support the vast majority of the Iraqi people as they reached out for democracy via the UN-backed political process or to give comfort to those who attacked polling stations, shot election workers, and bombed lines of voters. The democratic choice faced off against the nihilist choice. Listen to these two voices. The democratic choice was summed up by Abdullah Muhsin, Foreign Representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. He surely spoke for all democrats when he said, "Elections certainly offer the best hope of a secure Iraq and will legitimise the current UN-sanctioned political process, which is aimed at producing a national sovereign transitional assembly and a government mandated by the people. This view rests its legitimacy on international law - UN resolutions 1483, 1511 and 1546 - and the engagement of the majority of Iraqis and their key political parties across Iraq. Surely Iraqis, after all their struggles and sacrifices, have won the right to hold elections. Democracy is not given freely, but won, and to achieve it we shall walk, with heads held high, looking straight into the eyes of the enemies of democracy". NYCLAW represent the nihilist choice: the eight and a half million votes and the entire political process is just a ‘sham’. NYCLAW Claim 7. The IFTU has not opposed foreign investment coming into Iraq. I guess some people might have opposed all foreign investment coming into Iraq. These people would be called…idiots. Iraq desperately needs as much foreign investment as it can get! Tell me one trade union federation anywhere in the world that ‘opposes foreign investment’? And are these union federations stooges of the international capitalist-imperialist conspiracy? Or is it just the IFTU? Privatisation of Iraq’s natural resources is another matter. This the IFTU oppose (by the way the very presence of the ICP on some transitional institutions – which NYCLAW thinks so heinous - was not insignificant in preventing any sell-off, as it happens). NYCLAW Claim 8. IFTU affiliates have struck only to demand that the occupation regime protect it from the resistance. You have to admire the sheer cheek I guess. Forgive me, but I can’t stop seeing a comfortable Manhattanite, perhaps between a latte at the Met, a stroll in Central Park, and visit to the Strand to pick up the latest Negri book, sneering at the militants of the IFTU who are rebuilding the unions after 30 years of totalitarianism in a war zone while its leaders are assassinated by death squads and its members immolated and mutilated by theocratic fascists. Tut tut, says the man from the west village, between sips, ‘you IFTU’ers are not taking enough strike action, not of the right kind anyway, not of the kind that will win MY approval’. But of course the IFTU unions have taken strike action. “The IFTU-supported strike actions conducted recently at both the Palestine and Sheraton Hotels by more than 750 workers are part of an IFTU organising drive in the hotel sector. The strikes at both hotels were successful in gaining wage increases and improved working conditions for the workers. Additionally, at the Melia Masor and Babil Hotels workers have now elected Union Committees and have entered into negotiations with management there. As a result of this organising drive workers at the Babil Hotel have received a bonus payment of US $600 each and the management at the Melia Mansor Hotel agreed to pay workers a wage increase in order to put them on the same rate as workers at the Palestine and Sheraton hotels”. UNISON SUPPORTS PUBLIC SERVICE WORKERS' UNION STRIKE ACTION AT PALESTINE HOTEL Message of support to Public Service Workers' Union (IFTU) from UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis: UNISON, the UK's biggest trade union, supports the development of free and independent trade unions in Iraq. The right to take industrial action, including strike action,is an important manifestation of that right. UNISON hopes that the dispute at the Palestine Hotel can be resolved through negotiation, but should this fail we support whatever further legitimate action the Public Service Workers' Union Committee decides is necessary. Dave Prentis December 12 2004 IFTU Website post “Abdul Aalye Awlawe Al Rekeabye, President of the Agricultural Workers Union said ‘We organised a strike on 4th and 5th September 2004 at the A1 Kandy Company, demanding a pay increase. All the 170 workers at the company took part in the action and after two days we won a minimum wage agreement for unskilled workers and an increase in the monthly rate from 30, 000 to 70, 000 dinars. We have organised several seminars on trade union rights. We campaigned for reinstatement and compensation for workers who were sacked for their political views by the old regime. Our union has succeeded in obtaining the reinstatement of many workers. We are affiliated to the IFTU and consider our union as one of the main pillars of the federation – we were at the conference that established the IFTU on 16 May 2003’”.
The IFTU does not ‘support the occupation’ and nor has it ‘taken the US government’s position’. The IFTU supports the UN-backed political process to end the occupation and its staging posts of elections in January 05, constitutional referendum in October 05, and further elections in December 05. The inchoate violence of the Saddamist-violent Islamic Fundamentalist ‘resistance’ will produce neither the end of the occupation nor the self-determination of the Iraqi people and the IFTU know it. They know that this violence will only prolong the occupation. They have calculated that fighting within a political process endorsed by the UN, the Shia, the Kurds, and all Iraqi democrats, is the best course for Iraqi labour. It is the only available route to restore sovereignty to Iraq while securing peace and democracy, avoid civil war and the balkanisation of Iraq: ie. secure the best conditions for the struggle of Iraqi labour for social justice and workers interests. The same basic political judgement has been made by every Iraqi political party bar the Saddamists and the beheaders. And, of course, a tiny vocal minority on the extreme left such as NYCLAW. Why does NYCLAW only object to the IFTU, by the way? Why not also the entire Kurdish nation? Why not the Shia? Why not the Sunni who voted and participated in the political process? NYCLAW don’t do that only because if they did it would soon become clear what a nonsensical position they have taken. The leading Shia cleric Sistani said it would be a sin not to vote in the January elections. Do NYCLAW think Sistani and the Shia (maybe 60% of Iraqis) have also ‘taken the U.S. government's position’? The Kurds (20% of Iraqis) support the UN-backed political process and are developing ideas for the new constitution. Have the Kurds also ‘taken the U.S. government's position’? The democratic political parties of Iraq support the political process and are planning their December campaigns. Have they all now ‘taken the U.S. government's position’? And how about the 80-plus countries and organisations that lined up at the EU-US co-hosted conference two days ago to support Iraq’s reconstruction, including Iraq’s neighbours? What about Kofi Annan ("This conference marked a watershed for Iraq")?. Have all those countries and organisations now ‘taken the U.S. government's position’? NYCLAW remind one of Brecht’s poem about the Stalinist central committee that, upon finding the people had voted the wrong way, issued a call for ‘another people’. NYCLAW ignore the expressed wishes of the vast majority of Iraqis and, in effect, call for another Iraqi people. The ‘resistance’ As for how the ‘resistance’ should be characterised, the facts are these: the so-called ‘resistance’ has tortured and murdered Hadi Saleh, the IFTU leader. The so-called ‘resistance’ has launched RPG attacks on IFTU headquarters. The so-called ‘resistance’ has mutilated the bodies of IFTU members on the Mosel railway line. The so-called ‘resistance’ murdered Ali Hassan Abd, member of the Oil and Gas Workers' Union. He was assassinated on Friday 18th February 2005 while returning with his children to his home close to the Al-Dorah Oil Refinery in Baghdad. Yet NYCLAW is angry at Abdullah Muhsin for characterising the resistance as ‘terrorists’. Un-be-lievable. Only the most gifted historians of the future will be able to explain why this tiny vocal minority gave their support to a fascistic Iraqi ‘resistance’ and why so many others indulged them while they did. In the mind of NYCLAW the Iraqi bombers are similar in kind to the French anti-Nazi Resistance of World War Two. The real parallel is with Heinrich Himmler's anti-Allies Nazi Werewolves guerrilla movement that continued to fight in 1945-6 after the fall of Hitler. Both murdered the left. Both murdered trade unionists. Both murdered those engaged in elections. Both blew up infrastructure in the hope of stopping reconstruction. About the record of the Iraqi ‘resistance’ little needs to be said as its actions speak so loud: the torture and murder of trade unionists, the murder of election workers, the murder of voters, the murder of construction workers, the slaying of women MPs, the murder of Iraqi police, the destruction of polling stations, electricity sub-stations, water-treatment plants (and the children gathered outside, happy, dancing, glad the water is about to come back) and oil pipelines, the bombing of lines of voters, the regular massacre of the Shia, the beheadings, the lynchings and, above-all, their bone-deep fear that an Iraqi democracy might just get off the ground. It is of such people and such enormities that Michael Moore has said “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win.” Wrong. It is to such men that Lee Sustar insists we owe ‘unconditional support’. Wrong. It is of such atrocities that NYCLAW does not seem able to raise a whimper of protest while it froths at the mouth about the IFTU. Shame on NYCLAW. As I write (June 23) the ‘resistance’ has just set off bombs that targeted a Shia mosque, a police patrol, and a public bath-house. More than 30 people have been massacred. These are not anti-imperialist acts. They will not further ‘the self-determination of the Iraqi people’. The perpetrators are not latter-day Minutemen. NYCLAW Claim 10. The IFTU ‘has not opposed even the most brutal crimes of U.S. occupation: massacres in Fallujah and other cities’. “The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions wishes to make our position on the current bloody chaos in parts of Iraq absolutely clear. Firstly, the IFTU opposes the use of military force against civilian areas, such as the city of Falluja” (IFTU statement November 17 2004, posted on the website). NYCLAW Claim 11. The ICP/IFTU has little support in Iraq, and its slate won only .8 percent in the January 2005 elections. (First, note in passing that there is no NYCLAW talk of a ‘sham’ poll now! Now the poll is taken as an authentic measure of the distribution of support in Iraq for the various political parties.) The ICP received 69,920 votes and gained two seats. It’s a start. It fought with almost no resources, in a war-zone, facing the tremendous electoral power of the religious and Kurdish parties, and the near impossibility of campaigning in many areas due to the death squads. It still held mass rallies in football stadiums in the middle of Baghdad and got two seats in the assembly!. 96% of the seats were won by Shite, Sunni, Kurd, Turkoman and Allawi parties. This was to be expected at the first poll. But the left is up and running. We should be celebrating that not sneering. NYCLAW Claim 12. Muhsin supported Tony Blair's unsuccessful attempt to invite Here are the facts. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had proposed Iyad Allawi be invited to address the 2004 Labour Party conference. A debate followed in the labour movement and left about this proposal, for and against. Abdullah Muhsin wrote a short letter to the Guardian saying he thought Allawi should be invited and debated with. It was a call for people to engage critically in the political process. Allawi’s party represents a large segment of Iraqi opinion. Do the pro-banners - often the same people who call, correctly, for dialogue with parts of ‘the insurgency’ by the way - seriously think that these people can just be ‘boycotted’? NYCLAW Claim 13. Abdullah Muhsin wrote an article at Labour Party conference that stated "[A]n early date for the unilateral withdrawal of [occupation] troops . . . would be bad for my country, bad for the emerging progressive forces, a terrible blow for free trade unionism, and would play into the hands of extremists and terrorists." Abdullah Muhsin attended the conference as a guest of the trade union Unison and was invited by other union leaders to speak privately to meetings of union delegates. Abdullah agreed. He did not speak ‘in support of occupation’. He spoke about the IFTU policy about how to end the occupation without civil war. He spoke about the UN-backed political process in Iraq and explained why the IFTU had decided to critically support that process as the best hope for Iraqi workers. He carefully explained to the union delegations why the IFTU had decided against taking up arms alongside the Ba’athist and Islamist ‘resistance’. He spoke about achieving the speedy removal of the troops as part of that UN-backed timetable, along with building up the Iraqi labour movement and democratic political parties, as the best policy for Iraqi workers. Virtually every trade unionist that heard that message understood and backed it overwhelmingly after democratic deliberation and vote. Almost every serious trade unionist who had the issue clearly set out before her has reached the same conclusion: yes, this is what I would do if I was in your shoes. This is what Tony Woodley. Leader of the TGWU, one of Britain’s largest unions, and a fierce opponent of the invasion of Iraq, said after the conference, “Our voting decisions were influenced by one factor above all others - the representations made to us by the spokesman for the Iraqi trade unions. I make no apology for listening to the representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Brighton. Our traditions of solidarity and internationalism could not let us do otherwise. And let me make it clear that, as far as the T&G was concerned, it was clear advice from Abdullah Muhsin which tipped the balance. He made a compelling case about the disasters which might follow if troops withdrew before the Iraqi trade union movement felt their country was secure. So I am happy with how the T&G voted, and I am confident that we deserted neither our proud traditions nor our conference policy in so doing”. NYCLAW Claim 14. Labour Friends of Iraq (the IFTU's British support group) support the occupation. LFIQ http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/ is not an ‘IFTU support group’. We are a British Labour Party group set up to build direct links of solidarity between the emerging Iraqi labour movement and progressive organisations and the British labour movement. LFIQ has sharply criticised the Bush administration. Here are some articles on the LFIQ website. December 16, 2004 ‘Bush Does Not Get It’; December 31, 2004 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (Part 2): The Assault on the Geneva Convention undermines the War on Terror’; January 06, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (Part 3): ‘One does not reach democracy, or freedom, through torture’; January 10, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get it (4): Discharge Tracy Perkins!’; January 13, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (5): Lessons from the agony of Falluja’; January 17, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (6) Torture: the case for absolute prohibition’; April 20, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (7): The Geneva Convention and Civilian Deaths’; April 20, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (8): The Human Rights Deficit in Iraq’s Prisons’; April 21, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (9) The Agony of Falluja’; May 06, 2005 ‘Bush Does Not Get It (10) Stop Bolton!’. The basic approach of Labour Friends of Iraq is captured in these statements, all taken from our website: “Send Charles Graner to jail but also sack Donald Rumsfeld. We should jail Lindy but also close Guantanamo Bay”. NYCLAW call LFIQ a ‘pro-occupation’ group. This is false. We are actually a pro-Iraqi labour, pro-Iraqi democrats and pro-Iraqi women’s’ groups. We launched Labour Friends of Iraq in October 2004 to make urgent practical solidarity with the Iraqi democrats by, firstly, uniting the labour movement and the left here in Britain around support of the fledgling labour movement in Iraq. Our record: - LFIQ (with kind help from the trade union USDAW) has produced a 'Toolkit for Solidarity with Grassroots Iraq'.
http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/archives/000097.html and a petition for the defence of journalists in Iraq http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/archives/000040.html which we opposed and the Defence of Iraqi Trade Unionists. - We have addressed local Labour Parties (read a speech at, http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/archives/000420.html) regional conferences, and helped to bring together UK trade unionists and Iraqi trade unionists. LFIQ supporters were instrumental in organising a tour of the Birmingham trade unions, for instance, for Abdullah Muhsin, the IFTU rep in London. We have publicised vigils in support of Iraqi women's and students' rights, under vicious attack by Fundamentalists. We have promoted the work of the Jubilee Iraq Network. - LFIQ has publicised strikes in Iraq such as the successful Baghdad Hotel Workers Strike in February 2005, and helped to network support for the strikers. There are many LFIQ-supporting MPs and the number is growing. They have tabled questions and Early Day Motions (resolutions) - The LFIQ website http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/ has hundreds of visitors each day, and growing, from the UK, Europe, America, Australia, Asia, Iraq and the Middle East. It acts as a platform for the voices of Iraqi Democrats to be heard. We post news, interviews with the political parties, speeches and policy statements and comment pieces about Iraq. It also acts as a forum for the democratic left in Britain to discuss Iraq. He is in fact an academic who lives in London, a supporter of the resistance, and he left Iraq in the 1960s, we think. For more see http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/archives/000612.html I Going beyond the hysterical ‘claims’ It is important to refute the NYCLAW ‘claims’. But it is as important to grasp that the NYCLAW case against the IFTU is really about politics. The IFTU has decided to spurn violence, and to work for a swift withdrawal of troops as part of the UN-backed political process. This, and this alone, condemns the IFTU in the eyes of some. For NYCLAW anyone who supports the UN-backed political process and timetable (elections to a constituent assembly in January 2005, a constitutional referendum in October and further elections in December 2005) is a collaborator and a quisling. For NYCLAW anyone who stops this process with bombs is an ‘anti-imperialist’. This has got nothing to do with labour solidarity and everything to do with ultra-leftist politics masquerading as labour solidarity. Every act of critical engagement in the political process, every act of wary participation in its timetable and institutions by the IFTU, every effort to use the political process on behalf of its members, is an act of treachery and collaboration with the imperialists. But ask yourself, is NYCLAW right? Think about the situation in Iraq. Is the IFTU policy really treachery? Put yourself in their shoes. You are building a union while crawling from the wreckage of three decades of totalitarian repression, your country is occupied by US-UK troops who deny sovereignty but hold back a fascistic Saddamist-violent Islamic Fundamentalist attempt to block democracy and re-impose tyranny. Of course you will seek to critically support the UN-backed political process, codified in UN Security Council Resolution 1546! After all, this political process is backed not only by the United Nations and the international community but also by the Kurds (who see it as the road to a federal Iraq), the Shia and by many Sunni. It is backed by the democratic Iraqi political parties. And, yes, it is also backed by the Iraqi Communist Party, and the democratic left. It provides for elections, a constitution and a feasible way to get your country back from both the US and the Saddamists. And ask yourself, can all these forces – the great majority of Iraqis - really be mistaken? Can they all be ‘quislings’? Wouldn’t that mean that Iraq is some kind of ‘quisling nation’ that has to be brought back to the ‘anti-imperialist’ straight and narrow by foreign jihadi suicide bombers, ex-Saddamist thugs, and the New York City Labour Against the War group? This is the logic of the NYCLAW view. The great majority of Iraqis back the political process – critically, while organising themselves, preparing actively for a sovereign future - because it offers the only feasible way to create a unified, federal Iraq, democratic and at peace. The January elections to the transitional assembly – in which, though far from perfect, eight and a half million Iraqis voted, held their purple fingers aloft and danced with joy - prepared the ground for a national constitutional referendum in October 2005. Fresh elections will be held under the terms of the new constitution in December 2005. A sovereign elected Iraqi government and assembly will then tell the multinational force to stay or go. The prospects of the US and UK troops staying in Iraq in defiance of an elected Iraqi government’s expressed wishes are zero. Such a policy would be opposed by the entire Iraqi nation and the entire international community. It is never, ever, going to happen. But none of these real-world political calculations mean anything in the world of NYCLAW where striking childish ‘revolutionary’ postures is all. You will search high and low in the NYCLAW post for any arguments that factor in the real world. On what grounds do NYCLAW think the immediate withdrawal of troops would not lead to civil war in Iraq? Silence. What political character do NYCLAW think the resistance has? Silence. Why have the IFTU - who live in Iraq - taken the view that immediate withdrawal might produce civil war in Iraq? Silence (sorry, NYCLAW do have an answer: the IFTU are in bed with the CIA). Do NYCLAW think that the eight and a half million Iraqis who voted in January agree with its view that the poll they risked their lives to take part in (think of that!) was a ‘sham’? Silence. What are NYCLAW detailed counter-arguments to the IFTU’s thought-through political position regarding 1546? Silence. NYCLAW use the old Stalinist amalgam technique against the IFTU again and again. That dirty little ploy used to work like this: Trotsky opposes Stalin, Hitler opposes Stalin, therefore Trotsky is a Hitlerite. Applied to the IFTU by NYCLAW it takes this form. The US government opposes immediate withdrawal, the IFTU oppose immediate withdrawal, therefore “The ICP/IFTU has taken the U.S. government's position..’. There is no conspiracy. But there is an extreme left that - bowled over by the success of Chomsky and Moore perhaps? - has lost much of its ability to think politically. Everything it says now takes on the shape of a 30 minute TV ‘expose’. It has lost the ability to see complexity. All is now cartoon-like, all is cast in a stark Manichean black or white polarity. All is conspiracy. In that regard the NYCLAW statement is just another example of a Grand Political Dumbing Down. If we are brave enough to resist that Grand Political Dumbing Down what do we see? We see that the Iraqi democrats have decided that the best hope in Iraq lies in building up the strength of the forces of democracy, human rights, women’s rights, trade unions, while extending critical support to the UN-backed transition process. We see them fighting within the process to oppose privatisation and torture, and propose a decent labour code, a democratic constitution, human rights and the rule of law. In this policy the IFTU – along with the Kurds, the Shia, the Communists and the great majority of Iraqis – are surely correct. And at any rate, it’s a legitimate response by a legitimate trade union to the awful terrain it has to fight on. And that’s all it is. Nobody, but nobody, has come up with a grown-up alternative. Just slogans and name-calling. The entire hullabaloo on the extreme left about the IFTU comes down to this: an inability to think politically. The invasion has produced mixed consequences that have to be reckoned with. Iraqi civilian deaths, torture at Abu Ghraib, and the continuing high levels of violence have to be opposed but in a context and on a terrain also marked by the removal and trial of Saddam, the end of his apparatus of terror (but its reorganisation as a ‘resistance’, now in alliance with Al Qaeda), the return of the refugees, the joy of the Kurds, the religious freedoms now enjoyed by the Shia, the creation of a UN-backed political process, the 8 million voters in the January elections, a fantastic display of ‘purple power’, a new democratic assembly, one in three members of which are women, the rebirth of trade unionism and the labour movement, the rise of new democratic political parties, a relatively free press, the reflooding of the Marshlands, the return of the Marsh Arabs, the opening up of the mass graves, the beginning of a truth and justice process and the spread throughout the region of a new confidence in demanding freedom and democracy. If you stand on this real-world terrain a series of tough questions arise. How can the opportunities to make a transition to democracy be exploited politically by labour? How can the United Nations be persuaded to become more involved? How should labour relate to the fledgling institutions of the new Iraqi democracy? How can the fight for the end of the occupation be balanced by the need to avoid civil war and balkanisation of the country? What to make of the contradictory role being played by the US? These questions preoccupy Iraqi democrats. They do not even occur to some others. This flat refusal to think politically ends up in the grotesque irresponsibility of the NYCLAW statement in which the IFTU are called ‘a pro-occupation mouthpiece … in bed with the "AFL-CIA" alliance… has consistently supported every major aspect of the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq … has not opposed even the most brutal crimes of U.S. occupation: massacres in Fallujah and other cities..” Who are the IFTU? Once we take off the NYCLAW glasses we can see that a quite remarkable thing is happening in Iraq. It is something the left should be celebrating and supporting. A free trade union movement – the basic hope for social justice in Iraq or anywhere else - is emerging in Iraq from the nightmare of Saddam’s totalitarian regime. It is fighting, in conditions we can barely imagine, for workers rights, social justice, peace and democracy. It is weak. But it exists, and it fights! It’s the best thing to have happened in the region in decades. That we have allowed a small vocal minority to distract us from this fact is terrible enough. That we have allowed them to calumny the infant Iraqi labour movement is a crime. Enough of that. Stand up, speak out! Where did this movement come from? There are five letters missing from the NYCLAW account of the IFTU and when we bring those five letters back in the story changes entirely. Here they are: WDTUM. These five letters stand for Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement. This was the underground free trade union network sustained at tremendous cost during the nightmare years of Saddam when free unions were abolished and free trade unionists hounded and tortured. Formed inside Iraq in 1980 the Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement (WDTUM) existed throughout the 24 years of rule of Saddam’s Ba’ath party. The WDTUM was composed of trade unionists, intellectuals, and liberals, communists, and women’s, youth and students advocates. Abroad the WDTUM played a significant role in exposing Saddam’s atrocities and genocide against Iraqis. Inside Iraq its members worked to collect information - at great risk- about summary executions, torture and impressments and send them to trade union centres around the world. In Britain, in 1982, as a result of information passed on by the WDTUM to tobacco workers union leader Dougie Grieve, the TUC conference passed a motion condemning the atrocities against workers in Iraq. The WDTUM helped to organize a strike of four thousand tobacco workers in Iraqi Kurdistan (Sulaymanyah) in open defiance of Saddam’s regime. Saddam’s security apparatus crushed the strike and four workers were executed. In Spring 2003 it was the hardened militants of the WDTUM that created the IFTU. The WDTUM helped organize an open meeting on 16 May 2003 attended by 350 Iraqi trade unionists (liberals, communists, and nationalists, both Arab and Kurds). It was at this meeting that the IFTU was formed. Some of these founding organisers had been in exile. Some had been imprisoned. Some had been working underground. They came together on 16 May to form the backbone of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. The IFTU has achieved some great things against the odds. Yes, of course it has had to take account of the balance of forces on the ground and the political possibilities of the situation. Of course it has had to compromise. Every trade unionist worth his or her salt will know that imperative (and the way there are always some who will shriek ‘sell out!’ on principle). In just over one year, 12 national unions in key sectors of the Iraq’s economy were established. The IFTU now includes the following unions: The Oil and Gas Union, the Railway Union, The Transport and Communication Union, the Mechanics, Printing and Metal Union. The Textile and Leather products Union, the Construction and Wood Workers' Union, the Electricians' Union, the Service Industry Union and the Agriculture and Food Staff Workers' Union. These unions organise in Baghdad and across Iraq’s 15 provinces such as Basra, Kirkuk, Mosul, Kurbala, al Najif, Babel and Mesan. In June 2004 six of the IFTU’s constituent unions held their first open and free workers’ conferences in Baghdad and each had elected a leading committee of 15 members. These unions were: The Service Union, the Agriculture and Food Staff Workers Union and Transport and Communication Union, the Mechanic, Printing and Metal Workers Union, the Construction and Wood Workers Union and the Leather Products and Textile Workers Union. The IFTU has welcomed a series of fact-finding missions from the international trade union movement. The reports of these missions can be consulted at the IFTU website [http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/]. For the latest report, from April 2005, go to http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/archives/000302.html The ICFTU visited Iraq on a fact-finding mission in February of 2004. The mission was led by P Kamalam, Middle East officer of the ICFTU, and consisted of representatives of the TUC, the AFL-CIO, the UGTT of Tunisia (with the support of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions ICATU), and two global union confederations the ITF (transport) and the EI (education). The TUC representative, Owen Tudor (Head of the TUC European Union and International Relations Department) wrote a report on Iraq and the IFTU that can be read at http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-7859-f0.cfm. Current Work of the IFTU The work of the IFTU can be examined in detail by spending a few hours over at their website http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/ Urgent Question for NYCLAW Affiliates Does the NYCLAW unequivocally condemn the many acts of torture, murder and mutilation that have been carried out by the ‘resistance’ against the IFTU? Nothing less than a public and unequivocal condemnation by NYCLAW of the assassination of IFTU leaders and members can begin to repair the damage caused by its grossly irresponsible statement. If such an equivocal condemnation is not forthcoming then union affiliates to NYCLAW, and other USLAW branches, may wish to consider indicating their distance from NYCLAW by passing appropriate resolutions. The NYCLAW arguments are not new. When they were raised over here, in Britain, the UK trade unions rejected them. When a handful of people (albeit prominent) tried to finger the IFTU as collaborators it got a blistering response from Mick Rix, left-wing ex-General Secretary of Aslef, the train drivers union, now political officer at the GMB union. He resigned from the Stop the War Coalition leadership, writing in these terms to its Chair, Andrew Murray, on 21 October 2004: "If you think I am going to sit back and agree with beheadings, That is the authentic voice of international trade unionism. Solidarity with the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions is the right course. |