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From the Washington
Post:
Unionists Mobilize for
Work, Benefits
by Manny Fernandez and David Nakamura, Washington Post
Staff Writers, Washington Post
October 18th, 2004
Union members from across the country gathered at the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday for a rally dubbed the Million
Worker March, assembling in smaller-than-expected numbers
but making a passionate plea for workers' rights.
Linking their struggle with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
by standing on the same spot where the slain civil rights
leader made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in
August 1963, workers from a variety of trades and causes said
King's vision of social and economic equality remains more
dream than reality.
"The majority of working people in America are not doing
well," said Clarence Thomas, 57, a crane operator on
the Oakland, Calif., docks and a leader of the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 in San Francisco, a
key organizer of yesterday's rally. "With jobs being
offshored, outsourced, privatized, our young people are looking
at a much more dismal future."
Thousands stood at the foot of the memorial and along the
sides of the Reflecting Pool on a chilly October afternoon,
calling for more jobs, universal health care and an end to
the war in Iraq. But with room to walk freely and stretches
of grass visible, the crowd by midafternoon appeared far smaller
than the 100,000 that organizers had estimated on their National
Park Service permit application.
A law enforcement official estimated the crowd at less than
10,000. Organizers said 10,000 to 15,000 attended.
The Million Worker March title was meant to evoke the imagery
of the 1995 Million Man March and not to reflect a crowd count,
the organizers said. They said they were not disappointed
by the turnout, although they complained that authorities
prevented about 30 buses from dropping off passengers near
the memorial and redirected them to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial
Stadium, causing many to show up late or not at all. U.S.
Park Police and D.C. police officials said they were not aware
of any buses being diverted.
The protest and a few related small marches were largely
peaceful. Sgt. Scott Fear, a Park Police spokesman, said only
one arrest was made -- a woman charged with demonstrating
in a restricted zone near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a
misdemeanor.
In the crowd were postal workers and longshoremen, school
bus drivers and teachers, department store staff and railway
repair crews. They said they came to Washington by car, bus
and airplane just days before Election Day to highlight the
social, economic and political hardships facing working Americans
at home and on the job.
"I think we need a change," said Ronnie White,
48, a production worker at a food plant in Kansas City, Mo.,
who stood on the steps above the Reflecting Pool proudly wearing
his black Teamsters Local 838 jacket. "We need the jobs
here, not overseas."
An end to the outsourcing of jobs abroad was just one of
the rally's many far-reaching goals. Workers called for health
care coverage from "cradle to grave" for all Americans,
a national living wage, a repeal of the USA Patriot Act, more
funding for public schools and free mass transit, to name
a few of their 22 demands.
Antiwar sentiment was also strong. Workers criticized the
Bush administration for leading the country into what they
called an unjustified war with Iraq, saying that the billions
of dollars paying for the war are needed instead in struggling
schools and communities. "We need to employ, not deploy,"
said Mark Barbour, 51, of Blacksburg, Va., a longtime railway
worker and member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way
Employees Local 551.
Steve Burns, 43, a teacher at a Madison, Wis., community
college, endured a 14-hour van ride to Washington to have
his voice heard -- and his handmade sign seen. Burns's felt-pen
message was "End For-Profit Health Care." He said
he does not receive health care benefits as an adjunct math
instructor and is still paying off a recent $1,200 hospital
bill for an infection. "Our health care system is a disaster,
and neither candidate wants real reform," Burns said.
Though organizers had planned their protest as nonpartisan,
speakers and rallygoers were not bashful in showing their
disapproval of President Bush.
From a podium on a wide granite landing on the memorial steps,
former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark called for the impeachment
of Bush for war crimes. Activists in the audience carried
anti-Bush stickers and signs, and one of the most prominent
banners on display was one declaring, "The Bush regime
engineered 9-11."
The turnout fell far short of the 250,000 who filled the
Mall for the labor movement's last major Washington demonstration,
an August 1991 "Solidarity Day" rally that blamed
political leaders, including Bush's father, then-President
George H.W. Bush, for turning their backs on U.S. workers.
That rally was sponsored by the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest
labor federation. But AFL-CIO leaders refused to officially
endorse or help organize yesterday's gathering, saying they
were focused instead on mobilizing voters for the presidential
election, a decision echoed by several major unions.
Organizers, who said unions representing more than 3.5 million
workers backed the demonstration, said the AFL-CIO's decision
hurt the turnout, but they expressed pride that their low-budget
rally was largely a rank-and-file effort.
Not all were trade unionists. About 100 protesters took part
in an 11 a.m. "anarchist march," where Daniel Hall,
20, a student at the University of Maryland, marched with
a group of students holding up a large banner that read, "Students
and workers unite!" Hall said he hoped the march "gets
people thinking about labor and how things are not getting
better. It's a system of inequality."
Later in the afternoon, following speeches by King's son,
Martin Luther King III, and other civil rights and union leaders,
a few hundred marched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Hotel
Washington on 15th Street NW in support of District hotel
workers.
Negotiators for several major Washington hotels and the union
that represents 3,800 hotel employees remain deadlocked on
a new contract. Protesters chanted outside the hotel's doors
as police looked on. Three hotel workers leaned out a third-floor
window, looked down on the crowd and waved in support.
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