Dear Sisters and Brothers:
 

As you may know, last October two U.S. trade unionists -- Clarence Thomas and David Bacon -- represented USLAW on an international labor fact-finding trip to Iraq. While in Iraq, they met with and were taken to factories, workplaces and union halls by representatives from the two main union federations that have formed during the past year: the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) and the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions of Iraq (FWCUI).

Through these two union bodies, we learned, for example, that:

• Since last April, unemployment among Iraqi workers has reached 70%. The U.S. Occupation Authority, moreover, has frozen Iraqi wages for most workers at $60/month, while at the same time eliminating bonuses, profit sharing, and subsidies for food and housing.
• Since April, Iraqi workers have begun to reorganize their trade union movement, seeking a better standard of living, and to preserve their jobs and workplaces. But their organizing efforts have been met systematically with repression by the U.S. Occupation Authority.
• Shockingly, the U.S. Occupation Authority has continued to enforce a law issued by Saddam Hussein in 1987 prohibiting unions and collective bargaining in the public sector and state enterprises where most Iraqis work.
• The Iraqi trade union movement fears that the planned privatization of Iraqi factories, refineries, mines and other state enterprises will result in the massive layoff of Iraqi workers, at a time when unemployment is already at crisis levels.

USLAW is in the process of organizing a U.S. labor delegation of elected leaders to Iraq this coming May. We want to learn more about the labor situation on the ground in Iraq and to organize report-backs from this delegation across the United States to promote our campaign for labor rights in Iraq and the "Dear Colleague" letter (in support of Iraqi labor rights) issued by Congresspersons Sam Farr, Barbara Lee and Dennis Kucinich. (http://www.progressiveportal.org/iraq-labor.html)

We further believe that these report backs will provide critical education for the labor movement during the election season about the failures of our government's policies in Iraq and ways in which the labor movement in the U.S. can advance labor rights in Iraq.

It is our intention to have this delegation bring $5,000 or more in donations to each of the two main trade union federations in Iraq that hosted our delegation in October and that have worked closely with USLAW since that time. We feel we cannot just show up again, empty-handed, requesting their help and their time -- when their material needs are so urgent.

Please contribute generously to this Iraqi Solidarity Fund. We need your help urgently.

Your donation will support the evolving democratic trade union movement in Iraq during this critical period in that country and bolster our joint campaign for full trade union rights in Iraq, for immediate nullification of the 1987 Hussein law banning unions in public enterprises and for repeal of any other restriction on the full exercise of labor rights. We believe that this work can have a genuine impact on  the future of events in Iraq and we urge you to support it.

Thanks for your attention,
In Solidarity,

Gene Bruskin Co-Convenor US Labor Against the War