[Media-watch] Us media suppress unions' opposition to war
Tim Gopsill
TimG at nuj.org.uk
Thu Jul 22 10:56:04 BST 2004
from New York trade union anti-war site
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 13:36:41 -0000
From: NYCLAW
Subject: LABOR STATEMENTS: Media Blackout on Antiwar Labor
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=
235&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Media Blackout: Media Blackout Story of U.S. Labor Opposition to Iraq
War
Posted by : DavidSwanson on Monday, July 19, 2004 - 06:55 AM
By David Swanson, http://ILCAonline.org
Part of the Media Blackout series on underreported labor stories
Recently the two biggest stories in the U.S. news media have been the
war in Iraq and the presidential election campaign. Labor unions have
been part of a number of major stories on the presidential campaign,
especially stories about Senator Kerry's selection of John Edwards as
a running mate.
But labor has not been part of stories on the war. There was some
reason for that up until a few weeks ago. The AFL-CIO has not taken a
position on the war, and most of the international unions have
followed suit. That changed at the conventions last month in
California of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME). Kerry spoke at both conventions, and his speeches received
significant media coverage.
What did not receive coverage and should have was that both SEIU and
AFSCME passed resolutions at their conventions supporting the
immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. These strongly worded
resolutions passed by two of the largest, most politically active
labor unions in the country -- two unions that have received
substantial coverage from national political reporters on other
stories -- were quickly followed by passage on July 13 of a similar
resolution by the California Labor Federation, the largest state
federation within the AFL-CIO. Together, these three organizations
represent close to 5 million union members. Other union conventions
will be addressing the issue throughout the summer, a remarkable
development and a striking contrast to labor's behavior during the
Vietnam War.
It should be noted that other unions, both internationals and locals,
have led the way on this issue, including the International Longshore
and Warehouse Union (ILWU) which took a strong stance against the war
at its May 2003 International Convention, and later backed that up
with a resolution in support of Iraqi workers' right to organize. The
ILCA passed a resolution in support of Iraqi workers' right to
organize in November 2003.
Extensive Nexis searching on July 17 turned up virtually no coverage
during the past 60 days of U.S. labor opposition to the war. The few
exceptions: a story in the Nation Magazine by independent labor
reporter/photographer David Bacon touched on the topic. An Associated
Press story from the AFSCME convention covered a speech by a U.S.
soldier formerly held prisoner in Iraq but made no mention of AFSCME's
resolution, and the soldier was not opposed to the war. Oh, and Fox
News (Special Report With Brit Hume) on July 3 mentioned an
organization that's rather hard to find in corporate media: U.S. Labor
Against the War (a large and active coalition of unions opposed to the
war) -- but the point of briefly mentioning USLAW was to accuse it and
other "Bush-hating" groups of planning to "sabotage the Republican
Convention."
It's not that media have entirely refused to inform the public of this
story, it's just that the outlets doing so are neither well funded nor
tracked by Nexis. Google searches turn up stories on the
ILCAonline.org website from the ILCA, from Press Associates
Incorporated (a wire service used by many labor papers), and from
AFSCME, as well as stories from FrontPageMag.com, Zmag.org, People's
Weekly World, Workday Minnesota, Socialist Worker, Workers' World,
Labor Educator, Under News, Anti-Imperialism, and many other labor and
alternative online publications, discussion lists, and blogs.
The story of US labor opposition to the war appears to be a prime
example of the corporate media's blackout of labor's issues, and yet
another argument for devoting our energies to building stronger labor
media.
Details on Nexis searches performed:
1. ("organized labor" w/s Iraq) AND (Iraq w/3 war) = five articles,
none relevant
2. ("labor union" w/s Iraq) AND (Iraq w/3 war) = 15 articles, none
relevant
3. "labor union" w/s Iraq = 45 articles, including the Nation and AP
stories mentioned above but nothing else related
4. USLAW = two articles, one unrelated and the other the same Nation
article
5. "labor against" AND war = 31 articles, including the Nation article
again and the Fox News story mentioned above
6. AFSCME AND Iraq = 24 articles, none relevant
7. SEIU AND Iraq = 22 articles, none relevant
8. "California Labor Federation" = 46 articles, none relevant
David Swanson is Media Coordinator for the International Labor
Communications Association (ILCA) at http://ILCAonline.org
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 22:26:31 -0000
From: NYCLAW
Subject: Protest at DNC--7.25 (ANSWER)
AN OPEN APPEAL TO THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
BUSH & KERRY MUST BE TOLD
BRING THE TROOPS HOME FROM IRAQ NOW!
RALLY AND MARCH AT THE DNC
Sunday JULY 25, Boston Commons, 12 noon
A HISTORIC CHALLANGE FOR OUR MOVEMENT. Democratic Party
Presidential Candidate John Kerry has made it as clear as
day that he supports the continued occupation of Iraq by
upwards of 140 thousand U.S. troops and a smaller number
of troops from other countries, indefinitely. Kerry has
said that he is prepared to send more U.S. troops to Iraq
and Afganistan. He supports the criminal apartheid wall
that is imprisoning the Palestinian people. He supports
Bush's kidnapping of President Jean-Bertrand Aristede of
Haiti, and the occupation of that country by U.S. troops.
He has vowed to continue Bush's war and do a better job
off pulling in "our allies".
Now is not the time to hesitate. Those of us who have been
marching against Bush's wars for almost 2 and one half
years must not allow misplaced concerns over not doing
anything that might hurt Kerry and help Bush keeps us
from bringing a strong, and defiant anti-war message to
the streets of Boston during the DNC.
IF we are not out in force at both the DNC AND the RNC we
will send a dangerous message that we will surely regret.
The message? Kerry has tamed and gagged the anti-war
voices, just as he effectively stopped the Kucinich
forces from calling for the troops to be brought home now.
We must converge on Boston at the major anti-war rally on
Sunday July 25 sponsered by International ANSWER and many
others, to scream at the top of our voices that niether of
the pro-war candidates have a pass from us to keep the
troops in Iraq for 6 more years are 6 more months.
Join us to say:
Bring the troops home now!
The week of protest will kick off with a permitted rally
in Boston Common on Sunday, July 25 at 12 noon, to be
followed by a march on the Fleet Center, site of the DNC.
for more information, call (617) 522-6626
www.answerboston.org
info at answerboston.org
March on the DNC!
Sunday, July 25
call the 617-522-66226
www.iacboston for more information
Iraq War Crimes Tribunal
Thursday, August 26
call 212-633-6646 for more information
www.PeopleJudgeBush.org for more information
http://www.iacenter.org
iacenter at iacenter.org
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LaborAgainstWar/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
LaborAgainstWar-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.stir.ac.uk/pipermail/media-watch/attachments/20040722/e815debb/attachment-0001.htm
More information about the Media-watch
mailing list