PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Dec. 20

UFCW Local 1776 represents 23,000 workers in the retail food, food processing and manufacturing, health care and service industries in Pennsylvania.

Resolution Opposing a War Against Iraq
United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 1776

"Whereas the mission of the labor movement is to struggle for justice among working people and to advocate negotiation aimed at improving the quality of life for the general public;

Whereas President George W. Bush's haste in insisting upon preparing for war has contravened the principle of adequately negotiating for peaceful outcomes with Iraq through United Nations, and

Whereas, President Bush has also chosen war over the social responsibilities of inspiring investment and social programs that create decent job opportunities, as well as health care, education, pension and other benefits for workers and their families to live a better life;

Whereas, indeed, President Bush has escalated a campaign whose implications would result in death, permanent injury, physical and psychological illness and a fragmenting of families and communities throughout all of the world powers that would be drawn into an armed conflagration;

Whereas, the elite handful of industrialists in oil production and military-related manufacturing that would benefit by a war represent motivation that is based in corporate greed of a few very wealthy people and not in initiatives to improve democracy, to establish antidotes to world hunger, brutal working conditions or violence;

Whereas, the World Council of Churches, the United States Council of Bishops, Synods of Rabbis and many Islamic and Buddhist leadership councils have renounced the Bush petition for war as morally and ethically unfounded and unjustified;

Whereas, in addition, such a war would be a violation of International law; and

Whereas, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has noted that "the sudden urgency for a decision about war and peace, an urgency that did not exist a month ago, has as much to do with the political calendar as with the situation in Iraq"; and

Whereas, Philadelphia Congressmen Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah voted against the Bush resolution on Iraq; and

Whereas the Bush administration's sensationalizing and distorting the reasons to rush into war are also a distraction from issues of equity for workers and their families, decent living standards such as affordable medical coverage and job training;

Whereas, the Bush administration failed to take such a militant stand with regard to the prosecution and proscribing of the corporate crooks of Enron, WorldCom and other financial terrorists who have raided the moneys of good-faith workers, investors and their families;

Whereas, a war with Iraq would drain the U.S. Treasury of many billions of dollars desperately needed by communities that are struggling for better standards of living;

Therefore be it resolved that the U.F.C.W. Local 1776 goes on record as strenuously opposing the Bush administration's march toward war with Iraq;

Therefore be it resolved that the U.F.C.W. Local 1776 supports the men and women in our armed forces even though we are opposed to President Bush's decision to go to war; and

Therefore be it resolved that the U.F.C.W. Local 1776 urges its members and affiliates to support organizations working nonviolently to stop the Bush Administration's march toward war against Iraq."