Labor Working Group

ABOUT US

We have met formally since September 2024 and informally since the beginning of 2024.  The Veterans & Labor for Sensible Priorities campaign has been active since July 2023.

We have general meetings once a month.  Contact us at labor@veteransforpeace.org for information and Zoom link.  

MISSION

• We seek to build alliances between anti-war veterans and workers/labor organizations, to jointly promote economic and environmental justice, and peace. 
• We support economic struggles of workers, such as strikes and struggles for union recognition and contracts.
• We support efforts to defend immigrant workers from attacks and deportation.
• We support efforts for racial and gender equity in the workplace. 
• We support moving resources from the military to filling the needs of working families, people as a whole and the planet.
• We support and publicize instances where organized workers and unions, in the US or elsewhere in the world, take a stand against war and militarism.
• We seek to build awareness of economic justice and labor within VFP and note that many VFP members are active or retired union members. 

STATEMENT

A small group of people in the US are fabulously wealthy while most working people are struggling to make ends meet.  Attacks against workers and unions will be increasing under the current US government which tries to pit workers who are not recent immigrants against immigrant workers.  Working people are targeted to be divided by race and gender.   To stand up against these oligarchic attacks, and for economic justice, unity is essential – unity among workers and among others working for positive change.   Resistance is strong when workers fight hard for our own needs and for the common good.  International unity of workers is essential – the entrenched US war system would not be able to maintain its hold on our minds, if US working people felt a high level of unity with workers elsewhere in the world. 

Shawn Fain, United Auto Workers (UAW) president, led the successful UAW strike in Fall 2023, during which he helped build the largest labor/climate unity so far in the US.  He promotes campaigns for organizing auto plants in the South and the EV industry, has been a leader within Labor for Ceasefire in Gaza, and has called for unions to end their contracts April 30, 2028, with the potential for a widespread strike on May Day 2028. What if VFP helps build this May Day 2028 campaign?  What if we are able to build strong antiwar sentiment within Labor for redirecting war money to social needs, for stopping war funding on moral grounds, and for focusing on the many working-class soldiers killed, maimed, traumatized for life and suicidal?

The Veterans & Labor for Sensible Priorities (VL4SP) campaign https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/climatecrisis/veterans-labor-sensible-priorities to generate veteran and labor support for the “People Over Pentagon Act” (POP), as of February 2025 has been endorsed by 40 labor organizations, 21 Veterans For Peace chapters and over 500 individual veterans and union members.  The bill to move $100 billion from the Pentagon budget to funding social programs and dealing with the climate crisis, was H.R. 1134 in the 2023-24 Congress, and was co-sponsored by Barbara Lee, Mark Pocan and 23 other Congressmembers. 

In 2025, lead Congressional co-sponsors will be Mark Pocan and Ilhan Omar. Our list of supporters among labor groups, veterans’ groups, and individuals continues to grow. 

• Learn more: https://tinyurl.com/about-VL4SP 
• For more background, Here are details
• A $100 billion reduction?  https://bit.ly/100billion-tradeoff-flyer 
• Please sign-on if you haven’t yet and share our sign-on statement:  bit.ly/VL4SP-signon.

We welcome your questions, comments, participation, notification of VFP Chapter endorsements, and requests for speakers. Email: labor@veteransforpeace.org

For a list of Labor and Veteran Organizations supporting People Over Pentagon, a Model Resolution and a union president’s statement, go to VL4SP

UNIONS FOR CEASEFIRE IN GAZA

Organized Labor’s endorsement of Ceasefire represents the strongest anti-war action by Labor (directed toward a Democratic Party President’s policy no less) at least since the 2005 AFL-CIO Convention (which occurred as a result of organizing by US Labor Against the War), passed a Resolution opposing the Iraq War.

10 national unions – the American Association of University Professors (AAUP); American Postal Workers Union (APWU); Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA); Inland Boatmen’s Union (IBU); International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT); National Education Association (NEA); National Nurses United (NNU); National Writers Union (NWU); United Auto Workers (UAW);  United Electrical Workers (UE) – are part of the National Labor Network for Ceasefire.  Others like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Machinists (IAM) have endorsed Ceasefire but aren’t a part of this Network.  Endorsing national unions represent a majority of unionized workers in the US.

The statement initiated in November 2023 begins:

We, members of the American labor movement, mourn the loss of life in Israel and Palestine. We express our solidarity with all workers and our common desire for peace in Palestine and Israel, and we call on President Joe Biden and Congress to push for an immediate ceasefire and end to the siege of Gaza. We cannot bomb our way to peace. We also condemn any hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, or anyone else.

Go to  https://www.laborforceasefire.org  to read the whole statement.  Go to “Member Unions” and scroll down all the way to read the more than 200 endorsing local unions and labor groups.

Boeing labor leader on Gaza bombardment: “We have a special responsibility to speak out”

Painters’ Union in August 2024 divested from investments in Israel due to Genocide in Gaza https://www.livarava.com/finance/p/7007875

OTHER ANTI-WAR ACTIONS OF UNIONS

Port workers in several countries (see posters below) have refused at different times, and especially since October 2023, to load armaments for war.

Interview with CALP (Autonomous Collective of Port Workers), on their blockade of weapons to Israel.  https://www.transnational-strike.info/2023/11/14/the-political-strike-against-warlogistics-interview-with-the-dockworkers-of-genoa/

https://labornotes.org/blogs/2025/01/swedish-dockworkers-vote-block-military-shipmentsand-israel   

All 29 West Coast US ports were shut down on May Day 2008 to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!   https://www.internationalist.org/ilwumaydaystrike0805.html

December 24, 2024

San Francisco Hotel Strikes Conclude as Hilton Workers Vote 99.4% to Ratify New Contract

Union Says New Standard Has Been Set for SF Hotel Workers

After 93 days on strike, Hilton hotel workers with the UNITE HERE Local 2 union in San Francisco have voted by 99.4% to approve a new union contract with affordable health care, big raises, and new workload protections.

The Hilton ratification settles the last of the city’s 2024 hotel strikes, but the union cautions that more strikes are possible in 2025. The new contract is now in place at hotels operated by Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott. The union says it will demand that San Francisco’s other full-service hotels also accept this standard.

The deal includes:

• Preserving workers’ union health insurance plan, which provides quality affordable health care for workers and their families.
• An immediate $3/hour wage increase and additional raises throughout the life of the contract.
• Increased pensions.
• New protections against understaffing and workload increases.
• Four-year term, expiring in 2028.

Full article: https://www.unitehere2.org/2024/12/sf-hotel-workers-win-new-contracts-end-strikes/

Check out union video: https://vimeo.com/973091698

Armistice Day, 2024: 400 - 500 people in an interfaith, immigrant rights, labor and veterans’ coalition marched to the San Francisco offices of our two Senators, to pressure them to vote to block the $20 billion in weapons the US is sending Israel. The march swung by the Palace Hotel to support the strikers of UNITE-HERE Local 2, a union that has endorsed a Ceasefire in Gaza Resolution.

Photo Credit:  David Bacon

The Palace Hotel is now owned by Marriott and was formerly the Sheraton Palace.  It is the site of the largest civil rights campaign in San Francisco history. In March 1964, 1,500 people sat in the lobby, leading to 167 arrests. The next day, the 35 major hotels agreed to end discrimination in hiring.

AFGE [American Federation of Government Employees] members are mobilizing to defeat pieces of legislation that have recently been introduced to harm federal workers.  Full article:
https://www.afge.org/article/afge-members-mobilize-to-defeat-antiworker-bills

New Seasons Labor Union is an independent union of 1,000 workers at 11 stores in the Portland, Oregon area. They are on strike for a Living Wage, better working conditions and fair attendance policies. In response, management fired Randy Foster, 19-year worker at NS, union treasurer and shop steward. The “reason”? He was helping a disabled co-worker during his own break time! 

https://nwlaborpress.org/2025/02/outraged-by-a-coworkers-firing-new-seasons-workers-strike/

Labor Working Group member Dan Shea supporting striking nurses.

We support  Just Transition. The issues of climate crisis, workers and labor, environmental justice, and militarism must all be addressed. Not only the fossil fuel industry, but also the military-industrial complex must be reduced.

Just Transition in relation to the military builds on work that the climate movement has being doing by strategizing support for those who have worked in the fossil fuel industries, following a necessary transition away from the fossil fuel economy. We apply this same approach to workers and also to communities impacted by a transition to a demilitarized, sustainable energy economy.  Just Transition requires that society create an economic and social safety net so that neither these workers nor these communities bear the lion’s share of the cost of making that transition.  [Just Transition: Communities and Climate] 

Just Transition and Defense Workers’ Views in the US and UK

Before Just Transition came into the vocabulary, Conversion was the term used for transition from military jobs to civilian jobs, whether actual or hoped-for. Massive de-militarization occurred between the end of World War II in 1945 and the beginning of the National Security State in 1947. Conversion made quite a bit of headway in the US following the end of the Cold War; the hoped-for “Peace Dividend” was ultimately defeated by the power of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex. Conversion campaigns must include fair treatment for displaced workers: good union jobs to replace the old ones or generous early retirement benefits or full economic support during retraining; good health coverage. Links below refer to aspects of Conversion.

https://thehumanist.com/magazine/january-february-2012/features/moving-from-a-war-economy-to-a-peace-economy/

From a Militarized to a Decarbonized Economy: A Case For Conversion by Costs of War Project, Brown University 

From arms to renewables: How workers in this Southern military industrial hub are converting the economy – Taylor Barnes

Christian Sorenson shows a map of the war industry’s locations in the US, what they produce now, and how they could convert production to useful civilian applications and products.  https://thebusinessofwar.substack.com/p/mapping-the-business-of-war

Two videos on the Lucas plan for Conversion in the 1970s UK:

From Victims to Actors of Just Transition: Lessons from the Lucas Aerospace Workers' Plan

'The Story of the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Alternative Corporate Plan'

These three issues are thoroughly linked. Militarism exacerbates the climate crisis by its largely unreported greenhouse gas emissions, by providing the muscle for US corporations’ world-wide fossil fuel extraction, by fomenting war, and by commandeering the financial resources needed to address the climate crisis. These resources are likewise needed for working families to prosper.

The climate crisis increases both the overall heat level and the volatility of both temperature and cataclysmic weather events. Among the many disasters from this, there are dangerous effects on workers. Damage to workers’ health and lives is increasing due to elevated heat levels. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/extreme-heat-is-more-dangerous-for-workers-every-year/

There are various resources that link climate and labor. Some are increasingly also addressing militarism.

Labor Rise - Climate Jobs Action Group: Growing the Labor Climate Movement from the Roots Up 

Labor Network for Sustainability: https://www.labor4sustainability.org.

Labor Notes https://labornotes.org has mostly focused on job and union issues from a militant rank and file perspective. Lately, however, it has been giving more attention to addressing both climate and militarism. It has a Search function for its entire archive.

In his State of the Union speech in January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt outlined the Four Freedoms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. 

With Freedom from Want, the government for the first time validated economic well-being as an essential part of what people deserve. This followed from the massive upsurge for economic justice that occurred in the 1930s, with the formation of powerful industrial unions and the beginning of New Deal benefits such as Social Security, minimum wage and unemployment insurance. This changed the US: it enhanced millions of lives and kept fascism from gaining a strong foothold here.

It is not surprising that corporate media rarely make economic democracy, workers’ survival and prosperity part of their increasingly less common and often-hollow endorsement of democracy. It is more disappointing that many progressive civil society groups do not center economic democracy, living wages, workers’ lived experience or ending poverty as central parts of their programs. An additional need is to focus on war and militarism as roadblocks to these objectives. ML King did both of these things, particularly in the last years of his life. As he said in his Beyond Viet Nam speech, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. We need to do this now ourselves.

RACISM DEADLY TO MILITARY WORKERS

In the worst disaster in the continental US during World War II, 320 people, mostly black workers (enlisted members of the Navy) loading armaments, were killed in an explosion caused by racism of the Navy [were you able to link my article from VFP’s printed Newsletter Summer/Fall 2024, p 30?]

A People’s Guide to the War Industry by Christian Sorenson

Part 1      Part 2

by Taylor Barnes: Union Strength Dwindles at Top Defense Contractors

https://inkstickmedia.com/what-a-looming-1-trillion-pentagon-budget-means-for-jobs/

The National Priorities Project https://www.nationalpriorities.org studies the economic impact of militarism and the military budget.

See also: Costs of War Project:  https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar

BOOKS:
Six Stops on the National Security Tour: Warfare Economies by Miriam Pemberton This is the first book to connect our national security apparatus to the local level via deeply reported portraits of six carefully selected locations, including military Meccas and out-of-the-way places.

Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex by Bill Hartung

Contact us at labor@veteransforpeace.org