Letters to the Editor

Dear Fight Back!,

I have enjoyed your coverage of the wars on Yugoslavia and Iraq. Repeatedly your paper has spoken the truth as to what the real consequences are to U.S. foreign policy abroad: environmental destruction, loss of human life, ruined economies, loss of sovereignty, and a prolonged healthcare crisis.

I feel another important consequence of war is the impact we see and feel at home. During the war on Yugoslavia we experienced two real tragedies with the school shootings in Colorado and in Georgia. While the US Congress debates how to solve the increase in school violence, they have given their military an increase of 13 billion dollars to sponsor the destruction of lives in Eastern Europe. These events are connected.

We cannot live in a society, which believes that the wars they watch on CNN are "those other people" and not have that mentality change how people treat each other at home. One of my own students put it best when she said in her letter to President Clinton, "It's hypocritical of you to tell us (American teenagers) that we should solve our problems with words when you have bombed four countries this year."

Keep up your coverage of our government's foreign policy. We need to change our foreign policy towards Iraq and Yugoslavia before more lives are lost - both abroad and at home.

Meredith Aby
Twin Cities area teacher

Dear Fight Back!,

I just got back from the Philippines. I was there for an annual international solidarity event that a union federation called the KMU ("May First Workers Movement") holds every year. Trade Unionists from many countries in Asia and Europe attend.

I thought readers might want to know some of the things I saw there, and how strong, fighting unions really do exist, and how U.S. unions compare.

In the Philippines, union leaders are not only fighting for wage increases, they fight the injustices committed by the government and the U.S. corporations. A big fight going on right now. The United States wants to build twenty two military bases all across the Philippines. The KMU opposes this because it will mean the spread of prostitution, the loss of farmland, and it will make the Philippines the launching pad for U.S. attacks against other countries.

These KMU unions are working every day to change the society for everyone, union and non-union. Their leaders are organizing the fight for real social change, have faced jail time, and will do whatever it takes to help workers win. And here? We have "leaders" like Jimmy Hoffa; Jr. of the Teamsters who is nothing but a servant to government and business interests.

I met workers there that won't give up and don't accept the rules that employers want to enforce. It is not unusual for workers to chain the plant gates, prevent removal of anything and set-up a permanent strike line when an employer threatens to close down and move to a place where labor is cheaper. Here at home, many unions have just been accepting plant closings as "business needs" or "market demands". In the Philippines, unions stay focused on what people need.

Fifty years ago, U.S. unions were important to winning major changes like social security and the 8-hour workday. Not anymore. U.S. trade unionists have a lot to learn from our Filipino brothers and sisters.

Kathy Kleckner