Washington, D.C.
The barbaric attack on innocent people as they settled into work on the morning of Sept. 11 was an unspeakable crime against humanity. Within hours, more than 4,000 people were killed, the commercial center of New York had been reduced to rubble, a portion of the Pentagon was destroyed and four airplanes with their passengers and crew were hijacked and murdered.
The Sept. 11 attacks exacted a huge toll from America’s working families, including many in our union family. Of the thousands who died, more than 600 were union members. Hundreds of firefighters, police and rescue workers gave their lives trying to save the lives of others. Thousands more union brothers and sisters remain on the front line today, engaged in heart wrenching, exhausting and potentially dangerous recovery and demolition operations at the attack sites. Others face the threat of death and disease from bioterrorist attacks, such as the anthrax of unknown origin that already has claimed lives and sickened workers.
Beyond those workers directly in harm’s way, hundreds of thousands more are losing their jobs as an already weakened economy continues to move sharply downward.
We grieve for those whose lives were lost and for their families, and for all those who are hurt or suffer. These scars will not heal easily, if at all. Yet despite the scars and the sadness, we are awed and inspired by the countless acts of bravery and heroism of America’s working men and women.
Across the world, Sept. 11 has forced people and governments to reflect and to change their priorities and policies. The day’s horrific events and all that has followed have made us more aware of how fragile our communities are, how vulnerable our citizens are and how shaken our sense of security can be. Sept. 11 struck the United States, but its tremors were felt across the world.
We are now engaged in a new and difficult chapter in our nation’s history, one fraught with peril and uncertainty. We can expect hardship and sacrifice, and the challenges we face are great. We must not only fight terrorists who are out to destroy us and all we stand for, but we also must redouble our efforts to eliminate the desperate conditions—poverty, repression and hopelessness—that are breeding grounds for despots and demagogues the world over. And we must restore the nation’s domestic security and economic vitality.
Fighting the Terrorists
The AFL-CIO is firmly committed to bringing the perpetrators of the heinous Sept. 11 attacks to justice. The United States is justified in invoking its international right of self-defense to attack those who initiated this horror, then celebrated it and promised further attacks on the American people. The terrorists have demonstrated their willingness to pursue malevolent aims through the vilest of means, without regard to the loss of innocent life or other costs. We are gratified that our NATO allies invoked Article 5 for the first time in the proud history of that alliance, declaring this attack on the United States an attack upon all. We are pleased the United Nations joined in a resolution imposing mandatory obligations on all member countries to cut off terrorist financing and to eliminate safe havens for terrorists. And we support our country’s effort to assemble a global coalition to hunt and eliminate terrorists, their networks and their sanctuaries across the globe. Working people everywhere join in the condemnation of these terrorist crimes.
Decisive action is necessary to minimize the possibility of future attacks here and abroad and to defend the world’s democracies. We support the president in his decision to use military force to eliminate the threat these terrorists pose, and we share the resolve of the president and Congress to root out terrorism, even as we recognize this struggle may well be long and difficult.
Let us be very clear. This war is not a war against Islam, but a war against terrorists who blaspheme this great and peaceable religion by purporting to act in its name. It is not a war against Arab nations, the birthplace and ancestral home of many who live and work here, contributing vitally to their communities and the nation. This is a war against lawless, stateless, murderous bands that wreak violence on peaceful societies, not only abroad but even in their own lands.
The union movement is deeply moved by the plight of the Afghani people, who have suffered through decades of conflict. But we brook no sympathy for the Taliban regime, which has given shelter and support to a variety of terrorist organizations, including those that celebrate the crimes of Sept. 11. The Taliban exhibit the world these terrorists would wish to bring into being. The regime has declared war on women and on education. Its leaders have purged Afghan universities of women, denied young girls schooling and stripped women of the right to work outside their homes. Those who object, or even dare to walk outside without a male relative accompanying them, are subject to being beaten and killed. Young boys are taken from their families and forced to spend long days being indoctrinated with lies and hate. Gays are tortured and murdered. The Taliban leaders suppress all religious views except their own. They have destroyed the art and the cultural artifacts of more than 1,000 years of Afghan civilization. This is the future that the terrorists of Sept. 11 seek to impose by force of violence and terror. It is a future that offends the universal human rights that the nations of the world have embraced as central to the human enterprise.
Fighting Terrorism
The AFL-CIO has a proud history of fighting for freedom across the world. America’s workers manned the battlefields of all of this nation’s wars in the past century. Working men and woman helped build the arsenal of democracy that defeated fascism and totalitarianism.
We have struggled with workers across the world for the right to organize in countries, rich and poor across the world, from apartheid South Africa to communist Poland and oppressed Burma. Our internationalism and commitment to furthering human rights will not flag.
We recognize we cannot defeat terrorism with military force alone. Prevailing in this fight also will require aggressive diplomacy, economic and political isolation, intelligence information and operations. At the same time, we will not stop terror as a global menace by instilling fear, but by fostering hope. That requires a global offensive for equitable, sustainable, democratic development. The world community must rededicate itself to the defense of basic human rights—the freedom to speak, to assemble and to organize as well as the freedom from starvation, from homelessness and from curable disease. This requires renewed global attention, cooperation and action. The industrial nations, in particular, must significantly increase our assistance for basic needs.
This is a political and diplomatic struggle, a contest for the hope and hearts of emerging generations. There is no justification for terror. But nonetheless we must not hesitate to probe the conditions that give rise to it, and to address the inequities upon which terrorists feed.
Never has the call for global justice been more vital. The AFL-CIO will redouble our efforts to ensure that this nation and nations across the world address a global justice agenda that for too long has been ignored.
In a global economy, with nations, markets and people increasingly interdependent, an act of terror can strike horror and wreak havoc across the world. But this is also the great challenge facing civilized people. We can defend an open society only by extending justice, spreading democracy, empowering working people and defending human rights.
No longer can islands of prosperity survive untouched in oceans of despair. Interdependence means we are all vulnerable one to another. But it also means we all have a greater stake in justice and in freedom, in law and in order. Justice demands not simply that the guilty be punished, but that the innocent be empowered. Freedom means not simply the open exchange of goods, but the guarantee that every individual will have the economic and social freedoms needed to develop his or her potential to the full.
As the richest nation on earth and the cradle of democracy, it is incumbent on the United States to take the lead in these efforts. In attempting to win over the Afghani people and to bolster support in Pakistan, the administration offered humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan’s people as well as debt relief for Pakistan. Much more will be needed to rebuild the region once the hostilities are over. The initial efforts should be expanded upon and applied not simply to the battlefield against terrorism but to the entire developing world. Only when the United States leads a global effort to reduce desperation and to empower peoples to determine their own destinies in a democratic manner will the siren song of terrorism lose its allure.
Ensuring Domestic Security and Restoring Economic Vitality
For the first time since Pearl Harbor, the United States is mobilizing to defend our nation and its people against external attack. The AFL-CIO strongly supports investing the resources necessary to bolster our domestic defense—by providing greater security to power plants, dams, bridges, highways, train depots, airlines and airports and other vulnerable targets. We must also make long overdue investments in our public health system to ensure in each city and state, knowledgeable experts on threats to public health—including biological or chemical war—are available, ready and armed with adequate equipment, medication, staff and training.
Even as we take every reasonable step to defend ourselves, we cannot allow threats from abroad to justify an abrogation of civil rights and civil liberties here at home. While our fear is understandable, our history teaches us that too often external threats have occasioned internal repression—dating back to the Alien and Sedition Acts at the founding of the nation to the red scares after World War I and II and the shameful internment of Japanese Americans during the second World War. The AFL-CIO urges Congress not to allow hysteria to supplant judgment in granting new and secretive powers to the Justice Department and the intelligence agencies, and to monitor these agencies’ actions carefully to protect the rights of individuals who are residing peaceably and lawfully in the United States. We must take particular care to preserve the rights of people of Islamic faith, Arab Americans and of immigrants from all nations. America’s diversity is its great strength. We must not allow fear to justify blind racial profiling, hate crimes or xenophobic reactions. The AFL-CIO will work to protect its Arab American members from hate crimes, and continue to assert the diversity that is the trademark and the strength of our great movement.
In addition to meeting the challenge of providing for domestic security, we also must restore the nation’s economic vitality. Virtually overnight we have gone from peace and prosperity to war and recession. The economy already had weakened considerably before Sept. 11, but more than 700,000 layoffs have been announced since then. Entire industries—telecommunications, technology, travel and tourism—have been devastated. And the attacks have only compounded the crisis facing our manufacturing sector, which has lost more than 1 million jobs in the past year.
The AFL-CIO will redouble our efforts to work every day with our member unions to provide support and assistance to the families of workers who lost their lives in these heinous attacks. In addition, we reiterate our call to the president and Congress to take bold initiatives to help the nation’s economy recover and to put America back to work. Now is the time for a comprehensive stimulus program that will help restore confidence and growth in the American economy.
Any such stimulus should be large enough to make a difference. It should be targeted at those most impacted by the crisis. It should be limited in duration and immediate in effect. And it should be terror proof—involving investments that will not be put off from fear generated by any future terrorist attack.
The AFL-CIO urges Congress to pass and the president to sign an economic recovery measure that will bolster unemployment insurance, help displaced workers sustain health care for their families, provide assistance to states and localities now facing soaring budget crises and invest needed resources in building and restoring the nation’s long-neglected infrastructure. This is a time for shared sacrifice, not for using the crisis to benefit the few while ignoring the workers whose lives and jobs are on the line.
The AFL-CIO is committed to the following:
We will support the United States government in its efforts to defend America and its people, through the just use of military force to bring the perpetrators of terror to justice, as well as unrelenting diplomacy, economic and financial pressure.
We will support the American and allied troops who are now engaged overseas in the military response to the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11 and the men and women in units activated here at home who have answered the call to duty to keep our nation safe and secure.
We will support efforts to assemble a humanitarian coalition to provide emergency assistance to the millions of Afghani refugees in dire need of food, medicine and shelter as the hard winter approaches.
We will work with global unions across the world to redress the conditions that provide terror its recruits and to support efforts to address poverty and hunger, relieve debt and empower workers.
We will redouble our efforts to build a global mobilization for justice that will give lie to the terrorist propaganda. The world community must show its capacity for compassion just as for force.
The union movement pledges never to forget those who lost their lives on Sept. 11. We mourn their loss, and will work ceaselessly to build a new, more just world that will be a true and fitting memorial to their sacrifice.