US: Behind the AFL-CIO's call for a "a new labor code for Iraq" By Jamie Chapman, World Socialist
For an organization that purports to represent American workers to come to the defense of the embattled Iraqi working class would clearly be appropriate. Such a gesture is hardly characteristic, however, of the AFL-CIO officialdom, which usually spends its energies fulminating against foreign workers for “stealing” American jobs.
A closer reading of Sweeney’s statement suggests that something other than solidarity is motivating the AFL-CIO. He condemns neither the occupation nor the war itself, nor even the deplorable conditions of life and work in Iraq. Rather, he singles out the policy of CPA administrator Paul Bremer in enforcing a 1987 law passed under Saddam Hussein prohibiting the organization of trade unions in the public sector, which encompasses the large majority of the Iraqi workforce.