What next for anti-war labor?

US Labor Against the War (USLAW) is running a letter-writing campaign to pressure Congress to cut off war funding. In May, dock workers in California honored an anti-war picket line and shut down a section of the port for two days.

These very diverse events raise the question whether labor has a strategy to end the war. And, if we do, what are the chances it will work?

One of the things that make the current war in Iraq unique is that so many labor unions came out against it. The South Central Federation of Labor joined locals, councils and internationals to oppose the war before it began in 2003. And, to date, unions representing 13 million workers have made some statement against the war.

Yet, after five years, we seem lost as to how to proceed. USLAW began by getting labor organizations to affiliate with their organization and to pass anti-war resolutions. It helped organize demonstrations and publicized the plight of brave Iraqi unionists. And USLAW is largely responsible for getting the message out that the so-called “oil sharing law” is really about denationalizing Iraq’s oil and handing it over to western corporations.

But, in the fall of 2006, the anti-war movement in general morphed into the various campaigns to elect an anti-war (read Democratic Party) Congress. After the election, USLAW and others shifted to lobbying the newly-elected Democrats to cut off funding for the war.

By now, anti-war forces largely understand that the Dems and Congress are not going to end the war. So, what’s the plan? More rallies, petitions, letters to Congress?

Or do we start gearing up to elect an anti-war president in 2008? It’s no coincidence that the USLAW website reproduces speeches by Democratic Party (very) dark horse presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. Do we support Kucinich until the Democratic Party selects someone else and then fall in line behind the Lesser Evil? Even if that Lesser Evil pledges only to “redeploy” in Iraq and continues to support the war in Afghanistan and the dozens of military actions in places like Palestine, Colombia, Cuba, Korea, Somalia, Ethiopia and the nations of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union? Even if the Lesser Evil says that nuking Iran is “on the table”?

Or, as one writer to this blog suggested, should we get behind an independent left candidate for president and register a protest vote against the war?

Is this the best we can do?

Late in life, someone asked Marxist historian Isaac Deutscher what he thought of a huge rally in D.C. to protest the Vietnam War. Deutscher reportedly said it was well and good, but that he’d trade it all for one good dock strike against the war.

On one level, we know Deutscher was right. A solid general strike could not only end the war, but it would fundamentally alter class relations in this country. Of course, if we called one today, only a handful of unionists would respond, right?

Don’t be too sure. The decision to not cross the anti-war picket line in Oakland back in May was made by rank and file members who had strong anti-war feelings and were willing to give up a couple of days pay to make their point.

We have an old Wobbly friend who goes to anti-war rallies and tries to start up a chant “General Strike to End the War.” Only a few of us take it up. But he’s not discouraged. “Sure, we’re not there yet,” he says, “but we never will be unless someone starts calling for it.”

It’s hard to argue with that logic.

So, if we agree that lobbying Congress, electing Lesser Evils or registering protest votes won’t stop the war, and that a general strike is what we need, isn’t it our responsibility to push for that idea in the unions?