Money for Human Needs Not for War!

Speech given by Stephanie Taylor, Vice President of AFSCME 38oo and member of the Anti-War Committee at the Minneapolis action in connection with the Women’s March on the Pentagon on October 22, 2018.

Hi, My name is Stephanie Taylor and I’m here today on behalf of my union, AFSCME Local 3800 at the University of Minnesota. We are here today to stand in solidarity with all of you and call for an END to U.S. wars abroad and an end to bloated war budgets at here at home. We say “money for human needs, not for war!”

Our union is largely a public sector union, representing government employees across the country, and, like unions everywhere right now, we are under attack. When it comes to determining the federal & state budget, every dollar spent on war or war industries is a dollar that could go towards feeding our families. We’re told every year that we go back to the table to negotiate our contracts that there’s no room in the budget for living wages, better healthcare, or raises for the lowest paid and hardest working employees at places like the U of MN. Meanwhile, we read headlines about hundred billion dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia, so that Saudi monarchs can continue their bloody proxy war in Yemen, where nearly two-thirds of civilian casualties are caused by U.S.-made bombs. We hear news about the cost of things like Trump’s attempt last year to blow up a Syrian air base with 59 tomahawk cruise missiles, each of which cost nearly $1.5 million dollars – $75 million gone in the blink of an eye – just to continue destabilizing an already war torn country. The cost of one single B-2 stealth bomber exceeds $2.1 billion! These are hard dollars that should be going directly to working class people, or better yet, to provide healthcare, childcare, and a better standard of living for all workers. That money could be spent to provide free college education and wipe out student debt. The U.S. wars overseas are directly tied to the war on workers at home – Trump and the capitalist class slash budgets, attack labor unions, destabilize social safety nets and talk of “tightening-belts” at the same time that they pony up billions of dollars for missiles, drones, and bombers to oppress people across the globe. It ain’t right!

We public sector workers know full and well that every dollar spent on war overseas is better spent on most ANY other aspect of the state and federal budgets.

Members of AFSCME 3800 are overwhelmingly women, and we’re glad the women’s movement and anti-war movement are coming together in Washington this weekend. Working women and labor unions need to join together in demanding an end to war and U.S. imperialism – women and children are the ones disproportionately impacted by overseas war, and it’s our duty to stand with them in opposing imperialist aggression.

Similarly, many of our union members, and even more so with the Teamsters we work alongside with on campus, come from war torn countries and many have fled U.S.-caused or U.S.-backed violence to come here. Workers with families in Somalia, Central America, and the Middle-East, among many other places, all stand to directly benefit from a stop to U.S. war-mongering and imperialist foreign policy. We demand justice for immigrant workers, not war!

This past year we’ve been shown the way forward in the fight for economic justice by public sector workers too – teachers unions organized statewide strikes in West Virginia, Arizona, and Oklahoma, and scores of other localized teachers strikes in counties across the country. The teachers show us that when broad strata of the population supports your struggle and you shut down production and take to the streets, you can fight back and win! We take inspiration from these public school teachers as we go into contract bargaining with the U next year, and know that the credible threat of a strike is ultimately what will win us a better standard of living.

Workers stand with the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition and the Women’s March on the Pentagon in demanding an end to U.S. wars – WE NEED MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS, NOT FOR WAR!