Among the 150,000 U.S. military men and women engaged in war against Iraq, at least 20,000 are union member reservists. America’s union movement is standing firmly behind them and all the troops, according to AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney.
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| Union built: The power and production shop of the U.S. Air Force's 200th Red Horse Squadron—70 percent of whose workers are Electrical Workers—installed the U.S. forces' central command building in Qatar. [ Enlarge Image ] | |
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“The AFL-CIO has maintained that the best way to disarm Saddam Hussein would be with a broad international coalition sanctioned by the United Nations,” Sweeney said, “but we are unequivocal in our support of our country and America’s men and women on the front lines as well as their families here at home.”
An estimated 20,000 union members have been called up as reservists as part of the war against Iraq. That includes some 4,000 police officers and hundreds of air traffic controllers and pilots. The Fire Fighters estimate that 26,000 of its members are in the military reserves but have no estimate of how many have been called up.
At the same time, more than 4,000 members of the maritime unions—International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Seafarers, Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association, Longshoremen and Masters, Mates & Pilots—are loading and transporting equipment, supplies and materiel to support the troops in the Persian Gulf.
Electrical Workers from Ohio and Pennsylvania installed the U.S. forces' central command building in Qatar and also saw duty in about a dozen other nations in the area where U.S. forces are stationed. They make up 70 percent of the power and production shop of the Air Force's 200th Red Horse Squadron. "Our training with the IBEW has given us the knowledge to overcome any problems found here," said Orville Platte, electrical shop superintendent and a member of IBEW Local 129 in Lorain, Ohio.
Albert Gil, secretary-treasurer of Transport Workers Local 501 in College Point, N.Y., is one of the union members who answered the call to defend his country—the second time in two years. On Sept. 11, 2001, he volunteered to go to the World Trade Center site along with other union members searching for survivors of the terrorist attacks.
Today, Gil, 32, is on his way to the war zone as a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, leaving behind his wife and two small children, a four-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. “My wife is really worried. She doesn’t want me to go, but she understands I have a commitment to the Army,” Gil says. “But it’s tough trying to explain to your children that daddy is leaving for a long time and they don’t understand why.”
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