Press release
Washington, July 18 (Prensa Latina) The representation in California of the largest labor union existing today in the United States unanimously approved in its Convention a resolution that demands the removal of Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
On behalf of its almost 2.3 million members, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in California “strongly urged the executive board” of the union center to oppose this arbitrary designation of Cuba in the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
In addition, it was agreed that “the executive board of the national AFL-CIO send a copy of the resolution to President (of the United States) Joe Biden.”
According to Mark Friedman, a member of the Hands Off Cuba Committee in Los Angeles and the International Association of Machinists Local 1484, one of the groups that make up the AFL-CIO, the document was endorsed at the recent Convention that included the participation of more than 700 delegates.
The team that worked to get this resolution passed, he commented, included Tom Brandon, leader of the California Machinists Conference, Bill Camp of Building Relations with Cuban Labor, leaders of IAM local 1484 and activists from the HandsOff Cuba committee. of the Angels.
This takes place after a similar important initiative was approved by the convention of the International Union of Stevedores and Warehousemen, which also donated 10 thousand dollars to the Global Health Partners campaign for the purchase of pacemakers for health institutions in Cuba.
The recent event was preceded by the California Machinists’ Conference, which represents some 17,000 employees, which endorsed a similar proposal.
The Convention, Friedman added, also reflected “the changes taking place within the American labor movement, with a greater number of young people and a diversity that represented many lower-paid workers now organizing throughout the state.” A new wave of unionization, not seen since the end of World War II (1939-1945), is taking place across the United States, Friedman stressed.
Cuba was included for the first time in Washington’s spurious list in 1982, during the administration of Republican Ronald Reagan until 2015, when then-Democratic President Barack Obama decided to lift the measure considering that it had no merit or justification.
However, in January 2021, days before the end of his term, Donald Trump once again designated Cuba on the unilateral list, a provision that reinforces the blockade imposed by the White House on the Caribbean nation more than six decades ago.
