Proposition of International
Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba
Sister
Arlene Inouye is a union member of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA
with 48,000 members) and a major leader of the struggle to stop military
recruitment in schools in cooperation with parents and students. She is a
teacher of a high school in the poor district of Los Angeles in which Latino
occupies 98% of its students. She witnessed in her school military recruiters
swagger and quite openly urge students to join the military one after another.
Infuriated by this outrageous situation of schools, she began her activity to
drive out military recruiters from schools through various ways. Her struggle
reached a new dimension in 2003 with founding of the Coalition Against
Militarism in our Schools (CAMS) that got support from the UTLA and has become
a nationwide struggle, growing into a threatening power to shake up the war
mobilization system.
We are great persons!
On August 5
in Hiroshima, we are going to organize a national coordinating rally of education
workers with the participation of sister Inouye. The aim of the rally is to
promote our struggle through exchanging experiences and encouraging each other
of the Japan-US education workers for a greater victory of our movement.
In Japan we are now confronted with a
series of reactionary offensives: introduction of job evaluation system and
renewal of teacher licensing system and others. It signifies an overall
implementation of the newly revised Fundamental Law of Education that requires
us to launch a decisive battle against the reactionary attack on education.
Letfs follow exemplary struggles of
brothers and sisters of the Okinawa High School Teachers Union and the Hokkaido
branch of Japan Teachers Union who recently waged a one-hour strike
respectively. We could achieve a great breakthrough in our struggle if we
successfully develop the struggle against Hinomaru and Kimigayo, fighting back
intimidation by means of disciplinary measures.
Letfs strengthen nationwide unity of
education workers and promote international solidarity for a powerful
development of struggle in workplace.
Date:
August 5, starts at 13 p.m.
Place:
Citizenfs Culture Center of Hiroshima-East district (five-minutes walk from the
bullet train station)
Contact
us: Tokyo 090-9838-0343 (Yoneyama)
Hiroshima 090-6434-8078 (Imaoka)
Endorsement
(as of June 15):
ISHIDA
Yoshinori (High school Teachers Union of Osaka)
IMAOKA Michiko
(Hiroshima District Teachers Union)
KAWARAI
Sumiko (Labor Union of Teachers of Schools for Handicapped Children in Tokyo)
KUWASAWA
Kenji (Hiroshima District Teachers Union, Youth Section)
SATO Etsuko
(Miura Peninsula District Teachers Union)
NEZU Kimiko
(Tokyo District Teachers Union, Labor Union of Teachers of Schools for
Handicapped Children in Tokyo)
YONEYAMA
Yoshie (Tokyo District Teachers Union)
Letfs create an international solidarity of education
workers
A historical dimension was achieved at
the November 3 International Solidarity Rally of Education Workers in Tokyo, in
which the two struggles in Japan and the US joined together for the first time
under the common slogan, gNever send our students to battlefieldsh, Japanese
teachersf struggle to refuse standing for Hinomaru and Kimigayo and the US
teachersf struggle to drive out military recruiters from schools.
We have come to realize that we are confronting beyond the border the
same attack of educational reforms directed by neo-liberalism policy that
aggravates the poverty and disparity and the sending students to battlefields.
Above all the conviction has been strengthened all through the rally; the
conviction that education workers have power to stop war and that workers
united can change the world. We were strongly encouraged by the speech of
sister Inouye who told us to be confident in ourselves and in our colleagues, gMaybe
Ifm great!h\she
articulated her belief in such expression. This experience of international
solidarity has given us power to develop our struggle further: the successful
struggle to prevent dismissal of sister Nezu in the period from January to
March this year and tenacious continuation and steady escalation of the
struggle nationwide against Hinomaru and Kimigayo. Letfs fight on the bases of
workplace struggles with full confidence of our victory.
A huge wave of strikes and demonstrations
for existence is sweeping in the whole world against war, unemployment, poverty
and starvation. A historical May Day was achieved by the solidarity actions of
the workers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) who
completely shut down the West Coast ports, and the Iraqi port workers who
responded to it with a strike action.
The time has come for us workers to rise
up in order to change such a society that can never stop war and no longer feed
workers, and to make us workers to take the place of a genuine master of the
society. We feel certain that the necessity of the time has brought us in two
countries together, sister Inouye and us.
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) in
Britain went into a nationwide strike on April 24 for the first time in 21
years upon the decision of the congress to oppose to military recruitment in
schools. On June 8 the UTLA in the
Now education workers, who are confronted
with a bitter offensive of neo-liberalism of war and poverty, should play a
pivotal role in developing solidarity of working class.
Letfs make August 6 Hiroshima Rally in 63
anniversary of atomic bombing a spring board for a fresh struggle to abolish
nuke and war by the international workersf unity.
On April 3 the convention of the
California Federation of Teachers (CFT) adopted a resolution proposed by the
UTLA to support Japanese teachersf struggle against Hinomaru and Kimigayo.
On June 8, the UTLA waged a one-hour
strike from the beginning time to oppose to the budget cut for education by the
California State governor, Schwarzenegger
In March, education workers from across
the country gathered successively in front of Tokyo Metropolitan Office to prevent
the dismissal of sister Nezu because of her disobedience to Hinomaru and
Kimigayo.
Japan- US education workers joined
together passionately in their struggle with a common slogan gNever send our
students to battlefieldsh in November Workersf Rally in Tokyo last year.