Labor's Frustration with Majority Parties Leads to ‘Million Worker March' in October; State Green Party Signs on as Event Sponsor

GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release: Monday, August 23, 2004

Contacts:
Cres Vellucci, State Press Office, 916-996-1970,
Beth Moore Haines, GPCA Spokesperson, 530-277-0610,
Sara Amir, GPCA Spokesperson, 310-270-7106,

SACRAMENTO – The Green Party of California has voted to become an official sponsor of the "Million Worker March" in Washington D.C. October 17 – an effort by labor unions to go "beyond" major political parties to benefit the majority of workers in the U.S.

The MWM – already endorsed by unions representing three million workers – is being planned in response to attacks on working families, the illegal preemptive war on Iraq and the millions of jobs lost during the Bush administration with the complicity of the Congress.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10, first proposed the march because it was frustrated with the major party candidates and believed that no matter who was in office, working people and their allies needed a "social movement" to hold politicians accountable.

"This march is important because it will allow the true labor movement the opportunity to put forward to the entire country the idea that there must be a movement to better America's majority working population," said Tom Hutchings, Green candidate for State Assembly in the 33rd AD (San Luis Obispo).

He has already been endorsed over a Democratic Party candidate in his district by the Santa Barbara & San Luis Obispo Counties Building and Construction Trades Council AFL-CIO, the Tri-Counties Central Labor Council AFL-CIO, and the California Federation of Labor.

"This is an important step by labor to break with the Democratic Party, which has done very little to help their traditional base in years," said Pat Gray, labor activist and Green candidate for Congress in the 12th CA (San Francisco, San Mateo). "The Green Party has always stood with and for the workers, and our sponsorship will go a long way to demonstrating that," she added.

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The Green Party of California
http://www.cagreens.org
P.O. Box 2828, Sacramento, CA 95812
Phone: (916) 448-3437
gpca@greens.org