Service Industry Workers Against War

We, the below signed service industry workers of northern Minnesota & Wisconsin, have come together to declare our opposition to the ongoing U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, and the threatened new war with Iraq. We are the tourism, hotel, restaurant, gas station, telemarketing, grocery store, group home and other service workers upon which this region’s economy is increasingly based. Nationally, our industry has suffered tremendously as a result of September 11 and its aftermath. Layoffs, wage freezes and speed-ups have become the norm as the economy has gone into a downturn. However, we reject the war hysteria that has swept up so many. We reject the claims of Washington D.C. that they are waging war on our behalf – on behalf of democracy and the fight against terrorism. Rather we hold that the political justifications given for the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and the Middle East are a thin cover for the pursuit of the economic interests of U.S. corporations. And who are these corporations? They are the same ones that over-work us, under-pay us, provide us with no health insurance and treat us like expendable machine parts. We will not support any wars fought on their behalf!

September 11 was a genuine tragedy. We are in no way trying to deny that. Service industry workers were among the many who perished that day. But war on Afghanistan or Iraq is not the answer – especially a war fought by a government whose foreign policy is in large part responsible for this tragedy in the first place. We call on workers everywhere to oppose the continued U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, to resist the call for war with Iraq, to resist the attacks on our civil liberties, and to resist the racist scapegoating and anti-Arab hysteria. Already tens of thousands of Afghans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of U.S. military interventions. These deaths have not made us safer, nor have they brought back anyone who died on September 11. What they have done is caused even more misery, pitted workers of one country against that of another, and enriched the corporations that exploit us. For all these reasons, we say: NO TO WAR!


Sascha Meyer-Ruud
Adam Ritscher
Rainbow Hirsh
Benjamin Fisher
Rose Helin
Trisha Grover
Sadie Green
Michael Pragsten
Carl Sack
Rob Segovia-Welsh
Alan Slattery
Mark Monroe
Ian Smith
Paul Frisch
Matthew Keane
Andrew Olson
Mike Rogge
Kristin Tindall
Jason Warnes
Jessica Anderson
Ben Schatz
Emily Doman
Sarah Lawver
Aleasha Hladilek
Thomas Gilliam
William Lloyd
Julia Tholke
Jennifer Lind
Rob Gosuitz
Joe Gorski
Benjamin Farmer
Lisa Vanhanduyt
Brian Blickerath
AnnMarie O’Malley

P.O. Box 16853, Duluth MN 55816, Duluth MN 55816