ILWU International 2021 Convention June 14-18 Resolution to Send Syringes to Cuba and End the Embargo

Resolution introduced by Local 10 ILWU and passed at the 2021 convention.

GHPartners.org/Syringes4Cuba Global Health Partners is a 501c3 charity with a commerce license to send medical supplies to Cuba

Whereas: Four years ago on June 16, 2017, less than six months into his first term in office, the former president declared in a Miami speech that the “Obama Cuba deal” was dead, and

Whereas: Subsequently 243 punitive executive orders were issued intensifying hardship for the working people during the pandemic, and

Whereas: In 2016 the last year of the Obama – Biden administration the resolution against the blockade [at the UN General Assembly] passed 191 to 0 as the U.S. for the first time abstained instead of voting against the resolution, and

Whereas: Except for campaign talk the Biden administration has not done anything to undo the hardships of the embargo on the Cuban people. This has resulted in Cuba with a shortage of 20 million syringes needed to vaccinate its 11 million residents with its Cuban developed vaccine against COVID-19, and

Whereas: Over the past year alone, Cuba has sent 3,700 health workers, in 52 international medical brigades, to 39 countries overwhelmed by the pandemic. Cuba’s international medical brigades have treated patients and saved lives for the past 15 years in 53 countries confronting natural disasters and serious epidemics, such as the Ebola crisis in West Africa, and

Whereas: Cuba has developed five internationally recognized candidate COVID-19 vaccines, with two in Phase III clinical trials as of April 2021. Cuba has 11.3 million people but plans to produce 100 million doses of vaccine, to meet its commitment to sharing its low-cost vaccines with poor countries in the developing world. and

Whereas: Since May 5, 2020, twenty-four municipal, county, and labor bodies have passed resolutions calling for medical and scientific collaboration with Cuba and ending the sanctions, including multiple entities in California and Washington State, and

Whereas: Even Cuban Americans in Miami have demonstrated with a bike and car caravans on the last Sunday of every month for the past year calling for an end to the blockade and instead build bridges of love, now joined in other cities, and

Whereas: the ILWU has enjoyed an international relationship with the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC), and in 1947, participated in organizing the International Sugar Workers Committee,

Therefore be it Resolved that this Convention calls on the Biden administration to vote FOR this Resolution to end the U.S. unilateral extraterritorial embargo of Cuba and act swiftly to remove Cuba from the spurious US list of state sponsors of terrorism, reset Cuba regulations to January 1, 2017, and continue the respectful discussion to fully normalize US-Cuba relations, and

Further be it Resolved, that the ILWU donate $10,000 to GlobalHealth Partners to purchase Syringes4Cuba, and

Further be it Resolved, that this Resolution be distributed to Congressional delegations, the news media, and all labor organizations urging them to do the same.