[News] Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/04/09/ED8L101F5U.DTL&type=printable

Jack Heyman

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

While millions of people worldwide have marched against the wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan, and last week's New York Times/CBS News poll 
indicated that 81 percent believe the country is headed in the wrong 
direction - key concerns being the war and the economy - the war 
machine inexorably grinds on.

Amid this political atmosphere, dockworkers of the International 
Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight 
hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers' 
Day, to call for an end to the war.

This decision came after an impassioned debate where the union's 
Vietnam veterans turned the tide of opinion in favor of the anti-war 
resolution. The motion called it an imperial action for oil in which 
the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being 
wasted and declared May Day a "no peace, no work" holiday. Angered 
after supporting Democrats who received a mandate to end the war but 
who now continue to fund it, longshoremen decided to exercise their 
political power on the docks.

Last month, in response to the union's declaration, the Pacific 
Maritime Association, the West Coast employer association of 
shipowners, stevedore companies and terminal operators, declared its 
opposition to the union's protest. Thus, the stage is set for a 
conflict in the run up to the longshore contract negotiations.

The last set of contentious negotiations (in 2002) took place during 
the period between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasion of 
Iraq. Representatives of the Bush administration threatened that if 
there were any of the usual job actions during contract bargaining, 
then troops would occupy the docks because such actions would 
jeopardize "national security." Yet, when the PMA employers locked 
out the longshoremen and shut down West Coast ports for 11 days, the 
"security" issue vanished. President Bush then invoked the 
Taft-Hartley Act, forcing longshoremen back to work under conditions 
favorable to the employers.

The San Francisco longshore union has a proud history of opposition 
to the war in Iraq, being the first union to call for an end to the 
war and immediate withdrawal of troops. Representatives of the union 
spoke at anti-war rallies in February 2003, including one in London 
attended by nearly 2 million people, the largest ever held in 
Britain. Executive Board member Clarence Thomas went to Iraq with a 
delegation to observe workers' rights during the occupation.

At the start of the war in Iraq, hundreds of protesters demonstrated 
on the Oakland docks, and longshoremen honored their picket lines. 
Without warning, police in riot gear opened fire with so-called 
less-than-lethal weapons, shooting protesters and longshoremen alike 
with wooden dowels, rubber bullets, pellet bags, concussion grenades 
and tear gas. A U.N. Human Rights Commission investigator 
characterized the Oakland police attack as "the most violent" against 
anti-war protesters in the United States.

And finally, last year, two black longshoremen going to work in the 
port of Sacramento were beaten, Maced and arrested by police under 
the rubric of Homeland Security regulations ordained by the "war on terror."

There's precedent for this action. In the '50s, French dockworkers 
refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and 
helped to bring that colonial war to an end. At the ILWU's convention 
in San Francisco in 2003, A. Q. McElrath, an octogenarian University 
of Hawaii regent and former ILWU organizer from the pineapple 
canneries, challenged the delegates to act for social justice, 
invoking the union's slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all." 
She concluded, "The cudgel is on the ground. Will you pick it up?"

It appears that longshore workers may be doing just that on May Day 
and calling on immigrant workers and others to join them.



May Day protest

WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.

WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near 
Fisherman's Wharf).

WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: 
<http://www.maydayilwu.googlepages.com>www.maydayilwu.googlepages.com; 
www.ilwu.org; 
<http://www.transportworkers.org>www.transportworkers.org or call 
(415) 776-8100.

Jack Heyman is a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20080409/fe22bddd/attachment.htm>