Longshoremen To Close Ports On West Coast To Protest War

by Jack Heyman

Wednesday, April 9, 2008
San Francisco Chronicle

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: www.maydayilwu.googlepages.com; www.ilwu.org;
www.transportworkers.org or call (415) 776-8100.


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

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/09/ED8L101F5U.DTL

This article appeared on page B - 9 of the San
Francisco Chronicle