The Patrick Lock-out, April 18th, 1998
And we were there, on Fremantle Harbour, in 1998;
A few at first in the dusk of that day as the hours ebbed
Away into advancing darkness; gathered at the gate to face
The threat of coming hostile force. We were one
Of the picket lines, with all hands on deck now
As we battened down for a stormy night
Near the wharves from which maritime workers',
The wharfies, had been driven by thugs with dogs -
The curs of Corrigan - and here outside high fences
We faced the wrecking of our rights, our working lives,
As all around the Australian coast our union, the MUA,
Would be fighting that same bitter battle tonight.
We were the Fremantle picket lines, the night watch
On the barricades of belief, tired out after
Long days and nights, but still there on guard
At the gates, shoulder to shoulder, and we were resolute.
All week we had heard that farmers were coming,
Truck on truck by the hundred to smash through
Our pickets, but we were a union united, we held the line.
We were steel fired in the furnace of solidarity -
Welded in the links of that living human chain -
Because we were shackled by belief to our principles
And to that time, and to our comrades,
And to that working place and port.
We had thought it but another night on the pickets
At the harbour gates, but there was something
Stirring, strange, tremors of turmoil in the salt air;
The sea nearby a war-song of surf thundering inland,
A drumbeat echoing the march of police, 700 strong,
To their hidden barracks inside the barriers.
The word went out - and from Fremantle, the city
And the suburbs, the people came to join us
In that great gathering : artists and academics,
Schoolteachers, nurses, workers, wives and mothers,
Pensioners on their last legs, and the people
Of the port, they came again, as ever.
Above us, against the drift of clouds and stars,
Aircraft trawled the night, circling, cameras recording.
Helicopters clattered across the sky hour after hour,
Searchlight beams burning down - lighting the way
For the MUA and the union members of the CFMEU
And the Metal Workers’ marching to join us.
All the long hours we watched and waited in the pickets,
Arms linked together, united, a thousand strong on the line.
All night long the State Government’s uniformed front -
The body-armoured, weaponed, special tactical force -
Wielding shield and baton, marched and practiced,
Rehearsing their brutal ballet, their dance of war.
The Farmers’ Federation and their trucks were coming!
They were coming with all their cohorts of riot police !
The goons with their dogs and the masked clowns
Of Corrigan were coming to batter us and break our lines -
So the media said, so the media said -
And so the night went by until the sun wheeled into the sky.
And with the coming of the day we stood there still,
Waiting, in the massed ranks of the picket lines -
Four thousand strong by that cold dawn - and they did not come.
They did not come because we stood shoulder to shoulder
With the people of the port, and all were resolute.
And because we are the MUA and we are here to stay.
IN REMEMBRANCE :
A POEM FOR MY COMRADES IN
THE MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA.
Bryn Griffiths.
April 2008
]]>Toronto’s Mayor David Miller has referred to the city’s Executive Committee a motion that would designate the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) an essential service. Such a designation would invite action by the provincial government to strip transit workers of the legal right to strike or to so restrict job action as to make it a token gesture.
The call to restrict the right to strike, put forth by two Toronto city councillors, follows closely on the heels of a day-and-a-half walkout by 9,000 transit workers organized in Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU).
That job action began on the night of Friday, April 25, after workers overwhelmingly rejected a tentative agreement recommended by a thin majority of the union’s executive committee. The strike was abruptly ended the following Sunday afternoon when Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty marshalled the unanimous support of the opposition Conservative and New Democratic parties to force the workers back into the subway and bus barns and impose binding arbitration in the contract dispute.
In the run-up to the strike, McGuinty had made no secret of the fact that he would not only quickly draft punitive back-to-work legislation, but that he would favourably consider more permanent restrictions on the right to strike. “If there was some kind of approach made within the course of the next three years by the City of Toronto ... saying we have decided ourselves that it would be a good thing for us to have our public transit system essential, that is something that we, at Queen’s Park, would have to consider,” said McGuinty.
The current mayor and the majority of his city council had previously favoured negotiated solutions to the transit contracts that come up for renewal every three years. But the hue and cry whipped up by the mainstream press and talk-radio demagogues during the brief walkout were virulent enough to move many of the councillors into the right-wing camp on this issue.
The Globe and Mail has urged that TTC workers be permanently stripped of the legal right to strike and the liberal Toronto Star has said such a step should be given serious consideration. As would be expected, the neo-conservative National Post riled against the striking transit workers with Robert Fulford, purportedly one of Canada’s leading “men of letters,” headlining a column “This is why we hate unions.” While supporting the back-to-work law, the Post has argued the real “solution” is not a permanent legal ban on transit strikes, but to increase the “competitive pressure” on TTC workers by breaking the TTC’s monopoly on public transit through contracting-out and privatization.
The cynical manner in which ATU Local 113 President Bob Kinnear called the strike only gave grist to the right-wing campaign. Weakened by a rebellious membership, and seeking to isolate opponents within his own executive, Kinnear reneged on a promise to the general public that he would provide 48 hours notice before any job action was initiated. In fact, he provided little more than an hour’s notice to his own members and even less to the general public. Tens of thousands of commuters were stranded when workers were ordered to shut down the system at midnight.
Kinnear’s actions were not part of any strategy aimed at mobilizing transit workers and the working population of Toronto against the systematic attack on workers’ wages and working conditions and public and social services that has been mounted by big business and its political hirelings over the past quarter century. Rather they were deliberately intended to discipline a rebellious rank-and-file by facilitating back-to-work legislation and thereby “proving” the impossibility of mounting a struggle and winning a settlement better than that Kinnear and the ATU bureaucrats had negotiated. (See “Toronto Transit workers forced back to work by strike-breaking law”)
Now big business and the political establishment are trying to exploit the public anger and confusion over the sudden strike to rob TTC workers of the right to strike—an action that would also set an ominous precedent for other workers.
Toronto’s elite weighs it options
Miller, current TTC Chair Adam Giambrone, and his predecessor, Howard Moscoe, have cultivated close relations with the city’s trade union bureaucracies, counting on them both to provide electoral support and keep labour peace. Somewhat more sophisticated than their more rabid right-wing opponents, they represent a faction within city politics that realizes that the union bureaucrats can be cultivated as allies against their own rank and files. However, Kinnear’s complete inability to sway a majority of union members, and even much of his own executive, behind the recent tentative TTC contact stunned Miller and Giambrone and has caused them to reconsider their attitude toward the collective bargaining process.
The day after the back-to-work legislation was passed, Sid Ryan, the Ontario President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), issued a press release designed to remind Miller of his previous position. “Mayor Miller and Toronto Councillors better think long and hard about asking the province to take away the right to strike from public sector workers,” declared Ryan. “We successfully mobilized labour throughout the province when Mike Harris tried to suspend the right to strike during amalgamation, and we are poised to do that again.”
Ryan, who heads the province’s largest union, also spoke against the previous day’s back-to-work legislation. “Without any seemingly public safety issue at stake, these politicians circumvented workers’ rights. At no time during the discussion was proof put forward that public safety was in jeopardy by these workers exercising their democratic rights.” Of course, Ryan, who is a leading member of the New Democratic Party and who has stood several times for election under the social democrats’ banner, was reticent to mention that it was his own party that allowed quick passage of the back-to-work law. Indeed, the NDP in the provincial legislature has in recent years repeatedly been party to such orders—including one directed against Ryan’s own members (the 2002 Toronto garbage strike)!
Even before Mayor Miller had referred the essential services motion for study by his Executive Council, city bureaucrats and political warhorses alike were advising politicians against hasty action. The eventual decision on whether to designate the TTC an essential service will have nothing to do with democratic principles and everything to do with deciding on what is the best strategy for suppressing the wages and gutting the working conditions of city workers, while ensuring that the trains and buses run on time.
Several provincial governments have recently moved aggressively against workers’ right to strike. Both the Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia governments have tabled legislation that would allow public sector employers to designate essential positions before a strike is permitted. The Province of Ontario requires that Crown employees and ambulance workers do the same so that certain essential services can continue. Police and firemen have the forfeiture of any right to strike written directly into their contracts.
Some politicians and city bureaucrats are arguing that arbitrated contracts for firemen and police have resulted in “costly” settlements. Former TTC chairman Howard Moscoe has taken the argument further, claiming that those non-uniformed city employees who have been designated as essential also have historically enjoyed more favourable contract settlements.
Utterly ignored in this debate is the extent to which the establishment has glorified the police as defenders of “order” under conditions of mounting homelessness and social distress and the extent to which a coddled police have themselves become a political force, pressing for increased funding and police powers.
In any event, no one in Toronto’s political establishment is against robbing TTC workers of the right to strike. The debate is how to design a labour relations regime most favourable to the employer and most fail-safe in preventing strikes and other forms of worker protest.
Mention has been made of the situation in Montreal, Canada’s other metropolis. The Montreal transit authority has not been declared an essential service, but under Quebec’s Essential Services Council, which was established by a reputedly pro-labor Parti Quebecois government, workers are obliged to provide rush-hour service during any strike. Some have complained that this has not proved effective in preventing job action, and has only led to lengthy “partial strikes.”
The pros and cons, from a big business perspective, of New York State’s draconian anti-strike legislation, the Taylor Law, are also being debated. The Taylor Law outlaws any strike action whatsoever by New York transit workers, but failed to prevent transit workers there from mounting a three-day strike in December 2005. Those leery of such an authoritarian solution also note that absenteeism, lower productivity and even incidents of vandalism often accompany the most restrictive labour laws.
In Alberta, where strict anti-strike legislation has been passed against nurses, there are more work stoppages than in other provincial jurisdictions with more lenient labour relations regimes.
Miller, Giambrone, and their allies on city council face a quandary. Clearly, the tried and true strategy of dealing with tame trade union bureaucracies is revealing cracks as workers show an increasing rebelliousness against their leaderships. Yet, the antidemocratic alternatives on the agenda are also fraught with danger under conditions where the working class has shown renewed signs of combativity and Canada’s largest city is increasingly socially polarized.
]]>Once again a step ahead of intermodal truckers across the US, Stockton truckers, led by the majority Sikh drivers, launched a strike over the issue of fuel prices on Monday, May 5, 2008.
While many truckers participated in various protest shutdowns on either April 1st or May 1st this year, the 300-400 Stockton truckers working out of the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railyards have shut down their industry until their demands have been met.
Rather than demand the fuel surcharges paid by shippers but often pocketed by companies rather than passed along to drivers, the Stockton truckers are asking for a dramatic increase in the rates paid in order to keep up with increases costs such as fuel.
On April 26, 2004 Stockton intermodal truckers, inspired by rumors circulating of an LA port trucker shutdown, were the first to join what became a strike of west cost port truckers on April 30, and by June had spread to most southern and eastern ports as well.
The issues were largely the same then with increasing fuel
costs coupled with rates that had not increased for sometimes over a decade. The 2004 strike was settled successfully after only six business days into the strike rail yard officials announced an embargo on all container shipments to California to prevent a major rail system backlog from occurring (See The Record, May 4 and May 7, 2004).
This speaks to the power of intermodal truckers to halt the movement of goods at the crucial bottle necks of ports and rail yards.
Following the April strike up to early 2005 the leadership of the Sikh drivers began working with the IWW and during that period several hundred Stockton area truckers became members.
With the current strike members of the IWW are working to show their support and solidarity.
]]>For the second time in four years, hundreds of independent truck drivers went on strike Monday against companies that hire them to haul cargo containers out of railroad terminals near Stockton.
And again, as in 2004, the issue was the failure of freight rates to keep up with rapidly rising fuel prices.
Ajit Gill of Stockton, a truck owner-operator and a spokesman for strikers, said the truckers face fuel costs that have more than doubled since 2004, as well as higher costs for insurance, stiffer inspection fees and more. But freight rates have not kept pace.
"There is nothing raised," he said Monday by cell phone.
The drivers would prefer to keep working, if it was practical.
"Unfortunately, we have to stop," Gill said. "Nobody can afford $4.35 diesel."
The strike's immediate impact was uncertain.
Zoe Richmond, Sacramento spokeswoman for Union Pacific Railroad Co., said there was a "minor impact" on her company's giant cargo terminal near Lathrop.
"Situations like this always impact your business, if nothing else at least slightly," she said by telephone, adding, "It's good to have situations that are peaceful so that people can get their message out and other work can continue, because we do have a responsibility to our customers."
A spokeswoman for BNSF Railway said the strike had "no impact" on the company's intermodal facility south of Stockton.
Neither railroad hires the truckers itself.
San Joaquin County sheriff's deputies were called to Roth and Harlan roads off Interstate 5, where strikers had gathered, but reported no problems Monday afternoon.
"We just make sure all laws are abided by," said Deputy Les Garcia, a department spokesman.
Gill said the strike in 2004 ended with an agreement that drivers would get a fuel surcharge, a percentage of the base rate for a given hauling job, as diesel prices increase.
Currently, the fuel surcharge should be 55 percent, but often drivers don't get that, or something less, he said.
"They're always cheating us on the fuel charge," Gill said.
Instead, what the strikers want is for companies to simply double the base rates and forget the surcharges.
"We're giving up a 55 percent fuel charge back to them," he said.
Dave Sanders, co-owner of California Freight Sales in Ripon, one of the companies affected by the strike, said he was not involved in negotiations.
However, he acknowledged the pain being caused by high diesel costs.
"It's a sad deal, and I feel for the drivers," he said."
"Everybody should get paid the fuel (surcharge) and ... some drivers are saying they don't get paid fuel."
A reporter's calls to other trucking companies were not returned Monday.
Contact reporter Reed Fujii at (209) 546-8253 or rfujii@recordnet.com.
]]>By Francine Brevetti - staff writer, inside bayarea.com, May 6, 2008
OAKLAND — About 80 striking truckers from Middle Harbor Road at the Port of Oakland were ticketed and dispersed Tuesday after some of them committed vandalism, police said.
Some drivers had damaged a truck's window while the driver was operating the rig, Sgt. Peter Lau said.
Nevertheless, the protesting truck drivers who own and operate their own rigs vowed to continue demonstrating at the port for the rest of the week. They say motor carrier firms have been underpaying them for diesel fuel.
"No Stopping Anytime" signs are posted along Middle Harbor Road. But on Tuesday the port's main artery was lined with protesters' automobiles and some truck cabs.
"Yesterday (Monday) was peaceful," Lau said. "There were agreements among the officers here that we would let them (the strikers) use their First Amendment rights. However, the port's traffic was not going to be obstructed and people were not being hurt."
Now that is all changed.
Police will be there in force for the rest of the week, and will enforce the area's parking rules, Lau said.
The crowd on Tuesday was highly agitated. At one point, five police officers surrounded and detained a man driving a station wagon, then ordered him to depart.
The crowd then became extremely vocal. Several strikers said police should support them, not oppose them.
Driver Kibraab Weldaad was among those who said the motor carrier firms -- which act as brokers between shipping lines and customers -- have not been reimbursing drivers for the rising cost of diesel fuel, as stipulated in an agreement struck four years ago.
"It costs me $700 to fill up the truck," he said. "In a week it cost me $1,200 because I only get 7 miles to a gallon."
Jerry Philips, a partner of Impact Transload & Rail, said his firm and the other major motor carrier companies serving the Port of Oakland pay drivers fairly. This week's unrest was organized, according to him, by truckers from the Central Valley who serve railroad carriers.
Traffic at the port has slowed considerably, Philips said.
"We are at a dead standstill," he said. "A few drivers managed to get some stuff out before picketers showed up."
Port officials said they would not know the impact of Tuesday's disturbance on traffic until today.
]]>Members of the New York City IWW branch attended a rally on April 1 at a truck stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, where an estimated 300 drivers, mostly owner-operators, met to protest fuel price gouging and address the media. The rally was part of a nationwide work stoppage by truckers that reportedly shut down several major ports on the East and West Coasts and turned highways around Chicago into parking lots.
Drivers from as far away as Florida were present at the New Jersey gathering, along with many drivers’ family members and other supporters. Two Wobblies addressed the crowd and were warmly received. The union collected contact information from nearly 100 drivers, many of whom expressed great enthusiasm for continuing their agitation and solidifying their organization.
IWW members also helped pacify the New Jersey State Police, who had started the morning with a barrage of traffic tickets, but backed off and just watched the show after being reassured that the gathering would be peaceful and that drivers would obey parking and traffic regulations.
A number of other groups were also represented. Teamsters Local 805 President Sandy Pope offered help and support to the drivers, as well as a message of solidarity. Pope’s local has developed a close co-operative relationship with the NYC IWW. A congressional candidate from the Socialist Workers Party also addressed the crowd, and party activists were busy handing out newspapers to the crowd, as always.
The drivers’ main concern was the price of fuel, which is now about $4 per gallon. The average 18-wheeler gets about five miles to the gallon, which independent drivers must pay for themselves. Brokers, who assign loads to the drivers, charge shippers fuel surcharges, supposedly to cover the increase in fuel costs since the launch of the Iraq war. Diesel price rally hits New Jersey turnpike However, these surcharges are rarely passed on to the drivers who actually pay for the fuel. Among the drivers’ demands was a rollback of fuel prices to pre-war levels and a rebate of windfall profits in the form of subsidies for alternative fuels.
The growing unrest among truck drivers nation-wide presents a significant organizing opportunity for the IWW, but also many difficult challenges. The success of any organizing campaign would depend on the organization’s ability to adapt its structure and administrative operations to the needs of a large number of highly mobile drivers, who are seldom able to meet in any one place and also on its ability to educate the drivers as to their true economic role in their industry.
Most owner-operators are led to believe they are independent business persons, and the individualist, entrepreneurial mentality may present a serious obstacle to collective action.
An effort last year to organize New Jersey port drivers disintegrated, in large part because of many drivers’ unwillingness to subordinate their individual interests to the welfare of the group. No formal campaign has yet been launched by the IWW, but wobblies expect to continue meeting with drivers and assist in future actions.
]]>On April 1, troqueros from New Jersey rallied on the New Jersey turnpike. On April 3, Houston followed. Truck drivers across the country participated in scattered actions to protest rising diesel fuel prices.
The price of diesel across the United States has risen by 21 per cent since the end of December 2007, from $3.35 to $4.05 per gallon, according to the US Energy Information Administration. A month before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the price of diesel was $1.71 per gallon.
Something is wrong when we have to choose between feeding our families or buying diesel, said truckers. The message was heard, but it was not loud enough, according to organizers, including members of the IWW, of a new round of protests on April 30-May 1. Truckers across the board had called for better organization and coordination In response, truckers at the three largest ports in the United States —Newark on the Atlantic, Houston on the Gulf of Mexico and Los Angeles on the Pacific— are planning to take coordinated action to shut down ports on the morning of April 30.
The organizers called “for all truck drivers across the nation to shut down to protest the high cost of diesel” and “to bring out the community to participate in May Day actions.” They are encouraging all truck drivers —intermodal, Over- The-Road (OTR), regional— to join them in letting government leaders know that something has got to be done. “Truck drivers are the new slaves. Truckers are getting tired of working just to pay the cost of diesel,” said one poster advertising the action. The same poster said that actions will vary from a convoy on Washington, DC, to week-long shutdowns.
“Truck drivers realize that it doesn’t matter what race you are or where you’re from. Abuse from the brokers, dispatchers, and companies hurt everyone. Immigrants will be marching on May Day as well,” said the call.
]]>Workers, students, immigrants, and antiwar activists came together in historic fashion on May Day in San Francisco, but it was hard to tell from the next day's mainstream media coverage, which adopted its usual cynical view of the growing movement to end the war in Iraq.
Sure, there were articles in newspapers from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times about how the International Longshore and Warehouse Union shut down all 29 West Coast ports for the day, with far more than 10,000 workers defying both their employers and the national union leadership to skip work.
But each article missed the main point: this was the first time in American history that such a massive job action was called to protest a war.
"In this country, dock workers have never stopped work to stop a war," Jack Heyman, the ILWU executive board member and Oakland Port worker who spearheaded the effort, told the Guardian.
The ILWU's "No Peace, No Work" campaign and simultaneous worker-led shutdowns of the Iraqi ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Al Zubair are part of a broader effort, called US Labor Against the War, that labor scholars agree is something new to the political landscape of this country.
Steven Pitts, labor policy specialist at UC Berkeley's Labor Center, told the Guardian the effort was significant: "It wasn't simply a little crew of San Francisco radicals. It has a breadth that has spread out across the country."
In fact, USLAW has about 200 union locals and affiliates with a detailed policy platform that calls for ending war funding, redirecting resources from the military to domestic needs, and boosting workers' rights — including those of immigrants, who staged an afternoon march in San Francisco following the ILWU's morning event.
Traditionally labor unions have been big supporters of US wars. But Pitts said the feelings of rank-and-file workers have always been more complex than the old "hard hats vs. hippies" stories from the Vietnam era might indicate.
Blue-collar workers have always been skeptical of war, Howard Zinn, a history professor and author of the seminal book A People's History of the United States (HarperCollins, 1980), told the Guardian.
"Working people were against the [Vietnam] War in greater percentages than professionals," Zinn told us, referring to polling data from the time. "There is always a tendency of organizations to be more conservative than their rank and file."
This time, union members and the public as a whole have more aggressively pushed their opposition to the Iraq War, winning antiwar resolutions among the biggest unions in the country and in hundreds of US cities and counties.
"I think it's a reflection of how far the nation as a whole has come in our anger at the continuation of this war," Zinn told us.
The media coverage of the May Day event belittled its significance, noting that missing one day of work had little practical impact to the economy or war machine, while playing up comments by spokespeople for the Pacific Maritime Association and National Retail Federation that the strike was insignificant and perhaps more aimed at upcoming contract talks than the war.
Heyman wasn't happy about that bias.
The strike "was totally for moral, political, and social reasons. It had nothing to do with the contract," Heyman told us.
A big factor for the ILWU was the newfound solidarity between dock workers in the United States and those in Iraq, who were prohibited from organizing in 1987 by the Baathist regime, an edict that the US has continued to enforce.
The Iraqi dock workers issued a May Day statement that detailed the horrors of their situation: "Five years of invasion, war, and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery, and suffering to our people."
In fact, the banner leading the ILWU procession down the Embarcadero and into Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco read, "An injury to one is an injury to all." That theme of solidarity — among all workers, American and Iraqi, legal and illegal — was laced through all the speeches of the day.
Joining labor leaders on the podium were antiwar movement stalwarts such as Cindy Sheehan, who is running an independent campaign to unseat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, now a target of the movement for continuing to fund the war.
"Nancy Pelosi wants to give George [W.] Bush more money [for the Iraq War] than he even asked for," Sheehan said, drawing a loud, sustained "boo!" from the crowd. At the afternoon rallies at Dolores Park and Civic Center Plaza, which focused on immigration issues, the war was also a big target, with signs such as "Stop the ICE raids, Stop the War," and "Si se puede, the workers struggle has no borders."
Even for protest-happy San Francisco, it was an unusually spirited May Day, with more than 1,000 people appearing at each of the four main rallies and two big marches. There were lots of smaller actions as well, including demonstrations at the ICE offices and Marine recruiting center, and activists from the Freedom From Oil Campaign disrupting a Commonwealth Club speech by General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner.
But it was the port shutdown that was unique. Annually the 29 West Coast ports process 368 million tons of goods, averaging more than 1 million tons a day moved by 15,000 registered ILWU workers and a number of other "casuals." Eight percent of that comes in and out of Oakland, but West Coast trade affects business throughout the country — as many as 8 million other workers come in contact with some aspect of that trade.
Mike Zampa, spokesperson for APL — the eighth-largest container shipping company in the world, with ports in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Seattle — told us, "Over a long period of time a shutdown like this does have an impact on the US economy."
More port shutdowns are possible, Heyman said. But he hopes the action inspires other workers and activists to increase the pressure for an end to the war.
"We are taking action to swing the pendulum back the other way," Heyman told us during the march. "We are stopping work to stop the war."
]]>Say it ain’t so. The City of Oakland issues May Day threats of suspension to union workers.
City of Oakland SEIU Local 1021 union members have filed Unfair Labor Practice Charges against the City of Oakland citing a long list of labor abuses including threatened disciplinary action against union members for their participation at a May Day rally in front of Oakland City Hall.
While ships were docked up and down the California Coast in a day-long ILWU protest against the War in Iraq, City of Oakland union members as part of a labor coalition that includes the City’s Firefighters, SEIU Local 1021, SEIU Local 1877, IBEW, and IFTE rallied to commemorate May Day and to protest labor abuses by the City of Oakland.
500 members of the four locals and their supporters rallied at City Hall in a first ever May Day Unity rally as they face simultaneous contract expiration dates this June.
City of Oakland, SEIU 1021 union members formed a lunchtime convoy of City trucks and vehicles at the May Day rally in front of City Hall, to both honor May Day as part of a day long West Coast Port shut down and to demonstrate concern about contentious City of Oakland labor contract talks.
During the rally, City of Oakland Human Resources personnel were sent out to the rally by City of Oakland officials to take down the names and numbers of the trucks and their drivers in a visible showing of their intent to threaten and intimidate the drivers; supervisors were later ordered to name names. As of Friday, threats of suspension were pending against the drivers for their May Day participation.
The Unfair Labor Practice charges were filed against the City of Oakland on April 30, 2008 and were amended to include the additional May Day threats.
The diverse and united crowd rallied around the common theme of worker justice and equity that is as true now as it was when workers first organized for justice. They drew May Day inspiration from retired Local 21 member Mahlon Harmon who addressed the significance and importance of May Day.
In addition to the Unfair Labor Practice charges, the City of Oakland was cited by rally speakers for its abuse of temporary workers. There are over 500 “temporary” workers at the City of Oakland who work “at will” with no benefits and who work under the constant threat of being fired. Some have been “temporary” for over 10 years. They are disproportionately women and people of color. Say it ain’t so City of Oakland.
In contrast, Union leaders decried the hundreds of high level City of Oakland Officials who “make over $100,000 a year.” In addition to its abuse of temporary workers, the City of Oakland is proposing a two-tiered health care plan.
Rally speakers included Brad Walters, President of Oakland Chapter SEIU 1021, Vice President Dwight McElroy, Sharon Cornu, Central Labor Council of Alameda County, representatives from IFTE, Local 21, Reverend T. C. Wilson and others.
The Unfair Labor Practice charges allege a wholesale list of violations aimed at limiting Union power. Charges include unilateral changes that interfere with Union Stewards representation of Union members, efforts by management to coerce and threaten Union Stewards to induce them relinquish representation of Union members and unilateral changes that interfere and impede with the Union’s duty to meet and confer with the City of Oakland on behalf of its members.
According to member leaders some people at the City of Oakland are “drunk with power, making intoxicated decisions,” that have hurt the long term working relationship that has existed between City of Oakland and its Unions.
Transparency in the promotion process has been eliminated.
“Used to be, you knew what the promotion process was, now you don’t.”
There are widespread attempts at adjusting the meaning of a labor contract that “everybody helped mold” and understood. Now there are daily attempts at circumventing contract language.
“They are trying to re-write our contract without ink,” said one leader.
After months of attempts at trying to repair the longstanding working relationship between City of Oakland and its Unions, it appears to union members that “it’s just not working.”
“So now we have to turn the lights on everything and see what scatters.”
Nonetheless, Union leaders have been consistent and united around one thing. That is that they are directing their fight against the City of Oakland. The May Day threats, the abuse of temps, unilateral changes, attempts at intimidation of their activists and all the rest have forced Union leaders to take the unprecedented step of filing Unfair Labor Practice charges against the City. All the while, meetings with City officials have yielded nothing. With only two months left until the contract expires, time is running out.
Right now union members are holding out the hope that they will not be forced to do what they may have to do. They also appear just as resolved to do it.
There is an old Union axiom: There is nothing like a bad boss to organize workers. Unfortunately, right now at the City of Oakland, that appears to be so.
]]>On Thursday, May 1, the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) staged a one-day (one shift, actually) walkout as a protest against the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The shutdown affected ports up and down the West Coast, from San Pedro, California, to Seattle, Washington.
Although the PMA (Pacific Maritime Association) had warned the ILWU leadership that an “unauthorized” strike such as this was illegal, and that any rank-and-file dockworker who participated could be punished with a fine, suspension or even termination, the one-shift shutdown went off as planned and was deemed a resounding success. Thousands of workers defied management and failed to show up for the morning shift, resulting in port traffic coming to a standstill.
Despite the threats, no one really expects the port authorities to take any disciplinary action against ILWU members. In fact, if any union member is even wrist-slapped, it will be genuine shock. There are two reasons for this.
The first is that, “illegal” or not, the 8-hour shutdown didn’t do any serious damage to the operation. There are, according to the PMA, 10,000 cargo containers loaded or unloaded during a typical day-shift, up and down the West Coast; and while that seems like a lot, with the afternoon shift reporting for work, as scheduled, and the loading and unloading of cargo resuming, the shortages can be made up in a hurry.
The second reason is a bit trickier. Simply put, the Longshoremen are the most powerful, cohesive and, in truth, respected labor union in the United States. You don’t take them on unless the stakes are incredibly high, or you absolutely have no choice. The boys at the Maritime Association will be prudent; they will not insist on showing who’s boss.
The ILWU has always been recognized as hard-working and well-compensated. Indeed, by union standards, the West Coast longshoremen have one of the sweetest deals in blue-collar America. Whenever they go on strike over a contract dispute (which doesn’t happen often), they remain unified and committed, and are not to be messed with. These people take their strikes very seriously. That’s why you never hear of any scab activity during an ILWU dispute.
Nobody crosses an ILWU picket line, not unless he wants to pick his teeth up off the floor or find his car on fire. Admittedly, some will call this “intimidation”; the Longshoremen prefer to think of it as “solidarity.” And, unlike other unions, when there’s a strike or a lockout, you don’t see management bringing in replacement workers. That doesn’t happen on the docks. The PMA simply won’t take on that kind of trouble.
One huge advantage the ILWU has over other unions (particularly those affiliated with manufacturing industries), is that their jobs are totally locked in. Not only can the ports not be moved, they can’t be circumvented. By contrast, factories are portable; factories get moved every day (to the Sun Belt, the Deep South, Mexico, Malaysia or elsewhere). As a consequence, manufacturing unions remain extremely vulnerable to management pressure. Not so the Longshoremen. And out of this iron-clad job security comes a sense of worker solidarity and prestige unmatched by any union in America.
But the larger story here is that an American labor union actually staged an anti-war protest. That’s big news. After all, even though they led the charge when it came to women’s rights, the abolition of child labor and the establishment of a living wage, labor unions aren’t exactly renowned for holding anti-war demonstrations. In fact, the opposite has often been the case.
During the Vietnam war, for example, there were several public demonstrations by union members against the anti-war protesters. The Teamsters, steel and construction workers, trade guilds, etc. . . . .these guys were, for the most part, unabashed, flag-waving patriots who viewed the radical peace movement as a form of “treason.” And we can’t forget that those same Teamies, with Jackie Presser as president, endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980.
To be fair, however, it should be noted that the ILWU has a unique history, one that fits well with an anti-war, anti-imperialist ideology. The former president and spiritual leader of the Longshoremen was the legendary Harry Bridges, whom the U.S. government attempted, unsuccessfully, to deport (he was Australian), on the grounds that he was a Communist and a subversive. Bridges is still revered in West Coast labor circles.
In any event, the ILWU deserves enormous credit. It’s astonishing and wildly encouraging that a West Coast labor union would show more guts and determination than the U.S. Congress, in publicly defying a Republican administration.
Well done, my brothers.
David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and writer, was a former union rep. He can be reached at dmacaray [at] earthlink.net
]]>By Louis Sahagun and Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers - May 2, 2008
Thousands of dockworkers at 29 West Coast ports took the day off Thursday, effectively shutting down operations at the busy complexes in what the union called a protest of the war in Iraq but employers worried might be a prelude to labor unrest.
The stand-down at ports including Los Angeles and Long Beach -- which combined handle 40% of the imported goods arriving in the United States each year -- idled ships and cranes, stranded thousands of big rigs and halted movement of about 10,000 containers during the eight-hour day shift.
The show of force by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which ended as workers reported for the Thursday night shift at Southern California's twin ports, came two months before its contract expires with the Pacific Maritime Assn., a group of cargo carriers, terminal operators and stevedore companies.
The action also, as one labor historian put it, added significant support for May Day, which has become the preeminent working-class and protest event of the year. The union may have taken a calculated risk that allowing its members to participate was worth potentially aggravating employers in the middle of contract negotiations.
"This union looks at itself as the vanguard of the working class on the West Coast, and I think there was a sense that they needed to participate in this event," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a UC Santa Barbara history professor and director of the school's Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy.
At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Thursday morning, however, there were no antiwar activities -- no protesters, no signs with antiwar sentiments and no indication of any large-scale opposition by dockworkers to U.S. policy in Iraq. The issue was discussed, union leaders said, during a private meeting of rank-and-file members at the ILWU Local 13 headquarters in Wilmington.
"We are supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it's time to end the war in Iraq," union President Bob McEllrath said in a news release.
The union's 25,000 members decided in early January to stand down on May 1. Their day off came despite an arbitrator's order on Wednesday that they report to work. That order followed a Pacific Maritime Assn. complaint about the planned action, which it said violated contract obligations.
"Is this a voluntary war protest or a strike aimed at leveraging labor negotiation? We're not sure," said Steve Getzug, spokesman for the association. "We're concerned. We thought these kinds of old tricks were a thing of the past."
During the last negotiations in 2002, employers accused the union of a work slowdown and locked out the union at West Coast ports for 10 days, causing a retail business crisis that was interrupted when President Bush invoked the Taft-Hartley Act. At the time, economists estimated that the labor dispute cost the economy $1 billion to $2 billion a day.
"The arbitrator is the 'supreme court' of the waterfront and what he says has resonance," Getzug said. "And he said twice to the union that it had a duty to inform its membership to report to the docks today. The evidence is clear they defied that order."
The nation's largest retail group said it wasn't surprised by what happened Thursday because longshoremen are routinely involved in some sort of job action on May Day.
"This is something that happens every year [and] shippers and retailers know about it," said Craig Sherman, the National Retail Federation's vice president of government relations. "It's going to have no impact at all in terms of merchandise on store shelves."
Nor was Sherman concerned about the implications for contract negotiations, which he said began earlier this year and are "going pretty smoothly."
The loss of one work shift -- even the busiest one of the day -- was going to have a very limited effect on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Los Angeles and Long Beach are not only the nation's busiest container ports, they are also by far the most efficient in the U.S., although they do not move cargo as rapidly as the fastest Asian or European ports.
"It will cost us extra money. We'll have to run an extra shift to catch up, but this will not slow the ports down much and it won't impact our customers at all," said Mike Zampa, a spokesman for APL, a subsidiary of one of the world's biggest ocean shipping conglomerates, Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines.
Perhaps hardest hit by the job action were the local ports' 16,800 independent truck operators, many of whom were greeted at terminal gates by guards with a blunt message: "We're closed. Turn around."
Among them was Guillermo Castillo, 35, of Calexico, who decided to wait it out near the TraPac Terminal in the Port of Los Angeles. Resting his head on a towel matted against his cab door, Castillo complained: "I heard nothing about this. I'm losing a whole day of work, and about $580."
A mile to the east at the Port of Long Beach, Nelson Hernandez, 25, of Bellflower was among half a dozen short-haulers killing time at a lunch wagon parked outside a terminal gate. Shaking his head in dismay, he said, "No work anyplace around here. Losing $400, at least. I'm going home."
A few feet away, lunch wagon cashier Pin Lim mused, "The silence around here today is really weird."
]]>More than 25,000 West Coast International Longshore and Warehouse workers, including many hundred in Tacoma, are taking a day off work today in protest of the war in Iraq.
May Day is traditionally a day to celebrate labor and workers’ rights.
Scott Mason, spokesman for Tacoma’s ILWU Local 23, said this morning that usually 200 to 300 dockworkers would be coming to work today. But instead four ships are waiting to be unloaded in the Port of Tacoma and the truck gates are quiet.
ILWU International President Bob McEllrath said the workers are “standing down on the job and standing up for America.”
“We’re supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq,” McEllrath said.
The protest doesn’t come as a surprise to longshore employers.
The union voted in February to stop work today in opposition of the war and made a request to the Pacific Maritime Association, the organization that represents terminal operators, stevedores and cargo carriers. The union’s contract allows for stop work meetings, with advance notice, though they usually occur during evening shifts. The PMA denied the request for a work stoppage during the day, typically the busiest hours for West Coast ports.
Some Tacoma longshore union members are headed to Seattle for anti-war events there. Others are staying in Tacoma for events scheduled for tonight.
The union plans to have workers available for the evening shift – which starts at 6 p.m. – to clear out the back log of cargo at the port.
“We will fill every job ordered,” Mason said. “Our job is to get ships in and out, but today we need to be getting those troops home.”
]]>LOS ANGELES -- West Coast cargo traffic came to a halt Thursday as port workers ditched work to commemorate May Day and call on the U.S. to end the war in Iraq.
Thousands of dockworkers at 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington did not show up for the morning shift, leaving ships and truck drivers idle at ports from Long Beach to Seattle, Pacific Maritime Association spokesman Steve Getzug said.
The longshore workers were expected to return to work for the start of the evening shift, Getzug said.
"There's no work happening so that means there's no cargo being unloaded and certainly being loaded either," Getzug said.
May Day is an international day of labor solidarity.
Longshore workers at several ports participated in rallies with other anti-war protesters, while a number of workers chose to make their statement simply by taking the day off.
In Seattle, several hundred demonstrators were joined by longshoremen for a protest march along the waterfront. Some protesters held signs saying "No Iraq War" and "Stop the war on immigrants and Iraq."
In San Francisco, dockworkers were among nearly 1,000 protesters who staged a peaceful march on the waterfront, some carrying signs that proclaimed the day a "No Peace, No Work Holiday."
"This war is like all wars," Robert Cavalli, president of dockworkers union Local 34 said at a rally after the march. "It kills the sons and daughters of workers."
The Port of Long Beach was quiet, with no sign of any anti-war protests or picketing. Local union officials said dockworkers opted to hold union meetings.
Getzug could not immediately say how much the walkout would cost employers or how many dockworkers failed to show up to work.
The West Coast ports are the nation's principal gateway for cargo container traffic from the Far East, with the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handling about 40 percent of the nation's cargo.
During a typical day shift, about 10,000 cargo containers are loaded and unloaded from ships coastwide, Getzug said.
Longshore workers handle everything from operating cranes at port marine terminals to clerical work like coordinating truck cargo deliveries.
A total of about 25,000 of them work at West Coast ports. About 6,000 were working the day shift last Thursday, handling cargo from 30 ships coastwide, Getzug said.
Trucker James Laudermill, 48, spent the morning washing his truck and fueling up on diesel at a truck wash in the Los Angeles suburb of Wilmington after he was turned away at the nearby Port of Long Beach.
"I was trying to pick up a load this morning, and I was at the speaker and suddenly security came out and run us all out," he said, adding he would lose about $400 because of the walkout. "We've got work, but everything is on hold until tonight. That's a whole day of no work."
J. Craig Shearman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation, said shippers and exporters expected no significant, long-term disruptions from the walkout.
"This is something that happens every year," Shearman said. "Shippers and exporters know about it and plan around it, and we don't expect to see any significant disruptions from it."
Shearman said many longshore workers on the West Coast took the day off last year to participate in immigration rallies.
Alfredo Jack, a Port of Oakland longshoreman from East Palo Alto, said union members' decision to stay off the job on May Day was part of a long tradition of protest among San Francisco Bay Area dockworkers.
In a statement Thursday, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union defended its members' right to take off work to protest the U.S. war in Iraq.
"Big foreign corporations that control global shipping aren't loyal or accountable to any country," said Bob McEllrath, the ILWU's international president. "But longshore workers are different. We're loyal to America, and we won't stand by while our country, our troops, and our economy are destroyed by a war."
Port of Oakland officials said the absence of dockworkers had halted the movement of cargo on and off ships.
"There's insufficient labor at the marine terminals for the regular cargo operations to be conducted, so there won't be any loading or offloading of cargo today," said Port of Oakland spokeswoman Marilyn Sandifur.
Outside, protesters walked picket lines to convince truckers to take part in the work action.
Union members voted during a caucus in February to take May 1 off to protest the war. Employers raised objections with an arbitrator, who ruled last week that such a unilateral work stoppage would violate terms of the longshore workers' contract.
Despite that decision, word continued to spread on the Internet in recent days of a May 1 walkout by longshore workers.
Employers went back to the arbitrator on Wednesday, armed with accounts of dockworkers at ports in Oakland, Seattle and elsewhere telling supervisors they would not be showing up to work.
Arbitrator John Kagel ruled again in favor of the employers and ordered the union to tell members to show up for work.
Getzug declined to speculate how the walkout might affect ongoing labor contract talks, which began in March. The current six-year contract expires on July 1.
The union has maintained its members' decision to walk off the job was not related to the labor talks.
In 2002, longshore workers across the West Coast were locked out for 10 days over a contract dispute. The shutdown cost the nation's economy an estimated $1 billion to $2 billion a day.
Associated Press Writers Gillian Flaccus in Long Beach, Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco and Manuel Valdes in Seattle contributed to this report.
]]>For about eight hours Thursday, up and down the West Coast, shipyards stood quiet, rail cars stopped and trucks scheduled for deliveries and pickups were turned back at the port gates.
Ten thousand dockworkers -- including about 200 in the Portland area -- took May Day off in defiance of labor contracts, bringing 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle to a standstill. Union leaders said they wanted to stage a protest against U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, but port operators speculated that a big reason for the walkout is to demonstrate union solidarity in the midst of labor negotiations.
Operations at the Port of Portland, Oregon's largest port, were minimally affected since no cargo ships arrived Thursday.
The show of force by the longshoremen's union comes despite an independent arbitrator's ruling Wednesday in California that the workers had a contractual obligation "to report to work as they normally do."
The 25,000-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, representing port operators and large shippers, are just two months away from the expiration of their labor contract.
Union leaders say the decision to ditch work Thursday wasn't meant to be a negotiating tactic, but a show of support for an end to the Iraq war on a day that's historically represented solidarity in organized labor.
In Portland, chants of "No peace, no work," echoed from the Eastbank Esplanade around noon, where 70 dockworkers set 800 carnations afloat in the Willamette River, commemorating the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers who have died.
"A lot of longshore workers are veterans and have family and friends in the war, and they're fed up," said Jennifer Sargent, a local union spokeswoman. "They're taking a patriotic stand here."
But representatives of the Pacific Maritime Association, whose members include 72 shipping companies, say that the message union leaders are sending is not entirely about the war.
"Is this a voluntary war protest or a strike aimed at leveraging labor negotiations? We're not sure," said Steve Getzug, spokesman for the employer group based in Los Angeles.
In January, 100 elected union leaders representing West Coast workers passed a resolution to take a stand on the Iraq war, which was disputed by the Pacific Maritime Association.
John Kagel, the coast arbitrator, listened to both sides in a meeting last week and in two telephone calls Wednesday. Kagel ultimately ruled that the workers had to show up to work.
"When an arbitrator makes a decision, that decision is final and binding," Kagel said.
Union leaders took a different view. "We respect the arbitration process, but the union also recognizes the rights of our members to exercise their right to free speech," said John Showalter, spokesman for the ILWU in San Francisco. "This is completely independent of contract negotiations. The members are not being paid today. The negotiations today are going well and we hope they continue going smoothly."
At the Port of Portland's terminals, the absence of workers Thursday was a minor hiccup in the daily flow of goods from dock to door.
No container ships or barges were scheduled to arrive in the Port on Thursday, said Joshua Thomas, Port spokesman. Most of the activity in the shipping yards or on the docks occurs when a ship arrives bearing goods. That ship is unloaded and then immediately loaded up with Oregon exports by dockworkers.
"Without container ships, that work would have been minimal or none," Thomas said. The Port opened the docks and yard at 7 a.m. Thursday and closed them shortly after when it became clear the dockworkers weren't going to show.
But in larger ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, where 15 ships were due to dock, the lull could amount to millions of extra dollars and a logistical nightmare, said John Martin, a maritime economist.
"Essentially, any type of dislocation like this in the supply chain is significant," Martin said. "There are ships that cost between $100,000 to $150,000 a day at hold. They're on a strict sailing schedule. Truckers are waiting. There's an impact on the rails. There are a lot of people who aren't going to be paid today."
In 2002, contract negotiations between the longshoremen's union and the association resulted in a 10-day shut down at 29 West Coast ports.
Every day, about $5.5 billion worth of goods move in and out of U.S. ports. About half move through West Coast ports, which support 7.1 million jobs each year and account for $1.2 trillion, or about 10 percent of the entire gross domestic product in the United States, according to the American Association of Port Authorities.
Aaron Ellis, spokesman for the association, said when dockworkers don't show, it sends an uncertain message to major trading partners overseas who are already uneasy about the U.S. economy.
"Ports always want to work toward a stable and reliable work force," Ellis said. "Things like this make the whole nation less attractive for international markets."
The union's defiance of the arbitrator's order could have far-reaching implications in its contract negotiations, said Portland attorney Chrys A. Martin, who specializes in labor law and is a shareholder of Bullivant, Houser and Bailey.
The association now has the right to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, which can enforce monetary sanctions against the union.
"They know they're not supposed to do this," Martin said. "They've been told not to do this by an arbitrator. It's a clear violation. At the same time, it's hard to make people come to work."
]]>An unprecedented display of labor muscle pumped up the peace movement yesterday when an estimated 25,000 union longshore workers took May Day off for an antiwar shutdown of all West Coast ports, including the ports of Portland and Vancouver.
The protest by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) longshore workers momentarily froze the vibrant Pacific rim trade - autos, appliances, manufactured goods, foodstuffs and more - in a rare coordinated display by a major American union fed up with the US war in Iraq and the trillions of dollars spent in that effort.
"It's a war that started with a lie. If I went to the courts and told a lie, they'd lock me up," Jerry Lawrence, 59, of Portland, a rank-and-file union member said on May Day. "Now why the hell didn't they lock Bush up or kick him outta office? I blame my senators for not stepping up."
The 27-year longshoreman with ILWU Portland Local 8 was attending a union-sponsored mid-day riverside ceremony on the East Bank Esplanade just north of the Burnside Bridge to mark the union's antiwar stance. About 150 union and peace supporters crowded on the narrow floating docks to hear a few speeches and drop more than 800 yellow carnations in the Willamette river in solemn remembrance of the US deaths in Iraq (one flower for each 5 dead American soldiers now totaling about 4,050).
The ILWU May Day stand-downs from San Diego to Seattle resulted from a union caucus delegate vote of 97-3 back in February for a resolution to do an 8-hour stop-work dayshift meeting on May 1 to protest the Iraq war.
The resolution called for the immediate and safe return of U.S. troops. Organizers hoped to use the contract stop-work actions, which means longshore workers show up only for a mandatory closed-door union meeting but don't work, to carry out the Iraq war protest.
However, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), charged with negotiating and administering maritime labor agreements with the ILWU, blocked those dayshift May Day stop-work sessions after the ILWU requested them.
Just a few weeks ago, Local 8's chief executive officer Bruce Holte confirmed that the May Day stop-work meeting in Portland indeed was "off."
Asked on May 1 what had changed, Holte explained, "A lot of things have happened. First of all, yesterday morning (April 30), we lost an arbitration that we were ordered to go to work today. We respect the arbitrator and we respect his ruling. But after that we went into Federal Court. The PMA tried to do a temporary restraining order on us; we prevailed in that. So when we prevailed in that, we won that decision. Last night the decision was made by the coast (headquarters) that we were going to go out."
No matter what the contract or the courts decided, the West Coast ports shutdown was apparently already a done deal. "I'll just tell you on the record," Holte said, "that Local 8, the rank and file of Local 8, not the officers, had made the decision they weren't going to work today no matter what."
Lawrence confirmed that assertion. "We, the rank and file, says yes. We (were) going to do this regardless."
Veterans for Peace and PDX Peace also attended the union's May Day riverside ceremony. Although loud cheers briefly erupted when the West Coast ports shutdowns were announced, the riverfront union antiwar event was different than most similar local actions. There appeared to be far fewer young and student attendees than those of middle and senior age.
The sentiments of the elder attendees, however, matched those of any 20-something anarchist. "I'm mad as hell about the war, what's it's doing to Iraq and the US," Peter Parks, 64, an event organizer and Local 8 member for 8 years, said on the Esplanade when asked for comment. As to whether the ILWU's antiwar actions may lead to similar activities by other unions, Parks responded, "I hope so. I hope this stops the war."
Though the ILWU's antiwar May Day stand down looks to be the first coordinated peace action by a major American union since the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, historians with a longer view say there's nothing really surprising here.
"The unions are not just about economic issues," says Craig Woolner, associate Dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs at PSU. "They are about the concerns of working people in general, and about concerns of their members beyond simple economic justice. There's a long history of involvement by unions in issues beyond their immediate job concerns."
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