The Bay Area IWW participated in the organizing of this event and members attended the pickets.

By Steve Zeltser and Jeff Paterson, May 19, 2007

Dozens of anti-war protesters including the leadership and many members of the Oakland Education Association OEA joined the picket lines this morning and in the evening of the  SSA (Stevedoring Services of America)shipping terminal in Oakland, California to protest the war and the lack of funding for schools in Oakland. The picketers demanded that the US get out of Iraq and called on other trade unionists throughout the United States to mobilize in action to stop the war.

The action which began at in the early morning before the first day shift of ILWU Local 10 longshoremen and women as well as longshore clerks of ILWU Local 34 was organized to encourage the dockworkers to honor the picket line which they are allowed to do under their contract. As a result of a political  education campaign in the ILWU Local 10, most workers were fully in support of the picket and did not cross the line. Newly elected Democratic mayor Ronald Dellums had also sent a letter to the Port Action committee that organized the picket which declared that the war "had been a blunder" and said he opposed the war. The police however not only prevented anti-war picketer from driving to the docks in the morning but also stopped major news media from bringing their vans to the picketlines to cover the demonstration. The police when questioned by this reporter said that the news vans were not allowed in the area since it was  a "safety issue". In 2003, the Oakland police in collaboration with the SSA company and state security forces launched a violent attack on a similar anti-war protest. They also shot at many ILWU members for the first time since the 1930's.

Join us May 19th to Picket War Profiteers at the Port of Oakland!
Port Money for Schools & Social Services!
Picket at APL Terminal at Port of Oakland, 1579 Middle Harbor Road

<http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/05/05/portactionposter.pdf> Map of
picket location <http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/1733992.php>]

We will call on ILWU Local 10 to honor our picket line and not to
cross.  If Local 10 honors our picket line, as it did for similar
pickets in 2003 and 2004, then work will be shut down.  Local 10 has a
long history of supporting community pickets and struggles, and is in
the forefront of labor opposition to the war.

How can you and your group help?  There are a number of ways:

Publicize the May 19 picket posting this message to your email list, web
site, or sending it to personal contacts;

Distribute print and digital literature (PDF of poster
<http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/05/05/portactionposter.pdf> Map of
picket location <http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/1733992.php>);

Throughout the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration has forced its neo-liberal policies on Iraq at the barrel of a gun: opening up Iraq's markets, oil resources, and labor to exploitation by multinational corporations. The suffering that the Iraqi working class has endured as a direct result of this illegal war is beyond words. On January 27, protesters backed by unions and labor groups will march on Washington, San Francisco, and other cities nationwide calling for U.S. troops to come home now!

With at least 650,000 Iraqi civilians—almost all from poor and working class families—now dead as a result of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, the state of Iraqi labor is in a critical condition. Paul Bremer, formerly the top US administrator in Iraq, rewrote the country's economic rules to make it a neoliberal fantasy before he left. Furthermore, the Iraqi puppet government has continued to enforce Saddam-era anti-union laws as a part of the neo-liberal agenda. These laws prohibit union organization, strikes, or disruption of any kind in a factory or other economically important enterprise. Anyone participating in a strike or union activity in Iraq is subject to arrest by the occupation authority and treatment as a prisoner of war.