On Tuesday, February 12th, representatives from hundreds of Native American nations participated in a ceremonial and cultural commencement for the Longest Walk 2, the 30-year anniversary of the historic 1978 Longest Walk. More than two hundred participants of the Longest Walk 2 have embarked on a five-month long trans-continental journey on foot from San Francisco. The walk will arrive in Washington, D.C. on July 11, 2008, bringing attention to issues of environmental injustice, protection of sacred sites, cultural survival, youth empowerment, and eroding Native American rights.

Members of the IBU and ILWU local 6 rallied with the walkers in Berkeley calling for the protection of a sacred site slated for development by UC Berkeley and for the return of ancestral remains from the university. Over a year ago many of the longest walk organizers, including the International Indian Treaty Council and members of The American Indian Movement, honored 2 IBU picket lines at Alcatraz Cruises. Since then IBU and ILWU members have been working closely with activists in the Native community to further build relationships and mutual aid for each other's struggles. Recent support has included fundraising to help save an Oakland based Native American community center, attending panel discussions on union organizing in Native communities and supporting the recent, successful, organizing drive at The Native American Health Centers.

Thousands of War Protesters in San Francisco (Jan. 27, 2007) join the Longshoremen picket line put up at a ferry boat company which takes tourists to Alcatraz Island. The edited video initially explains through interviews with union pilots and crew what their strike is about, then highlights key labor and anti-war speeches connecting the illegal Iraq war with the domestic war against working people. Produced by Labor Beat. 28 minutes.

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To purchase a dvd: $15 at this site. Indicate title "Iraq War Protest Joins Dockers Strike Picket"

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.

1,200 union members marched along the Embarcadero Saturday December 9 to Pier 33 to demand Hornblower rehire the fired union workers on the Alcatraz Ferry. Local 10 called a stopwork meeting in solidarity with our sister local IBU and the MMP whose members are fighting for their jobs on the ferry run. The ports of San Francisco and Oakland were shutdown as we held a brief memorial at our Bloody Thursday sidewalk mural to the labor martyrs who were killed by police in the Big Strike of '34. Once again we are faced with an aggressive nonunion waterfront employer. We were marching to keep our waterfront solidly union, so that these brothers did not die in vain.

Nearly 200 Local 10 longshore workers, As, B's and casuals, began our march along the Embarcadero led by Josh Williams and the Drill Team, We were joined by another group of 1,000 workers who had marched to Pier 33 from Harry Bridges Plaza. All maritime unions were represented and nearly 50 unions in all participated in the mass rally.

Despite the weather forecast for rain the spirit of the trade unionists was not dampened. They heard speeches from rank-and-file activists and officers of ILWU locals 10, 34, IBU, and 6 as well as Art Pulaski, head of the California AFL-CIO, and Chuck Mack, International Vice President of the Teamsters. News media, TV, newspapers and radio, covered this watershed labor event.

San Francisco has been a solidly union town since the historic 1934 maritime strike of sailors and longshoremen which turned into a citywide General Strike after two strikers were killed by police. The strikers' slogan then was, "An injury to one is an injury to all." Now, every July 5, "Bloody Thursday," West Coast ports close from the Canadian to the Mexican border to commemorate the six union members killed during the militant strike that forged the organized labor movement.

But is San Francisco still a union town?

For the first time since that 1934 strike, a nonunion maritime company has begun operating on the Embarcadero. Hornblower Cruises and Events, owned by Terry McRae, was awarded a 10-year contract by the National Park Service (NPS) last year to provide ferry service to Alcatraz Island. Some 50 workers, represented by the Inlandboatmen's Union (IBU) and the Masters, Mates and Pilots Union (MMP), with decent working conditions, wages and family health insurance, lost their jobs. They've been picketing, along with their supporters, at Pier 33 on the Embarcadero for the past two months, as McRae refuses to negotiate.