http://www.mua.org.au/events/460_20080513.html

Back in the Gate: Howard Gone- MUA Here to Stay!

Event date: 31 May 2008
Type:
Location: Brett Park, Five Dock
Time: 11am-4pm
Cost: Free
The Sydney Branch of the MUA invites all members and their families to celebrate the 10 year anniversay of the return to work of Patrick workers with a family carnival and picnic day.

It is hard to believe that 10 years has passed since the Howard Government, Patrick owner Chris Corrigan and others engaged in their criminal conspiracy against the MUA to shed the Australian waterfront of unionised labour.

On April 7 1998, hundreds of guards and dogs stormed the wharves under cover of darkness as Patrick boss Chris Corrigan sacked his entire workforce of 2000 men and women nationwide with the aid of balaclava wearing goons and savage attack dogs. The Australian industrial relations landscape would never be the same again. This vicious attack on wharfies was undertaken with the complete support of the then Howard Government.

What followed was a monstrous battle to stop this criminal injustice perpetrated solely because the 2000 sacked wharfies were members of a union. The reactionary attempts to eradicate waterfront unionism failed because the Australian people rejected such inappropriate tactics that were fundamentally at odds with the aspirations of the Australian people who treasure the concept of a "fair go".

THE FREMANTLE PICKETS

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

By Carl Bronski - 9 May 2008, wsws.org

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.

By Steven T. Jones and Amanda Witherell - San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 7, 2008

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.

By Yvonne Martinez‚ May 05‚ 2008 - Originally Published at beyondchron.org

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.

Foxreno.com - May 1, 2008

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Anti-war protesters bolstered by support from the powerful longshoreman's union began a May Day shut down of the Port Of Oakland -- the nation's fifth busiest point of entry -- early Thursday with brief skirmishes with police, who were hoping to avoid the kind of violent confrontation that left several people injured in 2003.

Jack Heyman, a Bay Area International Longshore and Warehouse Union spokesman, said workers hoped to idle traffic at all the West Coast ports by not reporting to their jobs.

"The longshoremen have decided they're not working so everything is going to be idle on the coast," Heyman said. "We hope that sends a strong message to the White House and to Congress to bring this war to an end."

Anti-war activists from a group called "Direct Action" began blocking gates at the port around 6:30 a.m. and were being carefully watched by police. Even in the early stages, police and protesters had engaged in shoving matches.

Meanwhile, the longshoremen were gathering for a rally in San Francisco.

By PETER COLE, GUEST COLUMNIST - Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 29, 2008

On Thursday, May Day, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will declare an eight-hour strike to protest the war in Iraq. Since the ILWU controls every port along the U.S. Pacific Coast, including Seattle and Tacoma, this strike demonstrates the collective power of workers willing to use it.

The ILWU is demanding "an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East." Although the majority of Americans repeatedly have expressed their desire to end the war, President Bush has not obliged us, so it drags on. Because our leaders refuse to listen, ILWU members are taking the next logical step for workers: Strike.

For those unfamiliar, the ILWU is perhaps the most militant and politicized worker organization in the nation. It operates in one of the most important sectors of the world economy -- marine transport -- and, thus, is in a strategic location to put peace above profits.

Forged in the fires of 1930s worker struggles to gain basic rights, the ILWU was born in 1934 when longshoremen (there were no women in the industry then, though there are now) performed the incredibly hard, dangerous and important work of loading and unloading ships. To improve their wages and wrest some control over their lives, men all along the coast struck -- and in a few instances died -- to gain union recognition.

By Jonathan Nack - San Francisco Bay View, April 23, 2008

Oakland – An unprecedented job action scheduled for May 1 could shake the West and reverberate across the country. Longshore workers will shut down every port on the West Coast for the day shift in protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Never before in U.S. history has any union stopped work over a war.

The decision to down tools for eight hours was made by the longshore division of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). The union has also issued a nationwide call to action for other unions and workers to take anti-war actions on May 1. They call for the day to be a “no peace, no work” holiday.

A march in San Francisco will begin at 10:30 a.m. at the Longshore Union Hall at Mason and Beach streets. The rally will be at Justin Herman Plaza at noon. Speakers will include Cynthia McKinney, Danny Glover and Cindy Sheehan.

The ILWU, particularly Local 10 of the Bay Area, has historically led on social issues. In 1978, they refused to load bombs bound for Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile; in 1984, they refused to move cargo to protest against Apartheid in South Africa; and in 2001, they closed Pacific ports to protest the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. This will be the first time, however, that they’ve closed the ports to protest war.

Pittsburgh Transit Troubles Continue
Written by Karl Belin
Friday, 11 April 2008

On March 4, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce had alerted its members that a strike could be looming this summer for the city’s public transit workers, whose contract expires in June. The article further reported that many of Pittsburgh’s larger companies, such as Highmark, have been calling meetings to find ways to “solve” the issue of transit problems should a strike take place. One option they have come up with is “beefing up company carpool programs,” which in effect means developing a corporate-run scab shuttle service to break the strike

Developments like this are par for the course in Pittsburgh, where in 1992 the State Supreme Court ruled that the city government had the power to intervene and unilaterally break the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85’s 28-day strike, which brought the city to a stand-still.

Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) is the country’s 11th largest public transit system, with 220,000 daily riders who commute on over 1,200 buses and the city’s expanding light rail system (the “T”). PAT has come under increased pressure from the county’s Chief Executive, Dan Onorato, to cut costs, even after massive cuts to services and routes this past summer. For the company, this means cutting into employee benefits and wages.

From: Teresa Gutierrez
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 9:37 AM
Subject: Truck Drivers & May Day

We are excited to report that a truck will be leading the May Day March from Union Square to Foley Square tomorrow.

This is great news to show our solidarity among all workers of all nationalities, documented, undocumented or born in the U.S.
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For Immediate Release:
Transportation Workers Coalition for Change

Contact: Billy Randel, 646-645-6284

New Jersey Port Truckers to Strike Over Fuel and Energy Costs

Workers Will Rally Off the New Jersey Turnpike in Large Work Stoppage.

WHAT: Port truckers will stop work for two days to protest rising fuel and energy costs.

WHY: Rising fuel and energy costs are threatening the ability of port truckers to earn a decent living and support their families as well as negatively impacting communities across the country. NJ port truckers are taking action as part of a national effort of transportation workers including - longshoremen and women, taxi
workers, port and long haul truck drivers, and railway workers - to build rank and file unity.