Labor’s
Right to Protest the War
by Jack
Heyman
Jack
Heyman is a longshoreman who was a union official when he was arrested during
the 2003 antiwar demonstration at the Port of Oakland.
This article by Heyman first appeared in the March 16, 2005, San Francisco Chronicle
There’s a rising tide of workers’
anger against the war in Iraq and the cuts in government programs to pay for
it—cuts in the enforcement of
worker-safety laws, health care, Social Security, education, and jobs. The
recent victory of the nurses’ union over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt
to deny adequate staffing ratios in hospitals shows that labor can turn the
tide.
Last year, the Port of Oakland—the
fourth largest port in the United States, ratcheting Northern California higher
up on the global economic wheel—handled more than 2 million containers of
cargo, worth $30 billion. Yet nearby Oakland
schools are being closed for lack of funding. And although the surge of trade
with China
has boosted profits for shippers and jobs for port workers, it’s accompanied by
an increase in dockworker deaths from unsafe working conditions. Already this
year, two longshoremen have died in California
ports.
The local International Longshore
and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will protest the war in Iraq
and the deadly cuts it has forced by holding a stop-work meeting, shutting down
all Bay Area ports on March 19, the second anniversary of the Iraq war. It
will then lead the labor contingent in the antiwar march in San Francisco under its banner, “An injury to
one is an injury to all.”
The ILWU has a proud history of
defending workers’ rights, civil rights, and civil liberties. Repressive
legislation like the Patriot Act and Transportation Security Act shackle
everyone by gutting the Bill of Rights. A waterfront saying is: “If you don't
know your rights, you don’t have any. And if you don’t use ‘em, you lose ‘em.”
The ILWU has always led by example.
In 1978, for example, longshore
workers in Oakland refused to load bombs for the
Pinochet military dictatorship in Chile and later for the bloody Salvadoran
junta. The union also waged a relentless campaign against apartheid in South Africa, culminating in a 1984 ship boycott
in San Francisco.
Nelson Mandela credited the union with inspiring the protest movement that helped
topple apartheid. In 1999, union actions demanded freedom for black death-row
inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal and joined in solidarity with protesters at the World
Trade Organization meeting in Seattle.
During longshore-industry contract
negotiations eight months before the invasion of Iraq, several
threatening phone calls were made to ILWU President Jim Spinosa from Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Homeland
Security Secretary Tom
Ridge, and White House
staff. Using the ruse of “national security,” they warned the military would
occupy the docks if there were any job actions. Maritime employers then shut
down all West Coast ports, locking out workers for 10 days, with no government
reprisals. Then, at the prodding of California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
Bush, siding with employers, invoked the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, and
opened the ports and ordered longshore workers back to work as directed by
their employers.
Two years ago, police opened fire with
so-called “less-than-lethal” weapons on peaceful antiwar demonstrators and
longshore workers near the Port
of Oakland. Scores were
injured, some seriously. A state agency, the California Anti-Terrorism
Information Center,
had falsely warned police that “terrorists” might be demonstrating. Oakland
Mayor Jerry Brown never anticipated the outcry that would follow. The bloody police
attack was condemned by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, Jesse
Jackson, author Alice Walker, several British members of Parliament, and union
officials who represented millions of transport workers internationally. The UN
Human Rights Commission cited the attack as one of the worst acts of police
violence.
Still, criminal charges were filed
against 24 antiwar protesters and one longshore union official, only to be
dropped a year later. Police videos and TV footage refuted the government’s
case that demonstrators threw objects at police before they opened fire and
were blocking terminal gates. The victims of police brutality are suing the
Oakland Police Department. The case is scheduled for court in January. (Some victims
settled out of court last month.)
Brown supported the police attack,
though many were shot in the back as they fled. He is now “law and order”
candidate for state attorney general, but in 1997, Brown, the quintessential
political chameleon, participated in a labor-solidarity picket line that
blocked trucks in the port.
The police “shock and awe” shooting
in the Port of Oakland highlights the collusion between
government and corporations in repression of civil liberties and workers’
rights. Then-Oakland Police Chief Richard Word admitted in a New York Times report that riot-clad
police had been deployed at the behest of maritime employers, who acknowledged
meeting secretly with police and port commissioners three days before the attack.
Last month, the Oakland City Council “scolded” the Oakland Port Commission for
yet another secret meeting.
Despite adversity imposed by
employers and the government, the ILWU has persevered in the struggle for
justice for all workers. On Saturday March 19, longshore workers are
encouraging others to follow their lead in protesting the war and occupation
and in defense of civil rights and social gains.
Join the Labor Rally against the Iraq war at 10:30 am at Dolores Park, 18th and
Dolores streets, San Francisco, then march to the noon rally at the Civic Center.
For more information: call (415)
440-4809 or e-mail (click here).
U.S. Labor Against the War