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On the picket line

Published Mar 16, 2005 1:17 PM

Longshore workers to shut ports March 19

Members of International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 10 will honor the International Day of Protest Against the U.S. War and Occupation in Iraq on March 19 by not moving any cargo in Bay Area ports.

Instead the ILWU Drill Team will lead the labor continent in the San Francisco protest under the slogan, “Don’t starve our communities to feed the war machine.”

A labor contingent is also being organized for the March 19 protest in New York City.

Cingular strike averted

Threatening to strike proved decisive in winning a decent contract for 5,300 Cingular Wireless workers. On March 7 the Communications Workers announced an agreement with an 11-percent pay increase over four years and strengthened job security. The latter was a huge issue given Cingular’s recent buyout of AT&T Wireless.

SF Labor Council defends Venezuela

The San Francisco Labor Council raised a fist for international labor solidarity at its Feb. 28 delegates meeting. It unanimously passed a resolution opposing “the complaint initiated by the Venezuelan employers association, FEDECAMARAS, before the ILO [International Labor Organization meeting in Geneva on March 16] recommending a Commission of Inquiry into trade union freedoms in Venezuela. This Complaint has been endorsed and supported by employers’ associations in 23 countries, including the United States.

“It is our view that the convening of an ILO Commission of Inquiry is designed to undermine the very progress of the labor movement within present-day Venezuela.”

The 9-million-member Unified Workers Confederation of Brazil issued a similar statement in February.

The resolution also called upon the California Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, to follow up on its resolution passed last summer opposing funding by the national AFL-CIO supporting U.S. government policy in Venezuela.

The SFLC resolution noted, “Opposition to the ILO Commission of Inquiry on Venezuela by the U.S. labor movement is part of the same struggle to promote a new foreign policy by labor that is independent from U.S. State Department objectives.”