ILWU leader travels to Brazil

Following are excerpts from an eyewitness report written by Clarence Thomas, executive board member of International Longshore Warehouse Union Local 10 and co-chair of the Port Workers May Day Organizing Committee, which organized a shut- down of the docks on the west coast this past May Day to protest the Iraq War.

First National Coordination of Struggles (Conlutas) Congress in Brazil. Photo: Delores Thomas

I was privileged to be invited to observe the First National Coordination of Struggles (Conlutas) Congress July 3-6 in the city of Betim, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Conlutas’ purpose is the coordination of struggles of the working class involving unions, Brazilians of African descent, popular movements and youth organizations, including the struggles of peasants, women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

Conlutas is an emerging political movement that is committed to putting forward a rank-and-file, democratic, working-class agenda. More than 4,000 delegates throughout Brazil and international observers from 22 countries attended the Congress. Those of us who were international observers were all brought to the stage and introduced to the thousands of delegates attending this historic Congress.

The Conlutas movement is centered in the working class. It is also a rank-and-file, democratic organization comprised of Brazilians who oppose the government of President Lula implementing the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. They are also opposed to Brazil sending troops to occupy Haiti, the most economically exploited country in the Western Hemisphere.

Following the Conlutas Congress, there was a Latin American and Caribbean Workers conference July 7-8. There were more than 500 delegates representing over 20 countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Haiti, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Also present were participants from Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United States.

The aim of this meeting was to develop Latin America and Caribbean solidarity actions to meet the challenge of global capital looting their wealth and material resources at the expense of the poor and working class. Discussions focused on privatization, outsourcing, the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and opposing the use of casual labor to supplant union workers.

I participated in a transportation workers workshop where we discussed issues of longshore workers. One of the important topics was how employers attempt to criminalize trade union activists by framing and then imprisoning them in order to marginalize the trade union movement. Another topic was building working-class rank-and-file democracy.

I was given an opportunity to address all 500 delegates in the general meeting. I spoke not only on the May Day action but the seven decades of militant and democratic trade union activism of the ILWU. The delegates were thrilled that there was a U.S. trade unionist representing an organization that has a history of struggle in the fight for social justice. I emphasized that rank and file, independent democratic solidarity action is critical in being able to develop and carry out a working-class agenda.

One of the cornerstones of the ILWU is the importance to understand the labor movement on a global scale and that means rank and filers visiting workers in other countries. This is fundamental to building international solidarity. This is also the way we learn more about our mutual interests as a class, and in some instances, our mutual employers. The ILWU has routinely shared information about collective bargaining and working conditions with foreign unions and labor federations.

The ILWU has been guided by the principle that solidarity with workers of all lands is sound union policy. For this reason, my visits and speaking engagements exemplifies the importance of ILWU continuing to build international solidarity.