Support for Charleston 5 longshore unionists grows
By Tony
Murphy
On Feb. 9, two New York activist groups issued a statement
about a fierce anti-racist union struggle raging in South
Carolina: the case of the Charleston 5.
The statement begins: "The International Action Center,
founded in 1992 by former United States Attorney General
Ramsey Clark, and Workfairness, an organization fighting New
York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's slave-labor, union-busting
'workfare' program, call for the immediate dropping of
charges against the Charleston 5."
The Charleston 5 are members of the International
Longshore Association Local 1422, whose members are mostly
African American. The five workers face charges of "felony
rioting."
These phony charges were filed against them by the state
of South Carolina after police attacked their anti-scab
picket on Jan. 20 last year.
Started as a center for the anti-war movement that opposed
the 1991 U.S. bombing of Iraq, the IAC is a base for many
progressive movements. This year IAC activists organized the
counter-inaugural demonstration that took place Jan. 20 in
Washington. Thousands came out against racism and the
right-wing program of President George W. Bush.
The IAC is also home to groups that fight for jobs, higher
wages, and workers' rights, like Workfairness. After
President Bill Clinton signed the law slashing federal public
assistance in 1996, New York welfare recipients being forced
into sub-minimum-wage workfare assignments formed
Workfairness to demand union rights and living wages.
"The AFL-CIO has officially launched a campaign to defend
the Charleston 5," said Larry Holmes, a co-founder of
Workfairness and signer of the statement. "Now the labor
movement is being joined by community groups and activists of
other struggles, and on a national basis. This class-wide
unity is exactly what is feared by racist regimes like the
state of South Carolina--and the only thing that can get the
charges dropped."
The police attack on Local 1422's picket line took place
at the peak of the struggle the African American community
was waging to remove the confederate flag from the South
Carolina Capitol. Some 47,000 people, mostly African
American, marched against the racist relic.
The union had succeeded in forging strong ties to the
community. This fact, the IAC statement points out, is why
there is a frame-up campaign against the union members.
"The only riot that occurred on the Charleston docks on
Jan. 20 last year was a police riot," the statement reads.
"Members of the International Longshoreman's Association and
their supporters were exercising their constitutional right
to picket a scab ship. The predominantly African American
gathering was attacked by police on horses, in armored cars
and helicopters.
"Among those brutally clubbed was Local 1422 President Ken
Riley. South Carolina Attorney General Charles Condon now
wants to send Brother Riley and four other victims of this
police violence to jail on so-called 'riot' charges."
Attached to the IAC statement, which was released to the
media and hundreds of progressive activists, is a historical
outline of the struggle against racism in South Carolina and
how the defense of the Charleston 5 is part of that.
An excerpt from this history reads: "African American
workers in Charleston have long been seen as a threat by the
likes of [Sen.] Strom Thurmond, Bob Jones III and the
confederate flag-waving members of the state legislature.
These factory, hotel and plantation owners know how in 1822,
Denmark Vesey, a former sailor, organized thousands of slaves
who came close to taking over the city of Charleston.
"The wealthy and powerful remember how in 1968-69,
hospital workers waged a long struggle to win wage increases
and recognition of their union, Local 1199B. At the time, the
racist bosses offered them instead Robert E. Lee's birthday
as an additional holiday. Hundreds were jailed, and the
living quarters of union organizer Henry Nicholas (now leader
of the Philadelphia hospital workers' local) was firebombed.
Where was the legal action to prosecute this attempted
assassination of a labor leader?"
The signers of the letter are veterans of campaigns to
organize the unorganized. Johnnie Stevens works with UNITE
Local 169, organizing low-wage greengrocery workers. IAC
activist Henri Nereaux is a retired vice president of
Masters, Mates and Pilots, an affiliate of the East Coast
longshore union.
Their statement ended by stressing the crucial role that
organizing the unorganized can play in fighting racism in the
South.
"Although South Carolina is a 'right-to-work' state that
has viciously repressed labor organizing, it is false to
claim that workers there do not want unions. For example,
while Michelin has 9,000 employees in the state--4,000 in
Greenville alone--at non-union plants, the future can be seen
at the Mack Truck plant in Winnsboro, where 92 percent of the
workers belong to United Auto Workers Local 5841.
"The biggest task of the labor movement in this country is
to organize the South. State Attorney General Condon wants to
jail the Charleston 5 in order to intimidate unorganized
workers in South Carolina from joining unions, and to silence
union activists who have strengthened labor's cause by
linking it to the fight against racism. Condon will not be
able to stop this tide."
This statement is available on-line on the first page of
the IAC's website, at www.iacenter.org.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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