ILWU’s history filled with international solidarity

The largest 2009 May Day celebration held anywhere in the world, according to CNN, took place at the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, Cuba. Past ILWU international president David Arian and former Local 10 secretary-treasurer and Million Worker March leader Clarence Thomas were part of a U.S. delegation, which also included International Longshore Association members. Arian is currently the secretary-treasurer of the Harry Bridges Institute in San Pedro, Calif.

The ILWU has been guided by the principle that solidarity with workers of all lands is sound union policy. To demonstrate this ILWU has sponsored overseas delegations of rank-and-file members and has, in turn, hosted trade union visitors from every continent. Long ago the union came to the conclusion that if it was to know and understand the labor movement on a global scale it would have to obtain this information first hand.

At Jesus Menendez Museum, past ILWU Int’l. Pres. Dave Arian and Clarence Thomas from ILWU Local 10 hold union newsletters dated 1947 picturing the Cuban sugar workers’ leader and stating, “Sugar Industry plagued by Misery and Privation … Burdened by Heritage of Slavery.” Photo: Delores Lemon-Thomas

ILWU-CTC history of solidarity

Our delegation did just that during our 12-day visit in Havana, Cuba, but it is also something that is deep in ILWU’s history of solidarity. This was not the first time longshore workers met with their Cuban counterparts. The ILWU-Cuban solidarity work started in the years leading up to the 1959 socialist revolution. After World War II, ILWU members visited the Philippines, Cuba, Mexico and Puerto Rico to strategize and share information and knowledge on how to strengthen labor solidarity with sugar workers.

In 1947, the ILWU participated in the organizing of the International Sugar Workers Committee. The initial meeting took place in Havana, Cuba. The ILWU’s Louis Goldblatt was elected chairman. Jesús Menéndez, head of the Cuban Sugar Workers representing 350,000 workers, was elected vice-chair. A plan of action was adopted to stop the exploitation of workers by the international sugar cartel.

The following year Menéndez, who was a member of Cuban Congress and the Communist Party, was assassinated while on an inspection tour of sugar mills with which his union had contracts. In the February 1948 issue of the ILWU Dispatcher, Secretary-Treasurer Louis Goldblatt said the killing was the logical outcome of the U.S. Department of State policies, which were subservient to U.S.-based sugar companies.

Goldblatt added, “The murder was part and parcel of the [colonial] Cuban government, [U.S.] American sugar interests, and the U.S. State Department’s plan to destroy the unions and eliminate any vestige of democracy in Cuba.”

This history came alive when the delegation visited the Menéndez home, now a museum. The curator showed documents that were donated by the ILWU library and presented to the museum by Local 10 member Jack Heyman during his visit in 2001. While there, ILWU members recounted the history of ILWU and the Cuban sugar workers solidarity. They discussed how the ILWU organized a concert tour for famed singer and humanitarian Paul Robeson in Hawaii. Money from the tour was donated to Menéndez’s surviving family.

U.S. port workers say ‘Free the Five’

In more recent solidarity, ILWU Local 10 sent a strong letter to President Barack Obama urging him to look into the case of the Cuban Five and free them and also grant visas for Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, who have been cruelly prevented for nearly a decade from visiting their spouses René González and Gerardo Hernández, two of the five. Local 10’s letter is an important part of the growing international labor involvement in the struggle to free the Cuban Five—who also include Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González.

The letter and resolution were inspired last December when unionists met Magali Llort, mother of Fernando González, at the Fifth International Cuba/Latin America/North America/Mexico Labor Conference in Tijuana, Mexico, sponsored by the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange. While in Cuba, the longshore workers and other English-speaking labor delegations from Ireland, Australia, Britain and the U.S. met with the families of these five heroic Cuban brothers.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce in mid-June whether it will hear the appeal of the Five. This impending decision has spurred plans to intensify labor outreach at upcoming union conventions.

At the recent Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, Latin American and Caribbean nations called for an end to the U.S. blockade against Cuba. The ILWU has opposed trade sanctions against Cuba, policies that punish workers and their families and ultimately aggravate international peace. It is good for workers to meet with workers.