S.F. Labor Council says: Defend ILWU Local 10’s solidarity action

The following San Francisco Labor Council resolution was adopted unanimously on April 11.

Whereas the delegates meeting of the Council voted unanimously on March 14 that "in the event that a Council affiliate votes to engage in an industrial action on April 4, the San Francisco Labor Council will call on all its affiliates … to support such action … " and

Whereas International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 and its president, Richard Mead, are being sued in court by maritime employers of the Pacific Maritime Association for a 24-hour shutdown of the Port of Oakland on April 4 responding to the AFL-CIO call for a National Day of Action and in line with ILWU International President [Robert] McEllrath's March 8th call for mobilizing in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin; and

Whereas each rank-and-file member of Local 10 made this selfless choice to stand up for public workers in Wisconsin and for all workers in the best tradition of the longshore union, as they have done since the Big Strike of 1934 and the historic San Francisco General Strike that built the foundation for the trade union movement in this city and on the West Coast; and

Whereas these same maritime employers were unsuccessful in their attempt to use the slave labor Taft-Hartley Act to stop the ILWU from carrying out a Local 10-initiated coastwide shutdown of all ports on May Day 2008 to demand an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a first-ever in U.S. labor history; and

Whereas Local 10, the heart and soul of the San Francisco labor movement, is now under attack for implementing the principled labor slogan "An Injury to One Is an Injury to All,"

Therefore be it resolved that the San Francisco Labor Council, consistent with its March 14 resolution, initiate a defense of ILWU Local 10 by setting up a broad-based defense committee in close collaboration with Local 10, and by mobilizing the AFL-CIO labor councils and unions of the Bay Area and California, and

Be it further resolved that the first step in this campaign will be to call for a mass mobilization of all Bay Area labor councils and the California AFL-CIO to rally in front of PMA headquarters in San Francisco on Monday, April 25, to demand that the court suit be dropped and that the vindictive lynch-mob procedures against the union in the arbitration be halted immediately; and

Be it finally resolved that ILWU Local 10 be commended for its solidarity action and that we request that the state and national AFL-CIO do likewise.