Support builds for longshore workers

The San Francisco Labor Council on Jan. 9 unanimously condemned military escort for the union-busting inter­national grain and food cartel EGT, headed by Bunge Ltd. at the Port of Longview, Wash. Read the resolution at workers.org.

In a Jan. 2 resolution, the executive board of the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Central Labor Council unanimously called on “friends of labor and the 99% everywhere to come to the aid of ILWU [International Longshore and Warehouse Union] Local 21 … [and] participate in a community and labor protest in Longview, Washington, of the first EGT grain ship.”

International grain cartel EGT is attempting to break a coastwide grain terminal agreement, held by the ILWU, that was won after years of militant struggle by the union.

Occupy movements up and down the Pacific Coast — including a caravan from Oakland, Calif., nearly 700 miles to the south — are already organizing a quick-response mobilization to “meet and greet” this latest provocation, supported by the San Francisco Labor Council. Expected soon, the exact date of the ship’s arrival is being kept secret by EGT in an attempt to deter protest. Labor for Palestine has also issued a statement supporting the ILWU.

Supporters are undaunted by ILWU International President Bob McEllrath’s report, in a Jan. 3 letter to members, that EGT has enlisted an “armed” U.S. Coast Guard escort, using small vessels and helicopters, for that anticipated ship. This act of intimidation violates the Coast Guard’s public procedures: “Under no circumstances will the Coast Guard exercise its authority for the purpose of favoring any party to a maritime labor controversy.” (http://tinyurl.com/7tsrb2s)

EGT is using the police, the courts — which have levied fines exceeding $300,000 on the union — the commercial media and now a Coast Guard armed escort to craft a false perception that EGT is the victim of militant longshore workers and their allies from the Occupy movement. In the background looms the threat of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, a tool of the 1% that tries to strip away any effective tool for unions to fight for justice.

In reality, it is the ILWU and the working class as a whole that are under attack in Longview. The same conditions as in Longview spurred the state Capitol occupation and mass struggle in Wisconsin, which echoed the mass rebellions in Tunisia and Egypt’s Tahrir Square.

EGT has sued the Port of Longview in federal court to resolve its issues. A hearing is scheduled for March. Although workers are told to file grievances, National Labor Relations Board complaints and lawsuits to “let the system” work, EGT isn’t waiting for a court ruling in its favor. EGT aims to go to court with the ILWU’s coastwide agreement already shattered, clearing the path for the other international grain profiteers to oust the union when an unusually short, one-year contract ends later this year.

EGT is pushing the trains and now a ship to realize the profit from its $200 million investment in the port terminal — on public land and with public tax breaks. A equally massive EGT construction in Montana is to supply the terminal with the agribusiness giant’s grain.

The labor movement in the Pacific North­west continues to fight the anti-worker and blatantly anti-ILWU thrust of EGT at every step, from massive rallies protesting the construction of the terminal by low-wage workers to blocking the trains supplying grain. A joint leaflet by ILWU Locals 10 and 21 issued on Jan. 4 commends Longview sisters and brothers for “doing their part. Under a police reign of terror Local 21, with only 225 members, has 220 arrests for defending ILWU jurisdiction.”

Juries acquitted defendants in the first two cases that came to trial. TDN.com reports that on Dec. 19, ILWU member Shelly Ann Porter was found not guilty of fourth-degree assault against EGT manager Gerry Gibson. Porter had slapped Gibson’s hand to prevent him from snapping an unwanted photo of her. On Dec. 30, ILWU member Kelly Palmer was acquitted of disorderly conduct in only 12 minutes. That same day, trespass charges were also dropped in nine cases resulting from protests on the train tracks.

But it was the Occupy Wall Street movement that lasered attention on this crucial West Coast labor battle and the port truckers’ organizing efforts — as Goldman Sachs and EGT/Bunge Ltd., representatives of the 1%, waged war on these port workers. Occupy movements organized the massive community pickets that shut down and disrupted terminals up and down the West Coast on Dec. 12, as well as earlier actions interrupting the just-in-time profit stream at the port of Oakland. The call from Occupy Oakland spoke plainly: “We want to disrupt the profits of the 1% and to show solidarity with those in the 99% who are under direct attack by corporate tyranny.” (See call at workers.org)

Occupy blunts Taft-Hartley

In the Longview call to action, Kyle Mackey, secretary-treasurer of the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Counties Central Labor Council, quotes Harry Bridges, the leader of the 1934 San Francisco general strike: “The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity.”

This is precisely what the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act tries to outlaw: the right of workers to join together for mutual aide against the capitalists.

Taft-Hartley leaves corporations free from any of the harsh penalties threatened and used against unions, including injunctions, jail, fines and “cooling off” periods, to let the bosses reorganize during a strike. It allows the bosses to get mutual aid from the banks and other corporations while unions are prohibited from mass picketing, sympathy strikes or secondary boycotts — for example, boycotting EGT parent company’s oil products or other consumer goods. “It acts to frighten conservative leaders and also to restrain militants.” (See Chapter 15, “Low-Wage Capitalism”)

However, the Occupy movement is a powerful working-class ally that is busting through the encrustation of laws and rulings that tip the class struggle scale overwhelmingly in favor of the rule of the 1%.

The ILWU — targeted by the 1%

The ILWU’s motto is “An injury to one is an injury to all.” This unity underlies the strength of the ILWU — a rank and file, bottom up, democratic union — and its coastwide contract. It is the strength of the historic Local 10, where Bridges won the 1934 San Francisco general strike by bringing African-American workers into the union as equals.

Local 10, the conscience of the ILWU and the labor movement, acts on the understanding that the issues of apartheid in South Africa, military dictatorships in Latin America, the U.S. wars of conquest in Iraq and Afghanistan, the killing of Gaza flotilla participants by the Israeli military, and the constant battle against racism and discrimination are working-class issues and must be addressed by the labor movement. n

See also:

• San Francisco Labor Council condemns use of Coast Guard against ILWU
• A call to action to working people