D
Dr. James West, Ph.D.
Guest
Bravo! Standing Up for morality.
redvet wrote:
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/09/ED8L101F5U.DTL
> Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war
> Jack Heyman
> Wednesday, April 9, 2008
>
> While millions of people worldwide have mar ched against the wars in
> Iraq and Afghanistan, and last week's New York Times/CBS News poll
> indicated that 81 percent believe the country is headed in the wrong
> direction - key concerns being the war and the economy - the war
> machine inexorably grinds on.
> Amid this political atmosphere, dockworkers of the International
> Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight
> hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers'
> Day, to call for an end to the war.
> This decision came after an impassioned debate where the union's
> Vietnam veterans turned the tide of opinion in favor of the anti-war
> resolution. The motion called it an imperial action for oil in which
> the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being wasted
> and declared May Day a "no peace, no work" holiday. Angered after
> supporting Democrats who received a mandate to end the war but who now
> continue to fund it, longshoremen decided to exercise their political
> power on the docks.
> Last month, in response to the union's declaration, the Pacific
> Maritime Association, the West Coast employer association of
> shipowners, stevedore companies and terminal operators, declared its
> opposition to the union's protest. Thus, the stage is set for a
> conflict in the run up to the longshore contract negotiations.
> The last set of contentious negotiations (in 2002) took place during
> the period between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasi on of
> Iraq. Representatives of the Bush administration threatened that if
> there were any of the usual job actions during contract bargaining,
> then troops would occupy the docks because such actions would
> jeopardize "national security." Yet, when the PMA employers locked out
> the longshoremen and shut down West Coast ports for 11 days, the
> "security" issue vanished. President Bush then invoked the
> Taft-Hartley Act, forcing longshoremen back to work under conditions
> favorable to the employers.
> The San Francisco longshore union has a proud history of opposition to
> the war in Iraq, being the first union to call for an end to the war
> and immediate withdrawal of troops. Representatives of the union spoke
> at anti-war rallies in February 2003, including one in London attended
> by nearly 2 million people, the largest ever held in Britain.
> Executive Board member Clarence Thomas went to Iraq with a delegation
> to observe workers' rights during the occupation.
> At the start of the war in Iraq, hundreds of protesters demonstrated
> on the Oakland docks, and longshoremen honored their picket lines.
> Without warning, police in riot gear opened fire with so-called
> less-than-lethal weapons, shooting protesters and longshoremen alike
> with wooden dowels, rubber bullets, pellet bags, concussion grenades
> and tear gas. A U.N. Human Rights Commission investigator
> characterized the Oakland police attack as "the most violent" against
> anti-war protesters in the United States.
> And finally, last year, two black longshoremen going to work in the
> port of Sacramento were beaten, Maced an d arrested by police under
> the rubric of Homeland Security regulations ordained by the "war on
> terror."
> There's precedent for this action. In the '50s, French dockworkers
> refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and helped
> to bring that colonial war to an end. At the ILWU's convention in San
> Francisco in 2003, A. Q. McElrath, an octogenarian University of
> Hawaii regent and former ILWU organizer from the pineapple canneries,
> challenged the delegates to act for social justice, invoking the
> union's slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all." She concluded,
> "The cudgel is on the ground. Will you pick it up?"
> It appears that longshore workers may be doing just that on May Day
> and calling on imm igrant workers and others to join them.
> may day protest
> WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
> WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near
> Fisherman's Wharf).
> WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
> FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.maydayilwu.googlepages.com; www.ilwu.org;
> www.transportworkers.org or call (415) 776-8100.
> Jack Heyman is a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks.
> =====
> In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
> distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
> interest in receiving the included information for research and
> educational purposes.
redvet wrote:
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/09/ED8L101F5U.DTL
> Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war
> Jack Heyman
> Wednesday, April 9, 2008
>
> While millions of people worldwide have mar ched against the wars in
> Iraq and Afghanistan, and last week's New York Times/CBS News poll
> indicated that 81 percent believe the country is headed in the wrong
> direction - key concerns being the war and the economy - the war
> machine inexorably grinds on.
> Amid this political atmosphere, dockworkers of the International
> Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight
> hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers'
> Day, to call for an end to the war.
> This decision came after an impassioned debate where the union's
> Vietnam veterans turned the tide of opinion in favor of the anti-war
> resolution. The motion called it an imperial action for oil in which
> the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being wasted
> and declared May Day a "no peace, no work" holiday. Angered after
> supporting Democrats who received a mandate to end the war but who now
> continue to fund it, longshoremen decided to exercise their political
> power on the docks.
> Last month, in response to the union's declaration, the Pacific
> Maritime Association, the West Coast employer association of
> shipowners, stevedore companies and terminal operators, declared its
> opposition to the union's protest. Thus, the stage is set for a
> conflict in the run up to the longshore contract negotiations.
> The last set of contentious negotiations (in 2002) took place during
> the period between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the invasi on of
> Iraq. Representatives of the Bush administration threatened that if
> there were any of the usual job actions during contract bargaining,
> then troops would occupy the docks because such actions would
> jeopardize "national security." Yet, when the PMA employers locked out
> the longshoremen and shut down West Coast ports for 11 days, the
> "security" issue vanished. President Bush then invoked the
> Taft-Hartley Act, forcing longshoremen back to work under conditions
> favorable to the employers.
> The San Francisco longshore union has a proud history of opposition to
> the war in Iraq, being the first union to call for an end to the war
> and immediate withdrawal of troops. Representatives of the union spoke
> at anti-war rallies in February 2003, including one in London attended
> by nearly 2 million people, the largest ever held in Britain.
> Executive Board member Clarence Thomas went to Iraq with a delegation
> to observe workers' rights during the occupation.
> At the start of the war in Iraq, hundreds of protesters demonstrated
> on the Oakland docks, and longshoremen honored their picket lines.
> Without warning, police in riot gear opened fire with so-called
> less-than-lethal weapons, shooting protesters and longshoremen alike
> with wooden dowels, rubber bullets, pellet bags, concussion grenades
> and tear gas. A U.N. Human Rights Commission investigator
> characterized the Oakland police attack as "the most violent" against
> anti-war protesters in the United States.
> And finally, last year, two black longshoremen going to work in the
> port of Sacramento were beaten, Maced an d arrested by police under
> the rubric of Homeland Security regulations ordained by the "war on
> terror."
> There's precedent for this action. In the '50s, French dockworkers
> refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and helped
> to bring that colonial war to an end. At the ILWU's convention in San
> Francisco in 2003, A. Q. McElrath, an octogenarian University of
> Hawaii regent and former ILWU organizer from the pineapple canneries,
> challenged the delegates to act for social justice, invoking the
> union's slogan, "An injury to one is an injury to all." She concluded,
> "The cudgel is on the ground. Will you pick it up?"
> It appears that longshore workers may be doing just that on May Day
> and calling on imm igrant workers and others to join them.
> may day protest
> WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
> WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near
> Fisherman's Wharf).
> WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
> FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.maydayilwu.googlepages.com; www.ilwu.org;
> www.transportworkers.org or call (415) 776-8100.
> Jack Heyman is a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks.
> =====
> In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
> distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
> interest in receiving the included information for research and
> educational purposes.
