At the ILWU Local 10 membership meeung of Sept. 20th in San Francisco, we had an extensive discussion on Bush's declared "war on terrorism". Congress' rubber stamp approval and how it will affect longshore unions.
At the end of the discuswhelmingly to send a letter to Congresswoman Barbara nights. Lee commending her for her courageous sole vote against the war, in a sense it was a workers' referendum on the undefined, unlimited war opini tor It began with a report on port security and those measures being considered on Capitol Hill in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. PMA, other employer associations and anti-union politicians in Washington have been trying for years to impose restric. tive rules on longshore worksweeping background checks and review of arrest records before being allowed to work on the docks.
The union hiring hall be damned! In the past they've billed it as part of "drug war". It's been a difficult political fight for unions but to date we' ve been able to beat back these anti-labor bills. Now, in the biparusan fever pitch of the war industry. against terrorism" there is a renewed effort to impose like a ghoul rising from the tomb.
It couldn't happen at a worse time with the most critical tions in years just around the bend.
PMA has been making noise about coins arter our tel ing hall, the beckbone of our union's nating jobs and jurisdiction through OgY:
Naterfront emolovers have been trying for years to shackle us with the Rail Labor Act, which would effectively deny our right to strike. Without that basic trade union right, labor has NO negotiating leverage, NO ism. real collective bargaining. he employers know that Have no doubt that they will what could so motivate opportunistically - given the present hysterical atmoand the fight against terrortry to take away our fundamental trade union Instead of defending the Charleston 5, we'll be waging a struggle to defend the of thousands. rights of all American long shoremen. Coder heads that while the deaths of risk"? That is a question that was used unsuccess fully by employers and the die every day in Irac government to divide the ILWU. They tried to deport ade. ILWU President Harry So. Bridges four times, but to no avail because the ILWU rank and file stood solidly against that red-baiting witchhunt.
Former ILWU President Jimmy Herman, when he banned from working on the Army dock because he was considered a "security risk. He had headed up the Waterfront Screening during Prime Minister the repressive, anti-commu- slaughterer of the order to defend longshoremen's and seamen's right to employment in the maritime If you opposed the war in Vietnam or criticized the "war for oil" in Iraq, are you oligarchy? Ad on snion righis a "security risk" and banned in size. On Sept. 29, rallies from the docks? We must of some 10,000 took place not allow our union mem- bers to be victimized under and San Francisco, which both in Washington, D.C. the guise of fighting terror- were called by a front group of the neo-Stalinist Workers Another question raised during the discussion was by a broad range of organi. World Party and endorsed these suicidal attacks. The zations. answer: The U.S. govern- Smaller events occurred in nent's bind support of other major cities (1000 in bloody Israeli policies which Chicago, 2000 in Los have humiliatingly forced Angeles, 1000 in Atlanta, alestinians into squalid etc.). refugee camps, while deny- The size of these events ing their right to sovereignty was especially significant and resulting in the deaths given the fact that the trade.
union officialdom (with a And the point was made few notable exceptions) has lined up behind the US war 5,000 innocent chillans in the terrorist attack on the Word Trade Center is totally unjustifiable, 5,000 children because of the U.S. blockwho will be the targets of a U.S. war against terrorism besides Osama bin Francols Duval