Union Muscle

While reading the San Francisco Chronicle Saturday morning I found this fantastic article on the front page of the Business section, “Longshore Workers Taking Off”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/26/BUC610C2HA.DTL

Members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union are planning a work stoppage on May 1st to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the union leadership has withdrawn its request for a "stop-work meeting" to the Pacific Maritime Association, who manages the waterfront. Apparently the ILWU is entitled to schedule a “stop-work meeting” once a month to discuss union business, but typically the union only does this on the second work shift in the evening. For their anti-war protest, the ILWU wanted to schedule the meeting/protest from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., which is the busiest shift of the day. The Pacific Maritime Association would not agree to this request, and the union leadership withdrew the stop-work request. Apparently the rank and file members did not get the message and still plan to protest. According to Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the ILWU:

"The Longshore Caucus resolution calling on all locals to honor May 1 by taking action to end the war and bring the troops home safely from Iraq continues to move forward. Various voluntary rallies and public demonstrations are scheduled for May Day."

A couple of things really struck me about this article. First, I was struck by the fact that it was the Vietnam War veterans in the ILWU who advocated having the war protest. According to the SF Chronicle there was a spirited debate within the union, and it was the impassioned pleas of the Vietnam vets that turned the tide of opinion into taking this action, which will basically shut down the ports of the entire West Coast.

Secondly, regardless of how you feel about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you have to be impressed by the solidarity of a union that had an honest debate, voted overwhelmingly to support a day of protest, and are now taking action. This is the type of solidarity that most unions can only dream of achieving. To achieve this type of union activism you have to have strong leadership at the top and strong dedication by the rank and file members.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the significance of May 1 for the labor movement, I would suggest this article to get acquainted with the International Workers' Day of May Day:

http://www.iww.org/projects/mayday/origins.shtml