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Eyewitness
Report on Charleston 5 Rally
June 21, 2001
On June 9, some 5,000 marchers
protested in Columbia, South Carolina, the state capital demanding
"Free the Charleston 5!" The Charleston 5 are longshore union
members, four black members of ILA Local 1422 and one white member of
ILA Local 1771 who are under house arrest and face 5 years in jail for
picketing in the port of Charleston last year. Caravans of buses
carried demonstrators from Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina,
Missouri, Illinois and New York. The march was heavily integrated
with many young trade unionists from as far away as the ports of Seattle
and Tacoma and even a few from overseas. Some of the unions represented
were ILA, ILWU, MEBA, IBT, UAW, UMW, mail and transit unions as well as
Labor Federations from Michigan, South Carolina, New York, and Georgia.
Many of the predominantly-black ILA locals from Georgia, South Carolina
and Florida had recently protested in Tallahassee against the police
roadblocks excluding blacks from voting in the presidential elections
last November. In the forefront of the march was the Drill Team from
ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco proudly strutting their stuff.
Just as South Carolina's riot police (SLED)
provoked the melee in the port a year and a half ago by bloodily
clubbing the longshore union president Ken Riley, the State Attorney
General Charlie Condon has provoked the wrath of the whole trade union
movement by unjustly targeting the Charleston 5 for exercising their
First Amendment rights to protest. He has promised "jail, jail and
more jail" for the longshoremen to protect that state's anti-union
laws. "Good Ole Charlie" who champions the defeated
slaveowners' Confederacy of the past, today fights for corporations to
keep South Carolina "free of unions". Behind him are
Democratic Governor Jim Hodges, who had Riley's nomination to the State
Ports Authority withdrawn after pressure from big business, and
right-wing President Bush with his anti-labor agenda. Provocations are
nothing new to the state of South Carolina. Confederate troops
there started the Civil War by firing on the Union's Fort Sumter in
Charleston's harbor. And as the Union troops won that civil war,
the union movement will win this class war.
Unlike in the port of Charleston, police gave
protesters a wide berth. However, one incident rattled nerves at the
beginning of the march when police, in an unprecedented move,
confiscated the decorative cargo hooks which ILWU Local 10's Drill Team
uses as part of its longshore marching regalia. The uniformed Drill Team
wore their traditional black and white striped hickory shirts, black
Frisco jeans and white West Coast Stetson caps. Despite the hot
and muggy weather the thousands of animated demonstrators marched in a
disciplined manner to the capitol. There, an eerie pall was cast
over the demonstration with the Confederate flag flying overhead. Police
sharpshooters perched on the roof of the capitol building were
reportedly there to shoot anyone trying to bring down the flag of
slavery.
The march and rally were organized by the South
Carolina AFL-CIO and the Progressive Network. Speakers included
preachers, politicians, celebrities, leaders of black organizations and
union officials. Unfortunately, not read from the podium was a
message of solidarity from black political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
languishing on Pennsylvania's death row: "I support the Charleston
longshoremen's fight for freedom to protest free from state violation
and judicial repression. All working people should unite behind
this union fight in defense of the First Amendment right to assembly and
protest and to defend the right to fight for compliance with a broken
shattered contract." Speaking for organized labor were
AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, ILWU's
International President Jim Spinosa and Vice President Bob McEllrath,
ILA President John Bowers and Cecil Roberts from the Mineworkers' Union.
It was Bowers' first public appearance in support of the
Charleston 5 since the police attack, hypocritically saying he would go
to jail with the Charleston 5 if he had to. In response to his
uninspiring speech, rank and file ILA and ILWU longshoremen loudly
chanted for several minutes, "Shut the ports down!". Jim
Spinosa spoke and said ILWU would do whatever the Charleston longshore
union asked.
Swedish Dockworkers' Union President Bjorn Borg,
of the International Dockworkers' Council (IDC) which grew out of the
militant Liverpool dockers' struggle, announced that there would be a
day of solidarity action on docks around the world. It was the IDC
affiliate in Spain, the Coordinadora, which took action against the
Danish Nordana shipping line which helped win a contract for the
Charleston longshore unions. In a history-making step the Longshore
Division of the ILWU voted for an international day of action on the
first day of the trial and is calling on the ILA to join us in shutting
down both coasts. The trial now appears to be set for the end of
August.
This march and rally was an important, initial
mass action by labor in defense of the Charleston 5. More
important was the meeting of rank-and-file longshoremen from both
coasts. We began to discuss our common problems: attacks from global
shipowners like Nordana which sparked the Charleston struggle,
privatization, non-union dock operations, especially in the East and
Gulf Coast ports. Like long lost brothers, we embraced and talked
seriously about the next step: organizing the first-ever nationwide
industrial action, not for a contract, but for a principle-- the
fundamental right of labor to picket.
Working longshoremen on both coasts agreed, "An Injury to One
Is an Injury to All!"
Jack Heyman #8780
(labor
donated)
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