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June 2000
Police Terror and Economic Injustice:
In South Carolina, the Fight's about more than the Flag
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
At the Memorial Day national convention of the Coalition of Black Trade
Unionists, a story emerged about an appalling incident in South
Carolina. No, this was not about the Confederate flag, though it did
concern efforts to halt progress. And, interestingly enough, as
important as is this incident, it has gotten precious little coverage,
particularly when compared to coverage which has gone to the struggle
around the Confederate battle flag.
The Charleston, South Carolina local of the International Longshoremen's
Association (ILA) -- Local 1422 -- a largely Black local of dockworkers,
mounted a protest against an employer who took the position that, in the
words of Local 1422 President Kenneth Riley, "...We are done with
the ILA, we are going with an alternative workforce." Put more
bluntly, the employer -- Nordana -- was going to bring in non-union
workers in order to break the back of the worker's organization.
The local union initiated meetings about this situation with Nordana and
the Port Authority, but it became clear that not only was the company
not interested in negotiations, but as the union's president indicated,
political enemies in the government of the state of South Carolina were
choosing to use this as a moment to move against the workers as well.
When the union scheduled a protest, the state mobilized law enforcement
officers in full riot gear. In response to a peaceful protest by the
dockworkers, the police moved in. Riley's words sum up what happened:
"In less than 20 minutes after going down there [to the docks -- my
note], the law enforcement officers engaged them. They began their riot
march and started to push back. The confrontation began. In less than 20
minutes we received a call that the first guy [dockworker] was laying on
the pavement with his head busted open...
"...About the time we had fully established that buffer [between
the dockworkers and the police -- my note] and got everything under
control, one of the officers ran out of formation, clubbed me on the
head and ran back into the formation. When that happened everything just
went wild."
In response to a peaceful protest, the police attacked and, as a result,
several dockworkers were charged, first with misdemeanor trespassing,
and later with inciting to riot. The story does not end there, however.
In addition to this attack on the workers, and -- according to Riley --
directly as a result of this outrageous assault, there is legislation
pending in the state to inhibit the right of unions to collect dues from
their members, and separately, legislation to prohibit any union member
from being appointed to any board, agency or commission in the state of
South Carolina!!
So, what do we make of this? South Carolina, as a state, has prided
itself on the fact that union membership is so low -- about 3%.
Advertisements, over the years, have been created to suggest that the
low percentage of unionized workers is a good incentive to investment.
So, in one sense what is transpiring is just more of the same.
However, there is something new under the sun. The hostile response to
these workers -- who happen to be Black -- is an example of the way that
generalized repression in the USA often begins. In order to undermine
workers, you first pick on Black workers because the assumption that
business regularly makes is that the Black workers will be left
stranded, i.e., that no one will give a damn. Then, when the business
world has achieved its aim, it starts to spread the practice, and
everyone else comes under the lash.
Sort of like the selective way that the Nazis approached who would go
into concentration camps, and when.
Global capital has been in an all-out war with workers across the
planet, a war which intensified over the last 20 years. The cut-throat
competition among these capitalists in their mad dash for profits and
supremacy encourages them to erode, if not assault, any victories and
achievements which workers have won. This is part of what we see
transpiring in Charleston. The battle between Local 1422 and Nordana is,
more than anything else, a test case to see how unions and their allies
in the community will respond to de-unionization and an elimination of
our democratic right to participate in the political process.
The terror which the Black workers on Charleston's docks are facing is
both similar and different from the indiscriminate acts of violence
which people of color regularly face at the hands of law enforcement. It
is similar in its random nature. It matters little that Amadou Diallo
was a law-abiding small scale entrepreneur to the officers who murdered
him. He was a Black man in the wrong place and with few rights that the
officers felt bound to respect. They did not check his background. They
did not check whether he was a citizen or not. They did not check
whether he had committed any crime.
As much can be said about the assault on the Charleston dockworkers. The
dockworkers were exercising their constitutional right to freedom of
assembly and the right to concerted activity. Nevertheless, they were
Black and, therefore in the minds of many in law enforcement, a marginal
grouping.
But what is different here is that there was obviously a well
thought-through plan on the part of employers and their political
allies. That the attack on the workers would be accompanied by a move to
disenfranchise union members is nothing short of incredible. There was
no coincidence here. The objective is to weaken workers in South
Carolina even more than they currently are, and increase the ability of
business to exploit workers unencumbered.
A final thought: what is striking and admirable in this struggle is the
willingness of the workers to resist, despite the reality of being in an
uphill battle. Unionized dockworkers have been able to achieve a decent
living standard and are an important force in the Charleston Black
community, so the attack on them has additional and very significant
implications for Black South Carolinians.
So, yes, we should protest the continued presence of the Confederate
battle flag in South Carolina's state capitol and in the state's flag.
But we should also remind those who believe that the issue of the
Confederate flag as being simply symbolic, that the Confederacy stood
for racism and repression, which sounds a lot like the stand being taken
today by many of South Carolina's corporate and political elite.
[For more information on the struggle in Charleston or to offer support
to the dockworkers, send inquiries and/or contributions to: Dockworkers'
Defense Fund, 910 Morrison Drive, Charleston, SC 29403 -- attention
Robert J. Ford]
Bill Fletcher
Assistant to the President of the
AFL-CIO, and the National Organizer of the Black Radical
Congress.
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